The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,40
they managed to get the merchandise where it needed to be?
There was honor among thieves, but there was always a chance Danny or his men might get greedy and steal the liquor from Carmine. It was suicide, taking something that belonged to the Pulvirentis, and Danny clearly knew that, but for men desperate for money? Especially Irishmen with grudges, and with God knew how much of his liquor in their possession? He couldn’t deny that he was worried. He knew better than to assume trustworthiness in someone even if they were friendly; Danny’s slightly warmer temperament the last time they’d met could have easily been that of a con artist setting up for a grift.
After pacing across his office for the hundredth time, he dropped into the chair behind his desk with a heavy sigh. He had work to do besides wondering if a crew of Irishmen were going to steal gallons of liquor out from under his nose. God help them if they did—he’d already had plenty of product stolen from him this month, and he wouldn’t be kind to anyone he caught taking it, no matter how much and in what ways their leader had been on his mind lately.
Carmine shook himself, and while he waited to find out how yesterday had gone, he occupied himself sorting through the rest of the day’s score. The men of his caporegime had been busy—they’d collected from several pharmacies in Hell’s Kitchen and a few surrounding neighborhoods, taking the Pulvirentis’ cut from the alcohol that pharmacists had sold on phony prescriptions. They’d also told him that a reporter had come sniffing around to two of the pharmacies, asking questions about what he believed was a local epidemic of ailments being treated with alcohol.
“The doc thinks he’s on to us,” Raffaele, one of his men on the street, had told Carmine earlier. “He knows there ain’t an epidemic of nothing.”
“Do we know who he is?”
Raffaele had presented Carmine with a card the reporter had left with the pharmacist. The second pharmacist had been in possession of an identical card.
“Call him,” Carmine had ordered, handing back the card. “If he doesn’t like your answers, bring him to the office.”
Raffaele had flashed a grin, pocketed the card, and left. Carmine was confident the reporter would lose interest in the “epidemic.” They always did.
The rest of the day had been more of the same—his men reporting in about incoming or outgoing merchandise, letting him know if this or that supplier or client needed some encouragement to hold up their end of a deal, Vincente calling in to tell him he’d had no luck finding whoever had broken into the warehouse but would keep working on it. It was remarkably dull more often than not, but it kept Carmine’s hands and mind occupied for hours on end. Usually, anyhow. The Irishman and his crew were never far from his thoughts. Especially their man in charge. Carmine could have easily ignored most of the men he worked with from day to day, but Danny Moore’s face was burned into his mind like no other.
Because he’d been so hostile and defiant? Hardly. Plenty of people in this city were filled with contempt toward men like Carmine, and plenty refused to even speak with gangsters, never mind work with them. Queenie St. Clair, the boss who ran the numbers rackets in Harlem, famously made it known she wanted nothing to do with any of the other gangs, be they Italian, Jewish, or Irish. Hostility was nothing new. Neither was defiance. Hatred of him for being Italian? Seemed to him that was a New York pastime. And anyway, Danny had been…not warm, but less cold the last time they’d met.
So no, Italian-Irish animosity wasn’t what kept Danny so close to the front of Carmine’s mind. It wasn’t what had seared red hair and blue eyes into his memory. Or why he didn’t even need to close his eyes and concentrate to conjure a picture of that sharp jaw, the freckle-sprinkled nose, or the slim, mesmerizing lips. And it was probably best he not think too hard about what that reason was. It was always dangerous. With a man who detested who and what Carmine was? Somehow “dangerous” didn’t seem like the word. Not even if that man had been flustered and blushing, or if he’d held Carmine’s gaze just a little too long.
For the hundredth time today, Carmine shook himself and forced his concentration away from his Irish rum runner