Speak Easy, Speak Love

by McKelle George

  “Yes,” said Prince. “If that’s the right word.”

  “Were pounced upon,” Benedick suggested dryly.

  “Obviously you’ll both be nice to her,” said Hero. “She’ll be here at least the summer, maybe longer. She doesn’t have much other family. Hardly sees her stepfather—he owns some farm in Virginia, I think—and her mother died several years ago. I wondered if I ought to invite her to the Masquerade, after everything else she’s been through, but I think she’ll be just fine now that I’ve met her. That is, if there’s even a party to attend. I hid our leftover stock from Papa, but—”

  “Father Francis ordered extra wine bricks for Easter,” said Maggie, putting away the last dish. She tucked the drying towel into her skirt and wiped her hands. “He’ll donate some, I bet.”

  “That’s a wonderful idea, Maggie.”

  Maggie crossed her arms. “Best get there quick, though. He locks up by two on Fridays.”

  “Where’s the Lambda?” Prince asked.

  Hero glanced at him, and they shared one of their silent conversations. “Papa took it to pay for the electricity and pick up the band.”

  Prince massaged the back of his neck. “’S all right. Only the Lizzie’s not in great shape either.”

  “Claude can take the train,” said Benedick. “That way we’ll only have to make it a few miles. We’ll drop Prince off at the church on our way, and Francis can bring him and the wine back after he locks up. I’ll drive home by myself.” He flushed at three identical expressions of doubt. “What’s the worst that happens? I break down and get a bit of exercise.”

  Maggie pressed her lips together.

  “What?” Benedick asked.

  “Just imagining it, that’s all. You strolling back, head held high, the car in some ditch.” She grinned. Hero laughed, then Prince laughed, and Benedick’s irritation was replaced by a rush of affection so strong it nearly stole his breath.

  Maggie pushed curls off her forehead. She swatted Benedick with the end of the towel and hung it neatly over the sink. “I’ve got a stage to prep, if nobody minds.”

  “I moved the biggest speaker for you just now, Mags,” said Prince.

  She dipped in a theatrical bow of thanks and sauntered over to the pantry.

  “Holler if you need anything.” Hero herded Prince and Benedick out of the kitchen with her. “I have faith in Ben’s driving skills, so long as somebody tells me who this Claude person is.”

  “Ben’s schoolmate,” said Prince.

  “Ooh.” Hero’s interest notched up a level. “Handsome?”

  “As the devil,” said Benedick. “The kind of face that belongs on a dollar bill. Or the hundred-dollar bill. Multiple hundreds.”

  “Now, Ben, you know money isn’t the only thing I care about.” She put a finger to her temple and winked. “I also like to tap their foreheads. If it rings hollow, that’s how I know I’ve found a real winner.” She rounded the corner into the foyer.

  Claude Blaine was coming down the stairs, finishing the button on his left sleeve cuff. He’d cleaned up, his hair damp and pushed back. “Oh, good.” His smile was sheepish as he saw them. “I wasn’t sure whether— Hello.”

  Hero planted herself right in front of him on the bottom stair. “Hello to you, too. I’m Hero Stahr. You must be Ben’s stowaway.”

  “I—yes. Guilty.” Claude blinked a few times. But he was no slouch in the charm department himself, and it shone soon enough. “That’s a lovely name, Miss Stahr.”

  “Thank you, had it my whole life. You may use it if you like.”

  “Sure—ah, Hero, then. Claude Blaine.”

  Her lips curved, small and secret and sweet, like she’d already figured out everything there was to know about him. “So I’ve been told.” Her hand reached over to the banister, blocking any prayer of escape he might have had. “You’re not leaving, are you?”

  Claude’s golden cheeks grew a shade warmer. He glanced up at Benedick almost in question.

  Hold on to your hat, pal, Benedick thought.

  “I’m afraid I must,” said Claude.

  “And I’m afraid you must return,” said Hero. “Tomorrow night’s my Masquerade party. Give a girl a hand?”

  Claude took her hand, a gut reaction as she extended it, and she pulled herself up next to him. “Oops—ha-ha—still too short.” She climbed up one more step so she could lean into his shoulder.

  She reached for her brassiere strap, where she undid a hidden pin, a black three-petal flower rimmed in silver, then took her time securing it to Claude’s collar. His neck flushed a deep pink color that rose gradually to his hairline.

  “That’s your ticket in,” she said. She leaned close and whispered in his ear. With a tug on his earlobe, she winked. “And that’s the password.”

  Benedick glanced at Prince, who mimed an airplane nose-diving to the earth. At close enough range Hero could turn any man’s heart to mud; that was why, though Benedick adored her, he’d never let her within spitting distance of his own.

  Hero continued. “You’ll have to wear a mask tomorrow, so remember to come in nice and close so I recognize that delightful accent.”

  “Oh, well. That’s . . . all right.” Claude surrendered.

  Hero beamed. “I was hoping you’d say that. I think Prince and Ben are going to take you to the train station soon?” She glanced back at them.

  “How soon is soon, exactly?” Prince asked. “The car might need more than a quick—”

  As if answering him, the distant sound of an engine roared up, faded, then grew stronger as it came closer to the front of the house. Hero frowned and skipped down the stairs. She opened the front door just as the Model T pulled into the main drive and stopped.

  “Is that Beatrice?” asked Hero.

  The four of them moved onto the porch. The Model T that faced them was purring like a cat. The engine shut off a second later and Beatrice jumped out, coveralls and everything, a smear of grease on her jaw. “You really ought to take her to a shop,” she said. “But she’ll run okay for now. Might want to refill the fuel tank . . .”

  “We’ve got some in the cellar,” Prince said, mystified. He hopped off the porch, went to the car, and unlatched the hood. His head bent as he studied the engine. “Hold on, is that—”

  “Just a rosin patch.” Beatrice went to his side.

  “Looks good,” Prince admitted.

  “You’ll need a new valve eventually,” said Beatrice.

  Hero whispered to Benedick: “What in God’s name is she wearing?”

  “Well.” Prince lowered the hood, then put his hands on his waist. Nonplussed, he shifted his jaw and glanced at Beatrice. “Honestly, that’s a great patch job. Soon as I grab some fuel, we can hit the road. Where’d you learn to fix cars?”

  “I’ve worked on my stepfather’s farm the past few summers,” she said. “He hasn’t bought a new truck or tractor in about a decade, so they were always breaking down.”

  “No kidding. Can you drive, too?”

  “Obviously.”

  “Say”—Prince turned to Benedick, Hero, and Claude—“why don’t we have Beatrice ride back with Ben?”

  “No,” Ben said immediately, appalled.

  Hero laughed. “Goodness. You look like we’re asking you to ride with a tiger. She won’t bite. Will you, Bea?”

  Beatrice aimed a very tigerlike smirk at Benedick. “I’d be happy to drive myself, only I don’t know the area very well.” Not an explicitly challenging comment, but he felt challenged.

  “Fine.” He lifted a shoulder in an offhand shrug.

  “Honestly,” said Beatrice, “you won’t even know I’m there.”

  Already, having been acquainted with her less than an hour, Benedick found that incredibly hard to believe. Hero’s small hand gripped his elbow. She whispered, “Try to keep a lid on the illegal booze-running talk, okay? I want to ease her in, not smack her in the face with it. But be friendly. Tell her how nice she looks; girls like
that. And for God’s sake, don’t talk about your book.”

  Exasperated, Benedick asked, “Should I compliment her on how economical it was for her to wear one piece of clothing for her entire person or how the grease stains match her eyes?”

  Hero slugged him hard in the arm, in the same breath turning to smile at Claude and asking if he’d like any refreshment for the road.

  Benedick meanwhile gave Beatrice a wholly unperturbed smile and stepped off the porch as though he weren’t bracing for the short drive ahead.

  CHAPTER 5

  COURTESY IS A TURNCOAT

  Benedick knew the Manhasset station well from all his rides back and forth between Hey Nonny Nonny and Stony Creek Academy. The station wasn’t big; his first time blundering through, he and his zozzled friends had complained at being dropped in the middle of nowhere to be robbed or some other hapless travesty. Follow the black flower.

  Benedick saw Claude off on the 2:17. Claude had turned downright chipper, glowing pink as a spring tulip in the wake of Hero’s attention.

  Benedick had no doubt they’d be seeing him again.

  The train chugged off, gaining speed with a clattering groan. Beatrice had elected to stay in the car, thank the white whiskey gods. Benedick turned from the platform to go and froze.

  Farther down, near the station building, a figure leaned one shoulder on a wood pillar; the smoke trailing from his hand was the only hint he wasn’t frozen in an unseen picture frame.

  John Morello.

  He had a thin suitcase by his feet; he must have gotten off the last outbound train. Indecisiveness paralyzed Benedick. Any moment John might see Benedick and know he’d in turn been seen. John and Prince Morello’s relationship was a slimy black barrel in which Benedick tried not to stick his hand if he could help it. John and Prince shared an immigrant Italian mother, but John’s father was a mobster bred straight from Sicily. The kind of family blood that tended to show up on your hands sooner or later.

  The first time Benedick met John, Prince had offered this by way of introduction: “Stay out of his way.”

  However, given the events of the morning, Benedick had a feeling he was already in John’s way by virtue of proximity.

  Benedick strode forward. “What ho, John.”

  John’s gaze shifted. He gave Benedick the old head to toe, his expression flickering with some inscrutable emotion that might have been amusement. “Hello, Scott. Rough night?”

  “Most of mine are,” Benedick quipped. “As I like it. What brings you to Manhasset?”

  “There’s a Masquerade tomorrow in Flower Hill,” said John, blowing out a stream of smoke. “I have a standing invitation, you may recall.”

  Benedick did recall. “Of course! You’re early, is all. Headed to Hey Nonny Nonny? You’re welcome to a ride.”

  “Not tonight,” John said. “My family manages a few of the warehouses on the coast. There’s been some trouble the past few weeks. I’ll be sorting that out first.”

  Benedick’s stomach twisted as he remembered the black mark on the crates they’d picked up. Then Prince had drawn the attention of a multimillion-dollar Italian racket to Leo’s humble enterprise. The real question was why Prince, usually so careful, had done something so careless?

  Benedick would not have been at all surprised if John, only nineteen, had been put in charge of a rum-running operation and the trouble that came with it, but he suspected John’s arrival was much more to do with who might be causing said trouble.

  “Don’t suppose you’ve heard anything?” John asked quietly. The cigarette hung near his face, smoke trailing up like a question mark.

  A cool customer, that was what Maggie called him.

  Benedick considered that generous.

  “No,” said Benedick. “No, I haven’t. Prince and I haven’t been tailing coast routes since last fall.”

  “I see.” John eyed the Model T, then tossed his cigarette to the ground and crushed it with his heel. “I suppose I’ll see you tomorrow night then.” He bent and grabbed his suitcase and strode away from the station toward a Buick Battistini speedster, silver as the moon, that had pulled up nearby.

  All the car’s headlights were intact, yet Benedick was positive he recognized one of the two men waiting for John as the same one who’d flashed his grimy-toothed smile at them this morning.

  Benedick hustled back to the Model T and found Beatrice had moved from the backseat to the front, her boots propped on the dash. “Well, that took long enough,” she said.

  He dropped into the driver’s seat and glared at her. “Look here—”

  “Hey, Mac.”

  Outside his window a man hovered, his hat pulled low over his eyes. Benedick pretended his stomach hadn’t taken a colossal leap into his throat.

  “You’re one of the Nonny’s runners, right?” the man asked.

  “Yes,” Benedick managed. Relatively speaking. He cleared his throat. “Yes, what do you want? What is it?”

  The man kept his chin ducked. He held up a folded piece of paper. “Got a tip for you. Five bucks.”

  “I’ll give you ten if you’ll go away as quickly as possible.” Benedick fished in his pocket for his wallet. Though he was no doubt soon to be cut off and begging for his pennies, he still had a decent stash from his former life among the well-to-do.

  The ten-dollar bill disappeared in the man’s coat almost faster than Benedick had pulled it free. Benedick took the folded tip with a sigh, and the man nodded gruffly and left.

  “Are you thick in the head?” Beatrice asked. “He might have blown his nose in that, and you just paid ten whole dollars for it. Then again, someone like you probably does blow their nose in dollar bills, so it doesn’t make much difference—”

  “Whatever compels you to think I care to hear your opinions on my actions, kindly locate that inner switch and turn it off.”

  Truth be told, his brain was beginning to crackle and spit, much the way an engine might, sucking up the last fumes of fuel before it gives out entirely. However, there was not a Popsicle’s chance in hell Benedick would admit that to Beatrice.

  He unfolded the paper and read: Mosquito Cove, sundown, white lightning.”

  It was a real tip. He congratulated himself. No snot in sight. On the other hand, something itched at his poor cracking lemon that made him think it wasn’t a good one.

  “And?” Beatrice asked a bit coldly. “Get your money’s worth?”

  “Absolutely.” He lied. He chewed his bottom lip, then searched under the dash. After a minute his fingers located the secret latch and unhinged the bottom paneling to pull out a worn map.

  He spread it over the steering wheel.

  The layout of Long Island had been meticulously marked and colored by Leo and then by Prince. Benedick was only half literate in their code—but enough to get the gist.

  “How fascinating!” Beatrice looked over his shoulder. “This is a bootlegger’s map, isn’t it?”

  She was aggravatingly nosy and even more aggravatingly clever.

  “Wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “I would, truly.”

  Benedick paused. Perhaps, he conceded grudgingly, she was less rude than she was appallingly direct and, if altogether too intense for polite society, then at least unintentionally.

  Then she kept talking: “Not that I have any personal fondness for alcohol, but I don’t believe in legislating morals either. If Uncle Leo is a bootlegger, it’s a sin I’m willing to forgive—”

  “Sit back and let me think,” he said, rolling his eyes. Hero had said not to overwhelm her, right? (If Beatrice Clark could in fact be overwhelmed at all. At this point Benedick had his doubts.)

  Beatrice sighed and shifted over to her side.

  Mosquito Cove was circled in blue on the map, which, if Benedick remembered correctly, meant neutral territory, a stop for a handful of river hawks, but a black X near the shore meant a grounded seller. Usually a warehouse or still, but in this case . . . Benedick s
quinted at the tiny S written above the X and the little sketched leaf.

  “Sage,” he muttered.

  “What’s that?” asked Beatrice.

  He pressed his lips against a deep sigh. So—not a good tip after all. On the scale of best to scald-your-soul poisonous, Sage’s moonshine was one of the least toxic but also the most disgusting. Everyone with a toe in the Long Island racket knew him; he was too pathetic to get taken out, too much of a snitch for anyone to trust for more than bottom-of-the-barrel bailouts.

  Even so, there’d be no Italians involved, and sure, Sage’s take was the utter worst, but Prince was a genius at disguising nasty panther piss off the river. The results of swallowing one of his cocktails were borderline unholy, and Benedick meant that in the best possible way. With Prince’s help, even Sage’s moonshine would pull its weight at the Masquerade.

  Benedick folded up the map. “I know just where it is.” He cranked the engine and set them down the road. The floor was hot under his still slightly damp shoes, the steering wheel vibrating under his palms. The noise was pleasantly loud and raucous, but not enough to drown out Beatrice’s voice.

  “Are we going after this tip then?” Beatrice asked, sitting up straight.

  “I am. I’m dropping you off at the lane, where you can put that strapping footwear to use and walk back.”

  “I’ll come along, if it’s all the same to you.”

  “It is not the same to me. The difference provided by your absence is roughly the breadth of the Atlantic Ocean in fact.”

  “Why not? You might like to have me there, wherever you’re going.”

  “Where I’m going,” he said, “is to secure some branch water off a reprobate on the shady side of the East River. Hardly suitable activity for a pretty young lady such as yourself.” He gave her coveralls a pointed glance.

  “Stand down, Lancelot.”

  “You’ll only get in the way, and frankly no one’s going to give me imported hooch with you next to me.”

  “Because I’m a girl? I’m wearing pants. I’m covered in whiskey, oil, and a bit of dirt. No one will know the difference. Watch this.” She sat back in the seat, spreading her legs wide, and adopted a fierce scowl. She pitched her voice low and gruff with a southern slur. “Call me a nancy again, ya hick, and I’ll give ya a piece of chin music to next Wednesday!” She swore as if it were nothing, fist curled, then turned to him with a bright smile. “How do you like that?”