Gathering Storm

by Sherilyn Decter

  Meyer nods. “And it’s only going to get better.”

  “How much can you bring in at a time? Can you get anything? What about champagne?” Edith peppers him with questions.

  “Whoa, what’s with the third degree? You aren’t working for the Probies, are you?” Reggie says, his hands in the air.

  “Just curious,” Edith says, pulling back a bit and fluttering her eyelashes.

  “Curiosity killed the cat, Edith. Ain’t you ever heard of that?” Meyer Lansky asks, giving her a long look.

  Edith meets his gaze head on. “Ah, come on, Meyer. I’m in a whole new world down here. Give me a break.” She turns to Reggie with a twinkle in her eye. “About that champagne—whadda ya say, Reggie? Is your boat big enough or are you embarrassed about the size?” Edith tosses her head and winks. Everyone laughs and she can see Meyer relax.

  “Oh, she’s big enough to do what you need her to do. The Washington can handle eight thousand cases. I do a lot of shipping for Meyer and he doesn’t have any complaints.”

  “It’s a good thing it’s deafening in here, Crompton. Why not tell everyone?”

  Reggie laughs nervously.

  “And the champagne, Reggie?” Edith persists.

  “And why would you need eight thousand cases of champagne? Throwing a party, Edith?” Anna smiles and leans into Meyer.

  “Oh, pooh. Edith’s not going to throw a party. She’s a widow for goodness sakes,” Esta says.

  “Maybe a widow can learn a few new tricks, Esta,” Edith says. What do you think of that, Mickey Duffy?

  “New tricks? What are you up to now, Edith?” Bugsy asks.

  Anna’s dangerous smile alerts Edith.

  “Edith, are you going to open a club down here?” Anna asks. “I bet that’s it. Our Edith is so bored she wants something new to play with.”

  “What if I am?”

  Anna’s smile becomes overly sweet. “You’ve got a swell life, Edith. Why rock the boat?”

  Meyer Lansky nods. “A dame in the business? Too risky. Not like the good old days when it was an open field. We had some fun, then, didn’t we Bugsy?”

  Bugsy nods and clinks the edge of his glass against Meyer’s. “Mickey was there, too, Edith. And Henry Mercer. Great pals of ours. The rules are different now. Everything’s done by syndicate these days. No independents allowed.”

  Reggie slips an arm around Edith’s bare shoulder, the green satin cape long abandoned. “Don’t let them rain on your parade, Edith.”

  Edith smiles at him, grateful for his support.

  Reggie pulls her closer. “You’ll need a supplier. Cleo Lythgoe, a liquor wholesaler out of the Bahamas, is a ‘square broker’. And a dame, like you. She’s on board the Washington right now acting as ‘supercargo’.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Superintendent of Cargo. She’s responsible for the business side of the cargo. Right now, our hold is full of her stock. She keeps track of what’s been sold and for how much, as well as an eye open for breakage and slippage—the crew sometimes gets thirsty. And at the end of a trip, she does the final tally and pays us our share of the profits. Then I take her back to the Bahamas and start all over again.

  “And a good wholesaler is useful beyond merely providing liquor. Cleo’s a real doll. She takes care of ‘fixing’ any inquisitive government officials and obtaining fake documents to enter and leave port. You should look her up.”

  Meyer nods, adding, “She supers for a bunch of ships, depending on the value of the cargo or the circumstances of the trip. I work with her, too. Now, there’s a gal with a head for business.”

  Mae wags her finger at Meyer. “I thought you said gals couldn’t succeed in business.”

  “Cleo’s different,” Meyer says with a shrug. “First, being based in the Bahamas, not here, she’s on the legit side of things. And like I said, smart as a whip. She’ll come out on the right side of a deal more times than not.”

  Anna tosses her head and smirks. “I don’t see what’s so special about this Cleo dame. Just another bluestocking trying to cut it in a man’s world.”

  “Don’t get me wrong, she’s got more than brains. Tough as nails, too. She’s had to face down her own share of goons. The business she’s in, it’s bound to happen,” says Meyer.

  Mae grins. “There you go, Edith. Don’t give up that idea just yet. There might be room for one more business gal. Think you can face down some goons?”

  “You mean other than this crowd?” Edith winks at Mae. As the group laughs, Edith shivers with regret. Sorry Mickey.

  Reggie squeezes her shoulders again. “Just don’t let the Coast Guard get interested in you.”

  Edith wiggles out from under his arm.

  “I thought you were getting outta the racket, Reggie.” Anna says.

  “I plan to make a few more runs and then I’ll be getting out. You can’t go courting or raising a family with the smell of liquor on your coattails, or a boatload of Coast Guard hanging onto to them either. It really isn’t done in the very best of families.”

  Esta, snuggled into Bugsy, smiles. “Depends on the gal, Reggie. Personally, the smell of whiskey is what I like best about Bugsy.”

  “See, that’s the difference between amateurs and professionals, Reggie,” Anna says. “For most of us here, it’s the liquor racket that brought us together. I mean, Meyer wouldn’t be Meyer without illegal booze.”

  Completely free of Reggie’s arm, Edith shifts her body and sits straighter. Oh, Mickey. I can’t imagine you anything but a bootlegger. It suited your skills. And maybe it suits mine, too.

  Edith listens and learns more about the smuggling business on water rather than land. The days when special racks for illegal liquor were built under the seats of Whiskey Sixes are behind her. Now she sees a future of taking deliveries on the high seas, with burlap-wrapped packages that look like ham but are filled with bottles of liquor.

  When she returns to the conversation, Reggie is saying: “You can say that again, Anna. You can’t change a leopard’s spots.”

  Drinking, dancing, and laughing for hours, Edith loses track of time. It’s the wee hours of the morning and the young woman at the microphone, Ivie Anderson, has changed the set’s tempo and is crooning another sultry ballad. The room gradually empties as dawn approaches. A young man in a white dinner jacket and black bow tie approaches their table.

  “Mr. Lansky. Mr. Siegel. Mrs. Capone. Thank you for coming out tonight for the farewell show. It may be a while before we meet up again.”

  “Now, Donnie, I’m sure things will work out,” Mae says, reaching to grab the man’s hand. “Something else will come along.”

  “Not for me, Mrs. Capone. I’m going to head back home and see about getting on with my pa. He’s still working, at least.”

  “I don’t understand. The place was packed tonight. Are you selling?” Edith asks.

  Donnie snorts. “Selling out, more like. We’re cashing in. The place has sucked me dry.” His bitterness makes the others at the table squirm. “Everybody always talks about big rewards for big risks, but with the downturn—this damn financial depression—things ain’t always what they look. That ‘big reward big risk’ kind of thinking can drain the bank pretty quick. Nothing like going broke to make you see sense.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Donnie. This place always seemed to be doing well,” Meyer says.

  “Appearances are deceiving. I’ll come out of this mess with barely enough for my train ticket home.”

  Edith looks around Tobacco Road. Suddenly she notes the worn fabric on the chairs, the half empty shelf of booze behind the bar, the tired waiters putting the almost empty room back together.

  Too bad about this Donnie schmuck, but I hate excuses. The only failure is giving up. If it’s important, you find a way. But hey, his getting out does mean that the joint will be coming on the market soon.

  Donnie’s comments are a somber note to an otherwise gay evening. When Meyer and Anna drop Ed
ith at her hotel, she leans toward the front seat to thank them for the ride and the evening.

  “It was fun, doll. Don’t let that stuff Donnie said get you down. I’ve always believed that success is not what you have but who you are. Capisce?”

  “Thanks, Meyer. Something to think about for sure. Night all.”

  Edith enters the cool lobby. It’s empty of guests; hotel staff on the terrace setting tables for breakfast. Seems like there’s still money around. Maybe the only risk I should avoid is the risk of doing nothing?

  Chapter 8

  R egardless of whether smugglers are on land or sea, if there are bootleggers, the cops can’t be far behind.

  Lt. Commander John Saunders is the captain of the Mojave, a seventy-five-foot cutter-style ship known as a ‘six-bitter’, built to break and scatter Rum Row. He and his crew are based out of the Dinner Key Coast Guard Station close by Miami. As he’s told his wife, Mavis, on many occasions, ‘destroyers are the watchdogs, the smaller six-bitters and pickets are the greyhounds for the chase’. And chase they do, up and down the coastline of Florida and around Biscayne Bay.

  Since the establishment of the Volstead Act in 1920, the public outcry against smuggling liquor, whether bootlegging or rum running, has reshaped the primary focus of the mission of the Coast Guard. It’s quickly gone from one of search and rescue to search and seizure.

  The Coast Guard’s founding principle of saving souls has been abandoned in a maze of shifting priorities, paperwork, and bureaucracy. Also lost in the hoopla of Prohibition and the smuggling of illicit liquor are the expanding profits of smuggling people. There are some Coast Guard members who have taken on the issue, but many are content not to be distracted from meeting Washington’s established contraband liquor quotas.

  Standing on Mojave’s bridge, Bosun Hardy passes a pair of binoculars to the Lt. Commander, who scans the horizon. The sun is setting, and twilight reveals darker silhouettes of ships against the crimson and gold sky.

  “You know, Hardy, I joined up and trained to save ships and people. The enemy is supposed to be the sea, not fellow Americans mad about a law I don’t particularly agree with. Catching human smugglers sits better with me. Saving people is the reason I joined up, not picking up civvies trying to make a buck from a bad law.”

  “Aye, sir. But we salute when we have to.”

  “True enough, Hardy. True enough. I just wish Congress would put a bit more thought into cause and effect. Look at the mess they’ve made with liquor. Cut off supply but don’t do anything to demand and you’re only asking for trouble. It’s the same with immigrants. Since they tightened up the laws in ’24, it’s increased the profits for the human smugglers. Poor beggars are still going to try to get in. America is the land of opportunity after all. And smuggling is smuggling as far as the pirates are concerned. A bottle or a body is all the same to them.”

  “Couldn’t agree more, sir. Some days I wonder if we should even put out to sea. What I wouldn’t do for a good maritime rescue.”

  “It’s no wonder the men get dissatisfied,” Saunders says, his eyes still glued to the binoculars. “To be on patrol at sea for days at a time, in all kinds of weather, is exhausting in itself. There should be rewards for that sacrifice.”

  Hardy rolls his eyes. “Not these days.”

  “We seize a vessel running liquor and take her into port, then leave the station and travel miles, at great inconvenience, to attend the trial. This is disruptive as well as, in court, being subjected to exasperating cross examinations by bootleg lawyers. So different before Prohibition when we saved people’s lives.”

  “There is no justice, sir,” Hardy says, nodding. “To see those seized vessels bought back by the same owners for a nominal sum is a slap in the face, it is. Smugglers and pirates can recoup their costs by running a few cases of whiskey ashore on any dark night.”

  “Gone are the days of heroic rescues. It breaks your spirit.”

  “What gets my goat, sir, is that as far as public and newspapers are concerned, it’s us on trial rather than the rum runners. Like that ‘Red’ Shannon mess in Miami. The situation was totally justified, yet that Coast Guard crew were convicted, both on the front page and in court.”

  “Ah, the good old days when we were heroes, not villains. I wonder what those romantic fools would think of their precious rum runners if they knew about the illegal immigrant cargo they carry? One thing to have the supplier of the gin for your martini picked up, something else entirely if they thought about the terrified and desperate people in the holds of those ships. Not so romantic then.”

  “Look there, at ten o’clock.” Saunders returns the binoculars to Hardy. “Alert the picket, Hardy. It looks like we have work to do.”

  * * * *

  Cleo Lythgoe stands beside Reggie Crompton on the deck of the Washington as loads of soon-to-be-illegal liquor are tossed over to the first of the contact boats to arrive. The Washington is a two-masted “Gloucester” type schooner painted gray to blend with seas and sky. It’s one of the black ships, invisible at night without running lights, although, with the sun just setting, it’s easily seen.

  Twilight signals the beginning of a long night of work for the rum runners. To pass the time until it gets busy, Reggie is regaling Cleo with tales of his latest escapades in the clubs in Miami. While they talk, small contact boats have begun to make their way to the Washington’s position on Rum Row, but those aboard hope the trickle soon turns to a flood.

  Reggie nods toward the water. “Looks like we’ve got trouble,” he says to Cleo.

  The Washington, deep-loaded with a hundred-thousand dollars’ worth of illegal liquor, has caught the attention of a Coast Guard’s six-bitter patrol boat. Flanking the larger patrol ship is a small picket eager to give chase.

  “Hey,” Cleo calls over to a man in the contact boat, a speedy little craft with two huge motors. He’s just pulled up and hasn’t yet started to load. “How about we throw in a couple of extra bottles to make it worth your while to act as a decoy to draw off those pickets so the other contact boats can get through? You lead them away and then swing back and pick up your load when you’ve lost them.”

  “Aye aye, ma’am. It’s a deal.” The small boat peels away from the Washington, heading straight for the picket and then veers off again. The picket gives chase, much to Reggie and Cleo’s amusement, and the risky business of smuggling continues as usual.

  * * * *

  It’s a long night of cat and mouse for the crew aboard the Coast Guard’s Mojave. Sometimes the mouse gets away, but other nights they catch their prey.

  The sliver of moon in the midnight sky barely casts a pale light on the scene in front of Lt. Commander John Saunders. The Mojave has pulled alongside a black-hulled smuggler’s ship.

  Presuming contraband liquor, the Coast Guard boards. The smell is their first clue that tonight’s mission will be humanitarian. The tension on the deck of the smuggler’s ship ratchets up tenfold.

  Grim faced, Bosun Hardy looks to the Lt. Commander, who nods. They both know what will greet them when they lift the hatch to the cargo hold.

  Bosun Hardy descends the ladder into the hold, gagging. The whites of a dozen pairs of terrified eyes are caught in the beam of the flashlight he holds. Everyone holds their breath.

  “Anyone here speak English?”

  Silence.

  “English? We’re the Coast Guard. We’ve come to help.”

  From the press of crouched bodies, a voice answers.

  “Help us. Please. “

  Two and a half weeks ago, a dozen men, women, and children—originally fleeing Greece—looking for a better life, had been stuffed into the ship’s cargo hold in Cuba. Unable to stand upright, they’d been crouched over for days. Initially, they had been able to sit. It was tight quarters but manageable. Now, weeks later, the floor of the cargo hold is awash with human feces and vomit. It slops against the rungs of the ladder as Hardy peers at the faces of desperate and frighten
ed people. A child begins to cry and is hushed.

  “Come up. Come up.” Hardy gestures to the open hatch and begins to climb out. The moaning turns to shouting. Pushing and shoving, they swarm the ladder, desperate to be out of the stinking hellhole where they’ve been surviving. Or almost surviving. One body rocks against the walls of the cargo hold, limp. Dead.

  Young men, old men, women, two children. Their faces are blank as they stare at the night sky, the endless ocean, the Coast Guard. No one looks toward the smugglers, now corralled together and under guard.

  One of the last to ascend is a young woman clutching a silent infant. Saunders moves toward her to help her up the ladder. Gazing into the blue face of the babe, he knows the worst.

  The Greek that had spoken to Hardy pushes forward. “No water. We have no water. Thirsty.”

  Saunders stares transfixed at the Madonna and child. Hardy shouts over to the remaining crew on the Mojave. “Get water. Plenty of water.”

  Saunders looks away. “Put them on the pickets and get them to Dinner Key as fast as you can. The Mojave will be too slow. And have the radio operator alert the base that we’re going to need medical personnel at the pier.”

  “Aye, aye.” Hardy salutes and begins to assist with the transfer of the immigrants to the pickets—the smaller, faster boats that work with the larger cutters.

  Lt. Commander Saunders turns to the assembled pirate smugglers. “Who’s the captain here?” His voice is cold with contempt.

  One man swaggers forward, his hands secured behind his back. He tosses his head, glaring at the Lt. Commander. “I’m in charge. You got a problem with our cargo? Found ‘em floating at sea and picked ‘em up.”

  “Liar.” Saunders snarls and steps forward, hands clenched. Hardy looks up from helping the immigrants, alarmed by the tone in his commander’s voice. He moves to stand beside Saunders.