Page 26 of Romancing the Rumrunner
That’s what kept him up at night. His partner was dead because he hadn’t been able to see past a pair of pretty eyes and soft lips. He deserved the life he lived now because he shouldn’t evenbealive. It should have been him who had gone down that night, not Stan. He only thanked God that Stan hadn’t had a family. No more lives that would have been ruined.
If it hadn’t been for Tony’s mother, he would be well on his way to drinking himself to death by now. Prohibition or no Prohibition. Hell, he’d been a cop. He knew where the speakeasies were. He could have done it and would have welcomed the numbness that came with too much booze.
But his ma didn’t have anyone else. She needed him. So here he was. Trying to scrape by doing private investigations for rich men who couldn’t keep their wives from sleeping with the gardener and rich women who thought their maids might be stealing from them. He made enough to get by, but it was a near thing every month. And his ma deserved better than what he could give her right now.
What he needed was for his little songbird to start singing. He didn’t like the idea of using her, but he had no illusions that she was an innocent in this game, though at times he could swear she was. No. Even if she wasn’t in as deep as Jameson thought, she had to be involved, somehow. She had information he needed, information that was illegal to keep, and he wasn’t going to let some gangster’s moll get in the way of getting his life back.
Tony opened his bottom drawer and pulled out the battered, coffee-stained file. He flipped it open. Jessie’s picture stared up at him.
She’d been brought in half a dozen times before Jameson had come to him, but she didn’t seem to know anything. Anything useful, anyway. However, something about her answers seemed off to Tony. He wished he had been in on the interrogations. He was good at reading people, their reactions, body language. He could usually tell when someone was lying. He shied away from the memory of Lucille and focused on what he’d read in Jessie’s files.
Officer: Who is the man known as the Phoenix?
Jessica: I don’t know any man by that name.
Officer: Have you ever been to a speakeasy known as The Red Phoenix?
Jessica: Yes.
Officer: Can you take us there?
Jessica: No.
Officer: So you are refusing to tell us the location of the speakeasy?
Jessica: You didn’t ask me where the location was.
Officer: Where is the location of the speakeasy?
Jessica: In Chicago.
Officer: We are aware of that. Surely you can be more specific. Can you tell us where exactly it is? What street it is located on?
Jessica: Not with any degree of certainty, no.
Officer: Why not?
Jessica: It’s not really on a street.
Officer: If it is located in this city, it must have an address.
Jessica: If it does, I have no idea what it is.
Officer: Fine. We’ll come back to that one. Who supplies the Phoenix?
Jessica: No one.
Officer: He must have a supplier.
Jessica: Why is that?
Officer: He must get the booze he sells from somewhere. Does he run it from Canada, across Lake Michigan or Huron maybe, or is he bootlegging over land from another city? Make it himself?
Jessica: The only person I ever knew who made their own liquor was my father. And he’s dead.
Officer: You said the Phoenix does not have a supplier, which must mean he makes his own liquor. Where is his operation?
Jessica: I can’t tell you that.
