Miserable Business

by PJ Eiden

  “Well, we are pleased to have you stay with us. This should be a fine week to spend in the shade along the lake.”

  Chapter 22

  The Second Barn

  It was January in Minnesota. As Hank departed the train, the bitter cold penetrated his Chicago overcoat. He began to doubt he’d chosen heavy enough clothes for the trip.

  At the general store, despite Tom Swenson’s prodding, Hank refused to cut across the ice of the frozen lake on foot. He imagined falling through into frigid dark water. For safety, he trudged the plowed roads to Clark Lake Lodge. To his surprise, the vigorous walk warmed him.

  Hank’s mission began by borrowing the family’s Studebaker from Warren. He had the car’s fuel topped off at the filling station in town before heading southward. The afternoon sky was overcast with a heavy winter gray. A brisk wind picked up loose snow from the ground and sent swirls of it across the roadway like small white tornados. Fifty miles into the eighty-mile trip, the weather changed. As he rounded a bend in the road, Hank noticed a haze in the air ahead. Driving toward it, fine white ice crystals began to bounce off the windshield with a sound like windblown sand. When the frozen mix turned to soft flakes like baby powder, it began to cling to the glass.

  Before Hank knew it, the snow became so relentless it was hard to imagine the world beneath it. The windshield wipers were of no use. Hank leaned forward over the steering wheel to watch the roadway through the last of the windshield kept clear by the car’s heater. The heavy automobile stayed faithfully straight in remnants of tire tracks still visible in the new snow ahead of him. Hank kept the handwritten map close by his side on the seat.

  When he turned off the highway and headed west on County Road Seventeen, there were no more tracks to follow. Hank was alone on the rural road. He crept along for three or four miles while the wind created brief whiteouts. In a small valley, he crossed an open bridge over an ice-covered stream and began watching for the grove of trees noted on his map. He stopped the car at a metal sign nailed to a tree. It was covered with a layer of ice and snow. He was unable to read it. He stepped from the car and walked to the tree to brush the sign off. In the early evening light, crude black painted letters announced the location of Three Brothers Farm. Directly beneath the name were the words, Private Property—Keep Out!

  Hank returned to the car and took the driveway leading back into the rolling hills. As he crested a wooded rise, the outline of a red dairy barn came into sight to the right of the driveway. It was surrounded by a wooden fence corralling several black-and-white cows standing with powdery snow on their backs. He could see the yellow glint through the farmhouse windows coming into view on the left. He pulled the car in next to a tractor and grabbed his hat.

  Hank knocked four times on the peeling paint of a farmhouse door. Through the white background of wind, he thought he heard some rustling noises coming from inside the house, but no one came to answer the door. Hank pulled his coat collar up and began to knock again. He heard the distinct click of a gun’s hammer pulled back somewhere behind him.

  A male voice boomed through the winter wind, “What’s your business here, mister?”

  Hank knew the man had the draw on him. There was no reason to reach for the holstered pistol under his coat. He raised his hands in the air and turned slowly toward the voice. A well-built man in coveralls and an unbuttoned red-and-black wool coat stared at Hank while holding a shouldered rifle.

  “Whoa there, friend! I mean you no harm.”

  The armed man held his posture. “You’re no friend of mine. Are you one of those revenuers from the government?”

  Hank processed the question. “No, sir. I am not a Fed. I’m just a man who wants to talk business with you.”

  “You have no business here. We don’t know you. You’ll leave right now, or I’ll be the new owner of the big car you brought here, and you’ll be buried under a pile of cow manure.”

  Hank still had his hands raised in the air. “Would you wait a minute? I know your brother Walt. He’s the one who invited me here.”

  The farmer lowered his rifle part way. “Walt? What’s he got to do with this?”

  “Well, if we could step inside out of the weather for a minute, I could tell you about my business. I’m looking to buy some quality whiskey.”

  The farmer raised the rifle again. “First, tell me how you know Walt.”

  Hank cleared his throat. “I ran into Walt this summer while he was delivering products up north in the lake country. I was staying in a cabin up there. I spoke to him one day when he was delivering to Clark Lake Lodge.”

  The man shook the rifle in front of Hank. “Mister, you are lying! We don’t sell whiskey to Clark Lake Lodge.”

  “No, you don’t, but I saw the wooden crates on the back of the truck when Walt was dropping off milk and cream. The tarp came loose as he was driving away.”

  “What a dumb kid! He’s not careful, and now he’s dragged a stranger here. Nobody comes here. I don’t want any rumors going around about this farm. So, I’m going to prove you’ve got things wrong. You drove a long way here in the snow for nothing!”

  The farmer grabbed Hank by the coat collar and poked the rifle into his ribs. “Come with me, I will show you our operation.”

  He marched Hank to the dairy barn and walked through the milking parlor to a room at the end of the building. While he held the rifle to Hank’s chest, he pulled the lid off the tank. He shoved Hank’s face over the tank opening. “What do you see in there? Does this look like whiskey to you?”

  Hank was immersed in the sights and smells of a tank of whole milk with a cream layer floating on top. He took a half-step back from the tank. “No, sir. It sure doesn’t.”

  He dragged Hank to a smaller white farm building located adjacent to the cattle yard. When he opened the door, chickens scattered from their roosts and clucked at the late-day disturbance. “Does this look like a still to you?”

  Hank gave the same response. “No, sir. It sure doesn’t.”

  “All right, mister. You’ve seen enough. Now get off this property before I put a bullet in the back of your head!”

  Hank kept his hands raised in the air as the rifleman nudged him towards the car. Midway across the yard, the wind gusted and swept out of a spruce tree grove behind the hill, and a whiteout filled the air. With a nose as cold as an ice cube, Hank still detected a slight whiff of corn mash blowing on the wind.

  Hank stopped moving. The gun’s muzzle pushed hard against his back. He turned and faced the wind pouring out of the dark spruce trees. He directed a head nod toward the trees and shouted to his captor, “It’s over there.”

  “What did you say to me?”

  Hank spoke even louder. “The still. It’s over there!”

  The farmer stammered, “What are you talking about?

  “I know a good corn mash when I smell one.”

  “Mister, you got a whiff of farm smell. We spread manure on those fields last week after we cleaned out the barn. You must be from the city or something.”

  Hank turned and walked toward the tree grove.

  The man began yelling at him. “Get back here right now, or I will shoot you!”

  Hank kept going with his hands in the air. “No, you won’t! After all, I’m a customer who wants to know the quality you’re selling.”

  Behind the house, Hank saw it—a packed path as wide as a man’s shoulders and hard as ice in a winter storm. As he entered the grove with the armed guard on his tail, he saw the yellow glow of a swinging lantern coming at them.

  The rifleman yelled into the wind, “Get back to the barn and lock the door!” Before he finished yelling into the darkness, his right foot slipped off the icy trail into the deep snow. He spun halfway around and fell to the ground. The rifle flew off into the virgin white powder.

  The voice from behind the lantern light echo
ed, “What did you say?”

  When Hank was within a stone’s throw from the oncoming light, he spoke. “Walt, is that you?”

  The lantern stopped swinging and raised in the air. “Yes, who’s there?”

  Hank kept moving to close the gap. “Hi, Walt. It’s been a while. It’s Hank Macklan. We spoke last summer at the Clark Lake Lodge a couple of times. You invited me to come here to see your whiskey operation.”

  There was a short pause. Walt shook the snow off his coat, buying time while he tried to recall an invitation. “Yes, Hank. I remember now. You sure picked a heck of an evening to come out here to the farm. Yeah, sure, come with me. The still is back over here in the second barn. On the other side of the trees used to be an old farm site. The place goes back many years, and when the farmhouse caved in, we kept the barn for distilling. It’s out of sight in case the government men come knocking. Say, have you met my brother Frank yet?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure he’s on his way here now. It seems he doesn’t trust me quite yet.” Hank kept close to Walt whose lantern lit the path. “So, Walt, how long have you boys been making this stuff?”

  Walt stomped his boots to knock the loose snow off. “Well, it all started when this new corn variety was developed for the north country. As you likely know, our long winters don’t leave much of a growing season this far north in Minnesota. So, the university kept on trying to develop different varieties of corn until they hit one perfect for us. Some are calling this whiskey Minnesota 13. It’s distilled twice before we age it in oak barrels.”

  Before long, Frank came marching through the snow. He was carrying the rifle again, but his hat was missing. “Walt, don’t show this goon our still!”

  “Frank, you stubborn mule. Please listen a minute. You don’t know who Hank is yet. He’s from Chicago. He sells a lot of beer and booze to the taverns down there, and he’s got trucks available to haul the loads. If you don’t shoot him first, Hank might become a customer for a bunch of our whiskey.”

  Frank stood still and blankly stared.

  Hank smiled. “Have you got any inventory on hand? I’d like to taste it if I could.”

  “Yes, we do. Let’s step through the doorway over there.” Walt was proud of their product.

  Once inside, Walt pointed toward the wall beyond the distillery room. A pair of metal rails on the floor disappeared under the base of a sliding door. Walt drew the door back and carried the lantern into the storage and bottling room. The yellow light revealed the other half of the barn, which had heavy timber storage racks twice the height of a man.

  When Hank’s eyes adjusted to the dim light, he counted barrels stored on their sides four high in the racks. “How do you move them around?”

  “That’s easy. After we fill them, we plug them tight and lay them on their sides to roll them on the rails into the storage room. From the original hay mound, we use an old pulley on a trolley with a large rope to sling them up into the racks,” Walt said.

  Hank gazed up toward the ceiling. “Amazing! You have more inventory than I’ve seen anywhere else.”

  “Our priest says it’s not immoral to make whiskey. We’ve built a large inventory by putting all of our acres into corn and working some neighbor’s farm ground, too.”

  Hank smiled at the comment about getting the priest’s approval. “But is it any good?”

  Walt grabbed a two-foot long piece of hollow vine stem from a shelf and turned down an aisle. “Let me show you. First, we start with water from a natural spring here on the property. It runs ice cold year round.” He held the lantern close to the racks to look at marks on the barrel lids and kept moving along. At the third rack section, he stopped and tapped the vine on the end of a barrel. “Ah, here we are. This batch should be about ready.” He waved his brother Frank closer. “Let’s give old Hank here a sample, shall we?”

  Walt and Frank worked a loaded barrel out from the low rack and rolled it around on its side before parking it. Walt pulled the stop loose on the barrel and inserted the hollow length of vine stem down into the liquid before he covered the top end of the vine with his thumb. He drew it out carefully and drained it into a pewter cup Frank had retrieved from a hook on the rack.

  Frank offered the mug to Hank. “You’ll be the first to taste this batch. We haven’t sampled it yet.”

  Walt brought the lantern in close to show the product.

  Hank swirled it around for inspection.

  “We would, of course, filter it some before bottling,” Frank added.

  “This already looks great, even before it’s purified.” Hank brought the cup to his nose and inhaled the fragrance of the deep amber distillate. The fiery-sweet fragrance was almost intoxicating even before drinking it. Hank tipped the cup back and let the bourbon roll over his tongue before he swallowed it. The flavor was rich and smooth like some of the best top-shelf products he’d had.

  Walt was as anxious as a new father. “So what do you think? Do you like it?”

  Hank didn’t want to tell them it was the best bourbon he’d ever tasted. He tried to keep his cool until they had a business deal in place. “It reminds me of some products coming down from Canada.”

  “But, would you like to buy some?” Frank was interested now, too.

  “Yes, I’m interested in talking about it.” Hank kept his voice neutral to avoid giving himself away.

  Frank had his hands in his pockets and was kicking at the straw strewn around the barn floor. “How much could you take?”

  “It depends on how much you have. If the price is right, I’d take everything you have in this barn.” Hank stared into the darkness at the empty end of the barn. “Can you plant more acres next spring?”

  Frank looked over at Walt and smiled. “Why don’t we all head back to the house where it’s warm and sit for a spell. Art, our older brother, will be back from town soon. He has a say in this, too. He’ll need to meet you before we go further.”

  Chapter 23

  Fish in a Barrel

  A new storm was brewing in Chicago. Vincent Drucci challenged his comrade. “Why Hymie? Why now, after all this time and bloodshed? It’s been almost two years.”

  Hymie rubbed his temples where another round of migraines was beginning to throb. “We want to attack them again because Torrio survived our hit, and we’ve never gotten justice for them killing Dean that way. Now they won’t be expecting a hit anymore. Yes, we almost got Torrio.” He glanced at George Moran. “And even though we shot him up bad, it wasn’t enough. The slippery fox crawled away to eventually recover. Now, I hear he’s living in New York. Some say he still steers the ship for Chicago operations with Capone as a front man.”

  Moran threw his cards down on the table. “We got a lot of skilled fellas. What do you have in mind?”

  Hymie got up off the couch and made a slow lap around the room with his hands folded on top of his head. “I say we charge right into the bee’s nest. Capone is a creature of habit. Everyone knows he runs the show from the Hawthorne Hotel. How can we catch him out in the open?”

  Drucci shrugged his shoulders. “Capone’s a hard guy to get to. You know he keeps an army of bodyguards with him at all times.”

  “It would have to be a surprise attack,” Moran said. “Something he’s not expecting at all. We’ll get one chance. We need eyes on Capone to confirm he’s there before we make a move.”

  Across the river in the suburb of Cicero in a restaurant on the first level of the Hawthorne Hotel, Al Capone read the daily headlines in the Chicago Tribune. A lunch plate loaded with spaghetti and meatballs was placed in front of him.

  He took one look at the plate. Unimpressed, he folded his newspaper closed one fold at a time, set it aside, and pushed the plate away.

  The waiter stood near the table with a towel draped over his arm.

  Capone turned with his hands hovering over the plat
e and glared at the waiter. “What’s this junk supposed to be?”

  Unsure of what to say, the waiter hesitated and then ventured, “It is our featured lunch today, sir. Is it not to your satisfaction?”

  Al studied the waiter’s face and read his name tag. “No, Jimmy, it is not to my satisfaction! Do you know who I am? I don’t care about the daily lunch feature. I’ve based my business out of here the last two years. You could say I own the place. So, why would this happen to me all of a sudden? Is it because you’re new and you don’t know what your job is?”

  The waiter did not speak.

  “Like my family, I enjoy spaghetti today the same way they prepare it back in Italy. How many times do I need to tell the chef, he makes mine tossed with a walnut sauce and some cheese?”

  Frank Rio, a trusted Capone bodyguard, sitting with his colleague Jack McGurn at the next table, rose to his feet. The waiter turned pale as cow’s milk.

  The mob boss raised his right hand off the table for a moment. Frank took his seat again.

  Capone continued, “Do you understand what I’m saying? The chef makes a traditional walnut sauce for me because I don’t like tomatoes or meatballs on my pasta!”

  The haggard waiter removed the plate from the table and took a step back. He bowed slightly as he spoke. “Of course, sir. This is completely my mistake. I will take care of it right away.”

  Capone sneered. “OK, now get back there in the kitchen, and I don’t want to see you again until my order is done right!”

  The waiter didn’t need to be told twice. The door slammed behind his hasty retreat.

  Capone unfolded his newspaper once more and looked over at Rio and McGurn. “Jeez, where do we get these guys anyway?” He nodded in the direction of the kitchen. “When we’re done here, send them both packing.”

  The eight dark Lincolns rumbled through the west side streets and the Little Village. They did not yield to other traffic. Vincent Drucci drove the lead car, accompanied by George Moran in the front seat and Hymie Weiss in the back. The cars were a rolling arsenal.