The Whiskey Tide (12 page)

     
"If you can't cook, then how do you eat when you're away at that college?"

     
"Well... there are people who cook for us. Like Peg, except not nearly so good."

     
She spread butter on a slab of bread, vaguely embarrassed by a privileged life she'd taken for granted. From his post by the mainsail Joe Santayna was looking at her with interest.

     
"Where do you go?"

     
"Wellesley. Did." She averted her face, throat aching.

     
"Studying what?"

     
"Biology.”

     
Talking about the dreams which had died with her father was painful. He seemed to recognize her desire to drop the topic, but his questions had surprised her. They weren't what she would expect from a fisherman. With only Billy's comments breaking the silence they finished the meal, eating great slabs of pie with their hands and washing it down with black coffee which Joe had made on the kerosene stove.

     
The sun hung several hours short of sunset. A feeling of contentment curled through Kate at the play of its rays on the water, the gulls wheeling out from shore, even the fellowship of these scarcely known male companions. To starboard a few miles distant a derelict steamer plowed its way south. It was badly in need of paint, shabby and scarcely seaworthy.

     
"Part of the rum fleet," Joe Santanya said following her gaze. "Might as well have a sign advertising it when they look like that." He paused a moment, studying a small speedboat as it came between the
Folly
and the steamer. "So's that one. Listen."

     
Puzzled, Kate strained her ears. All she heard was the faint, high pitched hum of its engine.

     
"That engine's fine tuned," Joe elaborated. "Sounds higher than usual because it's set to run fast. My guess is a Coast Guard six-litre couldn't catch it."

     
The rum fleet. That's what she was a part of now, by intent if not yet by cargo. An odd sensation traveled Kate's spine. No other vessels were visible in any direction save the
Folly
, the speedboat and the derelict steamer, all three of them belonging to an illicit brotherhood.

***

     
"I need more booze." Hugo Brewer stirred industriously at two squirts of paint on the flat board he held in his hand. "Eighteen joints and three hotels between Boston and Gloucester count on me to supply 'em. Month before last some of 'em ran out of scotch. This month it's champagne. Can't run any kind of a place without champagne, for Christ’s sake. I need two more boats."

     
Felix Garvey jingled coins in his pocket. He watched the man he worked for add smears to the canvas before him with finicky strokes. The result was pitiful. It was supposed to be the view from this jut of land behind Brewer's summer place, Felix guessed. The lines wobbled like they'd been drawn by someone with palsy and the sailboat in the middle looked more like a box.

     
"You need three," Felix said. "Brown gets caught again, he'll squeal about who's paying him, I'm telling you."

     
"The lawyer got him out. Plus I paid him a bonus for his troubles, didn't I?"

     
"I'm just saying."

     
Brewer sat back on his canvas stool, squinted at his masterpiece and began to paint again. He was in his fifties with a face shaped like an egg and pale, mottled skin. He had put his jacket aside and rolled his shirtsleeves, as he always did for the pastime which consumed most of his interest here at the summer place. A stiff katy sheltered his straw colored hair.

     
"Tell him his wife might have an accident — not look so good — if he does," Brewer resumed. "And it wouldn't hurt to find us a friend or two in the Coast Guard."

     
"Okay, boss."

     
Brewer lifted hazel eyes that were all shimmering surface; impenetrable. He nodded approval.

     
"You're one of my best, Felix. Never whining that something's too hard. Find me two boats and I'll let you get rid of Brown."

     
"A one-way ride?"

     
"Whatever seems prudent."

     
A child came running across the lawn from the brick house behind them. She had shiny pink lips and was dressed all in ruffles.

     
"Grandpa! Let me see your picture," she chirped.

     
Brewer smiled vaguely. "Another time, Margaret. Run on. I'm talking business."

     
"I'm not Margaret. I'm Millicent," the child pouted.

     
Her grandfather gave her a bland look. His eyes were heavy lidded and unblinking. A moment of their scrutiny and the brat spun and retreated as quickly as she had arrived. Brewer picked up a cloth and began to clean his brush, a process that seemed to occupy as much time as painting.

     
"I'm betting you're smarter than Jacobs," he said. "Here's your chance to prove it." The lidded eyes transfixed Felix as they had the child.

     
Felix liked meeting that gaze with its unabashed message of power. His own answered it.

     
"Two boats and a replacement for Brown," Felix said lazily.

     
Brewer pointed the brush handle toward his creation.

     
"What do you think? A buccaneer on the boat? Make it historical? Give it some class?"

     
Without waiting for a reply he dipped his brush and made a ham-colored circle for a face.

***

     
"If I had a daughter, I would name her Claire or Emily," Zenaide Cole said.

     
"Would you,
Madame
?"

     
Tatia took a few shreds of
haricots
onto her fork with no more interest than if Zenaide had asked her to pass the salt. They were in the dining room, Zenaide in dusty mauve at the head of the long mahogany table, Tatia in the somber black she favored to Zenaide's right. Tonight they had the damask cloth with the pattern of grapes. The soft tap of forks on china was the only sound in the house.

     
"What about you?" Zenaide urged. "What would you name a girl?"

     
"But I have no children,
Madame
," Tatia said blankly.

     
"Suppose your life had been different. That you had married someone."

     
"But I did not."

     
Zenaide sighed. It was unkind to give the words shape in her mind, but Tatia was not good company. A companion, yes. Long ago she had been persuaded to discard her maid's apron and wear a small brooch of pearls at her throat. And loyal? Unquestionably. She had left her French city at fifteen to become personal maid to the American woman on her wedding trip, and in more than half a century she never had failed to perform a service requested of her. But she had no interest in books, nor in most things that went on outside this house and its garden. Of the fabric of imagination she was utterly threadbare. She had been raised to take fine mending stitches in lingerie and dress hair with the touch of an angel but not to think.

     
"You are not eating,
Madame
." Tatia gave the tiniest scolding movement with her silver fork. "Look at your nice veal. Scarcely touched."

     
Zenaide nudged a mushroom around the edge of her plate. It was so monotonous, eating. She had thought about inviting the young lawyer who came to see her that afternoon to stay for dinner. He was infinitely more interesting than his uncle had been. Sometimes he even asked if she had any questions about the businesses that made her so much money. But he probably had a wife or a sweetheart waiting for him, and Zenaide had worried the act might seem too bold.

     
"The girl next door goes down several times a day to look at something on the beach," she said. "Bird nests, I believe."

     
"Does she,
Madame
?"

     
"She sails, too. Quite a lovely schooner they have. She scrambles all over it pulling at ropes." Zenaide pressed a bell in the carpet under her foot. Now they would have charlotte russe, for it was Wednesday. Then the cook would leave and they would be alone, two old women who knew each other better than they knew anyone else. "She went out this morning, when the sun was just coming up," Zenaide said enviously.

     
Tatia dabbed at her mouth. Her hair was still very black and her figure that of a girl.

     
"It's very bad of you to use your
granpère's
spyglass," she said. "One day you will see something that gets you in trouble."

***

     
The night air was chill, but excitement warmed Kate like a fire. She stood alone at the helm, enfolded by darkness and guided by stars and beacons of infrequent lighthouses and the faithful needle of the
Folly's
brass compass. The thrill of the watch coursed through her with every heartbeat. She had never sailed by night before, never seen sky merge with sea until there were no boundaries anywhere and time and space ran together. She loved the feeling of being a particle hurtling through the universe, and the creak of rope as soothing as a lullaby.

     
It was probably near midnight. She thought how Pa would have reveled in sharing such an adventure. From the beach at night after a clambake, or sitting on the porch on summer evenings, he had loved to map the sky.

     
"There's the North Star, Katie. It's what guided the China Trade.... There's Orion and the equator.... Find the Big Dipper in Ursa Major and you're near the pole....

     
How much finer it was to watch constellations with hair blowing free and the breathing of the sea beneath your feet. She'd been shamefully pleased to display her knowledge when Joe Santayna asked her, without much optimism, whether she knew anything about the stars. When he then told her she could take the helm for a few hours while he slept, she'd regretted her rashness. Picking out stars as a game was one thing; setting course by them was quite another. But he'd gone over charts with her, slowly and patiently, and once she'd survived her first terrified hour on her own, she'd begun to acquire scraps of confidence.

     
There was still a small knot in her stomach from knowing how far they were from shore. Joe had pointed out the need to stay well clear of the islands created where the Kennebec River emptied into Muscongus Bay. Surely she was holding course well enough to accomplish that. Anyway, he had elected to sleep on deck in case any problem arose, rearranging a coil of rope for a bed and saying he'd slept in worse spots during the war. Toward the bow, Billy moved periodically from mainmast to foremast, valiantly staying awake.

     
To port Kate's ears suddenly caught the keening of a motor. It came from darkness, its source invisible, its whine high-pitched.

     
"Oh,
damn
," she said under her breath. Her soaring spirits crashed. Her mouth went dry. Somewhere in the dark, coming toward her, was a vessel she couldn't see because it was running dark, laden with bootleg.

     
"It'll be all right," Joe Santayna's voice said drowsily. "If you caught the sound, you'll be watching. You'll make out the shape."

     
Her fingers gripped the wheelspokes as she tried to will her fear away. The reality of their situation hit her. They were traveling what Joe had called Rum Row. In the darkness around her there could be a dozen vessels running without lights. Unlike the others, the
Folly
didn't even make an alerting sound.