Rhapsody In Time by Judith O’Brien

Author:Judith O’Brien
Language: eng
Format: epub

11

MIKE COOGAN GLANCED UP AS HIS BROTHER SLAMMED INTO the office, his lips pursed in preparation for the tirade that was to come. He capped the thick fountain pen and silently closed his accounting book. Finally he removed his round tortoiseshell spectacles, resigned that he would get no more work done today.

There was the deafening clatter of a subway train nearby, the price one paid for having a hideout deep in the bowels of the New York City transit system. Mike pulled out a pocket watch, the heavy gold glinting in the light of a green-shaded desk lamp, and checked the time. He had recently developed the habit of timing his brother’s tempestuous fits. Part of it was simple curiosity, the other was simple evidence. Should the situation demand it, he wanted to be prepared to take over the operation. The increasing number of Sean’s rantings would be a neat bit of evidence to present to the rest of the gang. He clicked the timepiece shut, satisfied with its solid feel.

Mike watched his brother with the calm detachment of a trained observer. During the past twenty years he had learned how to handle Sean, how to gently push him in whatever direction he wished. It was Mike who first saw the enormous potential of rum-running when the Volstead Act was announced. It was Mike who turned their loosely strung band of thugs into the tightly organized Coogan Gang. It was Mike who understood that bootlegging was the almost perfect crime, since once a customer—no matter how highly placed—handed them cash for the liquor, he was an actual accomplice. And accomplices are unlikely to squawk. It was Mike who transferred the bulk of their business to bootlegging, once the Coast Guard—the “Carrie Nation Army”—made border runs of imported liquor too expensive.

Most important, it was Mike who convinced his brother these were all Scan’s ideas.

For the most part the partnership had worked beautifully. Sean was able to intimidate by sheer force of his volatile personality. But it was Mike who forged the course of the Coogans, acting the part of second-in-command. Things had been going smoothly until six months before, when Sean happened to see a newsreel short on Alec Aarronson. Sean immediately recognized the composer as his long-lost cousin Liam.

Unlike his brother, Mike had long ago become aware that Aarronson was Liam. He had even watched Liam run away that fall morning over twenty years before, racing east with a ferocity Mike understood all too well. He’d almost followed Liam himself, horrified at the sight of Mr. Edwards’s body. But he hadn’t moved; his feet had seemed planted in the floorboards of that old candy store. Instead, he’d simply mouthed the words “God’s speed” to his fleeing cousin. Mike had known that should he follow, Sean would simply catch both of them.

So he had told his first outright lie to his brother, the first of many. Liam had run into the river, said Mike, hastening to that mansion he’d always stared at with such dreamy eyes.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.