The Whiskey Tide (17 page)

     
"We don't—" Kate caught herself.

     
"I'd be looking at jail time — and wages lost every day. Those are my terms. Take them or leave them."

     
"I'll leave them, then," Kate said angrily. The advance that Aggie had been clever enough to get would let them buy fifty more cases than they'd planned originally, meaning five hundred dollars more when they landed the booze. But they needed that money! What the man beside her was asking was unreasonable.

     
"Fine by me," he said, all evidence of anger past. The blue of his eyes shone like waves at midday. "If you change your mind, you can find me at a place called The Lanyard most Tuesdays and Thursdays."

     
With a nod he turned south down Summer Street, whistling. Kate stood staring in disbelief. Was he really that indifferent to the money she'd offered, or was he bluffing? Surely to someone like him the amount she'd offered was a small fortune. Jaw set, Kate stalked toward the streetcar. There were plenty of other men in Salem who could captain a schooner.

Eleven

     
Joe took the aunties to Sunday dinner at Stromberg's. The restaurant had plentiful windows overlooking Beverly Bridge, and it served the best baked stuffed lobster in Salem.

     
"This is such a treat," Aunt Maggie twittered fingering her brooch. "And not even a birthday!"

     
"You shouldn't squander your money though," Aunt Norah cautioned.

     
"I guess if you want me to, I could spend it on floozies instead," Joe offered, grinning.

     
His aunts loved to come here. Usually it was a special occasion. But Joe saw little point in having money in his pocket if it didn't bring enjoyment to people he cared about. The fact it was rum-running money amused him. Aunt Norah would be dismayed, sure it meant he had strayed from the standards they'd tried to teach him. Aunt Maggie, he suspected, would secretly enjoy the naughtiness.

     
A waiter came and a ritual began, the aunties choosing small lobsters but insisting Joe must have a two pounder.

     
"A man has to eat to stay healthy," Aunt Maggie lectured. "Ask Aunt Norah."

     
Then they got cups of soup and talked about how good the Mass had been and Joe found himself thinking he'd had no earthly reason to turn his back on Kate Hinshaw's offer. Yes he had, he decided spooning bits of vegetables in beef broth into his mouth. The reason had been he didn't like being hired help. Even though he worked for his uncles they all regarded the sturdy old seiner as belonging to him the same as it did to them. They were family. They shared, good and bad.

     
He didn't like the idea of working for Kate Hinshaw, then. She was polite enough, except when she'd told him the reason for the small load was no business of his, but he wasn't cut out for this kind of thing. Anyway, there was too much risk for two hundred dollars. Much as he'd reveled in the experience of those wild tides, he recognized their dangers. Not to mention rumors he'd heard about boatloads of booze being stolen by armed men, well over three hundred miles of coast lined by police boats, and not least of all the Coast Guard itself.

     
"You know, Joe, you've had a fine education," Aunt Norah said cautiously. "You really should give some thought to doing more with your life than being a fisherman."

     
"I was thinking about that very possibility just now," Joe said with a grin.

     
The aunts exchanged a pleased look.

     
"Your uncles are good men," Aunt Norah hastened to say. "But, Joe, you have it in you to be so much more."

     
"And you see, he's been thinking about it." Aunt Maggie nodded. "This wouldn't have anything to do with a girl, would it?" she asked slyly.

     
"You know, it might," Joe said enjoying his joke even more. A girl who wanted him to make regular trips as a rum-runner.

     
"Floyd Gibbons says there's a good job opening up at the bank where he works," said Aunt Norah.

     
Joe silenced a groan. "Not sure I'd care much for banking. But thanks. Listen, I've got the name of another lawyer who might be able to get Michael out of that jam he's in. I'll see him this week."

     
This time he could interpret the brief connecting of eyes between the sisters.
"Which one of us will tell him?"
it said.

     
"Michael... Michael's disappeared," Aunt Norah said. "From the jail. He had a bad cough and they thought it might be tuberculosis or influenza, so they sent for a doctor. The next thing they knew, well, he just wasn't there."

     
"He wouldn't have gotten a fair deal in the courts," Aunt Maggie said stoutly.

     
Aunt Norah had the good grace to look embarrassed.

     
"They got a letter. They think he's on his way to California," Aunt Maggie whispered leaning across the table.

     
Good riddance, Joe thought. He gave silent thanks that his cousin had taken off before his great aunts had lost any money.

     
Then he was looking at a platter of almost cinnamon red lobster, its belly heaped with toasted bread crumbs that had been tossed with butter and its own sweet juices. He applied himself to the claw meat first, and the corn and new potatoes that came on the side. The aunties let him work half through the meal before they teamed up against him again.

     
"If you don't like the thought of a bank, why don't you talk to Father Anthony?" Aunt Norah asked. "He's got connections, Joe, and he's very fond of you. He says he doesn't see you much since you've been back from the war."

     
Joe looked out at the traffic in Beverly Harbor, pleasure craft of the wealthy, mostly. A row of masts gleamed where sleek little sloops lay with sails furled, a few of them being readied for afternoon fun. A Herreshoff was gliding from view. A couple of motorized numbers marred the peacefulness of the water as they raced each other, and a schooner not unlike the one he'd stood at the helm of a week ago picked its way through the other vessels like a matron.

     
He wasn't sure why he seldom spent an evening with Father Tony these days. It wasn't from lapse of faith. Faith was one of the things which had brought him back whole from the black, blood-smelling fields of France. Besides, he and Father Anthony had always been more inclined to talk politics and ideas than religion.

     
Maybe it was the restlessness which he couldn't identify. Certainly it was some change in him, over which he felt guilty. Father Anthony was the one who had helped him secure the scholarship to Boston College, and had never censured when Joe threw it away after one year. Father Anthony was the one who had challenged him to question things he read and saw.

     
Joe swallowed a chunk of tail meat. "I'll get by to see Father Anthony," he said briefly.
     
Aunt Norah studied him. She'd always been able to judge his moods. Joe smiled so she wouldn't worry.

     
"I'll do some thinking about some other sort of job," he promised, and played what he knew would be a winning hand: "Bryan Connelly's always after me to join the Coast Guard. Says it's treating him pretty well."

     
"The Coast Guard!" Aunt Maggie exclaimed, her dismay reflected in Aunt Norah's eyes. "Oh, sweetheart! That's too dangerous!"

***

     
Kate watched glumly as Woody leaned over the arm of his wheelchair to swing at a croquet ball. The wood gave a loud crack, occasioning cheers from Woody and Arthur Kent as it rolled through a wicket. Her brother and Rosalie's fiance were playing partners against Mama and Rosalie while Kate and Aggie stretched in Adirondack lounges. It was Sunday afternoon and even their mother was laughing for the first time since Pa died.

     
"Arthur's a peach, don't you think?" Aggie said. "In a sort of starchy way."

     
Kate nodded. Her thoughts kept flopping down on unwanted subjects and refusing to budge. She had applied for a dozen teaching jobs and been turned down for all of them. Some had already filled the positions. One rejected her because they preferred male faculty; one because she couldn't play the piano. Running rum was their only immediate hope, and anyone new she found to sail the
Folly
would be a gamble. Someone new might be competent, or might not. He might drink, or he might not. He could well be much less of a gentleman than Joe Santayna. She thought of the men who had accosted her on the wharf in Saint John, and the long days at sea.

     
Even if the man she found proved suitable, he might demand a higher fee the next trip, too. Kate closed her eyes against a gentian sky with wisps of cloud and gave a sigh. Pride, she was discovering, had lots of gristle.

     
"Do you know a place called The Lanyard?" she asked Aggie.

     
"It's a gin mill, down by Derby Wharf I think." Her sister sipped lemonade. "No one in my crowd goes there. It's kind of rough. Men who work on the wharves, girls from the factories, that kind of thing. Velmont knows a couple of college boys who went there on a lark. One got his nose broken." Her eyes widened. "Kate! You're not thinking of going there, are you?"

     
"I have to meet someone."

     
"But, Kate, it's too, too risky!"

     
Aggie's awe was small consolation for the dread her words produced in Kate.

     
"I'll be okay," Kate promised. But two nights later, getting out of the car in front of a darkened building that advertised marine supplies, she almost lost her nerve.

     
"Kate!" Aggie hissed. "You can't go in! Look where you are. Surely you can send a message for whoever it is you need to see."

     
Kate swallowed. Across the way a mission's open door lighted the way for the wayward. But she also saw a couple strolling hand-in-hand and laughing, and an old woman making her way up the street with a basket of bread on her arm.

     
"Go
on
," Kate said. Their big car was attracting stares in this narrow street where only a few other, mostly dilapidated, vehicles were in sight. "Drive up to town hall and back. If I'm not waiting right here, then everything's fine."

     
Aggie's return trip was insurance Kate wouldn't be stranded. If Joe Santayna was true to his word and was inside, he could either wait outside with her for Aggie's arrival or could see her safely to the trolley line to catch a car home.

     
As Aggie reluctantly left, Kate turned to the alley where she'd seen people going and coming. It was dimly lighted, but she could hear voices and they didn't seem threatening. She made her way quickly to a set of cellar steps where a door was just closing. The crack of light on the other side reassured her. She pounded on a heavy door and a panel at the top slid back.

     
"My camel stinks," she said. She felt ridiculous. She'd been to speakeasies a time or two at school, but she'd been with a group and their hijinks had somehow seemed normal. From friends of friends of friends Aggie had managed to get the password for this one. Kate hoped. The thick door swung open.

     
Kate took a deep breath. She was in a basement room with a bar immediately to her left and a small stage and dance floor at the end to her right. A band played frantically and people were dancing. A man in faded blue shirt sleeves blocked her way.

     
"Cover's two bits," he said.