“Alright. Then let’s hear what couldn’t be said in front of everyone else.”
Hudson leaned in and lowered his voice. “The secret passage.”
CHAPTER
FIVE
Finch nodded slowly.“I wondered about that, too.”
“You see why I didn’t wanna say in front of the other guys?”
“I do, Hudson. I do.”
Finch rose from his seat and wandered over to look at the wall panel behind which they both knew was an old passage that led out to the back of the block. Only a handful of people knew about it, and most of them were “made”—except Hudson. Hudson had found out by accident, coming into the office one night when Luca and Finch D’Amato had been coming in by way of the passage, although he didn’t believe their story that they’d just arrived from the outside. They both looked too rumpled for that, and Finch’s jeans were still unbuttoned.
“Let’s go look,” Hudson said eagerly, and went to the button on the wall that was the mechanism to open the panel. But Finch leapt across to stop him.
“Let’s not, huh?” he said, and turned back to pick up his gun. For a moment Hudson quailed, but then Finch pointed it towards the panel and said quietly, “I don’t like the idea of opening up that door just to have my face shot off. Do you, Hudson?”
The idea that someone was waiting there, maybe listening in on the proceedings, gave Hudson a prickly feeling at the back of his neck. “Let’s wait for Gio to get back,” he agreed softly.
“Very sensible of you.” Finch hesitated. “Listen, seriously. You didn’t take the money, did you? Only I’ve become oddly fond of you, Hudson, and I really don’t want Luca to have to show you what happens to rats in the Morelli Family.”
For the first time, Hudson actually felthurtat the idea that Finch D’Amato could think he’d steal from him. Hudson had always liked to think that he and Finch had a special connection, not being Italian themselves—or notfullItalian, anyway.
“I swore on my sister’s grave,” he said brittlely. “If you think I’d ever do that and not mean it?—”
“Hell, I know you meant it,” Finch said at once. “But Hudson,whydid you wait outside the office, instead of inside with the cashbox?”
Hudson’s mouth opened, but he had to think it through. “Because—because it’syouroffice, Mr. D,” he said at last, helplessly. Waiting in Finch’s office without him in there would have just feltwrong. He wanted to say something about Dino not standing guard either like he was supposed to, but he’d probably fucked up Dino’s night enough already.
Finch studied him for a moment, then shook his head. “Honestly, I don’t think you did this. I’m pretty sure there’s some fucker behind that door about to shit his pants when Gio bursts in on him, guns blazing. But if there’s not… It looks bad, you know? It’ll look bad to Luca when he arrives, that this happened on your watch.”
At that moment, Gio returned. Finch motioned with his gun toward the passage, and comprehension dawned on Gio’s face. He pulled out his gun, moved forward to the passage, positioning himself to the side. He gave one sharp nod and Finch hit the mechanism.
Hudson held his breath.
The panel door slid silently open and Gio’s hands tensed around the gun. He moved forward on sure feet like a fencer, sliding into the space, and disappeared from view. Hudson heard his footsteps as Gio made his way down the passage to another enclosed staircase, and then Gio’s voice faintly echoed, “Yo! If there’s anyone in here, don’t make me have to go down all these stairs just to kill you.”
He reappeared after a minute, frowning. “Doesn’t seem like anyone’s in there now, Mr. D. Maybe they ex-caped this way, but they’d be long gone.”
Ex-caped. Hudson usually hated it when the mobsters talked like that, but from Gio, it was…strangely cute.
“Damn it,” Finch sighed.
“Themoneymight be in there still,” Hudson insisted. “Or else we could find evidence that someone went down and out the back.”
“Evidence?” Gio scoffed. “You a cop or something?”
“I’m someone who wants to clear his name,” Hudson shot back, and was pleased to see fleeting admiration cross Gio’s face.
“Okay, okay, Blondie,” Gio said. “I take your point.”
Hudson was more sandy than blond, but he let it go. He turned to Finch. “Mr. D, let me go down and scope it out. Please?”
Finch looked at Gio. “You’re sure there’s no one down there?”
“Would I bet my life on it? No. But maybe I’d bet this guy’s.” He gestured towards Hudson.
