Sweet Mercy

by Ann Tatlock

  Some of the men I recognized from their visits to the lodge; others I’d never seen before. Each one acknowledged me in some way—a small nod, a few mumbled words. I smiled and nodded in return.

  Morris’s face glistened with sweat as he took the claw hammer to the final crate. With a grunt, he pulled off the lid and dug through the straw inside. Suddenly—back bent, head down, left hand resting on the side of the crate—he froze.

  “Morris?” Daddy said.

  “Sir?”

  “What’s the matter?”

  Morris cleared his throat. He didn’t speak and he didn’t rise. The few remaining men beside the truck began to mutter among themselves. Daddy moved closer to Morris. Curious, I jumped up onto the truck bed and made my way among the empty crates and boxes till I too was at Morris’s side. I gazed at his profile, waiting. His eyelid twitched and the corner of his mouth trembled as though a wave of fear was moving across his face. Quietly, so as not to be heard by anyone else, he said, “That don’t look like no canned peaches I ever seen, Mr. Drew.”

  Nestled in the pink palm of his brawny hand was an expensive bottle of professionally manufactured Canadian whiskey.

  Chapter 24

  On the way back to the lodge, Daddy, Morris, and I made a pact of sorts not to breathe a word about the whiskey to anyone. Not Mother. Not Annie. No one.

  I knew instinctively that Daddy was going to have it out with Uncle Cy, but beyond that I could only imagine what was going through his mind. Whatever he was thinking, his downturned mouth told me it wasn’t good. Neither was he interested in Morris’s attempts at finding some sort of explanation for the liquor.

  “Excuse me for saying so, Mr. Drew, sir,” Morris said, his hands nervously clutching the steering wheel, “but maybe that crate got down in the cellar by some sort of mistake. Or maybe it was the only crate of whiskey down there, and I just happened on it.”

  “Maybe,” Daddy said. His jaw worked and his narrowed eyes stared straight ahead.

  “Or maybe it was left from before the law changed over,” Morris tried again. “Used to be Mr. Cyrus served liquor at the lodge and wasn’t breaking no laws.”

  Daddy sniffed. “Maybe. Though it seems strange he’d keep his whiskey in a crate marked canned peaches, doesn’t it, Morris?”

  One great drop of sweat broke out at Morris’s hairline and eased its way down the side of his face. “Yes, sir,” he mumbled.

  “Daddy,” I said, “that’s the same kind of whiskey and the same kind of crate I saw over at Fludd’s.”

  Daddy lifted his chin in a sort of nod. “I figured as much.”

  “But since everything—I mean, our goods for the lodge and the liquor for the gas station—since all that comes into the train station, maybe there was a mix-up of some sort. Maybe that crate was meant to go over to Fludd’s.”

  Daddy looked at me a long moment, looked away. “Maybe,” he said again, his voice a whisper.

  We were silent then, the three of us sitting like strangers in a waiting room, anticipating the worst as we bumped along the road toward home.

  Daddy insisted on confronting Uncle Cy without me. He waited till late that night when everyone was asleep, including Mother. I lay in my own bed, tossing with fretful dreams, the all-too-familiar nightmare of the man shot down on the sidewalk ahead of me. Only this time in my dream I got close enough to look into the man’s eyes and see that he wasn’t quite dead. His lips moved. I bent closer.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “Tell them I’m sorry.”

  “Who?” I asked.

  But he didn’t say. I heard the death rattle in his chest and the light went out of his eyes and then he was gone.

  I awoke with a feeling of dread. My stomach turned and I could eat only a bite or two of breakfast. Daddy told Mother he and I were going to spend a couple hours on the river enjoying the morning. I put on my sun hat and joined Daddy at the dock. Neither of us spoke as we rowed far downriver from the lodge.

  Finally Daddy eased up on the rowing and let the boat drift a moment. He looked at me and I looked at him. My heart pounded as I waited for him to speak. He wore a pained expression and he looked years older than he’d looked just yesterday. “We can’t stay here, Eve,” he said at length.

  I drew in a sharp breath. “Where will we go?”

  “Back home, most likely.” He looked down the river, up at the sky, back at me. “Mother got a letter from Cassandra yesterday. She, Warren, and the girls are coming down to see us in another week or so. I’ll talk with Warren then about heading back to St. Paul. He can help us get resettled there.”

  I couldn’t believe what was happening. Return to St. Paul? “Why?” I asked. “What’s going on? What did Uncle Cy tell you?”

  Daddy looked away but not before I saw the flash of anger in his eyes. “Lies, at first. He wanted me to think that crate got there by mistake. He’s never been able to lie to me, though. I can always tell. Luther too. Back when we were kids they were always telling me stories, figuring I’d believe anything. They thought I was plain stupid because I didn’t do well in school, because I couldn’t read like everybody else. Maybe I couldn’t read letters, but I learned to read faces. I got good at that.”

  I nodded when he fell silent and waited for him to go on.

  “I finally got Cyrus to tell me the truth.”

  “How, Daddy?”

  “Never mind how. The important thing is I found out what’s going on around here.”

  I’d been resting my hands on the sides of the boat, but now I brought them together in my lap. “What did you find out?”

  “I found out what I already knew—what you probably already knew—the minute we saw that bottle of whiskey in the back of the truck.”

  My fingers clasped each other until my knuckles turned white. I said, “Uncle Cy’s working with Calvin Fludd, isn’t he?”

  Daddy nodded. “Yes, Eve, he is.”

  “Uncle Cy’s a bootlegger.”

  “I’m afraid that’s the long and the short of it.”

  “Does he store the liquor in the cellar, the liquor that comes in from Cincinnati?”

  Daddy nodded again. He sighed heavily. “Here’s the way it is, darling. Cyrus is one small link in a very large bootlegging ring. At the center is a man working out of Cincinnati. I don’t know his name. Cyrus wouldn’t tell me. At any rate, he’s a lawyer and yet he runs one of the largest bootlegging operations in the Midwest. Some years back he wanted to extend his operations east to Warren County and beyond. He sent his men out to find people who would help. In exchange for their cooperation, he promised to pay those people well.”

  “So Uncle Cy’s doing it for the money.”

  “He claims to be doing it for Cora.”

  “Aunt Cora?”

  “He says he was in debt to every doctor from here to Columbus, trying to get her cured of the consumption. Now she’s out at that highfalutin sanitarium in New York State where you pay a year’s wages in a month’s time just to breathe the mountain air. You don’t afford a place like that on what you make running a lodge, even in the best of times. Now with the economy the way it is and all . . .”

  His words trailed off. I said, “Maybe when Cora’s better, he’ll stop selling liquor.”

  “Don’t count on it,” Daddy said. “When I asked Cyrus how he could put us all in danger, he said he was doing it to keep us all alive. He said without the extra income he wasn’t sure he could keep the lodge going, what with the country in the trouble it’s in.”

  “So not all the money goes for Cora.”

  “No, not all.”

  “Uncle Cy must get a lot for selling liquor.”

  “No doubt the man he’s working for has deep pockets. He has to, to keep an operation like this going. He’s got a whole lot of people to pay off for one thing or another.”

  “Like Uncle Cy and Calvin Fludd.”

  “Yes. But here’s how it works. Uncle Cy doesn’t sell the liquor. Fludd does that. Cyrus
just warehouses the stuff. The lodge is a liquor transfer station.”

  “A liquor transfer station?”

  “That’s right. Cyrus has got the room and Fludd’s got the opportunity. They work together. See, when the liquor comes in on the train from Cincy, it’s picked up and carried to the lodge, where it’s stored.”

  “Who picks it up?”

  “Morris does.”

  “Morris?”

  “He’s not in on it. He’s hauling it not knowing what it is.”

  “Poor Morris! They made him part of the ring, and he doesn’t even know it.”

  “Yeah, well, he knows it now.”

  I stiffened in alarm. “Is he going to have to leave too? Will he and Annie both be out of a job?”

  “No. Morris will stay. They’ll both stay.”

  “But—”

  “Listen, Eve, to some folks Negros aren’t quite human. They’re no more of a threat than a dog. It doesn’t matter what the Negro help knows. Cy’s one of those people.”

  I couldn’t respond. I thought of Annie, sweet Annie, singing in the kitchen while she made her cinnamon rolls. Then I thought of Uncle Cy, and the corner of my heart that belonged to him hardened to stone.

  “But, Daddy—”

  “Now hear me out. The crates with the liquor are labeled something else, of course, but they’re marked in some way so that the men who work the tunnel know which they are.”

  “The tunnel?”

  Daddy nodded impatiently. “Listen, Eve, some years back a tunnel was dug between the cellar and the station so the liquor can be moved between the two underground. Usually one or two men are working the station, keeping an eye on the liquor, bringing more over when the supply runs low. Fludd has a steady run of customers coming through. Like Jimmy told you, they go back around to the car wash and that’s when the liquor is loaded into the cars. It’s a pretty smooth operation all the way around. Things were going off without a hitch till Jimmy sampled the goods enough to get drunk and spill the beans.”

  Of all people, I was the one to whom Jimmy had spilled the beans. Me and Marlene.

  I suddenly had a terrible thought. “Daddy?”

  “Yes, darling?”

  “After I found out about Fludd, we told Uncle Cy.”

  “That’s right.”

  “So Uncle Cy probably warned Calvin Fludd about the raid.”

  Daddy’s head bobbed reluctantly. “That’s right, he did. They weren’t sure it was going to happen, but they decided to clear everything out of the station for a time just in case. They brought the whole stash at Fludd’s back on over to the cellar, so when Macnish and his man showed up, the place was clean.”

  “And the cellar was dirty.”

  “In a manner of speaking. We were sitting right on top of the liquor they were looking for.”

  “I can’t believe it.”

  “I wish it weren’t so, but it’s true.”

  Daddy lowered the oars back into the water then and slowly started rowing back toward the lodge.

  “Daddy,” I said, “does Uncle Cy want us to leave?”

  He took a deep breath. “He says it’d be better for us if we did, now that we know what’s going on around here.”

  “What does he mean?”

  He hesitated another moment before answering. “Let’s just say, knowledge can be a dangerous thing. We—you and I—are now carrying knowledge around that certain people out there don’t want us to have.”

  At the thought of that, I wanted to reach down inside myself and yank that knowledge out, tossing it far, far down the river. I didn’t want to carry anything so awful inside of me, especially if it put Daddy and me in danger. As we moved over the placid water, the air full of birdsong, I shivered in terror.

  Daddy went on, “Only two people were ever supposed to know anything about this, and that was Cy and Calvin. The more people who know about a secret, the less likely it’s going to stay a secret. Now too many people know.”

  “Who besides us does know? Does Aunt Cora?”

  “Cy says she doesn’t. She was here when the whole thing started, but Cy claims he never brought her in on it.”

  “And Uncle Luther neither?”

  “He doesn’t know.”

  “What about Jones?” I asked reluctantly. “Does he know?”

  Daddy sniffed and looked aside. “Yes. He knows. He was with us last night in the apartment. Didn’t say much but didn’t leave either. I guess he figured we might need a referee, if fists started flying.” He chuckled at that.

  “But . . .” I hesitated, but I had to ask. I wanted to know. “Is Jones in on it, or does he just know about it?”

  “I think he knows about it and looks the other way. Kind of like what Cy hopes you and I will do now until we can leave the lodge. He did offer me a cut for a time, to keep my mouth shut. I told him to keep his money; I didn’t want it.”

  I tried to swallow but my mouth was dry. My hands went on wrestling each other in my lap. “What are you going to tell Mother?” I asked. “I mean, about why we’re leaving.”

  “I haven’t quite figured that out yet. Something’ll come to me, though. She can’t ever know what went on here.” He looked at me hard, seemed to be searching my face. “You understand that, don’t you?”

  I nodded. I was quiet for another moment as I pondered the hardest question of all. Then I said quietly, “Daddy?”

  “Yes, darling?” He stopped paddling again and leaned toward me.

  “The Jones Five and Ten Law?”

  Daddy’s mouth became a thin line. “Yes, darling.”

  “If you know about the selling of illegal liquor, you’re just as guilty of the crime as if you were selling it yourself.”

  “Yes.”

  “And it’s punishable by five years in prison and a ten-thousand-dollar fine.”

  “That’s right.”

  “But you’re not going to turn in Uncle Cy, right?”

  Daddy lowered the oars, stroked once, stroked twice. “I wrestled with that question all night long, Eve. Lord knows I’ve done plenty that’s wrong in my time, though as I’ve grown older I’ve tried more and more to come down on the side of right. If it were anyone else, I’d know what to do. Turning in Fludd was easy. But we’re talking about my own brother here. Not just my brother but the man who took us in when we needed help. May God forgive me, darling, but no, I’m not going to turn him in. I just can’t bring myself to do it.”

  I nodded. “Daddy?”

  “Yes?”

  “I can’t do it either. I can’t do that to Uncle Cy, even though he’s doing wrong.”

  “Eve, darling,” Daddy said, “we stumbled into this by mistake, but we’re going to get out of it on purpose. Soon as we can, we’ll take our leave of this place. Until then, we’ll keep our mouths shut and go on about our business.”

  Our eyes locked. I’m not sure either one of us could quite believe what we were doing. We had just agreed to break the law. And so, in those few quiet words of complicity, Daddy and I became felons.

  Chapter 25

  We docked the boat and, in silence, walked across the island and over the bridge to the lodge. I averted my eyes from the guests we passed, not at all sure that they couldn’t see inside of me, all the way to the secret I carried there. By the time we reached the bottom of the porch steps, I felt so weak from the weight of that awful knowledge that I took Daddy’s hand in case I should stumble on the way up.

  He squeezed my fingers, and we entered the lodge together. As expected, Uncle Cy was behind the desk. He stopped what he was doing and looked at us, his gaze a wall that brought us up short.

  “Good morning, Drew,” he said evenly.

  “Morning, Cy.” Daddy’s voice was equally passive, as though the morning were like any other.

  Uncle Cy turned to me and nodded. “Eve,” he said.

  “Hello, Uncle Cy.”

  An uneasy hush followed. I could scarcely bring myself to look at my uncle. I
n that moment, I hated him. I had decided to protect him, and yet I hated what he was doing and what Daddy and I were doing because of him. I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw hurt. Daddy squeezed my hand again, a gesture of empathy.

  Finally, Uncle Cy said, “Everything all right, Drew?”

  Daddy cleared his throat. “Everything’s fine. We’ve just been out on the river awhile. It’s a beautiful morning.”

  Uncle Cy nodded. Something unspoken had just passed between the two men, some understanding of where we all stood. Now we would all go on about our business, each of us carrying a piece of the lie.

  “Listen, Drew, take the day off. It’s Saturday. Take Rose and Eve into town for the matinee or something. Have some fun.” He sounded magnanimous, like he was offering us some great gift, and he even tried to smile as he spoke.

  After a moment’s hesitation, Daddy said, “All right.” He tugged my hand. “Come on, darling.”

  I cast a last glance across the desk. When my eyes met his, Uncle Cy sighed. He seemed to know without my saying so that the familial bond between us had been broken and that, even if I lived to be one hundred, I would never forgive him for what he had done.

  Getting away from the lodge for the day turned out to be a good idea. Mother, Daddy, and I had cheeseburgers and chocolate malteds at Huey’s Diner on Main Street. The only theater in Mercy was showing The Public Enemy with Jean Harlow and an actor we didn’t know, James Cagney. Because it had to do with gangsters, we opted to go to Lebanon instead, where the theater was showing City Lights with Charlie Chaplin. It felt good to laugh and to forget, for a little while at least, that Daddy and I had landed on the wrong side of the law. I envied Mother, who didn’t know what we knew. I longed for the bliss of ignorance, which I would never have again, because even after we left the lodge I would know what was going on there. I was an insider now, and there would be no getting out.