Prohibition (29 page)

T
HE DOORMAN
at the Plaza was into Fatty Corcoran for five bills. Quinn told him the debt was forgiven if he told him where Wallace lived. The doorman kicked loose in record time: Suite 1001 but Wallace always had a guard posted in the hall outside.

Quinn had seen the bodyguard. He wasn’t worried.

Still, it paid to be safe. Quinn had the elevator boy take him up to the eleventh floor, then he walked down one flight of stairs to the tenth floor. Quinn drew his .45 and paused at the door on the tenth floor. He listened for voices, footfalls, anything. Nothing.

Quinn eased the door open slow. He was lucky it didn’t creak or make any noise. He took a long, slow look down the hallway.

The same stocky longshoreman Wallace had brought with him to the Lounge. He was sound asleep in front of a pair of white double doors at the end of the hallway. Wallace’s suite: 1001. An empty tray of food was on the floor at his feet. An open newspaper at his side.

Quinn liked double doors. They popped right open if you hit them hard enough.

He had an idea.

Quinn stepped into the hallway and let the door close behind him with a quiet click. He kept his gun down as moved toward the sleeping guard. As he got closer, Quinn saw the ‘Please, Do Not Disturb’ sign dangling from the brass doorknob of the double doors.

Someone was about to be very disappointed.

Quinn dropped the .45 into his overcoat pocket. He backhanded the sleeping man off the chair. Quinn picked him up off the floor and drove his knee into his stomach twice. He grabbed him by the back of the pants and collar and whipped him around, throwing him through the middle of the double doors. They splintered wide open.

Quinn pulled his gun from his pocket as he walked through the shattered doorway. He walked on the unconscious bodyguard and into the entrance hall of the suite.

Simon Wallace was on a bed with red silk sheets and pillows. He had two naked black girls with him. Thy looked a few years shy of eighteen. They were screaming as they tumbled off the bed onto the floor together, holding each other to hide their nakedness.

Wallace glared out at Quinn from the bed; the red silk sheet barely covered his pale, thin body. His brown hair was mussed. His face was flushed. He looked nothing like the powered, coifed dude who had strode into the Lounge a few days before.

Quinn knew hate when he saw it. He was seeing it now.

Quinn pointed the gun right at him. “Hope I didn’t interrupt anything.”

Wallace didn’t say a word. His dark little eyes quivered beneath his brow.

Then he threw his head back and laughed a long, deep belly laugh not unlike the laugh Rothman had given in Doyle’s office. But this laugh was deep and genuine.

At least it made the black girls on the floor stop screaming.

Wallace laughed until he collapsed back into the sea of red pillows. He clapped his hands like a fat kid at a birthday party. Except Wallace was neither fat or a kid.

“Bravo, Terry Quinn, bravo, ” Wallace wiped the tears from his eyes. “You really have exceeded all of my expectations.” He motioned down at the two naked black girls on the floor. “This doesn’t involve them, does it?”

The girls looked up at Quinn hopefully. Quinn said, “Get going.”

The girls grabbed up whatever clothes they could find on the floor and

pressed it to themselves as they ran from the room. Quinn didn’t watch them go. He kept his gun and his eyes on Wallace instead.

“You’re sense of timing is really extraordinary,” Wallace sighed. “You barged in here just as things were beginning to get interesting.”

Quinn didn’t care about his love life. “Why did you help Sanders kill Archie Doyle and Howard Rothman?”

Wallace laughed again. “Enough of the small talk, eh? Ah, poor, poor boy. A guard dog that’s lost its master is the saddest canine of all. You know, if you weren’t pointing that gun at my head, I might be inclined to pity you.”

“Stick pity up your ass. Why did you help Sanders and Shapiro kill Doyle and Rothman?”

“I haven’t helped anyone kill anyone. They did it all themselves. All I did was push them in the right direction. I was their muse, if you will.”

He slowly stretched for a large gold cigarette box on his nightstand. Quinn fired. The box disintegrated, sending cigarettes everywhere.

Wallace yanked back his hand and pinned himself back against the headboard. “For Christ’s sake! I was just getting a cigarette!”

Cigarettes from the box had scattered all over the floor and the sheets. “Answer my question or you catch the next one in the belly.”

“Of course,” Wallace threw up his hands. “You’re cross. And why shouldn’t you be? After all, Archie Doyle is dead and that’s put you in a bad mood.”

“I’m getting real tired of asking this. Why did...”

Wallace surprised him by actually interrupting him. “This is your biggest failing,

Terry. Your inflexibility. It’s what drove poor Sean Baker away you know. He never thought anything he did was good enough for you or Archie. He looked up to you, you know. Much the way I believe Johnny looked up to Ira. Both so young and eager to please, but slow to think. And so easy to turn.”

Quinn fired a round into the headboard about an inch away from Wallace’s skull.

Wallace flinched, but not like before. “I wouldn’t do that again if I were you. I might panic and do something stupid, like lunge at your gun.” He folded his arms across his pale, bare chest. “You’d kill me, of course, but then you’d never get an answer to that one precious question that’s been gnawing at you: my involvement in this tawdry melodrama of yours.”

Quinn didn’t know how to handle Wallace. Most guys he went up against either fought back or cowered. Wallace did neither. He just threw words at him. “So?” Quinn said. “Start talking.”

“And miss witnessing such a rare occurrence of your powers of deductive reasoning being brought to bear?” Wallace shook his head. “I’ve rather enjoyed your transformation from button man to detective. I’d like to see how far you got. You go first.”

“You’re in no position to bargain.”

“And neither are you,” Wallace laced his fingers behind his head. “Now, give me your idea of what happened or I keep my mouth shut.”

Quinn didn’t like following Wallace’s lead. But the little bastard was right. He had to know where Wallace fit into all of this. He had to know how far the rot went so he could cut it out.

“Sanders and Shapiro wanted to take over, so they hired you to help them do it. You arranged Fatty getting shot by Zito and helped them hire those Kansas City chopper squads to hit Archie and Rothman. Ira was closer to Rothman every day than Sanders was to Archie, so you flipped Baker to turn traitor. Sanders and Shapiro take over and everyone lives happily ever after.”

Wallace shook his head in admiration. “You pieced together more than I thought you would. Sanders underestimated you and so did Shapiro. I made the mistake of listening to them.” He smiled. “I probably should’ve killed you first.”

“I wish you’d tried.”

“There’s only one thing wrong with your hypothesis. You believe that I worked for Shapiro and Sanders. Not so. They worked for me.”

Quinn’s eyes narrowed. That didn’t make sense. “What?”

“Of course. I have lots of people who work for me in New York City. Shapiro, Sanders, Baker. Even Detective James Halloran of the New York Police Department. Or Big Jim as you call him. He’s one of my best employees.” He looked over Quinn’s right shoulder. “Isn’t that right, Jim?”

Quinn felt the cold gun metal press into the back of his neck.

“You always liked to run your mouth too much,” Halloran said. “Now toss the heater on the bed. Do it nice and slow.”

Quinn did what he was told. The steel moved away from his neck and he turned enough to get a look at Halloran. Unfortunately, he looked reasonably sober. Sober enough to level a .38 at Quinn’s stomach and smart enough to back far enough away so Quinn couldn’t make a play for the gun.

Quinn offered the smirk he reserved only for him. “You’ve got your hands in a lot of pockets, Halloran. I didn’t think you were that smart.”

“Me and Mr. Wallace have known each other a couple of years now,” the big cop said. “I damned near busted a gut when Doherty had me trail him when he left the Lounge. Follow him? Hell, I drove him home.”

“Detective Halloran has been a great help to my organization,” Wallace said as he slipped out of bed and into a silk smoking jacket. “But given what I’ve learned about you tonight, Terry, I’d like to give you a chance to join my organization. Of course, I’d like to discuss that with Mr. Shaprio and Mr. Sanders first.”

“I’d like you to discuss it with them, too. They’re both dead.”

Wallace stopped tying the belt of his smoking jacket in mid-motion.

“You’re lying.”

“Nope. Sanders said he had Ira snuffed in the hospital about an hour ago. And I had Zito take care of Sanders in the Garden just before I came here. Carved that bastard open like a Christmas goose.”

Wallace looked at Halloran, then back at Quinn before laughter bent him in half. Halloran laughed, too.

Wallace sat back on the edge of the bed and caught his breath. “Good God, man. It’s like something out of a horrible opera. A farce, for God’s sake. Why, had we known you were this thorough, my people would have given you the job instead of Sanders. You’ve set our plans ahead by months, years, my boy!”

“We?” Quinn kept his hands up. “Who’s we?”

Wallace finished tying the belt of his smoking jacket around his narrow waist. “I’m not foolish enough to get into specifics with you, but I’ll let you in on an open secret. Men like Rothman, Doyle and others like them all over the country have held sway over most illegal activity for over a decade now. Gambling, liquor, prostitution and narcotics have been regionally controlled by a relatively small number of men for far too long. There are forces coming to power who want the criminal element to organize itself in a more efficient, national manner.”

“Bullshit. Doyle already has his hooks into mobs all over the country.”

“Yes, but power held by one man can lead to greater problems,” Wallace reminded. “Look at what happened in Chicago under Capone. Then look at how quickly things quieted down once Capone was removed. With disbursed organization comes less chaos, which leads to less public outcry, which leads to less government interference which ultimately leads to greater profits. Doyle had become too complacent and Rothman had over extended his power, especially with the legislature in Albany. We knew neither Doyle nor Rothman would go quietly and a nasty street war would ensue. As we sought to avoid that at all costs, we used Shapiro and Sanders to move them out for us. Change is often painful, Terry, but necessary. I’m sure you understand.”

None of this made much sense to Quinn. “Who’s this ‘we’ you keep talking about? Who do you work for?”

“A consortium of interests who have grown tired of the Rothman/Doyle monopoly and who’ve grown fearful of Doyle’s plans to influence national politics.”

“Like Archie getting Al Smith to run for president.”

“It’s a ridiculous notion, but it served as the spark that lit Sanders’ treasonous fire weeks ago. I just fanned the flames to my own advantage. And now that Doyle, Rothman, Shapiro and Sanders are all dead, my allies can assume control much quicker than they planned.” Wallace saluted Quinn. “I have your meddling to thank for that.”

“I’m not going to ask you again. Who do you work for?”

“What difference does it make? As you’ll be dead soon, telling you would be harmless enough, but I’m afraid Detective Halloran isn’t as discreet as you.”

“You better hope he’s as good as you think he is. If he’s not, I’m coming back here and kill you.”

“He’s good enough.”

Wallace went to the nightstand, took a large envelope out of the drawer and tossed it over to a chair near Halloran. “There’s your payment in advance. I suppose just killing him here would be awkward?”

The cop shrugged. “It’d be a hell of a lot easier to shoot him and leave him here after you clear out if you don’t care about him being found.”

Wallace sighed. “Unfortunately, I do care about him being found. If he’s dead too, it’ll all look too neat. Too planned. People may ask questions and there’ll be enough of that as it is. Where do you usually dispose of problems like this?”

“I got a couple of places,” Halloran answered.

“I’m sure you do. On your way then and make sure it’s painless if you can,” Wallace cautioned him. “I’m sure you and Mr. Quinn have had your differences in the past, but I think he deserves a little professional courtesy – from one mercenary soul to another.”

“Sure. Let’s go, Quinn, and keep them arms up. No funny business.”

Halloran trailed a good distance behind Quinn with the gun still aimed at his midsection. Quinn stepped over the bodyguard who was still lying among the splinters of what used to be the door. Wallace walked them out, “I’m sorry things didn’t turn out better for us, Terry. Perhaps we’ll meet again in another life.”

Quinn kept moving. “That might be sooner than you think.”

The little man saluted him and disappeared back into the suite. Halloran jerked the gun toward him. “Let’s go, hooch punk. And forget the elevator. You might get too frisky in a small space and do something stupid. We’ll take the stairs all the way down, nice and easy. Then we’re going to do a little sightseeing.”