The Whiskey Tide (25 page)

     
"An hour north of Bar Harbor."

     
He'd guessed close. The current was still fairly mild and he'd sighted a few small pleasure boats in the distance. In a couple of minutes he'd start the engine for the day, but for now he savored the simple and endless pleasure of being at sea.

     
Kate seemed lost to the same enchantment, oblivious to his presence. Her face was raised to the wind and her hair curled around her face. Bundled in a thick sweater several sizes too large for her, and the slacks to which he was growing accustomed, she looked nothing like a girl who wore pearls and suits and drank tea in drawing rooms. The damp, chill air had reddened her cheeks. Her hands were planted firmly on the wheelspokes. Her expression was rapt.

     
"You like this, don't you?" he asked curiously.

     
She smiled without looking at him. "It's so peaceful out here. No one expecting me to be a certain way or do a certain way. Sometimes at home I feel like I'm tied to a rock with birds pecking at me."

     
Seldom did she speak so freely, and he didn't know how to respond. He drained the last of his coffee. "I'm going below for a bite of bread and bacon before I take the wheel. Could I bring you some coffee, Miss Hinshaw?"

     
"No, thank you." She roused from her reverie and looked at him with annoyance. "And if you call me 'Miss Hinshaw' again, I swear I'll push you overboard. For lord's sake, Joe, we're out here breaking the law together — or preparing to!"

     
"That doesn't make us social equals."

     
Her gray eyes stared. "Class distinctions are archaic and morally indefensible."

     
She was on a bit of a high horse now, and the passion in her voice tickled Joe. Not to mention he doubted she'd ever known anyone from another class except Billy and the family cook.

     
"Your father a socialist, was he, giving you ideas like that?"

     
"He was not!" The reddening of her cheeks had nothing to do with the wind now. "Doesn't it occur to you I'm capable of forming my own opinions? Do you think money rots your brain?"

     
"Never gave it much thought."

     
"Well, perhaps you should. Anyway, it's my boat and you'll call me whatever I damned well please!"

     
Joe couldn't contain his laughter. Evolution and social revolt, all within ten minutes.

     
"Aye, aye, Cap'n Kate." He saluted.
 
"And stop laughing at me!"

     
"Well, you are damned funny at times."

***

     
The boss had been offered a chance to start bringing in cocaine. It took less effort than bringing in whiskey. Just drive it up from New York. A whole shipment took up little more space than a bottle of booze. Thanks to Prohibition there was a growing market for it, too. Easier to get drunk on, and the cops weren't out looking for it the way they were bootleg.

     
"Try some," Felix invited. They were in a young banker's townhouse. Felix helped himself to a cigarette from a porcelain box on a table under a Tiffany lamp. Beside the cigarettes, two crystal salt cellars held white powder.

     
"Snow is for chumps," Aggie said crisply. Her green eyes took everything in. The first time she'd been to a snow party, Felix guessed. The townhouse was finely furnished; the young men and girls dipping into the white powder were the cream of society. The boss had sent him here to make a report.

     
"Not even to say you've had the experience?" he pressed.

     
"Getting sloshed slowly is half the fun of booze. And you don't lose control with booze." Aggie tossed her head.

     
Felix laughed. That was exactly why he'd used the white powder only once. The euphoria had been sharp and instantaneous, and afterwards, when he'd found himself eager to feel the sensation again, he'd known that if he did he'd be exactly what she said: a chump.

     
Aggie was smart. It didn't matter to him that she was pretending to be more worldly than she was. He liked her nerve; liked the fact she wasn't a paper dolly. It gave her a sizzle that he could feel when he was with her. He'd seen enough of the socialites powdering their noses to make his report to the boss, and he was ready to put the night to better use.

     
They drove six blocks to a townhouse not unlike the one they'd just left, except that this one was more luxurious and had been divided into two apartments. Felix fitted a key in the door of the one upstairs and dismissed the valet who came to take their wraps. It was the first time he'd brought Aggie here.

     
"How smashing," she said looking around at the modern tables and tulip shaped chairs.

     
She showed no trace of nervousness; only curiosity. He poured them each a martini from a waiting pitcher, then sprawled comfortably in one of the chairs.

     
"Come sit with me, Aggie."

     
She came willingly to his lap. He rested a hand on her knee and stroked her soft flesh.

     
"Your sister the college girl sails, I hear. I hear she has a boat she takes out, a schooner a lot like the one that's bringing your shipment of booze in."

     
The girl in his lap froze and Felix chuckled low in his throat. She was wondering how he came by his knowledge.

     
"Don't worry." He set her glass aside and ran his hand through the gloss of her hair. "Stay on my good side and I'll look out for you."

     
He discarded his tie. He drew her onto her feet along with him and shrugged out of his jacket. He kissed her, demanding her entire mouth, while his hands moved along the curve from her waist to her hips. Then, moving back fractionally, he began to slide the hem of her dress up toward her thighs, her waist. His eyes held hers, waiting for the instant when hers would show nervousness, but they never wavered. She lifted her arms and the dress slid off over her head.

     
She stood in her shiny jet beads and short little step-ins and only a waist-length chemise obscuring her taut breasts. As her arms slid around his neck Felix felt the momentary shock of being caught off guard by her boldness. He plunged his hands into her step-ins.

     
"Just let me slip into the bathroom first," she whispered.

***

     
All four of Saint John's bonded warehouses had vessels lined up waiting to load.

     
"Damn. It'll be almost evening before we lift anchor," Joe said. Then he shrugged philosophically. "The city market's a couple blocks up. We could go there and get something to eat, if you like."

     
Kate found it hard to muster the regret she knew she ought to at the delay. The warehouse, which was all she knew of Saint John was admittedly exotic, stacked chin high with pine crates holding gin and whiskey, barrels filled with rum, and burlap bags wrapped around a dozen bottles each of almost anything. Still, she hungered to know what lay along the orderly streets leading up from the harbor, and to see something more of the city than its mountains of booze.

     
They climbed the smooth gray cobbles of King Street past dry goods shops and a bank. Kate grew uncomfortably aware of pointed stares directed at her trousers, but she ignored them. The buildings on either side had a majestic air. They were dressed white stone or brick more often than timber, with arched windows, odd roofs and trim suggesting castles.

     
The city market had a high roof braced like the hull of a ship with great rafters exposed. Windows at the top of the walls let in light. Sides of beef hung next to freshly butchered lamb and chickens. Stalls offered jars of relishes, and what fresh produce remained this late in the year. At the stalls selling bakery goods and cooked meats Kate got a soft roll filled with smoked salmon, a Christmas delicacy at home though it seemed common here. Joe took a crustier roll heaped with roast beef.

     
Exiting the opposite end of the market they crossed the street to a park whose crisscrossing walks formed the pattern on the British flag. A few hardy mums raised shaggy petals to the October day. Though Kate's ears were cold she wasn't about to admit it.

     
"What is it they expect from you at home that makes you feel pecked at?" Joe asked cautiously.

     
She shook her head. "I just... miss being on my own sometimes. Don't you? After being away in the Army?"

     
He thought a minute. "Can't say that I do. Before that I spent a year down in Boston. Nice surroundings, no worries. But I felt the same as I did afterward in France — not homesick, but not whole somehow. I like seeing the people I've seen all my life; hearing the same conversations. Though it would be nice to have a bit of peace and quiet sometimes."

     
As on other occasions, Kate wondered how a fisherman had grown so articulate.

     
"You live with your aunt and uncle, you said?"

     
"Since I was seven. My mother died. My father thought her relatives would make a sissy of me if he turned me over to them. Probably right. They're a couple of old maids. Born fussers."

     
The 'old maid' label produced an unpleasant scurry deep in Kate's stomach, but Joe was smiling as he spoke of them.

     
 "He moved us in with his brother and sister-in-law so I'd get proper care. He drowned in a storm when I was eleven."

     
Kate was quiet, thinking how many children must grow up without fathers, and her unaware of it because sickness and accident hit people like Billy and Joe more often than families like hers.

     
"How many are in your household, then?"

     
He sat down on a bench and stretched his legs in front of him, squinting into the sun as he watched her expression. "Thirteen, at last count."

     
"Thirteen! Doesn't it occur to them— " Kate bit her lip to stop the question.

     
"That the poor stay poor because they keep having too many babies?" Amusement had stolen across his face. "That's three generations of us, including my cousin and four kids who had nowhere to go when her husband skipped out."

     
Kate avoided the silent laughter in his eyes. "I — apologize. It was rude of me to comment."

     
"No harm. But you may want to rethink your argument about there being no class distinctions until you check it for flaws in logic."

     
"I didn't say there were no distinctions. I said they were wrong."

     
"So are plenty of things. Crooked elections. Clovis not getting steady work because he did his duty and got his throat shot out and now people think he's frightening because he can't talk. They may be wrong, but it's folly to pretend they don't exist —
Kate
."

     
He checked his watch again and they started back. Another hour passed before a warehouse truck began delivering their liquor. The sky was overcast by the time they left the safety of Saint John harbor.

     
"Going to rain," Joe said studying the wind in the sails they had hoisted.

     
It waited until the gray predawn of the following morning. Kate held course grimly, reciting the lighthouses, and from mid-day on the weather was good. Come nightfall they were all in good spirits, five or six hours from landing, with moonrise not coming until they were safely unloaded and probably home in bed.
  
Since Joe would supervise getting the booze ashore, he was snatching a few hours' sleep below and Kate was at the wheel when she heard the engine. In the utter dark where sky melted into water with no horizon, it seemed to come directly toward them. It was high pitched, and by the sound of it a speedboat. Coast Guard, she wondered? Except the Coast Guard wouldn't be running without lights.