The Whiskey Tide (41 page)

     
"It's your own fault it got torn. I'm taking a shower."

     
Aggie blinked at his retreating form. She wasn't sure what he intended. To force her to beg? To use this as some sort of leverage to make her accept his offer of an apartment? To let her pin the torn dress together as best she could and go home in disgrace?

     
Anger surged in her. She wasn't going to be bullied. She thought for a minute, the shower sounds drifting into her ears. Her expression cleared. Marching into the bedroom she began to dress herself in the rest of Felix's clothes, rolling the legs of the pants into oversized cuffs. When she lifted the jacket, the object beneath it caught her eye. She stared for a long moment at the small gun in a holster that went under his shoulder. When had Felix started to carry a gun, and why?

     
Turning her back on it, she slid the long silk scarf from Kitty's ruined dress rakishly beneath the collar of the gray suit jacket. She struck a pose before the mirror and was taken with the daring look of her ensemble. She had her story in place by the time she breezed through the back door into her own kitchen.

     
"How divine to be where it's warm," she sighed. "Did I tell you yesterday I might not be here for lunch? I couldn't remember. A girl from work and I got an early start checking shop windows — seeing what the competition's doing. We must have walked a hundred miles.

     
"I'm thinking of starting a fashion fad. What do you think?"

     
She shed her coat and spun before them. Mama barely looked.

     
"The height of style," Kate said. "You look like Charlie Chaplain." Then she caught sight of Aggie's thin leather pumps and her eyes narrowed.

     
"Do come in with me while I hang up my coat. I have wonderful gossip." Aggie caught Kate's arm and steered her toward the dining room. When the swinging door had closed behind them she lowered her voice. "Kate, you've got to help me. I borrowed Kitty's dress for last night and some idiot burned a huge hole in it with his cigarette. I need to replace it."

     
"You're lying through your teeth. You've been out all night." The disdain in her voice made Aggie's spirits droop. "I wash my hands of you, Aggie. I won't lie for you any more. I'm through being blackmailed. If you want to tell Mama where our money's been coming from, fine!"

***

 
     
"Want to go for a beer at Finnegan's?" Drake suggested as the four of them walked up the pier. He was feeling flush these days, what with all of them kicking in less for the rent now that the house was theirs free and clear.

     
"That new girl working there might not notice you if I went along," Joe teased. "I've got an engine's been stumping me I want to have a go at."

     
"I don't understand what you see in it, fiddling with a piece of machinery when you don't have to," Vic said shaking his head.

     
"It's a hobby."

     
"Folks like us don't have hobbies."

     
"Folks like us can do anything we want." Joe spoke more sharply than he'd intended. He saw it in their faces.

     
Vic regarded him in silence, all of them standing there at the end of the pier, smelling of fish.

     
"You've changed, Joe. Getting too many ideas." There was regret in his voice.

***

     
"What an unusual game!" Mrs. Cole drew a mahjong tile from the pile on the card table in her sitting room and peered at it, struggling to remember the combinations she needed. "Chinese, did you say?"

     
"Yes." Kate had guessed that part would intrigue her. "My sister Aggie says it's the rage. She's made us all learn. She said she thought I'd like it because it had a bird."

     
Mrs. Cole caught the drollness of her last words and chuckled, pleased to share someone else's view of absurdity. It made Kate momentarily forget she still wanted to shake her sister for the brazen way she'd waltzed in yesterday.

     
"If you think you might like it, I could get a set for you the next time I'm downtown," she offered. "The two of you could practice and probably beat me the next time I come over."

     
"It will take a great deal of time to learn it," said Tatia dubiously.

     
"Yes, do buy a set for us!" Mrs. Cole exclaimed.

     
Kate had brought the mahjong set over to cheer Mrs. Cole and give her an interest. Ever since the day Tatia had summoned her, she'd been haunted by the spectre of ending up so alone and forgotten she was willing to lock herself in her room and die.

     
"Have you always wanted to study birds?" asked Mrs. Cole shyly.

     
Kate put two tiles together in the dummy hand she was using to teach the old women the rudiments of the game. "Actually, until I saw how tongue-tied I became talking to people, I wanted to be a lawyer like my father."

     
Research had seemed to offer the same chance to improve the world that Pa's work had — only quietly, behind the scenes. Now she'd lost her chance to study with Professor Shaeffer-Pierce, and the hard reality of recent months had shown her how few jobs were open to women, even armed with the Nineteenth Amendment and even if she'd completed her studies.
     
"You're a splendid rum-runner," Mrs. Cole encouraged. "Much smarter than the ones who don't keep track of the moon when they land." Her head bobbed knowingly. "They'll get caught. You won't."

     
Something in her words caught Kate's attention. This wasn't theory Mrs. Cole was spouting. The peculiar old woman was referring to something she'd seen.

     
"Mrs. Cole... are you saying someone else is landing... down there?"

     
Her neighbor looked surprised. "I supposed you knew." She nodded again. "You should collect a landing fee. You'd get a pretty penny, as hidden as your cove is. Does the liquor come from Cuba now, do you think? There's too much ice north."

     
Kate's nerveless fingers gripped the edge of the table. Thoughts fitted themselves together. Landing fees. A hundred dollars, even more, wouldn't be out of line considering what a cargo of liquor was worth. Several times a month. Was that why her uncle wanted them out of the house? So he could reap profits like that?

     
A monstrous suspicion lay in wait, its face just hidden.

     
"Mrs. Cole. Do you by any chance recall the last time someone landed down there?"

     
"There was a very long time when they didn't. A month or more when the weather was awful. Then four nights ago they were back," her neighbor said brightly. "You'd all gone out for the evening, I believe."

     
Kate was quiet remembering how her uncle had shown up, all hearty cheer, with one of his won't-take-no-for-an-answer plans to whisk them to his house for dinner. He'd kept them so late that Mama had protested Woody had lessons the next day.

     
It had been a maneuver to get them out of the way. Like most of his previous outings, she suspected. He probably thought himself noble to get them away, even while he succumbed to a greed so relentless he was willing to see his own sister disgraced if it lined his pockets. For if the men landing liquor were caught, her family would likely be viewed as part of the operation. They were hard pressed for money. Everyone knew it. The police and everyone else would think they'd taken desperate measures.

     
Her uncle, weak, unprincipled, and always with an eye out for profit, had put at risk the one thing her mother had left: he had risked her good name.

     
Words that she'd heard in that fight in the alley after that long-ago socialist meeting sprang to Kate's lips.

     
"That son-of-a-bitch!"

Thirty

     
"So you're fixing up motors for people, are you, Joe?"

     
Carl DaGama sidled up to the window where Joe was lounging. They were at the christening party for Joe's cousin Opal's latest baby. The little house she and her husband rented was packed. There were cakes and bread, and booze discreetly in the kitchen for those who wanted it. The walls rang with the evidence of a good time.

     
"In my spare time," Joe said. "Which there's plenty of this time of year."

     
DaGama made a sound of commiseration. He'd fished in his youth, then gone to work in a warehouse. He was middle aged, too fond of his own opinion, but had done pretty well for himself.

     
"Down at Vogel's," he said. "Shrewd old bird. Doesn't miss much." He paused to take a bite of bread flecked with nuts and fruit. "You thinking of opening a repair place, are you?"

     
Joe hadn't considered it, but now that he heard it the idea tickled his interest. DaGama went on.

     
"Old Sant'Angelo's slow as sin and overcharges if you don't watch him. You'd get plenty of trade."

     
What kind of living could be made in engine repair, Joe wondered? Decent, maybe, except it would mean being stuck in a building all day. It seemed like a waste of time, too, what with the money he had in the bank now. Still, interest from that money would go a long way toward paying bills every month; give him something on which to fall back if ever he needed it.

     
He and DaGama talked for a while longer. Then the older man went to find the whiskey. It was hot in the room, even with the windows part open, and noisy with the voices of adults and shrieks of children. He thought about the conversation he'd had with Kate over too many kids as he noted bellies. It was good Opal had this new baby, though. Get her past the grief of her toddler who'd died for lack of an operation they couldn't afford.

     
With amusement he watched Rose flirting futilely with one of Sebastian's friends. Enjoyed the obvious interest of a girl he hadn't met before. But he felt restless and confined in a way he couldn't explain. After a while he slipped out and headed for home. There was something about the rare times he was alone in the house that he'd always liked.

     
It startled him, when he got there, to hear the steady hum of the Singer. Going into the kitchen he found Arliss bent over pieces of silk which judging by the length of them were destined to be a dress.

     
"You didn't go to the christening?" He was sure she'd been with them when they set out.

     
She gave a secretive smile. "I put in an appearance and left the kids there with Ma. It's heaven being here by myself — the peace and quiet, nobody pulling my skirt. Don't leave though."

     
He went to the stove. There was coffee left from noon, probably bitter from sitting on the warming plate. He poured some anyway and stood staring at the room's single window. He thought of Saint John and how different its streets and buildings were and the animated discussions he'd had there with Kate.

     
"What's bothering you, Joe?" Arliss' voice was quiet as the machine in front of her fell silent and she clipped a seam.

     
"Bothering?"

     
"You've been moody since Christmas."

     
He was wary, reminded uncomfortably of his uncle's accusation that he'd changed. "Just cabin fever."