THUGLIT Issue One

Lady Madeline’s Dive by Terrence P. McCauley

NEW YORK CITY

1928

Quinn’s mouth went dry when he saw the green and white squad car in his rearview mirror. The red spotlight flashing, but no siren.

Normally, getting pulled over by the cops was a simple inconvenience. Most of them were on Archie Doyle’s payroll anyway. Just like Quinn.

But that night was different. Because the Plymouth that he was driving was stolen.

And there was a dead man in the trunk.

Dead men in trunks of stolen cars and cops don’t mix. Even cops on the take have limits on what they’ll ignore. This wasn’t Chicago; it was New York.

He thought about taking a hard right turn and flooring it; disappearing into traffic. He might’ve even gotten away. But he decided to try talking his way out of it instead. He took his foot off the gas and eased the Plymouth over toward the right side of Houston Street.

He was surprised when the squad car sped past him heading west. They hadn’t been looking to pull him over after all. They’d just wanted him to get out of their way.

The cop in the passenger seat leaned out the window and gave him a big wave. A beat cop named O’Hara-one of Archie’s boys from before they passed Volstead eight years prior. Quinn waved back and began to breathe again.

At the next red light, he lit a cigarette and drew the smoke deep into his lungs. The tobacco revved his nerves and gave him the kick he needed to stay awake. He needed all the help he could get.

He felt dried out and hungover, like he was on the fifth day of a four-day bender. It wasn’t from too much booze or too many late nights on the town. It was from a lack of sleep, courtesy of the dead bastard in the trunk.

It had all started a few days before, when Doyle had realized the take from one of his gambling dives had been short-very short-every week for the past month. Doyle hadn’t told Quinn how short, but short enough to get Doyle’s attention.

And short enough for him to ask Quinn to find out why.

The dive was off an alley on 14th Street run by Lady Madeline and her husband, a hophead named Joey. The place was a pit, but it had always made good coin. Lady Madeline and Joey had never had problems making Doyle’s payments before.

So Doyle had Quinn do some digging. He checked around and found out that the place was busier than ever, especially since Doyle gave them the okay to start selling booze. His booze, of course. The take being off meant someone was getting greedy. And stupid.

People didn’t steal from Doyle very often, but when they did, it was up to Quinn to find out why and to put a stop to it. One way or the other.

Hence the dead guy in the trunk.

Quinn hadn’t meant to kill him. If the little son of a bitch had kicked loose with the information earlier, he would’ve still been alive. Instead, the man decided to play it tough. It took Quinn almost two nights to break him, and in the end the little punk died anyway. A bum heart. A bad break.

Normally, Archie would’ve let him dump the body somewhere public, a place where someone would find him. Word would hit the street even before the cops showed up to remove the body. The story would’ve run in all the papers and the message would’ve been loud and clear: Steal from Archie Doyle and see what happens.

Example made. Problem solved.

But this time, Archie didn’t just want to solve a problem. This time, he wanted to make a statement that would show the other Lady Madelines and Joeys in Doyle’s empire what happens to people who steal from him.

And it was up to Quinn to make that statement loud and clear.

Quinn hated statements. Because statements had a way of getting awfully complicated awfully fast, especially where dead bodies were involved.

Complicated as in a random car stop by the cops in the middle of the night.

Quinn didn’t like it, but Doyle didn’t ask his opinion. Doyle paid him to do what he was told and that’s exactly what he was going to do. Archie wanted to make a statement and Quinn was going to see that he did.

Loud and clear.

Tonight.

He parked the Plymouth across the street from Lady Madeline’s and left it there. He tossed the keys down by the pedals, like they’d simply dropped out of someone’s pocket.

His watch told him it was a bit after one in the morning. He craved sleep, but he still had work to do.

He put half a block between him and the Plymouth and spent the next half-hour in a doorway, chain-smoking while he eyeballed the alley leading to Lady M’s joint across the street. At a few inches over six feet tall and two hundred pounds, Quinn stood out in a crowd, but the doorway was a good spot: just enough shadow to keep anyone from seeing him while he waited for his signal to come over.

As big as he was, he never walked into a place without looking it over first. Especially a two-bit clip-joint like Lady M’s.

The scene matched what he’d been told. Foot traffic in and out of the alley was heavy-too heavy for a place on the downswing. Too heavy for Lady M’s tribute to Doyle to be so light.

It was almost one-thirty when he saw Otis Rae, the dive’s piano player, come outside and light a cigarette at the curb.

That was the cue he’d been waiting for.

He pushed his fatigue aside. Time to go to work.

He jogged through traffic against the light as he crossed the street. Some cars stopped short, but no one cursed at him. No one honked their horn, either.

Because you just didn’t honk at Terry Quinn.

Otis shook his head as he reached the sidewalk. At 5’3”, the Negro was a foot shorter than Quinn, but had a heavyweight’s attitude.

“After all the shit you been through,” Otis said, “that’s how you’ll die. Flattened by a Studebaker in front of a shithouse like this.”

“Next time I’ll wait for you to come carry me across.”

Otis took a deep drag on his cigarette. “Be a long goddamned wait ‘fore that happens.”

Quinn nodded back to ward the alley. “Looks like you’re doing some business. Hell of a crowd from what I’ve seen.”

“No different than any other night lately.” Otis looked around before saying, “Glad your boss finally got wise to that.”

Otis had been the first one Quinn had called when Doyle realized his take was off. And Otis confirmed business had been good and steady. “Archie appreciates your loyalty. He won’t forget it.”

Otis shrugged. “Just don’t go bustin’ up my piano while you’re in there. A man’s gotta make a livin’ and that piano’s my livin’.”

“This is just a social call. No rough stuff, I promise.”

Otis looked him up and down. “Your social calls got a way of gettin’ awfully un-social pretty goddamned fast.”

Quinn broke into a full-blown smile. The piano player knew him too well. “Madeline back in her office?”

Otis nodded. “That’s why I signaled you to come over. And she ain’t alone, neither.”

“That so? Joey with her?”

Otis shook his head. “Haven’t seen him for three days or more, but she’s got some gentlemen callers back there with her tonight. Couple of society fellas by the looks of ‘em. White boys in tuxedos. Stiff collars and soft bellies. You know the type.”

He did. “Anyone else?”

“A boy named Carmine. Don’t know his last name, but he’s one of Howard Rothmann’s boys. Been hangin’ round here with Madeline and Joey on and off for the past month or so.”

Quinn knew all about Carmine. His last name was Rizzo and he was smart and tough. A rare combination for a Rothmann goon.

Quinn tucked a twenty into the piano player’s shirt pocket as he headed down the alley. “Thanks, Otis. I’ll be gentle as a lamb, I promise.”

Otis grunted as he flicked the ash from his cigarette into the gutter. “Where’ve I heard that one before?”

The doormen saw Quinn coming and stood aside.

Lady Madeline’s dive was a gambling joint first and foremost and had never tried to be anything else. Bare floors and bare walls. Chipped paint and dim lighting. Uneven wooden floors that popped and groaned beneath his feet as he walked inside.

The place hummed with busy gambling sounds. Murmurs and cheers and groans. The sounds of chips clicking and dice tumbling and the roulette ball skipping along the grooves of the wheel. The air was humid with stale smoke and sweat.

Otis’s upright piano was against the far wall and was usually played when the place got quiet, which wasn’t too often. The pit bosses doubled as bouncers and kept their eyes on everyone and everything. The tables, the gamblers and, of course, the money. Always the money. The bosses all knew Quinn and knew enough to leave him alone.

Every inch of the place was dedicated to gambling-blackjack, poker, roulette, craps. And every table had dozens of eager gamblers crowded around, waiting for a spot to open up. Waiting for Lady Luck to come whisper in their ear.

The place didn’t have a proper bar because all of Doyle’s gambling dens had a motto: No bar, no bullshit. Just gambling. Lady M’s was one of the few places in Doyle’s operation where you could get a drink if you were at one of the tables. And even then, one of the girls went to the back and got it for you.

If you weren’t gambling, you weren’t drinking. Simple as that. And if you got too sloppy, you got cut off and thrown out. If you complained, you were never allowed to come back. It kept the nonsense down to a minimum, which kept the cops happy.

Quinn edged his way through the crowd of gamblers, toward the back room that Lady Madeline called her office. He didn’t have to push too hard. Everyone saw him coming and edged out of his way.

He was surprised to find the door wasn’t locked. He pushed it in and found himself in the middle of a party.

Madeline was lounging on her couch with a glass of champagne, her boozy cackle filling the small room. She was surrounded by the three men Otis had described-two boys in tuxedoes on her left and Carmine Rizzo seated on her right. Carmine’s back was to the wall.

They all stopped laughing when they saw Terry Quinn was standing in the doorway.

Rizzo looked more alert than scared and kept his hands on his lap. In plain sight and no sudden movements. Carmine was a smart boy indeed.

The other two in the tuxes weren’t so smart. Quinn judged them both to be in their early twenties and of the well-bred, over-fed variety. Big on money and short on sense.

The one on the couch next to Lady M was the smaller of the two. Skinnier and blonder than his friend, with pink skin and scared blue eyes that darted back and forth between Quinn and Lady M.

But the other tux wasn’t so docile. He slowly got up from his chair and, judging by the way he was swaying, he was more than a bit drunk. He was a broad, dark-haired kid with mean, reckless eyes. Quinn pegged him as a prep school bully who’d been a tough guy at Yale or Princeton. But there was softness about him, a softness that only a life of money could bring.

A softness Quinn had never had.

One of Lady M’s loud, boozy snickers broke the tension. She was twenty years past pretty and had never been much of a looker to begin with. Her face and skin had the ruddy tinge that comes from too many years of too much gin and not enough sunlight. She was wearing a slinky black cocktail dress that a thin young woman would’ve had trouble wearing well. Lady M was neither thin nor young and hadn’t been either for a very long time.

“Well, well, well,” she cackled, “if it ain’t my old pal Quinn.” She slapped Rizzo on the knee. “You know who Terry Quinn is, don’t you, Carmine?”

“Sure.” Carmine’s hands were still flat on his lap. “Everybody knows him. How’s every little thing, Terry?”

“No complaints. You’re a little far west, aren’t you, Carmine? Last I checked, Rothmann’s territory ends at Fifth Avenue.”

Carmine made a show of straightening his tie. “I like to get out once in a while.” He tried a smile. “See a better class of people.”

Quinn smiled too. “Then what are you doing here?”

Lady M was drunk enough to laugh like that was the funniest thing since Prohibition. She drained her champagne glass, then held it out for Blondie to refill it. The kid couldn’t stop looking at Quinn and damn near knocked over the bottle while he reached for it.

His big friend still stood there, breathing heavy and swaying while he tried to stare Quinn down. And Quinn kept on ignoring him.

Lady M smiled at the sound of the champagne filling her glass. “So how’s about tellin’ me what brings out Doyle’s Black Hand into my humble abode this fine evening?”

“Business. We need to talk, Mimi.”

“So talk!” Lady M threw open her arms in a grand gesture. “We’re all friends here, ain’t we boys?” She looked at Rizzo. “Carmine knows all about our kind of business, don’t you Carmine?” She looked at the two boys in tuxedoes. “And these dapper gentlemen here…”

The big boy in the tux cut her off, “…don’t know who the fuck you are, mister. We were having a damned swell party for ourselves before you showed up. So why don’t you do yourself a favor and take it on the heel and toe so we can get back to our good time?”

He shuffled one step too close.

Quinn dropped him with a short left hook to the jaw. The blueblood fell back over his chair and hit the floor head first.

Carmine didn’t move a muscle.

“That ain’t nice, Terry,” Madeline slurred. “That young man just so happens to be Jack Van Dorn of the Fifth Avenue Van Dorns.”

“Then he should’ve been smart enough to keep his goddamned mouth shut. We’ve got business, Mimi. You and me. Alone. Right now.”

Madeline’s fleshy arms flapped as she threw up her hands and motioned for Blondie and Carmine to leave. Carmine moved first, slow and steady as he passed Quinn and out the door.

Blondie got to his feet and seemed to think about helping his friend, but ran out of the room instead. He even closed the door behind him. A nice, polite boy.

Quinn kept standing where he was.

Madeline drained her champagne glass again and filled it for herself. “You happy now, you goddamned animal? And stop callin’ me Mimi in my own joint.”

“It’s Archie’s joint. You and that shitbird husband of yours just run it for him. You’d do well to remember that.”

“Archie Doyle,” Mimi said, drawing out his name. “Joe and me have been runnin’ this dive for three years and ain’t never heard a word of complaint outta him before.”

“That’s because you never stole from him before.”

“Stole?” Mimi lowered her champagne glass very slowly. If he didn’t know better, he would’ve thought she was genuinely insulted. “Stole?” Her ruddy skin blanched quickly. “We stole? From Archie? Me and Joey? That what he tell you? After all we done for that miserable Irish son of a…”

“Stow the bullshit. Archie’s take from this place has been off every week for the past month and it’s not because business is off. You’re leaking money, Mimi, and that means either you or Joe are getting greedy. Which one of you is it?”

Mimi sat up as straight as she could manage. “Neither me nor Joey ever stole off nobody, especially Archie. We run a gamblin’ joint for Chrissakes! We make plenty off what we take in, even with Archie gettin’ his cut.”

“The take says different.” He remembered Doyle’s instructions. “If it’s not you, it’s got to be Joey. Where is he?”

“How the hell should I know,” she said. “I ain’t seen him for three whole days, the bum. Never could rely on that lousy bastard for nothin’.”

“That’s too bad. That just leaves you, unless someone else in this place was in on the skim with you. And the quicker you start talking, the easier this is going to be. For both of us.”

Mimi shook a long, crooked finger at him. “Let me ask you somethin’, tough guy. In all of this big thinkin’ Archie’s been doin’, did the grand man himself ever ask why we’d steal from him? Now? After all these years, now we get greedy?”

“People change,” he said. “Crazy notions pop into their heads out of nowhere. Notions like maybe they ought to jump ship and join up with Rothmann’s bunch.”

“Pshaw,” she said with a boozy wave. “That’s crazy talk.”

“Not really.” He nodded over at the chair where Carmine Rizzo had been sitting. “You having one of Rothmann’s top boys in here tonight doesn’t look too good.”

Mimi’s face became all lines and shadows. “First you call me a thief, then you call me a traitor. You sure know how to make a girl sore. You…”

“Quit stalling. I know damned well you’ve got the money you owe Archie with you right here and now. Just hand it over and Archie promises he’ll forgive the whole thing for old time’s sake. But if you keep lying to me, and I have to tear this place apart looking for it, things will get real ugly real fast.”

He heard a floorboard creak behind him just before he heard the door open. He had plenty of time to go for his gun, but didn’t.

Archie had already told him no gunplay.

Quinn heard the hammer of a.38 being cocked behind him. The same kind of gun he knew Carmine Rizzo used.

“You’re goddamned right it’s gonna get ugly,” Carmine said. “Starting with you.”

“What the hell are you doing?” Mimi shrieked from the couch. “Put that damned thing away before he takes it from you.”

Quinn turned just enough to let Carmine see his grin. “Listen to the lady, stupid. You’re not going to use it anyhow.”

“No kidding?” Carmine said. “What makes you so goddamned sure?”

“Because shooting me is going to make your life more complicated than it already is. Especially when you have to explain to Rothmann why you shot me. And what you were doing here in the first place.”

“Bullshit. Rothmann knows I’m here.”

“Bullshit,” Quinn repeated. “Rothmann would never let you muscle in on one of Archie’s gambling dens. He knows better than to risk a war over a hellhole like this. But you?” He laughed. “You’re just greedy enough to think you could get away with it. Dumb enough, too.”

Carmine didn’t laugh. “For a washed-up pug, you’ve got some imagination.”

“Nah, just a good pair of eyes.” He motioned to the unconscious Van Dorn punk on the floor. “You brought those two fat cats in the tuxes here tonight, didn’t you? Sold them on a can’t-miss way to buy themselves a piece of the action. For just a grand or so apiece, they’d get a cut of this place, plus the satisfaction of screwing over Archie Doyle in the process. Any smart guy would’ve laughed in your face, but a couple of well-heeled dopes like them, well…”

Mimi dropped her glass of champagne. “Jesus Christ, Carmine! How the hell does he know all that?”

“Relax,” Carmine said. “He’s just guessing. He doesn’t know shit.”

“Sure I do.” Quinn looked at Mimi. “People like to talk. And Archie likes to listen.”

Mimi’s eyes went wide. “I…it wasn’t me, Terry. I swear.” She pointed back to Carmine. “It was him! He cooked the whole thing up. Him and that lousy bastard Joey. They lied to me. They…”

Carmine came around Quinn to get a clear shot at Madeline. Quinn yanked Carmine’s gun arm up and hit him with two short rights to the jaw.

Carmine went limp, held up by Quinn holding his left wrist. He took the gun out of his hand and let Carmine drop to the floor.

He opened the cylinder and pocketed the bullets. He tossed the empty.38 on the couch next to Mimi.

She flinched when the gun hit the cushion. She dropped her head into her hands and wept. “Jesus Christ, Terry. Jesus Christ, what am I gonna do now? Don’t kill me. Please don’t…”

“Knock it off. Just tell me where’s the money you owe Archie?”

“It’s gone,” she wailed. “We had a couple of great weeks that put us way ahead, so Joey started skimming a little from the extra we earned.”

“Gambling?” Quinn asked.

Madeline nodded. “He found himself into Carmine pretty deep. Soon, the extra we were earning wasn’t enough to cover what we owed, so we cut into the rest of the take. He figured Archie would never miss it.”

“Guess what?” Quinn said. “He did.”

“Carmine told him he’d forgive the debt if he could help us swindle these two rich boys out of a couple of grand. Make them think they were buying a piece of this place.”

“Where’s the money they brought with them?”

Mimi lifted her face from her hands. Her mascara smeared all over her face. “Terry, please. I…”

He kicked the table over. Champagne bottle and glasses flew. “The Van Dorn money, Mimi. Now!”

Slowly, she pulled the briefcase out from under the couch and she set it on her lap. She fumbled with the locks, but got them open. It looked to be about two grand in greenbacks. Just like he’d been told. Enough for the rich kids to buy a piece of the place.

Or at least think they had.

He wondered how long it would’ve been before they got killed in a convenient mugging once they realized Carmine and Joey had fooled them.

Mimi grinned up at him and ran her tongue along the edges of her teeth. “It’s all right here, sugar. Two grand in cold cash. Enough to pay back Archie what we owe him.”

She lowered the lid of the briefcase enough for him to look down her dress. Her smeared mascara gave her a mean, desperate look. “Enough for you and me to blow town and have ourselves some real fun somewhere. What do you say?”

Quinn shut the case and yanked it off her lap. The Van Dorn kid groaned as he began to stir on the floor.

“I’d say you’re going to have a couple of angry playmates when they wake up in a few minutes.”

Mimi sat back on the couch and folded her arms across her chest. Modesty had returned. “What am I supposed to tell them when they do?”

“That the deal is off and you’ll pay them back with your own money. Tell them this is still Doyle’s place and if they don’t like it, they’ll have to answer to Archie. And me.”

“That’s swell,” Mimi said. “Just swell. But who’s gonna tell Joey? Somebody’s gonna have to tell that crazy son of a bitch what happened and it sure as hell ain’t gonna be me. He’ll beat the hell outta me for this.”

He locked the briefcase. “No he won’t.”

“Yeah?” Mimi said. “How do you know?”

He smiled as he opened the door. “Trust me.”

He shut the door behind him as he went out through the crowd of gamblers. If any of them had heard the commotion in the office, none of them let on. They were too busy poring over the tables, looking for a way to chisel in on the action.

The blonde boy in the tuxedo was nowhere in sight. Probably back with Mummy and Daddy up on Fifth Avenue or wherever that type holed up.

He wondered if the stupid bastard would ever realize that Quinn had actually saved his life.

Otis was back at his piano, pawing out an old Jolson number on the ivories. Quinn made sure he saw him drop another twenty in his tip jar. He patted the piano as he passed by. “Safe and sound, Otis. I’m a man of my word.”

“Night’s still young,” Otis called after him.

Quinn’s fatigue returned as he walked to an all-night drugstore right around the corner and called Archie from the payphone in the back.

Archie came on the line quick, “How’d it go, kid?”

“I got the cash the swells were going to kick in for a share of the place. Two grand, just like Joey told us.”

“Good. Any bloodshed?”

“Not much, boss. You told me to go easy, so I did.”

Doyle didn’t sound convinced. “Terry…”

“I had to knock the Van Dorn brat around and I stopped Carmine from shooting Mimi. They’re banged up but alive, I promise.”

“What about that bastard Rizzo,” Doyle said. “Where’d you park his Plymouth?”

“Right across the street from the place, just like you wanted. I made sure I left the keys in the car for the cops to find.”

“Good. I’ll call our friend and tip him off about Joey’s body being in Carmine’s trunk.” Quinn knew their friend was Andrew Carmichael, Commissioner of the New York Police Department. “If they get there fast enough, maybe they’ll nab Carmine in Mimi’s place. The Van Dorn punk too. Give them back-stabbing bastards somethin’ to chew on.”

Quinn hadn’t slept in two whole nights and was too tired to care anymore. He had Archie’s money and that’s what mattered. “You know best, boss.”

“Goddamned right, kid,” Archie laughed. “Goddamned right. Now get some sleep. You earned it.”

Quinn hung up the phone and let Archie make his calls. He squeezed out of the phone booth and ordered a coffee from the counterman. It was late-night coffee-lukewarm and bitter-but it was better than no coffee at all. It had enough of a kick to keep him from falling asleep in the cab on the way home.

He played the whole thing out in his mind while he sipped his coffee. He had to hand it to Archie. They didn’t call him The Duke for nothing; he always knew just what to do. Once he found out about the skim, he had Quinn pick up Joey and lean on him until he cracked.

He’d thought Joey dying like that had complicated things, but not Archie. Once Joey spilled about the scheme to team up with Carmine Rizzo, Archie figured out a way to put Joey to work for him one last time. He’d prove more useful in death than he’d ever been in life.

He’d ordered someone to steal Carmine’s car from in front of Lady M’s dive and brought to him. Then he stuck Joe’s body in the trunk and drove the Plymouth back to where he’d found it-right in front of Lady M’s.

The result? Joey was dead. Carmine was going to jail for his murder and Mimi was put on notice. And Doyle gets his money back. Hell, Doyle had even gotten Howard Rothmann to sign off on the whole thing. Why not? It gave Chief Carmichael a chance to show the city he was a crime fighter after all. Score one for the good guys.

But Quinn had learned long ago that there were no good guys and bad guys in The Life. Just guys out to make a buck and guys who died trying.

Guys like Archie Doyle and men like Terry Quinn who worked for them.

He drained his coffee and paid his tab. He’d just gotten outside the coffee shop when he heard the sirens of the squad cars racing along 14th Street. He walked to the corner and saw the cops had already opened the trunk of Carmine Rizzo’s Plymouth. He saw Joey’s body was inside, just like Quinn had left it.

He watched another group of cops drag Mimi and Carmine into the street in handcuffs. The Van Dorn brat wobbled out last.

Mimi was wailing, this time for real. It took three cops to push Carmine into the back of the squad car. The Van Dorn punk just looked woozy and ridiculous. Handcuffs and tuxes went together just about as well as cops and dead men in trunks.

A couple of uniforms recognized Quinn and waved. Why not? He was on Doyle’s payroll, too. Just a friend, standing on the corner in the middle of the night. With a suitcase in his hand.

Quinn smiled and waved back. Then hailed a cab going the other way.