Powell, who seemed oddly ready either to be leaned on for support or to be hit in the face, looked genuinely concerned. ‘The plane? We’ve never had a problem before.’
‘I put more fuel on board her. At that stage, I knew about the untaxed beaver skins. I didn’t know there was booze as well.’
‘The fuel was the problem?’
‘The booze was the problem, Powell. A plane’s meant to have fuel.’
There was a short pause; a pause in which Powell neither grinned nor smoked.
‘I’m sorry, Willard. We never meant to put you in danger. I don’t understand about planes. They shouldn’t have let you take on fuel.’
We.
We never meant to put you in danger. Powell’s comment triggered a connection in Willard’s brain. He’d thought he had it all figured out, but maybe there was some further part he hadn’t yet seen…
The men by the office buildings had mostly either disappeared inside or come out to the plane to begin unloading. One of the men, well dressed against the cold, had climbed back inside the dark sedan and sat there only just visible in the dying light. Powell was fumbling in his pocket. He brought out a sheaf of documents and held them out.
‘Here.’
‘What’s that? You want a customs stamp, you better ask your goddamn flunkey.’
Willard indicated the uniformed cop, who was helping the others unload the cargo. Willard hadn’t expected to see a cop on the ground, but when he’d thought about it, it hadn’t been a surprise. What was the point in paying them, if you didn’t get some service? The cop was working as fast as anyone in bringing crates out of the airplane.
‘I don’t want a customs stamp.’
Powell continued to hold the documents out. Willard took them. He held them up to the light in the western sky. The documents comprised the original loan contract, signed between the two men, together with every other piece of paperwork related to the loan. The topmost document was a single-page letter, acknowledging receipt of the loan amount in full. The letter was signed in Powell’s unmistakable hand.
‘What’s this? I haven’t paid you.’
Powell jerked his cigar towards the plane. ‘Sure you have, Willard. Sure you have.’
‘You think because I flew that plane out of Ruxion that I’m joining your shitty little racket? I flew that plane out of Ruxion because I didn’t fancy hunkering down there for the winter.’
Willard held out the documents to Powell, nevertheless hoping that he wouldn’t take them.
‘I didn’t say anything about you joining, Will. That’s up to you. One hundred per cent up to you.’
‘Then what about these papers?’
‘They’re yours whatever you decide. Don’t want to force you. It’s the sort of thing a man has to decide for himself.’
He patted Willard on the arm.
‘Arthur Martin? Did he get to decide for himself?’
‘Nah!’ Powell virtually spat. ‘The guy should have been a priest.’
Willard, as so often before, was taken aback by Powell’s bluntness. Willard shook away his distaste. At least he was free of debt. He folded the papers roughly and shoved them into an inside pocket.
‘Thanks for this.’
‘Don’t mention it. Jesus, it’s cold enough, isn’t it? How you kids go flying in this kinda temperature, I’ll never understand.’
Powell began walking back towards the cars. Willard followed him. His anger had subsided once again. The loan. He was free of it at last. He could rejoin the world, unfearful and free. The freedom felt good. Felt wonderful, in fact. The hopeful world symbolised by Thornton Ordnance burned ever brighter in his mind. And he knew now that, awful as it had been, his experience with Powell Lambert had made a man of him. He was ready for work now. Ready to follow where his father and grandfather and great-grandfather had gone before.
But Powell, a pace or two ahead, was speaking once again.
‘… got someone here who wants to congratulate you. Thought we’d pretty near freeze waiting.’
Powell strode ahead. Frost nipped in the air and before too long, the ground would be sparkling white beneath a diamond sky.
But Willard didn’t follow Powell. Not to begin with. He thought he’d had it all figured out, but there were more wheels turning in his head: click, click, click. And with every turn of every wheel, something new fell into place. Powell was over by the car now, leaning to speak through an open window. The light was going and Willard could see nothing of the car’s interior, aside from a white face gleaming palely in the darkness. It all made sense now. It was like the moment that comes to a pilot, when he suddenly realises that he’s master of his plane, that he can order it about the sky the way a showjumper orders his horse around the field.
Willard strode quickly up to the car. Ted Powell stepped back. Willard put his gloved hands on the roof of the car and bent down to the window.
‘Good evening, Father,’ he said.
64
Hennessey’s business was general goods in an age when general meant what it said. He sold nails and roofing tin, seed and scythe blades, linens and soaps, sugar and wheat flour, children’s toys and ladies’ hats. But the business didn’t stock itself. Hennessey did.
And so, on the third Tuesday in November, Hennessey was down in Jacksonville meeting his dry goods supplier and his linen merchant. His meetings over, Hennessey rewarded himself, as he always did, with a visit to the Southern Glory SodaBar for a fix of vividly-coloured carbonated milk fats. Already present, in one of the yellow pine booths, was a young woman, sitting on her own. Her clothes were unremarkable: lemony-yellow day-dress, flat shoes, a hat ridiculous enough to be fashionable. She had a paperback crime mystery in front of her. Her arms were tanned, her blonde hair short and mussed up. Her eyes were turned away from Hennessey, but he already knew they were blue and startlingly clear.
He didn’t give her a second look. She gave no sign of looking at him. A few minutes later, she left.
An hour later, his soda and his newspaper both finished, Hennessey left the soda bar, then twisted his way through backstreets to shake any possible pursuit. Once he was sure he was clear, he entered the general freight warehouse down by the rail depot. Up above, a voice called, ‘Up here. It’s, cooler.’
The storekeeper climbed a wooden ladder to the top of a mound of cotton bales. Pen greeted him with a smile. A window behind her let in a draught of cool air. When the three conspirators had met Bosse, they’d arranged a number of different ways to meet up. The Jacksonville soda bar was one of them and this was the agreed rendezvous. Hennessey had a chocolate bar in his pocket. He offered some to Pen, who took a piece.
‘What’s up?’ said the storekeeper.
‘Jim Bosse. That’s what’s up.’
Pen told Hennessey briefly about their successes so far, about their success in reading the mail, about Jim Bosse’s latest request as relayed by Haggerty McBride.
‘Phew!’ The storekeeper whistled. ‘They sure want plenty.’
‘Yep.’
‘What does Abe think?’
‘He wants to know what you think.’
‘And that’s why you dropped in on me today?’
‘I guess.’
That wasn’t quite a full answer. Their usual way of getting in touch with Hennessey was to drop a note into his backyard from the air. If they needed to speak to him, they’d arrange a time for him to call them drug-store to drug-store, so the phone line would be clear. All the same, Pen had brought a freighter all the way up to Marion and she needed more fuel before heading back south, so it had made sense enough to drop in on Hennessey now. The storekeeper took another piece of chocolate and chewed it slowly.
‘You mean, do I think we should place somebody on the inside? I mean, right on the inside? Further in than you or Abe?’
‘Yes.’
The storekeeper took his time with his chocolate, not chewing too hard, not in a race to swallow. At last he was done.
‘OK. Then yes. Yes, I do.’
‘Abe thought you might have some ideas.’
‘He’s right. He knows that there’s a kid… Heck, I didn’t want to do this. I’ve got obligations. Obligations to a friend of mine, dead now, the boy’s father. I know Abe felt much the same… Any case, this man left a son, who’s desperate to help. The boy’s sixteen now, old enough to choose. I’ll talk to him.’
‘Gosh, I’d hate bringing a kid right into the middle of this.’
‘Yes, me too, but like I say, he’s old enough to make his own decisions. And if we need him…’
There was a long pause. Down below them, there was the quick, sharp movement of mice across the floorboards, brown on brown. Hennessey had his hat in his hands, ready to put it on his head to go. On the one hand, they were in a safe place to chat and Hennessey had taken a liking to the young woman flier. On the other hand, the unseen power and threat of Mason’s organisation loomed over them. They knew they were watched. They didn’t always know how intensely or by whom. Every minute they were here was a minute unaccounted for. It wasn’t a good idea to stop for long. But somehow, and for the first time, a peculiar thought had taken hold of him and he couldn’t quite shake himself free of it.
‘Listen,’ he said, ‘this isn’t really my place, but might I ask you a mighty personal question?’ The storekeeper had his hat in his hands and stared down at it like he’d never seen a hat before.
‘Sure. Go ahead.’
‘Is it possible – please don’t take this wrong – is it possible that you have feelings for our mutual friend, Captain Rockwell?’
Pen was taken aback. She wasn’t offended by the question, but had no idea why Hennessey had taken it into his head to ask it. But she tried her best to be honest, staring hard into her feelings. When she answered, she spoke slowly and with careful thought.
‘No. I don’t think so. When we first met, that first time … well, I guess I thought about it. I mean, I’m different from most girls. He’s different from most men. Some of those differences seemed like they were leading in the same direction. So, yes, I thought about it. But now? No. The more I’ve got to know him, the less I find myself knowing him. Sometimes I feel I’m working with a stranger.’
Hennessey quit looking at his hat and stared straight at her. He was old enough to be her father and there was a kindliness and intelligence in his face that Pen had trusted from the outset.
‘Maybe that’s the real problem you wanted to talk about. Maybe that’s why you dropped in on an old storekeeper today.’
Pen swallowed twice. Perhaps he was right. If so, he’d seen something that she’d managed to keep hidden from herself.
‘Maybe you’re right.’
‘Things aren’t … he’s not making life difficult for you, is he? I guess he’s not much used to working alongside women.’
‘I don’t think he’s used to working with anyone very much. Sometimes he doesn’t really seem to want to include me at all. If it weren’t that I’ve made a commitment to you and to Jim Bosse and all, then I’d think about going home. I really would.’
Hennessey scowled down at his hat, as though he’d suddenly become fiercely critical of every detail of its construction.
‘He’s a good guy. But there you have it. He’s a guy. I don’t figure he’s hung around with girls too much. Maybe he’s shy. Or worse.’
‘You think he’s scared?’
‘I don’t know. But you’ll never know unless you go find out now, will you? And if you don’t – well, heck, it ain’t my place to say – but I wouldn’t want either of you to miss out on something that might be the right thing for you both.’
‘No,’ said Pen. ‘No.’
It wasn’t quite clear what she meant – if anything – by her answer. She looked a little dazed, unfocused. Hennessey suddenly gripped his hat hard and jammed it on his head.
‘Well, then. It’s been good seeing you. You take care now.’
Crawling to the edge of the cotton bale mound, he let himself slide to the ground. He took one sharp look outside, then left, walking fast.
65
The Shakeston Hotel was a two-storey wooden affair that had probably looked swell when the Montana hills still swarmed with Indians, but was looking old and beat up now that history had moved on. All the same, the place did its best and its menu, based only on food that was grown, shot or hooked within thirty miles, was excellent.
‘Try the duck,’ said Willard’s father. ‘You won’t get better.’
‘Or the trout,’ said Powell. ‘I’ve got an outstanding Muscadet here. Give yourself an excuse.’
Willard compromised and ordered trout to start with, duck to follow. The other two did likewise. Both courses were excellent, and the wines, provided by Powell, were simply exceptional. Willard’s stress, cold and fatigue began to melt away.
‘Did I tell you?’ said Junius Thornton. ‘I just got a call from Ben Krakus, the pilot who normally does the Ruxion run. He said the way you handled that plane of yours over some bunch of trees at the end of the runway was some of the best flying he’d ever seen.’
Willard shrugged modestly, as though he’d be happy to fly like that every day of his life. He emptied his glass and closed his eyes.
The idea was so simple. So beautiful and so simple.
Ever since the introduction of Prohibition, America had begun to seethe with illegal alcohol-related activity. Rumrunners brought in booze from the Caribbean. The Mexican border was an open invitation. Canada, astonished at her big sister’s fit of madness, was only too happy to stuff her pockets with as much money as she could. And the foreign imports weren’t the half of it. There was home-brewed moonshine, industrially-brewed moonshine, wine cooked up out of Californian raisin-cakes, whiskey stocks spirited out of the now-silent distilleries. And there were the loopholes: the sacramental wine, the medicinal alcohol, the half-degree proof ‘near-beer’ which was easy enough to convert into the real thing with a little time, sugar and yeast.
But any new industry needs organisation. The mobsters and hoodlums who operated the rackets at street level were hardly competent to manage a vast and complex business, organised on a continental scale.
‘Think about it,’ said Powell. ‘Early 1920, Prohibition had just come in but already booze was coming back too. In small amounts to start with, of course, but more all the time. Your father and I saw the opportunity. Your father brought his experience, his contacts, his flair for industrial organisation. Meantime, I was running Powell Finance on Wall Street – a nice little business then, but nothing compared with what it is today. We put our heads and our money together. We came up with what we’ve got now. Powell Lambert, the most profitable bank on Wall Street.’
‘Why Lambert?’ asked Willard. ‘Why not Powell Thornton?’
Junius Thornton shrugged. ‘We didn’t want the attention. I didn’t want the attention. I chose Lambert after a racehorse I owned.’
The Firm was an idea of genius. Its agents bought alcohol in Bimini and Havana, Tijuana and Ontario. Its men arranged transportation. Not just the trains, trucks, boats and airplanes, but the payments. The police. The border guards. The federal enforcement agents. Its deliveries were as precisely timed as they were in any other modern industrial organisation. The Firm was happy to smuggle virtually anything, but its core business, its main money-spinner by a mile was booze, just booze.
‘Quality and reliability,’ said Powell. ‘We don’t water our stuff down. We don’t substitute cheap for expensive. We don’t play games with the labels. And we get our goods there. We have a better than ninety-eight per cent delivery record. Quality and reliability.’
‘And when the goods arrive, do you sell them on yourselves?’
‘You mean do we operate speakeasies? The answer is no we do not. The operation of speakeasies –’ Powell spoke with distaste ‘– is in the hands of mobsters. Racketeers and mobsters. The speakeasies are kept open through payments to cops on
the one hand and through gangland killings on the other. It is not a business segment which attracts our interest.’
Willard’s father raised a finger. ‘Now, Ted, that’s not quite fair. There is one speakeasy we’re happy to operate.’
‘That isn’t a speakeasy.’
Junius Thornton nodded. ‘True.’ His gaze turned to his son. ‘It’s the best club in America. We operate the best served, the best stocked, and the most exclusive club in America.’
Willard waited to be told more, but neither of the older men chose to add anything further. Willard changed the subject to something that had been bothering him.
‘How about the distilleries? All those things hidden away in tanneries and paint factories? Are they yours, or do you just arrange the transport?’
‘Some of them are ours. Some of them belong to friends,’ said Powell. ‘As you know, there are legitimate businesses in every location. Sometimes we own the legitimate business too, mostly not. We rent space, we keep it private. Not many people even know we’re there. Not even the people that work all around.’
‘And insurance?’ Willard asked. ‘On some of the deals we financed, the Firm insured its shipments. What does that mean? Why would a gangster want to insure something? And is it possible that our insurance folk are based on the part of the twentieth floor that’s closed off?’
Powell exchanged glances with Willard’s father. Willard intercepted the glance. There was amusement in the look, but also something he didn’t understand. Junius Thornton cleared his throat.
‘Perhaps insurance isn’t quite an accurate term, Willard.’
‘Oh?’
‘Our problem isn’t federal enforcement. In this fine country of ours, our lawmakers decided to pass a law without allocating any real funds to enforcement. Enforcement officers are paid so little, it’s pretty much of an invitation to graft; an invitation that not many officers refuse. As a consequence, the feds get less than five per cent of all liquor moved in America, and in our case the percentage is far, far less than that.’
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