Trouble Boys (White Lightning Book 5)

by Debra Dunbar

  A few nods and contemplative grins.

  She continued, “It’s what I love about America, you know. You work hard, and it’s maybe only a fifty-fifty chance they’ll put the screws to you.”

  This generated a few chuckles and a lift of a glass as a salute. The cheer faded as face after face turned to the far corner, the one the light never seemed to reach. A figure stepped from the shadows, a gaunt man with dark skin that glistened in the flickering candlelight. He wore a wide-brimmed hat of black felt and a bolo tie with a single triangle of turquoise suspended just below his throat. The man’s eyes were slits, gauging the postures of everyone in the room.

  Those postures were largely stiff and motionless.

  Hattie pivoted on her stool as Maria jumped to her feet. She held out a hand for Maria to hold her position. This man had made an entrance with some drama, and the men in this speakeasy were close to pissing themselves. He was clearly a pincher.

  As he approached, those gathered parted like the Red Sea before Moses. Hattie kept her illusion tightly knit so as not to betray the panic flooding her face.

  He removed his hat to reveal a smooth, bald head. With a lift of his brow and a clearing of his throat, he spoke. “Ma’am?”

  Hattie blinked at the thunderous bass of this fellow’s voice. “How can I help you, um…”

  “Henry,” he replied with a Texan twang. “Augustus Henry.”

  Pauly whispered over her shoulder, “You know this is Maranzano’s turf, Augustus. What’re you trying to start over here?”

  Augustus’ eyes shifted toward Pauly. “Let’s not get all impolite. I’m here on business.”

  Hattie shrugged. “I am, after all, a businesswoman. So, Augustus is your name then?” She extended a hand. “Brigid O’Toole. It’s a pleasure.”

  He took her hand then reached into his jacket to produce a slip of paper. “Mister Catena begs your forgiveness, but he must reschedule your meeting this evenin’.”

  She lifted the note to read it in the dim light. An address and a time.

  “Well, then,” she replied with guarded tone. “What time would be more convenient for Mister Catena?”

  “Nine o’clock, if that’s alright with yourself?”

  Hattie cocked a brow. “Nine o’clock it is. Thank you, and tell your boss I’ll be looking forward to some quality brandy when I see him.”

  Augustus took a step back and placed his hat back onto his head, giving Hattie a polite nod. “Miss O’Toole.”

  With a tip of his finger to its brim, he turned to the others. “Y’all be good, now.”

  As he turned back to the dark corner he slipped from, he glanced to the near corner of the room. “Pleasure to see you again, Maria,” he said with a nod before stepping into the shadows and disappearing through the wall boards.

  Hattie turned to Maria with a lift of both brows. The mood of the room had dropped like a wet rag, so Hattie quickly wrapped up her business and left with Maria. On the street, she glanced back and forth for the mysterious man.

  Maria grabbed her arm and pulled her farther down the block. “Don’t,” she whispered. “He might be following us. He could be anywhere.”

  “Who is he, then?” Hattie asked, struggling to keep her illusion intact after so long.

  “Later.”

  They continued down the street until they hailed a streetcar. Maria didn’t break the silence until they were back in Brooklyn and up inside their room.

  Hattie pulled off her earrings, setting them on the vanity as she rubbed her earlobes. “So?”

  Maria paced on the far side of the room. “His name is Augustus Henry.”

  “I caught that much. Is he a shadow pincher? Like Bolton?”

  “No. Not like Bolton. He’s a squeeze pincher. He can get into damn near anywhere.”

  “And he knows you?”

  Maria nodded. “Before Galloway. We stared each other down from opposite sides of a turf war in Cleveland. He was legendary. Ice water in his veins. He could slip into a room without anyone knowing, then cut your throat before you knew he was there. It was a short turf war.”

  Hattie crossed her arms. “Yet you’re still standing.”

  “I am. My owner, on the other hand…”

  “I see.”

  “I escaped in the collapse of my organization. Ran south to Cincinnati where Galloway found me.”

  Hattie sighed. “See, this is precisely why.”

  Maria stopped pacing, cocking her head. “Why what?”

  “Why I want you on the outside during these meetings. So that they don’t see you coming.” Hattie added with a softer tone, “Not because I don’t trust you, but specifically because I do.”

  Maria nodded. “I don’t know what this does to our cover, now.”

  Hattie lifted her chin. “To be honest, I do believe it plays into our hand.”

  “How so?”

  “You say he knows you from a war his side won. Well, where would he assume you went, then?”

  Maria shrugged.

  “One way or another, you’d end up in the hands of someone else. And what is the good Miss O’Toole’s first step in world domination?”

  “Scooping up pinchers on the cheap.” Maria nodded. “Yes.”

  “Let’s just keep calm and press on.” Hattie lifted the note. “Catena pushed back the appointment at the social club.”

  “Should that worry us?”

  “That is the question,” Hattie replied as she took a seat on the bed. “Whatever the reason, let’s hope it plays in our favor.”

  The Julietta Social Club was everything Hattie had expected from New York nightlife. An open space of tables spread before a cramped stage, smoke hanging near the ceiling like a carpet. A four-piece jazz band throbbed in syncopation, a muted trumpet squeaking over the bassist as he thumbed a walking beat. All that was missing was the gin. This was no speakeasy. Rather, it was a lounge that had elected to abide by prohibition, serving coffee and other innocuous beverages in lieu of the hard stuff. Pursuant to this business decision, most of the club was empty, save for the band, Hattie, and Carlo Catena.

  Maria was somewhere outside, out of sight. The reminder that Masseria still had professional pinchers in hand had sent Hattie’s forward press into something of a stall. Her gamble was predicated on being twice again as cocky as the men in suits. And despite her brandishing Maria’s powers for Maranzano’s people, in a fight she was still catastrophically outnumbered and outgunned.

  Hattie stepped toward Catena’s table with a calmness she was far from feeling. “I do hope your unexpected business hasn’t ruined your mood.”

  With a polite smile, he reached to take her wrap. She was glad she’d actually bothered to wear a wrap rather than knitting one out of pure light.

  “It could not be helped. I do apologize.”

  He held her chair for her. As she took a seat, he guided it closer to the table, the tips of his fingers brushing her shoulder as he swept back around to his seat. A crackle of panic swept through her as he penetrated what she’d economically cast as a purely visual illusion. Any discrepancy between what she he was seeing and what his fingers sensed could jeopardize everything.

  Catena settled across the table from Hattie, laying a napkin over his lap.

  “No brandy, then?” she asked as a waiter filled a glass with water.

  “The face we put forward in public is well manicured, Miss O’Toole. Our men do not partake openly.”

  “Is that why you lot are so fain to haunt restaurants?”

  He released a quick, genuine belly laugh. “That has as much to do with the Sicilian appetite as anything.”

  “So, may I ask a question? Are we here to discuss business, or is this purely social?”

  “Business. And curiosity.” He watched her over the rim of his glass as he took a sip of water. “I wonder how you came upon the notion of challenging Vito Corbi in the first place.”

  With a smirk, she replied, “Truth of the matter is t
hat I’m tired of watching those bandits play crooks and keystone cops, tripping over one another and leaving money on the table.”

  “That’s a very particular frustration for a woman in your position.”

  “I find incompetence grating.”

  He shook his head. “But how is it your concern in the first place?”

  “I believe I could do better.”

  “It seems to me you’ve skipped the first two acts of your story.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “How does a lady from Dublin develop an interest in organized crime in America? How does she learn the ins and outs, develop relationships with those in control, and cultivate a herd of pinchers all on her own?”

  “A herd?” She wrinkled her nose. “You take a poor view of pinchers, I think.”

  He waved his hand. “They are what they are.”

  “Human beings?”

  “I suppose. But being human does not necessarily impart any particular significance.”

  She leaned back. “You don’t believe all life has value?”

  He chuckled. “You can’t be serious. In this profession you seem so eager to break into, one must recognize that people exist in varying degrees of value. The greatest value reigns over the lesser. The lowest find themselves to be…disposable.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “And here I thought America was the land of opportunity. All men are created equal?”

  “Thomas Jefferson was a slave owner, Miss O’Toole. When a man such as himself declares all men to be equal, there are assumptions at play. What he meant to say, I’m sure, was that all white men with land should pretend they are equal in order to preserve the farce of democracy they intended to inflict upon the world.”

  “A dismal view of the Founding Fathers, if every I heard one.”

  Catena squinted. “I was born in Palermo, Sicily. These were not my Founding Fathers.”

  “Does that make you more valuable than Joe Masseria, then?” She smirked. “Because he’s barely made any effort at all.”

  Catena snickered, a noise that rumbled into a laugh. “I do enjoy a good conversation outside of the office. But I recognize that you’ve deflected from my question.”

  Hattie nodded, her face twisting in concentration behind the illusion of the unflappable Brigid O’Toole. This was it. She’d have to invent a story to satisfy this man’s curiosity. She was acutely aware this was a feeler meeting, probing her out for lapses in her story. Looking for a reason to have her killed.

  Keep it simple. A lie that was close to the truth would be harder to sniff out.

  “My father,” she began, “taught me how to read and write and do my sums, about business and efficiency. He felt I had certain potential that would be wasted in a conventional woman’s life.” Here was the gamble. “Did I mention he worked for Michael Collins and the Free State?”

  Catena leaned back with a nod. “That would explain things.”

  “So you can see, I grew up with the life. My father worked for one of the most notorious free pinchers in modern history.”

  “And that man’s legacy bears out the myth of free pinchers.”

  “Myth? Surely you mean value? The good they can accomplish?”

  “Or the damage they can inflict?” he scoffed.

  Hattie watched the other man carefully from behind her illusion. Michael Collins’s use of magic against the British sparked the violence in Dublin—violence which ended with the weakening of British rule, and a clamp-down on pinchers throughout Ireland. Collins, for his part, used his freedom to rally the Free State Army around Irish home rule until he was gunned down by anti-treaty fighters. His body had been displayed in the city as a warning to other pinchers.

  “You’ll pardon me if I feel otherwise,” she told him. “Our family was close to the cause.”

  “Of that I have no doubt. Let me fill in the rest. Your family fled Ireland for America, where your father was recruited by former IRA cronies. He was killed shortly after, leaving you and whatever was left of your family to find a new direction. After wasting years of your life in menial labor, you decided to employ the education your father afforded you and make a name for yourself.” He smiled. “How close am I?”

  Hattie exhaled in relief. Catena had given her a way out of concocting an entire biography on the fly.

  “Close, but my father died before we left Ireland.”

  “I see.” He knitted his hands together in front of him. “Then this is about legacy.”

  “If you like.”

  “It certainly fills me with more confidence in your resolve. You’re not some silly girl with a misplaced sense of glamor in the life of a bootlegger. And it helps to know that you won’t underestimate the powers of your pinchers.”

  Hattie unwound her arms, draping herself casually over her own chair. “Oh, I’m very familiar with how dangerous a pincher can be when pressed.”

  “And it would do well for you to keep that in mind.” He frowned as he reached for his water. “There will come a day when another Michael Collins will rise—perhaps even in America. And people like you and me will be responsible to clean up the mess.”

  “You’re so certain the pinchers are waiting to rise up and overthrow the lot of you?”

  “Any student of history recognizes the threat, Miss O’Toole. A powerful underclass kept beneath the heel of oligarchs. Revolution is inevitable.”

  Hattie stifled a grin. The man was correct. Here she was, a free pincher, taking advantage of the in-fighting between the mob families. And revolution was most certainly her aim.

  Aware that Catena was still sizing her up, Hattie went on the offensive.

  “Your man, Augustus, then.”

  “What about him?”

  “He makes an impression.”

  Catena laughed. “His powers are as useful as his charm.”

  “Is he the only pincher you have left? Now that O’Donnell is out of the picture.”

  “No,” Catena grumbled as he set down his espresso cup. “I have more.”

  Hattie eyed him. “But not as many as you’d like?”

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “You didn’t have to. I suspect you’ve grown impatient with Ithaca?”

  His eyes narrowed. “Your grasp of the intimate details of our organization is as surprising as it is alarming.”

  “Best not to underestimate me, then. Don’t you think?”

  He glanced at the table, eyes working through a thought before he said, “I’m am down a few. We lost O’Donnell earlier this year.”

  She nodded.

  “In the wake, Maranzano went on the offensive,” he continued. “Both sides suffered losses. Now the assets have dwindled.”

  Hattie nodded. “A shame, especially since your pipeline for new talent seems to have dwindled.”

  “True, but there is a baby in the wings. We’ll see if the child has powers in good time. With these things, the odds are in our favor, but it doesn’t always take. Like any sort of animal husbandry, it’s a numbers game.”

  “There you go again.” She struggled to keep the tone of her voice cool and disinterested. “Referring to them as animals.”

  “It helps to dehumanize them,” he stated matter-of-factly. “Some advice for a nascent gang leader, Miss O’Toole. Avoid the habit of seeing pinchers as people.”

  “And how, good sir, do you see me?”

  He sipped his espresso. “I see a woman who’s looking for someone to recognize her.”

  She grinned. “Recognition is nice when you can get it.”

  Catena’s smile sharpened. “Sometimes it’s the last thing you want.”

  “Do I take it, given your situation, that your boss’s offer of available talent to Vito Corbi has rubbed you raw?”

  “An investment,” he replied through tight lips.

  “And if this investment becomes a boondoggle, might you find yourself in the market for veteran talent?”

  He stiffened, jaw working back a
nd forth. “You are full of surprises, Miss O’Toole.”

  They both finished their coffee in silence, then Catena rose to help Hattie with her wrap. He remained as she left and headed down the street. Maria joined her several blocks away, and the pair walked for several more blocks before speaking.

  “How’d it go?” Maria finally asked.

  Hattie looked around before replying. “I get the impression that Masseria’s more desperate than he wants anyone to know. They’re low on pincher power. He sees me as a possible source, but I’m not sure how we can use that yet.”

  “So, a wasted evening?”

  “On the contrary. If I read the man correctly, he’s taking O’Toole seriously. That can only help.”

  Maria nodded. “I’ll bet Augustus reported back that you had a genuine pincher on the payroll.”

  “He wouldn’t enjoy the thought of me paying you, that much is certain. He hates us. If I’ve learned anything, it’s that. The man is secretly terrified of pinchers.”

  “Strange that he’s in charge of so many.”

  “He’s convinced this country’s on the verge of a pincher revolt.” She looked around at the buildings towering above them. “And God willing, he’s right.”

  Chapter 15

  Vincent and Buddy leaned against the brick wall of a corner deli while they waited for Masseria’s pincher to emerge. Just as Buddy began to fidget, a disheveled fellow in his forties with a leathered face and bloodshot eyes staggered free of the door with a tin mug in his hand.

  Vincent eyed the mug, spotting steam rising in the morning air.

  “You must be Lenny.”

  The man jerked, halting his droop-eyed shamble. “Yeah? Who the hell are you?”

  Vincent extended a hand to the man. “Name’s Vincent Calendo. I’m here on behalf of—”

  “I know who you are,” he grumbled before sipping what for all rights looked to be coffee, though Vincent picked up a whiff of booze on the man’s breath.

  “A little hair of the dog?” Vincent asked with a nod to the cup.

  “Tied one on last night,” Lenny said. “Who’s the kid?”