An excerpt from BLACKMAIL AT THE GALLIANO CLUB,
coming January 2023.
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“Look.” Luca spread out the newspaper, hiding the ledger, and placed the magazine next to the front-page photographs of the unidentified woman from the river. “What do you see?”
Vito wiped the back of his hand across his mouth and mustache. “She’s—.”
A deafening fusillade cut him off. The entire back wall shook from the force of it. Luca
instinctively dropped to the floor and yanked a drunkenly bewildered Vito under the desk.
The scything clatter went on and on, filling the night with fury.
And then it was over as suddenly as it began.
Luca staggered to his
feet, buffeted by the lingering echo of violence. Beyond the office, the hall was the same as before. White plaster, green paneling, pressed tin ceiling. The pool room and tiny library were both dark and empty.
To the right, the lights in
the saloon were still on. Looking left, he saw the club’s back door swinging to and fro. The knob was shot away. Splinters blanketed the threshold. Cold leached into the warmth of the club.
Hugging the wall, uncertain of the danger, Luca
sidled to the door. The wood was pocked with lead.
“Madonna santa,” Vito murmured from behind him.
Together they made their way through the destruction to the back porch. Light from the hall bled over the gravel lot. The air smelled
acrid and burnt.The sound of a speeding automobile faded quickly, but not before they heard squealing tires make a hasty turn on frosty pavement.
Both men gave a start when Vito’s Packard abruptly canted to the left, a mortally
wounded warhorse collapsing on the battlefield. Luca put out a hand to keep Vito from doing the same.
The Packard’s shiny black finish was peppered with hundreds of ugly bullet holes. All the windows were gone, leaving jagged teeth of glass in
their place and shards scattered everywhere. Three of the four tires were reduced to rubber ribbons.
As Luca and Vito stood in stunned silence, the driver’s door drifted open, encouraged by gravity and broken hinges. The metal edge traced a
groove in the gravel, signing the Packard’s terms of surrender.
