by Carol Miller
Finally she saw it. It was a one-story rectangular building that was made entirely of cinder blocks. They hadn’t been painted, so the whole place was a dull gray. A short stovepipe chimney stuck out from each end of the roof. Looking at the building, Daisy realized why it wasn’t visible from the road. It sat snuggled down in a gully just like a shorebird huddled low in its nest in the sand. If it had been constructed that way intentionally, it was brilliant. Without the men in the road and the vehicles in the field, the building simply vanished—no hide or hair of it if anyone unwelcome happened to drive by after hours. Very clever for a nip joint.
And it was definitely a nip joint. The front entrance consisted of a double sliding patio door, without the patio. A man stepped out holding two clear glass jars in his palms. They were filled with a colorless liquid. There was no mistaking its identity. It was ’shine. No one in southwestern Virginia would ever use a canning jar as a water bottle.
Daisy thumbed the clay chip in her pocket. Connor had said that the white marker was a drink, the red a jelly, and the blue a canning. She was there, so she might as well collect her jelly jar. That was the only way to talk to someone, and talking to someone was the only way to find out anything about the men who had broken in to her bakery.
She didn’t recognize the fellow carrying the canning jars. Clasping the mountain dew to his chest like he was guarding a pair of million-dollar diamonds, he passed her and Chris with a slight nod. Just before they reached the sliding door, Daisy stopped and put her hand on Chris’s arm. She didn’t know quite what to say, but she wanted to prepare him for what they might find inside. The equivalent of a squalid animal stall came to mind.
“I’ve never been here before,” she began, “but my guess about what we’ll see—”
Not waiting for her to finish, Chris pulled open the door. “After you.”
His tone was courteous and absolutely nonchalant, void of any nervousness, any bewilderment, or even any curiosity. Daisy blinked at him.
“After you,” he said again, blinking right back at her.
Confused, Daisy half stepped and half stumbled through the doorway. She felt like she was missing something—something important—but she was too startled by the inside of the nip joint to ponder it further. It wasn’t anything like she had expected. The interior of the cinder block building was the complete opposite of its exterior. There were no dull gray walls or a concrete patio-style floor. No threadbare sofas or rickety bar stools. No plastic jugs stacked up in the corner or dirty, chipped glasses lying on a makeshift table.
The place was fancy, really fancy. It could have easily been the smoking lounge at a hunt club—a seriously exclusive hunt club. Mahogany paneling lined the walls. There was gorgeous parquet flooring, burgundy leather chairs and ottomans, pecan card tables, and an intricately carved matching pecan bar. Even the twin set of woodstoves on either end of the room were spotless and ornate, with glossy enamel and shining brass.
Irrespective of her limited experience with such locales, Daisy was fully confident that this was an aberration for nip joints—an extreme aberration—otherwise her husband would have spent a lot more time at the one in Danville. If the Pittsylvania Historical Society’s accommodations had been even half as lavish, it wouldn’t have had any trouble fund-raising, especially if a snort or two of home brew were served alongside the tea and pudding.
In one regard, however, Daisy had anticipated correctly. The moment that she and Chris entered the building, every activity ceased. Laughter stilled, stories were cut short, sentences trailed away. Men stopped moving about, stopped shuffling cards, and stopped drinking. And they were notably all men. There wasn’t a female in the bunch. Daisy couldn’t help but wonder whether that was mere chance, or downright deliberate.
“That Beulah has got a real mess on her hands.”
Daisy’s head snapped around. Standing at the edge of the pecan bar—unloading fresh, full jars from a wooden crate—was Connor’s hardware store buddy, Duke. Apparently, Duke was making a delivery today in addition to the one that he had made last Saturday, and neither one had any relation to plumbing or electrical.
“I was at the salon all morning working on it,” Duke said, with the placidity of a stolid old fisherman who was no longer the least bit staggered by whatever odd or unexpected creature happened to flop into his boat. “Connor thinks it’s the line from the well, but I ain’t so sure.”
“No?” Daisy mumbled. Far less stolid and more staggered, she was trying to process what she was seeing. Since when did Duke dabble in wet goods? She had always considered him a consumer—an inveterate consumer—not a producer.
“We’re going to have to talk to Emily,” he replied. “We’re going to have to do more digging.”
“You are?”
“I can’t think of a way around it. We gotta take a look at what’s going on down there.”
Aunt Emily would not be happy. She was very protective of her home—understandably enough—and she wasn’t keen on people digging parts of it up. But Daisy couldn’t worry about that now. She had to focus. She was at the home of the red clay chip, and she might never get there again.
“Duke,” Daisy reached into her pocket, “who do I cash this in with?”
As she held up the chip, a man who at the time of her arrival had been stacking sparkling shot glasses on the opposite end of the bar moved toward a door in the corner. The door blended in so well with the mahogany paneling that Daisy hadn’t noticed it before. The man knocked once—quietly—then slipped through, closing the door quickly behind him. It was done with such furtiveness that it gave her a nervous twinge.
Scratching his mostly bald head, Duke frowned at the chip in Daisy’s hand. “How did you get that?”
“What does it matter?” she answered. “I’ve got it, and I’d like my jelly jar.”
“How did you know it’s for a jelly?”
Daisy restrained a smile. Although Duke didn’t realize it, it was a funny question coming from him, considering that his buddy Connor was the one who had given her the information. But she certainly didn’t tattle on him. Without Connor, she wouldn’t have a clue about the chip.
“What does it matter?” Daisy repeated. “It’s not all hush-hush, is it?”
“Naw.” Duke shrugged. “I just ain’t seen you in here before.”
“Well, I’m in here now.”
He glanced at the door in the paneling, as did the other denizens of the nip joint. Daisy’s gaze followed theirs. She was curious about what lay behind the door. The man had gone through it so swiftly that she hadn’t caught even a glimpse of the other side.
“May I have my jar, please?” she prodded Duke after a minute. “Or will you tell me who I can get the jar from?”
The place wasn’t at all like a normal pub or tavern. There wasn’t an obvious bartender. Nobody was taking money or pouring drinks. Interestingly enough, there wasn’t any money in sight. There were some other markers, though. A couple of white chips on the border of one of the card tables. A blue chip on the arm of a leather chair. But none of the men appeared to be purchasing chips, or even redeeming them. It was a strange secret society, and Daisy couldn’t figure out the rules.
Duke glanced at the door in the paneling a second time. He—along with all the others—seemed to be waiting for something, or someone. The boss, perhaps? Maybe it was the door to the owner or manager’s office. That would make sense. Then Duke wasn’t actually a producer, which made even more sense. He was just a delivery chap. Plumbing and electrical by day, bootlegging at night, evidently.
“All right,” he said at last. “I’ll get you the jar.”
Heading toward the center of the bar, Duke squatted down out of sight. As Daisy waited for him to reappear, she looked at Chris. He didn’t look back at her. Just like in the car when they had been stopped by the men and their Mossbergs, he didn’t move or speak. No one else in the nip joint spoke either, but they were all looking at her. Daisy could see
it from out of the corner of her eyes. And she was beginning to feel exceedingly unwelcome.
Clearly there was an issue. These men didn’t like strangers—or women—or a nonmember of their strange secret society holding one of their precious little chips in her fingers. But regardless of the reason for it, their gross lack of geniality confirmed to Daisy that she wouldn’t learn a thing about the previous holder of the chip, at least not from them, not voluntarily.
Duke surfaced with two jars. He set them down on the bar in front of Daisy. Both were standard-size glass jelly jars with metal screw-top lids. One was filled with a clear, colorless liquid, and the other with a clear, amber liquid.
“Which do you want?” Duke asked her.
Daisy motioned toward the amber jar. “Is it aged, or is it applejack?”
He responded with a derisive snort. “Ain’t no applejack here. Ain’t no applejack ever here.”
Apparently the men were particular about their likker, very particular. If applejack wasn’t considered acceptable, then neither would Aunt Emily’s gooseberry brandy. Which was a shame, because Aunt Emily made a darn fine gooseberry brandy.
“I’ll go with the aged then,” Daisy said.
Having selected her jar, she offered Duke the red chip. He didn’t take it from her. She offered it again, almost pressing it into his palm, but he moved his hand away. It was as though he wouldn’t—or couldn’t—touch the chip. Daisy’s brow furrowed. She had never seen Duke act so peculiar. He was usually about the same as Connor. He fixed the lamp or the tub, maybe gossiped a little about whoever else’s lamp or tub he had recently fixed, and was all-around friendly and helpful. Something was decidedly off.
She didn’t know what it was—her being there, or Chris being there, or the boss behind the door in the mahogany paneling being there. Except Daisy did know that she didn’t want to make it any worse, especially not for Duke, who she ordinarily liked and was evidently making every effort to fix Beulah’s flood. That meant it was time for her to leave. She hadn’t gotten what she came for, not a stitch of information about the men who had broken in to Sweetie Pies, but that couldn’t be helped.
Sliding the chip back into her pocket, Daisy picked up the amber jar and turned to Chris. “Are you ready to go?”
He was just starting to nod in reply when the door in the paneling suddenly swung open.
“He better as hell be ready to go, because I told him the last goddam time he was here never to come back!”
CHAPTER
10
“The last…” Daisy’s jaw sagged. “The last time you were here?”
That explained it. That explained everything. Why Chris didn’t make a single remark about the cinder block building or what they were doing there. Why he didn’t appear surprised—or flummoxed—or the least bit inquisitive about any of it. It turned out that he hadn’t been in shock at the sight of the men and their Mossbergs in the middle of the tractor road. He had seen them before. He had seen it all before.
Except that raised a whole new set of questions. If Chris knew the entire time where she was going, why didn’t he say so? The farther she had driven down Cotton Patch Road, the more antsy and uncomfortable he had become. Daisy had assumed that it was because he was tired of staring at dried cornstalks. But now it seemed a lot more like he hadn’t wanted her to find the red rooster and the tractor road. Why? Why hadn’t he just told her that this wasn’t his first visit to the nip joint?
Chris didn’t respond. He turned toward the opening in the mahogany paneling. Daisy followed suit. Two men emerged. One was the fellow who had knocked on the door earlier and then disappeared behind it. The other was Rick. Daisy’s jaw sagged lower.
Paying no attention to her, Rick spoke to Chris. “You better have a damn good explanation.”
If he had one, he didn’t share it.
Rick’s gaze hardened. “Don’t act like you don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. We both know that you’ve been here, and we both know that you weren’t supposed to come back.”
“It wasn’t my idea,” Chris answered in a sullen tone.
“Oh, no?” Rick retorted. “Then whose idea was it?”
“Mine,” Daisy said.
Both Rick and Chris looked at her.
“It was my idea,” she confirmed.
Rick frowned. “What are you doing, Daisy?”
“I—” She stopped. What was she doing? She wasn’t so sure anymore. The original purpose of the expedition had been to get some information, but everything that she had learned so far was more troubling than helpful.
Turning back to Chris, Rick said, “You shouldn’t have brought her.”
“I didn’t,” he replied. “Weren’t you listening? She brought me.”
Daisy watched Rick’s fingers curl into fists. She didn’t understand why Chris had kept his previous visit to this place a secret from her, nor did she understand why he had been banned from visiting again, but she did know that Rick had a seriously short temper. And it was typically even shorter when he had been drinking, of which there was an extremely high likelihood, considering that they were in a nip joint. There was also an extremely high likelihood that Rick was armed—along with nearly every other man in the room—so it was best not to let things escalate. Her date with Chris had already ended on a sour enough note. There was no need to add a gunshot wound and a hospital visit to it.
“He isn’t making it up,” Daisy told Rick. “I drove. My car, my plan.” Then she glowered at Chris. “You could have mentioned somewhere along the way that you had been here before and gotten kicked out. I don’t appreciate being played for a fool.”
“You’re wrong.” Chris shook his head. “I didn’t play you for a fool. I would never do that.”
His words sounded genuine, and he joined them with a deeply apologetic smile. It was such an earnest and charming smile that Daisy found her irritation retreating somewhat. Perhaps she had been too hasty to judge him. Maybe he wasn’t really keeping secrets. Maybe it was all a misunderstanding.
Rick gave a dubious grunt. “You need to be more selective in your choice of company, Daisy.”
“My choice of company?” She raised an eyebrow at him. “That’s rich coming from you. Where are we standing? Who are your friends?”
“They include your husband.”
“You…” Chris stammered, staring at her. “You have a husband?”
Rick chortled. “Didn’t share that morsel, now did you, darlin’?”
Daisy’s hands tightened around the jelly jar. She felt a strong urge to hurl it at Rick’s simpering face but managed to restrain herself. It would be a terrible waste of good likker.
He looked at the jar. “Who did you get that from?”
It sounded so similar to what Duke had asked her that Daisy responded the same way she had to him, only with a bit more bite. “What does it matter to you, darlin’?”
“It matters to me,” Rick informed her, “because this is my place you’re standing in and that’s my jar you’ve got in your lil’ paws.”
That surprised Daisy enough to silence her for a moment. It annoyed her, because she knew that she shouldn’t be surprised. She should have guessed who the owner might be. If there was any country boy who could create a country club nip joint, it was Rick Balsam. It wasn’t because he was so highbrow, certainly not. There wasn’t a highbrow muscle in all of Rick’s pretty body. His rusty pickup with bullet holes in the sides of the bed and his ramshackle trailer with more blueticks and coon hounds in the yard than grass were proof enough of that. But Rick had an undeniable talent for making—and selling—corn whiskey. If that talent extended to an exceedingly lucrative distribution network along half the eastern seaboard, then it surely also included a cinder block building much closer to home.
“I gave her the jar,” Duke confessed. His previous placidity had vanished. Now there was a quiver in his words that betrayed a significant degree of anxiety, as though he feared Rick’s potential wr
ath.
“No worries.” Rick nodded at him without any sign of ire. “I know how persuasive our dear Ducky can be.”
Daisy growled. Rick smiled.
“She had a chip,” Duke went on.
“Did she indeed?” The smile widened.
“A red one. I didn’t take it from her. I didn’t know if I should. I didn’t want you to think…” Duke didn’t finish the sentence.
“You did the right thing.” Rick nodded again, then gestured toward the crate that Duke had been unloading when Daisy first walked in. “Did you get everything moved and organized like we talked about?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good. That’s real good.”
Daisy let out a low sigh. So Duke wasn’t just a delivery chap. He was Rick’s delivery chap. One of Rick’s trusty bootleggers. Heaven help him.
Rick looked at her. “Something on your mind, darlin’?”
“For starters,” she snapped, “you can quit calling me darlin’.”
“But Matt used to call you that all the time. I remember it well.” Rick cocked his head. “Don’t you?”
If she had been a cobra, she would have spit at him for that remark. Daisy figured that her next best option was leaving.
“Well, this has been heaps of fun,” she muttered. “And now I think it’s about time for me to go on home.”
She began walking toward the sliding door, but Rick stopped her.
“Aren’t you forgeting something?”
With reluctance Daisy turned back. He held out his hand.
She clutched the amber jar protectively. “I earned this, and I’m keeping it.”
“You earned it?” Rick echoed with a grin.
“I drove all the way out here, didn’t I?” She added under her breath, “And I had to deal with you.”
The grin continued. “I’m glad you think so highly of my product.”
As much as she would have liked to, Daisy couldn’t argue with him there. Rick’s moonshine was second to none. And she could definitely use a drink after this cheerless adventure.
Moving closer to her, Rick dropped his tone so that only she could hear him. “All you have to do is ask, Daisy. I’ll give you whatever you want.”