The Big Rock Candy Mountain (60 page)

“Mornin‘,” he said. “Thought you was out of town.”

“Was,” Bo said.

“Anything stirring up north?”

“Quiet as a church.”

“Same here,” Frank said. “Anything I can do for you?”

Bo gave Chapell a cigar. “I'm looking for a Wyoming license plate. Got any?”

“Might have.”

Chapell looked under the bench at the rear of the shop. “Pair of Utahs, pair of Oregons, couple sets of Montanas.”

“It's better when there's only one plate. Couldn't pick me up one, could you?”

“When you want it?”

“This afternoon.”

“Come around sometime after three,” Frank said. “I think I can smouge you one.”

From Chapell's Bo went to Strain's Department Store and found a floor walker. “I want to buy a clothes dummy,” he said.

The floor walker looked baffled. “You mean a regular dummy? Window dummy?”

“Yes.”

“I'll get the manager.”

“I'd rather have a dead one,” Bo said, and laughed at the floor walker's startled face.

He waited for the manager, waited again while that polite gentleman looked back among the invoices to see what dummies cost, and finally bought one for sixteen dollars, twice what he thought it was worth. Across the street at Gill's Hardware he bought two boxes of large-headed roofing nails, and with those in his overcoat pockets walked the last block and a half to the Smoke House, guarded by its wooden Indian and flanked on either side of the door by peephole slot machines saying “Adults Only.”

Heimie Hellman was eating breakfast at the counter with his overcoat and hat on, and while he ate the shine from the barber-shop next door sat jackknifed on a portable stool and shined his yellow shoes. Bo, coming in the door, let his lip curl slightly. Ladies' man, probably pimp. He was too God damned elegant in his yellow shoes and tan silk shirt and velvet-collared coat.

Heimie looked over, lifted his head and half shut his eyes and opened his mouth, the whole gesture like an act. He lifted a hand, and as Bo slid onto a stool beside him, he tossed a quarter to the shine, who grinned and went.

“Well,” Heimie said. “How they hanging?”

“Okay.”

Heimie shook his head in an admiration that might have been ironic. “How do you do it?” he said. “Every other guy I know has been knocked over at the line one time or another. You just go up and come back like you was driving in the park.” He smiled at Bo, thumping a cigarette on the counter gently. “You must have a rabbit's foot,” he said.

“I just happen to know roads the law never heard of,” Bo said. “Things moving here?”

“Little slow yet. We'll start turning it over when people begin buying for Christmas.”

Bo looked down the counter and watched the waiter draw a cup of coffee. “You won't want anything for a while then.”

“What did you bring?”

“White Horse and Haig and Haig.”

“You can't get what good Scotch is worth around here,” Heimie said. “Most of. our customers are pikers, ‘sa fact. Rather rot their guts out than pay for good stuff.”

“Yeah,” Bo said. “Well, I guess I can get rid of it.”

Through hands cupped to light the cigarette Heimie watched him. “Running it on down?”

“I didn't say,” Bo said. “I could spare you two or three cases if you wanted them. Probably I'll be making another trip before Christmas. Let me know what you want and I'll bring it then.”

“How soon'll that be? The rush might start quicker than we expect.”

Leaning over, Bo dropped the cigar butt in a spittoon. “I could get it to you within two weeks.”

Heimie frowned, tapping his fingers on the counter. He looked at himself in the mirror and took off his hat to smooth his beetle-shell hair. “Two weeks is pretty late,” he said.

“That's as quick as I can make it.”

“Well,” Heimie said, “we might have to draw on somebody else. I thought you'd have some plain stuff this trip.”

“Send somebody up,” Bo said contemptuously. “Somebody that always gets knocked over at the line, with a lot of your hooch aboard.”

Heimie shrugged. “Maybe two weeks will do. But I'll give you a tip about running that Scotch south.”

“I didn't say I was running it anywhere.”

“Just the same,” Heimie said, “I know damn well you didn't think you could sell a whole load of White Horse and Haig and Haig in this burg.” He smiled and tapped a finger on Bo's chest. “If you do go south, stay away from Sheridan,” he said. “They're getting tough as hell around there. Prohis at all the bridges and ferries, stopping every suspicious car. Friend of mine was knocked over down there last week with a new Marmon and a thousand dollar load.”

“Well,” Bo said, “I guess we'll let the guys around Sheridan worry about that.” He slid off the stool. “Do you think you can move two or three Scotch, or shall I unload them myself?”

Motioning to the waiter, Heimie slid a half dollar down the counter and stood up, tightening the overcoat across his chest. He walked to the door with Bo, his head bent. “What's it going to come at?”

“It's up. Cost me eight dollars a case more at Govenlock this time. I'll have to pass that on.”

“That would make it sixty-two,” Heimie said. He stood picking his teeth, looking down across the shoulder of the wooden Indian. A boy of twelve or so, standing on tiptoe before the eyepiece of one of the “Adults Only” slot machines, jerked his head away and pretended to be interested in the window full of pipes and razor blades and tins of tobacco.

“I've been thinking,” Heimie said. “You take a lot of chances running it on down. You get a better price, sure, but with Wyoming hot you take chances. What about making a deal for the whole load?”

“I've got other customers I have to take care of,” Bo said. “I thought you couldn't sell Scotch in this town anyway.”

“Little water'll do wonders to the price of Scotch,” Heimie said. “Brings it down where pikers can buy it.”

“That'll lose you customers, too, in the long run.” Bo reached out another cigar and bit off the end. “No, I guess I better stick with the arrangements I already made.”

“I'll take the whole load,” Heimie said. “That saves you a lot of trouble. I'll take the whole load at the old price, fifty-four a case.”

“I'd be a sucker,” Bo said. “I can sell it for seventy-five in wholesale lots.”

“Not here in town.”

“What does that matter? I can sell it for that—got it sold.”

“Well, I can't pay any price like that,” Heimie said. “I can't get that selling it by the bottle.”

That, Bo knew, was a lie. Heimie had been getting seven and eight a bottle for watered Scotch for six months, ever since people's stored-up liquor had begun to run out. And at Christmas time he'd hike the price.

“I might make it sixty,” Heimie said. “But I wouldn't stand ‘to make anything much. Customers kick like steers even at the old price.”

“We'd better let it slide,” Bo said. “You can have the three cases if you want.”

“Fifty-four?”

“Sixty-two. I can't absorb that eight-buck raise.”

Heimie considered. “All right. Can you bring them over to the house tonight?”

“Can't you come after them?”

“I'm tied up. Got to see a guy from Kalispell out at the tourist park. Matter of fact, you might be interested in what's in the wind.”

Bo waited, but Heimie apparently was not going to say what was in the wind, so Bo shrugged. “All right,” he said. “I'll be over around nine.”

As he went down the street he cursed Heimie's deviousness. He might just as well have said in the beginning that he wanted the whole load—at a cut price, on credit!—instead of beating around the bush with bear stories about Wyoming being hot, and maybe they'd have to draw on somebody else for stuff. At the same time, there was just enough possibility that Wyoming was hot so that it would pay to be careful. There was only one decent road south unless you went clear over into Dakota and then down. And ever since the Federals got organized they had been making trouble. It might be a good idea to go clear around Sheridan, at that.

Then he thought of having to unload the whole car, just to take three cases over to that damned lazy Heimie. If it wasn't for the certainty that Heimie would stool on anybody who told him off, he would have liked to back out even on the three cases.

 

He unloaded, put the rear cushion in, threw three sacks of sand in the back end along with Heimie's three cases, to bring the built-up springs down, and went in to lunch. While they were eating the dummy arrived over the shoulder of a grinning delivery boy. “Just put her on the couch,” Bo said. He went into the hall and called Elsa. “Here's your dummy,” he said.

“My what?”

“Your dummy. Come on in here.”

“What on earth are you talking about?” she said. “I haven't ordered anything.” She came into the room and stopped. “Now what?”

“Look,” Bo said, boxing his ankles and scuffing his toe. “I didn't know how you'd feel about it, so I didn't say anything about it before, but this girl wants to ride down to Nebraska with me.”

“Take that silly look off your face and tell me,” Elsa said.

“No fooling. She wants a ride. Only she hasn't got any clothes to wear.”

Elsa laughed. “Where did you get this thing?”

“This is camouflage,” Bo said. “It's too easy to spot a car with one man in it, travelling fast. Henriette here is coming along to look after me.”

“But anyone could tell in a minute...”

“Put a veil on her. Just seeing us go by, nobody is going to spot her.”

“You're like a little kid playing detective,” Elsa said. “I'll bet anything you're doing this because it tickles your funny bone. You'll be talking to her all the way down.”

“Why not?” he said. “Put some classy duds on her and she'll be worth talking to.”

“Well, I'll see.”

She went upstairs, and in a few minutes came down with an armful of clothes. “She'll have to wear hand-me-downs,” she said. “I'm not giving away any of my good clothes to a girl no better than she should be.”

“She'll need an overcoat.”

“I can fix that all right.”

She dressed the dummy quickly, while he stood watching. “No underwear?” he said. He whistled, wagging his head. “How about the veil?”

“I'll have to cobble one.”

She found a small black hat and dug out of the sewing machine some black net. When she had the dummy veiled and pushed back on the couch Bo cackled. “That's the goods,” he said. “Put her behind sidecurtains and guys'll be flirting with her.”

Elsa looked at him and shook her head. “For a man in a dangerous business, you try more fool kid tricks than anyone I ever saw,” she said.

 

At nine that night he pulled up in front of the house Heimie and his outfit had rented the month before. It was an old house that had formerly had some connection with a silver smelter. The two-hundred-foot stack, all that still stood of the smelter, soared out of the bottom of the lot close to the river.

Bo sat in the car, in the shadow of the overgrown lilac bushes, looking the place over. It was a good house, way off the main track. The only thing Heiinie would have to watch would be kids prowling around in the summertime. But it was extra good as far as the smell was concerned. Heimie had never said he was running a still, but it was plain enough.

His feet crunched in broken glass and rubbish in the path. The house was completely dark. When he tapped with the heavy brass knocker the noise echoed inside. He waited.

“Who is it?” a voice said through the door.

“Mason.”

The bolt was shot, and the door opened. “You got the stuff here?” the man inside said.

“In the car.”

“Just a minute, I'll help you.” The man stepped back and shut the basement door, from which a little light and a strong smell of mash came up. “Heimie said you'd be along,” he said, coming out on the porch. “He wants you to wait till he gets back.”

“When'll he be here?”

“He ought to be along pretty quick.”

They took a case apiece inside, and Bo went back for the third. The man locked the door and took Bo's arm. “Come on down here.”

He led Bo down the basement steps, the light brightening as they went, the mash smell thickening. The furnace, like a great octopus, hid the source of the light. When they got around it Bo saw a row of oak kegs, two oak barrels with boards across them to form a table, two men sitting against the wall with glasses in their hands. The light came over a low partition, where the still must be.

One of the men, the small dark one, made a motion with his glass. “Hi,” he said. The other slouched back against the wall and barely nodded. He had a heavy-jawed face with a smudge of black beard, and he looked tough. The one who had brought him downstairs, now that he saw him in the light, he recognized. Beans McGovern, a small-time thug.

“Got it snug down here,” Bo said, and shook off his overcoat.

“Furnace makes it nice,” McGovern said. “Have a drink?”

“Thanks.”

“This is Joe Underwood,” McGovern said, waving at the heavy-jawed man. “Used to work out of Butte. This is Blackie Holmes. Bo Mason.” He poured a glass from a jug and handed it across the boards.