15. Fifteen
Music carried on the liquor-laden air and settled in Smuggie’s ears where he hunched in a back corner. Usually, he enjoyed the wee hours when the women had softened their hard edges and the men loosened their pockets.
Not today.
He cast another glance at the door stashed behind the bar. Any time now.
The ice in his glass had melted three songs ago, but he gulped the watered-down hooch anyway. Good thing he’d saved himself a crate of that good Irish whiskey. These homemade brews coming from up North kept getting worse. Blast those temperance folk and their insistence all crime stemmed from alcohol.
They’d see the error of their thinking soon enough. Men didn’t need to lube their morals with drink to slip between the shadows. Of course, he’d admit it did help.
He tapped the empty glass on the tabletop and watched a girl in a fringed flapper dress tug a fellow’s tie toward a dark corner. She swayed with a few loosened morals herself. Maybe those stiff shirts weren’t entirely wrong.
The door behind the bar cracked open, and Smuggie’s insides quivered. The big boss stepped out, and someone else clicked the door closed behind him, concealing how many others remained inside.
The meeting had gone on longer than expected. At least, longer than he’d thought it would. He didn’t concern himself with the parts of the business that didn’t involve his particular skills.
Usually.
Tall and refined, “Dimples” Durkin slid his hand inside the lapel of his finely crafted suit and observed the clientele who kept his pockets lined. For a man well into his fifties, he still struck a fine figure that drew the skirts flittering to his side. Must be the dimples. Whatever name the man had been christened with at birth had been stashed away with his previous life. No one knew anything more about him than he came from Chicago.
People said it was cold in Chicago and the wind never stopped biting your nose. Smuggie’d never been farther north than Memphis. Didn’t need to. Everything he needed lived right here under the hill.
Durkin’s gaze slid over the dancing couples, laughing men, and crooning singer at the front of the stage shrouded in cigar smoke. Pearl wasn’t as good as Bella. Bella had a voice like an angel. Smuggie chuckled to himself. If her rejection of his advancements gave any indication, she kept her skirt straight like one too.
Not that he claimed to know much about angels or proper-like women. He couldn’t say why, but the girl with the dusky complexion and luminous eyes that looked straight into the dark corners of his soul had gotten under his skin.
Too bad Bella wasn’t here tonight. Might make him feel better, knowing a good heart tossed him a kind smile every so often. That or pity. He couldn’t tell.
Durkin’s gaze hit him before he could let himself wander down that useless path of contemplation, and he jerked his chin in a single nod.
It was time.
The big boss made his rounds, in no hurry to hear Smuggie’s news. All the better. He slipped from his seat and sidled to the edge of the bar. Tom glanced his way and then poured a double portion of whatever watered-down concoction they’d stocked this week. Smuggie caught the fresh glass slid down to him and left the empty in its place.
He made it back to his table before the big boss finished a conversation with a bloke who flaunted a woman far too young for him on his arm.
Durkin propped his forearm on Smuggie’s table. “What news?”
Straight to business. He’d always appreciated that about the big boss. “Nothing’s happened yet. Boat’s still docked, and them that’s on it stay there. Excepting, of course, the lady captain, who goes back and forth to the gentleman’s house.”
“And what are they doing at his house?”
“Nothing interesting, I reckon.” He shrugged. “They never leave with anything. Maybe they’ve given up on treasure hunting and became lovers.”
Durkin tapped the bottom of his ring on the tabletop. “They’re still searching. The old man got spooked after his son-in-law died. Probably hid everything we need. Might take them some time to find it, but I’m a patient man.”
If so, how come fingers of ice slid down Smuggie’s spine? “Yes, sir. I’ll keep watching. Got Elroy keeping an eye out for Scissors too. Like you said.”
“Good. That rat shows his face, and you know what to do.”
“Yes, sir.”
The conversation finished, yet Durkin didn’t move away from the high-top. Smuggie smashed his trembling fingers into a fist under the table. Was he waiting for—more information? He scoured his brain for every detail from each time he’d followed the treasure hunters in the past days, but nothing new surfaced.
“Did I ever tell you about a man they called Nice Eyes Nick?”
Smuggie slurped another sip of watery whiskey. “No, sir. Haven’t heard of that bloke.”
The boss’s gaze roamed the room, not looking his way. Funny how that had such an effect on the stiffness between his shoulders.
“They called him Nice Eyes because he was the friendliest-looking man you’d ever seen. Old ladies trusted him. Men shook his hand and never hesitated to make a deal. One look at him and you’d believe he’d been vouched for by Saint Peter himself.” Durkin slid a ring from his pinkie and rolled it between his forefinger and thumb.
Smuggie knew better than to interrupt, so he waited while the big boss watched the room.
Dressed in the best kind of gray suit money could buy, the type with a white pinstripe so thin you could barely see it, Dimples Durkin could pass as the same sort of fellow. Cleanly shaven without a single scar on his firm jaw, he looked the respectable type. Ladies loved his thick honey-wheat hair and wide shoulders. Usually a pretty dame, sometimes two, dripped off his arm.
“Nick came up from New Orleans thinking he could find work here in my city. Now, you know me. I’m the amiable sort, willing to give a new man a chance. Let him work for me. He did real nice the first months. The people didn’t mind handing over their protection fees so much when Nick asked. He had that way about him.” Durkin plucked a cigar from the inside of his coat and tossed Smuggie a gold lighter.
He caught it and adjusted it in his hand. The letters NBN were engraved on one side. He flipped the lid and held out the flame for Durkin.
The big boss snipped the end of the cigar and lit the tip in the flame. After a couple of puffs, he leaned back from the table. “You can keep that.”
Smuggie fingered the lighter and tucked it in his pocket. “Thanks, Boss.”
“One day, Nick got the idea he could outsmart me. Started his own business on the side. Nothing big, mind. Just skimming here and there. Keeping items for himself. That kind of thing.”
A block of ice formed in his stomach, but he kept his face impassive.
After another few puffs, Durkin continued. “I think he figured no one would miss what little he took. Harmless, you know?”
Smuggie swallowed. “Not too smart of him.”
Cold blue eyes shot through Smuggie’s defenses with the ease of a Gatling gun. “No, not smart of him at all. See, stealing from me, no matter how small, is never a smart choice.”
The back of Smuggie’s neck itched, but he ignored it.
“What…” He cleared his throat. He didn’t want to ask. But Durkin would keep staring at him, growing more impatient until he did. “What happened to Nick?”
“He didn’t have much need for those nice eyes anymore once I’d found out what he’d done. They went into the Devil’s Punchbowl first. We let him live in the cave a while after that, to think about what he’d done.”
Smuggie curled his stiff fingers into his palms.
Durkin took another puff. “No need to worry about your fingers tonight. Not unless you have something to tell me?”
What could he say? He floundered for anything at all. “They got a man on that boat I heard the dockmaster say was a criminal. Might be someone we can turn. Move things along faster.”
“Hmm.” Durkin eyed him. “Look into it. Any news on our other business?”
Smuggie tried to swallow, but the sandy feeling in his throat wouldn’t let him. “No, sir. Nothing’s come down from Chicago other than what we’ve got there behind the bar. I was hoping for some good Irish whiskey, the real stuff. Didn’t want to tell you about it until I knew for sure I could bring it down the river. Not wanting to disappoint and all, you know.”
Durkin clapped him on the shoulder. “Good to know. But next time, you tell me everything first.” His fingers tightened. “I’m not the kind of man who enjoys surprises.”
“Yes, sir.”
The claws in his shoulders receded. “Good man. I reward men who can keep up their regular duties even while filling in for special assignments. Finish this thing with Gray and the girl, and I’ll see to it a crate of real Irish whiskey finds its way to your door. My gift.”
Air leaked out of his lungs. “Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.”
As soon as the big boss left the table, Smuggie downed the rest of his double and stared at the bottom of the glass. He placed it on the table and then lifted the golden lighter.
NBN
The etched letters seemed to glow, catching on the gaslight like lines of fire.
He tucked the reminder into his pocket and then strode past dancing couples toward the door.
If he was lucky, he still had time to catch the Sugarland and save all his fingers.
And probably his eyes.