As the Liquor Flows

by Angela Christina Archer

  As I twisted the front doorknob, I caught sight of Vincent’s office door. An idea whispered through my mind. It toyed with danger, and yet, it could possibly give me the ammunition I needed in this moment.

  If you’re going to steal them, you had better hurry.

  With a deep inhaled breath, I lunged for the office door and darted inside, shutting it quietly behind me.

  Lit with one single oil lamp, I fumbled through the room, kicking my toe on one of the chairs and knocking my shin on one of the desk legs. I bit my lip, fighting against the yelps of pain sitting on the tip of my tongue as I continued to creep through the darkness.

  Reaching the desk, I tugged one of the drawers open. The hinges squeaked as I retrieved several of the leather bound ledgers that Vincent used to keep records of his business dealing.

  “Miss Ford, what are you doing?” a voice whispered.

  I froze. My heart skipped a beat.

  “Miss Ford?”

  I glanced up, meeting Arthur’s gaze as he peeked inside the room from doorframe. He wiped the sweat from his forehead as I approached him.

  “I’m leaving and I’m taking these books with me.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t tell you. The less you know the better.”

  “I can’t let you leave.” He shook his head and seized the books from my arms. “Or at least, I can’t let you leave alone.”

  “You shouldn’t involve yourself.”

  “I’m already involved.” He grabbed my hand, leading me through the house and out the back door into the cool night air.

  We trotted down the driveway and around to the garage. Droplets of rain flecked my skin as rocks and twigs rolled and snapped under our shoes.

  “We have to hurry, Miss Ford.”

  An older Ford Model T truck with faded, cracked paint sat parked next to the familiar Rolls Royce. The tarnished and rusted bumpers and body were a direct contrast to the expensive automobile parked next to it.

  I climbed into the passenger door. A similar version of the one Daddy brought home years ago, the old leather seats smelled of must, mildew, and of Mr. Phelps’s oddly scented aftershave.

  “Just tell me where we’re headed.”

  “Take me to the police station.”

  He gave a slight nod. Within seconds, the engine rumbled and the truck sped out of the driveway and down the wet street.

  Only a few other automobiles traveled around us. Still early in the night, lights flickered from the windows of the buildings we passed, apartments with residents who were still awake and businesses that remained open after dark.

  Questions fired through my mind with each pothole the truck hit. Even after several turns, the rhyme and reason of my actions, both planned and unplanned, hadn’t quite unhinged the full terror through my imagination.

  Surely, the panic pulsed through my veins. Surely, the notion I’d just made the biggest mistake crossed my mind. Yet, even with the voices of fear whispering in my ear, I couldn’t stop myself.

  Arthur finally pulled alongside the brick and mortar building. The engine died underneath us as we both stared at the front door through the rain soaked window unable to move and barely able to breathe.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  “No.” My voice quivered. My word nothing more than a exhaled sound as I reached for the door handle with one hand and clutched Vincent’s ledgers with the other. “But I have to.”

  My shoes clicked on the concrete as I hurried across the sidewalk, up the stairs, and through the station door.

  My heart pounded, and every word that I’d practiced in my head vanished as soon as the wood and glass slammed behind me, the jumbled mess of needs, explanations, and reasons were all gone.

  A few suited officers strode around with papers in their hands while a couple more sat at desks that crowded the whole station floor. Tired faces mirrored the slouched shoulders and dragging feet.

  Their long, hard night is about to get longer and harder.

  “Excuse me,” I beckoned. “Excuse me. I need to speak with an officer now, please.” One of the men glanced up at me. His cheeks puffed up as he inhaled a deep breath and exhaled slowly. “Yes, you, sir, please. I need to speak with you now. It’s extremely important.”

  His eyes glanced toward me, then to the stack of papers on his desk, and then to a few of the other officers.

  “Hanson,” he finally called out.

  “Yes, Sergeant?”

  “Go see what she wants.”

  The younger officer nodded toward his boss and trotted to the front desk as he breathed a heavy sigh. “Can I help you?”

  “Yes, I need to file a report or something. Right now. No, no first someone needs to go over to the prison to protect my brother, and then, I need . . . well, I guess I need to file a report for a missing person report.”

  “Calm down, Ma’am.”

  My hand slammed down on to the front desk as tears threatened to stream down my cheeks.

  “No, I will not calm down. He’s going to murder them, don’t you understand. He’s going to murder them, and me, if he finds out I’m here and what I’ve done. I need to speak with someone right now.”

  By the time I finished my demands, my shouted voice echoed down the hallway and through the offices, catching the attention of all the officers in the entire building.

  “Evelyn,” Arthur called out as the station door closed behind him. He rushed to my side and clutched both my shoulders in his hands. “Please, excuse us for a moment, Officer.”

  “What is she talking about? Murder? What murder?”

  “Just give me one moment and I’ll explain everything. There’s not been a murder.”

  As Arthur led me to a bench near the door, my emotional levy broke. I buried my face in my hands. My sobs overtook the last strand of courage I had left.

  “Please, just rest here. I’ll speak to them and let them know the situation.”

  Through my blurred vision, he ambled up to the desk and began speaking to the officer in a volume I couldn’t hear. He pointed in my direction once or twice as he spoke. His hands waved around as if it helped him better describe our plight. The cop listened intently, his eyes widened as he soaked in every word.

  My body melted into the stuffed leather fabric of the bench. Weak and exhausted, I rubbed my fingertips into my temples, trying to relieve the pounding pain spreading through my nerves.

  After Arthur finally finished, the young man trotted off toward the Sergeant sitting at his desk and the two engaged in their own conversation as the officer recounted my predicament.

  How much had Arthur told them? How much did they know?

  Before the young officer could finish passing along the turn of events, the sergeant jumped to his feet and scurried from the room down a long, deserted hallway. The force from his movement and speed of his haste knocked his desk chair over, the crash echoed through the station.

  “Where’s he going?” I rose to my feet and marched toward Arthur, pointing in the direction the sergeant had vanished. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s all right, Miss Ford.” He grasped my shoulders in his hands once more and gave me a gentle squeeze. “Everything is going to be all right.”

  “Where’s he going? Isn’t he going to help me?”

  “Just try to calm down.”

  Why was everyone telling me to calm down?

  I wiggled from Arthur’s grip and began to pace, cradling my forehead in the palm of my hand. On the verge of losing all control over my voice, I bit my lip so hard, I nearly drew blood.

  No one seemed to listen. No one seemed to care.

  “Please, have a seat, everything will be all right.”

  “Stop saying everything will be all right. I want to know what’s going—”

  “Miss Ford?” the sergeant called for me from the archway he’d vanished under only moments ago. “Come with me, please.”

&nbs
p; I trotted after him, holding my breath for a moment as my anxiousness built in every muscle.

  He led me through the maze of desks and down a dimly lit hallway. Empty offices lined both sides. With their window blinds drawn shut, they gave an eerie feeling that twisted in my stomach as my shoes clicked on the tiled floor.

  Where exactly was he taking me?

  After several more feet, he finally halted at the last door on the left and motioned me inside the tiny room. White walls, a small, plain wooden table, and two chairs greeted me, breathing a plainness that provoked hesitation in my movement as my heart raced.

  “Have a seat, Miss Ford,” he said as he shut the door. “My name is Sergeant Johnson.”

  My rump slid into one of the chairs that lacked a cushion or any remote softness. I scooted it up to the table and the screeching sound ricocheted off the walls.

  I set the ledger books down at my feet, leaning them against one of the thick legs of the table before I folded my hands in my lap.

  “Can I get you a cup of coffee or a glass of water while we wait for Agent James? He’s the one working the case for the Bureau of Investigations Department.”

  “No, thank you. Wait . . . who and what case?”

  The sergeant chuckled under his breath and shook his head. “I’ll let him explain, Ma’am.”

  The door opened and in strode a man in a beautiful gray pinstriped suit.

  “Max?”

  “Hello, Evelyn.”

  SEVENTEEN

  “I DON’T UNDERSTAND.” I rose to my feet, shoving the chair away from me as my eyes danced between the two men. “What are you doing here? What’s going on?”

  “Would you excuse us, please?” Max asked the sergeant.

  “Sure. I’ll just be outside if you need anything.”

  As the door closed with a soft click, my vision blurred, spinning around the room. Unable to think, to reason, or to comprehend the sight of Max standing in front of me, I began to pace around the room.

  “Evelyn, why don’t you have a seat so we can talk?”

  “No.” I spun to face him and pointed my finger in his face. “I’m not going to sit, I’m not going to talk, and I’m not going to do anything until you tell me what’s going on.”

  “I’ll explain everything if you’d just sit down.” One of his hands brushed away his jacket as he rested it on his hip, while the other hand ran through his hair.

  “Are you . . . are you an agent with the Bureau of Investigations Department?”

  He bit his lip and shifted his eyes to the floor with an intense determination to ignore my question. His jaw clenched as he inhaled and exhaled a deep breath. Guilt bled through every inch of his unyielding shoulders.

  “Are you an agent with the Bureau of Investigations Department?”

  He closed his eyes and nodded.

  I stumbled backwards until my back hit the wall.

  Max rushed toward me with his arms outstretched.

  I blocked him. “Don’t touch me.”

  “Evelyn, please.”

  “No. I trusted you. I trusted you when I trusted no one else.” I fled away from him, scurrying across the tiny room as I waved my hand in his face.

  “I know you did, and I’m so sorry for not telling you.”

  “You’re sorry? You’re sorry? And your apology is supposed to simply fix everything?” My breaths heavy and deep as the last several minutes replayed in my mind.

  Agent James, the agent working the case. Wait a minute . . . Agent James . . . James?

  “Wait, is your name Max Catalano?”

  He closed his eyes once more, yet again, trying to ignore my question. It was as though he knew I wouldn’t want to hear the words sitting on the tip of his tongue. An inevitable admission he didn’t want to confess and one he didn’t know how I would handle.

  “What’s your name?”

  “I never meant to hurt you, Evelyn,” his voice barely a whisper as he spoke. “And I hated lying to you. You don’t know how much I hated lying to you, but I had a job to do.”

  “What’s your name?”

  He hung his head with an overwhelming guilt. “My name is Henry . . . Henry James.

  “Detective Henry James?” My stomach twisted in a knot.

  He stepped closer toward me. A bold move that I rejected by raising my hand at him as I shook my head.

  “Vincent Giovanni needs to go to prison for a long time, Evelyn, and it is my job to see that he does.”

  His reasoning and all the excuses in the world felt like nothing but words that my ears heard, but my mind couldn’t understand. He grabbed the back of one of the chairs and motioned for me to take a seat.

  “Please, please, just let me explain.”

  My rump slid onto the chair for the second time. The hard, unforgiving wood creaked under my weight and snagged on my dress.

  “I have known Vinny since I was a young boy, but he doesn’t know this. He and his group of lackeys were running rackets in the neighborhood where I grew up.” Henry paused and snorted a laugh. “They gained quite a reputation in a short time, too.”

  “How does he not know you then?”

  Henry sat down in the chair across from me. His eyes traced the edge of the square piece of wood, before he withdrew his gun from his holster and laid the cold steel in front of him.

  “Because my mother and I moved when I was still just a kid.”

  “Oh.”

  “Before we moved, though, Vinny and his gang got involved with Gaetano Andolini, the Kingpin he eventually murdered to gain his power. In order to get into Andolini’s favor, however, Vinny needed his trust first. And, to do that, he had to show his loyalty to the family.”

  “By running rackets?”

  “Running rackets, yes, but also by collecting debts from small business owners who borrowed money for one reason or another.” Henry swiveled the gun in a few circles on the table. “When my grandfather died, my father’s business hit hard times and he had to borrow money.”

  “But why not borrow money from a bank?”

  “Because a bank can say no. However, the head of a powerful mob family in New York . . . they don’t say no.”

  A gut twisting instinct told me I wasn’t about to like the ending of this story. “And your father couldn’t pay the loan back?”

  Henry nodded. “And he couldn’t pay the loan back.”

  We both sat in silence, staring at the gun on the table. An endless stream of questions bounced in all directions of my mind. One by one, they each pushed and shoved their way to the head of the line, all believing they were more important than the rest.

  “So you’re out for revenge, then?” I finally asked.

  “No, I’m out for justice and getting a dangerous criminal off the streets of New York.” Henry’s brow furrowed as he corrected me. “Many years after Vinny murdered my father, I thought of taking revenge. I even loaded this gun several times with the intent that each bullet would end his life.”

  “And is that when you and your mother moved away?”

  “No. We left a few days after the funeral. She couldn’t stay in a city she couldn’t trust and I was just a boy. It took me many years to fully grasp what happened.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss.”

  He picked up the gun and emptied the cartridge on the table. Unable to look me in the eye, his fingers played with a couple of the bullets on the table, rolling them a few inches then stopping them.

  “So is that why you became an agent for the Bureau?”

  He nodded. “Evelyn, I’m so sorry I lied to you. I never wanted to, which is why I tried to get you away from the situation in the first place. Remember that thousand dollars I gave you at Maggie’s?”

  “I remember.”

  “The instant we strolled into that place and he saw you, I knew you would be a complication.” He laughed. “Boy was I right.”

  For the first time since he walked in the room, he smiled a broad grin that, just like his
amazing coffee colored eyes, fought against my anger.

  The door to the room opened and Sergeant Johnson popped his head inside. “Sorry to interrupt Agent James, but we have a situation I think you need to know about.”

  “What’s going on?” Henry asked.

  The Sergeant opened the door a little wider and Arthur tiptoed inside. With his hair disheveled and his eyes widened, he panted heavy breaths.

  “Ducky tailed us.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “While I was waiting out front, I realized I left my wallet in the truck. As I was getting it from the glove box, he drove past me. He knows she’s here.” The butler yanked a handkerchief from the back pocket of his pants and wiped his sweaty brow. “I should have known, should have watched for someone following us.”

  Henry rose to his feet and swung the chair around, offering it to Arthur before patting him on the shoulder.

  “You did a good job. You did everything I instructed you to do should something happen and I wasn’t around. Not to mention, you kept her safe.”

  Henry and Sergeant Johnson stared at each other. Neither spoke a single word or moved a muscle. Tension built up, radiating throughout the room with a thickness in their shoulders.

  And it was all my fault.

  “I’m such a fool. It’s my fault we are all here.”

  “Why do you think that?” Henry asked.

  I bit my lip and shrugged my shoulders. Surely, I knew the answer, and yet, I couldn’t speak the words.

  Only a fool would believe they could outwit or hoodwink Vincent Giovanni, the Kingpin, the Boss of Bosses, the calculative mobster who has evaded police and the bureau for decades.

  I replayed the whole scene in the back of my mind. The brush of my hand against my forehead as though I ached in pain, the hunch in my shoulders as I left the dining room, every squint from the light as I spoke my lying words. Of course, he knew. How could he not?

  I was so focused on finding Max and saving my brother that I just didn’t think . . .

  Frank.

  “We need to get Frank out of his jail cell.” With my shouted demand, I rose to my feet.

  “He’s already in protective custody at an undisclosed location,” Henry said with a slightly dismissive tone. A tiny detail in a much bigger problem, he waved off my concern. “I filed the request the day after you visited him.”