Triple Shot Read Online Free PDF Page B

‘Well?’
    ‘Well what?’ Sarah had left the document from the state regulators in the store, but it obviously was still on her mind.
    ‘ How do we get under this thing?’
    ‘ How should I know?’
    Cute. ‘Because your father and aunt owned this place.’ I was gritting my teeth both against the cold and to remain civil in the face of . . . well, Sarah. ‘Like, maybe you played here when you were little?’
    ‘They never wanted me around,’ she said. ‘For obvious reasons.’
    I couldn’t resist. ‘Because they knew you were going to grow up into a haphazardly medicated, bipolar coffeehouse owner . . .’
    Sarah’s eyes shot me daggers.
    ‘. . . with a heart of gold?’ I added hastily.
    ‘No.’ Her voice dropped into ‘measured’ mode, as though she was talking to someone with an IQ of 60. ‘Because of the criminals who tended to gather underfoot.’
    I sighed. ‘OK, I've had enough of the guessing games. Give.’
    Sarah flopped a hand out, palm up, now in a mime’s ‘well, what did you expect’ gesture. ‘You know, the Family. They had their own waiting room.’
    I’d heard of odder quirks, especially since her prior generation did own the place. But still . . . ‘The family? Your family had a private waiting room?’
    ‘Not my family, you idiot. The Family. As in the Milwaukee La Cosa Nostra – the topic of conversation, if I recall, just now back in the shop. How obtuse can you be?’
    Pretty obtuse, apparently. Not to mention having the retention span of a disoriented hamster. ‘Sorry. Let’s start over. Are you saying this place was mobbed up?’
    ‘No,’ Sarah replied with a sniff. ‘The Milwaukee Crime Family just had a private waiting room. So as not to be . . . bothered.’
    ‘By who? Autograph seekers?’
    ‘My father and aunt let the city’s LCN build a room under the loading platform. To give their guys privacy.’
    Not to mention mildew.
    ‘Like I said,’ Sarah continued as she led the way down the steps to the sidewalk, ‘I wasn’t allowed around here when I was a kid. I’m just telling you what I heard.’
    ‘Which was?’
    A resigned sigh. ‘That the Mafioso would come to this waiting room by way of some secret passage under the tracks. They’d hear their train announced over the depot's public address system, then climb up and hop on, with nobody knowing the difference.’
    ‘But wouldn’t the conductor notice?’ Amtrak-to-Chicago always managed to find me when I didn’t have a ticket.
    Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Please, Maggy. Do you honestly picture some ticket-taker blowing the whistle on the mob? He’d be dead before the club-car opened.’
    ‘What about your family, though?’ Realizing I’d seen no sign of Kate and the other two, I went to peek around the corner of the building to the parking lot. Nobody. ‘You just said Daddy and Auntie knew.’
    Sarah had followed me. ‘I think what you know and what you admit – even to yourself – can be two entirely different things.’
    Startled by the brief ray of introspection, I asked, ‘Are you talking about your father and his sister?’
    But now Sarah was staring past me and back toward the depot, a faraway look in her eyes. ‘They found it.’
    ‘The cash?’ I whispered.
    Sarah seemed to refocus. ‘What cash?’
    ‘You know, the loot. The booty, the filthy lucre?’ I said. ‘The gangsters were divvying up skimmed casino money when the FBI—’
    ‘Not the feds, you idiot.’ Sarah’s hand pecked the air behind me like a chicken eating grain on the ground. ‘ Them . Somebody must have found the entrance.’
    I turned to see Ward Chitown and Kate McNamara waving energetically at us from under the stairs we’d descended.
    ‘Ladies?’ Chitown said, pointing as we approached. ‘Behold.’
    The floor of the loading platform was supported by a concrete block wall about four feet high. A wooden trellis covered with a thick, woody vine masked the blocks. The plant’s leaves were dropping, but