The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,42
including the speedboat. Reckoned the pair picking up liquor shouldn’t both go to the same ship or they might raise suspicions.”
“Smart. Very smart.”
Danny smiled, looking relieved, and oh yes, he did blush.
Carmine quickly dropped his gaze back to the chits and ledger, if only so he didn’t forget how to speak in the light of that smile and those eyes.
As near as Carmine could tell, everything was as it needed to be. At the bottom of one chit, though, there was a single bottle deducted, with broken scrawled beside it. He held it up and showed it to Danny. “What’s this about?”
Danny glanced at it, then stiffened nervously. “Was just the one, I swear. Somewhere between putting it on the boat and on the dock.” He shook his head. “I’m not sure if we dropped it, or if it banged against something, but we checked the rest—it was only the one.”
Carmine nodded slowly. “I appreciate the honesty.”
At that, Danny released what sounded like a nervous breath.
“It’s glass, Daniel.” Carmine shrugged. “It breaks.” He gestured with the chits again. “Long as it’s documented, nobody’s going to toss you in the river over it.”
It was meant to be a joke, but the way Danny gulped and his eyes widened suggested he wasn’t so sure.
“Relax.” Carmine laughed softly as he put the chits on his desk. “The fact that only one bottle came up broken on your first run—I’m impressed, to be honest.”
“Oh.” Danny’s shoulders lost some of their rigid tension. “We was careful, I swear it.”
“I know. I’ve got the intact merchandise to prove it.”
That softened the rest of Danny’s tense posture. Most of it, anyhow. He was still a little guarded and a little nervous, and Carmine supposed he didn’t blame him. He was nervous himself now that Danny was here, and he didn’t dare think too much about why.
In a quieter voice, Danny said, “All the way back from Long Island, we was thinking up ways to protect it. It, um… It won’t happen again.”
“Oh, it will. You’re transporting glass on boats and trucks, Danny. Glass breaks. Long as you don’t lie to me about it…” Carmine shrugged.
“We won’t,” Danny said solemnly.
Carmine glanced up at him, their gazes locking for a heartbeat. Maybe Danny didn’t trust him, but after this first run, Carmine trusted Danny. At least enough to expect him to be honest with the liquor and cash, which did nothing to quell all the other things he thought and felt around him.
Carmine wrapped the money in butcher paper and tied it with a string the same way Carlo tied up cuts of meat. That way when Danny walked out of the butcher shop upstairs, no one would suspect he was carrying anything more suspicious than this evening’s supper.
As he handed it over, he said, “There’s pay for the score, and more cash for the merchant on the next run.”
Taking the bundle, Danny nodded. “Thank you.”
They looked at each other again, and Carmine was grateful Danny couldn’t possibly hear the way his heart was thundering just then. He could, though. It was suddenly loud in the way the elevated trains were when they went overhead, drowning out anything and everything but their own roar.
He didn’t let it show, though, and he extended his hand. “Well done.”
Danny hesitated, but he finally tucked the bundle under his arm and accepted the handshake. “Thank you. We’ll, um, be in touch. Soon.”
Carmine nodded. The handshake lingered a heartbeat or two longer than necessary—again—and then they separated. He wasn’t even sure which of them released his grip first, or if it mattered, or why in the world his skin tingled where Danny’s callused hand had touched his.
They stood in strange silence a moment longer. Then Danny cleared his throat, mumbled another thanks to Carmine, and headed for the door. Sal took him out into the hallway, the door closed, and Carmine exhaled so hard he had to lean against his desk to keep from losing his balance.
He dealt with dozens of men every day. Some powerful. Some spectacularly attractive. But it was only this rum runner—this young Irish rum runner who detested Italians—who left him reeling like this. Especially the more they interacted as men in business together instead of sworn enemies on opposite sides of battle lines drawn by other men. Which was enough to persuade Carmine to let his guard down and wonder—
No. No. He was imagining the long looks and the way Danny blushed, and definitely the moments when Danny seemed