Mr. Buchanan can see my interest. “Fascinating, isn’t it?”
“Like I’m watching a movie. Keep going.”
He takes another bite, and I continue with my sandwich, which isn’t really a “sandwich” but a beautifully grilled piece of steak on a perfectly toasted slice of garlic bread. It smells divine and tastes even better.
“Good, huh?” I ask after a few bites.
“Delicious.” I’m treated unexpectedly to a soft blue gaze. “Thank youfor this lunch, Ms. Kelly. I can’t remember the last time I did something like this.”
“The food and the conversation,” I agree, feeling my cheeks warm. “Please, tell me more about the Perris.”
He dabs the corners of his mouth with his napkin, then sets it beside his plate. “The Perris actually had a lot to do with ending Prohibition here. In October 1923, Rocco and Bessie bought twenty-five hundred bottles from a distillery in Belleville, but after it was loaded onto their boat by hired men, somebody snitched. The police fired on the boat, killed one unarmed man, wounded another, then apprehended all of them in one of the largest booze busts in Ontario history. Trouble was, the public turned it around, saying the cops never should have fired on unarmed men. Instead of the bootleggers, the four police officers were put on trial, and they got off with a hung jury.”
He takes another bite, and the whole time he’s chewing, I can see he’s impatient to tell me more.
“After that, the government started banning anything that wasn’t industrial-level alcohol, because anything less was basically poison. Well, then the Perris figured out how to somehow treat the cheap alcohol so it was drinkable. It was all going well for them until one night when they rushed and didn’t treat the poisonous liquor properly. Forty-five people died. Prohibition ended shortly after, and the government-run Liquor Control Board of Ontario, the LCBO, was introduced.”
He waves a hand as if to dismiss everything he’s just said. “Sorry. That was just some side research. I couldn’t help it.”
“You can’t stop there! What happened to him? Rocco.”
“That’s the big mystery. In 1944, he stepped out of his house to go for a walk, and he vanished. No one knows what happened to him. Maybe he took off to Mexico. Maybe someone killed him.”
I think he can see the “Wow” in my expression.
“Anyway,” he says, taking a sip of wine, “you wanted to know about the Dominion in particular. There are no records of Perri being around muchafter the Dominion went up, so I don’t know if he was ever here. But there was another guy. He’s the one I wanted to talk about.”
He sets a black-and-white newspaper photo before me. I’m pretty sure it’s a mug shot. I see a thickset man, probably mid-forties, with black hair, dark features, and a nose that’s been busted a few times.
“Marco Carboni,” Mr. Buchanan says. “Very smart. Split his time between Montreal and Toronto. Lived half his life in the Dominion Hotel. He did well with smuggling and numbers before the Crash in 1929, but his big successes came after. That man knew how to plan ahead.”
“He must have had insider information.”
“From what I have found on this guy, he had insiders everywhere. He was the kingpin when it came to gambling rings, drug trafficking, and prostitution.”
“What happened to him?”
“I couldn’t find anything about that. He was briefly implicated in a murder but was never charged. I can keep searching, if you want.”
“No, no. That’s interesting, though. He’s like Perri, disappearing in the end. I suppose back then it would have been easier to disappear off the radar. Not so much government-issued ID or surveillance around to keep track.”
“That would be nice, wouldn’t it?” he asks thoughtfully. He lifts the bottle and pours the last of the wine into my glass. “To be less ‘seen’ in this digital age. Then again, the shortage of identification would make things a lot harder for archivists to trace.”
“True. Mr. Buchanan—”
“Matthew,” he says, and his cheeks flush. “You can call me Matthew, if you’d like.”
I’m so glad to be stepping out of the Mr. and Ms. phase. “And I’m Bridget, but you already know that.” I hesitate, then add, “And it’s Miss.”
chapterTHIRTEEN
The next morning, I take my time at the Sixes and finish off four condos on the thirty-eighth floor, which is satisfying. Accomplishing all that makes me feel like I deserve a treat, so even though it’s only lunchtime, I ride the elevator down and head toward the Dominion. I’m just reaching the front entry when my phone rings.
“Darling! How goes it? I had theworstflight back last night. Crying babies everywhere. I swear. Screaming, crying, drooling… They shouldn’t be allowed on planes. Anyway, learned lots, loads of meetings with Nickel, you know. Same, same.”
I smile at the doorman as I enter, with Claudia yapping the whole time.
“I don’t know how these people tie their shoes without us, Bridge. I swear. When he mentioned the roof—Remember what we talked about? Well, I…”
