THUGLIT Issue One - страница 23

“No complaints. You’re a little far west, aren’t you, Carmine? Last I checked, Rothmann’s territory ends at Fifth Avenue.”

Carmine made a show of straightening his tie. “I like to get out once in a while.” He tried a smile. “See a better class of people.”

Quinn smiled too. “Then what are you doing here?”

Lady M was drunk enough to laugh like that was the funniest thing since Prohibition. She drained her champagne glass, then held it out for Blondie to refill it. The kid couldn’t stop looking at Quinn and damn near knocked over the bottle while he reached for it.

His big friend still stood there, breathing heavy and swaying while he tried to stare Quinn down. And Quinn kept on ignoring him.

Lady M smiled at the sound of the champagne filling her glass. “So how’s about tellin’ me what brings out Doyle’s Black Hand into my humble abode this fine evening?”

“Business. We need to talk, Mimi.”

“So talk!” Lady M threw open her arms in a grand gesture. “We’re all friends here, ain’t we boys?” She looked at Rizzo. “Carmine knows all about our kind of business, don’t you Carmine?” She looked at the two boys in tuxedoes. “And these dapper gentlemen here…”

The big boy in the tux cut her off, “…don’t know who the fuck you are, mister. We were having a damned swell party for ourselves before you showed up. So why don’t you do yourself a favor and take it on the heel and toe so we can get back to our good time?”

He shuffled one step too close.

Quinn dropped him with a short left hook to the jaw. The blueblood fell back over his chair and hit the floor head first.

Carmine didn’t move a muscle.

“That ain’t nice, Terry,” Madeline slurred. “That young man just so happens to be Jack Van Dorn of the Fifth Avenue Van Dorns.”

“Then he should’ve been smart enough to keep his goddamned mouth shut. We’ve got business, Mimi. You and me. Alone. Right now.”

Madeline’s fleshy arms flapped as she threw up her hands and motioned for Blondie and Carmine to leave. Carmine moved first, slow and steady as he passed Quinn and out the door.

Blondie got to his feet and seemed to think about helping his friend, but ran out of the room instead. He even closed the door behind him. A nice, polite boy.

Quinn kept standing where he was.

Madeline drained her champagne glass again and filled it for herself. “You happy now, you goddamned animal? And stop callin’ me Mimi in my own joint.”

“It’s Archie’s joint. You and that shitbird husband of yours just run it for him. You’d do well to remember that.”

“Archie Doyle,” Mimi said, drawing out his name. “Joe and me have been runnin’ this dive for three years and ain’t never heard a word of complaint outta him before.”

“That’s because you never stole from him before.”

“Stole?” Mimi lowered her champagne glass very slowly. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought she was genuinely insulted. “Stole?” Her ruddy skin blanched quickly. “We stole? From Archie? Me and Joey? That what he tell you? After all we done for that miserable Irish son of a…”

“Stow the bullshit. Archie’s take from this place has been off every week for the past month and it’s not because business is off. You’re leaking money, Mimi, and that means either you or Joe are getting greedy. Which one of you is it?”

Mimi sat up as straight as she could manage. “Neither me nor Joey ever stole off nobody, especially Archie. We run a gamblin’ joint for Chrissakes! We make plenty off what we take in, even with Archie gettin’ his cut.”

“The take says different.” He remembered Doyle’s instructions. “If it’s not you, it’s got to be Joey. Where is he?”

“How the hell should I know,” she said. “I ain’t seen him for three whole days, the bum. Never could rely on that lousy bastard for nothin’.”

“That’s too bad. That just leaves you, unless someone else in this place was in on the skim with you. And the quicker you start talking, the easier this is going to be. For both of us.”

Mimi shook a long, crooked finger at him. “Let me ask you somethin’, tough guy. In all of this big thinkin’ Archie’s been doin’, did the grand man himself ever ask why we’d steal from him? Now? After all these years,