Prohibition

by Terrence McCauley

  Halloran recovered and began stomping at Quinn’s wounded side, his aim incredibly accurate. Pain exploded in Quinn’s side. The roar of his own blood rushing in his head drowned out his screams.

  Quinn refused to let himself black out. He reached back and fumbled with the door latch. It opened and he spilled out onto the ground.

  The freezing night air hurt his lungs, but it kept him from passing out.

  Halloran launched himself out of the car with a primordial scream; his face was a broken red mask of blood. Quinn brought up his knees into Halloran’s stomach and flipped the big man over him. The sudden added weight of Halloran’s bulk was like a spear going through his side. He cried out again and rolled on his side to dull the pain.

  Despite the agony, Quinn knew he had to get to his feet. He was weaker than he thought and fell to one knee. The blood from the new cuts from the glass trickled into his eyes, blinding him.

  Halloran connected with a roundhouse uppercut beneath the chin, sending Quinn back against the car. Quinn swung blindly at where he thought the cop should be, but hit nothing but air.

  He heard Halloran laughing. Quinn swung at the place where the sound came from, but missed again.

  Halloran belted him with a left cross to the jaw. “Got something in your eye, Precious?” He followed up with a right deep to the gut that brought Quinn to his knees.

  “I’ve gotta admit I was wrong, though,” Halloran chuckled. “I thought putting a bullet in your brain was going to feel good. But this? This is even better.”

  Quinn knew the bastard would beat him to death if he didn’t do something. He heard the dirt in front of him shift and he wondered if Halloran had just stepped closer.

  Quinn fired a straight jab that caught Halloran square in the balls.

  Halloran wheezed as he doubled over and staggered back. Quinn followed it up a blind uppercut that connected with Halloran’s nose or jaw. Quinn couldn’t see where it landed, but heard that crunch of bone meeting bone.

  Quinn fell back against the car and slid to the ground. He didn’t know if he’d knocked Halloran out, but he knew he’d hurt him. And if the big bastard came back after him, so be it. Quinn didn’t have enough left in the tank to fight him off.

  He hurt in too many places to care anymore. He welcomed the darkness that slowly enveloped him, taking away his pain.

  QUINN DIDN’T know how long he’d been out.

  He tried opening his eyes, but the blood from his head had caked over the eyelids. He could see just enough to know he wasn’t blind. He didn’t know if he’d been out for five seconds or five hours, but he knew it wasn’t dawn yet.

  He was still leaning against the car where he’d fallen. He used it to help him get to his feet. He felt along the car until he found the rear door. He went in the back seat and fumbled along the floor until he found Halloran’s flask. He opened it and poured the rest of the rum over his head. It stung like hell, but would kill off infection.

  He rubbed some of the rum over his eyelids and flaked off the blood. They still stung, but at least he could see.

  The first thing he saw was Big Jim Halloran’s dead eyes gazing up at him. His head lolled over to the side.

  From the looks of it, Quinn had hit him hard enough to send his nose up into his brain.

  Lucky shot for Quinn. Not so lucky for Halloran.

  Quinn rummaged through the dead cop’s pockets. He found Halloran’s cigarettes and lit one. He took the smoke deep into his lungs. The tobacco dulled Quinn’s many pains.

  Quinn knew he was worse off now than he’d been in the car ride out there.

  He flexed his stiffening hands. His knuckles scarred and bloodied. He didn’t think anything was broken, but they’d be sore as hell for at least a week. The hole in his side hurt like hell, but it hadn’t bled as much as Quinn had feared. The cuts on his head weren’t deep, but he’d probably need stitches. That meant a doctor. Even doctors on the payroll asked questions and he was in no position to give answers. Now he not only had Wallace still on the loose. He had a dead cop on his hands. A cop he’d killed.

  Quinn had done all of this to try to save Doyle’s empire. Now he realized that empire was beyond saving. Yes, Rothman and Sanders and Shapiro were dead but that didn’t help Archie. He was still alive and Wallace’s employers – whoever they were – would still want him gone. Younger, hungrier gangs – probably Sally Lucania and the other Italians - would rise to take Archie’s place. Pretty soon, they’d probably want their own mayor running things.

  No matter how Quinn cut it, The Doyle Era was over.

  Quinn thought about going back and wiping out Wallace, but figured the little shit had probably cleared out of his hotel room five minutes after Quinn and Halloran left.

  And Quinn had a dead cop at his feet. A crooked cop, sure, but still a cop.

  Quinn took a deep drag on his cigarette and looked down at Halloran’s corpse. Son of a bitch was just as much trouble dead as he’d been alive. Quinn knew Doherty might’ve been crooked, but he was at heart a decent man. He wouldn’t stop looking for his partner’s killer until he found him.

  Quinn flicked his cigarette into the Gowanus Canal. He was beginning to think he would’ve been better off letting Halloran put a bullet in his brain and dumping him in the canal. In many ways, Halloran was better off than he was.

  And that’s when it hit him.

  What if Halloran had killed him after all?

  Quinn remembered Halloran talking about the satchel in the car and having enough money to blow town with. Quinn went back to the car and opened it, finding about ten grand in cash and the five hundred dollars in the white envelope Wallace had thrown him.

  Quinn hated to admit it, but Halloran was right. It was enough for a new start.

  Quinn went back to Halloran’s body and emptied the pockets on the ground. He found Halloran’s badge, police identification card, drivers’ license and house keys. He flicked on the headlights of the car and picked up the police identification card. Halloran’s ugly mug stared back at him.

  Thin lips. Lantern jaw. Ugly bastard.

  Just like Quinn.

  Sure, Quinn was thirty pounds lighter and a bit taller than Halloran, but the resemblance was close enough.

  Quinn put his own wallet and license in Halloran’s jacket pocket.

  He searched the warehouse yard and found a length of thick rope and an old hunk of metal that looked like it had been part of an anchor at one time.

  Quinn smiled. His luck was starting to change.

  He tied one end of the rope around the piece of anchor. He tied the other end around Halloran’s ankle. He pushed the anchor over the side and watched it pull Halloran’s body down with it.

  The Gowanus Canal had been a cesspool since the 1880s and had almost fifty years of sewage, garbage and debris floating through it. It was a safe bet no one would come out to check up on Halloran’s work. Even if they did, the muck in the water went to work on a body almost immediately.

  All anyone would find would be Quinn’s identification in the pockets of a rotting corpse.

  Quinn pocketed Halloran’s badge and ID. He found his black fedora on the floor of the front seat and put it on.

  The day before, Terry Quinn had been made the boss of New York.

  Today, he became James Halloran. Detective, New York Police Department.

  What a difference a day makes.

  Quinn knew Wallace might want to tie up loose ends by killing Halloran. The key word there was might. Wallace and every cop in the NYPD would be out to get Terry Quinn. Becoming Halloran wasn’t perfect, but nothing in Quinn’s life ever was.

  Quinn knew if he was going to survive, he’d have to get out of town.

  Fast.

  He tossed the satchel on the passenger seat next to him and started up the car. With Halloran’s stash, plus the money he’d stashed in his safe and everything else he’d saved up over the years, he’d be blowing town with a good chunk of change. More than
most people made in a couple of years.

  Not bad for a fugitive ex-boxer with no brains to speak of. A man could live a long time on a bankroll like that if he was careful. And Quinn had always thought of himself as a careful man.

  Quinn started the engine and put the car in gear.

  He thought about swinging by Alice’s place and asking her to come along. She’d blamed Doyle for all of their problems. Now that he was on his own, maybe they could have a chance. She’d sure make life on the run a lot easier to take.

  But he knew a girl like her would slow him down and make it harder for him to blend in. He’d have a tough enough time doing that on his own twilight. without her tagging along.

  He wouldn’t admit he loved her too much to put her in that much danger. He didn’t dare.

  Maybe in a year or so he’d send for her. She might even come.

  As Quinn drove over the Brooklyn Bridge, he caught an eyeful of lower Manhattan. The tall buildings looked regal against the brightening darkness of the late night, early morning sky. It was twilight time again.

  Magic time.

  His time.

  Quinn gunned the engine and sped across the deserted bridge, into the twilight.

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Available now from Polis Books

  New York City – Present Day

  THE MAN who called himself James Hicks checked his watch when he reached the corner of Forty-second and Lexington. It was just past eleven in the morning; more than an hour before he was scheduled to ruin a man’s life.

  And plenty of time to smoke a cigar.

  He braced against a sharp wind as he crossed Forty-second Street. A cold humidity had settled in over Manhattan and the weather reports had done a great job of whipping everyone into a frenzy over the coming storm. TV stations and websites hawked it as ‘The Big One’ and ‘Snowmageddon’ and the ever popular ‘Snowpacalypse.’ The experts were predicting over two feet of snow with high winds and freezing temperatures for the next few days. It was too early to call it the Storm of the Century, of course, but that didn’t keep the media from building it up that way.

  Based on the data Hicks had been able to draw from the University’s OMNI satellite array, he predicted the snow would be about a foot; with wind and ice being more problematic than the snow itself. He could remember a time not too long ago when New York would barely notice eight inches of snow, but panic was en vogue these days. Welcome to the post-9/11 world where preparation was paramount.

  He understood why meteorologists exaggerated snowfall predictions. They were covering their asses against being wrong. If it was a little more, then they were close enough to claim accuracy. If the snowfall was a little less, at least it wasn’t as bad as everyone had feared. Accountability took a backseat to relief and everyone went on with their lives. Either way, the weather folks had covered their respective asses.

  Hicks hadn’t worried about covering his ass in a long time. He didn’t need to. Because in his line of work, small mistakes were forgotten and big mistakes got you killed. Such harsh, immutable constants brought a certain resignation to Hicks’ life that he found almost peaceful. Danger can be a comfort as long as you know it’s there.

  Hicks headed for the concrete ashtrays placed in the alcove of the Altria Building across from Grand Central Terminal. There were a few cigar stores in the area where he could smoke indoors in warm comfort; maybe stir up some conversation with his fellow smokers on such a cold and blustery day.

  But Hicks didn’t want comfortable and he sure as hell didn’t want conversation. He was working and needed the cold air to keep him sharp, especially before rolling up on a new Asset in less than an hour.

  He stood out of the wind in the alcove of the Altria building and lit his cigar. It wasn’t a cheap cigar, but far from the most expensive stick on the market. There was a time for savoring good tobacco and now wasn’t it. Today, the cigar was merely a tool to help him stay focused and calm while killing time before his appointment. Because although Hicks had flipped hundreds of people from being regular civilians into Assets for the University, he still believed that changing a man’s life forever deserved some pause.

  Most of Hicks’ colleagues didn’t give much thought about the Assets they forced into the University system. They focused their efforts on researching the right prospect to turn; digging deep into the person’s past for that one knife they could hold to their throat to make them comply. Past offenses and indiscretions they didn’t want to see come to light. Current mistakes that could get them fired or ruin their marriage. Hicks’ colleagues ran checks and analyses on a potential Asset’s personality profile to make sure he or she could stand up to the passive pressures of the University’s constant influence in their lives. If they passed all the OMNI simulations, then an Asset was approached, broken, and put to work. If an Asset cracked and killed himself or had to be eliminated, then OMNI was simply directed to change parameters to account for the shortcomings in the analysis model. It was all as simple—and inhumane—as that.

  OMNI was the University’s Optimized Mechanical and Network Integration protocol. The name was a relic of the group’s past and had been around almost since the University’s beginning. It was a term that had long since been outdated, but had managed to remain in use. When new hires asked details on which network, they were told ‘All of them.’ They soon saw the powerful reach of OMNI for themselves.

  But Hicks had been running Assets long enough to know human beings never fit neatly into a computer program, no matter how advanced it was. Turning an Asset was like adopting a stray dog or a blind cat. They were being brought into an established environment and made to go against their own nature for your own benefit. The pet owner expected companionship and affection. The pet was expected to respond in kind or catch a rolled up newspaper in the nose.

  Assets were expected to provide the University with information or access or options it needed at the time, but didn’t have. If the Asset played along and did what was asked of him, he made out well. If he refused or got cute, they got the University’s equivalent of a newspaper in the nose: a bullet in the brain.

  From the shelter of the high alcove, Hicks checked the clock high above the façade of Grand Central across the street. The clock was; flanked by the stone images of a strident Mercury, a sitting Minerva and a lounging Hercules. The gods of speed and industry and commerce all concerned about time. Just like everyone else. Hicks found it a refreshing scene. Not even the gods were free of mortal troubles.

  And in about forty-five minutes, Hicks would attempt to enroll a money man named Vincent Russo into the University system.

  Hicks took a good draw on the cigar and let the smoke slowly escape through his nose. The frigid wind caught it and blew it across Forty-second Street. The streets were empty thanks to the impending storm, so there was no one around to complain about the stray smoke.

  He wondered what Vincent Russo was doing just then. He could’ve pulled out his handheld device and used OMNI to hack the security cameras Russo had installed in his to watch his office, but there was no need. He knew Russo was a creature of habit. At this time of day, he was probably working away as diligently as he always did; verbally glad-handing clients over the phone about the status of their investments; convincing him that the fund he was buying them was a steal at the current price.

  He probably rolled his eyes when he looked at his calendar and saw his twelve o’clock appointment with a prospective client. The new one with the name he didn’t recognize. He might even think about postponing it, but realize it was already too late for that. Then he’d remember the statement that Hicks had sent him; the one detailing five million dollars he was looking to invest with Russo’s firm. Greed would get the better of him as greed tended to do and he’d keep the appointment.

  Greed had made Russo vulnerable to blackmail in the first place. And greed was going to be the reason why Hicks enrolled him in the University.

  Hicks d
idn’t feel sympathy for people like Russo or for any of the men and women he’d turned into Assets over the years. They’d all done things that had opened themselves to University pressure. Any dirt he had on them was their own fault. He’d sooner have sympathy for the devil himself than for any of his targets.

  Still, becoming an Asset changed ones life and no matter how much they deserved it, the transition deserved at least some commemoration; hence the cigar.

  Hicks was about half way through his smoke when a homeless man trudged into the alcove. He was pushing a creaky shopping cart as he escaped the wind of the coming storm. Given the man’s weathered appearance, Hicks couldn’t tell how old the man was except to see he was black and had a shaggy beard streaked with white and gray. His layers of tattered clothes looked liked they kept him reasonably warm and his cart was overflowing with plastic bags filled with other people’s garbage. They were the things people discarded, but this man found valuable.

  Hicks could relate to such things. He decided he liked this man already.

  He watched the man push the cart into the far corner of the alcove. Hicks was ready to shake him off if he asked for money or a cigarette, but the man surprised him by saying, “Hey, mister. You trustworthy?”

  Hicks hadn’t been asked such a direct question like that in a very long time. “As far as it goes, I guess. Why?”

  “Because you look like a trustworthy man to me,” the homeless man said. “The kind of man I could leave my things with and find them here when I get back.”

  Hicks looked back at the cart overflowing with garbage, then at the man. “Why? Late for a board meeting?”

  “Nope,” the man said. “Just got to find a bathroom is all, and I need someone who can watch my stuff while I’m busy.” He looked at Hicks’ cigar. “Looks like you’ll be here a while, and I promise I’ll be back way before you’re done smoking that thing.”

  Hicks admitted he was curious. “Why so particular? I mean, why don’t you just…”