The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,56

not tonight while he was on a job.

Tearing his attention away from the man smoking beside him, Danny scanned the marina for activity. Still and quiet, just as it had been for the past hour. Mathew, Bernard, Liam, and Paddy were on the run tonight, and they weren’t due back for a while yet, but Danny stayed vigilant for other rum runners, cops, Coast Guard, or anyone else who might interfere with the operation.

The man smoking quietly beside him could be a problem. A lookout? A rival? A vice agent who’d proposition and then bust him? It had been a while since he’d run afoul of one of those bastards, and he wouldn’t be able to lose this one in a Times Square crowd.

But it wasn’t likely that he was a vice agent. Danny was paranoid about them these days, but this man was just smoking and watching the water. He hadn’t propositioned Danny for anything beyond the match, and anyhow, they were miles from the city; why would a vice agent bother out here this time of night? Unless there were some bathhouses or other establishments in this town that Danny didn’t know about. Yet.

Or unless he was a rival rum runner. Possibly a lookout.

A cop, maybe?

Danny was about to strike up a conversation to feel him out when the man abruptly shifted his attention to him. “You just gonna loiter here?” The stranger’s glare was intense as he dropped his cigar to the ground and crushed it beneath his heel. “No better place for you to be hanging around this time of night?” Though the man was younger than Danny, he exuded authority like a man twice his age.

Danny’s stomach clenched. “I, um…”

“Unless you’ve got business here…” The stranger nodded sharply away from the marina, and his attractive features were suddenly hard, his eyes sharp and commanding and still firmly locked on Danny’s. “Scram.”

Danny glanced out at the water again. There was a speedboat on its way into the harbor. Not his crew. Another team of rum runners? Was this man a rival?

“Hey.” The stranger stepped closer, and with a subtle motion, tugged back his overcoat, revealing the butt of a pistol underneath.

That was all Danny needed to see. “Uh. Sure, Mister. Sorry.” And he hurried away from the marina, heart racing and stomach roiling. He had a gun too—everyone in the crew had one, plus the rifles on the boats—but he didn’t want no trouble. Especially not with Carmine’s warnings echoing his mind. He couldn’t use the Pulvirenti name. He was on his own out here, and that made him extra cautious.

When he was a safe distance away, he doubled back, but he stayed low and in the shadows, moving slowly and almost soundlessly back toward the marina.

The stranger had gone down the ramp to one of the docks, and the speedboat was now pulling into the slip beside him. As the engine quieted, rapid footsteps approached from behind Danny. Ducking deeper into the shadows, he looked back to see three more men hurrying after the stranger who’d asked him for the match.

The men on and around the speedboat started moving boxes out onto the dock. Cases of liquor, by the looks of it—what else would they be offloading at this hour?

Helplessly, Danny watched, wondering what he was about to witness and—as he kept glancing out to sea—if his own crew was about to sail right into it.

Another set of footsteps started to approach from behind, coming in more casually than the others. Like someone out on a brisk but rapid stroll. Someone unaware of the liquor moving on the marina or the gun in at least one man’s coat.

Danny looked back, and horror shot through him. “Francis!” he hissed in a loud whisper. “Francis!”

His friend turned toward him. “Danny? What are—”

Danny lunged out of the shadows, clapped a hand over Francis’s mouth, and yanked him back into the darkness. “Stay quiet.”

Francis nodded.

Cautiously, Danny let him go.

As they separated, Francis eyed Danny. “What’s going on?”

“Another crew,” Danny murmured. “One of them’s got a gun, too. Showed it to me when he told me to scram.”

Francis’s eyes widened. “Should we signal the lads?”

Danny scanned the scene in front of them, then the distant ocean that was coming into view as the sun rose. With a shake of his head, he whispered, “I don’t see them, and these boys look nearly through.”

Lips pursed, Francis watched the other rum runners for a moment before he nodded. “All right. But they