The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,1

customers in their finest evening wear.

Danny cast a wary glance around the dark and mostly deserted street, then walked inside. The butcher shop itself was nothing remarkable. Sausages and cuts of everything imaginable hung in the windows or were displayed in a glass case beside a large scale and a cash register. On the wall, prices were listed, but Danny didn’t bother to read them. He was not, after all, here to buy meat.

The young couple was gone, having likely been escorted through a secret door into the speakeasy beyond. A middle-aged Italian woman watched him through wire-rimmed spectacles.

Clearing his throat, Danny showed her the card. “I’m here to see—”

“You got an appointment?” The question was terse.

“I do, yes. At ten o’clock. With, um… With Mr. Carpenter.”

She gave a curt nod, turned away, picked up the telephone, and dialed. After a moment, she said, “Mr. Carpenter’s ten o’clock appointment is here.” She hung up and turned to him. “Wait right here.”

Danny waited. Another couple came through the door, the woman waving a long cigarette holder between her fingers as she and her companion laughed at something one of them must have said outside. She was blond, dressed in sparkling silver and green beneath a snow-dusted overcoat, and both her hair and skirt were as short as was fashionable these days. Her companion was in a smart suit and shined shoes. Clearly here to buy meat.

The man murmured something to the woman behind the counter, and the woman again picked up the telephone, this time saying something Danny didn’t hear. A moment later, an unseen door in the back opened, and the butcher stepped out, wiping his hands on his dingy white apron. With a sharp nod, he beckoned for the couple to come with him, and they followed without hesitation.

Outside, a pair of policemen strolled by. One cast a disinterested look through the windows, put his cigarette to his lips, and kept right on walking into the frigid night. They had to know what went on in here. It was hardly a secret what it meant when a regular business had patrons dressed for a night out coming in through the front door at this hour. Either the policemen didn’t care or they didn’t bother because there were dozens of places like this nearby. More likely, they didn’t see anything because a few crisp bills in their pockets said there was nothing to see.

“You here for Mr. Carpenter?” The voice pulled Danny’s attention from the vacant sidewalk where the police had been patrolling, and he turned to see a hulking Italian man in a suit glaring at him from behind the counter.

Danny cleared his throat. “I am, yes.”

A sharp gesture summoned him into the back of the butcher shop. Danny hesitated—whether or not it was a front for a speakeasy, this was a legitimate butcher shop, and he wasn’t sure he liked venturing away from the windows into a place with knives and meat hooks. Not with an Italian wise guy, and especially not after what had happened on New Year’s Eve.

The Italian glared at him. “You coming?”

Well, if he didn’t, then four of his friends would likely land in the workhouse soon. Or worse.

So, swallowing his nerves, Danny followed the man into a larger room in the back. Here, the butcher was methodically cleaving apart some creature’s hindquarters, and he eyed Danny and the Italian with no expression on his face.

At the other side of the room was a door. Danny and the Italian stepped through it, and Danny jumped when it banged shut behind him, sealing them into a narrow, dark stairway that was as cold as the January night outside. They walked silently down the stairs, and Danny tried not to liken this to descending into the pits of hell for a meeting with the Devil himself.

When they reached the bottom, the Italian faced him and held up a canvas bag.

“Put this on,” he ordered.

“Put it…” Danny eyed the bag, then the wise guy. “Why?”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “You want to meet Mr. Carpenter or not?”

Well, no, now that he’d asked, but Danny didn’t have a lot of choice here. And he supposed now that he’d been into the tunnel behind the butcher shop, there was no turning back. He’d already seen too much.

Muttering a few choice words in Irish, Danny pulled the bag over his own head, and he tried not to let his mind linger on what exactly he was smelling. Something sour and decayed.