AHMM, December 2006

by Dell Magazine Authors

  "You've got guts, Mr...."

  "Knight."

  "I think your stomach's doing handsprings, but you're cool enough to pull it off. I respect that."

  "I need more than your respect."

  He leaned back in his chair.

  "You're wrong, Mr. Knight. Your priest is no concern to me."

  "I wish I could believe that."

  "I wouldn't question my word if I were you, Mr. Knight. I had no part in the shooting."

  I had no words.

  "You want proof, Mr. Knight. I'll give you all you're going to get. First, I wouldn't shoot a priest. I'm enough of an Irish Catholic to draw the line. Second..."

  He stood up.

  "And you better take this to heart. If I had done it, your priest would be dead."

  He started toward the door.

  "Our business is finished, Mr. Knight."

  As he reached the door, I made one last move.

  "I don't suppose you'd tell me what business you have with Seamus Quinn?"

  He looked at me with those fish eyes. The smile was gone.

  "You'll live a lot longer if you don't ask."

  For once in my life, I chose discretion. I didn't ask. But I couldn't help wondering how close to home Billy Coyne's rumor was about Quinn's being a collection point for donations to the IRA.

  That triggered another chain of thought. I paid another call on Fin Feeney after calling to be sure Quinn was out of the office. I asked Fin if Quinn had had him fix fights before. He admitted to four previous fixes at the same fight club.

  "When exactly?"

  "He had me set up a fix at the end of the month the last five months."

  "Did the fixes come off?"

  "Clean as could be. Those bums know enough not to mess with Mr. Quinn."

  * * * *

  Quinn was back in his office at the Shamrock Bar at five o'clock that night. I was there at five minutes past five for what I called private business. I must have looked harmless because he sent the side-of-beef bodyguard out to the bar. I closed the door and introduced myself with all the deference I could stomach.

  My first move in establishing our new friendship was to hand him a cigar. He recognized it as expensive, and it was. I considered it an investment. He put it in his teeth, and I flipped him my best lighter, which he caught like a shortstop.

  "You're pretty good for a lefty, Mr. Quinn."

  "Ah, I could've played pro ball. That was a few years and a couple'a pounds ago. So what do you want, Knight?"

  "You heard about Father Flaherty."

  "Yeah, too bad."

  "You're a man who knows things. Any idea who did it?"

  He took a long puff on the cigar.

  "Naw. That's too bad he couldn't identify the shooter. We may never know."

  I gave him my best enigmatic smile.

  "We'll see. I've got a lead. I'll know by eight o'clock tonight. I may need you to confirm some information."

  I had his full attention. He was massaging the cigar between his lips and fingers.

  "Who you talkin’ about?"

  "Irishman.They call him Stone."

  He was working the cigar over pretty good now. If I was right, he saw a chance to solve two immediate problems. There was a definite glint in his eye.

  "What makes you think so?"

  "I think he lost a lot of money on the fight. I don't think he took it well."

  He was trying to suppress a grin.

  "Yeah, that's right. He seemed real upset that night. Said something about getting even with the kid's manager."

  "I think we're thinking the same way, Mr. Quinn. I'll be back at quarter of eight tonight. Will you be here?"

  "Sure. Anything to help Father Flaherty."

  * * * *

  I had an idea where this thing could be going with the right pressure here and there. I went back to the office and laid out the plan, such as it was, to Mr. Devlin. He made the usual objections to my putting my neck on a chopping block, but on assurances that I'd take the cowardly approach at every opportunity, he agreed to play.

  Most importantly, Mr. D. explained what we needed to Billy Coyne. After dangling a prize plum in front of his nose, Mr. D. got Billy on board. The game was on.

  My next move was to leave a note with the manager of Molly Maguire's Restaurant for Stone. It was cryptic.

  "Be at the Shamrock Bar tonight at eight. I'll have the package ready for you."

  I signed it, “Seamus Quinn."

  * * * *

  At ten minutes of eight, I walked into Quinn's office and closed the door. This time, the gloves were off.

  "I've got a deal for you, Quinn. It's a one-time offer."

  He gave me a what-have-we-here look. “An offer of what?"

  "Your life. The fact is, you shot Father Flaherty."

  "The h—"

  "Let's not waste each other's time, Quinn. He was shot by a left-handed gunman from directly behind. The track of one of the bullets went from his left kidney to his right rib. You're the only lefty in the picture."

  "That don't..."

  "You also knew he couldn't identify the shooter. It was never made public that he was shot in the back. Time's running out. You've got three minutes to choose between life and death."

  "What're you talkin’ about?"

  "You've got two doors in this place. One of them's right behind you out to the back alley. Assistant District Attorney Coyne and some FBI agents are out there ready to take you into protective custody. So far, you're facing aggravated assault and battery and attempted murder. You'll do time, but it'll be a lot less and under safer conditions if you give the right information. Time's getting short. If it becomes murder, the deal's off."

  He hunkered back behind the cigar and forced a grin.

  "Just curiosity. What do they want from me?"

  "They want the names of all of the people around here who've been financing the terrorists in the Irish Republican Army. Those are the people you collect money from every month to hand over to couriers like Stone. Those names are your stock-in-trade with the district attorney."

  The grin got wider. I knew it would take more than a bluff to stampede him into the arms of the FBI. He stood up and looked me square in the eye.

  "You got nothin', ya bum. Get out of my office."

  It was time to play my last ace.

  "Then there's this other door, Quinn."

  I opened the door that led into the bar. The timing could not have been better. It was eight o'clock sharp. Stone had just come into the bar. He'd stopped for a shot of Jameson on the way back to Quinn's office.

  "There's your alternative, Quinn. Stone's here to collect the IRA money. But you don't have it, do you? Funny coincidence. For the past five months you've fixed a fight just at the time you had the month's collection for the IRA ready to be picked up by a man from Ireland. My guess is you used the money to bet on a fight you fixed, take the profits, and still have the collection ready for the pick-up man. This time it backfired. You lost the money on Tony Amato's fight."

  The grin was gone. I could see him make eye contact with Stone at the bar.

  "I don't know, Quinn. Maybe Stone's the soft, understanding type. Maybe he'll overlook the games you've been playing with IRA money."

  Gleaming sweat was now beading on his long forehead.

  "Those are the choices, Quinn. You live as a witness by walking through that back door, or..."

  I looked over my shoulder at Stone and gave a shudder for effect.

  Quinn was breathing double time when I turned and walked into the bar. I stood beside Stone long enough to sketch out the game Quinn had been playing each month in betting the IRA collection on a fixed fight and keeping the profits. The punchline was that this time he'd lost the money on the Amato fight that Stone was to take back to Ireland. The look in those cold fish eyes told me that Stone might not be soft or understanding.

  I think Quinn read the same message in Stone's eyes as he walked back
toward Quinn's office. I saw one look of abject terror spread across Quinn's face before he grabbed the handle of the back door behind him. Beyond Stone's massive torso, I could just see Quinn's fat but agile body burst through the back door. He practically jumped into the hands of the waiting Billy Coyne.

  * * * *

  I got over to Saint Elizabeth's Hospital the next morning about ten. The good news was that Father Flaherty had graduated from intensive care to a private room. With the shooter, Quinn, neutralized, there was no more need to keep him under the watchful eye of Tom Burns.

  Billy Coyne had been true to his word about Tony Amato. When I came in, I saw Tony standing beside the bed. Mr. Devlin and Billy Coyne had been there since eight o'clock. They were about to leave. I just wanted to stay long enough to see Father Flaherty looking more like the boxer I saw in the ring.

  Father Flaherty waved me over to the bed and took hold of my hand. His voice was not up to fighting strength, but it sounded good to me.

  "I understand you went the distance for me, son. How do I ever pay you back?"

  "Ah, my rates are steep, Father. I'll take nothing less than another of Mrs. O'Shaughnessy's corned beef and cabbage dinners."

  He laughed and it was good to see it.

  "You'll have it, son. And many more I hope."

  A nurse came in to remind us that the man in the bed had been shot three days ago. The hint was taken. Billy and Mr. D. and I took our leave.

  Father Flaherty asked Tony to stay a bit. The Irish tint was coming back in his cheeks. I could sense a return of the old intensity as we left them discussing the rematch a month from Friday between Hector Gallo and Tony Amato, the next middleweight champion of the world.

  Copyright (c) 2006 John F. Dobbyn

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  FALSE KEYS by R.T. Lawton

  "Fool,” cried Mother Margaux. The sound of her voice was soon followed by the resounding smack of flesh on flesh.

  Pressing one hand to my sore ear, I walked slowly back into the darkness at the rear of the line to try once more for my supper. In the beginning, it had been easy to believe the ringing pain in my head derived from the clumsiness of my own fingers, as our teacher so often claimed. But lately I much preferred to lay blame directly upon the mercurial temper of Mother Margaux herself. She had grown more prone to sudden acts of violence since the imprisonment of the Bookkeeper a fortnight ago, when he fell afoul of Louis XIV's provost.

  Of course, her flare-ups weren't the only ones. Tempers had also sparked among other adults in our little community these last several days. Frustration, it seemed, was not an easy mistress to embrace for long.

  With a self curse for the low rumble in my belly and a lesser one for the erring way of my hands, I vowed to do better on the next attempt. I stepped forward as the line moved, and that's when I first noticed the stranger watching us from the opposite edge of the firelight. He stood motionless, wrapped in a dark cloak with a hood to shadow his face, while the lower half of the heavy cloth outlined the length of a sword at his hip. But even with his hidden face and dangerous weapon, I knew he didn't belong up here on the Buttes-Chaumont, where the hierarchy of the Parisian underworld held nightly court in an abandoned villa.

  Our hill, half hollowed out by underground stone quarries dating back to the time of the Romans, had long served as the refuse dump of generations—a dumping ground for both garbage and human castaways. Nothing in these fallen ruins on our hill should have been of interest to this stranger. And yet, the man seemed to be intently studying each of us young ragamuffins in Mother Margaux's training school as if he might have a future use for someone with our sleight-of-hand talents.

  "Get up here,” rasped the old woman's voice to the next in line.

  One student at a time, we approached a wobbly three-legged stool set next to a straw-stuffed dummy hanging from an archway in the villa. Close beside this life-sized scarecrow hovered the dirt-streaked face of our grayhaired teacher as she barked instructions and harsh encouragement to the next student who tried his luck. Reward for those who managed to silently relieve the suspended scarecrow of its leather purse, while balancing precariously on the lopsided stool, was a crust of bread for supper.

  But Mother Margaux did not easily suffer failure from her children, as she called us. For those students who rang even one of the small bells sewn onto the clothes of that hated dummy, Mother Margaux quickly dealt a ringing buffet to the side of the culprit's head. And thereafter, the stomach of that student remained empty until his fingers learned to become light and stealthy. My third attempt tonight was successful. Now at least I had a piece of hard bread to help me forget my aching ears.

  Food in hand, I looked for the stranger again, but he had moved on. Only the receding outline of his hooded cloak against the light of a nearby campfire told me the direction of his travel. Out of curiosity, I followed close enough to track his progress. This stranger wore the rich clothes of nobility, and for us to have any nobleman appear in our court of outcasts was an unheard-of rarity.

  Seemingly unbothered by the flow of dark humanity moving back and forth, my nobleman threaded his way through the mass of thieves, robbers, beggars, and trollops. He walked sure of foot across the broken ground, even though the only light to silhouette larger stones and the low garden walls came from a number of small campfires scattered about in the fallen rubble. The path he chose took him to the edge of the main bonfire in our encampment. Here he stopped in a small open space on the fringe of the crowd.

  On the far side of these high yellow flames sat our very own Jules, a lean man with a hungry face. Master of all upon our hill, Jules sat lightly in a padded, high-backed chair of a more elegant era, except now the ragged, white-stuffing insides protruded through long tears in the rich upholstery. Flanking both sides of his chair stood a bodyguard of assassins, rough and hard faced. Surely, the noble stranger I followed had no idea of the world into which he had descended.

  I stealthily moved up to within a mere arm's length beside the nobleman, my intended target, and there we stood for several minutes. At this range, I more closely observed his face as he glanced at his surroundings. His complexion was smooth, and he had a long, waxed mustache beneath a prominent Gallic nose. But it was his dark, almost black, flashing eyes that drew my attention. He appeared to be observing something of great interest on Jules's side of the fire.

  In the meantime, I wondered how I might put my newfound skills to good use. If only my victim's cloak weren't in the way of his pockets and purse.

  Eventually, he made to move off, but a slender hand reached out in front of me and tugged on his elbow.

  "What do you wish here?” inquired a soft female voice.

  I had been so intent on the stranger that I failed to notice Josette, Mother Margaux's sometime assistant, standing in the crowd. This young woman was one of Mother's best graduates and would surely relieve my nobleman of his purse long before I made my play. The most I could hope for now was to watch her work and possibly learn some of the finer subtleties of our craft.

  My target turned to look at the source of the female voice, and I'm sure he saw Josette as I did. In the flickering firelight, Josette's face was clean and as yet unlined with the wear of daily living. Her countenance gleamed fair and pleasing, her long black hair hanging loose around her face and shoulders.

  The nobleman cocked his head slightly.

  "I beg your pardon."

  "I asked what it is you wished to find here,” she repeated.

  He smiled and made a short bow.

  "Acceptance,” was his reply.

  She appeared to study him for a moment before speaking again. “Wait until the king has finished his yearly proclamation."

  "King? What does our self-declared Sun King have to do with this mob?"

  "Not the king of France, monsieur.” She pointed at the chair facing the other side of the flames. “I speak of Jules, who has crowned himself king of the Paris underworld. Wait until h
e has spoken; perhaps then you will learn how to find the acceptance you seek."

  "And what will your King Jules have to say that will be of interest to me?"

  "Tonight is the night for tithing."

  "Tithing? Have I come to a church by mistake?"

  "No monsieur.” She grinned back at him. “But all who bide here pay one-tenth of their earnings to Jules. It is his law. And for that, you receive his blessing."

  The stranger grunted. “I've been blessed by the pope himself for less than that."

  "The fine clothes on your back, monsieur, say that you are not one of us. Yet all who live here must pay, else be thrown out of this sanctuary you have entered so boldly without invite."

  "And if I choose to neither leave nor pay?"

  "Those who oppose the king are usually found out on the hill the following morning, murdered by persons unknown. However, you would not have to look very far to find the killers."

  She cast her gaze to the other side of the fire.

  "I see,” said my nobleman. “And whom do I have to thank for these words of caution?"

  For a moment, she hesitated, as if unsure.

  "Ah, you mean me. My name is Josette."

  "And I am the Chevalier...” He cut off the rest of his sentence and started anew. “Perhaps you should just call me Remy. I've recently been in search of a new name, and Remy is as good as any."

  She gave a mock curtsy and stepped closer, shivering slightly as if from a chill in the evening air.

  In response, Remy extended his right arm and cloak like a large raptor of the night spreading one wing. With this gesture, he offered the warmth of his outer garment, if she cared to join him. After only a moment's hesitation, Mother Margaux's star graduate moved in under his opened cloak. But in doing so, her left knee must have bumped against his right leg because he quickly took a half step sideways to retain his balance. She apologized for her clumsiness.

  I recognized her simple ruse of distraction, but then both of us soon found the Chevalier was no fool to be so easily fleeced. At the time of the bump, he had evidently also felt the light brush of her hand reaching for his money. He grabbed Josette's slender wrist. She grimaced, but made no outcry.