The Whiskey Tide (19 page)

     
"All right."

     
Her hands unlocked themselves and he noticed for the first time the evidence of the damage done to her skin by the ropes. Reaching across he straightened her palm and surveyed the scabs, concluding they'd leave no permanent marks.

     
"You want to be part of the crew again, I take it?"

     
She nodded and withdrew her hand from his uncomfortably.

     
"Bring a pair of pigskin gloves that fits you. We'll cut the fingertips off and the air will be damp enough to mold the leather to you. It'll keep down the blisters."

     
"Thank you. For saying you'll make the trip." She popped a couple of clams into her mouth, relaxing a little. "You're sure the engine will work?"

     
Joe nodded. "I'm good with engines. I'll be half a day fitting it on the boat, though. What shall I say if somebody comes down to see what I'm doing?"

     
"They won't. You can't see our cove from the house. Unless we plan a picnic or something no one goes down except me, and occasionally Aggie. She's the flapper."

     
"Don't have any picnics this weekend."

     
She smiled faintly.

     
"You can't break out in measles every time. How in blue blazes are you planning on getting away with this?"

     
"I'm not sure. What about you? Do you...?" She stopped awkwardly.

     
"I live with my aunt and uncle. They wouldn't like me being mixed up in something like this. They wouldn't say anything, but they'd worry. I'll spin some yarn."

     
"The bluefish came to shore while we were out last time. My father explained that to me once — how that can mean half a year's income for some families."

     
Her understanding startled him. "It's okay. They had a good take."

     
She looked around the coffee shop as if seeing it for the first time. The nurses were wiping their fingers on paper napkins.

     
"I need to be going." She hesitated. "I promised Aggie you'd see me to the trolley and wait with me till a car came along."

     
Trolleys were running less now than they used to, less in demand because of the growing number of automobiles and therefore less profitable. As in most things, it was the working class that would feel the hardship most, Joe thought. No longer able to find cheap transportation, they'd likewise be unable to afford a car. He walked Kate Hinshaw to an uptown trolley stop and waited with her until a plain looking woman Irene's age joined the handful of people standing at the curb. She spoke deferentially to Kate.

     
"You needn't wait," Kate murmured as the woman moved on. "She takes care of the children a few houses away from us. We'll get off at the same stop."

     
Joe nodded and set off, looking back once at the sound of a trolley. He wondered if Kate Hinshaw had lost a sweetheart in the war. It was the likeliest explanation he could think of for her unattached state as well as her seriousness. He stretched in the night air and wondered if he could make four trips to Canada without landing in jail.

     
He thought about going back to The Lanyard and decided against it.

***

     
They were chasing halibut and would be out two days, maybe part of a third. Drake waited until the end of the mid-day meal to commence the ribbing.

     
"Hear tell a skinny little rich girl came looking for you in the joint you was in last night," he drawled squinting against the sun.

     
"Oh yeah? And where would you have heard something like that?" Joe asked giving Sebastian a sideways look.

     
His cousin grinned back from the tiller. He was darker than Joe, with a hint of Vic's hawklike nose, and cut a wide wake as a ladies' man.

     
"Word is you took off mighty fast with her," Sebastian contributed.

     
"You bet I did." Joe was enjoying himself instead of squirming the way they expected. "Somebody wants to pay me good money to fix up their boat, I'll take off right fast."

     
The water was calm and they were drifting slowly. Joe's uncles checked the large nets floating from the side of the boat. Sebastian, at the helm, bit into an onion the size of a baseball. The three of them were playing a game with Joe, just as he many times joined forces with them to tease Sebastian or less often Drake or on rare occasion Vic. Joe finished a last bit of sausage with bread and licked the grease from his fingers.

     
"Girl I met while I was in Boston," he said. "Her family wants to buy that engine I've been fixing up."

     
"That one you traded Rudy Vogel for?"

     
"Yep." Rudy Vogel dealt in all kinds of salvage. You went to his place when you needed a part for something. Joe had rebuilt several marine engines using parts from Rudy's. He'd traded two good-as-new ones back to the salvage man for the small airplane engine in question and had worked all last winter rebuilding it, making modifications because all along he'd wanted to see it on a boat. Telling the uncles he had a buyer would explain his coming into money, and now that he thought about it he probably should have charged Kate Hinshaw.

     
"You make sure they give you a fair price," Vic cautioned, suddenly businesslike, and by the sounds of it surprised that Joe's tinkering was about to pay a dividend. "Some rich folks'll be right mean with money when they're dealing with someone who don't wear a suit."

     
"They're paying fair. Want me to fit it onto a schooner they've got. Guess I'll do it this weekend."

     
The others were silent and Joe felt the lift of their unspoken satisfaction that one of their own was doing well. It surrounded him, as strong as the sea. And most of what he'd told them so far was true. He felt the unity of the four of them as they stood on deck, his uncles with their sleeves rolled up, he and Sebastian stripped to their sleeveless vests to catch a breeze, and felt a wave of contentment engulf him.

     
"Once I get the motor on, they want me to take their boat up to Deer Island and back. Make sure it runs okay."

     
The uncles nodded.

     
"Glad to hear it's just business," Sebastian said. "Reports are the girl wasn't much to look at."

     
Joe's cheeks creased with amusement. "Rita say that, did she?"

     
Rita was jealous.

***

     
"Good heavens! What kind of automobile is that?" marveled Rosalie in awe.

     
"A Stutz Torpedo." It was exactly the kind of stir Aggie had hoped to create. But the first time Felix came for her, Rosalie had been busy distracting Mama, and Kate, though she'd looked out the window, hadn't said anything. Nothing impressed Kate. Nothing
interested
her — clothes, cars, men.

     
Aggie blew a kiss as Rosalie turned from the curtain. If Mama came down before Aggie made her getaway, there'd be a terrible scene. Mama would insist Aggie's date come up to the door and call for her properly. Aggie would die of humiliation and Felix Garvey would think she was a child. She breathed a sigh of relief as she ran down the steps in her black shimmy and let herself into the powerful car.

     
Felix looked swift and silent as a wolf with the full moon reflecting off his white suit and his face in shadows. He didn't speak until they had reached the end of her street and turned toward the main road.

     
"The pick up's going to be off Marblehead," he said. "Directions are on this." He took a folded paper from his pocket and handed it to her. He told her the night and the time range. "There's a name on the back to telegraph if there's a delay. If it's more than one day delay, then you're on your own."

     
Aggie nodded and tucked the folded paper into her handbag.

     
"Do you want to go back now or come with me for awhile?" Felix asked blandly.

     
Aggie's blood leaped. "I might as well go with you," she said matching his casualness.
     
His lips thinned into a smile.

     
They drove north to Beverly and beyond, the big car gobbling the miles. The club they entered was one she and Peely had been to once, but with Felix there was no similarity. They were shown to a table and champagne came without asking and when they danced he didn't try to paw her like the boys she'd known before. He simply fitted their bodies together as if they were two halves of a single whole and she felt the heat of his body as he held her with cool detachment.

     
She was careful not to look at him and not to seem too interested. When she did let her eyes flutter up once, she caught an expression of interest in his. It was a different kind of interest, though, not the hope of kisses and tangling bodies. It held a hint of curiosity.

Thirteen

     
The first thing Kate tripped over was a bushel of potatoes. The next was two rifles. She stood by the rope rail where she'd boarded the
Folly
, staring down at them in the pale pre-dawn light. At the other end of the boat, near the prow, she could see Joe and Billy conversing. Until now she'd felt more excitement than nervousness, the trip to Canada not as daunting as it had been the first time. The sight of the rifles made her uneasy. She stepped over them in her rubber soled shoes and set down the bag in which she'd packed an extra shirt and her hairbrush.

     
"They're not loaded yet," Joe said joining her. "Are you afraid of guns?"

     
"No — but surely they're not necessary. You already have a pistol."

     
"Two days ago a boat was boarded and the crew roughed up. You want that to happen to us?"

     
Kate didn't know how to answer. Joe smiled. He smelled of soap and sea air.

     
"It's not likely, but there are gangs who like the thought of free booze. A few shots fired over the bow will scare them away. A pistol won't reach. I don't have any ideas of shooting it out with the law, if that's what you were thinking. Now come meet Clovis Mulrooney."

     
He started toward the front of the boat and Kate followed. A gaunt, nimble-looking man with a cigarette in his mouth and a shirt that looked in need of washing was coiling rope.

     
"Clovis can't speak since a piece of shrapnel took out part of his throat. He'll whistle and point if he wants your attention. He's a good worker."

     
Kate tried not to look at the shiny patch of skin showing above the man's collar. The ragged scar was paler than the skin around it. The man's eyes met hers briefly and he ducked his head in a bow, reminding her of a stray dog afraid of being noticed and driven away.

     
"Let's cast off before your neighbors are up to notice us," Joe said. "You take the wheel. We won't start the engine till we're past the Miseries."

     
A new box with a dial and a lever sat to the left of the wheel. At sight of it a new anxiety descended on Kate. What if Joe Santayna wasn't as capable as he thought with engines? What if the boat leaked as a result of his modifications? Her worrying continued until they passed the islands that in Kate's mind marked the passage into open seas.