Prohibition

by Terrence McCauley

  Quinn didn’t want to argue. He grabbed the door knob again. “I’ve got to go to work.”

  He opened the door.

  “I love you.” She looked up at him from the bed. Tears flowing from her eyes. Not the same kind of tears the rum brought. Real tears. “I love you and I know I shouldn’t, but I do. I love you and I don’t want to see you killed because of your loyalty to some two-bit party boss who did you a favor once. I know you love him like a father, but you love me, too. I’m not asking you to say it. I can tell you do. And that’s supposed to mean something, too.”

  The word rang in Quinn’s ears. Love. He couldn’t remember the last time someone had used that word on him, at least someone that mattered.

  Most of the women he’d known had used it to keep him from slipping away. None of them had said it the way Alice had. She’d touched him in a strange place. A place he’d always known was there, but never paid attention to before because he’d never had a reason. But he had a reason now.

  And she was lying naked on the bed before him.

  His loyalty to Doyle stood between them. “It means something, Alice,” Quinn continued out the door. “It just can’t mean something today.”

  He closed the door quietly behind him. He told himself he didn’t hear Alice’s gentle sobbing through the door.

  HE FOUND them sitting around one of the large dining room tables playing cards. Archie Doyle, Frank Sanders, Tommy Delaney, Fred Deavers and Hanz the Pit Boss. All in the same clothes from the night before. Each outfit was in a various state of disrepair.

  Tommy’s tie was gone, his collar unbuttoned. Deavers’ dinner jacket was off. His sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

  Sanders was the only one who looked exactly as he had the night before. Rumpled brown fedora pushed back on his head. Tie pulled down. Collar opened. Cigarette dangling from his mouth. Doyle’s dinner coat was on the back of his chair. His bow tie lay on top of his chips. Quinn wondered if he’d bet it.

  Doyle puffed on one of his black Cubans and smiled wide at Quinn over his cards. “There he is, boys. Terry Quinn, ex-heavyweight contender and current world champion mattress polo player. A Dutch master of bed artistry if I’ve ever heard one.”

  They all cheered and pounded the table. Quinn gave the finger all around.

  He was still smarting from his sparring session with Alice. He grabbed a cup and poured himself some coffee from the side table.

  Tommy said to Archie: “Look at the poor lad, boss. We’re making him blush.”

  Doyle shifted one of the cards in his hand. “Considerin’ most of the blood in his body has been residin’ further south for the last several hours, that’s quite an accomplishment.”

  More table pounding and catcalls. Doyle’s tall stack of chips spilled over. He cursed them as riotous bastards.

  Quinn took refuge in a booth with his mug of coffee. His mouth was too dry to taste anything, but at least the caffeine would help his headache. He watched Tommy grimace at his lousy hand. He folded, grabbed a bottle of scotch and slid into the both opposite Quinn. Tommy was a veteran of Quinn’s hangovers.

  “Give it to me straight,” Quinn asked. “What did I do?”

  “Talked with a couple of the customers,” the bartender told him, “drank and made your way up stairs a little before closing time. Unless anyone had seen how much you were drinking, they would’ve thought you were just tired. No harm done at all, except to yourself.”

  He poured some of the scotch into Quinn’s coffee. “Here. A little hair of the dog that bit you will do you good.”

  Quinn swallowed the spiked coffee and felt a little better. At least he hadn’t made a complete ass of himself. He called over to Hanz, who’d just called Doyle’s bet. “What about the guy in the white suit?” He made sure he didn’t mention Wallace’s name.

  Hanz said, “Played roulette and a little black jack the whole night. That’s all. Played it careful, betting odds or evens on roulette and occasionally betting on the groups, but never too much. On blackjack, he always hit on twelve, but never on fifteen and when he got two face cards, never split or doubled down. A very careful boy.”

  Quinn wasn’t surprised. A guy like Wallace wouldn’t blow a wad in a strange house until he got the feel of the joint first. “How much did he walk out of here with?”

  “He lost maybe about one hundred total by the end of the night,” Hanz said. “But on his way out, he did ask me something strange before he left.”

  “What?”

  “He asked about the billiards room downstairs,” Hanz said. “He wanted to get on the list because he heard New York poolrooms were dangerous places.”

  Doyle looked at Quinn from across the card table. “Sarcastic son of a bitch, ain’t he, kid? Who is he?”

  “Nobody,” Quinn said. He hoped Archie couldn’t hear the lie in his voice. “Just some punk who sassed me on his way in. Tried to bring his bodyguard inside and kicked when I told him no. Frankie can tell you all about it.”

  “Maybe later,” Doyle said as he went back to his cards. “By the way, looks like we’re famous again. Show him the paper, Tommy.”

  “Take a look at page seven,” Sanders said. “Bixby creep’s getting ballsy in his old age.”

  Tommy handed Quinn the morning addition of The New York Journal. Growing bread lines at soup kitchens had once again replaced Fatty Corcoran’s shooting as front page news. Quinn flipped the broad sheet over to page seven to “Bixby’s Box”. An outdated picture accompanied Bixby’s by-line for the past decade, showing a man with a rakish smile and a thin mustache.

  Quinn’s red eyes narrowed when he saw the headline of “Bixby’s Box”

  CRIME KING HOLDS COURT

  Doyle Defiant Despite Shooting Spree

  Hold the phone, Mr. and Mrs. John Q. New Yorker. The Bixby Box bestows its best to bad boy Archie Doyle for standing firm in the face of danger. Not even a bullet in a komrade’s keyster could keep the Big Mick from his daily duties as Grand Poobah of Patronage and Payola in this City of Towers. Word has it that the Arch-bishop himself held court last night at the lovely Longford Lounge with a powerful and elegant elected official who’s known for his nocturnal needs and diminutive stature. So be-ware, street scoundrels and be- have. The ol’ grapevine is humming with juice and all of it comes up champagne on ice for the Big Mick and his cronies.

  Quinn’s eyes narrowed more when he found a second item just below it:

  JUICE BELLY JAB-OREE

  Movers and shakers weren’t the only show at the Double L last night. Fight fans saw an eyeful at the grand bar when the lush-ious songbird Alice Mulgrew went one round with ex-heavyweight pretender Terry Quinn. The ol’ juice belly professed love between lefts but Quinn’s fancy footwork kept him out of harms’ way. Maybe Sweet Alice should take boxing lessons because to this reporter’s ear, her singing lessons ain’t cutting it.

  Quinn forgot all about his hangover as he crumpled the paper. Bixby knew the Golden Rule. Doyle doesn’t get mentioned in the papers. Bixby had just broken that rule. This was an act of defiance of Archie at the worst possible time. This was the kind of bullshit Quinn had worried about.

  “Fine bit of reportin’, ain’t it,” Doyle said. He slipped a card out of one part of his hand and moved it to the end. “Maybe you oughta pay the scribbler a visit? Remind him what happens to people who forget the Golden Rule.”

  Quinn slipped out of the booth and grabbed his hat and coat. “Don’t worry, boss. I’ll remind him.”

  “Good,” Doyle said. “I also firmed up a meetin’ with you, me and Howard Rothman down at the clubhouse this afternoon to smooth over the Shapiro thing. Four o’clock sharp. Try not to be late. And try not to shoot any more Rothman people in the meantime.”

  But Quinn was already out the door when he’d said it.

  ASIDE FROM being the city’s leading gossip columnist, Wendell Bixby had been a professional boozehound and degenerate gambler for the better part of the 1920s. His wife and daught
er had left him years before, leaving him to the ravages of the nightlife, racing ponies and other vices. He was only forty-five or so, but his love of all things illicit made him look ten years older. Ten hard years older. He was an open grave who filled the emptiness of his life with dirt shoveled from the lives of others.

  Next to booze and horses, Bixby lived for his column. He was a schmoozer extraordinaire. He paid for his information and paid well. Free diners, free rum or with a good word whispered in the right ear to get someone off the proverbial hook. Always chasing a good item.

  Bixby was the scourge of socialites, but they always invited him to their cocktail parties. They were too afraid not to. Politicians hated him but always returned his calls. Everyone was afraid of what he’d do to them in his column if they didn’t pay him respect. Wendell Bixby swam the murky waters of New York society like a shark. His mouth wide open; scooping up anything – or anyone - in the water in front of him. He magnified people’s shortcomings while ignoring his own.

  Quinn knew Bixby was a creature of habit. He trolled the same dives day in and day out. It was easier for his snitches to find him that way. Since it was only two o’clock, Quinn figured he’d be at The Stage Left, a speakeasy in an alley on 46th Street off Broadway. Bixby liked to perch there early afternoons.

  Quinn’s anger had kept his hangover at bay. He walked down the alley as two large rats scurried out of an overturned trash can and ran away from him.

  He pounded on the steel door of The Stage Left three times and waited. The eye slot slid open. A pair of mean brown eyes peered out at him.

  “Whaddya want?” came a voice from inside.

  Quinn pounded the door again. “Open the goddamned door, Tiny.” The locks were undone and the door opened wide. Tiny the Doorman was an ex-boxer, too. Much fatter and taller than Quinn, but punch drunk from too many shots to the head. He stood beside the open door, his eyes cast down and his mouth in a pout.

  “Sorry, Terry” the oversized man-child whispered. “I was just makin’ sure there wasn’t no bulls out there pretendin’ to be you, is all. I’m sorry.”

  Quinn walked inside. “No bulls, Tiny. Any assholes in here today?”

  Tiny shut the door and bolted it. “Sure. Got ‘em by the dozen. Take your pick.”

  “Warren Bixby?”

  Tiny was only too happy to tell him. “Sittin’ by the phone booth in the back all by himself. Think he’s waitin’ for a call or somethin’.”

  Quinn walked deeper into the bar. The Stage Left was a dank little joint with low ceilings and sticky floors. Humid, dark and narrow. He heard a rummy cough from a booth in the shadows. A couple of two-by-fours had been nailed together for posts and some planks of wood formed a bar. It was the kind of place that gave dives a bad name. It was also one of the most successful speakeasies in Doyle’s organization.

  Quinn ignored the regulars who eyeballed him. They all knew who he was and what he was. The bartender started in on him the moment he saw him. “I don’t want no trouble here, Terry. I paid off on Wednesday like I was supposed to and I ain’t due for another shipment for four days.”

  Quinn ignored him, too. He spotted Bixby huddled in a phone booth with his back to the bar. He was booze gaunt and pasty. His hair was thinning fast. A pencil was tucked behind his right ear. He was careful to keep his rum steady on the shelf while rifling his pockets for more change to feed the phone.

  Quinn snatched the gossip monger by the back of the neck and yanked him out of the booth. Bixby protested his innocence. Quinn shoved him through the swinging bathroom door.

  Bixby bounced off the wall and fell to the floor. He rolled over on his back and looked surprised to see Quinn standing over him. “Jesus Christ, Terry. What’s the..?”

  Quinn picked him up by the lapels of his sport coat and slammed Bixby hard into the wall. His feet were a good six inches off the ground. “Don’t insult me, Wendell. Don’t insult me by asking me why I’m here.”

  Bixby fanned his hands quickly at Quinn. His waxed mustache looked silly above his opened mouth. “Whoa, you got it, big fella. Let’s just take it easy.”

  “I’d like to be taking it easy, Wendell. I wish I was in bed right now, nursing my hangover and making time with my lady, but I can’t.” Quinn pulled him off the wall. His feet dangled free. “You know why?”

  Bixby shook his head fast.

  “Because you broke the Golden Rule, dimwit.” He slammed the reporter back against the wall. “You got cute and mentioned Archie Doyle in your fucking column today.”

  “You got it all wrong, tiger,” Bixby laid on the charm as much as a guy with his legs dangling six inches off the ground could. “That was just my way of helping the Big Mick out, see? I threw that in there so people would see Archie was still around, same as always. Know what I mean? I was lending a hand. Showing him my loyalty.”

  Quinn let him slide down the wall and backed off. “Lend a hand, eh?” “Sure,” Bixby said. He fingered his glasses back higher on his nose. “It’s the least I could do for him after all the kindness he’s shown me. I’d do anything for the big lug if it would help. Power of the press and all that.” Quinn hooked a quick right to Bixby’s gut. The reporter doubled over, but Quinn slowly eased him back upright. Quinn knew that made the new pain in his belly even worse. “You’re insulting me again, Wendell. Don’t make me ask you again.”

  Bixby gasped his answer when he got his wind back. “I put him in my column because it’s been a flat week for dirt and I needed something juicy. How many times can I write about Walker balling some broad, or soused socialites in Central Park? Even that stuff gets stale and I needed something sweet. I figured the Archie angle was as sweet as I could get. I even watered it down by throwing in that item about that tomato you’ve been tasting, didn’t I? What’s the harm?”

  “Bullshit.” Quinn backhanded Bixby, sending the scribbler’s glasses into the toilet. “Mentioning Archie without permission is against the rules. So I’m going to ask you one more time. Why would a lowlife gambler like you try to...”

  The answer hit Quinn just as he was asking the question.

  What would make a gossip peddler grow enough balls to defy Archie? Something made Bixby do it.

  Then he remembered: Bixby was a degenerate gambler. It wasn’t a far leap to truth from there.

  “Howard Rothman! He made you put Doyle in your column today, didn’t he?”

  Bixby shook his head. Quinn pushed the reporter’s head down toward the toilet. “Your head’s going in after your glasses if you don’t start singing. How much are you in to Rothman for?”

  “About four g’s,” Bixby screamed. “I hit a bad streak at the track and Rothman’s been carrying me for the last couple of months. He didn’t bug me about my monthly payments until a month ago. He started calling in markers by looking for dope on people.”

  That was a typical Rothman move. Quinn lowered Bixby so his feet hit the floor. He still kept him pinned to the wall. “Go on.”

  “He’s been making me drop subtle hints in my column about dirt I’ve got on politicians who haven’t paid off the markers they owe him,” Bixby said. “I usually show what I’ve got to a mark first so we can figure out appropriate compensation to keep my mouth shut. But Rothman’s been pushing me to throw in items that might be kosher and might not. He won’t give me enough time to check them.”

  Quinn knew Rothman was a bookie and bookies liked to get paid – one way or the other. If Bixby couldn’t pay him in cash, he’d pay with favors. “Rothman told you to put Archie in your column?”

  “He’s sore about you drilling Shapiro. He knows Archie doesn’t like being in the papers, so he made me put him in my column today to see if Archie would kick.” The reporter grunted and rubbed his aching belly.

  “He sure kicked all right. The bastard was supposed to have someone here to protect me.”

  “And he’s doing a hell of a job, isn’t he?” Quinn let Bixby double over to ease the pulling in his stomach. Si
nce Quinn already had Bixby talking, he might as well press him for some information. “What do you know about a guy named Simon Wallace?”

  Bixby shook his head. “Zilch. But I’ll do a little digging around for you if you want?”

  Quinn didn’t know if Halloran and Doherty had gotten anything by following Wallace. He didn’t know Halloran would tell him the truth even if he had. Wallace already knew Quinn was eyeballing him. It didn’t matter if Bixby put the word out Quinn was asking about him. It just might stir something up.

  Quinn described Wallace to Bixby. “Find out everything there is to know about him. And don’t be shy about who you ask.”

  “Anything for you and Archie, just like always.”

  Quinn reached into his pocket, peeled three twenties off his wad and stuffed them into Bixby’s jacket pocket. “Here’s a little throwing around money plus a little more for inspiration. Do a good job and there’ll be more where that came from.”

  Bixby sank to the floor, breathing deep as he clutched his belly, his face looking even more drawn than before. “I’ll call you at the Lounge tonight with what I got, I promise.”

  Quinn pointed down at the glasses floating in the toilet bowl. “And make sure you get yourself some new specs, Bixby. A high roller like you needs flashy cheaters to keep up appearances.”

  CONTRARY TO popular belief, Archie Doyle didn’t run his empire from the oak paneled world of The Longford Lounge. He ran it from a third floor office in a rat trap tenement across the street from a row of warehouses off west Twelfth Street. Doyle had decided long ago that a low profile in a poorer part of the city was best for the image of the Party. Better for him to be in the heart of his territory to keep an eye on things.

  The Sons of Erin Democratic Party clubhouse had been Doyle’s front organization for twenty years and the true center of his power in the city. It was from there that Doyle organized charity drives and gave away free turkeys to the poor. It was where people from the neighborhood came to ask for money to pay the rent or to keep the heat on or get their mother that operation they needed. It was where he met with the boys down at Tammany Hall to get out the vote come Election Day.