Prohibition (26 page)

If Baker was in on it, Quinn bet he’d delivered Archie to them by now. Doyle’s farm in Millbrook was the best place to start. It was secluded and easy to defend. Not many people knew about it, not even in Doyle’s organization.

Not many people other than Quinn.

The wound in his side ached. Every pot hole and divot in the dirt road made Quinn wince. He didn’t have morphine to dull the pain. He pulled on a pint of Cain’s whiskey instead.

Quinn had never bothered with big questions like “why” before. Archie told him what to do and he did it. But in the two hours between Manhattan and Millbrook, he found himself asking that question a lot. Why did Sanders turn on Archie after a lifetime of friendship? Why did Shapiro turn on Rothman? Money? Fame? Pride? Where did Simon Wallace fit into all of this?

The more questions Quinn asked, the more frustrated he got. Frustration made him angry and anger made him scared. Scared about what they’d do to Archie. Scared that he might get Archie killed. The pain in his side arched. He pulled on the pint. The pain dulled but the questions restarted.

It went on like that for two slow hours.

Cain slowed the car to a crawl when they reached the dirt road to Doyle’s estate. Gravel crunched beneath the tires.

It was almost four o’clock and the sun was dying fast. A deep purple sky framed Doyle’s seven bedroom Colonial mansion on top of a hill overlooking the rolling hills of Millbrook. A black horse fence enveloped the property, following the land as it rose and fell as far as the eye could see.

The house was a quarter of a mile off the main road atop a long, winding driveway. Doyle always posted a car as a guard at the foot of the driveway whenever he was there. But there was no car today. A bad sign.

Quinn had Cain park behind a clump of bushes just off the road. Cain opened the trunk, revealing a standard Doyle mob setup. One shotgun. Two Thompsons. Two .45s. Shells and ammo for all of it.

Quinn took a couple of extra clips for his .45. Cain took the sawed-off shot gun and a box of shells. No need for the Thompsons. If things got thick, it’d be up close and personal.

Quinn knew sound carried in the cold November air. He closed the trunk with a quiet click. He and Cain moved into the tree line along the driveway for extra cover and trudged uphill a quarter mile to Doyle’s farmhouse. The cold from the frozen ground seeped up through the thin soles of Quinn’s shoes.

The hike and the cold caused the hole in his side to throb even worse. They moved low and quiet in the overgrowth, stopping at every sound that might be the cocking of a hammer or a footfall in the woods. They waited.

They listened. They heard nothing. They moved on.

The features of the house came into view as they got closer. The wrap around porch. The dark blue shutters on the windows. The porch furniture. Quinn remembered quiet summer days he’d spent on that porch, enjoying a scotch and a cigar while Doyle enjoyed the company of lady friends upstairs. The furniture looked odd now that it was Fall.

Quinn spotted Doyle’s Duesenberg in the garage. He also saw an unfamiliar green Packard parked off the driveway by the kitchen door. None of Doyle’s people drove Packards. That must’ve been the other crew the blind gunman told him about. Five guns, plus Baker. Three to one odds.

Quinn had faced worse odds.

No guard at the front of the house. No one around back. Everyone was bottled up inside.

The shades were drawn, but he could still see the lights of the first floor were on.

There was no way of knowing what was going on in there from the outside.

They’d have to go in.

Cain crouched behind a tree next to Quinn. “How do you want to handle this, boss?”

Quinn spoke in a whisper. “I’ll sneak into the house while you get closer to that kitchen door. It doesn’t have a lock on it, so you won’t have any trouble getting in. Wait for my signal, then come in blasting. I don’t know where Archie and I will be, but I’ll make sure we’re out of your way.”

“What’s the signal?”

Quinn held his .45 low as he headed toward the house. “You’ll know it

when you hear it.”

Q
UINN CIRCLED
around the back. The quiet of the house unnerved him. He moved fast, but quiet, staying low in the overgrowth until he got around to the side where Doyle’s bedroom was. He knew the layout of the farmhouse like the back of his hand. He knew Doyle never slept upstairs. Doyle never wanted to be trapped in a fire or in an attempt on his life. He always slept downstairs in a converted library that had its own bathroom and a large walk in closet.

The closet had plenty of room for all of Doyle’s country clothes. It also had room for a trap door that led to the crawlspace beneath the house. Doyle thought it would come in handy if the house was ever attacked or raided. Doyle and Quinn were the only two who knew about it. Quinn had put it in himself. It had been meant for Doyle’s escape. Tonight, it would be used for Doyle’s rescue.

The shades on the windows on the back of the house had also been drawn. No one could look in, but no one could look out, either. Quinn holstered his .45 and dove under the house.

He crawled across the frozen ground toward the trap door. Quinn’s size made it a tight fit. The cold that had gone through the soles of his shoes now filled his body. The cold and the crawling made the pain from his wound even worse. He couldn’t stop.

The ground was littered with dead snake skins and rodent carcasses ripped apart by cats. Discolored cobwebs draped in between the floor beams. He heard rustlings somewhere around him, but knew they couldn’t be human sounds. He kept going.

Quinn fought the pain by trying to remember the layout of the house. He concentrated on the footfalls on the floorboards just above his head. He knew he was under the living room now, having just crawled past the kitchen.

The sounds from above bounced wildly around him. He heard muffled voices, rapid footfalls and other things in the darkness. The cold wind whipped beneath the house, numbing not only the pain, but the rest of him, too. He was losing feeling in his feet and legs. He refused to pass out.

Then Quinn heard two sets of footsteps on the floorboards just above him. The voices weren’t clear, but he could tell they were yelling at each other. One voice trailed off behind him back toward the kitchen. He hoped Jimmy Cain had kept out of sight.

Quinn reached the trapdoor in Doyle’s bedroom closet. He listened and heard a third set of footsteps overhead. They weren’t long strides like he’d heard in the living room, but short bursts across the floorboards. Like someone was in a hurry. They moved in and out of Archie’s bedroom several times.

It didn’t sound like good news for Archie.

Quinn braced himself for the coming pain as he slowly drew himself up to a crouch and eased the trapdoor open. The door was only a thin sheet of wood, but the effort caused sparks of pain to flash before his eyes. He started to sweat again.

He pulled himself up through the hole in the floor, into the closet. His side roared. Stars exploded. He stifled a scream. He distributed his weight evenly on the trapdoor frame, careful not to creak the closet’s floorboards. One creak of a floorboard could tip off the gunmen, leaving him trapped in a confined space. He got his balance and eased the trap door shut.

He was inside.

When the pain in his side died down, Quinn felt the wound for dampness. Other than the wetness from crawling along the ground, no blood. He listened at the closet door. Still only one set of quick little noises from Doyle’s bedroom. He bent to peek through the keyhole in the door.

The bedroom door was closed. Baker was crouched over Doyle’s bed, but he couldn’t see Doyle. Quinn clenched when he saw a large slick of blood that trailed beneath the closed bedroom door and out of the room.

Was it Doyle’s? Then Baker swore and ran out of the room again. He yelled something to someone deeper in the house.

Not worrying about creaking floorboards now, Quinn shifted to get a better view through the keyhole. He saw Doyle lying in bed; his eyes were closed, muttering to himself. There was fresh blood on his pillow and sheets. Lots of it.

Quinn fought the urge to rush out to help him. That would get them both killed. He waited, but with Doyle’s condition, he couldn’t wait much longer.

Doyle picked up his head and laughed a soft, wet laugh. He was still laughing when Baker rushed back into the room carrying bandages and fresh towels. Baker threw his bundle on the bed and began tending to Archie’s wounds.

Quinn heard a gruff male voice from the living room. “Don’t bother, Sean. We’re just gonna plug him after we get the money, anyway.”

Baker kicked the bedroom door closed and went back to tearing towels into bandages. “Fucking idiots don’t listen to me. Nobody ever listens to me. They ignore me and I end up cleaning up the shit.”

Doyle was rocking his head back and forth in the pillows, laughing and muttering.

Baker threw down the makeshift bandages and screamed into Doyle’s face.“What the fuck are you laughing at? I’m trying to save your life, goddamn it!”

Doyle snapped out of it and grabbed his hands.

Quinn pushed the closet door open and was on Baker in two strides, pinning him against the wall by his throat. The traitor’s eyes bulged as Quinn slipped the .45’s barrel into his mouth.

Baker gurgled but didn’t move.

Quinn was surprised to see Archie had tossed aside his bed clothes and was looking over his own wounds.

“I thought you were out of it,” Quinn whispered.

“I heard you in the closet and started acting up to distract him,” Doyle said. He grabbed one of the bandages and tied it around a hole in his thigh.

“The little bastard drugged me after the wake and drove me up here. I’m pretty sure his friends outside already killed the three boys who drove up here with us.”

Quinn squeezed Baker’s throat. “This is how you repay him for everything he’s done for you, you miserable son of a bitch?”

Baker squirmed and gagged. His eyes wild and imploring as he struggled to breathe. Quinn warned, “I’m going to take the gun out of your mouth so you can tell me what we’re up against. If you scream, I’ll gut shoot you and leave you in the woods. Understand?”

Baker nodded. Quinn pulled the barrel out of his mouth and let Baker slide back to the floor. “I swear that it wasn’t supposed to happen like this,” Baker gasped. “It was supposed to be a simple snatch job is all. Just like Frank and Ira said. I was supposed to play along and babysit Archie while five guys came up and phoned in a ransom demand to you or Fatty. Next thing I know these clowns barge in with the rough stuff. They killed Archie’s three bodyguards at the foot of the driveway and headed up here to the house. They were still all hot over killing Rothman. One of them blows past me and heads straight in here to Archie’s room. I start screaming, ‘This ain’t part of the deal!’ but he don’t listen.”

“My fuckin’ hero,” Doyle said from bed. “Numb nuts here forgot to take my back up piece from the nightstand. I heard the gun shots at the end of the driveway and was hiding behind the bed when they kicked the door in.” He nodded toward the large red mess on the wall next to the door. “The best of him is still there. Got the fucker right between the eyes.” He looked down at his right thigh. “The other one caught me in the leg, though.”

Baker started weeping again. “I swear, Terry, I didn’t want this. I just needed the money and the respect...”

Quinn grabbed his throat again to shut him up. “Did you get a doctor?”

Baker nodded quickly, then pointed up at the ceiling. “All I could get was the vet that works on Archie’s horses sometimes. He’s the closest, just across the road. I tried to get him to work on Archie, but the other two made him work on their buddy first. He was dead before he hit the ground, but his brother’s the leader and he made the doc to keep working on him. Said he’d shoot him if he came downstairs and told him his brother was dead.”

Quinn did the math. One shot and two alive. That made three. “I thought it was a five man squad.”

Baker looked surprised. “I...I don’t know anything about that. All I know is that three showed up here.”

Two on two. Quinn He liked those odds even better. “Where are the last two?”

“The leader’s making a ransom call now. I think the other one’s in the kitchen. They’re both mean and wild and you won’t be able to get them both at once by yourself.” Baker managed a smile. “I...I can help you, see? Maybe give you a signal when it’s all right to hit them. I...I mean I already tried keeping Archie alive, see? I already tried to make up for it. I want to help anyway I can.”

Quinn grabbed Baker’s face and slammed him back against the wall. “Thanks, pal.”

He fired two shots into Baker’s belly and let the traitor sink slowly to the floor. A bloody slick trailed on the wallpaper as he sank to the floor.

Quinn went to Archie. He heard the kitchen door crash open. A shotgun blast. No return gunfire. Cain got the one in the kitchen.

One more to go.

He heard someone running down the hall from the living room. A single pistol shot. Another shotgun blast. One more shot. The roar of the shotgun. A thud against the wall, then the floor. Familiar footsteps came from the kitchen, marching up the hallway. Then a light rap on the bedroom door. “Everything okay, boss?” It was Jimmy Cain.