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The warm light from the street outside cast lines across the floor, playing with the shadows of the sheets that were cast off the bed. Tony tucked his foot up under one of the creases, watching the lines of light shift as the fabric moved.
Smoke floated through the air from the cigarette sitting in Tony's hand. He stared lazily as it wafted up, dancing in the glowing lines. He sighed and looked back at the figure lying in the bed behind him. Poor guy didn't know what he was getting himself into.
All it took was a cup of coffee at the diner down the street and the cop had told him everything about him. Grew up in Brooklyn, wanted to do some good in the world, joined the force. He wanted to make the streets of New York a better place. And yet he ended up in the same bed as Tony, the owner of the largest, most extravagant speakeasies this side of the Mississippi. The man was a fool.
Tony shook his head and took a drag, standing off the end of the bed and walking to the chair on the other side of the room, where most of his clothes ended up when they were thrown last night. He took the notebook out of his jacket pocket and turned to a blank page.
There was no chance that he would get shut down, not with the amount of cops he saw in his clubs every night. Tony was the only source of real night life in the city, and these boys wouldn't jeopardize the only place they could go without their wives finding them out. Hell, some of them brought their wives with them for a fun night out. This wasn't going to stop anytime soon. The goodie-two-shoes laying in the bed behind him said he thought the police were righteous, honest people before he joined the force. Tony was willing to bet he lost that impression after he saw what the cops really were: drunk bastards who would look the other way when offered enough beer.
So Tony kept selling. There was no danger for him here. That didn't mean he came out to the man last night with, "Hey, the name's Stark, I run every club you're pretending to try and shut down". He knew when to keep quiet.
Still, this guy was useful. The man had over 30 high profile arrests, and there was more than illegal booze to worry about in New York. Someone was coming after Tony's men. Several higher-ups in his clubs had gone missing, a few were found dead. Tony couldn't help but think it was his fault. He couldn't protect them, he couldn't keep them safe. He couldn't go to just any cop. If they could be paid off to ignore his clubs, they were probably dirty in other ways too. This Rogers guy, though, didn't take shit from anyone. He would find the guy responsible.
Tony had seen a pattern in the disappearances. It was always someone working a delivery, picking up the shipments and taking them to the clubs. They'd get the booze, get it to the club, and then wouldn't show up the next day. It wasn't about the alcohol; it was about the men, about Tony. Whoever was doing this was doing it just to get to him.
Tony finished scribbling in his notebook and ripped out the page. He got dressed, walking round the room to collect his clothes and stamp out his cigarette in the tray on the nightstand. When he reached the end of the bed, Tony slipped the paper into Rogers' pants pocket, and walked out the door.
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Steve set his hand in his pocket as he took the first sip of his coffee, but stopped with the cup halfway to his mouth. He pulled his hand out and looked down, seeing the paper he'd pulled out of his pocket. As he set the cup down, he started unfolding the note. There, in quick, scrawling print was an address and time. Steve knew that address. It was a shipyard out on the harbor. The port belonged to a steel company. He frowned and looked around the diner where he was eating breakfast, searching for whoever stuck this in his pocket when he wasn't looking.
10:45pm... What was happening at the port that late at night? He frowned again and left for the station, coffee forgotten.