Speak Easy, Speak Love

by McKelle George

  “No can do, Mac,” the bartender said, with a Scottish brogue. “Never seen you. Try the gin mill down the road.”

  “Why, I’m Izzy Pupferry,” Mr. Hansen said, laughing, “the famous Prohibition agent!”

  Benedick stiffened at the word agent.

  “Get the name right,” the bartender growled. “The bum’s name is Dogberry.”

  “Pupferry,” said Mr. Hansen. “Don’t I know my own name?”

  “Maybe you do. But the lowlife you’re trying to impersonate is Dogberry. D-O-G-B-E-R-R-Y.”

  “Brother,” said Mr. Hansen, “I ain’t never wrong about a name. It’s Pupferry.”

  “Dogberry!” roared the bartender.

  “Pupferry!” Mr. Hansen shouted back.

  “You’re loony,” said the bartender, neck red. “I’ll bet you anything it’s Dogberry.”

  “I’ll bet you a drink.”

  “Don’t do it, Louie,” Benedick murmured.

  Louie called his other customers. “These are my regulars,” he said. “They know their way around the speaks.”

  They nodded, some of them swaying a bit.

  “There aren’t many of you regulars,” Dogberry remarked kindly.

  “Now, listen,” the bartender said, “that nosy Prohibition agent”—he pointed behind the bar at a newspaper photo that was far too small and grainy for anyone sober, let alone drunk, to see properly—“that’s Dogberry, isn’t it?”

  “Yeah, sure,” the swaying one said.

  Someone spit.

  “Not Pupferry?” Mr. Hansen suggested innocently.

  “Let’s take a vote. Who says Dogberry?”

  Every hand raised.

  “What’s happening?” Beatrice whispered.

  Benedick pushed her gently out of the booth. “He’s an agent. I can’t believe this trick is going to work. . . .”

  “All right.” Mr. Hansen sighed. “All—eight, are you?—drinks on me.” He laid out his (or rather, if Benedick was right, the United States government’s) money on the worn wood. Triumphant, the bartender served the drinks—

  —and promptly paled as Mr. Hansen, aka Dogberry, leaned over the counter and passed him a summons just as Beatrice and Benedick made it to the door. “There’s sad news here. You’re under arrest.”

  Benedick took her hand and tugged her up the stairs and out of the watch shop. “A fed just capped the joint,” Benedick warned the storekeep but didn’t say anything else until they were sitting in the car.

  Beatrice drove them away from Rack 20 but kept her speed slow, puttering aimlessly down the streets, watching hapless partyers go in and out of the cast light of streetlamps.

  “I thought maybe the Minskys had hired them,” Benedick murmured. “You know, as spies. Two guys we don’t recognize, get the password and pin, make a report of how much we’re selling, how many patrons we get, that kind of thing. Prohibition agents, that’s different.”

  “They’ll be gone before Saturday.”

  “But why are they there at all?” Benedick asked. “Why us, specifically? Calling the feds is low even for the Minskys, not to mention stupid because it brings agents into their territory as well.”

  “Maybe the Minskys didn’t tip them off.”

  “But who else would have? We’re nobody’s competition at this point.” The difference in Benedick was marked. His lighthearted nature had fled the coop, and with it their pretend tête-à-tête, but this was better. She adored—was that too rosy a word?—being with him when there was a problem. Not that she was celebrating this new sinkhole they’d stepped into, but there was the most exhilarating sense of equality in working in tandem.

  His brows knitted together into a troubled point. “What do you think, Beatrice?”

  “Mr. Dogberry clearly has a reputation. Somebody will know something about him, and we can find out who might have paid him off.”

  Benedick’s brow remained knotted.

  “What is it?” she asked.

  “I’m worried the agents might be on the mob’s money order. They always have some on their payroll, and it’s possible Prince has aggravated them to the point of retaliation.”

  “So they sent an agent to take care of the speakeasy to . . . teach him a lesson?”

  “Maybe.” He didn’t seem satisfied by that answer.

  “Well, look, why don’t we ask Prince when we get home tonight? Get right to the bottom of the thing.”

  He sighed. His hair—his stupid, lovely hair—had flopped onto his forehead a little disordered. The expression on his face wrecked her heart. “Yes,” he said at last, looking over. “That sounds like you.” At his half smile, she nearly thought she could love him back.

  CHAPTER 22

  TURN ALL BEAUTY INTO THOUGHTS OF HARM

  There was still time.

  It had taken a little cajoling on Maggie’s part, but she’d managed to beg a ride out of Father Francis by agreeing to sing in church the following Sunday. That is, if they let her sinner soul through the door with all the lying she’d done in the past few days. The gritty air of Hewlett Harbor got caught in her lungs as she shuffled through the six o’clock herd of docked sailors, down the slope of a harbor street.

  There had to be a million pier warehouses and ports, and none of them seemed marked with numbers. A block or two away, boats ran silently in from Long Island’s South Shore, hauling in booze in an unstoppable swarm, like fruit flies on a fallen peach, too numerous and quick and young to swat them all.

  Finally she found a dark-skinned dockworker to take pity and point her in the right direction, but he shook his head in warning as soon as he did. “Won’t be nothing but trouble that way, girl. Best mind your way.”

  “Thank you, sir.” Not that she listened. She hurried down the street and found 54, which turned out to be more of a tenement than a warehouse, with sallow brick walls and the windows all boarded up.

  No sign of Prince, and sundown was getting close. The door didn’t budge an inch when she tried, so she walked around to the alley. Strings of laundry flapped over her head, and her footsteps scattered a cluster of pigeons or seagulls or some other screeching bird into the air. A stack of crates in the corner made a shadowy monster.

  She’d hauled one of the crates over so she could see, if she got on her tiptoes, into a high cracked window not boarded up, when she heard her name:

  “Maggie?”

  She turned.

  There was Prince in his shabby brown jacket and newsboy cap, looking bewildered as a saint, but whole and unharmed. He helped her down from the crate. “What are you doing here?”

  “Looking for you.”

  “Why?” His expression shifted from worried to suspicious.

  “Because”—she began, then faltered—“because you shouldn’t be down here.”

  Prince’s eyes narrowed. “You read the telegram.”

  “I had to—”

  “Because John told you to?” His voice simmered now, like boiling water. “You were spying on me for him.”

  “It’s not like that. He’s only worried about you. He doesn’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Oh, I bet he said so, and you just believed him. You took his side instead of mine. But I guess I’m not the one who can buy you a chance at the Cotton Club, am I?”

  “Hey.” Maggie jabbed his chest with her finger. “That’s not why, and you know it.”

  Prince huffed. He looked away guiltily. But he didn’t apologize. “I would have made this deal with him,” he said. “You were there. I tried, and he didn’t even—”

  “I said you ought to come alone.” A young man, cigarette in hand, filled the opening of the alley. Early twenties, hat cocked low on his head; chin shadowed with a crooked cleft. His jacket was heavy and dark, despite the warm weather. Two other men, thick enough around the neck, flanked his sides. Maggie could guess what purpose they served.

  Prince shifted and put himself slightly between the three men and Maggie. “She’s no trouble,”
he said. “Go wait on the pier,” he told her in a low voice. “I’ll be there quick enough.”

  Waiting on the pier sounded excellent, but Maggie pressed her lips together and shook her head. “No, I’m not leaving.”

  “Say,” the young man in the middle said. He pointed his smoking cigarette at Maggie. “You are the one who’s going to sing for Duke Ellington, sì? John asked many favors for it.” His eyes tracked over Maggie in a way that ground her teeth together. “So what makes you so special?”

  One of the bulky men muttered something in Italian.

  Maggie shifted uncomfortably as the young man barked a laugh. “True. If you lullabied John, maybe you’re a witch. Sing something.”

  A beat of silence passed, and it seemed he truly expected her to sing right there in the alley. Finally she shook her head.

  “No? Maybe you change your mind once we’re better acquainted. Let’s go.”

  “Borachio—” Prince started to protest.

  “She comes.” Borachio cut him off. “She knows we’re here now, and she comes.”

  He led them around the side of the building onto a crumbling sidewalk. An old saloon occupied the ground floor. Ironic; perhaps that was why they had chosen it. Maggie crossed her arms tightly around her middle and huddled closer to Prince.

  Borachio jimmied the boarded-up door until he unearthed a padlock. He unlocked it quick as a snap and heaved the door open. Inside there was nothing but a yeasty mold smell, shadows, and another locked door, which led upstairs to crates upon crates of burlap-covered booze, swelled barrels, and boxes of ammunition. There was barely room to walk.

  Gray light crept in through the grimy windows, but even that was fading with the sinking sun over the harbor. Maggie heard a whimper and startled at a man crumpled against the side of the wall. His wrists and ankles were bound, a gag tight on his mouth. One side of his face was streaked with blood, and his eyes bulged with fear.

  Maggie’s fingers reached to grasp Prince’s jacket.

  “That is Henry,” Borachio said, nodding at him. “Our dockmaster. Or used to be until tonight. This—all of this—is our latest shipment from the Caraibi. At midnight John’s men come to haul it in trucks to the city. Marco?”

  One of his men heaved a sledgehammer—from where? Had he had it the whole time?—into one of the barrels with an earsplitting crack. The scent of booze stung Maggie’s nose as it spilled over the floor, seeping sticky and warm into the bottoms of her shoes. Prince shifted.

  Borachio tossed a book of matches to Prince, which he barely caught. “Burn it,” he said. “Wait until dark. My boys and I, we go down the pier to a nice Italian bar where lots of men see us and know we’re not near the building. Don Vito will be very upset to lose such a valuable shipment, and John will have to answer for it.”

  Prince’s inhaled breath was audible. His eyes darted to the dockmaster, still bound against the wall. “What about him?”

  Borachio smirked. “He is part of the shipment.”

  Henry groaned, but whatever they’d done to him, he didn’t manage more than an inch or two of pained movement. The poor idiot was a witness, was what Borachio meant—and probably working for John besides.

  “Prince, no,” Maggie murmured quietly. “Let’s go.”

  Click. A pistol was cocked, just like that, and pointed at Prince and Maggie. The entire room went still. Borachio smiled. “And you, bella, you come with me.”

  Maggie’s grip on Prince’s sleeve tightened.

  “What for?” Prince demanded.

  “To sing,” Borachio said in a precise, quiet voice. “The entertainment in that bar is shit.”

  That was not the reason, but Maggie couldn’t imagine the alternative, her brain sputtering like a scratched record. Maybe he’d take her outside and shoot her. Except Prince would know, and if they killed Prince, too, they’d sign their own death warrants.

  When had she started thinking of death as a bargaining chip?

  Prince moved so quickly Maggie didn’t even realize he had until his body, sliding fast over the spilled booze, feetfirst like a baseball player into home, barreled into Borachio’s legs and pitched him into his sledgehammering associate.

  Prince twisted onto his feet without looking back. He grabbed Maggie by the arm and hauled her down the stairs. Maggie scrambled not to fall. A bullet splintered the plaster wall of the stairwell over their heads.

  They sprinted across the dusty, abandoned saloon and had nearly made it to the door when a second gunshot cracked the air. Maggie felt the heat of it, even before Prince crumpled. She tripped over his fallen body and went down with him.

  Panic gripped Maggie from the inside out. She fisted his shirt in her hands, his jacket, and pulled herself upright.

  He groaned, eyes fluttering.

  Not dead, not dead.

  Footsteps cleared her head. She looked up, at Borachio approaching. His hat had flown off, and his dark hair was askew. He panted, pistol aimed at her head. The other two men pounded down the stairs behind him.

  “A shame,” he said. Then bang, a third shot. Maggie winced, and Borachio cried out, his hand a blossom of blood, his gun on the ground. She saw a black boot pass her, then looked up at John, gun raised, like some sort of avenging angel—or rather, as if hell had cracked open and a harried Satan had kicked him out.

  The sledgehammer man swore and stumbled back into his companion.

  John was on Borachio in a moment. His gun was tucked away, but Maggie caught the glint of a blade in his hand. John had his cousin twisted around, the side of his face streaked and spurting blood before Maggie knew what had happened. John slammed Borachio into the nearby wall and pressed his wrist into Borachio’s throat hard enough that he gagged and wheezed; his skin mottled crimson. Maggie heard something pop or break in his neck. “John, stop!” she blurted. “You’re going to kill him.”

  Tension rolled up John’s back. His shoulders bunched; then he stepped away. Borachio slumped, hacking, rubbing his throat. The gash on his temple left a shining splatter along the dust-covered floorboards. The two men had not budged from their positions near the bottom of the stairs. Only when John turned to them, snapping something in Italian, did they flinch and move to carry Borachio out.

  When they were gone, John hurried to crouch at Prince’s side. Maggie shifted back to give him room. “You idiot,” he growled through his teeth. He was shaking. Prince tried to say something. John tore Prince’s coat away, revealing the stain of red on his shirt.

  John made an awful noise, like a dog whimpering. He cut through the shirt with the same blade that had just cut a man’s face, and it was quiet for a moment, the sort of silence that grows in intensity and covers half the world. Then John choked out an exhale.

  “It only grazed you,” he said hoarsely. “Possibly nicked a rib, but that’s the worst of it. You’ll be fine.” The mask of ice John usually wore, the one that Maggie could pick and pick at but never unearth a hint of soul, was cracked all over, leaking with emotion. His eyes shot up full of wrath. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

  Prince sucked in air. “They’re not going to . . . come after you? Later?” Saying that, he was himself again—decent, reasonable, soft—despite the blood, his crazed hair, and hollow eyes.

  John snorted. “Those vigliacchi? Unlikely.”

  “I’m sorry,” Prince whispered. “I thought . . .”

  “You’re an idiot,” John said. “But so am I. I didn’t think Borachio would dare go after you so directly. I should have killed him.” His eyes flashed to Maggie, as if in accusation for stopping him.

  “Our cousin.” Prince winced, sitting up. Maggie came to his side and let him lean on her shoulder. His entire body trembled.

  “My cousin. You don’t have any direct relation to him.”

  “I would,” Prince muttered, “if you’d claim me as your brother for once in your life.”

  “That’s what you want?” John glowered; he tossed a hand to the dark spot of blo
odied floor just a few yards away. “Being my brother nearly cost you your life.”

  “If I were actually your brother,” Prince said in a low voice, “your enemies would be my enemies. My business your business. If I were actually your brother, we wouldn’t be here like this at all.”

  John’s lip curled. “Well, is it any wonder after a mess like this,” he said coldly, “why I wouldn’t want to go into business with you?”

  Prince laughed quietly, a damaged laugh. “I suppose not.”

  John averted his eyes. Borachio had hit him where it hurt, with Prince. He was too shaken, not that he showed it, to keep up his facade of hatred. “I should have told you,” John muttered. “Told you not to trust him.”

  “You could still open up Nassau County,” Prince said. He swallowed, hiding another tremor of pain. “With me.”

  “We discussed this,” John said quietly.

  “No. Just me. Leave Hey Nonny Nonny out of it.”

  Well. If ever there was a phrase Maggie never expected to come out of Pedro Morello’s mouth, it was that. Even John was shocked. “What?” he asked.

  “I know Long Island like the back of my hand,” Prince said. “If you turn a new profit, there goes the last of Borachio’s argument, and there’ll be no sideways deals. I’ll just work under you.”

  John’s reaction had the appearance of fury, but Maggie saw the flash of panic buried in his eyes.

  “Aw, but Prince,” Maggie said softly, “if you do that, you have to leave us.”

  To her continuing surprise, Prince said, “I know.”

  “You don’t know,” John snapped. “You’re in it or you’re not. You have no other loyalties, finito. No Leo, no Hey Nonny Nonny. No Hero.”

  “I’m ready,” Prince said.

  John said nothing. Maggie finally realized the dark flecks on his cheek and neck were blood.

  “It’s not about the money,” Prince whispered.

  “Pedro,” John said, tired, “you’re in love with her.”