Live by Night Page 0,3

wops who worked in a grocery store and a department store, respectively, could never account for.

True, the jewelry usually went right back out the door to Hymie Drago, the fence they'd been using since they were fifteen, but the money usually went no further than a gaming table in the back of The Shoelace, or into their mattresses.

Joe leaned against the icebox and watched Paolo put his and his brother's split there that morning, just pulling back the sweat-yellowed sheet to reveal one of a series of slits they'd cut into the side, Dion handing the stacks of bills to Paolo and Paolo shoving them in like he was stuffing a holiday bird.

At twenty-three, Paolo was the oldest of them. Dion, younger by two years, seemed older, however, maybe because he was smarter or maybe because he was meaner. Joe, who would turn twenty next month, was the youngest of them but had been acknowledged as the brains of the operation since they'd joined forces to knock over newsstands when Joe was thirteen.

Paolo rose from the floor. "I know where I seen her." He slapped the dust off his knees.

Joe came off the icebox. "Where?"

"But he's not sweet on her," Dion said.

"Where?" Joe repeated.

Paolo pointed at the floor. "Downstairs."

"In The Shoelace?"

Paolo nodded. "She come in with Albert."

"Albert who?"

"Albert, the King of Montenegro," Dion said. "Albert Who Do You Think?"

Unfortunately, there was only one Albert in Boston who could be referred to without a last name. Albert White, the guy they'd just robbed.

Albert was a former hero of the Philippine Moro Wars and a former policeman, who'd lost his job, like Joe's own brother, after the strike in '19. Currently he was the owner of White Garage and Automotive Glass Repair (formerly Halloran's Tire and Automotive), White's Downtown Cafe (formerly Halloran's Lunch Counter), and White's Freight and Transcontinental Shipping (formerly Halloran's Trucking). Rumored to have personally rubbed out Bitsy Halloran. Bitsy got himself shot eleven times in an oak phone booth inside a Rexall Drugstore in Egleston Square. So many shots fired at such close range, they set the booth on fire. It was rumored Albert had bought the charred remains of the phone booth, restored it, and kept it in the study of the home he owned on Ashmont Hill, made all his calls from it.

"So she's Albert's girl." It deflated Joe to think of her as just another gangster's moll. He'd already had visions of them racing across the country in a stolen car, unencumbered by a past or a future, chasing a red sky and a setting sun all the way to Mexico.

"I seen them together three times," Paolo said.

"So now it's three times."

Paolo looked down at his fingers for confirmation. "Yeah."

"What's she doing fetching drinks at his poker games then?"

"What else she going to do?" Dion said. "Retire?"

"No, but . . ."

"Albert's married," Dion said. "Who's to say how long a party gal lasts on his arm?"

"She strike you as a party gal?"

Dion slowly thumbed the cap off a bottle of Canadian gin, his flat eyes on Joe. "She didn't strike me as anything but a gal bagged up our money. I couldn't even tell you what color her hair was. I couldn't - "

"Dark blond. Almost light brown, but not quite."

"She's Albert's girl." Dion poured them all a drink.

"So she is," Joe said.

"Bad enough we just knocked over the man's joint. Don't go getting any ideas about taking anything else from him. All right?"

Joe didn't say anything.

"All right?" Dion repeated.

"All right." Joe reached for his drink. "Fine."

She didn't come into The Shoelace for the next three nights. Joe was sure of it - he'd been there, open to close, every night.

Albert came in, wearing one of his signature pinstripe off-white suits. Like he was in Lisbon or something. He wore them with brown fedoras that matched his brown shoes which matched the brown pinstripes. When the snow came, he wore brown suits with off-white pinstripes, an off-white hat, and white-and-brown spats. When February rolled around, he went in for dark brown suits and dark brown shoes with a black hat, but Joe imagined, for the most part, he'd be easy to gun down at night. Shoot him in an alley from twenty yards away with a cheap pistol. You wouldn't even need a streetlamp to see that white turn red.

Albert, Albert, Joe thought as Albert glided past his bar stool in The Shoelace on the third night, I could kill you if I knew the first