The Double Vice: The 1st Hidden Gotham Novel

by Chris Holcombe

  Fife shook his head.

  “What people will do for a drink. And what a wonderful opportunity for me. If I can provide them good tasting liquor that won’t kill them—well, not right away; some will regardless be drinking themselves to death in short order—then I can make a substantial profit.”

  Dash gestured to Angelo and his workbench. “And he tests the liquor?”

  Angelo responded this time. “Not only test it, but also renature it.”

  “What does that mean?”

  Angelo set the beaker down, satisfied with what he saw. When he gave his attention to them Dash saw the full beauty of his face. Eyes heavy with mystery, cheeks smooth with youth and vitality, and thick hair dark and tangled with midnight possibility.

  Angelo replied, “I restore it to its natural state. I take out all the additives that make the liquid poisonous and I can make it drinkable again.”

  Fife stepped in. “You see, Mr. Parker, the U.S. Government knows this Prohibition nonsense is the most laughable thing since Harding’s crooked cabinet. Not that I mind such moral deviation, but I despise men who claim they’re righteous when they’re otherwise. The government knows Americans, particularly in cities, will keep on drinking despite what the housemaids who proposed Prohibition claim. And they also know enterprising citizens will scrounge around and find anything they can use. Industrial ethanol, for example, is just floating around out there, free for the taking. Now our morally upright government agents are seizing it and adding in chemicals that make it foul smelling, bad tasting, even nauseating. Unfortunately, they’ve gone a little too far in some cases, for they made a good bit of it even more poisonous. That particular process is called . . . what is it again, Angelo?”

  “Denaturing, sir.”

  Dash was stunned. “You mean, our own government is purposefully trying to kill us?”

  The gangster shrugged. “Not completely purposeful, but then, what’s a couple of thousand dead drunks if it scares off the rest from drinking?”

  “But that’s . . . that’s . . .”

  “Deplorable? Yes, I know.” He gave Dash a sideways look. “Compared to the boys in Washington, consorting with a man like me isn’t so bad, now is it, Mr. Parker?”

  Angelo asked, “Would you like to know how I do it, sir?”

  Dash held up a hand. “I am not a man of science, so I’m afraid I won’t be able to follow. Thank you though, Mr. Ava—” He stumbled on the last name.

  “Avogadro.”

  Fife said, “Now I believe you mentioned to my man Lowell something about trying the gin? What was it? Ah, yes. ‘If he has good gin, I’ll sign right then and there.’”

  Hearing Dash’s own words parroted back to him by such a dangerous man was oddly threatening. Dash cleared his throat. “I believe I said that.”

  “Good.” Fife pointed to one of the beakers of clear liquid on a left-hand shelf. “Angelo, is this one renatured?”

  Angelo looked to where his boss was pointing and nodded.

  “Excellent.” Fife picked it up and walked over to Dash. “Here you are. Take a sip. Or two. You look like you could use one.”

  The gangster placed the beaker in Dash’s hand. Dash stared at it. Was this an elaborate ruse to kill him? Give him the federally poisoned gin rather than the renatured stuff? Or perhaps he would be drinking acid? Burning him from the outside out?

  Fife seemed to read his mind and smirked. “Yes, I suppose it does feel like a game of Russian roulette. Does this chamber have the bullet or no?” He patted Dash’s arm. “Only one way to find out. Bottoms up.”

  Oh well, if I have to go, might as well be death by gin.

  Dash raised the beaker in a mock toast and then took a sip. He waited for some kind of horrible chemical reaction once it touched his lips, tongue, and throat. So far, nothing. In fact, it tasted pretty darn close to regular gin. It was almost good. Not like the real thing, but not like the lighter fluid he’d been serving at his own club.

  He looked at Fife, who smiled at his reaction.

  “Up to your standards, Mr. Parker?”

  Dash nodded.

  “And that’s just our version. In the main room you’ve seen, I have what they call The Real McCoy. Booze made in the islands down south and boated up here. Of course, that costs more. Considerably more—as you can imagine it would—but it is delicious, is it not, Angelo?”

  Angelo shrugged. “I do not prefer spirits so much.”

  “Oh that’s right. He’s more about the wine, which, lucky Catholic that he is, he can get the real stuff with the weekly sacrament. I might convert just for that.”

  Angelo smiled for the first time since Dash met him. It was a wonderful smile, complementing the beauty of his face. “Many people have, sir.”

  Fife said to Dash, “Would wine go well with your club? Or is it just beer and spirits?” He made an aside to Angelo. “He has a very specific club with a . . . what shall we call it? . . . very specific type of clientele. Though the music, I hear, is fantastic. Rivals that of Harlem. You might like it, Angelo.”

  The chemist tapped his temple. “Must keep the brain clear.”

  Fife smiled his magnanimous smile. “I do think you should have one night of sin every once in a while. It’s unnatural to be so pure all the time. Well, then.” He turned back to Dash and took the beaker from his hand, placing it on the shelf behind him. “I think you’ve seen enough. Shall I count you as one of my customers?”

  Another pointed look.

  Dash smiled.

  Better the Devil you know.

  “You can.”

  “Excellent!” Fife extended his hand. They shook. Fife said to the chemist, “You’re a witness, Angelo. A gentlemen’s agreement.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  The gangster reached into his inside pocket and withdrew a card. “Here is a number you can call at any time. If anyone gives you any trouble, any at all, you dial this number.”

  He handed it over to Dash.

  If anyone gives you any trouble . . .

  Walter flashed into Dash’s head. One couldn’t find a better definition of trouble than him. With this contract, not only was Walter threatening Dash and his friends, he was also threatening Nicholas Fife. And Fife knew how to deal with such threats, Dash had no doubt about that. Expediently and secretly.

  But are you a murderer?

  This question gave Dash pause. Fife would kill Walter, like Atty suggested days ago. And Dash had already said to Atty they weren’t killers. He meant it. He believed it. Yet the stakes were getting higher and the dangers more precarious. Was it still murder if it was self-defense? And could he live with the knowledge of what he had done for the rest of his life?

  Dash noticed Fife looking at him strangely.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Parker?” the gangster asked.

  Dash cleared his mind of these ruminations and said, “Right as rain.”

  Fife paused, keeping watch over his face. “Good,” he eventually replied. “First shipment will be at your club in two weeks . . . after I get my suit, of course. And now, Mr. Parker, I must bid you goodnight. I have other customers to see. I look forward to wearing your work next weekend.”

  There was that damnable smirk again.

  “What with the special care you took to get my . . . measurements . . . I’m sure it’ll fit me like a glove.”

  23

  Fife’s driver dropped Dash off at the Cherry Lane Playhouse. The lights were out, the doors locked, the box office boarded up. It looked like the abandoned warehouse it once was before becoming a theater. God knew what time it was.

  Maybe I need a wristwatch like Walter. Or like Karl.

  His trembling legs managed to get him up the flight of stairs to the apartment with minimal fuss. His hands were another story. They kept shaking, and it took several tries to get the keys into the locks. He finally was able to turn them and enter the safety of his home. Finn’s room was empty, as per usual. Probably out with a fleet of sailo
rs, trying to forget Valentino’s fragile health. Joe was surprisingly still awake and lying in the main bed, not on the cot.

  Once Dash closed the bedroom door, Joe looked up. “Lassie, what happened to you tonight? You have any idea how worried I was?”

  The voice was the usual Irish brogue, but the eyes took on a different character. It wasn’t anger. The emeralds didn’t smolder the way they usually did when his Irish temper was set off. It also wasn’t concern, at least not directly. Dash held Joe’s gaze, trying to pinpoint the expression as well as the feeling rapidly flooding his chest.

  “I’m sorry, Joe,” he replied. “Something happened . . .”

  Now the emeralds darkened with fear. “What—?”

  Dash told him about being kidnapped and driven to Queens. Lowell’s henchmen. The gun pointed at him in the dark. The warehouse far away from any sort of help. The gangster standing center stage. The narrative came pouring out of Dash’s mouth, words tumbling over themselves in a rush of adrenaline. The fear of stepping into that car. The relief of stepping out of it again.

  When he paused for a breath, Joe reached his arms out and pulled Dash onto the bed. He was enveloped in a tight embrace, his face pressing against Joe’s broad, naked chest. He heard Joe’s heartbeat, which was pounding beneath his ear. Listening to it brought tears to Dash’s eyes.

  He’s afraid for me.

  It was a long minute before they separated. When they did, Joe looked into Dash’s face and said, “I’ll kill him.” So matter-of-fact.

  The absurdity of the statement caused Dash to laugh. “I don’t think you can.”

  “Oh, lassie, don’t tell me what I can and can’t do.”

  Dash nodded, sniffing back his tears. “You’re right. You’re a formidable man.”

  “Ya damn right I am!” His hands gripped Dash’s shoulders. “I’m sorry, lad.”

  “For what?”

  “For not being there once again.”

  Dash forced a smile. “How could you have known?”

  Joe used his thumb to wipe away silent tears from Dash’s face. Without consciously thinking, acting purely on impulse, Dash kissed him. A kiss so hungry, it was like Dash was a starving man having bread for the first time in years. He wanted to feel alive, to feel free, not caged in by men like Walter Müller and Nicholas Fife—or even by the dumb bribe-collecting copper Cullen McElroy.

  Clothes were hastily unbuttoned and discarded. In a blur of movement, they were both completely naked. Joe laid Dash on his back. When their naked bodies touched, a shudder shook its way from Dash’s tailbone all the way to the top of his neck. The normally stoic Irishman whispered, “Dear God, lassie.”

  After that, it was hot breath on skin. Hands guiding hands, legs rubbing legs. Joe seemed to be pushing Dash farther and farther into the mattress, the weight of Joe’s coarse, hairy body threatening to smother him. Dash’s fingers were entangled in Joe’s fiery copper strands as the ruddy man’s rough cheek rubbed against his neck with every thrust. Dash bit Joe’s shoulder, tasting grit and salt, causing a moan in Joe’s throat. Sweat covered their bodies as sensations began to overtake them. The cramped room, the shackles of secrecy, the claustrophobic world disappeared as everything was reduced to their core senses. Touch. Taste. Smell. Mouths opened as their breaths got shallower and quicker. An involuntary cry of surprise escaped Dash’s lips as he trembled beneath Joe. A moment later, Joe cried out as well. They held onto each other, breathing heavily, before they fell into the deepest of sleeps.

  “Damn my rotten luck!”

  Dash jerked upright as Finn slammed his way into the bedroom again. He rubbed his throbbing head while Finn paced the floor, his hands a fury of gestures. What time was it? What day was it?

  “What’s wrong now?” Dash asked his friend, who was wearing a copper-red vertical-striped suit, the coat unbuttoned to show a disheveled vest and crooked tie. A tan hat with an auburn band around the middle threatened to topple from his head, the way he was whipping and whirling about.

  “My Valentino,” Finn said. “My poor, sweet, beautiful Valentino! What horrible news before the weekend!”

  Friday. It was Friday. Dash’s brain was slowly starting like a hand-cranked Chrysler.

  “Still goin’ on about that the actor bloke?” murmured Joe from beneath the bed covers.

  It took Finn a few seconds to see Joe wasn’t on the cot but in the bed with Dash. He stopped pacing. His painted eyes squinted at the two nude men. “Well I never. Look at the two of you!”

  Dash tried to intervene. “Finn—”

  “Pray tell, when did this happen?”

  Dash looked at Joe lying on his back, the covers just below his waistline, his hairy, freckled chest exposed. Joe held his arms laid above his head, the hair in his arm pits sticking out like bushes, his ruddy face fat with sleep.

  Dash turned to Finn. “I had a scare last night and we—”

  Finn held up a hand. “Say no more.”

  Joe replied, “Ya ask’d, ya mug.”

  “It’s what we call a rhetorical question, you stupid Mick.” Though the words were confrontational, the grin on Finn’s face was anything but. “I’m so happy for you two!”

  Joe scoffed, “Happy fer what?”

  Finn rolled his eyes. “If you have to ask—”

  Dash interrupted before Finn told Joe how Dash really felt. “What happened with Valentino?”

  The joy was immediately gone, and Finn’s hands clutched at his chest. “I heard he fell ill again. Fevers, nausea, yelling out because of the pain in his back. The poor man had trouble breathing. The doctors are trying everything they can to fight the infection. They think sepsis or something.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that, Finn.”

  “Oh! My poor Valentino is once again knocking on death’s door.”

  Joe muttered, “He isn’t your Valentino.”

  Dash lightly jabbed an elbow into Joe’s ribs to silence him. “I’m sure he’ll be alright, Finn. Doctors have been known to work miracles.”

  The little man reluctantly agreed. “There’s a vigil some of us are going to today. So many are just as distraught as I am.”

  Joe once again muttered, “Bunch of Rudy fools.”

  Dash pulled the covers over Joe’s head to muffle any more asides that might set Finn off on another tangent. They needed another topic, and there was only one he could think of.

  “Finn, I know you’re upset right now, but did you follow Walter this morning?”

  Finn blew his nose into a plaid handkerchief he pulled from his breast pocket. “Yes, dearest, I did; despite my grief, I went about my task as a professional.”

  Finn composed himself, folding the handkerchief and returning it to its usual resting place.

  “We know how the last two days, he followed the same routine, yes? Well, this morning, I decided to do something different. It’s always bothered me how his mother just stood there, making sure Walter left. As if she didn’t want Walter to know what she was really doing while he was out.”

  Dash said, “What makes you think she has a secret?”

  Finn rolled his eyes. “Everyone has a secret, dearie. Which is why this morning, I followed her instead of him.”

  Dash was still sleepy, so it took a moment for him to register. “You followed Walter’s mother?”

  Finn grinned, all traces of Valentino grief gone, for the man was entirely too pleased with himself. “Anyone want to guess where she went?”

  A dramatic pause.

  “A speak!” Finn was laughing now. “Momma Müller is a drunkard! She went to a speak under one of those vile little butcher shops. I followed her in and let me tell you, she put away those beers. There were so many dead soldiers piling up on the bar, it was like the trenches in the War.”

  Dash remembered Mother’s shaky hands and pale skin. It wasn’t grief he saw. It was a hangover!

  Joe sat up now, tossing the covers from his head. “We finally got something on them!”

>   “And not only did she attend a speak, dear boys, she also stopped by a baker and purchased something in a paper bag. Methinks ’twas not bread.”

  Joe shook Dash’s shoulder. “A chink in the armor, lassie. A chink in his bloody armor!”

  “We’ve finally got, oh what’s the term?”

  Dash replied, “Leverage.” Despite not wanting to get his hopes high, he was grinning along with the other two. “Perhaps our luck is finally changing.”

  Perhaps I don’t need to tell Fife about Walter at all.

  “And that’s not all,” Finn continued. “I kept my disguise—a respectable businessman—and went to the Committee of Fourteen.”

  “Finn!” Dash said. “I thought you said we shouldn’t go to the Lion’s Den?”

  “As ourselves, dearie.”

  “Finney,” Joe growled.

  “Oh, all right, I was drunk with power—as it were. Do you two want to hear what I found out? Or do you want to sit and judge some more?”

  Joe rolled his eyes while Dash said, “Apologies. Please continue.”

  “Thank you,” Finn said. “Well, it turns out Walter Müller did indeed work at the Committee since 1924 in the finance department. One of the best record-keepers they had. However, he left earlier this summer under scandalous circumstances. Apparently, an anonymous tipster called the higher ups and alerted them that Walter’s own brother was an active homosexualist and had been arrested in a pansy speak raid. Soon afterwards, Walter resigned.”

  Dash said, “How did you have time to find all this out this morning?”

  “It’s almost one o’clock, dear.”

  Dash leapt out of bed. “Hell! I overslept!”

  “Good loving can do that for a man,” Finn purred.

  While Dash hastily dressed, Joe asked, “Where did you hear all this, Finney?”

  “I befriended a secretary named Millie Madison. Lovely girl. Unfortunately for her employers, and fortunately for us, she hadn’t learned the importance of discretion.”