Benedick blinked at her.
Crude or not, if she thought she didn’t look feminine, she was wrong. Her face, for one thing: this overeager quip of a face, with a noticeable overbite and a tiny, ridiculous, freckle-spattered nose, not to mention the absurdly huge dimples. Her corkscrew curls, even stuffed mostly in a hat, were like a weedy nimbus around her head. She looked like a pretty little rodent.
She continued. “Also, if you’ll permit me to be outspoken for a moment—”
“There is no one in a fifty-mile radius who could hope to outspeak you, Miss Clark.”
“—you look rather tired.” She finished as if he hadn’t spoken. “Strung out. Suppose things go south. Suppose you’d like some backup assistance.”
He was closing in on thirty-some-odd hours without proper sleep, with naught but the exhaust of coffee and brandy to carry him through the next few, but he’d manage. He always managed. “Why do you care so much to come?”
“I’m interested, that’s all.”
He snorted.
“Also concerned,” she amended. “From one human being to the next.”
“That’s not what you ought to be concerned about. You hardly know me, and what kind of girl lets a stranger drive her off into the countryside alone?”
She considered this. She assessed him quite seriously, then said, “I’m not worried.”
The last resort of course was to put his foot down and say, Over my dead body, but he needed to be in finer form to wage the battle it would take to refuse her. And there was the tiny hope that the venture would prove so distasteful it would cure her of her obnoxious curiosity once and for all. “Fine. If it means so very much to you.”
“You’ll be glad. I’m useful in nearly every situation, except dance parties.”
CHAPTER 6
A JADE’S TRICK
Beatrice could bear just about anything as long as she could understand it. Getting kicked out of Miss Nightingale’s and her consequent stay at St. Mary’s were by no means pleasant, but they were endurable because they were a reasonable consequence to factors in her life that, while perhaps out of her control, were comprehensible. Fixable. Once you knew the problem, you could solve the problem.
Which was what made someone like Benedick Scott so infuriating.
Just when she thought she had him pinned, some new element of his character reared its head, soundly contradicting the last conclusion and forcing her to start all over again.
They sat side by side on a fallen log, just off the shore of Mosquito Cove. The lapping bay water was visible through low-swooping branches and reed canary grass. The earth was black and slick from a rainy spring; insects chorused in the thick woods around them.
Benedick sat slightly forward. His vest was plain but finely tailored, and although it now looked to be in near ruin, he still had it on, like it hadn’t crossed his mind to simply wear a shirt without one, a juxtaposition that seemed to represent him well.
He was not handsome, nor was he ugly. He was slender like a whip. His eyebrows, a few shades darker than his hair, slashed sturdily above his eyes, furrowed then in a frown. Beatrice was tempted to compare him to a weasel, but then there was his hair: too long and the color of sunshine, rippling wheat, and Yankee pride.
She flicked an ant off her knee. “What are we waiting for now—”
“Shh.” His hand darted up.
Beatrice’s mouth pinched. His rudeness meandered back and forth as well, from dismissively blunt to saccharinely patronizing.
“Hidden scouts,” he said in a low voice. “Mostly anyone who would tip off agents. That houseboat belongs to a moonshine dealer.” He nodded down the shore toward a run-down houseboat anchored to an even more run-down dock, both looking as though they’d emerged from some godforsaken swamp, mossy and rotting. “The tip said sundown, but the only supplier scheduled to be here at that time on a Friday is Sage, and he’s stationary, for the most part. So sundown either means there’s a new shark in town, and that’s why his lackeys are off selling tips, or it’s some kind of setup.”
Well, well. Perhaps Benedick Scott was not as dumb as his earlier nonchalance suggested. Yet another contradiction: astute and blasé. Beatrice said, “Either way is a risk then, but I assume we came all the way here for a reason.”
“Correct. But we’re not going to risk anything. We will buy some of Sage’s stock at roughly three times what it’s worth, to keep things easy, and we will do it now—before sunset. I wouldn’t arrange anything with a new supplier without Prince.”
Arrogant or humble?
Not to mention that he’d been perfectly demeaning in other ways, but when he did elect to answer her, he did so in a straightforward manner that did not condescend to suggest she wouldn’t understand him.
He was beginning to give her a headache.
But she still worked to understand because that was what her brain did. “Why Prince? If it’s my uncle’s speakeasy, don’t you need his approval as well?”
“If I have Prince’s approval, then I have your uncle’s. Leo trusts him.”
“He’s awfully young.”
Benedick slid his eyes over to hers, the uninteresting color of mud and bruised with tiredness but, at their center, bright as lights. “Not so young. Anyway, he’s been helping Leo since he was twelve. It’s only this year that he does most of the trips alone because—”
“Because Aunt Anna died.” Beatrice finished his thought.
Benedick’s expression shuttered, as if a light had gone out. “Yes.”
For a long moment there was quiet in the sticky warmth of Mosquito Cove, and though Beatrice hadn’t known Aunt Anna well enough to feel the loss the way her uncle or cousin surely did, a tiny part of that sadness belonged to her, too.
But what was Benedick’s excuse for looking briefly gutted at the reminder of Anna’s death?
“Prince lives at Hey Nonny Nonny,” she said. “But you attend prep school in Brooklyn, don’t you? With that other boy, Claude.” Beatrice tried, honestly she did, to sound polite. The word interrogative had been known to describe her conversational skills. Nosy was another favorite. But how could she be expected to learn anything if she didn’t ask?
Benedick stood. He squinted at the houseboat. “Attended, past tense. I live at Hey Nonny Nonny, too.” Which explained exactly nothing, but then he was off again, picking his way along an almost invisible trail, and Beatrice had no choice but to follow. “It’s been quiet for half an hour. We ought to be clear.”
The dock had been built when the water level was higher, so the dilapidated vessel bobbed several feet below them. A wind chime swayed in front of the cabin door, level with Benedick’s waist. Beatrice stayed back a few feet as he used a long stick that had been leaning on a post to knock against the door.
“Not home!” came a cranky voice.
“Come on, Sage.”
Finally the door opened. Sage glowered, his yellow eyes crusted. His forehead was white and smooth in contrast with the leathery red of his neck. His pants were on, luckily, but up top he was only wearing a thin nightshirt with a stain across his wiry middle. He shoved a hat jingling with fishing gear on his head. “Benedick Scott, that you? Been awhile. Haven’t seen Prince neither since, ah . . .”
“Last Thanksgiving.”
Sage’s eyebrows arched as he caught sight of Beatrice. “And who’s this? Ben, you know right well this ain’t a lady’s work.”
Benedick’s gaze, a talented combination of annoyed and smug, swung back at her. I was right, it said.
“I’m interested in the chemistry of distilleries,” Beatrice said.
Sage still looked doubtful but nodded to Benedick. “Yer here for some lightning? I never heard nothin’.”
“We’re taking in some extra stock for the Masquerade tomorrow. Are you coming?”
“Shoot. Hey Nonny Nonny’s too fancy and ’falutin for my tastes.”
“You’re the picture of class in my eyes. Do you have extra store
we can buy off you?”
“Sorry. ’Fraid I’m fresh out.”
Benedick’s jaw tightened. “Sage, I can see the barrels on your deck.”
Sage sighed. “I’m telling you this only ’cause I like ya, Ben. And I’m sorry about it. Truly. The short of it is, I was paid a lot of money not to sell to you two anymore, and I needed the cash. That’s it. Prince is a nice kid, works hard as hell, but nice don’t feed me in the morning, if you get my drift.”
Benedick said nothing, then crouched on one knee so he was eye level with Sage. “How about you let us handle any rivals for your fine product and we compensate your cooperation?” He pulled from his pocket a fold of bills, held together by a silver clasp, and passed it in front of Sage’s face like bait.
Sage eyed the cash. “All right then. Come on. I got three jugs right here you can have.”
Benedick braced on the deck railing and hopped on board. Beatrice followed, jumping past the hand he’d turned to extend, and landed beside him without help.
Sage rooted around and set three jugs in front of them, each with a 2 stenciled onto the glass and filled with mostly clear liquid.
“I want a sample,” said Benedick, experimentally lifting one of the two-gallon jugs, holding it up to the light. To Beatrice’s surprise, he passed it to her. She tried to look intelligent about her examination but wrinkled her nose at the flecks of who knew what swimming inside it.
Sage shrugged. He took a tin mug and uncorked a nearby barrel, letting a stream of clear liquid ring into the likely dirty container. Once it was half filled, he handed it to Benedick, then went ahead and filled a cup for himself.
“You’re not actually going to drink that,” Beatrice said.
“Only one way to know if it’s good, sweetheart”—Benedick, all money-voice and glinting yellow hair, tilted his head at her—“and that’s by drinking.”
“Wait.” Beatrice set down the jug. “At least test it first to see what chemicals you’re ingesting. Do you have matches?”
“What?”
“Matches. Hold still—” She reached into his vest pocket and, ignoring his recoil at her touch, retrieved a small book of matches. She struck a match over the bottom of her boot and lit the cup in his hand. “Different chemicals burn with different colors; yellow or red means lead or fusel oils.”
The flame, dancing atop the moonshine, was mostly blue.
“However,” she added, “blue won’t hide the presence of methanol, which burns clear.” Tugging her sleeve over her palm, she slapped her hand flat over the rim of the cup to smother the flame and gave the contents a few hearty shakes. After, she peered inside. “Large bubbles with a short duration indicate a higher alcohol content, while smaller bubbles that disappear slowly indicate the increasing presence of water . . . and other ingredients.”
Sage scratched his cheek. “And that’s what you call chemistry, is it?”
Benedick narrowed his eyes. “Well? Miss Clark?”
She wiped her palm on her pants leg. “It seems fine, in the loosest sense of the word.”
“’Course it is!” Sage’s shiny cheeks reddened. To prove it, he downed his cup in one large gulp.
“Cheers,” Benedick told him. “Give me those,” he muttered at her, snatching back his matches. He knocked back a mouthful from his own cup. “Jesus,” he wheezed, pressing the back of his hand over his lips.
Beatrice pried the cup from his fingers and took a sip. Her tongue shriveled. “This will either loosen people up or kill them.”
“And that’s when we pick their pockets—” Benedick froze at the distant sound of a motorboat echoing down the bay toward their spot in the cove.
“Uh-oh,” Sage muttered. “Here comes trouble.”
A two-seat motorboat appeared and cut through the water straight for them. Benedick grasped Beatrice by the shoulder, hard enough that she winced with pain. “Ouch—” He pushed her down among Sage’s crates and barrels and dragged one over to block her from view. “What’s going on?”
“Be quiet,” he said. The dark quality to his tone made her hold her tongue, for once. “In case it’s the feds, there’s a coffee can taped to the car’s steering column with bribe money—or bail money, if they’re straight.”
He stepped back just as the boat pulled to the other side of the dock. The motor cut, blanketing them in stillness. Beatrice shifted so she could see through a gap between two barrels.
A lanky young man stepped onto the dock. He grinned when he saw Benedick. “My, my. Look who’s back from Stony Creek.” He turned to Sage. “I believe you were instructed not to sell to Hey Nonny Nonny.” As if to emphasize his words, two hulking men followed him out of the boat.
One of them was the very same gentleman who had given Benedick his “tip.” Beatrice’s stomach made an unpleasant twist.
“Minsky, is that you?” Sage asked too loudly, squinting. “See, I knew you said don’t sell to the Nonny’s runners, and this fella here told me his name was Jimmy. Guess it’s my own fault thinking everyone’s as honest as me.”
The same young man rolled his eyes.
Benedick stayed on Sage’s front deck, hands in his pockets as if he hadn’t a care in the world. Beatrice hoped he was smart enough to understand the trap he’d fallen into and keep his head down. “You must be in the doghouse, Connie, old boy, if they sent you to baby-sit a third-rate river port.”
The young man—Connie or Minsky or whoever he was—soured. “It also means nobody’s watching too closely.” His musclemen smiled at the permission. They stepped closer.
Benedick took a step back, then stopped. His eyes darted almost imperceptibly to where Beatrice sat, and he deliberately moved away from her and thus toward his all-too-eager adversaries. This small act of unexpected chivalry made it all the harder to watch as the two men reached down, one grabbing him by the collar, the other gripping his arm. They hoisted him up, yanked his long sleeves past his wrists, crossed his arms around his middle, and tied the ends behind his back. The result was rather genius; Benedick was hunched, pinched; the fabric of his shirt was too expensive to rip easily despite the strain.
Beatrice crawled toward the cabin of the boat. No self-respecting bootlegger, even one as indolent as Sage, would hawk liquor on the East River without a gun. She just had to find it.
Benedick’s eyes darted to where she crawled among the barrels and crates. She flapped her hand in a talking gesture. Put that mouth of his where it might be useful.
“I’m touched, really, at the level of ingenuity and commitment,” Benedick managed, breathless. “Honestly, a good old-fashioned beating would not be remiss in my case—”
“Thank God for this,” the second man muttered around a thick Eastern European accent. He shoved a soiled strip of burlap across Benedick’s mouth, pulled back hard enough to make him gag, then secured a knot at the nape of his neck.
“I told the boys to keep an eye out for you,” Minsky was saying. “Rather hard to get the runaround on Prince, but I knew once you showed your long-winded mug, we’d be able to deliver our message.” Minsky tossed a hand toward the river. Benedick was dragged along wooden planks and held over the dock’s end, his feet barely able to hang on. The man holding him winked. Minsky walked over, hands clasped behind his back.
There! Leaning on the cabin doorframe—
Beatrice elbowed past Sage and grabbed the sawed-off shotgun. The shot she fired over Minsky’s head broke apart the quiet afternoon. Minsky jumped; Benedick was nearly dropped.
Beatrice leaped from the boat onto the dock. Minsky’s imperious glower slackened; he blinked in surprise, then frowned. The stares were nothing Beatrice wasn’t used to; if anything, she’d grown adept at using them to her advantage. She swung the still-warm gun up to her shoulder. “Hands off.”
“Just so you know,” Sage said loudly, “I did not, I repeat, I did not give her my gun. She took it without my permission.”
Minsky turned to the man not holding Benedick. “You
have a gun; use it, you idiot.”
“But”—the man hesitated, even as he shrank from Minsky’s glare—“even in pants, I cannot shoot at a girl.”
“She’s shooting at you!” Minsky snapped.
Without moving from her stance, Beatrice asked, “Are there scattershots in this gun?”
A pause; then Sage answered, “Why, no. Just re’g’lar slugs—”
Bang. Benedick’s captor lost his hat and his grip. Benedick landed backfirst in the water. Beatrice hoped he knew how to swim.
“Get back in your boat,” Beatrice commanded. “Or the next one I aim a little lower.”
Under the dock, some sort of thrashing was happening, so Benedick was at least attempting to swim, if not succeeding.
Minsky and his men hesitated.
“I don’t mind putting holes in you,” she said, with another step forward, letting Virginia seep into her voice. “They’ll send me back to St. Mary’s, sure, but they warned my uncle, said I wasn’t right in the head, said I threw a doctor out the window, and”—she pumped the fore end up and back: click, click—“I did.” The used cartridge clattered by her feet. “Leave your guns on the dock. And then get out of here, or I’ll shoot your motor right now and you’ll stay all night.”
Whether it was the gun or the maniacal glint in her eye, they listened. Each of Minsky’s men set a pistol on the wood planks. Beatrice narrowed her eyes at Minsky himself. He half laughed, as though he couldn’t quite believe any of this was happening. “I don’t carry a gun.”
One of his men yanked a cord, and the motor started. She kept the shotgun trained on the retreating boat. Minsky sat straight, watching her. Hard to say, as the distance between them grew, but he seemed somewhat less furious than he ought to have been.
Beatrice ran down the dock. “Mr. Scott? Benedick, are you—” She found him crawling up the marshy shore a few yards off, looking not unlike a rag at the end of a washboard, but alive.
Speak Easy, Speak Love Page 6
