The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,15

couldn’t sleep. James breathed slowly and quietly beside him, his chest rising and falling beneath Danny’s arm while Danny stared into the darkness.

And it wasn’t his brothers’ deaths haunting him this night.

Over and over, his mind showed him every moment from when he’d gone into that suite at the Plaza to when he’d taken off running through Central Park. Il Sacchi and the woman coming into the suite. The argument. Bernard trying to stop Danny. Danny hitting Ricky over the head. Ricky crumpling to the ground. The realization of what he’d done. Running.

“Listen to me,” the woman had said urgently. “That wasn’t just a gangster. That was Enrico il Sacchi.”

Danny squeezed his eyes shut and swallowed bile.

When the statue had cracked against il Sacchi’s head, the impact had reverberated up Danny’s hands and into his arms, and his skin still itched with that feeling now. As if his bones still vibrated from the killing blow. Eyes closed, he tightened his hands into fists, hoping that would still the phantom thrumming, but it didn’t help at all. Nothing did. Hours had passed and he was miles away from the Plaza now, but he could still feel that damned impact as if it had just happened, same as he could still feel the sting from where the radiator had burned his arm.

Danny sighed. He was never going to sleep tonight. He was probably never going to sleep again.

Lord, forgive me. I killed a man. I killed…

I can’t believe I killed a man.

“Danny.” James shifted, facing him in the darkness. “What’re you doing still awake?”

“Can’t sleep. Did I wake you?”

“Eh. Can’t sleep either, but when can I?” He touched Danny’s shoulder. “What’s keeping you up?”

Squeezing his eyes shut, Danny swallowed.

“Danny?” Concern laced James’s voice, and he pulled Danny closer. “What’s going on?”

“I, uh…” Danny shifted his gaze toward the door dividing this room from the tiny bathroom they shared with the next apartment. Though he couldn’t see the door in the darkness, if someone were using the bathroom, they’d be able to hear James and Danny talking on the other side. He thought they were Serbian, but he knew they understood some English.

Not Irish, though, so in a hushed voice, he said in his mother tongue, “Something bad happened tonight.”

“That why you were dressed the way you were?” James asked in the same language.

Danny sighed. “No, I mean we did… Yes, we was dressed that way to get in someplace we didn’t belong, and yes, we stole some things. But that’s not what I mean.”

“All right. So what happened?”

“I…” Danny squeezed his eyes shut as if that might chase away the memories that kept him awake. “A man and a woman came in. Me and Bernard, we hid, and I don’t think they’d have seen us, but…” His stomach lurched and his throat burned, but he swallowed hard to keep from getting sick. “I thought he was going to kill her. The way he threatened her, I…”

James put a hand over Danny’s. “What happened next?”

Danny was certain for a painfully long moment that he wouldn’t be able to keep back the bile, but he finally managed to speak through clenched teeth. “I killed him,” he whispered, still in Irish so an eavesdropping neighbor wouldn’t hear. “I… James. I killed him.”

James’s breath hitched softly.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Danny whispered, “I didn’t mean to, but he—”

“But he was threatening her. What choice did you have?”

“Aye. It happened so fast, and I didn’t know what else to do.”

“Can’t imagine anyone would blame you. Even if you were in that room for nefarious reasons, thank the Lord you were.”

Danny sighed. “It gets worse, though.”

“Does it, now?”

“The man was Enrico il Sacchi.”

James tensed. “You don’t… You don’t mean the gangster.”

“I do.”

The priest swore, something he hadn’t done much of since his days as a soldier. “And you’re certain it was him?”

“The woman who was with him—the one he threatened—she told me so. I’d already guessed he was a gangster from the things we found in the room. I just didn’t know he was that gangster.” Danny pushed out a long, ragged breath. “What do I do now?”

“Did anyone see you? Other than the girl?”

“I don’t think so. And I had gloves on.”

“So no fingerprints.”

“No fingerprints.” Danny rubbed a hand over his face. “The girl helped me escape. She made sure none of the men saw me, and we ran out. When we got out of the hotel, she told me who he was and she told me to