“And they won’t be so quick to report it, yeah, I got it.” Bernard huffed and shoved the drawer shut. “But will anything we get be worth the damn trouble?”
“That watch you lifted from the last suite should pay rent for a month or two. For all of us.”
Bernard huffed. “Ain’t much of a score if it just keeps us in those places.”
“You rather sleep on the street?”
Bernard grumbled something Danny didn’t hear, and Danny didn’t ask him to repeat it. He understood his friend’s frustration. The whole crew had debated the idea and whether the payday would be worth it, but these were desperate times. They all needed food and rent, and they all needed money for their families here and back in Ireland. A lackluster payday was better than a prison sentence. Or a bullet.
But God Almighty, was it too much to ask for this complex heist to turn a profit? Because after they’d paid everyone they’d bribed, they were all skint. Danny wasn’t as sure as he wanted to be that there’d be enough left to split amongst the eight-man crew. Not even after they sold that fancy watch.
Hopefully the other lads are having better luck.
The night wasn’t over, though, and any one of them could find something good and valuable in a nook or cranny, so he kept searching.
The trunk Danny’d opened didn’t yield much except some expensive cigarettes—the crew would decide later if those would be sold or smoked—and a filigree-edged hip flask containing something that smelled strong and expensive.
After pocketing both, he moved on to the wardrobe. The doors opened smoothly without a single squeak of hinges, and as the bedroom lamp lit up the contents, Danny almost whistled.
Two fine suits hung inside. He didn’t even have to touch the soft material to know they were expensive. These were the types of suits that were tailored and exquisite—they were meant to tell anyone who looked that this was a man of money and influence.
There was an overcoat as well, and Danny reached in to check the pockets for a watch, some coins, some cash—whatever rich men sometimes left in their coats.
But his fingers stopped at the edge of an outer pocket, and his heart jumped into this throat.
The pocket was sewn shut.
Blood pounded in his ears as he reached for the other side of the coat. That pocket was also sewn shut.
Oh, hell. There was only one type of man who went around with his pockets sewn shut like that, and that wasn’t a man Danny wanted to be stealing from.
He gulped. “Uh, hey Bernard?”
“Hmm?” came the disinterested response from the next room.
“I don’t suppose your pal told you who the guests were in these suites.”
“Just a bunch of rich bastards.” The shrug was almost audible as Bernard came back into the bedroom. “Why?”
Danny pulled the overcoat partway out of the wardrobe and turned to his friend. “Because I don’t think this is someone we ought to be crossing.”
Bernard’s eyes went to the jacket, then to Danny’s fingers tugging at the pocket, and his disinterest vanished. He hurried across the room and peered into the wardrobe. “Aw, Christ. No one said nothing about gangsters.”
“We should get out of—”
The shrill peal of a bell cut him off, and both their heads snapped toward the door.
“Oh, no,” Bernard breathed.
“Lights!” Danny hissed. He shut the wardrobe, sprinted out of the bedroom, and switched off the lights in the parlor. The suite went dark, and he paused near the door, listening over the sound of his thumping heart.
Outside, there were footsteps and voices.
“Get down!” Bernard said.
Danny crouched low, glanced around in the darkness, and finally settled on ducking between an armchair and the wall. His arm met the hot metal of the radiator, and he almost let go of a hiss as it burned him through his sleeve, but he kept his mouth shut.
The door swung open, the lights came on, and a petite dark-eyed flapper sauntered in, the dangling beads on her short silver dress clattering with every step. The man who strolled in behind her was definitely the man whose sewn-up coat Danny had found in the wardrobe. He wasn’t tall, but he was stout and broad-shouldered in the way so many of the Italians were. He was dressed head-to-wingtip in tailored and pinstriped gray, and he had a scar on his cheek and a grin on his lips as he leered at the woman’s backside.
Gangster. Not a doubt in Danny’s mind. He’d seen enough men like this one haunting the cafés and speakeasies in Lower Manhattan to recognize them at a hundred paces. He’d also seen enough of the fear these men cultivated and the violence they could initiate if duly provoked to know this was a dangerous place for him and Bernard. Robbing a gangster was chancy enough. Lurking in his hotel suite? That was how a couple of Irishmen earned themselves a one-way drive out into the countryside. Danny’s brother Robert had been killed by men like this for much less.
Danny exchanged terrified glances with Bernard. They’d just come here to steal. Now they were in way over their heads, and damn if he knew how to get them out of it, especially with the muscle by the door—a pair of hulking men who looked like they were spoiling for a fight. From Bernard’s wide-eyed expression, he didn’t have any ideas either. He crossed himself. So did Danny.
The woman scanned the room, then turned to the man, and her expression hardened. “Them.” She pointed at the wise guys on their heels. “Out of here.”
The man with her grinned and gestured for his men to leave, but whatever he thought he was getting from the woman, she wasn’t having it.
“All right, Ricky.” She folded her arms across her chest and fearlessly held his gaze. “We need to talk.”
Ricky eyed her, seemingly startled by her change in demeanor. “Talk? About what?”
Dropping her hands to her sides, she released an exasperated sigh. “Did you listen to a word I said downstairs?” She gestured sharply at the door. “I need your boys to stop causing trouble at my bar.”
“Trouble?” He gave a patronizing chuckle. “They’re just hard-working boys having a good time. What’s to—”
“They’ve started three fights in the last two weeks.” She jabbed a finger at him. “If I didn’t know any better, I’d think you sent them in to stir things up.”
“Stir—” He blinked, then set his jaw. “Why would I do that? Huh? Why?”
“I don’t know, Ricky.” She folded her arms again and glared at him. “So my customers quit coming? So the cops show up and shut me down? I don’t know.” She shrugged tightly. “But I want them out of my bar.”
“Yeah?” Ricky stepped closer, raising his chin as if to emphasize their height difference. “Or what? You gonna have your brother tell his boys to—”
“If I needed my brother to fight my fights, we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”
“Ahh.” He grinned and took another step, which sent her back, nearly into the wall. “So you can handle yourself, huh? Don’t need your big brother to—”
“The bar is my business,” she growled, though there was fear in her eyes now. “That’s why… That’s why I’m here. Not him. I handle my business, so just tell your boys to—”