Tasting the Apple

by Sherilyn Decter

  “Still just the pair of lodgers? You’ve not restocked the third room with some mysterious man?”

  “Still just Archie and Joe. Not a lot of mysterious men in my life.” Except for Frank of course, but he will remain my secret. “I’ve interviewed another lodger who’ll move in next week. That’ll help with the finances. I’ve been missing that third rent check.”

  “Joe’s the cop and Archie’s the teacher, right? Why’d you wait so long before finding a replacement for Eugene?”

  Maggie shrugs. “Oh, I don’t know. After he died, and the way he died, it just seemed too soon.” She’s often wondered how much Edith knows about Mickey’s role in Eugene’s murder. Or, for that matter, if Edith has ever suspected Maggie’s own role in trying to put Mickey behind bars. Maybe Edith’s not the only good actress at the table.

  “When I finally did advertise it, nobody wanted it. Or at least no one that I wanted to rent to was interested in it. Not like the rooms upstairs that are so close to the bath. Eugene’s old room is such a sad little place, off behind the kitchen. Although I must admit, while it’s been empty these past months, I’ve enjoyed not having anyone underfoot, traipsing back and forth while I’m doing laundry or cooking. I spend a lot of time in that kitchen.”

  “Oh, I know what you mean. A queen in her castle. I go into ours and Hilda has a fit. The kitchen is her domain. My part of the kingdom ends at the kitchen door.”

  “Yeah, like in the theater, with the front of the house versus the back of the house. You’re the star, doll. Poor Hilda merely looks after the props.”

  The gals sip their beverages, each drink offering a different kind of pick-me-up.

  I wonder how Edith would react if I started talking about what I think is the real back and front of the house in the current Duffy production: Edith’s sophisticated and well-mannered world compared with the violent, sordid life of Mickey’s that makes it all possible. It doesn’t matter whether it’s the Stanton, the movie set, or Edith’s life, the back of the house is never acknowledged by the front of the house. When I first met her, she seemed much more involved with Duffy’s enterprise but, lately, she’s stepping back, spending more time on stage in her genteel society swirl.

  Maggie glances again at her watch. “Sorry, Edith, but I gotta run.” She looks out the coffee shop’s front window. The gloomy clouds from earlier in the afternoon have followed through on their threat. It’s pouring.

  “Oh, no. Not more rain. Edith, can I get you to drop me?”

  “Sure thing, doll. I parked the Roadster just around the corner. Thank goodness I put the top up. We can make a dash for it. And we’re still on for when I get back from Miami?”

  “Are you kidding me? Banana splits at Child’s. Cossacks and wild horses couldn’t keep me away.”

  Chapter 3

  P hiladelphia in the mid-1920s is booming, a magnet for immigrants seeking to make fortunes in manufacturing and retail. The city is divided into various pockets; the established, long time Philadelphians live in the large mansions in one area of the city, and ethnic neighborhoods of recently arrived Italians and Eastern Europeans in the other parts of the city. Folks pretty much stay where they’ve decided they belong, and everyone gets along.

  Maggie Barnes is an exception. When she was Margaret Gifford, a sweet young thing living in her parent’s Philadelphia Victorian mansion, she had the occasion to visit the Hog Island Shipyards where her father served as Vice President of finance. It was there she met the dashing and handsome Jack Barnes.

  Jack was not part of her parent’s world. There were no broad lawns and afternoon tea parties in his childhood. From the other side of the tracks, Jack’s family were hardworking laborers relying on their strong backs to find work. Jacks father was proud of his son’s position as a welder—a skilled trade—and his work on the warships that were part of America’s contribution to achieve victory in the Great War.

  Jack was also a passionate believer of workers’ rights, and active in the union, pushing for fair wages and benefits. After the war, when thirty thousand workers were laid off their wartime manufacturing jobs almost overnight, Jack rallied his co-workers. They hit the streets, demonstrating for fair severance. Swept up in Jack’s arms and in the excitement of the movement, Maggie had marched side-by-side with the workers. She helped write letters to newspapers and government officials, and she made endless pots of coffee and prepared thousands of sandwiches during the fight.

  Their elopement generated condemnation from her parents; it hadn’t helped when Maggie and Jack’s son, Tommy, was born six months after their vows.

  Like many young families starting out in Philly, housing options had been limited. Jack and Maggie—he lovingly called her Peggy—found an affordable house in Philly’s Northern Liberties neighborhood of newly established immigrants; four bedrooms and an addition Jack and his neighbors built with the intention to help newly-arrived immigrants with housing. Jack knew many of the neighbors from Hog Island and labor meetings, although Maggie was more standoffish. They had only a few years together before Jack was killed during a labor demonstration at the shipyards. She has never forgiven her father for his role in Jack’s death which was a massive blow to her. Every time she looks at Tommy, she’s reminded that he is fatherless.

  Left with a house continually needing repairs, a young son, and no money, Maggie made the decision to take in boarders. The house is now part of her business, not just a home for their family, which makes it ever more problematic when things go wrong.

  * * * *

  Driving home with Edith, in the rain, after the movie, Maggie had been full of dread at what she might find when she arrived back at the house. The wet spring has been good for farmers, but bad luck for folks with leaking roofs. She stands in her bedroom, glaring at the ceiling. Drip. Plunk. Drip. Plunk, from a large yellow stain, into the bucket below. On the ceiling, the paper covering the lath is peeling away. This isn’t the first time it’s leaked.

  What am I going to do now? There’s no way I can afford to fix the roof. If it’s bad in one spot, maybe there are other leaks? Nerts. I just can’t get ahead. How am I ever going to find the money for a new roof?

  Maggie relaxes her hands that have curled into two fists on her lap. I gotta lay my hands on more money. A lot of money. Raising the rent will be small beans compared to what I need now. I can’t put this off anymore.

  Maybe I could borrow? Maybe from Edith? Edith would let me have it, I’m sure. But I couldn’t do that. Not only is she my friend, but I’m working to put her husband away as part of a racketeering investigation. No, I can’t ask Edith.

  Maybe my parents could help? Not a chance. I’ll not give them the satisfaction of asking. Sure, they’d do it gladly, but then I’d never hear the end of it. And it would be giving in. That door’s been shut too long; I’m not opening it now.

  There has to be another way. Should I go to the bank? Would they lend me money? How much is the house worth?

  Drip. Plunk. Drip. Plunk.

  There’s a knock on her door. “Maggie. It’s Archie,” he says from the other side of the door. “I have a small leak. Do you have an extra bucket?”

  Chapter 4

  I nspector Frank Geyer’s been sitting inside the brewery for over an hour. It’s cold inside the brick building, but he doesn’t appear to feel it. He’s an older gentleman, a bit stout, which his suit vest attests to. A walking stick rests next to his knee. His high, outdated collar is held tight with a collar pin. Perched on his head is a bowler hat. He sports an unfashionable but luxuriant clipped beard and mustache. There is still the veneer of a police officer on the Inspector, even though it has worn thin from age and use. No one who sees him can mistake him for anything else than what he was before his retirement: a tireless officer of the law working to protect the citizens of Philadelphia.

  Frank’s been watching this particular brewery for several days. Now that he’s retired, he has the luxury of following up on cases and investigati
ons that pique his personal interest. While watching Mickey Duffy and the other bootleggers, he has become intrigued with the entire business model; their transportation of the illegal alcohol is only a small part of the flood of crime and corruption in the city caused by Prohibition.

  Frank is captivated by the special role beer plays in the Prohibition story, recalling that, in his day, beer had been regarded as a cereal beverage; mothers had been encouraged to give their children a glass at breakfast to aid digestion. It had also been generally accepted that an adult’s well-being depended on a pint or two in the evening.

  For a brief, shining moment at the beginning of Prohibition, there had been a successful lobbying effort regarding the sale of beer. Thanks to the influential voices of the United States Brewers Association, and the clamor of citizens, the Federal government had voted to exempt beer from the Volstead Act that established Prohibition, and allowed doctors to prescribe beer for its health benefits.

  It wasn’t surprising that people trampled on a good thing, with everyone and his grandmother suddenly needing a prescription for the restorative or digestive powers of beer. The government quickly rescinded the decision to exempt beer from Prohibition laws, and now the only beer that can be sold is ‘near-beer’ with an alcohol content of 0.5%.

  The other aspect of beer that interests Frank is the brewing process. Because beer needs to be aged, at any given time breweries have vats of normal strength beer in their cellars—and that part is perfectly legal. Then, in order to comply with the Prohibition laws, they then de-alcoholize it, reducing it to ‘near-beer’ strength before it’s bottled and shipped.

  Given temptation and greed, police have been deployed to guard breweries and ensure compliance with the law. It is a cat and mouse game, determining which barrels being shipped out are ‘near-beer’, and which hold the real stuff.

  Human nature being what it is, especially in these dark days, most of the police inspecting the beer are accepting regular ‘look-away’ envelopes every time a shipment goes out. It is an aspect of the case that rankles. In Frank’s day, police were honorable men who didn’t need minders. But, these days, there’s too much temptation. Corruption flows as easily as the suds.

  Colonel Smedley Butler, the Director of Public Safety, a role similar to the Chief of Police in other communities, does not ignore the corruption within his department. His response is to have police covertly watch the police who are guarding the breweries. These covert operators are notoriously known as ‘ginks’, and are despised by police and beer drinkers alike.

  On the floor of the brewery, there’s the usual level of activity. Men come by regularly and check the metal vats and their gauges. Notes are made on clipboards. The brewmaster does his usual sampling mid-afternoon. More notes are made.

  Everything in the brewery appears as it should. The nights are just as uneventful and crime-free as the day shifts. There is a night watchman who does regular rounds, and a cleaner that comes in and sweeps up. Nothing untoward.

  Perhaps it is the boredom, or maybe a well-seasoned policeman’s instincts, but the very ordinariness and law-abiding nature of the brewery operation is an itch that Frank just needs to scratch. It’s highly unlikely that a brewery owned by Max Hassel, notorious racketeer and the local Beer King, is following the law. He’s turning a pretty profit on this brewery, in both the books he shares with the tax man as well as the books Frank has seen in his bottom drawer. Frank knows he’s selling the real, high-powered beer somewhere. But how? Frank hates being bested, and someone has certainly figured out a way to commit a crime right under his nose.

  Seeing nothing amiss happening on the floor of the brewery, Frank’s eyes follow the metal pipes that travel from the vats to the bottling conveyor belts, now idle. Those belts had been very busy yesterday, bottles being labeled, filled, capped, and crated; readied for shipment.

  Today, a delivery truck pulls into the loading bay, and a half-dozen men start loading wooden crates of beer bottles into the back end. Once loaded, they pull out of the brewery, stopping at the gate for the mandatory police inspection.

  Frank walks over and peers over the policeman’s shoulder as he checks a random bottle. 0.5% as usual. He steps back with a frustrated sigh and looks at the vats and bottles. “Well, I’m flummoxed,” Frank says.

  Frank has seen the gauges and watched the shipping process. The vats are full of real beer, but there is a huge discrepancy between the amount of full strength beer brewed and ‘near beer’ shipped. So where is the real beer going? How is it leaving the brewery?

  Looking at the workers and the beer vats, Frank pulls a freshly clipped cigar out of his pocket and flares two wooden matches. He slowly rotates the cigar, ensuring the end is glowing before taking his first puff. Watching the brewery, there is a feeling of discovery, the tantalizing bite of something significant but not yet understood. It has a hold on him now, this puzzle, and he relishes that feeling.

  Chapter 5

  I t is in that special time between breakfast dishes and preparing lunch that Maggie has a few moments of time to herself. Walking through into the living room, coffee cup in hand, her shoulders relax and a smile breaks through.

  Maggie loves this room. It is cool and serene, with as much elegance as she and Jack could afford when they first started out. Mother had grudgingly given her the beautiful gold-striped Empire couch which holds center-stage, while the reality of Maggie’s life intrudes through the strategically placed furniture over the worn spots of a threadbare Aubusson rug. The clock on the mantle ticks away the minutes; a shiny brass carriage clock that sits beside the framed photo of she and Jack on their wedding day.

  “Inspector? Are you here?” she asks the empty room.

  “Maggie, I’ve had the most frustrating morning, my dear.” Frank is behind her.

  Maggie swirls around. “Oh Inspector, there you are.”

  Inspector Frank Geyer and Maggie Barnes have been a team for almost two years, pursuing the bootleggers in Philadelphia, gathering evidence for the police so that Prohibition scofflaws can be brought to justice. It’s an effective duo, if somewhat unusual. And it’s not only that a woman is working in an investigative capacity that would raise a few eyebrows.

  Frank is the ghost of a Victorian detective with the Philadelphia Police. His reputation lives on, as does his service to the city. It took some convincing for Maggie to accept his spectral nature. She’d eventually convinced herself she was not crazy by involving one of her lodgers in a demonstration of the Inspector’s invisibility to everyone but herself.

  Maggie’s ghost has none of the gothic eeriness of hauntings and spookiness. No, the Inspector is as cranky as many older gentlemen, pining for usefulness and nostalgic for his glory days. And he’s become a dear friend, despite his overbearing nature. Inspector Frank Geyer, long dead these many years, and now back in harness as Maggie’s investigative partner.

  “Sit and visit, will you? Tommy won’t be home for lunch for another hour.” Maggie chooses her usual chair by the desk, and Frank takes his by the fire. “I want to hear how you made out at the brewery. Any luck?”

  “Another shipment went out this morning. But it was all ‘near beer’. I just don’t know how they’re doing it, Maggie. I haven’t seen a single shipment of ‘real beer’ in the weeks I’ve been watching the place, yet the vats are emptied and refilled like clockwork. I know by the gauges they’re brewing much more than they ship, but I have no idea what they’re doing with the ‘real beer’, or how they’re managing to sell it.”

  Frank has been watching the brewery for several weeks, trying to find the answer to this puzzle. Initially, they had thought the near beer was being brought back to full strength at another location. Of course, everyone knows that there is the occasional cask of near beer that has the alcohol reinjected through the bung of the barrel with a horse syringe. This ‘needle-beer’ never tastes quite as good, and the brewmaster at the brewery Frank is watching has forbidden the practice. He has s
tandards to uphold; after all, it is his name on the label.

  Maggie raises an eyebrow. “Well, it’s got to be going somewhere. Max Hassel is a pretty smart cookie. Too smart to be pouring good beer down the drain.”

  Frank stares at her open-mouthed. He slaps his forehead. “Of course. The drains. Why haven’t I thought of that? I was looking where I should instead of where I shouldn’t. The drains. That’s brilliant, my dear. Max isn’t the only smart cookie,” he says.

  “Why thank you, Inspector. Although I’m not sure what I said that was so brilliant.”

  “The only other way to exit the premises is through the drains,” says Frank.

  “Ugh. I can’t imagine they’re pouring the beer into sewer pipes. Could he somehow be using a separate pipe?”

  “It’s an interesting idea. The entire situation is fascinating. I can hardly wait to return to have a closer look. I meant it, my dear. We’re a good team, what with your intuition and my methodical stubbornness.” He leans toward her and winks.