The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,37
the grin despite his unsteady knees. “I suppose we won’t need them—I don’t reckon me and my crew will let the Coast Guard get bored.”
“Good. But take the papers anyway. You can never be too careful.”
Danny nodded. Eyeing the binoculars and papers, he said, “I don’t suppose you’ve got a knapsack or something? To carry all this?”
Carmine’s full lips quirked—do that again—but then he nodded. He didn’t go to the desk, though. Instead, he went to the safe in the wall. After a few deft spins of the dial to the left and right, the lock gave and Carmine pulled it open.
Danny’s mouth fell open. The bags were just flour sacks and the like, but he could tell by the way they bulged that they were stuffed with something that was distinctly shaped like the rolls of cash wedged in beside them. Carmine took out one of the bags, dumped its contents into the safe as if he were just emptying a sack of potatoes into a pot, and then handed it to Danny. Still mute, still slack-jawed, Danny took it.
Carmine started to close the safe, but paused, and he seemed to think for a moment before he pulled a banded roll out of the heap. He slid off the band, unrolled the cash, counted some of it out, and put the rest back. After he’d closed the safe and spun the dial, he faced Danny, holding out the cash. “You’ll use this to pay the merchants.” Drawing the money back out of Danny’s reach, he said, “Don’t take the first price they give you. They’ll—”
“Haggle. Right. Got it.”
“And I expect every penny to be accounted for.” Carmine’s voice was firm, but not hard enough to raise Danny’s defenses. “Stealing from men like me isn’t wise.”
Danny laughed dryly. “There ain’t a thief in this town who don’t know that.”
Carmine nodded, and this time he gave Danny the cash.
Danny looked down at the wad of bills. It was easily more money than he’d ever held in his life. Than he’d ever seen.
“Do you need anything else before your crew goes out?”
Danny thought about it. Tried to, anyhow—it was near impossible to think while he held a big wad of money and he stood in that underground room with this intense man and his dark eyes, and full lips, and—
“No.” He shook his head, clearing his throat again. “No, I think this is all we need. We’ll, um…” He steeled himself and met Carmine’s gaze, and he miraculously held on to his thoughts. “After we’ve been out a time or two, we might need more, but this will be enough to start.”
Carmine nodded, his expression serious, but not hostile. “All right. Well. Good luck.”
“Thanks.”
“If this first run goes well, then…” One corner of Carmine’s mouth rose in a faint grin as he extended his hand. “Then I suppose we’re in business.”
Danny swallowed as they shook hands. He hoped Carmine took his sweaty palm as evidence that he took him and his threatening undercurrent seriously. But, truth be told, in that moment, it was Carmine himself who had Danny’s heart beating this fast. Carmine was slightly shorter than Danny, but he held himself in such a way that Danny somehow felt like he was looking up at him.
And Carmine looked right back, holding Danny’s gaze long after the handshake should have ended, and they both should have been packing the papers and binoculars into that canvas bag.
It was Danny who finally broke away, releasing Carmine’s hand and gesturing at everything on the desk. “Right. I should… I should be off, then.”
“Right. Of course.” Carmine was the one to clear his throat this time. Nervously? Strange. “So, as we discussed, deliver the liquor to my warehouses, and—”
“And they’ll give me a chit to bring to you so we can get paid.”
“Yes. Yes, exactly.” Carmine shifted his weight. Was he nervous? “I, uh, I think that’s all.”
“I think so.”
The two of them collected everything into the bag, and Danny tucked the cash inside his overcoat. Carmine also gave him a blank ledger to keep track of the money the crew spent out on Rum Row, and he made a note in his own ledger about how much he’d given Danny.
Then, after one more handshake…
After one more long look…
Danny left.
And all the way back to street level, and then back to his Broome Street tenement, Danny couldn’t stop thinking about how Carmine had held his gaze just a few beats longer than he should have.