The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,11

slowly. The man in charge was duly embarrassed, and Carmine had no interest in alleviating that. He was, however, impressed that this crew of thieves—because it had to be a crew working together—had otherwise gone undetected. If il Sacchi hadn’t attacked Giulia, it was entirely possible the crew would have made it in and out completely unnoticed.

That meant they had either been incredibly lucky up until il Sacchi, or they were very, very good at what they did.

And Carmine wanted to know which.

“Would you excuse me?” He stepped away from Coolidge and Giulia, and he pulled aside one of the uniformed officers. “Where are the boys who were caught? The thieves? Are they still here?”

The officer gestured past him. “In there.”

“I want their names, and I want to talk to them.”

The officer stiffened. “You, uh… You’ll have to talk to the detective.”

“Fine. Where is he?”

He was directed to a silver-haired man in a dark overcoat.

“You in charge here?” Carmine asked.

“I am.” The detective looked him up and down, then extended a hand. “Detective Higgins.”

Carmine shook his hand. “Carmine Battaglia. I understand you’ve got some boys in custody who were burglarizing some suites?”

Higgins nodded. “Four of them. They’re not your boys, if you’re gonna try and talk us into letting them go.”

“No, of course not. In fact I understand they’re Irish.”

The cop—Irish himself—glowered.

Carmine looked around, then turned so his back was to everyone except for Higgins. From his pocket, he produced a roll of cash. He thumbed a couple of bills free and offered them to the detective. “I’d like to speak to them before you take them to jail.”

The detective eyed the money, but he took it and casually slipped it into his pocket. “Let me know when you’re through with them.” He gestured over his shoulder at a closed door with a uniformed officer posted beside it. “They’re in there.”

“And their names?”

“Uh…” The detective thumbed through his notes. “Thomas O’Brien. Patrick O’Leary. And Uilliam and Peter Walsh.”

“Those last two—brothers?”

Higgins nodded again. “Ulliam—he goes by Liam—is young. Fourteen, fifteen at best. The other boys are a few years older, but none of them’s more than twenty-one or twenty-two.”

Carmine had the detective write the names down for him, and then he took the slip of paper and headed into the room where the boys were being held.

When he’d heard four Irish names and he’d been told they were thieves burglarizing the suites, he’d expected four boys like the ones he saw in the neighborhoods near his home, office, and speakeasies. Flat caps. Overalls. Threadbare white shirts gone gray from being laundered. There was a look about the wily young men who stole from shops and push carts. A look that would be out of place in the luxury that was an office at the Plaza Hotel.

But sitting in front of him in ornate chairs were four young men who were only out of place because of the iron cuffs holding their wrists together in their laps. They were clearly Irish—fair skin, two with blue eyes and two with brown, with freckle-sprinkled faces and, in the case of two, coppery red hair—but they weren’t dressed like street thieves. Instead, they wore the pressed uniforms of Plaza Hotel staff. If not for the cuffs, Carmine wouldn’t have looked twice at any of them if he’d seen them roaming the halls. It was entirely possible he had seen them.

Carmine turned to the officer who’d been posted to keep an eye on them. “Are they employed by the hotel?”

The officer shook his head. “No, sir. None of them will say how they got the uniforms, but they don’t work here. Detective Higgins had the staff check twice.”

Carmine studied the four young men for a moment. Then he turned to the officer. “How about you step outside?”

The officer didn’t move.

With an annoyed sigh, Carmine held up a ten dollar bill between two fingers. Just as he’d expected, the cop’s eyes widened. He glanced at the door, the money, the door again.

Then, predictably, he took the cash. “I’ll be right outside when you’re done with them.”

“Thank you.”

The cop stepped out and shut the door behind him, and Carmine faced the four young men. The heavily-freckled redhead might’ve been twenty-one or so. The kid next to him must’ve been the youngest—Liam. Fourteen at the oldest was right, Carmine figured. The other two, Carmine couldn’t tell. Older than Liam, but not by more than a handful of years.

This was the crew of thieves who’d slipped past Plaza security? Of