Gathering Storm

by Sherilyn Decter

  Edith hands Esta the bottle. “Don’t you get bored? Just lying in the sun all day? You’re not even reading a book or a magazine,” Edith says.

  “Silly. We’re not lying around all the time. You’re going shopping when I get my hair done tomorrow.”

  “I mean something besides shopping and getting your hair done. What about doing something interesting, with substance, like volunteering, or sitting on a board?”

  “Why?” Esta asks.

  “To be a more worthwhile human being, of course. Is that it, Edith? Looking pretty for the fella that makes all this possible ain’t substantial enough for you?” Anna cranes over her magazine. “Oh, right. I forgot you don’t need to worry about that anymore.”

  Mae coughs a warning.

  Edith doesn’t bite. Instead, she looks to Mae.

  Mae nods. “I volunteer at the hospital back home in Chicago. It fills the time. But I don’t really have anything like that here in Miami. You may be on to something, Edith. Maybe I’ll give the hospital here a call and see if they’re looking.”

  Edith smiles and raises an eyebrow at Anna.

  “Well, I’m not here long enough to go do something like that,” Anna says, noisily flipping the pages of her magazine. “I’m on vacation.”

  “From what?” Edith whisper finds Anna’s ears.

  Anna glares daggers.

  Mae rises, gathering her towel. “Edith, sweetie, would you mind swapping chairs with me? This one’s getting too much sun for me.” The reshuffle lands Edith securely in the neutral zone, tucked between Mae and Esta.

  “Did you hear? The Miami Herald says the five Coast Guard members that gunned down Red Shannon have been charged with murder,” Mae says

  “Must be an election year to get that kind of action,” Anna says. “Politicians pandering to the people.”

  “Red was murdered, plain and simple. Shot down in cold blood. I worry all the time that my Bugsy is going to get whacked.”

  “By the cops, Esta?” Edith asks.

  “Nah, he’s got those mugs all sewed up. No, it’ll be a rival, backstabbing-rat mobster that’ll get Bugsy. I figure Waxey Gordon’s got it in for him. I’m always tellin’ him, ‘watch out for Waxey’, but does he listen to me? Feh.”

  People on the beach in front of Edith and her gal pals jump up and start pointing.

  “What the?” Standing, Edith slides down her sunglasses and squints out over the water.

  “What is it, Edith? What do you see?”

  “A boat, coming straight toward the shore. They’ve got the Coast Guard after them. What is it about you people here… the Coast Guard is always chasing everyone.”

  “Rum runners, doll. Same as up north. Bootleggers on water,” Anna says.

  Edith snaps back. “At least this boat’s not getting shot at.”

  “They wouldn’t dare. Not after last time,” Mae says, trying to see past the crowd.

  Edith gasps. “Oh my goodness, they’re going to run the boat right up on the beach.”

  People scatter as a small, wooden skiff with a single motor runs up hard onto the beach. Sand, churned up from the motor’s propellers, is sprayed everywhere.

  Two men scramble off the boat but take time to literally thumb their noses at the Coast Guard now bobbing along the shore. They turn and dash across the sand toward the buildings behind the beach.

  Shocked, folks mill about, staring at the disappearing rum runners, the Coast Guard, and the beached boat. Out of the crowd, one man approaches it, looking closely inside. He reaches down and lifts the lid off a wooden crate. “Whiskey,” he cries. Instantly, more people swarm the boat and the wooden crates are broken open. Bottles of illegal liquor are passed among the crowd.

  Floating offshore, the Coast Guard looks on helplessly as people help themselves to the evidence. Through the loudspeaker, they order the crowd to disperse and are rewarded by shouts and obscene gestures.

  Edith sits back in her chair, amazed by this strange place.

  “Well, that’s a new one, even for me,” Esta says.

  “I’m amazed they’d just run away like that, abandoning their cargo. Don’t they care how much money they lost, or about the boat they left behind?”

  “Easy come easy go, I guess. Under the right circumstances, you can make big money buying a little trouble. Boats are cheap and there’s all that booze just floating offshore,” Mae explains. “Al used to head out to Bimini at least a couple of times a month. He kept a nice little supply over there. Personal use only, of course.” Mae winks at Edith.

  “Tell me about these bootleggers of the sea,” Edith says as life on the beach returns to normal.

  “They call them rum runners down here. About twelve miles out to sea is Rum Row, a rocking, bobbing buffet line of ships stocked with liquor,” Mae says.

  “Why twelve miles?”

  “International waters, doll. The Coast Guard can’t do anything to them out there ‘cause the cargo is all legal.”

  “Legal liquor? From where? England?” Edith asks, fascinated.

  “Some maybe. Back home it’s usually smuggled from Canada or England, but here they pick it up in Cuba or Bahamas. Those places are pretty close to mainland Florida,” Mae says.

  “Well, I’ll be darned. I never thought about it. I always figured that when Mickey said the stuff was imported, it was from Canada. I never thought of Cuba.” Ooooh, a club. I could stock some top-shelf stuff if I had a club of my own. I just gotta find me a rum runner.

  “All that lovely rum,” Esta says, smacking her lips.

  “This Prohibition is such a stupid law. It’s been around for twelve years now, and folks just aren’t prepared to give up drinking,” Anna says, once again buried in her magazine.

  “And we’re not going to give up all that lovely profit,” Edith says.

  Anna snorts behind her magazine. “You’re such a shop keeper, Edith.”

  Edith lowers her sunglasses to glare at Anna. “Hey, the Cadix was no shop, Anna. It was the swankiest club in Philly.”

  “You’re right, Edith. It may be a stupid law but, for us, it’s a profitable law. Prohibition only dealt with the supply of booze; it didn’t impact the demand, creating a nice little business opportunity for our fellas.” Mae says.

  “It’s where Mickey made his millions. At least according to the front page of the newspapers.”

  Mae raises her silver flask. “Ladies, I give you Prohibition, without which we’d have to work for a living.”

  The other three raise their flasks. Esta and Anna chuckle. “To Prohibition.”

  For our fellas? Pft. Who needs a man? Back in the day, I used to be a fair hand at bootlegging, at least behind the scenes. And I know my way around a club or two. But what about the risk? Those Coast Guard seem a bit trigger happy. Maybe something safer would be better. What about a dress shop?

  Edith grins, amused with the idea of owning a dress shop. Find out what lights your fire and then chase the match, Edith. And it sure ain’t no dress shop. She raises her flask again toward the other three gals. “And here’s to danger and risk. The other side of Prohibition and the price you pay for those lovely rewards and opportunities.”

  Chapter 6

  L eroy throws a stone in the air and swings at it with a thick stick. A swing and a miss. He tries again and whacks it into the bushes. “Home run,” he yells, tearing around the camp.

  Cassie ladles out two bowls of gumbo from the pot hanging above the campfire. “Quit your running and come have supper.”

  Leroy changes direction, running right up into the chickee.

  “Hey, wash your hands. We may live in the middle of nowhere, but we don’t have to behave like we do. What would your mother have said?”

  Leroy slinks back down the chickee’s stairs and over to the pump, muttering all the way. “My ma woulda let me eat dinner with dirty hands. Rules, rules, rules. If living in town is so great, why the heck don’t we?”

  “I can hear you, you know.�
�

  Leroy shrugs. “So why don’t we?”

  Hands washed, he slides into his chair. Squirming, he pulls a slingshot out of his back pocket and puts it on the table by his plate.

  “Leroy Osceola. Get that thing off my table this instant.”

  “Opossum smells good, Cassie.” Leroy gives what he hopes is a winning smile as he puts the weapon on the floor.

  “Thanks to you. Nice to have meat in the gumbo. I get tired of turtle and chicken.”

  “Was my pa a good shot, Cassie?”

  “Well, he sure ‘nuff liked to kill things. Now eat up.”

  “So why don’t we live in town? If we lived in town, I could listen to the baseball games. And have a cold soda pop whenever I wanted. And you could wear a nice hat when you went out, Cassie. You’d like that wouldn’t you?”

  “It’s better for us to be here. And I don’t need a nice hat. Now finish your supper.”

  “You ever get lonely out here, Cassie? I do. I wish I had other boys to play with. I read Gulliver’s Travels again—the one where the man is a giant with little people.”

  “Lilliputians.”

  “He had the best adventures. He traveled everywhere. Even to a place with talking horses.”

  “I remember. What would you do if a ‘gator spoke to you?”

  “I’d say Mister Gator, sir, please close your mouth. Your teeth are making me nervous.”

  Cassie laughs.

  “I wish I could go on adventures,” Leroy says, his head propped up by his arm resting on the table. He stirs his gumbo; watches the spoon going around and around.

  Cassie puts her own spoon down. “Sometimes we gotta make sacrifices, Koone. You remember what I told you?”

  “Yeah. My pa was a fierce warrior and died protecting me from a huge, ugly ogre that killed my ma. But that’s just a bedtime story, Cassie. There’s no such thing as ogres or monsters. Why are we really out here?”

  “It’s too complicated. We’re here because I love you more than anything, and I’d do anything, give up anything to keep you safe. That should be good enough.” Her voice catches on the emotion.

  Leroy pushes his chair from the table and scoots around the table, wrapping his arms around her. “I was just kidding, Cassie. I love you, too. I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

  “Don’t be silly. I’m not crying. I just got a piece of gristle stuck in my throat.” She sips her water. “Tell me about where you found this delicious opossum.”

  Leroy’s chatter flows in the background. It’s his earlier words that are spinning around and around in Cassie’s mind. Ogres won’t do anymore. I’m going to have to come up with a different story. For just a few years more. I can’t let him go off just yet, alone with the Preacher-Man lurking out there. I’m no match for Brother Silas. Never was. Best I can do is keep Leroy hid and safe for as long as I can. And what about that rogue card—that newcomer—that showed up in the Preacher-Man’s reading? Nothing like that ever happened before.

  “You been practicing with the cards, Koone?”

  “Yes, ma’am. Every day, like you showed me. Want me to do a ‘walk-down-main street’ after supper? You can watch.”

  Cassie had started doing the main street walk via her tarot card reading when she first came to the swamp. It made things a little less lonely and was a way to keep an eye on what Brother Silas was up to. They say knowledge is power, but it sure didn’t work out that way. Sometimes power is power.

  Doing readings about folks without their knowing has been a lifeline for Cassie. Some might call it snooping, but Cassie figured if she knew who in town was needing a bit of advice or guidance, it was a shortcut to earning money.

  Lordy, sitting out here wasn’t good for business, although she had to admit that sitting in Coconut Grove had been the ruin of her, too. Straight-laced, narrow-minded biddies in town. Pointing fingers and accusing her of doing Satan’s work right up to the moment when they needed the answer to something that was plaguing them. Then it was all ‘Miz Cassie’ this, and ‘Miz Cassie’ that.

  “Sure, let’s do that. It’ll be like listening to the radio stories like I used to do. Entertaining as all get out. We can start with Mavis Saunders. She’s always good for a giggle. I’m gonna have to call on her soon.”

  “Wish we had a radio. I heard a baseball game once, while you were doing a reading in ol’ lady Saunders’ living room and made me wait in the kitchen. That was swell. And then there was a show I heard once called The Shadow. ‘Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men… The Shadow knows.’ Bwah-ha-ha.”

  “We’ll have to make do with my reception” Cassie says, tapping her forehead. “You know we don’t get no radio reception way out here, Leroy. Now clean up these dishes and we’ll get started.”

  Cassie’s clairvoyance had caused widespread unease in Coconut Grove. And when Mr. Preacher-Man started getting loud in church, her days were numbered. Truth be told, Leroy was as gifted as she was, maybe more. ‘The sight’ ran in families, so it wasn’t a surprise when he started working with the cards.

  It is a good thing his daddy doesn’t know, or he’d try and whip it out of him. No, best to keep Leroy safe and lost in the ‘Glades. He has his slingshot, and he has me. What more could a ten-year-old boy want?

  Chapter 7

  T he challenge for speakeasies is that they must hide in plain sight. It goes to show the level of corruption and cooperation with law enforcement that a crowded joint, belting out tunes until all hours of the morning, can be thought of as hidden.

  Edith pays the taxi then takes stock of her surroundings. She’d been dropped off at an address Mae had given her—South Miami Avenue in the Brickell district. However, it wasn’t exactly what she was expecting. She reads the sign above the dark storefront: Rosenquist Home Bakery.

  While Edith had been used to being abandoned by Mickey once they had arrived at a party or club, she’d never been used to going into these places on her own. Another one of the many changes in her life she’ll have to get used to.

  Edith catches a glimpse of her reflection in the front windows of the bakery. Looking good is a confidence booster. Not bad. You still got it, doll.

  On Tuesday, she’d gone shopping with the girls while Esta got her hair done. She’d bought a sweet little number Mickey would have definitely approved of. It’s a light green satin, floor-length evening dress with an open back. The straps are encrusted with rhinestones and meet at the small of her back in an ornately beaded panel. It has a matching shoulder cape, although it is all for looks because it certainly isn’t cool enough in Miami, even at night, to need it.

  The bakery is in a white frame building with a large screened porch hanging over the sidewalk. Edith can hear a band, but cannot see a way in.

  A couple walks past and disappears around the corner. The woman wears a long gown, her escort is in a tuxedo—overdressed for a trip to pick up bread. When their footsteps turn to footfalls on steps, Edith follows. A staircase runs along the outside of the building, beside a treed lot next door. Edith catches up, quick-stepping behind the couple.

  At the top of the stairs, a gentleman in a tuxedo lounges against the wooden railing, a toothpick in his mouth and a familiar bulge under his jacket.

  “Password?” he asks. His gravelly voice is straight out of the Bronx.

  “Hoover,” says the male escort. The doorman, presuming Edith is with them, ushers the three of them inside.

  Once past the door, the noise is a physical assault. A four-piece jazz band, the famous Duke Ellington at an upright piano, dominates the stage. A tall songstress stands beside him, clutching a microphone and belting out It Don’t Mean a Thing If You Ain’t Got That Swing. They are making a great effort to be heard above the noise of an enthusiastic crowd. The floorboards bounce under Edith’s feet in time to the rhythm of the dancers.

  Now this is more like it. What a wild scene. She puts her hand over her heart, feeling it pound. I can hardly breathe. Edith scans the small, cro
wded room looking for Mae and the rest of the group. In the back, she spots a welcoming arm wave.

  “Whoo-ee, this place is packed.” She yells over the music when she reaches the group.

  “Told you. It’s good thing we’re here early. Later, they’ll be lined up around the block,” Anna says.

  Meyer Lansky and his wife Anna are sitting at the table along with Esta, now a stunning redhead. She’s snuggled on Bugsy Siegel’s lap. Seated next to Mae is a dashing young man in a white tuxedo. He gives her his spot and leaps up to find another chair.

  “Edith, doll. Anna said you were down. Great to see you,” Meyer shouts, raising his glass in a toast. Edith gives him her best smile as the young man returns with a chair from somewhere in the back of the speakeasy.

  He sets the chair next to Edith. “Name’s Reggie Crompton. What’s yours,” he shouts, close enough to flutter the hair on the side of her head.

  “Edith Duffy. Reggie, if you can find me a martini, I promise to love you forever.”

  He stands at attention and salutes, disappearing again. Edith has no idea where the bar is.

  Throughout the evening, between the dancing, the laughing, and the drinking, Edith learns that Reggie is from the Hampton’s up north and is adding to his fortune working as a rum runner.

  “Florida’s the perfect place. It was built for smugglers and pirates. There are thousands of miles of coastline, honeycombed with small inlets and keys, and only a short boat ride to Cuba and the Bahamas.”

  “But what about the risk?” Edith shouts in his ear.

  “When I first got started in 1925, there were less than forty federal prohibition agents for the whole state.” Reggie’s satisfied smile implies that he is responsible for this amazing fact.

  Bugsy leans around Esta. “Only a fool can’t make money at sin in Miami.” Most of the people at the table laugh, perhaps at Reggie’s expense.

  Reggie shrugs. “I’m serious. Miami is worth the risks. With nightclubs, luxury gambling palaces, the betting that’s going on at the racetracks and boxing arenas, it’s a real paradise for profit. Ain’t that right, Lansky?”