The Rum Runner

by Christine Marciniak

  That evening after dinner she and her mother and sister put on somber-colored dresses and headed across the street to Greiner’s funeral home to pay tribute to Tomas Nagy. There was a large crowd, mainly of men who looked uncomfortable in ill-fitting suits.

  Irene greeted Alice and her sister like old friends and thanked them for coming and being such a help.

  Mama took Irene’s hands in hers. “I, too, lost a husband. It is very difficult. I know. If there is anything I can do for you, please let me know. Even simply a cup of coffee and a listening ear.”

  Tears spilled over in Irene’s eyes. “Thank you. Thank you so much.”

  They moved on to let others comfort the widow, and paid their respects to the deceased, kneeling in prayer by his coffin before moving toward the back of the room.

  She couldn’t be in the building without thinking about her father’s funeral. Sometimes the pain was as fresh as if it had all happened only yesterday, and other times it seemed impossible he’d ever been a part of their lives at all. She remembered standing in the front of the room, by the coffin, accepting the greetings of well-wishers. She’d stood stoic and dry-eyed, sure she had to be strong in order for him to be proud of her.

  Her eyes weren’t dry now, and she was old enough and wise enough to know that didn’t make her weak.

  Mama was in conversation with a neighbor, and Douglas appeared from nowhere and made off with Marty. Alice looked around for Hank, sure that he was here someplace. Of course, since he was a good friend of the family, she couldn’t expect Hank to have time for her tonight, but she would like a chance to say hello.

  When someone tapped her on the shoulder, she turned, a smile on her face, expecting to see Hank. Instead she found herself face to face with Jiggy Malone. The smile stayed frozen in place, although now she didn’t feel at all like smiling.

  “Miss Grady, may I have a word with you? We can step outside on the porch. Get a bit of air.”

  This wasn’t how she’d expected to encounter him, but she’d take what she could get.

  “Of course.” She followed him out into the cool evening, where a light mist was falling.

  “I knew your father,” Jiggy started to say, his eyes showing nothing but compassion. “As I said, we were in the Knights of Columbus together. He was a good man, and a dedicated one. I suspect you are a lot like him, and you want to get to the bottom of a mystery. You want to understand why someone would shoot a humble fisherman like Tomas Nagy.”

  She hesitated before answering. Was this a trick? And if so, in what way? She supposed there’d be no harm in admitting she wanted to know more.

  “Yes. I would like to know that.”

  “And you don’t think it was simple robbery.”

  Alice was confused. If this man had anything to do with it, why would he be bringing all this up? That made no sense. “I think there may be something else involved, yes.”

  “And, like your father, you won’t rest until you get answers.”

  She supposed that was true, but she said nothing.

  “I have answers.”

  “Yes?”

  “You need to investigate a man named Vince Salerno.”

  A chill ran down her spine. There was that name again.

  “You think he has something to do with it?”

  “I can’t say for sure, of course, but I do know Tomas had gotten involved with him lately. I’d warned him against it, but he was one for taking risks, was Tomas. In this case, it doesn’t appear the risk paid off.”

  “So you think the answers lie with Vince Salerno?”

  “I’m sure of it,” Jiggy said. He put a finger to the side of his nose, in a goodbye gesture and slipped down the steps and out into the misty night.

  Alice watched him go, wondering how she could discover who was telling her the truth.

  Chapter Sixteen

  The room was hot and stuffy and crowded, and the flowers smelled of death. Maybe not death, but that overly sweet smell that is meant to counteract death in the funeral parlor. It was oppressive.

  Hank tugged at his collar and looked around the room for Alice. He’d seen her come in but had been involved in a conversation with Patsy Finley and hadn’t been able to go to her. Now he wanted her and couldn’t find her.

  His palms were starting to sweat, and his heart was beating too fast. The body of his friend, looking as if he were sleeping peacefully in the front of the room, mocked death. Death did not look peaceful and serene. Death looked like mutilated bodies and despair.

  “You don’t look so good,” Patsy said to him. “You should get some air.”

  Hank didn’t need any further urging.

  He stepped out onto the porch in time to see Jiggy striding down the street, and Alice, standing by the railing watching him go.

  Alice and Jiggy? Had they been talking? He grabbed the side of the door for support. He’d had no chance to warn Alice to stay away from Jiggy. What had happened? What had been set in motion that he couldn’t stop? No. He had to stop it, whatever it was. For now, Alice was safe and Jiggy was gone and that was all that mattered.

  She turned and saw him then and her eyes widened as she rushed toward him.

  “Hank! Are you quite all right? You don’t look well.”

  He took a deep breath, gulping in air as if he were emerging from a deep-sea dive.

  “I’m fine.” His clammy hands perhaps proved that a lie.

  She took his hands in hers.

  “We’ll go to my house. I’ll make you a cup of tea. You can sit and relax.”

  “I should stay…”

  “And pass out? Making more stress for poor Irene. No, come with me. I’ll just pop back inside and tell my mother we’re going.”

  “Tell mine as well,” he said, for once thinking to spare his own mother some worry.

  Alice wrinkled her brow. “I’m afraid I don’t know your mother. I’ll tell Douglas. Will that work?”

  He nodded, suddenly finding himself incapable of speech as she hurried inside. Maybe he was going to pass out. That would be inconvenient. Head between the knees stops that, right? Wasn’t that what his mother always told him? He sat on the damp front steps and lowered his head.

  He’d seen friends scattered in little pieces around him, but he couldn’t stomach seeing one laid out neatly in a coffin? What was the matter with him? What kind of a man was he?

  The rushing sound in his head began to subside and a bit of warmth returned to his fingertips. Where was Alice? Certainly, she should have found her mother and Douglas by now. Deep breath. He would be okay. Another deep breath. He was not in France. It would be okay.

  The door opened, and he glanced up to see Alice looking down at him.

  “Can you make it across the street?” she asked, her voice full of compassion.

  “Should be able to. Feeling a bit better.”

  “Lean on me,” she instructed as he stood up.

  As much as he was loath to lean on anyone, and especially a woman, he found himself doing just that. She led him across the street and up the stairs to her own porch. Then she settled him on a damask-covered davenport in the sitting room and turned on the lamp, giving the room a cozy glow.

  “I’ll make you a cup of tea and be right back,” she promised.

  He nodded meekly and looked around the room, finally able to breathe again away from the cloying closeness of the funeral parlor. It was a nice room, fairly feminine in nature, with lots of pastels and florals, but that wasn’t surprising seeing as three women lived here alone.

  There were pictures on the mantel, and he felt steady enough to stand and look at them. Framed snapshots of young girls with their father and mother. A wedding portrait in a silver frame and a portrait of a smiling Sean Grady, in police uniform, nestled in a black-bordered frame.

  Alice came back into the sitting room, carrying a tray with two cups of tea and a plate of gingersnaps. She set it on the coffee table.

  “You seem to have your colo
r back. Feeling better?”

  “Yes, thank you.” He sat back down on the couch, leaving room should she choose to sit next to him. She handed him a cup of tea but didn’t sit. He took a sip and was pleasantly surprised to find a taste of whiskey within. He looked up at her, one eyebrow raised in question.

  “Medicinal, of course. You looked as if you needed it.”

  He wasn’t sure what to say to that. He preferred if people thought him invincible. He took another sip of the tea and Alice sat beside him.

  “I understand, you know,” she said, her hands folded loosely in her lap. “Ever since my father’s funeral I get heart palpitations when I go in a funeral home.”

  “Do you think we’re the only ones?” he asked and was rewarded with an endearing smile.

  “I doubt it. Perhaps some people are just better at hiding it.” She picked up her own teacup, and he couldn’t help wondering if she’d given herself some medicinal whiskey as well. “Have a gingersnap. Mama made them this afternoon.”

  He did as he was told and found that gingersnaps went quite well with whiskey-laced tea.

  “Will you be at the funeral tomorrow?” He wouldn’t mind having someone to lean on, in a purely figurative sense, tomorrow.

  She shook her head. “I have to work.”

  “I’d rather be at work,” he said under his breath.

  “If you are at work aren’t you out at sea?”

  “Exactly.”

  She reached out and put a comforting hand on his knee. “You know how much your being there will mean to Irene and the children.”

  “Too bad I have to be there sober.” As soon as he said it, he wished he could pull the words back. This wasn’t his brother or one of the crew he was bantering around with. She was a cop and he was an idiot.

  “Some things just have to be dealt with sober.”

  “Most things these days.”

  She laughed. “Oh, I don’t know, you and your brother seem to have your ways.”

  Laughing was a good sign. Her hand was still on his knee and he put his hand over hers.

  “Ways I probably shouldn’t tell you.” He winked at her.

  “Probably not,” she agreed, but there was no reproach in her voice.

  He put down his teacup and took her hand in both of his.

  “How is it our paths never crossed before this?”

  “I think we ran in different circles.” She smiled, and he noticed a dimple in her cheek. It was completely endearing. “You were probably a few years ahead of me in school.”

  This was true. She’d said she was twenty-seven and he was thirty. Three years can be a lifetime difference when you are school age.

  “I suppose that’s true.”

  “And let me guess,” she continued. “You were on the football team and maybe even the baseball team, and all the pretty girls gathered around you and sighed, hoping you’d notice them.”

  He remembered playing baseball in high school. A lifetime ago. He’d been a pretty decent pitcher. “I did play baseball and one season of football,” he acknowledged. And the rest of it? Was that true? His ego would like to think it was, but his own memory didn’t quite jive. “And what about you? Let me guess. You were in the band?” He took a stab in the dark.

  She shook her head and her eyes shone. “Can’t tell one note from another.”

  “You were in the cooking club?”

  “Already told you I don’t cook,” she pointed out. “You’re very bad at this.”

  He hung his head in mock shame. “You’re right. I am. What did you do in high school?”

  “Read, mostly. Hung out with Trudy and Mark and some other friends. I wasn’t one of the shining lights.”

  “I wish I’d known you then,” he said. All those wasted years when they could have been spending time together.

  “You wouldn’t have looked twice at me! I was awkward and skinny and completely tongue-tied if some boy tried to talk to me. I was much happier reading my books.”

  “I’m not so shallow that I only think about looks,” he protested.

  “Not now,” she agreed. “But at seventeen?”

  He wasn’t even going to argue that his seventeen-year-old self wasn’t shallow. Of course, he’d been shallow. That pretty much went with the territory of being seventeen.

  “Did you go to college?” she asked. “Before you went off to war?”

  “I did a couple of years at Rutgers but would have rather been out on the boat. Mother wanted me to get an education, though, so I obliged. When the chance came to enlist, I jumped at it, fool that I was.”

  “I think it was noble and brave.”

  He was oddly touched by that. He pulled her close to him and kissed her. To his relief, she happily and eagerly kissed him back, putting down her teacup and putting her free hand behind his neck and running her fingers through his hair.

  How had he gone so long without knowing her? How had he even thought that he could do without seeing her anymore? He would do anything to keep her in his life. He had to.

  The door opened, and they jumped apart so quickly that Alice knocked over her teacup.

  “Oh dear,” Mrs. Grady said, taking in the scene, and rushed to the kitchen for a towel, Alice following right behind her.

  He pulled a handkerchief out of his pocket and tried to wipe up some of the spilled tea with that, but it wasn’t terribly effective.

  Alice came back with a towel and wiped up the tea. Her mother followed her back in.

  “I certainly didn’t mean to interrupt anything,” she said, and he got the distinct feeling that she was rather glad there was something going on worthy of interruption. “I’ll just go upstairs now and let you two have some privacy.”

  “No!” Alice protested. “Don’t be silly, Mama. We don’t want to chase you out of your own sitting room.”

  Hank wasn’t sure he agreed with that sentiment. He wouldn’t object at all to a little more privacy. But then, he had a perfect place to take her if he wanted privacy, even if it wasn’t nearly as comfortable as the sitting room. He finished his tea in a few long gulps, no point in wasting the whiskey, and stood up.

  “Alice, would you care to go for a walk with me?”

  “I’d be delighted,” she said, and then started gathering up the tea tray things.

  “Leave it, dear,” Mrs. Grady said. “I’ll tend to it.”

  “Thank you, Mama.” She kissed her mother on the cheek and then tucked her hand into Hank’s and they headed out the door.

  “Mind walking down to the Mary B?”

  “It’s a lovely night for a walk,” she said.

  It wasn’t. It was still misty and damp and all in all a night better spent cozily in a sitting room rather than walking the causeway, but if he was with her, it would be lovely and supposed she must feel the same way.

  “Why do you not think you are good company?” Alice asked with surprising candor. “I enjoy spending time with you.”

  He was glad it was dark, and she couldn’t see the blush he was sure came to his cheeks.

  “Even after my breakdown at the funeral home?” He’d rather forget the whole incident, but maybe it was better to get it out in the open.

  “What about it? So you needed some air. It happens a lot at funeral homes.” Alice seemed to genuinely not see the problem. He certainly did; how could she not?

  “It’s not just funeral homes. It can happen any time. I hate enclosed spaces.”

  “Isn’t your boat an enclosed space?”

  “I suppose, technically. But there is wide open space all around me, and that’s what counts.”

  “You saw horrible things during the war.” It wasn’t a question and Hank didn’t bother answering it. Of course he saw horrible things during the war. War was full of horrible things. “But you’ve seen nice things since. Doesn’t that count for anything?”

  “No.”

  With a featherlight touch she put her hand on his arm. He forced himself not to shrink a
way. He wanted her to touch him. He wanted to touch her. But he wanted to keep up his walls more. His walls kept him safe.

  “I disagree.”

  “What do you disagree with?” he snapped and now he did pull back from her. “How can you disagree with how I feel? It’s my mind. They are my demons. You can’t tell me how to act toward them.”

  “I have demons, too,” she said softly.

  He scoffed. “You weren’t in a war.”

  “No. Bad things happen other places than war.”

  He wanted to argue with her, but really, she was right. He reached out and touched her hand and she let him wrap her fingers in his.

  “What are your demons? Is it from when your father was killed?”

  “No.” Her voice was soft, and he wondered if she had as hard a time sharing hers as he had sharing his. If so, they had that much in common anyway. “I wasn’t there when it happened. I didn’t see it. Of course, that doesn’t stop me from imagining it and having nightmares about it, but no. That’s not it.” She was silent for so long that he thought she wasn’t going to tell him more. Now he wished it wasn’t dark. He wanted to see her face, to try to divine her thoughts from her expression.

  “It was a few years ago,” she finally said. “When they were opening the new town hall. Pole sitting was all the rage.”

  Oh God. He knew what she was going to tell him. He remembered the story. The crazed man who climbed the flag pole outside the new town hall. He’d fallen to his death. It was quite the talk of the town when he’d come in to port the next time.

  “You saw the man fall?” Hank asked gently. It wasn’t the same as being in the trenches in France, but he could see how it might give one nightmares.

  “He didn’t fall. He jumped.” Her tone was flat as if something inside her had died. “And it was because of me.”

  “He jumped because of you? Did you know him?” Was this some spurned lover? He’d never heard that part of the story before.

  “I didn’t know him. I was the one who spotted him up there. I tried to talk him down. And…it didn’t work.” She paused, and he waited for her to continue. “He landed at my feet.” Another pause, and he imagined she was picturing the scene.