Moolah and Moonshine

by Jordan Castillo Price

  Table of Contents

  ONE

  TWO

  THREE

  FOUR

  FIVE

  SIX

  About the Author

  About this Story

  A Sample from Petit Morts #4

  Moolah and Moonshine

  Petit Morts #3

  Jordan Castillo Price

  ISBN: 978-1-935540-03-8

  All rights reserved.

  © 2010 Jordan Castillo Price

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  -Jordan Castillo Price

  ONE

  Here’s to your new life in France. Be sure to try the toast. And even the fries. But watch out for those ticklers.

  With any luck, Emmett would not be called upon to make a toast. Lately, though, he knew better than to trust his luck.

  Because Rosemary was traipsing off to her new job in Paris? Because he was stuck in a far-flung suburb of Topeka with a rickety old house that was falling down around his ears? Because he’d always assumed he’d visit Paris by the time he was thirty—and Milan, and Prague, and London too—but thirty had come and gone, and he’d never even applied for a passport?

  What could you call that, other than the most rotten luck in the world? He loved Rosemary so dearly, and she was leaving him in Kansas to deal with the horrible house…alone.

  If he really wanted to get out of proposing a toast, Emmett supposed he could try the tactic of distraction instead. Who wasn’t stopped in their tracks by the presentation of a gift? He knew he was. But what to get her for her big bon voyage. A bottle of wine was the obvious choice, but Rosemary had been a teetotaler since the Toyota-in-the-ditch incident, which luckily had only injured her wallet. Maybe a scarf, then. She loved scarves, but she never seemed to wear them. And besides, she’d spent the past few weeks giving away everything that didn’t fit inside her hot pink Samsonite luggage set.

  Emmett scowled at the pompously overdecorated row of storefronts in search of inspiration. Handmade jewelry. Hand-dipped candles. Handcrafted everything, and all of it perfectly hideous. The human touch was clearly overrated.

  Purchasing a dry cabernet, presenting it to Rosemary and proceeding to drink it all himself was beginning to look like the most logical course of action when the sound of a tiny bell registered on the threshold of Emmett’s hearing. He turned to look, and saw a shop he’d missed on his initial sweep of the street. A candy store.

  The name Sweets to the Sweet was painted on the window in nearly illegible artistic scrawl. The building wasn’t quite as tarted-up as stores on either side. It was small enough to be “cute,” tucked as it was into the shadows of the hulking gingerbread-covered specialty boutiques.

  Rosemary always said candy went right to her ass.

  Chocolate, then. Perfect.

  Emmett stepped in out of the wind, and the bell tinkled as he pulled the door shut behind him.

  The smell was the first thing to hit him, a wall of dark, rich scent so powerful it seemed too thick to breathe. It was so tangible Emmett pulled off his glasses and buffed them on the edge of his sweatshirt, as if the aroma might leave a film on his lenses. It smelled of chocolate, yes, but beneath that, hints of other things lingered, strange things Emmett had no name for. In a way it reminded him of his house, the dilapidated thing that was supposed to be such a wonderful investment, but had turned out to have secret pockets of mysterious smells, odors released by various materials in various stages of decay, all of them contributing to the imminent demise of the structure that was supposedly completely sound when the inspector picked through. The inspector whose phone was then disconnected, whose office was now housing an after-school job program.

  A violent hiss startled Emmett and he flinched. The espresso machine. He put his glasses back on. A young, dark-haired man behind the counter smiled to himself as he filled an espresso cup, then he turned toward Emmett and said, “You look like you could use a drink.”

  Emmett never treated himself to expensive coffee anymore. Not since the house had taken a nosedive, anyway, and taken his entire savings with it. But the brown foam on the top of the espresso clung to the porcelain, the tiny bubbles glinting rainbow-colored with dark coffee oils, and he figured a few more bucks wouldn’t matter one way or the other. He leaned across the counter, feeling suddenly middle-aged in the face of the shop clerk’s flawless youth, took the small cup he was handed, and said, “Thanks.”

  The clerk was dressed in a chef’s uniform, with herringbone pants, a red bandanna knotted around his throat, a black apron dusted with cocoa, and a black chef’s coat with the name Chance embroidered in red over his heart. Emmett wondered who would name a newborn baby “Chance,” but maybe it fit him.

  Chance’s smile turned slightly wicked, and Emmett realized he’d been caught staring. He looked down through the glass counter with sudden and profound intensity. “I need a gift.”

  “You can’t go wrong with chocolate. Of course, I could be biased.”

  “Got anything that’ll go right to someone’s ass?”

  Chance laughed—a small breath, an exhalation—but it comforted Emmett to know that at least he was still amusing. “All of it.”

  “Great. Give me something that would make a girl ‘ooh’ and ‘ah.’ And, uh, I’ve only got twenty bucks.”

  Chance set a small black box on the countertop and placed a square of blood red paper inside to line it. “I sense a mixed message. Color me intrigued.”

  “Oh, right, I see what that sounds like. It’s for…she’s my best friend.” Emmett stared harder at the countertop. The recessed can lights above threw perfect yellow circles onto the reflective glass, and before he considered that he was telling a perfect stranger some
thing quite personal, he said, “She’s leaving.”

  Beneath the reflected orbs of light, Chance’s hand moved between the chocolates, flitting from one to another and back again, as if it was of utmost importance he select the perfect piece. “You make it sound pretty final.”

  “She’s going to Paris. The tacky little shoe store she manages got bought out by some French setup and they’re sending her to Paris, all expenses paid. Paris. The Paris. What are the chances she’ll ever be back?”

  “If you’re so hungry for Paris, then why not go with her? Your friend won’t mind. Will she? I’m sure she’d love the company.” Chance’s hand hovered over a chocolate with a perfect whorl on top. Emmett whispered, “That one,” and it was plucked from the display and placed in the red-lined box.

  Emmett stared hard at the spot where the chocolate had been. It was now a gap, a space, a place where something had once been, but now there was nothing. “That’s what she said,” he admitted after a long and very heavy pause.

  Chance shifted the chocolates in the box, and when it became painfully obvious that Emmett didn’t plan to elaborate, said, “And?”

  “And I can’t.”

  “Allergic to airplanes? Go the old-fashioned way. On a ship.”

  “No, that’s not it.” Of course the clerk thought he was afraid. Everyone else figured Emmett for a coward, so why not a total stranger? “It’s just…it’s complicated.”

  “I see,” Chance said, in a tone that made it clear he didn’t, not at all.

  Emmett could have given him a dozen grisly details about the house—a horrible place that grew more horrible with each new discovery: dry rot, termite damage, and of course, the smells….but he knew the more he explained, the more it sounded like he was making excuses. “My money’s all tied up in a house I can’t sell.”

  Chance selected another chocolate, tucked it into the box, then looked at Emmett expectantly. “It needs too much work,” Emmett added.

  “I think you should talk to Sam.”

  “No, that’s okay, I…” the lie that Emmett was about to tell to deflect Chance’s concern died on his tongue—the lie he used so often that some part of him clung to as if it was true. That he was working on it. That he had a contractor. Yes, once upon a time there had been a contractor. And he’d done a great job on the rotting porch roof. But the estimate for shoring up the basement posts where the wood had gone so soft you could drive nails into it without a hammer—that five-figured number had been the start of Emmett’s stages of house-grief. Denial. Anger. Acceptance.

  “I can’t afford to fix it.” Emmett said it so quietly, the words were lost in the hiss of the espresso machine.

  Chance closed the box and slipped a red band around it. “He’ll be here any minute. What could it hurt?”

  “He works here?”

  “I don’t think he’s got the temperament to work for me.” Chance smiled to himself. “He comes here to sit, right around five thirty. And nurse a single coffee until close.”

  Emmett glanced at the clock. Twenty-nine minutes after five, and his espresso was still hot enough to scald his tongue. He supposed it wouldn’t hurt to talk to this Sam person—a retired builder, maybe? Or a tradesman? Plumber? Electrician? He wasn’t afraid. If this Sam had a lot of time on his hands, maybe he’d at least have some bit of advice, some words of wisdom as to where Emmett could start patching up the awful house. That way, if the market ever turned up again, and he’d repaired the worst of the damage, he might actually be free of the place within his lifetime.

  The bell over the door jingled, and Emmett turned with his espresso raised to his lips expecting to see “Sam” right on cue—white hair covered by a tall, stiff baseball cap, maybe in overalls, with a wrench in his hand—but instead, Mr. Tall, Dark and Twenty-Something ducked in out of the wind.

  Emmett went still. The other customer might have been a bit plain by some people’s standards, but Emmett had never been impressed by showy guys with tanning bed skin tones and teeth bleached to the point of glowing in the dark. He liked a manly man, preferably taller than him—like this guy. Their eyes met briefly, then the other customer nodded and hung back a few steps, waiting his turn.

  “Right on time,” Chance said. He poured a cup of coffee.

  Emmett was caught mid-sip. He spluttered, cleared his throat, and hoped he hadn’t just drawn espresso into his lungs.

  Chance set the cup on the counter. “We were just talking about home repair.”

  Sam held out his hand, a bit shyly, though obviously he was too polite to completely brush Emmett off. “Sam Kowalski.”

  “Emmett Russo.”

  Sam’s hand was cold from the biting wind. And big. And strong. And Emmett wondered what possessed him to think he had any chance with someone like Sam. Even if Sam happened to be gay, and single, it wasn’t as if anyone would want to sleep with Emmett…not in that house.

  “I don’t know how much help I’d be,” Sam said. “I mean, I’m not really a carpenter or anything.”

  “Sam is good with his hands,” Chance said.

  Emmett snapped a look in Chance’s direction to see if he was being mocked, but the clerk was busy unloading a rack of coffee mugs into a neat pyramid. The ceramic gave off tiny clinks as he stacked them.

  “I’m pretty handy around the house,” Sam clarified.

  Emmett glanced back at him. Sam was blushing. And painfully cute.

  Chance said, “I thought you might do Emmett a favor and have a look at the worst of the problems. Unless you’re too…busy.”

  “No, I…yeah. I don’t have anything to—”

  “I’m a little strapped for cash,” Emmett cut in.

  “As a favor,” Chance said smoothly.

  Sam shrugged. “Oh, yeah, it’s not a problem. Like I said, it’s not like I’m a professional or anything.”

  Sam took his coffee to the sidebar and emptied three packets of sugar into it, stirred it, and took a sip so hot it had to have taken out a few taste buds. Chance told Emmett, “I’ll put Sam’s coffee on your check.”

  Emmett knew he was being railroaded—though the reason why was a mystery—but he supposed that if he was being coerced, he might as well be coerced into getting to know Sam a little better. Even if no one in their right mind would get involved with him once they saw the house.

  He drank his espresso down to the sludge in two gulps while Chance rang him up on a monstrosity of an antique register. The coins he dropped into Emmett’s outstretched palm were chilly, but no doubt it only felt that way to Emmett since his hands were overly warm from cradling the small porcelain cup.

  Both Emmett and Sam climbed into their own cars: Emmett’s a Jetta that would need a new transmission soon, and Sam’s a pickup truck with a large dent in the hood and a few patches of repaired rust where the paint was more matte than the area surrounding it. Emmett was comforted by the state of Sam’s truck, but a bit scared, too. Because it gave him hope that maybe Sam wouldn’t judge him by the horrible house. And hope could be a very scary thing.

  TWO

  “It’s a really old house.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.” Emmett tried, at the last moment, to ensure his commentary was less barbed than usual. Sam glanced at him and smiled. Emmett assumed he’d been successful.

  “Ranches and split levels all around it. But this one’s…what is it? An old farm house, I think. See that hill? I’ll bet a barn was built into the side of the hill. If you dug, you’d probably find the stones from the old foundation.”

  And that foundation would probably be in better shape than the one Emmett was currently trusting to hold up his house. He did his best to pretend he wasn’t on the verge of mortified panic as he unlocked the front door. Sam had come out of his truck with a massive old tool box in one hand and a mason jar full of nails, bolts and screws in the other. Good with his hands? Hopefully. And it appeared he might know how to fix things, too.

  The lock stuck. Emmett bit back a nervous lau
gh and wiggled the key. The mechanism resisted him longer than it usually did. Probably on principle, since there was a strapping young lad with a jar full of nails standing behind him.

  And when the door finally did open, the smell seemed more pronounced than usual. “Sorry about that. Would you believe the realtor was burning scented candles all over the house and it never occurred to me they were there for any reason other than ambience?”

  The odor of slightly soured milk hung in the doorway, though there hadn’t been so much as a teaspoon of milk in the house since Emmett had signed the deed, since he wasn’t much for breakfast and he drank his coffee black.

  “Moisture must’ve seeped in somewhere.” Sam glanced up at the lintel where the porch roof had failed. “A dehumidifier will help with that. Plus, if you can’t do a teardown anytime soon, there’s paint on the market that can seal it up and mask the smell.” Sam set his jar of nails on the telephone desk and crossed the entryway to the dining room. “This place has seen a lot of neglect, but look at it this way. All the light fixtures, all the floors and molding—original. And they don’t make ‘em like they used to.”

  “Thank God.”

  Sam crossed to the mantle of the fireplace where Emmett had never once had the courage to build a fire, and paused. A dozen framed photos gathered dust on the mantle: Emmett’s grandparents, now playing Pinochle somewhere in the great beyond. His parents and sister Lynn, her with a sleek bob and a sleeker waistline, before she got married and gained eighty pounds. Family. Friends. His cousin’s kids. And front and center in full, lurid color—Emmett and Rosemary, on their birthday, which they shared, though she was three years younger and she never let him forget it.

  Emmett hadn’t yet shaved off his goatee by that birthday, Rosemary’s thirtieth, therefore Emmett’s thirty-third. They wore matching tiaras, and sashes that read “Queen for a Day,” though “Queen” was the only word showing on Emmett’s. They both looked fairly drunk. But happy. Definitely happy.