THUGLIT Issue One - [21]

“Night’s still young,” Otis called after him.

*****

Quinn’s fatigue returned as he walked to an all-night drugstore right around the corner and called Archie from the payphone in the back.

Archie came on the line quick, “How’d it go, kid?”

“I got the cash the swells were going to kick in for a share of the place. Two grand, just like Joey told us.”

“Good. Any bloodshed?”

“Not much, boss. You told me to go easy, so I did.”

Doyle didn’t sound convinced. “Terry…”

“I had to knock the Van Dorn brat around and I stopped Carmine from shooting Mimi. They’re banged up but alive, I promise.”

“What about that bastard Rizzo,” Doyle said. “Where’d you park his Plymouth?”

“Right across the street from the place, just like you wanted. I made sure I left the keys in the car for the cops to find.”

“Good. I’ll call our friend and tip him off about Joey’s body being in Carmine’s trunk.” Quinn knew their friend was Andrew Carmichael, Commissioner of the New York Police Department. “If they get there fast enough, maybe they’ll nab Carmine in Mimi’s place. The Van Dorn punk too. Give them back-stabbing bastards somethin’ to chew on.”

Quinn hadn’t slept in two whole nights and was too tired to care anymore. He had Archie’s money and that’s what mattered. “You know best, boss.”

“Goddamned right, kid,” Archie laughed. “Goddamned right. Now get some sleep. You earned it.”

Quinn hung up the phone and let Archie make his calls. He squeezed out of the phone booth and ordered a coffee from the counterman. It was late-night coffee-lukewarm and bitter-but it was better than no coffee at all. It had enough of a kick to keep him from falling asleep in the cab on the way home.

He played the whole thing out in his mind while he sipped his coffee. He had to hand it to Archie. They didn’t call him The Duke for nothing; he always knew just what to do. Once he found out about the skim, he had Quinn pick up Joey and lean on him until he cracked.

He’d thought Joey dying like that had complicated things, but not Archie. Once Joey spilled about the scheme to team up with Carmine Rizzo, Archie figured out a way to put Joey to work for him one last time. He’d prove more useful in death than he’d ever been in life.

He’d ordered someone to steal Carmine’s car from in front of Lady M’s dive and brought to him. Then he stuck Joe’s body in the trunk and drove the Plymouth back to where he’d found it-right in front of Lady M’s.

The result? Joey was dead. Carmine was going to jail for his murder and Mimi was put on notice. And Doyle gets his money back. Hell, Doyle had even gotten Howard Rothmann to sign off on the whole thing. Why not? It gave Chief Carmichael a chance to show the city he was a crime fighter after all. Score one for the good guys.

But Quinn had learned long ago that there were no good guys and bad guys in The Life. Just guys out to make a buck and guys who died trying.

Guys like Archie Doyle and men like Terry Quinn who worked for them.

He drained his coffee and paid his tab. He’d just gotten outside the coffee shop when he heard the sirens of the squad cars racing along 14th Street. He walked to the corner and saw the cops had already opened the trunk of Carmine Rizzo’s Plymouth. He saw Joey’s body was inside, just like Quinn had left it.

He watched another group of cops drag Mimi and Carmine into the street in handcuffs. The Van Dorn brat wobbled out last.

Mimi was wailing, this time for real. It took three cops to push Carmine into the back of the squad car. The Van Dorn punk just looked woozy and ridiculous. Handcuffs and tuxes went together just about as well as cops and dead men in trunks.

A couple of uniforms recognized Quinn and waved. Why not? He was on Doyle’s payroll, too. Just a friend, standing on the corner in the middle of the night. With a suitcase in his hand.

Quinn smiled and waved back. Then hailed a cab going the other way.

Spill Site by Matthew C. Funk

Big Dan got the bad news from Eric Delacey, his Service Manager, just as a knock hammered his front door. He lowered the cell-Delacey still booming on about the spill site-and shot a look across his living room. Rain hit hard enough to almost dent the windows. He hoped it would wash away whoever was knocking.

“So how bad is bad, Eric?”

“About as bad as it gets. Storm’s taken the waste right over our levees. Twenty years of dumping is pouring right for the lot.”

'For the lot' meant for Big Dan’s house, right next door. He blew air through his broke-veined nose to clear the pinch in his chest. It didn’t help. Neither did the knocking.

Big Dan considered switching his den light off. The knocker might get the message.

“EPA going to get involved in this?”

“You kidding me? We’ll be lucky if the showroom isn’t a swimming pool of ethylene glycol and sulfuric acid.”

Turning off the lamp turned the knocking into a slamming.

“So how do we contain this, Eric?”

Silence. For the hundredth time this year, Big Dan wondered why he bothered paying apes like Delacey. If he could run the Chevy dealership himself, they’d all be out on their dumb asses.