The Whiskey Tide (15 page)

     
"Yeah, I thought maybe I would. Want to come?"

     
Her delectable lower lip thrust in and out. "Sure. I'd like that."

     
"Pick you up at eight."

     
"Okay."

     
She sent him a smile from eyes that held a tantalizing hint of knowledge. Her hips moved fluidly as she walked toward the door. When it closed behind her, Drake was grinning. He shook his fingers and blew on them as if to cool them.

     
Joe ambled into the bathroom, then went into the kitchen. Arliss was slicing tomatoes, her baby on her hip. Irene, plump, with merry hazel eyes, was draining boiled potatoes at the sink. Joe draped an arm around her.

     
"Something extra for groceries," he said kissing the air by her ear.

     
She stared in surprise at the ten dollar bill he tucked into her pocket.

     
"Where did you get that?"

     
"Poker game.”

     
"Joseph Santayna, didn't I raise you any better than that?"

     
But she was smiling.

 ***

     
"Kate! Wake up!"

     
Kate struggled to open her eyes. She was being shaken as vigorously as Peg beat egg whites for angel food cake.

     
"Kate! Mama's on her way up. Do slip on your gown. And remember — she thinks you've been sick with spots and a fever."

     
Rosalie hauled her half to a sitting position and Kate stuck her arms up blearily for a cotton nightdress to be pulled over her underwear. It had been almost dawn when she climbed the stairs from the beach. She had vague recollections of dropping her clothes and kicking them under the bed... of Rosalie creeping in. Bits and pieces came back. Some story they had concocted about Kate having measles.

     
The door flew open. Mama stood framed there. Her shoulders sagged with relief as Kate smiled at her wanly.

     
"Oh... you do look as though you're recovering." Mrs. Hinshaw gave a small laugh. "They told me you were, but I couldn't stand it a day longer. I had to see for myself."

     
"I'm fine," Kate said thickly. "Just sleepy. I can't seem to catch up." She had no idea what time it was, nor even what day of the week.

     
"Her fever's broken," Rosalie said.

     
"Yes, I see." Mrs. Hinshaw stroked a hand gently over Kate's cheek. "And left you needing a bath," she said wrinkling her nose. She brushed the hint of a kiss onto Kate's forehead. "My serious little Kate. You never complain. Do you ache anywhere?"

     
Kate buried her hands in the sheet to hide the shreds of cloth wrapping both palms, where the skin was raw and bleeding. She shook her head.

     
"Could you eat some broth, do you think? Or a coddled egg?"

     
"When I wake up," Kate mumbled rolling onto her pillow, and thinking she'd much rather have several slices of Peg's roast beef, and mashed potatoes with good brown gravy.

     
When she opened her eyes again it was dark out, and as if to punish her lie to her mother, every muscle in her arms and legs ached. Rosalie sat embroidering in the lamplight.

     
"Awake to stay?" she smiled putting her needle to rest. She uncovered a plate that held a ham sandwich and Kate ate ravenously. "We flushed the coddled egg down the toilet. I'm not sure it was good for the plumbing, but Aggie said we ought to get rid of it or you'd be stuck with invalid food again tomorrow."

     
She bit her lip. "Kate — your poor hands. I was afraid to even try and tend them. What happened?"

     
Kate smoothed back hair that was sticky with salt. "It's from trimming the sails. The trip was so much longer than I was used to that I got blisters."

     
Rosalie was mystified at the explanation. Even as a child she had never shown any interest in athletic pursuits. She had been a willing passenger, unlike Theo's sisters who squealed and were 'fraidy cats, in the small sloops which were part of summer. But Rosalie had never taken a sail line.

     
"Would you like me to draw your bath?" she asked.

     
The water felt heavenly to Kate's overtaxed body. She soaked with relief. How, when she was accustomed to working on deck, could the trip have taken such a toll on her, she wondered with awe? And she hadn't even helped unload the crates of liquor into the small boats that met them offshore.

     
When she returned to her room, Aggie was curled on the foot of the bed.

     
"Tell all!" she demanded.

     
Rosalie put her embroidery aside. "Yes, do. Mama's down going over some bills with Peg."

     
In answer, wrapped in her bathrobe, Kate dropped on the bed beside Aggie. She reached over the edge and felt for the trousers she'd shoved out of sight. The touch of cloth sent fire through the newly exposed cuts scoring her palms. Wordlessly she spread a fan of fifty-dollar bills before her sisters.

     
Rosalie's fingers flew to her mouth.

     
"Seven hundred dollars, plus a bit in small bills," Kate said steadily.

     
"Kate, you wonderful thing!" Aggie fell back laughing. "That will help a bit, won't it?"

     
"You
are
wonderful." Rosalie's eyes were bright with tears.

     
Their praise embarrassed Kate. She folded the money and stuffed it into the bottom of a pasteboard box that held her biology notes.

     
"Now here's an idea," she said returning to the bed and tucking one leg under her. Her palms stung. She stared at them, almost losing her nerve. "The thing is, this money won't begin to clear up the troubles we have. It might buy time, but we're still likely to lose the house.

     
"On the other hand...." She took a breath. "If I brought down liquor we owned, we could make a much bigger profit than I did just transporting it."

     
Rosalie's eyes grew wide. "Are you suggesting that you — that you make another trip?"

     
"Two hundred dollars would buy us some time with the mortgage, surely. With the other five hundred I could buy two hundred fifty cases of booze. After cost and expenses we'd clear close to two thousand dollars, and the time after that we could make seven or eight thousand."

     
"No." Rosalie sounded hoarse. "It's too dangerous."

     
"What are we going to do then? Just let go of the house?"

     
Her little alarm clock ticked loudly. Tick-toc tick-toc. Tsk-tsk tsk-tsk. From a photograph frame on her bureau, her father regarded her with a smile.

     
Uncharacteristic despair escaped in Rosalie's sigh.

     
"I don't know.... We're so upside down. Mama's pretending to be calm, but she's beside herself. She's thinking of letting Peg go."

     
Kate took the words for agreement.

     
"We'd have to concoct another story for her. Maybe I could be visiting a friend. The trickiest part will be finding a buyer...."

     
"I can get one." Aggie spoke quickly. "I know a guy who works for one of the big cheeses." She lounged back, reveling in their astonishment. "I'll talk to him."

***

     
The Troll Club was crowded, couples toddling shoulder to shoulder on the small dance floor, girls sitting on their dates' laps at tables. Aggie was conscious of men's eyes following her as she and Harry Peale bobbed with the other dancers.

     
"Do let's go somewhere else," she coaxed. "This is too crowded." The man she was looking for wasn't here.

     
Peely was baffled. They'd already been two other places. Aggie gave him a squeeze to reward his good behavior. The narrow mustache he'd recently cultivated had been gathering for protest. Her squeeze diffused it.

     
"I know a swell little inn," he whispered.

     
Aggie smiled mercilessly.

     
"You're an absolute encyclopedia, Peely."

     
He'd been eager as a six-year-old on a picnic when she'd hinted she wanted to go dancing tonight. He tried to press closer and Aggie let him.

     
"An encyclopedia. Yeah. Let me show you some pages."

     
"Take me somewhere else and buy me a drink first. This place waters its gin."

     
Without waiting for Peely to answer she ducked under his arm and began to wiggle her way from the dance floor, her body moving to the music. And that was when she saw Felix Garvey step out of a back room.

     
Satisfaction quivered through Aggie. She had spent half an hour reasoning out which nightspots were most likely to attract Felix Garvey. Expensive, more exclusive than the places her crowd and Peely's usually went. She'd seen him once at Percy's Place, so they'd started there. But she'd started to worry as the evening wore on without any sight of him. Now she relaxed and celebrated her own cleverness.

     
"I've changed my mind," she said to Peely. "I want another drink."

     
"But—"

     
"So be a peach and catch the waiter while I go powder my nose."

     
Bemused, Peely made his way back to the table they were sharing with two other couples. One of the girls there left the chair they'd been saving and returned to her date's lap. Aggie stepped out of sight long enough to draw a folded note and a dollar bill from her beaded handbag. She pressed them into the hand of a passing waiter.

     
"Give the note to Mr. Garvey, will you?"

     
The waiter looked impassively around at the man in the white suit. Accustomed to delivering messages, Aggie thought, congratulating herself again on her capabilities.

     
She couldn't see Felix Garvey from the table where she sat with Peely and the others. Not without staring. It was on the other side of the dance floor, over her shoulder. She chattered and drank the gin which Peely had bought her — which really wasn't watered at all. She tried to play calm and not fidget, but as one new song started and ended and then another, the certainty which had been so delicious started to melt.

     
Finally she was forced to dance again with Peely. Nervously she maneuvered him to where she could chance a glance at Felix's table. Indifferent to the redhead who was with him, he gazed blandly at the dance floor, watching no one. Certainly not her.

     
Humiliation drenched Aggie. If she failed and had to tell Kate and Rosalie that she couldn't find a buyer, she couldn't bear it. Peely was smothering her with the ridiculous innuendoes he thought proved him such a ladykiller. How was he ever going to be a vice president in his father's bank when he was such an idiot? Back at the table she sat on his lap and wanted to scream.