Free Moonshine For Three by Lauren Gallagher Page B

plannin' on blowin' the place?"
    "Are you?"
    "Robert, for God's sake, you—"
    "I know what you are now, you son of a bitch," he snarls in my ear.
    My blood's cold as the salt spray hitting my face. "What are you—"
    "Who else you got on my boat?" he demands. "None of you boys work alone."
    I gulp. "I'm here alone. I'm not—"
    "Don't lie to me." He lowers his voice, hissing in my ear, and I know that dangerous tone from a hundred paces. "Or should I say, Detective Hansen?"
    My heart's going fast now. Real fast.
    "Robert, I'm—"
    "You're a cop." He jabs the gun into my back. "Admit it, or I'll let everyone on this deck know what you are so they can tear you apart until they find your badge."
    I exhale. "All right, all right, I'm a cop. But I swear, I'm here alone." I face forward again. "My partner can't be on the water. Gets seasick in his own bathtub. So I came alone."
    "Seasick?" The huff of sarcastic laughter makes me an awful lot less comfortable with that gun against my back. "You think I'm stupid, Paul?"
    "I'm here alone. If there's another cop on this boat, he ain't with me."
    "Then why are you here?" Before I can speak, he jabs the weapon into me again. "You've got five seconds, Paul. Tell me why you're here and why I shouldn't toss you overboard with an armload of cinder blocks."
    "Robert." Alice's voice is quiet, barely louder than the waves smacking the hull down below. "The taxis are comin' in, and we're out in the open. We ought to do this someplace no one can see."
    Robert releases his breath. Then he shoves me with the muzzle of the pistol. "Walk. First ladder on the left."
    Getting down the ladder ain't easy with the boat rocking this way, and it doesn't help knowing there's probably a gun still aimed at my head. If the damn boat rocks just right and I stumble, I better hope Robert doesn't have the itchy trigger finger he had back then.
    By the grace of God, my feet stay under me, and I wait while Robert comes down behind me. He stops to help Alice, and when both of her high-heeled shoes are on the deck, he directs me down the passageway.
    Two suited men the size of gorillas are coming the other way.
    "What's this all about, boss?" one asks.
    The other gestures at me with a huge hand. "You need help with him?"
    "I can handle him," Robert says. "Just don't let anyone down on this deck until I give the say-so. This is a private matter."
    "Right, boss," they both say, and squeeze past us.
    We continue through the narrow passageway. Then Alice opens a hatch, and I go in ahead of them.
    The room's small. A storage room of sorts. Bunch of shelves with rags and buckets. An old chair next to some stacked boxes. And no way out except the way I came in.
    This ain't good. I definitely shouldn't have come alone, and no way I should've let him bring me down here. But Robert hadn't left me a lot of choice. I couldn't make a scene above decks. I just hope this Robert still has some of the Robert I knew six years ago left in him, or I'm a dead man.
    "We need some glasses," Alice says. "I'll be right back."
    She leaves, and Robert orders me, "Get your jacket off."
    I unbutton my jacket and take it off. Shame to put a coat that fine on a dirty shelf full of rags, but it's all that's handy, so it'll have to do.
    "Holster, too," Robert says. "Whole thing, not just the gun."
    I grit my teeth. "Robbie, enough with the games. I came here to—"
    "Take off. The fucking. Holster."
    I'm short on patience tonight, but that thirty-eight in his hand is awfully convincing, so I do like he says. I slip the holster off my shoulders and hand it to him. He sets it on the floor behind his feet.
    "Hands behind your head." He gestures with the gun. "And turn around."
    As I lace my fingers together behind my head, I say, "Robbie, are we—"
    "Turn around," he snaps.
    I do as I'm told.
    "Now what do the cops want with me?" he asks. "Why you on my boat, Paul?"
    "I got a tip that you were involved in the gambling ships," I say. "And that you're