Let the Dead Keep Their Secrets by Rosemary Simpson

Author:Rosemary Simpson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington
Published: 2018-09-11T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

“The only time I see you is when you want something,” Billy McGlory said.

He poured two fingers of Cascade Tennessee Whisky, one of Ned Hayes’s preferred brands of bourbon, and held the crystal glass out to the man who had saved his life at the expense of his career with the New York City Police. For himself he favored an Irish whiskey tapped straight from the barrel and sold for pennies all over Hell’s Kitchen. Uisce beatha in Gaelic, water of life, though for many it was pure perdition.

“I wouldn’t want to ruin your reputation.” Ned raised his glass in a silent toast.

McGlory was one of the most notorious casino saloon owners in the city; there were more stories told about him than anyone could keep track of. He dressed like a dandy and ran his empire with merciless efficiency. He’d bought the police and all the judges he needed years ago; his only opposition were the reformers who swarmed out of their churches every few years determined to convert the godless and destroy the cesspits of sin. They could rarely be bought off, but the wave of righteousness never lasted very long. Putting up with them was accepted as part of the cost of doing business.

“I always pay my debts,” McGlory reminded him. It was the first thing anyone who crossed his path remembered. “And I collect on them, too.”

When you owed your life to a man, the debt never ended. McGlory expected to be doing favors for Hayes until the ex-detective’s twin addictions to morphine and alcohol finished him off. He looked good today, though. McGlory’s dealers reported that Hayes’s buying had changed. Nowadays he rarely purchased enough morphine to make it worth their while to sell it to him, though they made sure that what he did buy was the best that could be obtained. No cutting with rat poison, either. That was part of McGlory’s debt.

“I need information about a man named Aaron Sorensen,” Hayes began. “Whatever you have, but I’m especially interested in his gambling habits. How much he owes and where. If what I already know is any indication, he’s verging on the desperate. A lady’s life is at stake.”

“I take it he’s not a client.”

“Hardly.”

“Clients have been known to lie.”

“Everybody lies, Billy. But Sorensen is not our client.”

“I heard you were working with Geoffrey Hunter again.”

“Hunter and MacKenzie.”

“Miss MacKenzie proved herself as brave as any man in the Joseph Nolan affair. And probably more resourceful. I doubt either one of us would have thought of bringing him down with the knotted waist cord from a religious habit and a large rosary.”

“I’m not sure she and Josiah Gregory would have succeeded without the dog. Miss MacKenzie promised Kevin Carney in the carriage that day that he and Blossom would always be welcome to bed down in her stables.”

“They’ll turn up from time to time,” McGlory said. “They’re both fond of horses.”

“Aaron Sorensen?”

“He’s the worst kind of gambler for himself, his family, and whatever business he makes his money in.

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