The Whiskey Tide (18 page)

     
"Oh. Yes." Kate paid him. The center of the room was filled with undraped tables. Some of the men around them wore working clothes and the women mostly cotton dresses. "I'm looking for someone," she added nervously.

     
She scanned the faces at the tables, feeling conspicuous even though she reassured herself the sleeveless navy dress she'd worn was anything but. At every head of curly, dark hair her attention stopped, but she'd almost given up hope when she finally spotted the man she was hunting. He slouched behind a corner table, laughing, with a girl on each side. For the first time Kate realized he was blindingly handsome.

     
Mouth filled with anxiety, conscious of gazes, she threaded her way through the room. As she neared the table the girl on Joe's right noticed her. She was pretty with full lips and a tumble of black hair. A pair of clever eyes assessed Kate.

     
Before Kate could decide what she ought to say, Joe glanced up.

     
"Jesus, Mary and Joseph!" The drink in front of him flew over as he shot to a sitting position. A stout little man with a bald head righted it as Joe got to his feet.

     
Joe's mouth was ajar. He appeared as wordless as Kate herself felt. The impulse to flee leaped inside her. Before she could follow it, Joe turned quickly back and threw a two-dollar bill on the table.

     
"Sorry, ladies. I've got some business to see to."

     
He grasped Kate's elbow in nimble fingers hardened by calluses and hustled her unmistakably back toward the door.

Twelve

     
Joe was sure every eye in the place was on them as he tried to clear a way out of a room that had suddenly grown more crowded than he remembered. He wasn't aware he'd gripped Kate Hinshaw's elbow until he heard her breath hitch in.

     
"I never in a million years thought you'd really come here," he said.

     
"I've reconsidered—"

     
"Wait. Wait 'til we're out of here. This is no place for you."

     
His fault she was here. His smart aleck comment. He still was propelling her by the elbow. There was a smell of sweat in the room and Joe winced as he heard someone loudly delivering a joke about a whorehouse.

     
"What in the name of sense made you come here alone?"

     
"You think I want the whole world to know my business?"

     
She'd been fair and decent to him, and if he hadn't been here tonight some Romeo would have approached her by now. No one would have harmed her, but she'd have been frightened. All because he'd shot off his mouth. Joe swore at himself. And he thought unhappily that this was the second time she'd caught him when his brain was too fuddled with liquor to move as fast as it should.

     
In the alley he took a deep breath of night air.

     
"Look, I'm sorry," he said. "I guess I got sore the other day. I didn't intend to cause you embarrassment." They neared the street and he tried to flag a passing cab, but it rolled on by. No telling when you'd see another down here. "How'd you get here?"

     
"My sister drove me. She'd have picked me up again if I hadn't found you."

     
Joe shook his head at how practical she was about things. Except trying to use a wind-powered boat for rum-running, he thought with amusement.

     
"Let's walk that way," he said indicating the main part of town. "It'll help clear my head. I'm afraid I'm a little bit fuzzy."

     
"A lot of people are these days," she said awkwardly. "My sister and her crowd hardly seem to have a sober day."

     
"Your sister's a flapper?"

     
"In spades."

     
Once they'd left The Lanyard he'd ceased to touch her, but he could sense her nervousness.

     
"Could you drink some coffee?" he asked. "There's a place a couple blocks from here that's respectable. If we're going to talk business it's as good a place as any."

     
She nodded and they walked the rest of the way in near silence. It was hard to know what to say when your worlds were so different.

     
The small café where they went stayed open late. Joe had remembered seeing nurses there at times, having breakfast or supper before they started a night shift, and he was relieved to see a table with four of them here tonight. He slid into a high wooden booth that was scarred and polished and Kate Hinshaw slid in across from him. When the sad-eyed night waiter came to take their order, Joe ordered two baskets of fried clams along with their coffee. Kate opened her mouth but didn't protest.

     
She waited until thick crockery mugs were placed in front of them and Joe burned his tongue on the coffee. As he took his second sip she wrapped her hands firmly around her untouched mug and sat up straighter.

     
"All right," she said. "I'll pay what you asked — four hundred dollars a trip. But you have to agree you'll make four more trips at that rate."

     
"What if I'm in jail?" Joe teased.

     
Her cheeks turned pink.

     
"You wouldn't hold me to my word in that case, would you?"

     
"No, of course not."

     
He didn't know why it was such a temptation to tease her. Because she looked so serious, maybe.

     
"This next trip, though, you'd have to wait for half of the payment until I collected." Her direct gray gaze met his. "You asked why I was making the trip and only bringing in three hundred cases. It's because I don't have money for more. When my father died... there were a lot of bills. If I don't make a go of this, we'll lose our home."

     
She kept her voice steady — just — but he saw the effort the revelation had taken. Her lips were tight with humiliation. At last he understood why she was doing this, and was sorry he'd made her tell.

     
"Your family knows about this then?" he asked quietly.

     
She looked startled. "My mother doesn't, of course. She's — a lady. Awfully proper. Refined. She'd be shattered."

     
By the way she spoke it was clear to Joe she had no idea those words would describe her, too.

     
"I had to tell my sisters so they'd keep her from realizing I was gone. They told her I'd broken out with some sort of spots and if she came in to see me she'd give them to my brother."

     
She paused as the waiter returned with baskets heaped full of light, golden clams.

     
"So, do we have a deal?" she asked nervously.

     
"Eat a couple of clams and let me think on it for a minute." Joe took his own advice and put a clam in his mouth. The coffee had worked fine. He was clear-headed now. He wondered how a lawyer as well known as Oliver Hinshaw could have left his family in financial trouble. Bad investments? His curiosity would have to go unsatisfied. It wasn't any business of his.

     
Being poor for the Hinshaws would bear little resemblance to being poor among people he knew — people like Billy, say. The Hinshaws might lose their house, but they'd never be out in the street, and they'd never go hungry. Not that that made it right.

     
Previously he'd admired Kate Hinshaw for her grit. Now he admired her even more knowing she had a purpose. He figured in her place he might do the same thing. As it was, ever since turning her down at the library he'd reflected that if the right terms were offered, he'd make the trip to Canada for much baser reasons. Here it was in his power to give Vic and Irene the money for that extra room, if the landlord changed his mind about letting them build it.

     
Joe ate a few more clams and watched the girl across from him picking at hers. He couldn't say whether it was the prospect of money or of doing something different that lured him more. All kinds of people were making money on bootleg. Why not be one of them? When was he likely to get such a chance again? It was an opportunity to put something aside. Buy a second boat for the Santaynas to run, maybe. And he'd have a chance to learn those strong northern waters, to see things, to escape the restlessness he couldn't explain. Not to mention he'd have the satisfaction of outwitting that crooked son-of-a-bitch O'Malley.

     
Joe's teeth sliced sharply through a strip of clam.

     
"Okay. I'll do it. But here are the terms. First, instead of paying me, you take me in as your partner. That'll leave you money to buy an extra hundred cases this trip. Forty of those will be mine. Plus I'll put up enough for seventy-five cases myself. After that I'll pay for thirty percent of each cargo and take thirty percent of the profits."

     
Her mouth had opened. She was about to refuse. He sat quietly and watched her mind race with the math.

     
"Twenty-five percent."

     
He nodded. "Okay. Here's number two."

     
She reached for her mug and drank nervously.

     
"You let me put an engine on the
Folly
. She's a beautiful boat — the most beautiful I've ever laid hands on. But with poor wind we could be a week on the water with all that booze, and every hour puts us at risk. I want at least an even chance of outrunning trouble.

     
"I've rebuilt engines for a couple of people. I can give you their names if you want to check. I've got an engine I could have ready to put on the end of the week. We'd be able to outrun a Coast Guard six liter."

     
This time she turned away from him. He caught the glint of tears in her eyes. What he was asking now hit her hard. She didn't want to change the boat. Practical as she was about most things, her resistance must have to do with reasons he didn't understand. The schooner had been her father's, he guessed. Maybe that was part of it.

     
"Then we won't be able to carry a full load," she objected without much force. "And the cost of the fuel will eat into the profits."

     
"Not much. The price booze brings is rising every day. A case or two will pay for all the gas we need. And you'll still be able to carry a full thousand cases. I've made some new parts for the engine I'll use. It's lighter than most."

     
"So there's no telling how well it will actually work when we're out there? Oh, God." She locked her hands together. Her knuckles were white. Her eyes pressed closed for a minute. She nodded.

     
"The last thing— "

     
"No!" The word burst from her loudly enough that the nurses at the table across the room stopped talking and eyed them. Kate looked embarrassed and lowered her voice. "No more."

     
"Yes, Miss Hinshaw. We were damned fools setting out with only three of us last time. We've got to have another man. Wages same as Billy and you pay them both a bonus for every cargo we land safely. That's how it's done."

     
She studied him as if trying to make up her mind about something. "If I agree to these three things, we'll have a deal?"

     
"Yes."