Good Intentions (Samogon 1) (6 page)

Mikhail was laughing even harder now as he pretended to squeeze Rochelle on their deal.
He told her the sooner the better because he was driving to Cincinnati in the morning. Rochelle told him to stay by the phone as she headed back to Chris.

She met Chris at a truck-stop motel just outside Ashland. The room was in a secluded section of the motel where there were few people. Chris had already unloaded the whiskey. Twenty-one cases holding twelve gallons each sat on the floor of the motel room. Rochelle gave him the money, then she called Mikhail to meet her.

“Okay,” Chris said
, heading back to his truck. “I’m heading home. You wait in your car for him to get here. Keep the key in your pants in case a cop shows up and wants to search you. When your boy gets here, you just give him the key and stay in your car. When he leaves, you leave and come home.”

Chris couldn’t stress enough for her to stay in her car and out of the room.
It wasn’t just about protecting her from the law, he was jealous and didn’t want her with Mikhail.

Twenty minutes later a minivan pulled alongside Rochelle’s car.
Inside were Mikhail and two others who Rochelle had never seen before.

“Hello, love.
So, where are we?”

“I’m here,” Rochelle said.
“You’re over there.” She reached out her window and handed him the room key.

“We have a room, then we must enjoy it together.
My cousins will take the van. You and I will stay, and then you can drive me home. Okay?”

It sounded to Rochelle like Mikhail was showing off for his cousins, and that made her feel cheap.
Regardless, Chris had told her to stay in the car. “Not tonight. I’m leaving to be with my mom. I’m not leaving her alone after we just buried Daddy. So, go on, get your stuff so I can go.”

“All business, huh?
I understand.”

Mikhail drove the van up to the room and his cousins got out, leaving the sliding door open.
He started speaking Russian to them.

Rochelle tried to listen from her car but she didn’t speak Russian.
Their entire conversation was in Russian. This was something she had never seen with Mikhail. She was fascinated and turned on. He was behaving like some sort of international gangster.

Behind the motel, two hundred meters away, cross-hairs from a rifle scope were trained on the two Russians as they carried boxes from the motel room to the van.
The cross-hairs could not acquire Mikhail because of the way he parked the van, but the other two were ready to be dropped.

When the van was loaded, Mikhail and his cousins left.
Mikhail waved to Rochelle as he drove past her. She started her car and followed him to the highway before going her separate way.

As soon as she was clear from any harm, Chris stood up from the tall brush on the land that lay behind the motel.
He carried a Marlin X7, .308 bolt action rifle. He made his way back to his truck that was parked behind some trees and out-of-sight from the road. Richard Donovan taught him the skills to be a sharp-shooter and stalker for hunting. Never did he imagine he would use those skills to shadow Rochelle. Chris chose that motel and room because it gave him the best vantage point to cover the girl he loved.

***

Six thousand dollars—that’s what Chris gave Rochelle. Six thousand dollars—that’s what Rochelle gave her mother to help pay the back taxes on the family farm. There was still quite a bit to pay off.

By the end of June, Chris had distilled and sold enough moonshine to some of Richard Donovan’s old customers that half of the taxes were paid without having to use any of the cash accounts that were left to Louise.

Rochelle kept busy keeping an account of the new family venture.
This was her way of being involved. From time to time she would help Chris prepare the mash and bottle the distilled liquor. She thought it was exciting—and like her father, she was enjoying it. She didn’t bother Chris to teach her to distill. Nevertheless, Chris explained the process to her so she would understand in case she ever needed to talk the talk.

Chris was distilling one thousand gallons of apricot brandy, five hundred of which was for a run he would have to make to Charleston, West Virginia.
He wasn’t completely comfortable making the run without having his old mentor at his side
.
It had only been a month since Chris and Mr. Donovan had watched the news reports of ATF Agent Daniels seizing a large amount of whiskey outside of Charleston. The news station had reported that Daniels got a tip from a local tavern, but which one? Was it from one of their customers who got caught? Was it someone else trying to rid themselves of competition? But the question that was at the top of Chris’ mind was whether it was the guy he was getting ready to do business with?

Chris thought hard on the question and came to the realization that even if it was this particular customer, he didn’t give up Richard Donovan but some farmer in West Virginia.
And the customer couldn’t possibly be setting Chris up because Chris called him. And the customer didn’t ask for the white lightning, he wanted the fruit brandy. White lightning was more common and less expensive than the fruit brandy. Chris knew that this customer ran a more upscale operation with a more discrete clientele. This run would bring in $50,000. It was worth the risk. After this run, Chris could take it easy and focus on the farm, and Rochelle could enjoy the remainder of her summer before leaving for school.

That Sunday evening, Chris was in the shop barn cleaning his two handguns
—a Sig Sauer P230 model .380 and a Glock .45 caliber. Rochelle came in to see him.

“When are you going to teach me to shoot?”

“Why do you want to learn? You planning on shooting someone?”

“A girl needs to protect herself, doesn’t she?
And besides, now that I’m helping you with the family business, who's to say I won’t need protection? I’ve watched you and daddy shoot, it looks fun.”

Chris didn’t have a problem teaching Rochelle how to shoot.
He knew sooner or later her father would have taught her. Although her mother didn’t care for guns, Louise had learned how to shoot when they were young and stationed in Panama together. “I’ll try to teach you before you leave for college. For now, come on and help me box up the rest of the brandy.”

Down in the bunker Rochelle and Chris finished bottling the one thousand gallons of fruit brandy.
Forty-one cases and a box of eight gallons were for the trip to Charleston. Another forty-one gallons remained stacked on pallets down in the bunker.

There were eight gallons left over that Chris pointed out to Rochelle.
“Why don’t you make yourself $800 and sell that to your white boyfriend. Put some walking around money in your pocket.”

“Chris, he’s
not
my boyfriend. I don’t have a boyfriend.” She walked over to where Chris was sitting and straddled his lap. “Maybe I need one.”

She leaned forward and kissed him.
Chris placed his hands on the sides of her waist, holding her firmly. As they continued kissing, he slid one hand around to the small of her back, and with the other he reached up under her shirt and massaged her breasts. Rochelle reached down and unbuttoned Chris’ jeans, eager to release his
him
. It had been a while since the two had sex. The passion between them was strong. Making love to Chris was so much different than with Mikhail. With the Russian it had always been about getting off. With Chris, whether she wanted to admit it or not, there was love, passion, and desire. She knew Mikhail’s only interest was having a sexy black girl to bang. But Chris, he loved her.

They made love, then sat there quietly together.
She hugged him tightly, and with her face buried in his shoulders, she began to cry. All that was happening in her life, her nerves finally shattered—losing her dad, the threat of losing the farm, leaving home, fearing for her mom, loving two boys, running moonshine, and the uncertainty of tomorrow.

“You just go on and cry, baby girl.
Just cry.” Chris held her against his chest—one hand supporting her back and the other caressing the back of her head and neck up under her hair. He whispered in her ear, trying to keep her calm as her emotions were crashing. “Let it all out. It’ll be okay. Nothing’s going to hurt you. You’re my girl. You’re going to be all right.”

Rochelle continued to cry in silence as Chris’ strong hands nearly massaged her to sleep.

Early Monday morning, Chris had loaded the forty-two boxes into the back of the truck, then made one last check and headed east for the one-hour drive. There was little traffic on the highway and not a state trooper anywhere. It was just before ten o'clock when he pulled into Charleston.

He stopped at Skagg’s Cafe for an early lunch.
The smell of fried eggs, bacon, pork gravy, along with cigarette smoke and fresh brewed coffee filled his nostrils. At the hostess stand he could smell oven-fresh cinnamon rolls. To his right along the counter, a few officers were taking a coffee break. Chris didn’t pay them any mind, and there was enough customer traffic that the officers hadn’t noticed him.

After knocking back a plate of waffles and two sides of sausage, Chris sat in the cafe and drank a few cups of coffee while he waited for the lunch traffic to
pick up. Once it did, he blended back into the roads and drove closer to the University of Charleston campus where the hotels were practically empty on Mondays. He checked into a Red Roof Inn and stayed put until late afternoon.

***

At the Cartwright house back in Ashland, the phone was ringing but no one was answering. Mr. Cartwright was at work, and the two girls, Tricia and Tammy, were volunteering as camp counselors for their church group’s younger children.

In the master bedroom was Mrs. Cartwright, an attractive forty-five-year-old woman with a good marriage but with little excitement.
She had joined a few social organizations to get out of the house and to interact with friends, but she was still bored. She was well liked and had a lot of respect among the community. And like any middle-aged woman she had her secrets.

She was naked in bed, straddling a vibrant young man.
She had been playing hostess to her young lover for an entire year. Now that he was leaving, she was going to enjoy him sexually without any worries of ever seeing him again.

She rode her young lover hard, rocking back and forth, grinding down on him without care.
He held her firmly by the waist, thrusting his pelvis up into her while she continued to grind. Mikhail rolled Mrs. Cartwright over onto her back as the phone kept ringing every five minutes. He parted her legs and laid deep into her. Her vigorous teenage lover could go on and on without needing any rest. She did things to Mikhail that would make a teenage girl blush, and she made Mikhail do things to her that a young girl would be ashamed to even think about doing.

Mrs. Cartwright had made her move on Mikhail right after graduation.
His final summer made for the perfect situation. Her husband still had to work, her girls would be gone at camp, and Mikhail would be hanging around the house when he wasn’t with his brother, Peter. At least twice a week, sometimes three, she would make love to her Russian guest for two hours. Afterward, she would simply leave Mikhail laid out in the bed or on the floor exhausted and breathing heavily. As Mikhail laid there recouping, he would just laugh at his inability to stand up. He was having the time of his life.

Little did Mrs. Cartwright know that soon after Mikhail had moved into her home, he was already banging her oldest daughter, Tricia.
One particular evening the Cartwright couple was out at a social event while Mikhail and the two girls stayed at home. He flirted with both girls, and both girls flirted back. By mid-evening, Tammy was in her room talking on the telephone, and Mikhail was screwing Tricia on the living room floor. During the school year, he screwed her once a month. And if that wasn’t enough, the cradle robber had taken the younger sister a couple of times as well. And now, the immoral conquest was complete. He had made love to every woman in the house, mother and daughters all.

The phone kept ringing.
Only when Mrs. Cartwright was satisfied sexually and there was nothing left of Mikhail did she get up to answer it. “It’s for you,” she said to him with a wicked grin.

“Hello?
Hey, Rochelle. How are you?” Mikhail was holding his breath while trying to talk to Rochelle. Mrs. Cartwright slid down on Mikhail as he lay in the bed talking on the phone. She wasn’t done after all.

“I’ve been trying to call you all morning.
Where have you been?” Rochelle was making small talk before getting to the reason for calling.

“I was with Mrs. Cartwright, helping her pickup some things for the house and getting ready to pack-up and head to Cincinnati.
Is everything okay?” Mikhail was starting to giggle as Mrs. Cartwright’s tongue danced all around his inner thighs.

“Yeah, everything is fine.
Nothing to laugh about. I was wondering if you or Peter would be interested in eight gallons of apricot brandy. Do you remember the fruit brandy I had at Jennifer’s house? It’s the same thing. My friend has eight gallons he can sell for $800.”

“Absolutely.
I can do that for you around lunch time.” Mikhail looked down and saw Mrs. Cartwright staring back at him with a look in her eye that told him he wasn’t going anywhere just yet. “Maybe I better meet you around three o'clock.”

“Yeah, that’s fine.
I’ll meet you at the ballpark then,” Rochelle said.

“Okay, love.
I’ll see you then.” Mikhail hung up the phone and gave Mrs. Cartwright the rest of his undivided attention.

***

When three o'clock rolled around, Mikhail pulled into the ballpark and spotted Rochelle sitting in the bleachers as a little-league game was being played. He surveyed the parking lot. No cops, no one loitering around, and everyone was watching the game. Rochelle saw him immediately and walked out carrying a bag of popcorn and a soda. She got into the passenger side of the van and the two young lovers kissed.

“I’m glad you called.
My brother was very impressed with the
samogon
. We want to buy more, a lot more. Your friend must tell me how much he can sell me and how often,” Mikhail demanded. “What we took at the motel was very little in comparison to how much we want. If he cannot make as much as we need, suggest to him to invite other bootleggers to sell to us. If it’s high-proof alcohol with a good taste, we’ll buy it all.”

“You can’t be selling that much moonshine out of a nightclub and not having any heat on you.”
Rochelle wasn’t naive. “Not everybody is drinking the same thing all the time. You’re doing something else with it ...
Fine
, if you don’t want to tell me that’s your business. But don’t think you are going to put us in a position to get busted just so you and your brother can showboat and flash this stuff all over Ohio.”

Us?
That little slip didn’t slide past Mikhail’s ear. He knew now that she was more involved with her friend than she was letting on. He knew everyone she did from school. It could only be a couple of people. The first person Mikhail thought of was Luke Gentry, a boy they graduated with whose family owned and operated Gentry Distillery. They made grain alcohol, vodka and gin. It would be easy for them to make the white lightning. The distillery would even provide perfect cover for making it. But Luke Gentry didn’t hang out with anyone from school, not even Rochelle.

The second person was the Donovan’s farmhand, Chris, who Rochelle talks about from time to time.
Mikhail knew nothing about him, which was the only reason he didn’t rule Chris out.

Rochelle wasn’t oblivious to her slip of the tongue, but she was hoping Mikhail didn’t catch it.
She was too comfortable being around Mikhail, too relaxed from being his lover. Until now, she never had to worry about what she said to him.

“Rochelle, if we can get enough of what we want, we plan to ship it back home to sell.”
First, Mikhail was going to give her a little bit of information to establish trust, then he was going to pry her for information on her involvement with the
samogon
and try to get his hooks into it. “The vodka back home is controlled by the government. Although it’s no longer a government subsidy, the government taxes the hell out of vodka, especially imported vodka. What we are doing is buying grain alcohol from here, relabeling it as some kind of solvent or fluid, not paying the import taxes, and reselling it. Believe it or not, it’s much more lucrative this way than to distill it in Russia and have to pay the exuberant taxes.”

Rochelle understood economics and the concept of supply and demand.
“To ship it and sell it you have to have a lot, I mean a lot of whiskey to make it profitable. Otherwise, you will never outrun the costs of just shipping it,” Rochelle explained. “It would require hundreds of thousands of gallons per shipment to make a profit worthwhile.”

Mikhail was astonished.
“Not bad, love. You really do understand business. But what you don’t know is the illegal aspects of it all.”

“Mikhail, my friend could never make that much alcohol.
It would take him months to make enough for one shipment. He would have to bring in other bootleggers.”

Again, Rochelle was not aware of what she was saying.
Months to make thousands of gallons? Bootleggers?
Mikhail could rule out Luke Gentry as her “friend.” Gentry could easily make thousands of gallons in no time, and you wouldn’t refer to him as a bootlegger. Maybe it was the farmhand.

“Okay, for now, you get me the fruit brandy in your car.”
Mikhail handed her $800. “Have your friend get me a schedule of how much he can produce at one time, and how often he can make it. Then you have him outline how much of it he can transport and how far he is willing to take it.”

“I can do that later in the week when he comes back into town,” Rochelle said, again not paying attention to what she was saying.
“I’ll call you Friday.”

Mikhail knew now that all he had to do was drive out to Rochelle’s farm today, tomorrow and the next day to see if the farmhand was there.
If he wasn’t there, then it had to be him. If he
was
there, back to figuring out who her friend was.