John Shirley: BioShock: Rapture

His lush bartender came weaving in, and Gorland turned the place over, tossing over his apron, vowing inwardly to fire the bastard first chance. He had a grift to set up…

First thing Gorland noticed, coming into the sweat-reeking prep room for the fight, was that hangdog look on Steele’s face. Good.

Sitting on the rubdown table getting his gloves laced on by a black trainer, the scarred, barrel-chested boxer looked like his best friend had died and his old lady too. Gorland tucked a fiver into the Negro’s hand and tilted his head toward the door. “I’ll tie his gloves on for ’im, bud…”

The guy took the hint and beat it. Steele was looking Gorland up and down, his expression hinting he’d like to practice his punching right here. Only he didn’t know this was Frank Gorland, what with the disguise. Right now, the man the east side knew as “Frank Gorland” was going by…

“My name’s Lucio Fabrici,” Gorland said, tying Steele’s gloves nice and tight. “Bianchi sent me.”

“Bianchi? What for? I told him not an hour ago it was a done deal.” Steele showed no sign of doubting that he was talking to “Lucio Fabrici,” a mobster working with Bianchi.

“Fabrici” had gone to great lengths for this disguise. The pinstripe suit, the toothpick stuck in the corner of his mouth, the spats, the toupee, the thin mustache—a high quality theatrical mustache carefully stuck on with spirit gum. But mostly it was his voice, just the right Little Italy intonation, and that carefully tuned facial expression that said, We’re pals, you and I, unless I have to kill you.

Not hard for him to pull off the character, or almost any character. Running off from the orphanage, he’d taken a job as a stage boy in a vaudeville theater—stuck it out for three years though they paid him in pennies and sausages. He’d slept on a pile of ropes backstage. But it had been worth it. He’d watched the actors, the comics—even a famous Shakespearean type who played half a dozen parts in his one-man show. Young Frank had sucked it all up like a sponge. Makeup, costumes—the works. But what most impressed him was the fact that the people in the audience believed. For a few minutes they believed this laudanum-addicted Welsh actor was Hamlet. That kind of power impressed young Frank. He’d set himself to learn it…

Judging from Steele’s reaction, he’d learned it good. “Look here, Fabrici, if Bianchi’s gonna welsh on my cut… I won’t take it! This is hard enough for me!”

“You ever hear of a triple cross, kid? Bianchi’s changed his mind!” Gorland lowered his voice, glanced to make sure the door was closed. “Bianchi doesn’t want you to throw the fight… we’ve let it out you’re throwing the fight so we can bet the other way! See? You’ll get your cut off the proceeds, and double!”

Steele’s mouth hung open. He jumped to his feet, clapped his gloved hands together. “You mean it? Say, that’s swell! I’ll knock that lug’s socks off!” Someone was pounding on the door. The audience was chanting Steele’s name…

“You do that, Steele—I hear ’em calling you… Get out there and nail him early, first chance! Make it a knockout in the first round!”

Steele was delighted. “Tell Bianchi, I’ll deliver—and how! A KO, first round! Ha!”

Half an hour later Gorland was at his bookie operation in the basement of the drugstore. Gorland and Garcia, his chief bookie, were in the room behind the betting counters, talking quietly, as Morry took bets at the window. Two or three freight-ship deckhands, judging by their watch caps and tattoos, stood in line to place their bets, passing a flask and yammering.

“I dunno, boss,” Garcia said, scratching his head. Garcia was a chubby second-generation Cuban in a cheap three-piece suit, chomping a cigar that had never been anywhere near Cuba. “I get how knowing about Steele throwing the fight’ll get us paid off if we place our own bets through our guys,” Garcia was saying. “But, boss, I don’t see how you’re going to get the kinda money out of it you’re talking about…”

“’Cause he isn’t going to throw the fight. All the smart mob money’ll be on him losing—and we’ll bet on him winning. And we’ll take ’em big-time when he surprises ’em!”

Garcia blinked. “They’ll take it outta Steele’s hide, boss.”

“And how’s that my worry? Just you make sure the mob’s up to their neck betting against Steele. They’re gonna be sad little monkeys when they lose. But they won’t trace it to us. If you see Harley, tell him to keep an eye on that poker game up at the hotel, got some real big money suckers comin’ in…”

He walked over to Morry, to have a gander at the take, and heard a couple of the dockworkers talking over their flask. “Sure, Ryan’s hiring big down there. It’s a hot ticket, pal, big paydays. But problem is—real QT stuff. Can’t talk about the job. And it’s dangerous too. Somewhere out in the North Atlantic, Iceland way…”

Gorland’s ears pricked up at that.

He slipped outside by the side door and set himself to wait. Less than a minute later a couple of the deckhands came out, weather-beaten guys in watch caps and pea jackets, headed for the docks. The deck rats didn’t notice him following. They were too busy whistling at a group of girls having a smoke across the street.

He shadowed the sailors close to dockside, then hung back in the shadows of a doorway, sussing the scene out. The deckhands went aboard one of the ships—but it was another one that caught Gorland’s eye—a new freighter with a lot of activity on its decks, getting ready to cast loose. The name on the bow was The Olympian . That was one of Ryan’s ships. There was a guy in the lee of a stack of crates near the loading dock, smoking a pipe. Something about him said G-man. It wasn’t Voss—probably one of his men, if Gorland was any judge of cop flesh.

If Andrew Ryan was attracting G-men, he must be up to something of “questionable legal status.” Which meant, at the very least, he could be blackmailed—if Gorland could find out exactly what to blackmail him for.

Seemed like the agent was watching the two guys arguing at the gangplank of Ryan’s freighter—but he wasn’t close enough to listen in without them noticing.

Gorland tilted his hat so the G-man wouldn’t see his face and strolled over, hands in his pockets, weaving a bit, making like he was drunk.

“Maybe I can get me some work on one of these ships,” Gorland said, slurring his words. “Mebbe, mebbe… Back bustin’ work, they got… Don’t care for it… mebbe they need a social director…” He did a good drunk—and all three men discounted him immediately as he approached.

Gorland paused near the gangplank, muttering to himself as he pretended to struggle with lighting a cigarette. All the while, he listened to the argument between the man standing on the roped gangplank, and a mustachioed man on the dock who looked like he might be a deckhand.

“I just ain’t shipping out to that place again, and that’s all there is to it,” snarled the deckhand in the black peacoat. He wore a knit cap on his head and a handlebar mustache on his upper lip. A swarthy type, eyebrows merged in a single black bar. But getting old, maybe—skin leathery, hair salt and pepper, hand trembling as he jabbed a finger at the ship’s officer. “You ain’t going to make me go out there! Too goddamned risky!”

“Why, percentagewise, they’re losing less people than building the Brooklyn Bridge,” said the officer. “I have Mr. Greavy’s word on that. Stop being such a coward!”

“I don’t mind being on the ship—but in that hell down below, not me!”