Hard Magic by Larry Correia Page A

you’d sell your own kind out to the government, I’m not supposed to entertain an old friend?”
    Sullivan let the dig flow off him like water off a duck’s back. He didn’t rile easy. “My own kind? You mean crooks or Actives?”
    Torrio shrugged. “Both. I heard why you went upriver, so in your case it’s the same thing. Guys like us are better than everybody else, so you got made an example. You should know that better than anybody, Sarge. We should be running this show, not them. Normals just keep us down. Times are gonna change though, I tell you that.”
    Sullivan nodded like Lenny was just full of wisdom. He was full of something, but it sure as hell wasn’t wisdom. He scanned the room. The men at the tables weren’t clearly visible, but they were far enough not to eavesdrop over the music. The one named Amish was standing with arms folded about ten feet away. “I need some information . . .” Sullivan paused, frowning, as he sensed the intrusion. “And tell your boy to get out of my head before I open his.”
    Lenny was surprised that his man had been caught, but he played it like he was offended. He turned toward the cross-eyed man. “Amish! Are you trying to Read my guest?”
    “Sorry, boss,” the man replied sheepishly.
    “Beat it, retard!” Torrio threw his glass at the goon, missed, and it shattered on the far wall. The goon scurried away. “Sorry about that. You know how it is.”
    “Yeah. I know how it is.” He decided to get right to the point. “I heard Delilah was coming to do a job for you.”
    “Who’s asking? You? Or J. Edgar Hoover?”
    “Just me.”
    Torrio shook his head. “I got no idea what you’re talking about.”
    Sullivan leaned back on the couch. Let the games begin. “I can’t afford to pay for information, Lenny. I don’t give a damn about the government, and they don’t know I’m here. I got lied to about Delilah, and I want to know why.”
    “I make my living by knowing what’s going on, Sarge. That’d be like me asking you to . . . I don’t know . . . lift something heavy for free.”
    “I saved your life.”
    Torrio snorted. “Are you kidding? You didn’t go out of your way for just little old me. You saved everybody you could. I just happened to be one of them.”
    “You did happen to be one of them,” Sullivan said. “Remember that, and every time you look around your fancy club, and your fancy whores, and your fancy booze, you should remember that you should be too busy being dead to enjoy any of it.”
    “I worked hard for what I got.”
    “And you’d be fertilizing a field in France if I hadn’t carried you, on my back, through a quarter mile of hell.”
    The mobster seemed to think about that. “You know, Sarge, the Chicago family could use a tough man like you . . .”
    “I just want to know about Delilah.”
    “You were sweet on her back before Rockville, weren’t you? She sure was a babe.” Lenny’s teeth seemed too big when he smiled. “Gotta be nice for a guy like you to have a girl he can’t break by accident.”
    Sullivan was tiring of this. Maybe it was just the cold giving him a headache, but he was about done with the mobster’s nonsense. “My business is none of your business.”
    Torrio sighed. “All right . . . for old times’ sake. But then we’re even, and I don’t ever want to see you again. Capisce ? Talking to somebody like you hurts my reputation. I show weakness and that asshole Capone will run me out in a box.” He paused to pour himself another shot, got confused as to where his glass had gone, so took Sullivan’s instead. “The Grimnoir was looking for her, but she was on the run. They paid me to find her. I got her to come out of hiding so they could pick her up. Looks like they did, though from what I heard, you gave them one hell of a fight.”
    The name meant nothing to him. “What’s a Grim Nor?”
    The mobster downed his drink. “Not Nor . Nwarr . You’d think you’d spent enough time in