Rumrunner

**Chapter Seven: Royal Flush**

Argus was still wondering where Gisella had ran off to that night she had almost taken him to a picture. He had made his way home after a few minutes of standing in the Torrio's front hall like an idiot, half expecting Gisella to reappear to whisk him off to some secluded corner of Detroit where she would cheerfully have her way with him. Well, perhaps that had been more hope than expectation. It was a week later, and he was sitting at a table in the living room of Aldo's house, playing poker with the boys. The boys consisted of Aldo, Giulio, the notorious Icepick, and a good ole southern boy by the name of Jack.

"Your deal," announced Giulio, handing Argus the deck. He shuffled the cards somewhat awkwardly, but to his pride didn't drop any.

"Five card draw," he said, dealing cards around the table before setting the leftover cards in the centre. He had been hopeless at all forms of the card game when he had first started playing, but now he was decent. Decent meaning he actually knew the rules of the game, and was therefore not tricked into thinking he'd lost with every hand. He now flushed when he recalled Treetop telling him that getting five cards of the same suit meant that you automatically lost, and if they were in order that meant you had to pay twice the current bet into the pot.

He still wasn't good, by any means, but he was determined to win at least one game. He'd managed to win a couple of hands tonight, which was somewhat of a miracle.

"I'll take two," said Icepick. Icepick unnerved Argus, for more than one reason. First of all, he was engaged to Gisella. Second of all, his name was derived from his preferred method of execution. Third, he was built like a brick shithouse. Fourth, he had obviously heard about how, exactly, Argus had been recruited into the business, judging from the hateful looks that were being periodically shot in his direction.

"Four for me," said Giulio.

"Three," said Aldo.

"None for me," announced Jack cheerfully. Argus wasn't quite sure about Jack yet. The young man just didn't sit right with him. Jack was from down south, Knoxville, Tennessee to be exact. He was well liked throughout their part of the business because every month or so he would cruise down to his hometown and pick up a load of the south's finest export.

Even Argus, disgruntled about the country he was now residing in as he was, had to admit that the homemade liqueur that Jack had been pouring them all evening was fine stuff indeed. Just about better than anything that he'd had back home, and that included the Ogden's Firewhisky that he so adored.

He'd been a bit surprised when he'd learned that his drink was actually brewed in homemade contraptions in backyards and out in the woods deep in the property of slow talking (if Jack's infuriating accent was anything to judge by) Muggles in the south.

Still, there was something false about Jack. Argus wasn't quite sure what, but he knew that he didn't trust the man any farther than he could throw him.

Argus looked at his hand, and was pleased to notice that he had a pair of queens already. He pulled the other three useless cards from his hand, and picked up the deck. He distributed the right number of cards to everyone, and then peered back at his own hand. He'd gotten a pair of sevens. Two pair wasn't great by any means, but in five-card draw it could possibly be enough to win.

He tossed fifty cents into the pot. Everyone else followed suit, except Jack, who raised it another quarter. Argus glanced at the man, but couldn't tell whether or not he was bluffing. He tossed in another quarter obediently, evening up the pot. Everyone else, with the exception of Giulio, did also.

"I fold," announced Giulio, laying his cards face down.

"Chicken," said Icepick good-naturedly before laying his cards down face up. A pair of deuces and a pair of eights peered around a lone jack.

Aldo had one pair of kings, and Argus laid down his own two pairs. It was down to Jack. He laid down his hand. A pair of threes and three sixes. A full house.

"You got a full house?" questioned Icepick somewhat dubiously. While they weren't unheard of in five-card draw, they definitely weren't common.

"That's what it looks like," replied Jack, scooping up the pot and stacking the coins next to his hand. He seemed unaffected by the suspicious looks he was getting from three of the other occupants of the table.

Aldo picked up the deck of cards and began to shuffle. "Did you all hear about Ronnie's sister?"

Ronnie was the proprietor of a small pawnshop. He was also a pimp and did some heavy dabbling in the liqueur trades. None of the people that Argus regularly associated with were really into the bootlegging business, because it was so new that it wasn't really all that profitable to start out without any trade routes or buyers established. Argus had only met him because Aldo had been systematically introducing Argus to all the important people around town. He said it was important to know the people you might be doing business with.

"No- What about Rose? She's a sweet girl," said Giulio.

"Rose? The blond? She's more than a girl, I'd say," said Jack lecherously.

"She's only sixteen," admonished Icepick, apparently mentally glossing over the fact that his own fiancé was barely eighteen.

"She's dead," said Aldo bluntly.

"How?" said Giulio.

"Ronnie's been saying it was a car accident," said Aldo. "But that's not true- I haven't heard about any accidents for the past week, and she died Thursday."

"Why would he try to cover up her death? She wasn't involved in anything," Icepick said, confused. Everyone else just nodded.

"I don't know," shrugged Aldo as he passed out the cards.

"Give me two," said Giulio. "We could ask Gisella if she heard anything about Rose."

"One," said Icepick. "That sounds like a good idea. Want to call her in here?"

"I'll take two cards," said Jack, watching the other men carefully.

"Three for me," said Argus. He had never met Rose, though he had heard that she was a beauty to be reckoned with.

Aldo handed out the requested number of cards to everyone, and yelled, "GISELLA!"

A few minutes later, Gisella appeared at the doorway. "What?"

"We were wondering," began Giulio. "What all did you hear about Rose?"

A guarded look came across Gisella's face. "Why?"

That was completely the wrong answer, even Argus knew that. Everyone in the room now knew that she knew exactly what had happened to Rose. There was no way she was getting out of here without telling.

"Start talking," Aldo commanded. Gisella looked like she wanted to argue, but one glance around the room seemed to put the thought out of her head. Her brother, cousin, fiancé, as well as two other gangsters were all waiting on her to talk. She had no choice but to do as they wanted. Sister, cousin, lover she may be, but information was priceless in this world. They might not kill her over it, but they would certainly force it out of her. And she knew it.

"Rose didn't die in a car accident. That was a ridiculous story that Ronnie made up, God only knows what he was thinking," Gisella said. She paused. "How well do you all like Ronnie?"

Shrugs all around. Aldo just said, "Gisella, just tell us what happened to the girl."

"Rose was pregnant," Gisella said. A pin drop could be heard in the silence that followed this announcement.

"But- but Rose was a good Catholic girl. She had good morals. She wouldn't get into that position," said Giulio. "She was a marriage kind of girl."

Gisella looked as though she would rather eat glass than continue with the tale of Rose's demise. "She didn't want in that position. She didn't really have a choice in the matter."

"Somebody dared to rape her?" Icepick's rumbling voice cut through the room. "Ronnie would have killed them!"

"Ronnie's not the suicidal type," replied Gisella quietly. Argus stared. Surely she hadn't meant what he thought that she had meant! Ronnie had been Rose's brother. There was no way that he would- that he would...

The other men were silent, the same look of denial on their faces. Ronnie was a good guy; they all seemed to be thinking. He wouldn't do that.

"Are you sure?" Giulio finally asked.

"Of course I'm sure! Rose came sobbing to me and Loretta as soon as she knew!" Gisella was indignant.

"As soon as she knew?" Icepick questioned.

"Like I said at the beginning, Rose was pregnant," replied Gisella. Looks of horror and disgust spread across the room. Ronnie... Rose... baby. It was horrible to think of.

"But Ronnie didn't kill her, did he?" asked Jack, who had been mostly silent until that point.

"Not directly," said Gisella. "Loretta- she tried to talk Rose into telling someone, to going to this doctor Loretta knows about. To- you know. Stop a scandal from happening. Rose didn't want that, though. She was terrified of it getting out. She was convinced that the whole thing was her doing. Me and Loretta tried talking to her, into getting her to understand that there were things that could be done, that Rose didn't have to deal with all that alone. She didn't listen to us."

"She killed herself?" asked Giulio.

"No," replied Gisella. "She tried to eliminate the problem by herself. There are ways, you know. She picked a rough way; she would have been better off with pennyroyal, or any of the herbal- you know. But Rose didn't listen to what we had to say. She thought that she could take care of things. So she tried to give herself a fucking coat hanger abortion." Her voice was shaking with emotion, though Argus was hard pressed to tell if it was anger or grief.

"Did it work?" Jack was an ignorant fellow, Argus thought. The girl was dead, it obviously hadn't.

"No. Well, I guess it did, because there wasn't a baby anymore. But she- she cut things up in there. She started bleeding." Gisella's eyes sparkled with tears. "She called me up, and I got Loretta and we went over to her. By then, it was too late. Even if she would have gotten a doctor, it would have been too late. She died, all because of that bastard Ronnie."

No one was really sure what to say next. Argus wanted nothing more than to go over and hug Gisella, and tell her that everything would be alright, but he figured that wasn't really the most intelligent thing to do when her fiancé was sitting across from him. Her very large fiancé, at that. He probably should be feeling more pity for the dead girl, but he hadn't known her. Hard to sympathize for someone who didn't even have a face in his mind.

Giulio spoke up. "I'm gonna kill--"

"No, you aren't," interrupted Aldo.

"What?" Incredulous look.

"We can use this to our advantage."

Icepick carefully laid the hand of cards he had been clutching down. "What, exactly, are you implying?"

Aldo gave him a look. "Ronnie has a... profitable business going on right now."

Jack snorted. "You wouldn't make a good pimp, Aldo."

A glare. "Gisella, I think you need to go on to your room."

The dainty girl, who had been watching the exchange with sharp eyes, nodded and left the room. Argus wondered at a moment why she had gone without argument, but then remembered that she avoided getting involved in the business too much.

"What the hell was that about?" Jack had no sense of subtlety.

"Icepick. Shut the door, please." Aldo's voice was soft, threatening. Jack didn't look scared, though. Jack seemed to think he was invincible.

Aldo didn't acknowledge Jack, though. "Boys, we just got our big break."

Dawning understanding on Giulio's face, and a grin appeared. "There is a lot of money to be made there."

"Damn right," agreed Icepick. Argus felt like he had missed some integral part of the conversation. He kept quiet, though. Showing ignorance to these people was like baring your throat to the wolves.

What do you know about Ronnie's operation?" Giulio asked.

"Canadian. Straight from the breweries. Good stuff," replied Aldo. Argus felt as though he had been fumbling in the dark, and suddenly someone had turned on the light. Of course! Ronnie made most his money off bootlegged liqueur. He ran a speakeasy out of the basement of his whorehouse. If they could take his supply....

They could make it big.

"He uses boats, or what?" Icepick asked.

"Boats, and I think he stores it in some of the caves along the riverbed. If we can get all the info out of him, then we'll be able to get revenge." Aldo didn't need to explain further. Icepick knew that Ronnie had broken one of the fundamental rules- never harm family. He deserved exactly what he would get, as soon as his usefulness ran out.

"What the fuck are you going on about?" Jack snapped. He looked madder by the second.

No one paid him any mind.

"We could get out of information, and use what we know to make sure that no one tries to hone in on our endeavour," Aldo said. "This could be it."

Argus was watching Aldo, thinking that this was the happiest he had ever seen the man when a movement out of the corner of his eye caught his attention. Jack was standing up, saying something. "Goddamn Italian bastards...last straw... I'm not taking it anymore... eat this, shit faced uppity motherfucker..."

Before Argus had even fully realized what was happening, a series of loud bangs sounded.

Aldo shuddered, grappled at the burgeoning red stains on the front of his white shirt, and weakly said, "Fuck."

Argus was aware of people standing, shouting, moving around the room. He was aware of leaping out of his own chair, gaping at the scene, hearing the door swing open and Gisella screaming. He was aware of Aldo slumping over, Gisella's blood covered hands, Giulio's steady stream of curses, the fleeting movement of Jack shoving something small and dark into his jacket, and running from the room, chased by Treetop as Icepick tried to pull Gisella away from Aldo's body.

He just stared, backing away from the overturned card table- how had that happened?- and watching as Icepick held Gisella tightly, either restraining or embracing her. He saw tears streaking down her cheeks, leaving trails of makeup. Giulio was kneeling beside the body now, speaking to it softly.

Argus just couldn't quite comprehend the fact that it was Aldo's blood on the floor with a few erratic dollar bills and playing cards from the overturned table lying in it, that it was Aldo's body lying limply there, that the man he had trusted most was dead.

Death was much less surreal when he hadn't known the victims personally. When he hadn't eaten at their table, fallen in love with their sister, had joked with them and laughed with them and had been threatened by them. When he hadn't known the person personally, cared for them in a way, then their demise had not rifted his thoughts in the least. But he was feeling this more minutely than he would have imagined.

Argus stepped over the body, avoiding Giulio, who didn't even look up, went around Icepick and Gisella, and went outside. He needed some air.