Prohibition

by Terrence McCauley

  Inside, Cain pointed to the first door at the top of the stairs. “We’re keeping your playmate in there,” he told Quinn. “The doctor said the concrete scarred his eyes pretty good, but he’ll get his sight back eventually. I don’t mind telling you that it’s been a chore keeping some of the boys away from him, boss. A lot of them really liked the guys he killed.”

  Quinn had always hated complainers. Now that he was running things, he hated them even more. “Tell them to quit if they don’t like taking orders. There’s plenty of guys on the street looking for work who won’t ask questions.”

  Cain played it down. “They ain’t bein’ mutinous or nothing, boss. They’re just a little worked up, what with Fatty, Archie and now you being hit. They just want to know when we’re going to start hitting back is all. It don’t look good, us not doin’ nothin’.”

  “I know. We’ll hit back when we know who to hit and not a moment before.” He pointed down the hall. “Is that Fatty’s room?”

  Cain nodded. “The doctor said he’s still too weak to be operated on formal, but it looks like he’ll be able to live with one kidney after all.” Quinn walked down the hall to Fatty’s room. He rapped his knuckles lightly on the door before opening it.

  Fatty Corcoran was lying on his stomach on an old Queen sized bed.

  The mattress bowed under his weight. His three hundred-plus-pound bulk filled a good portion of it. He had a large bandage wrapped around his considerable girth and extra padding on the small of his back where he’d been shot. His curly red hair was matted to his head by sweat. The bed clothes were soaked through with perspiration.

  Quinn knew Fatty’s wounds could still get infected. His already overused heart could give out from too much pain at any moment. But he was alive for now and that’s all that mattered.

  Fatty was dozing. Quinn pulled up a chair next to his bed. He remembered the scene in Zito’s apartment two days before. He’d wake Fatty with a little more compassion.

  Quinn nudged the fat man with a gentle shake of the shoulder. Fatty looked up from the pillow-scape dazed and confused. He focused on Quinn, blinking his eyes clear. A vague smile appeared on his big face, like a baby waking up. The two of them had always liked each other.

  “Hi ya Terry,” Fatty smiled wider. “You’re a sight for sore eyes.” Quinn felt himself smiling, too. “Keeping out of trouble, big man?”

  “I guess I should call you ‘boss’ now. He reached for Quinn’s hand and squeezed it. “Congratulations, kid.”

  Quinn played it down. “I’m just filling in until you and Archie are ready to come back.”

  But Fatty’s smile went away. He sank his head back to the pillow. “Archie and I have already had our fair share of come backs, Terry. I can read the writing on the wall. Archie can, too. It says me and Archie better get out of this business in big, red letters.”

  “Don’t talk like that.”

  Corcoran’s massive bulk raised with a heavy sigh. “I’m not complaining. Archie and me made plenty of dough while the going was good for damned near fifteen years by my count. But the money’s drying up and people are willing to take dumb chances for a buck. I don’t have the stomach for this kind of life any more.” He smiled again. “And I’ve got a stomach for quite a bit.”

  Quinn respected Fatty too much to hear this kind of talk now. Self-pity never solved anything. And despite everything that had happened to him that morning alone, Quinn still needed answers on what happened in Ames that night. “Who do you think shot you, Fatty?”

  “I can’t think of a soul. Everything’s been going fine, except for Archie’s damned fool idea about getting Al Smith to run for president again.” Quinn didn’t want to get lost in all of that. “What about other parts of the gang? You’ve always been closer to the day to day stuff than Archie. Is there anyone else having problems that might’ve caused this?”

  “Not that I can think of. Frank Sanders had some run-ins with some number runners up in Inwood who were trying to cash in on him being away a lot lately. But he handled that himself.”

  That caught Quinn’s attention. “Frank’s been traveling? Where to?” “Started a couple of months back,” Corcoran said, “when he asked for Archie’s say-so to expand outside of the City. He’d already gotten as big as he could up in Inwood and the Heights and the only other place he could go is Harlem. But Archie didn’t want a war with the darkies now that he’s pushing Al to run.”

  Again, Quinn skipped all that. “Where’d Frank travel to?”

  “Archie told him he should expand up along the Hudson River; Albany, Poughkeepsie. There’s money to be made in the boonies for a guy with Frank’s talents. But Frank didn’t want that. He said he had a line on something in Kansas City that was about to take off, so he’s been going there to set things up.”

  Fatty kept talking, but Quinn didn’t hear a thing he said. The hole in his side began to throb but he focused on staying calm. He was running things now. He had to control his temper. All at once, everything started to make sense.

  Frank Sanders went to Kansas City. The chopper squad from the warehouse was from Kansas City. The chopper squad hit blind and almost started a mob war between Doyle and Rothman. With Archie on the lam and Fatty laid up, who should benefit from a mob war? The men who stood behind Archie Doyle and Howard Rothman: Frank Sanders and Ira Shapiro.

  Quinn remembered Shapiro mumbling something about Doyle’s days being over after Quinn shot him. He remembered Sanders disagreeing more and more with Doyle lately.

  It all made sense. But where did Wallace fit in? Was he Shapiro and Sanders’ go-between. What about Rothman?

  His mind was swimming with questions and possibilities Jimmy Cain burst into the room. “Jesus Christ, boss. Turn on the radio quick!”

  Quinn flicked on the radio by Corcoran’s bedside. A newsman’s voice came on in mid-report.

  “...have no suspects in custody at this time. Once again, gangland intrigue rocks New York City as Howard Rothman, the infamous lawyer, gambler and financier, was gunned down in broad day light. Witnesses report five men in a touring car opened fire on Rothman and two accomplices as they entered Lindy’s Delicatessen on 52nd and Broadway. Police officials suspect this is in retaliation for the attempted murder on crime boss Archibald ‘Archie’ Doyle yesterday afternoon.”

  Quinn felt himself get dizzy.

  Howard Rothman was dead. And whoever did it made it look like the Doyle mob was behind it. The cops would be looking for him and Archie now. They’d need to parade them around in handcuffs to show Albany they were doing something to stop the violence.

  They’d raid the Lounge.

  They’d raid the speakeasies and the warehouses and the gambling joints.

  They’d hit the Doyle organization hard.

  Bye bye White House. Hello Sing Sing.

  Fatty looked up at him from bed. “You didn’t order that, did you?”

  “No.” But he knew someone who might know more.

  Quinn and Cain headed for the blinded gunman’s room down the hall.

  Quinn threw open the door and found the man lying on the bed with a large white bandage wrapped around his eyes. He flinched when he heard the door splinter. He threw his arms in front of his face to protect himself.

  “Who’s there?” he yelled into the darkness.

  Quinn yanked him out of bed by the night shirt and slammed him against a wall. The hole in his side screamed. “Who hired you to kill Archie Doyle?”

  “I told you we didn’t know it was Archie’s joint,” the gunman screamed. “We wouldn’t have hit the place if we knew who it was, no matter how much Lenny paid us to do it.”

  Quinn squeezed “Yesterday you said Lenny took on a new partner. Who?”

  The blind man started crying. “How the hell should I know? Lenny gives orders. He don’t ask for advice.”

  Quinn pulled the blind man off the wall and slammed him against it again. His side roared, but he didn’t stop. “Did you ever see this
new partner? You’re one of Boo’s regulars. You must’ve seen something.”

  “I-I-don’t know. I think I did but that’s only because some of the other boys thought it was him.”

  Quinn pushed back the pain from the wound. He broke out into a sweat. “What did the man look like?”

  The blind man’s mouth trembled. “I...I didn’t get a good look at his face. I remember he didn’t look like the money daddy type. L...like he could use a few bucks himself. Wrinkled brown suit, an old shirt and this old brown hat looked like he sat on it, walked with a limp...”

  The blind man kept talking, but Quinn had heard all he needed. He let the blind man slide down the wall. He’d just described Frank Sanders.

  Son of a bitch.

  Jimmy Cain slumped in the doorway. “Jesus Christ, Terry. He don’t mean Frank, does he?”

  Quinn was drenched in sweat. Pain webbed through his body from the hole in his side. But he had one last question for the blind man. “You said the other group of shooters were supposed to hit the Longford Lounge but they didn’t. Why?”

  The blind man crawled back up to his bed. “I don’t know, mister. Both hits were supposed to happen at the same time. M...maybe they got scared off by something.”

  Or called off, Quinn thought. By someone. But who?

  Then the floor felt like it dropped out from under him. He leaned against the wall to keep from falling over.

  That’s why Tommy the Bartender and Deavers never heard the phone ring at the Lounge.

  Baker never called the Lounge. Baker called off the other hit squad instead because they’d lost the element of surprise.

  And Baker was driving Doyle up to Millbrook.

  Quinn ran downstairs to the car. Jimmy Cain followed. Millbrook was a long ways away.

  CAIN DROVE, speding along back country roads to Doyle’s farm in Dutchess County. The trip usually took two hours. It felt like two years to Quinn.

  He’d been hoping he was wrong about Baker. He’d called Doyle’s house from the gas station. No answer. He feared the worst. He knew Baker didn’t have the stomach to hurt Archie but the crew who hit Rothman did.

  If Baker was in on it, Quinn bet he’d delivered Archie to them by now. Doyle’s farm in Millbrook was the best place to start. It was secluded and easy to defend. Not many people knew about it, not even in Doyle’s organization.

  Not many people other than Quinn.

  The wound in his side ached. Every pot hole and divot in the dirt road made Quinn wince. He didn’t have morphine to dull the pain. He pulled on a pint of Cain’s whiskey instead.

  Quinn had never bothered with big questions like “why” before. Archie told him what to do and he did it. But in the two hours between Manhattan and Millbrook, he found himself asking that question a lot. Why did Sanders turn on Archie after a lifetime of friendship? Why did Shapiro turn on Rothman? Money? Fame? Pride? Where did Simon Wallace fit into all of this?

  The more questions Quinn asked, the more frustrated he got. Frustration made him angry and anger made him scared. Scared about what they’d do to Archie. Scared that he might get Archie killed. The pain in his side arched. He pulled on the pint. The pain dulled but the questions restarted.

  It went on like that for two slow hours.

  Cain slowed the car to a crawl when they reached the dirt road to Doyle’s estate. Gravel crunched beneath the tires.

  It was almost four o’clock and the sun was dying fast. A deep purple sky framed Doyle’s seven bedroom Colonial mansion on top of a hill overlooking the rolling hills of Millbrook. A black horse fence enveloped the property, following the land as it rose and fell as far as the eye could see.

  The house was a quarter of a mile off the main road atop a long, winding driveway. Doyle always posted a car as a guard at the foot of the driveway whenever he was there. But there was no car today. A bad sign.

  Quinn had Cain park behind a clump of bushes just off the road. Cain opened the trunk, revealing a standard Doyle mob setup. One shotgun. Two Thompsons. Two .45s. Shells and ammo for all of it.

  Quinn took a couple of extra clips for his .45. Cain took the sawed-off shot gun and a box of shells. No need for the Thompsons. If things got thick, it’d be up close and personal.

  Quinn knew sound carried in the cold November air. He closed the trunk with a quiet click. He and Cain moved into the tree line along the driveway for extra cover and trudged uphill a quarter mile to Doyle’s farmhouse. The cold from the frozen ground seeped up through the thin soles of Quinn’s shoes.

  The hike and the cold caused the hole in his side to throb even worse. They moved low and quiet in the overgrowth, stopping at every sound that might be the cocking of a hammer or a footfall in the woods. They waited.

  They listened. They heard nothing. They moved on.

  The features of the house came into view as they got closer. The wrap around porch. The dark blue shutters on the windows. The porch furniture. Quinn remembered quiet summer days he’d spent on that porch, enjoying a scotch and a cigar while Doyle enjoyed the company of lady friends upstairs. The furniture looked odd now that it was Fall.

  Quinn spotted Doyle’s Duesenberg in the garage. He also saw an unfamiliar green Packard parked off the driveway by the kitchen door. None of Doyle’s people drove Packards. That must’ve been the other crew the blind gunman told him about. Five guns, plus Baker. Three to one odds.

  Quinn had faced worse odds.

  No guard at the front of the house. No one around back. Everyone was bottled up inside.

  The shades were drawn, but he could still see the lights of the first floor were on.

  There was no way of knowing what was going on in there from the outside.

  They’d have to go in.

  Cain crouched behind a tree next to Quinn. “How do you want to handle this, boss?”

  Quinn spoke in a whisper. “I’ll sneak into the house while you get closer to that kitchen door. It doesn’t have a lock on it, so you won’t have any trouble getting in. Wait for my signal, then come in blasting. I don’t know where Archie and I will be, but I’ll make sure we’re out of your way.”

  “What’s the signal?”

  Quinn held his .45 low as he headed toward the house. “You’ll know it

  when you hear it.”

  QUINN CIRCLED around the back. The quiet of the house unnerved him. He moved fast, but quiet, staying low in the overgrowth until he got around to the side where Doyle’s bedroom was. He knew the layout of the farmhouse like the back of his hand. He knew Doyle never slept upstairs. Doyle never wanted to be trapped in a fire or in an attempt on his life. He always slept downstairs in a converted library that had its own bathroom and a large walk in closet.

  The closet had plenty of room for all of Doyle’s country clothes. It also had room for a trap door that led to the crawlspace beneath the house. Doyle thought it would come in handy if the house was ever attacked or raided. Doyle and Quinn were the only two who knew about it. Quinn had put it in himself. It had been meant for Doyle’s escape. Tonight, it would be used for Doyle’s rescue.

  The shades on the windows on the back of the house had also been drawn. No one could look in, but no one could look out, either. Quinn holstered his .45 and dove under the house.

  He crawled across the frozen ground toward the trap door. Quinn’s size made it a tight fit. The cold that had gone through the soles of his shoes now filled his body. The cold and the crawling made the pain from his wound even worse. He couldn’t stop.

  The ground was littered with dead snake skins and rodent carcasses ripped apart by cats. Discolored cobwebs draped in between the floor beams. He heard rustlings somewhere around him, but knew they couldn’t be human sounds. He kept going.

  Quinn fought the pain by trying to remember the layout of the house. He concentrated on the footfalls on the floorboards just above his head. He knew he was under the living room now, having just crawled past the kitchen.

  The sounds from above bounced
wildly around him. He heard muffled voices, rapid footfalls and other things in the darkness. The cold wind whipped beneath the house, numbing not only the pain, but the rest of him, too. He was losing feeling in his feet and legs. He refused to pass out.

  Then Quinn heard two sets of footsteps on the floorboards just above him. The voices weren’t clear, but he could tell they were yelling at each other. One voice trailed off behind him back toward the kitchen. He hoped Jimmy Cain had kept out of sight.

  Quinn reached the trapdoor in Doyle’s bedroom closet. He listened and heard a third set of footsteps overhead. They weren’t long strides like he’d heard in the living room, but short bursts across the floorboards. Like someone was in a hurry. They moved in and out of Archie’s bedroom several times.

  It didn’t sound like good news for Archie.

  Quinn braced himself for the coming pain as he slowly drew himself up to a crouch and eased the trapdoor open. The door was only a thin sheet of wood, but the effort caused sparks of pain to flash before his eyes. He started to sweat again.

  He pulled himself up through the hole in the floor, into the closet. His side roared. Stars exploded. He stifled a scream. He distributed his weight evenly on the trapdoor frame, careful not to creak the closet’s floorboards. One creak of a floorboard could tip off the gunmen, leaving him trapped in a confined space. He got his balance and eased the trap door shut.

  He was inside.

  When the pain in his side died down, Quinn felt the wound for dampness. Other than the wetness from crawling along the ground, no blood. He listened at the closet door. Still only one set of quick little noises from Doyle’s bedroom. He bent to peek through the keyhole in the door.

  The bedroom door was closed. Baker was crouched over Doyle’s bed, but he couldn’t see Doyle. Quinn clenched when he saw a large slick of blood that trailed beneath the closed bedroom door and out of the room.

  Was it Doyle’s? Then Baker swore and ran out of the room again. He yelled something to someone deeper in the house.

  Not worrying about creaking floorboards now, Quinn shifted to get a better view through the keyhole. He saw Doyle lying in bed; his eyes were closed, muttering to himself. There was fresh blood on his pillow and sheets. Lots of it.