The Whiskey Tide (8 page)

     
For the first time Billy looked dubious.

     
"Miss Hinshaw, you don't want to go down there. I can have him meet you somewheres."

     
"I can't wait. If he won't do it, I have to find someone else." She handed him the second two dollar bill. "Here. Now put those dandelions in the garbage and get in the car."

***

     
Since Volstead had broken the party up, Finnegan's bar had advertised sandwiches and near beer on the sign in its cracked front window. You could get both, but everyone on the wharf, probably including the Coast Guard, knew that if your face was familiar you also could get a glass of rye whiskey from the bottle under the counter.

     
Joe Santayna's face was very familiar. He paid his tab, didn't start trouble and as a bonus could generally be counted on for cheerful conversation. Finnegan cut the cheese a bit thick on his sandwiches in recognition of those attributes.

     
Today Joe hadn't had a sandwich, though he kept thinking he would. The fishing had been poor. The house was so noisy with Arliss' kids he couldn't hear himself think. And he was bored. He'd considered sprucing up and going to call on the aunties, but he'd come here instead. He'd had several glasses from under the counter — he no longer was quite sure how many. The nicked tables were starting to look neat and polished. Finnegan's rambling on the corruption of city politics was starting to sound almost eloquent. Molly Elam, a widow who tarted for drinks, was starting to lose her wrinkles and regain her figure.

     
Joe stretched in his chair by the window thinking maybe he'd have one more drink. And a sandwich.

     
Finnegan's cockeyed front door slammed inward with force enough to tip an elephant. O'Malley and another boy in blue swaggered in. Molly Elam's glass of whiskey disappeared down the front of her dress in a gesture that made it appear she was merely adjusting her collar. Joe, admiring her skill, would have laid money nary a drop was spilled.

     
O'Malley craned his neck around and made a beeline for Joe's table.

     
"Why, Santayna." A smirk of satisfaction puckered his features. "Whatever would you be having in that little glass?"

     
Joe flicked a piece of the egg shell he'd deposited on the table as insurance when he sat down.

     
"Soft boiled egg. They're not illegal yet, are they?"

     
Finnegan's patrons hooted. O'Malley's doughy face reddened.

     
"Where were you between nine and ten o'clock last night?"

     
"Home in bed."

     
Lunging across the table, O'Malley jerked Joe to his feet, upsetting the table and breaking the glass filled with near beer that Finnegan served with whiskey as decoration. Joe was pleased to hear the grunt of effort it cost the policeman to lift him.

     
"A real answer, wise mouth."

     
Finnegan was looking violence at O'Malley's back. The cop had accused the hard-working bar owner of stealing a ham once. Last Christmas he'd threatened to charge Molly Elam with prostitution unless she slipped him five dollars. He found some excuse to stop Joe's cousin Pete and give him a hard time whenever they met in the street.

     
"Since you ask so nicely," Joe said, "I went down to Boston to hear a lecture by one of those brain doctors. He explained why they can't work on Irish cops."

     
The crowd in Finnegan's roared.

     
The last of the roar became an explosion as O'Malley's fist found Joe's chin. Joe heard glass shatter as he sailed backwards through Finnegan's window. He hit the ground with a shock, part of it the realization he'd had more to drink than he thought. Not that he regretted smarting off to O'Malley. He did regret being knocked off his feet.

     
"Oh, criminy!" quavered a voice.

     
Giving his head a shake to clear it, Joe glimpsed young Billy McCarthy standing halfway to Finnegan's door and looking dismayed. Before he could shoot the kid a grin of reassurance, O'Malley's hard shoe found a target in his ribs.

     
"Okay, Santayna. Let's try the question again. Where were you last night between nine and ten?"

     
Joe wouldn't give him the satisfaction of gasping for breath. He struggled to sit. He saw the wheels of a big car. A Buick, maybe. He saw a pair of attractive female ankles in gray stockings. In the seconds it took him to gather his muscles beneath him, as well as his wits, and to contemplate whether it would be worth spending a night in jail to even scores with O'Malley, the voice that went with the ankles spoke. Clear. Educated. Verging on anger.

     
"Mr. Santayna was with me."

Five

     
The moment the words sailed from Kate's mouth she longed to retrieve them. The two policemen, along with some roughly dressed men who had crowded out of the dingy cafe, looked at her thunderstruck. So, for a split second, did Joe Santayna. Then two long dimples creased his tanned cheeks, setting the stage for a grin that seemed to take no notice of either the brutality he had suffered or the scrape he was in. Kate squirmed before it.

     
It was not that the man on the ground before her was unkempt, exactly, though she couldn't tell if his hair was combed, it was so thickly curly. It was that he looked sure of himself. And tougher than most of the men she knew. One policeman shot the other a look in which she caught unflattering insinuation.

     
"My — my family has a boat we need to sell. I asked Mr. Santayna to look it over and advise me whether any repairs would be in order first. He came quite highly recommended."

     
She spoke in a rush before she could lose her courage. What was she doing lying for a man who, for all she knew, might be a scoundrel? His ocean blue eyes watched her with frank curiosity.

     
"And who might your family be?" The policeman in charge was pretending to be polite, but Kate heard the nastiness in his question. It angered her. Policemen weren't supposed to be rude. Or to kick people. She fought to keep her voice steady.

     
"My father was Oliver Hinshaw."

     
The other policeman shuffled uncomfortably and shoved his nightstick back into his belt. The one in charge had a nose like a pig’s snout. He sneered down it.

     
"Mr. Santayna came to your house, did he? I hate to trouble you with questions, but there was a warehouse broke into last night."

     
Kate felt her legs growing weak as they had on Essex Street that morning. Her only reassurance was the stiffening of Joe Santayna's jaw, a reaction which she herself had experienced when accused unjustly.

     
"What do you think, they invited me for tea, O'Malley?" Joe Santayna rose lightly to his feet, the blaze of his eyes daring either policeman to stop him. "We met at the Willows. Talked price and such. I couldn't well look at a boat in the dark, now could I? We agreed she'd pick me up here today. If we have your permission."

     
He dusted his clothes with a snapping sound. O'Malley glared.

     
"Watch yourself," he cautioned Kate. "You can't be too careful with his sort."

     
With every step back toward the car Kate was keenly aware of the watching police, the squalid surroundings, and that what she was dabbling in now was miles beyond letting her curiosity take her to a socialist meeting.

***

     
The big Buick touring car was so fluid and glossy that Joe couldn't hold back the impulse to rest one hand on its finish. He loved fine metals; felt a kinship with the energy of machines.

     
"I take it you did want to talk with me?" he asked.

     
Her head bobbed once. She stood a shade taller than most girls, but still a head shorter than Joe. And for all she'd been a sight to watch standing up to O'Malley, Joe now recognized she was so scared she hardly could stand.

     
"Want to go, Miss Kate?" Billy asked nervously.

     
Kate. Kate Hinshaw. She looked pale enough to faint. She nodded again and Billy scrambled into the back seat.

     
"Shall I drive?" Joe offered.

     
"No. Thank you."

     
Finding her voice seemed to steady her. She lifted a hand as if to touch him, then drew back.

     
"You... have glass in your hair."

     
He bent his head and dusted his curls with his fingers. He wished there weren't a whisper of alcohol still slowing his brain. There was a quality to her that made him want to show he was capable of manners. She climbed up into the driver's seat before Joe could offer a hand.

     
Self-consciously, Joe slid in beside her. The atmosphere of money was all around him. In the big car. The leather seats. The faint scent of lilacs on the willowy young woman next to him.

     
"Your mouth is bleeding. Here." She offered him a handkerchief with lace at the corner.

     
His dark head shook. The kick from O'Malley had knocked more wind from him than he realized. He removed a freshly ironed square of linen from his pocket and dabbed his lip. Kate Hinshaw looked surprised, whether at his having the handkerchief or at his gallantry at not soiling hers he wasn't sure. One point for the aunties, he thought with a grin.

     
They'd approve of this proper young woman with her respectable hemline and waves of golden hair just short enough to be fashionable. He'd been running through reasons that might bring her down here in her neat gray suit and pearls which were undoubtedly real. He couldn't think of a one. She wasn't a flapper taking some dare or hunting a bottle of hooch. If anything, she looked like a damned social worker traipsing around to annoy the poor.

     
The engine chugged to life. Kate Hinshaw let out the clutch and wrestled the Buick up the narrow street past two delivery trucks. She gripped the steering wheel so tightly Joe suspected she was holding onto it for courage. He'd never seen a woman's face look like hers did. Determined. Not over some passing whim, but as if she peered furiously at some vision. Unable to watch her tension a moment longer, he reached across, took control of the wheel and guided the car to a stop beneath a stalwart old chestnut tree.

     
The street they'd turned into had a church and a clinic and a shaded upholsterer's shop. It was almost quiet.

     
Kate Hinshaw looked at him uncertainly. The engine sputtered out.

     
"Maybe you ought to tell me why you were good enough to lie for me back there," he said. "I had nothing to do with a break-in, if there was one, by the way."

     
Relief touched her features before she could hide it. She folded her hands.

     
"Mr. Santayna, I have a business proposition. I have a seventy-nine foot boat and a load of whiskey waiting to be picked up in Canada. I need someone to make the trip with me. Billy says you're an experienced sailor and might be willing. If you are, I'll pay you one hundred dollars."

     
Joe opened his mouth. His impulse was to whoop with merriment. This girl who looked serious as a nun was asking him to have a run at bootlegging.