The Venetian and the Rum Runner - L.A. Witt Page 0,80

mostly winning over the nerves in his expression. “I’ll tell you what. I’ll talk to my crew. We’ll give this warehouse a look. Make sure we’re not agreeing to get ourselves killed. And if it’s not suicide and there’s anything worth stealing…” He nodded sharply. “Then all right.”

Under normal circumstances, Carmine expected a yes or a no. He didn’t have time for men who were wishy washy about accepting jobs. But this was an unusual task, and Danny and the crew had their reasons for proceeding with caution. It was wise, in fact, to be cautious about accepting a job to break into a bootlegger’s warehouse. Now that he thought about it, he wouldn’t have expected any less from Danny than wariness and suspicion. Not because they were Irish and Italian, and not even because of the recent events that had reminded the whole crew how dangerous their work was, but because Danny was too smart to blithely accept a job like this without thinking it through.

“All right.” Carmine nodded sharply. “Let me know what you and your boys decide.”

But something told him Danny and the crew would take the job.

Chapter 17

Walking away from the butcher shop, Danny felt sick. He didn’t like this. Not at all. Maybe he was just nervous after the night he and the lads had nearly been caught. Doing something new, something dangerous, had him on edge.

He’d agreed to bring liquor in off the ocean for Carmine, but that was as far as it went. Taking another job felt like he was getting in deeper with the Pulvirentis. Danny didn’t want to get in that deep. He wasn’t going to be one of those men who did a few jobs for a gang and woke up one day to realize he was a gangster himself.

Was he?

Because if he and his crew took this job, he was a step closer. It was just one job, but how long before one job became other jobs? How long before Carmine wanted him to…

No. No, that was a line he would not cross. He would steal because he was a thief, but he wouldn’t kill. Not for Carmine. Not for any man. He’d killed Ricky il Sacchi to protect someone in trouble, not for money. He was no torpedo.

When this job was over, he’d have to tell Carmine that. Tell him upfront he was a rum runner and occasional thief and nothing more. Tell him before Carmine gave him details of a job.

He was closer to trusting Carmine than he’d been at the start, and he felt things he didn’t want to think about whenever he looked at him, but the man was still a gangster. Nobody turned down work from a gangster. Not once he knew what the job was. Danny had been gambling with his life the first time he’d told Carmine he wouldn’t work for him, and he hadn’t even known then what the work would be. This time, he knew, and gangsters weren’t the kind to take a man at his word that he wouldn’t go to the cops with damning information. If he said no, there was no reason to believe Carmine wouldn’t do whatever needed to be done to keep him quiet. Whatever needed to be done.

And…hell. Fifty dollars was a lot of money for a man who was still used to stretching a few dollars for weeks or more. With this one job, he could pay his and James’s rent to the end of the year. Except he didn’t need to, because he’d already done that with the money he’d made off rum running.

Rolling his tight shoulders, Danny exhaled. He’d never intended to go beyond petty crime. Certainly never intended to get involved with gangsters. But Lord, it was tempting when the deeper he got in with the gangsters, the more bread was in his cupboards and the more solid the roof was over his head. The farther his family and his crew’s families were from certain destitution.

For the thousandth time, he asked God’s forgiveness, but he hated himself for it, because what good did it do to ask forgiveness if he was going to go forth and sin again? He wasn’t repenting. He was still working for the gangsters, and now he was in a little deeper than he’d been before.

He should quit for the sake of his soul, but he didn’t. He couldn’t. Because of the things he did for Carmine, Danny could keep his nieces and nephews fed and