Bum’s Rush: White Lightning Series, Book 2

by Debra Dunbar

  Bum’s Rush

  White Lightning Series, Book 2

  Debra Dunbar

  J.P. Sloan

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Acknowledgments

  About the Authors

  Also by Debra Dunbar

  Also by J.P. Sloan

  Chapter 1

  Baltimore, August 1926

  “Twenty cents, ma’am.”

  A portly bald man with mustaches that belonged in the last century handed over a package of salted pork, neatly tied with twine. Hattie smiled at him and dug in her pocket to pay the butcher, proud to be handing over real coin instead of wooden nickels that had been made to look real with her illusion magic. Lizzie’s boat-legging business was hopping with a literal monopoly on booze distribution across the waterways off the Chesapeake Bay, and Hattie was finally able to fill her family’s larder with plentiful and wholesome food, bought guilt-free with real money.

  Stepping down from the curb and melding into the crowd, she dropped her illusion of a well-to-do Druid Hill lady, and grinned. She’d been bolder about using her light-pinching powers the last few months, practicing and sharpening her skills by altering her appearance for each encounter. Sometimes she broadcasted the magic to everyone who might look her way, and sometimes she narrowed the focus so only one or two individuals could see the illusion. It was fun, spinning a new story for every city block she strode, ensuring that her voice matched whatever persona she’d assumed at the moment, tailoring her magic to what might best suit the situation at hand.

  Truth be told, it wasn’t just for fun, it was to hone her skill. What had happened in May underscored the need to think and act on the fly when the sharks circled her boat. And what better way to practice than on a glorious sunny morning, when everyday folk were going about their business buying groceries for Sunday dinner, and there wasn’t a shark in sight.

  An elderly lady hobbled across the street, and in between cars winding through the intersection Hattie pinched herself into the guise of a strapping young lad, offering an elbow for the woman to hold on her way to the opposite side. One of her favorite grocers gave her a nod as she shopped for greens in the guise of a weatherworn matron in black. She’d considered coming up with names for these personas, but the point was quick thinking, not indulgence.

  So many people were passing by as well as cars and trucks. A horse sometimes as well, though they were rarer than ever. There was a time not long ago when Hattie feared the city with all these eyes. She’d feared it would be too easy for them to see through her illusions, that there would be too high a cost to any magic she might need to perform, but after she’d tangled with the Baltimore Crew and its time pincher, she’d come to realize that all these eyes rarely ever saw anything. Her magic was actually cheaper in crowds than on the water.

  That realization had changed everything.

  Her last stop on her way home was always the flower stall. Ever since a young stranger had bought her flowers, allowing her a single moment of joy underneath that green canvas awning, she’d made a point to visit the stall every Sunday. The selection had evolved from the bright and dainty spring flowers to the bold bouquets of summer. Large, luscious sunflowers sat in rows, their cheerful color beckoning to her. Behind them, tubs of roses towered on thorny stems. Hattie hiked her basket of greens, potatoes, and packaged pork a bit higher up her arm and sauntered for the flower merchant, dropping her illusions and appearing as herself—a young Irish woman with bobbed red-blonde hair, freckles, and a hand-me-down gingham dress.

  Two tall men brushed past her, checking her a step toward the red brick walls of the bank building. She scowled at them, sniffing at the pall of rank and tarry cigarette fumes that drifted in their wake. Such was the cost of spending so much time in the city. Rudeness. The odor of the masses. Coughs and sneezes.

  She had none of that out on the water.

  Hattie took a step to catch her balance, and her purchases teetered in the crook of her elbow. The package of pork slipped from her basket, and she released a quiet yelp.

  A hand swept past her knee to grab the parcel before it hit the dirt of the street. A thick-boned boy of about twenty rose to her side, holding the paper-wrapped meat out to her.

  She took it with a faint smile, and said in the lingering accent of her homeland, “Thank you, lad.”

  He replied with a deep resonance that belied his age, and in a language she did not understand. Then the boy hopped along to follow the men who’d sent her meat tumbling in the first place, and Hattie shook her head, amused that the three were together.

  One of the ruffians reached behind him to grab the lad by the arm, jerking him forward a few steps. It must have been no small task, as the youth was easily twice their weight. These were clearly uncommonly strong men.

  And they were stepping in a straight line for the florist.

  The old Armenian who sold Hattie her flowers each Sunday blanched as the men approached. His tiny shoulders lifted, and he pivoted around his cash table, busying himself by wrapping some long-stemmed carnations for no one in particular.

  The taller of the two men lifted a hand to the others. “Is Sunday. Two weeks, Aram. You pay today.”

  A slick of sweat erupted across the florist’s brow as he continued to focus entirely on the bundle of carnations in his hands. “It’s a bad week.”

  “Two bad weeks,” the brute groused. “We come back without money…is trouble, I think.”

  To underscore the threat, he reached over and snatched the entire bundle of flowers from the vendor’s wrinkled hands, sending a flurry of petals scattering.

  The florist recoiled, a tremor settling over his shoulders. “I have no money.”

  “Then,” the brute declared with a nod to his compatriots, and a sniff of the carnations, “is trouble.”

  Hattie balled a fist, stepping closer. This was going to be a fine Sunday morning. Now she had a chance to put her powers to their proper use.

  The polite young man flexed his fingers and cracked his knuckles.

  Hattie eyed the mangled bunch of flowers in the other brute’s hand, then smirked. With a wiggle of her fingers, she pinched light directly over that bundle of carnations. The man didn’t notice, his eyes on the imminent violence as the young man moved forward.

  She dug deep and added another two senses to the illusion—the sense of sound and touch. It wasn’t cheap magic, but it was small, and hopefully would be quick.

  The younger lad looked down at his own fist as he heard a hiss. Then he peered over at the flowers. They stirred. Something long and thin emerged with a slither.

  His eyes shot wide as a green-scaled viper peered out from the center of the carnations, its head cocked back, mouth open to bare fangs.

  The florist’s stand erupted with thrown flowers and the blood curdling shrieks of the three thugs. The younger one tumbled backward i
nto a side table, knocking it and its contents out onto the street. His enormous frame spilled over the upended table onto the pavement, and only when he got to his feet did his high-pitched screaming cease. The lad sprinted up Light Street, turning onto Lombard and out of sight with remarkable speed, the remaining ruffians close on his heels.

  Hattie sucked in several breaths to stave off a wave of nausea, then rushed for the front of the stand as the florist struggled with the table.

  “Need a hand, old-timer?” she asked, gripping the opposite end of the table.

  They pulled it upright, and he smiled at her. “Thank you.”

  “You’re welcome.” She helped the old man collect the scattered flowers off the ground, watching as he spread them flat onto the table and began to rearrange them into bundles.

  “What was that about, then?” she asked.

  He remained silent for a long moment as he dropped the bundles of flowers into the cups that hadn’t smashed when they hit the ground. Finally, he shook his head and shrugged. “This is business.”

  “Not the sort of business I’m used to,” she replied.

  He pulled the last bundle onto a sheet of paper and wrapped it into a cone for Hattie, holding it out for her. “For your help, Miss.”

  She smiled, then fished a nickel from her clutch.

  He shook his head. “No, no. I insist. No one helps an old man anymore.”

  Hattie’s brow drew tight as she considered the poor old man. Then she set the nickel onto the table. “With hoodlums rolling you like that, you should take what you can get.”

  He sighed. “The Bratva won’t be satisfied with nickels, I fear.”

  She squinted at the strange word. “Bratva?”

  “They come from Russia. Since the Revolution, they have nowhere to ply their trade. So, they have come here.”

  “Their trade being two-bit protection rackets, I take it?”

  “That and more, if they can get away with it.” The florist handed her the flowers, and she took them, settling the bundle into her basket. Picking up the nickel, she pressed it into the old man’s hands.

  “We’ve got too much crime in this city, I think,” she muttered half to herself. “Someone ought to do something about it.”

  He shrugged again, then pocketed the nickel.

  Hattie fretted over it all as she returned home with her haul of food and flowers. Her mother stood in the kitchen stirring a large bowl of batter as the morning sunlight illuminated the lines on her face wreathed by her gray-streaked red hair.

  “Brought some salt pork, Ma,” Hattie declared as she set the basket onto the table.

  The woman nodded to Hattie over her shoulder. “Put the skillet on, then.”

  Hattie put some pork into the skillet, then poured black tea leaves into the kettle. A voice boomed from the back of the apartment as her father emerged from the bedroom.

  “’Attie? You get the bacon?”

  “Aye, Da.”

  He sauntered into the kitchen with a broad grin. His posture was straight, with newly added lean muscle in and around his chest and arms. Now that his cough had eased and he’d been able to sleep nights, the man was on the road to recovery. He threw his arms around Hattie, she felt a blaze of satisfaction and relief at his strength.

  As her mother started some flatcakes on a griddle, Hattie poured the tea. Pivoting away from the stove, she kept an eye on her father, who was absorbed in the day’s paper. With deft fingers, she fished the tiny dram of Aqua Vitae from the space between her bra and her sternum and pulled the stopper free with a gentle tug. A glass stem rose from the bright blue liquid. One single drop lingered from the bulb at the end of the stem, slipping off and down into Alton’s tea. Hattie replaced the stopper and double-checked that neither of her parents had seen.

  One drop of the magic elixir each Sunday. Leon was true to his word. The magical draught had restored her father’s health, and allowed him to return to day shifts. It had made all the difference in the world.

  They ate breakfast at the kitchen table and Hattie’s mother cocked her head as she considered the spread of flowers that were in a glass at the center of the table.

  “You shouldn’t be spending money on such frippery,” she scolded gently.

  Alton scowled. “They’re nice, Branna. We can afford to liven up the place, aye?”

  Her mother sighed. “There are better uses for what money we have, is all I’m saying.”

  “Best to enjoy them now.” Hattie poked a griddle cake with her fork. “Soon there won’t be any more flowers downtown, not if these Russian hooligans keep on strong-arming that poor old man.”

  Alton nodded. “They’re a menace. We have a few Russian men at Bethlehem. They’re all on about these no-good newcomers.”

  Branna frowned, “With the Italians running things here, you’d think there’d be some reckoning in store.”

  Alton snickered. “The Italians are big-picture sorts, love. These street brutes? They’re nothing but two-bit wolf’s heads. Not worth the Crew’s time to go shielding poor florists and such from the parasites.”

  “For all the protection money they skim from the vendors, you think they’d actually do some protecting,” Hattie grumbled.

  Alton shrugged. “Best not to get twisted up about’t. It’s nothing to do with us.”

  Branna concluded, “Well, if the law meant anythin’ in this city, someone would do something.”

  Hattie ate the last of her pork, nodding to herself. Perhaps someone would.

  As if reading her mind, her father asked, “You still have the ear of that gangster you met at the wharf?”

  She gripped her fork tightly, considering her response. She’d told her parents Vincent wasn’t a threat, and that they’d parted amicably, but they had no idea she’d been meeting the time pincher here and there since May. “I imagine I could scare him up, if I had occasion,” she replied, keeping her tone casual.

  “Then scare the boy up,” he bellowed. “Put those Baltimore Crew bastards onto these Russians. Problem solved in a fortnight!”

  Alton shot her a smile, and Hattie responded in kind. Such was the way with her father, to jump directly to the most absurd solution, then ease away when it turned out crazy. It was a joke then, and not just him ranting into the wind.

  He had no idea that Hattie was already meeting with Vincent Calendo once every two weeks, per the agreement they’d reached after dealing with Capstein and the Upright Citizens. They’d shared a near-death experience, and that forged something stronger than a mere connection. There was a mystery that lay in the unspoken bond between them—a mystery that was only partly unveiled by that demonic creature in Deltaville. The only hope they had to unravel it all was to work together.

  Which so far hadn’t been as easy as Hattie had hoped it might be.

  Vincent was a gangster, after all. He had sinister masters holding court in the Old Moravia Hotel. The Baltimore Crew. Vito Corbi. Even Vincent’s taciturn shadow, Lefty Mancuso. Especially Lefty. Vincent’s “handler” enjoyed releasing Vincent outside his supervision as much as he’d enjoy a swift kick to the nethers. Which made every two weeks something more like every three. The two of them had only met four times so far to discuss matters concerning the Hell pincher as well as their strange connection.

  Beyond that, they had very little in common. She was a free pincher. He was owned by the mafia. His story was the more common, since most pinchers on both sides of the Atlantic were identified early in life and scooped up by the various powers that be. In the New World, the real power right now was the mob, and they were who “owned” Vincent.

  The one time Hattie had brought up her own upbringing, it had seemed to pick at a raw nerve inside the time pincher. He’d stormed off, only to offer a wounded apology the next day. Hattie knew she was an exception to the rule— the rule being that pinchers were born to serve. If it weren’t for her parents sacrificing so much to keep her safe and free, she’d be just like Vincent—a tool fo
r the crime bosses.

  “Da?” she asked pushing aside her plate. “Back in the Old Country, before we knew what I was…” She took a moment to gather her thoughts as both of her parents stiffened. “Did anyone approach you? About me?”

  Alton shot a look to Branna. Her mother silently shook her head.

  Setting down his fork, Alton took a long pull of tea. As he put down the cup, he cleared his throat, and said, “Aye. They did.”

  “Who were they?”

  Her mother wrinkled her nose. “What brought this on?”

  “I’m curious. And I have a right to know, don’t I?”

  Branna eyed her sadly. “It doesn’t matter. Some things are best left to lie undisturbed.”

  Alton grumbled, “Branna…”

  “What?” his wife countered with a sharp tone. “Digging up the past is pointless. Nothing but bones underground. Best she lives her life, and we don’t tempt fate.”

  Alton shook his head. “What’s the harm in tellin’ the girl? It’s her history, no?”

  Branna closed her eyes and lifted her hands. “Fine. Tell her everything. You deal with the consequences if trouble comes to our door.”

  “I have kept her safe so far. Haven’t I?” Alton replied with a flat tone.

  Branna opened her eyes, and her face softened as she looked at her husband. “Aye, you have. We both have.”

  Alton shoved his plate forward, then turned to face Hattie. “They claimed to be from the Church—a secret order dedicated to finding and securing sorcerous elements from among the laity. They were to take you away where you’d be raised in a convent and become a nun.”