"The Candidate," by Tom Ziegler, in Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine, July, August 2021.
It is unusual for me to select three stories from the same publication in a row. It's not like I'm not reading others at the same time...
Frank is a bagman, collecting money all over the midwest for a crime organization in Chicago. The old mob is changing with the times and wants Frank to take on a more varied role and he isn't sure if he wants to. But how easy is it to quit the mob?
Things come to a head when a famous (or infamous) character dies of natural but embarrassing causes in a brothel with mob collections. Somehow erasing the connection turns out to be Frank's job.
What follows is a methodical operation with a few surprising twists.
