The Haunted Heist Page 13

  “I don’t see what we’re even doing out in the open,” I said, stepping cautiously into the night. “This is a bad place for a speakeasy.”

  “You’ll see,” Frankie muttered, turning his back and gliding farther away from the building.

  Ellis stuck close to me as we made our way out into the yard. The ground still felt wet from all the rain we’d had this past week.

  “They’d want the entrance near a main road, but not visible to traffic,” Ellis said, catching me when I slipped on a patch of mud. “Back here, there’s plenty of parking and you can get people in and out pretty easy.”

  “All those smarts but he didn’t find this,” Frankie said, stopping in front of a circular wooden lid with a modern padlock in place over a circle of rough-cut stones.

  “Here?” I asked.

  “This is the old well.” Ellis bent down and began entering the combination into the lock. “Why didn’t I look at this closer?”

  “Because you’re not me,” Frankie scoffed, throwing his leg over the stones and using a ladder I couldn’t see to lower himself down. “I helped pick this spot.”

  “Ready?” Ellis asked. He lifted the lid away from the dark, round opening. “This reminds me of the last time you and I went underground,” he mused.

  True. “You kissed me in the tunnel,” I reminded him.

  He grinned. “Why else do you think I want to go down there?”

  “Pipe down!” Frankie’s voice echoed from below. “You’re gonna have the police on us if you keep up that racket.”

  “Truly, Frankie?” I asked. “You’re worried about the police?”

  Ellis glanced down into the hole. “Should I remind him?”

  “No,” I said. It would just make him mad.

  “I’m heading in,” I said, throwing my leg over the edge. Maybe I’d say something nice to Frankie when I got down there. I caught the ball of my foot on the top rung of an iron ladder bolted to the side.

  “Wait,” Ellis said, catching me at the waist. “Let’s test this thing first.”

  “Good point,” I said, easing my foot back. “I should have thought of that.”

  He tugged at the ladder, making sure its bolts remained securely fastened to the stone. “Patience,” he reminded me.

  I shrugged. “I’m an action girl.” At least with everything but my personal life. Which only went to show how deeply mucking up a relationship scared me. I was scared now, but not enough to stifle my curiosity about what was happening in that haunted club. When Ellis was satisfied I wouldn’t plunge to my death, I kicked a leg over the edge again. “Let’s do this.”

  “I’m right behind you,” he said.

  I descended into the old pit and tried not to let claustrophobia get to me as the dusty rock walls closed in on all sides. The rusty grit of the ladder felt slippery under my boots, and I made a point of clinging to the roughened sides.

  Frankie’s groans echoed up from the darkness.

  He sounded like a tortured spirit haunting the moors, instead of an impatient mobster who wanted his gun back.

  Blackness surrounded me. “This is deeper than I imagined,” I said, feeling the air cool.

  “Keep going,” Ellis said from above, the ladder jerking with his heavy movements. A wave of anxiety hit me when I realized he blocked my escape from underground. The stench of the place kept me from taking a deep breath. I can do this.

  This wasn’t even the worst part. If we were lucky, we’d run into a killer.

  I continued down until I reached the sandy, rocky bottom. I could feel the rounded stones through the soles of my boots.

  Frankie leaned against the wall at the bottom. “So nice of you to join me, your highness.” In the silver glow he gave off, I could see the rough rock at his back and the outline of a dark tunnel just to the left of him.

  “Is that it?” I reached into my bag for my key light and shone it down a seemingly endless passageway. Rotting planks of wood crowded the entrance.

  Ellis crunched down onto the rock behind me. He shone a light over rusted hinges. “Somebody broke in the door.”

  “Recently?” I looked to Frankie, who merely shrugged.

  “Hard to tell.” Ellis stepped into the passageway, the powerful beam from his Maglite bounding off the walls. “A friend of my uncle’s told him there was something funny about the covered well out here.” He ran a hand along the stone ceiling and bent over to keep from hitting his head. “You’ll never guess who it was.” Where there had been an echo in the well, the stones here seemed to absorb his voice.

  “I’m not sure,” I said, trailing along behind him in the passageway.

  Frankie appeared a ways down the tunnel.

  Ellis glanced back at me. “Jeb Kemper.”

  “Oh my.”

  “He looked in on the place for us sometimes. I think my uncle even gave him a set of keys.” Ellis shook his head and advanced along the corridor. “Hale and I never looked into it. We were more concerned with security in the actual distillery building. If Jeb did venture down here, he didn’t say anything to us.”

  I placed a hand on Ellis’s back, for his comfort—or so I told myself. “Watch your step,” he murmured as we encountered a fallen stone. I hoped this part of the passage was stable.

  I could see Jeb coming down here, although if he did it alone, that would be brave. I wondered if he might have come across Handsome Henry’s possessions when he was poking around.

  I slipped on a patch of loose rock and steadied myself against the rough brick wall. A lot of wiseguys died down here. No doubt they left plenty of valuables, other than the gun in Louie’s pocket.

  “Frankie’s right in front of you,” I said as we neared the gangster. He stood outside a rusted steel door complete with an envelope-sized slider that I assumed was a peephole.

  “I need to see,” I said to the ghost. “If I’m going to find your gun and see if Henry is around.”

  “Gun first,” he warned.

  “I promise.”

  I felt the air around me prickle with ghostly energy. My senses sharpened, my muscles throbbed, and the space filled with a familiar silver, otherworldly glow.

  Jazz music filtered from the other side of the door, along with voices and clinking glasses. “Sounds like quite a party,” I said.

  Frankie smirked. “We have some good times,” he said. “I should take you to Mick’s gin joint.” He frowned. “Although that’s under a parking lot now. I don’t know if anybody still goes there or not.”

  “It would be private,” I reasoned.

  “Yeah,” he said, lighting up.

  The peephole slid open. A beady-eyed ghost scrutinized us and I heard the unmistakable sound of a pistol cock on the other side.

  “I thought these were your friends,” I hissed.

  “Shh…” Frankie waved me away. “I got this.”

  The man on the other side cleared his throat. “A toast to those who wish me well.”

  Frankie chuckled. “All the rest can go to hell.”

  The door swung open. “Frankie!” said a skinny young ghost in a suit. “It’s been so long I almost didn’t recognize you.”

  Frankie shook his hand and rubbed the top of his head. “Shut it, you egg.” He gestured me forward. “Brewer, this is Verity. She’s with me.”

  The guy looked me up and down like he had a chance. “Nice stems.”

  “Thank you,” I said, taking Ellis’s hand for support. “He’s also with us.”

  The guy shrugged. “As long as you ain’t the law.”

  “Ha,” I said, distinctly uncomfortable. That earned a glare from Frankie.

  “Watch yourself,” he said under his breath, with a level of concern that surprised me. “Your boyfriend was right to warn you about us.”

  We stepped into a dark alcove separated from the party by a flowing velvet curtain. I caught a strong waft of cigars and sweat.

  “Smile,” Frankie said, muttering close to my ear. “Act natural.
And follow me if we have to run.”

  Run? What had I gotten myself into?

  I didn’t have much time to worry about it before Frankie opened the curtain.

  Chapter 15

  It was an entire night club. Scratch that—a jazz club, filled with smoke and music, men in suits and ladies showing off glitzy flapper dresses with feathers in their hair.

  “Frankie!” Two skinny guys in suits greeted him, patting him on the back as more wiseguys took notice and stood up to say hello to my gangster buddy. Soon, he had a small crowd around him. Frankie ate it up, shaking hands and kissing the cheeks of the girls that hovered on the edges of the mob reunion.

  “Well, look at that,” I muttered to myself. “Everybody knows his name.”

  An ornate wood bar with a mirrored back took up the entire right side of the place. It was crowded with patrons turning to see what the commotion was about and wiseguys grabbing drinks from two young bartenders that should have been carded themselves. A five-piece band played on a stage in the back. Every member wore gray suits and matching ties. They jazzed out a lively rendition of “Sweet Georgia Brown” over the animated conversation of the crowd and the clinking of glasses.

  “You’re popular,” I called to Frankie over the din of the partygoers when I could get a word in edgewise.

  “I’m home,” he hollered back, still greeting his friends.

  Ellis eased forward, exploring the party without the benefit of rose-colored glasses. He paused close by, at a circular table crowded with wiseguys, and I winced as one used the decorative candle at the center to light a stinky cigar.

  Ellis’s breathing grew shallow. “This is unreal.”

  I squinted and tried to see beyond the ghostly party. I’d never been in a room like this one before, with every stick of furniture, every art deco light fixture the same on the ghostly plane as in real life.

  It felt so real, so vivid, that I had to work to see past it, to the wide underground room cluttered with dusty tables and the skeletal remains of guests. They wore tattered party clothes and lay as they did when they died. Many slumped in their chairs or sprawled over the once-festive tables. One guy had made a barricade out of a bullet-riddled table. Bullet holes peppered the bar at the back, and the long mirror behind it barely held itself together, a shattered, gaping shell of its former glory. Dusty bottles, many of them broken, lined the bar, as cold and dead as the patrons.

  Frankie joined us, drink in hand, as Ellis took in the crime scene. “This was a mass murder.”

  “Yeah,” Frankie agreed. “But it was a hell of a lot of fun before that.”

  “What happened to everyone?” It looked brutal.

  “Shot mostly,” Frankie said, ever the practical one. “The Irish got the jump on us. That and drunk guys don’t shoot so straight.” He took a swig of his drink. “Happened the night I died, so I would have been a goner anyway. Didn’t miss much. In that way, it’s kind of nice.”

  No, it wasn’t. “They just…gunned everyone down?”

  Frankie shrugged. “We shot ’em back. They had orders from the higher-ups,” he said, as if that made it right. “It was nothing personal.” He grinned at a rather large gangster who patted him on the shoulder as he walked past.

  “So you all just drink and party?” It seemed both a waste of time and a fabulous way for Frankie to spend his afterlife.

  “Until you came along,” he said, his humor fading.

  I was beginning to see how he might have gotten frustrated when I’d taken him on multiple trips to the library, not to mention the dollar store.

  Ellis made his way toward the bar as he mapped out the scene. The ghosts shifted out of his way, muttering under their breath.

  Meanwhile Frankie greeted two fellows who came up on us from the left, weaving through tables, the bulges in their jackets making it abundantly clear they carried multiple firearms. “Hey, ya losers!” Frankie shouted by way of greeting. They clapped him on the back and seemed happy to see him. “Verity,” Frankie said, turning everyone’s attention to me, “you gotta meet Dime Store Bobby.” He drew an arm around a blond gangster with a lock of hair that fell stylishly over his forehead. He’d be handsome, if you were into the bad-boy type. “Bobby takes care of the bribes.”

  “An important job,” I said, opting for a wave instead of a handshake. Bobby grinned at me like he was up to something. He probably was.

  “And here’s…hey, wait.” Frankie looked around. “Where’s Icepick Charlie? She needs to meet him, too.”

  “Aw,” Bobby said, “he’s got a thing going with one of the Irish. Mikey accidentally shot Icepick in the skull yesterday, so now Icepick is gonna get back at him today.” He made a motion that suggested Icepick would stab the poor man through the ear.

  I stifled a gasp. “We have to stop him.”

  I searched for Ellis. He’d help. He was bent down one table away from us, examining bullet casings, much to the dismay of the ghosts, who crowded together opposite him, avoiding his touch. Now if I could only locate an ice-pick-wielding gangster with a mind to murder…

  Frankie pointed a finger at me. “Don’t you dare,” he warned. He leaned so close to my ear my entire lobe went numb. “Nobody’s got a problem with this but you. Everybody’s already dead. Think of it like a sport.”

  “Murder?” I prodded. “You want me to equate murder with Monday Night Football?”

  Frankie shrugged. “More like paintball. It stings a little, but then you’re fine in no time. The real pain is keeping score.”

  Frankie had a point. It wasn’t like any of the ghosts could die again. I was the only one who could get truly hurt or killed if ghostly bullets started flying or if I drew the wrong sort of attention.

  Dime Store Bobby watched me, his expression gone hard.

  “I’m fine. Everything’s fine,” I said, drawing away from Frankie before I lost feeling in the entire left side of my face.

  Bobby took a menacing step toward me and I felt my blood pressure rise. “You got a problem with the way we do things around here?”

  “I just want everybody to get along,” I said, trying to keep my hackles down and my voice sweet.

  Bobby wasn’t convinced. “The Irish deserve to catch hell every now and then,” he bit out. “They’re the ones who shot up the place. They even smoked the band. I mean, did they have to kill the band?”

  I turned to Frankie, but he’d abandoned me to greet a table full of guys and gals who seemed to think he was incredibly funny. I glanced to Ellis. He stood examining a bullet hole in a man’s rotting jacket, as if I wasn’t in a pinch here.

  Bobby cocked his head toward the gangsters crowded onto low couches. “We make the Irish sit in the back and drink their own liquor. We ain’t gonna waste our booze on the guys who murdered us.”

  It appeared as if the Irish tried to ignore the South Town Gang as well, for the most part. Despite the skeletons and the ice-pick-wielding ghost, this seemed to be a happening death spot.

  I stepped away from Bobby—hoping he’d get the hint—and scanned the crowd for Handsome Henry. He should be easy to spot, with his tank of a body and scarred face.

  Meanwhile Bobby looked me up and down, a wiseass grin tickling his lips. “Whatcha looking for?” he prodded. “Because if it’s a good time, I’m it.”

  Of all the nerve. “You were threatening me less than thirty seconds ago.”

  “That’s part of my charm,” he said, drawing too close for comfort. The man was going to get a real shock if he kept it up. He’d obviously never hit on the living before.

  I stepped away. “You’re not my type,” I said, my gaze finding Ellis, who was examining a long butcher knife jutting from the ribs of one of the victims. I liked the ones who solved problems instead of creating them.

  “What? You like that clown?” Bobby prodded. The stabbed man’s ghost stood just behind Ellis, sipping a cocktail. The knife was still sticking out of his chest. “He brought a knife to a gunfight,” Bobby ch
ided, “then he got stabbed with it.”

  “Not him,” I said. And I wasn’t going to point out Ellis, either. This was my chance to get what I’d come for. “I’m looking for Handsome Henry. Have you seen him around?”

  Bobby frowned and I caught a vulnerability in his expression that almost made me feel sorry for him. Almost. Until he slammed his fist on the table next to us. “Why do dames always go for the assassins?”

  A gangster wearing all black came up behind him and handed him a mixed drink.

  “Ice Pick!” Bobby said, accepting the drink and taking a long swig.

  Ice Pick stirred his own drink with his finger. “Henry doesn’t come around much, not after his death anyway. He mostly stays hitched up with his girl,” the droop-eyed gangster said in a high-pitched voice that would have probably made him a target if he weren’t so talented with deadly kitchen tools. “Bobby’s just mad ’cause he danced the tango with her, too.”

  Bobby crossed his arms over his chest. “If he ever brought her in here, she’d be looking at me.”

  Ice Pick smacked his friend on the back of the head. “That’s ’cause you’re a clown.”

  “How can I find Henry?” I asked them, trying to keep the conversation on track.

  Ice Pick took a long sip of his drink. “Ah, that’s the stuff.” He tipped his glass at me. “You want to see Henry and Rosie both, head to the Holy Oak Cemetery. They’re homebodies now—always at each other’s graves. You want Henry on his own, wait a week or so.” He shrugged. “He’ll show up in some dark corner.”

  “If you go see him at the rock garden, bring flowers,” Bobby said. “He likes ladies who like flowers. Reminds him of his mamma.”

  “I think that’s nice,” I said of the gangster who liked his mamma. At least I understood it better than I did Bobby. One minute, he was having a violent outburst, the next, he stood there talking about flowers.

  Ice Pick chuckled. It was a hollow, empty sound. “Bobby just wants you to nab Henry so Rosie’ll give him another chance.”

  Bobby held up his drink, his pinkie in the air. “She don’t know what she’s missing. All dames like a sharp suit.”