Whiskey River by Loren D. Estleman Page A
Authors: Loren D. Estleman
Tags: Fiction, Historical
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end of a loading dock lit by a bare overhead bulb. The other cars arranged themselves around the dock, a ragtag cohort of Essexes, Lincolns, and Studebakers with missing fenders and rocker panels rusted through. Their exhaust pipes smoked thickly in the subzero air.
We got out. The wind off the lake had razors in it. Jack vaulted onto the dock, pounded on a door next to the closed bay, and went inside when it opened, tipping a brief L of yellow light from inside. The rest of us stood around with our hands in our pockets, stamping life into feet numbed by the inadequacy of old car heaters.
The lake was a great empty black hole spreading east to the blank sky and west to a lonely scattering of lights that was the city of Monroe, twenty miles south of Detroit. I felt the emptiness in the pit of my stomach. The cars seemed small and fragile compared to that bleak distance. I couldn’t help thinking of Little Augie Bustamente, feeding the fish on the floor of the lake.
“Colder’n a witch’s tit, all right,” said Andy Kramm next to me. “I wouldn’t turn down a pull on that flask of yours. Jack’s chicken soup just makes me piss.”
I got it out and handed it to him. I watched him tip it up. “Is it true he doesn’t drink?”
“Nothing like the Creature to warm up the tubes. You buy good liquor.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and returned the flask. “Oh, he don’t say no to a beer when he’s thirsty. He ain’t the only leg to steer away from harder stuff. Jack says it’s what separates him from the suckers on the other end, but I say if it gets out he won’t touch his own liquor, it won’t be good for business.”
“You mean Joey’s liquor.”
“Sure. Ain’t that what I said?” He moved off, smiling.
Chapter Six
A CHAIN RATTLED AND the bay doors swung outward on parched hinges, pushed by Jack and a solid-looking fat man in an earflapped hunting cap and streaked overalls. The inside of the building was a cavern lit by a row of ceiling bulbs, stacked to the rafters with stenciled wooden crates and charred barrels and smelling heavily of sawdust and sour mash. It was a warm stink, like the interior of a stable, and took the edge off the bitter wind. I hadn’t seen that much beer and whiskey stored in one place since the early days of Prohibition when the bulls were still gleefully smashing up the distilleries in the warehouse district for newsreel photographers. I could not conceive of its value on the 1930 market.
I had to scramble out of the way while the men in Jack’s party, unbidden, formed three lines and began loading crates bucket-brigade fashion into the trunks and tonneaus of the cars parked at the dock. Jack, the hard fat man, and Bass Springfield brought out the crates and handed them down one by one to the first men in line, who followed suit. The cars filled with miraculous speed.
Nonparticipation is the reporter’s hallmark, even when the event involves a perfectly legal transaction under Canadian law. In this case the efficiency of the system would only have suffered had I tried to take a hand. I had toured the River Rouge plant with Henry Ford and monitored the Detroit Police Department’s twelve-week officer training course, and neither operation had worked more smoothly or with less waste. I stood out of the base path and conducted spot interviews.
Most of the loaders were in their twenties and younger, boys from poor neighborhoods whose heroes drove sixteen-cylinder Auburns and wore alpaca coats with tailored pockets for their revolvers. As they worked they leered at one another as if the common labor in which they were engaged—again, no laws had yet been broken—were somehow naughtier and less prosaic than stacking cartons in a market; as if they shared a practical and unprintably dirty joke. Asking them questions was not rewarding, unless sniggering and winking could be called good copy.
The oldest, a tall bareheaded bald man in his late forties named
We got out. The wind off the lake had razors in it. Jack vaulted onto the dock, pounded on a door next to the closed bay, and went inside when it opened, tipping a brief L of yellow light from inside. The rest of us stood around with our hands in our pockets, stamping life into feet numbed by the inadequacy of old car heaters.
The lake was a great empty black hole spreading east to the blank sky and west to a lonely scattering of lights that was the city of Monroe, twenty miles south of Detroit. I felt the emptiness in the pit of my stomach. The cars seemed small and fragile compared to that bleak distance. I couldn’t help thinking of Little Augie Bustamente, feeding the fish on the floor of the lake.
“Colder’n a witch’s tit, all right,” said Andy Kramm next to me. “I wouldn’t turn down a pull on that flask of yours. Jack’s chicken soup just makes me piss.”
I got it out and handed it to him. I watched him tip it up. “Is it true he doesn’t drink?”
“Nothing like the Creature to warm up the tubes. You buy good liquor.” He wiped his mouth on the back of his hand and returned the flask. “Oh, he don’t say no to a beer when he’s thirsty. He ain’t the only leg to steer away from harder stuff. Jack says it’s what separates him from the suckers on the other end, but I say if it gets out he won’t touch his own liquor, it won’t be good for business.”
“You mean Joey’s liquor.”
“Sure. Ain’t that what I said?” He moved off, smiling.
Chapter Six
A CHAIN RATTLED AND the bay doors swung outward on parched hinges, pushed by Jack and a solid-looking fat man in an earflapped hunting cap and streaked overalls. The inside of the building was a cavern lit by a row of ceiling bulbs, stacked to the rafters with stenciled wooden crates and charred barrels and smelling heavily of sawdust and sour mash. It was a warm stink, like the interior of a stable, and took the edge off the bitter wind. I hadn’t seen that much beer and whiskey stored in one place since the early days of Prohibition when the bulls were still gleefully smashing up the distilleries in the warehouse district for newsreel photographers. I could not conceive of its value on the 1930 market.
I had to scramble out of the way while the men in Jack’s party, unbidden, formed three lines and began loading crates bucket-brigade fashion into the trunks and tonneaus of the cars parked at the dock. Jack, the hard fat man, and Bass Springfield brought out the crates and handed them down one by one to the first men in line, who followed suit. The cars filled with miraculous speed.
Nonparticipation is the reporter’s hallmark, even when the event involves a perfectly legal transaction under Canadian law. In this case the efficiency of the system would only have suffered had I tried to take a hand. I had toured the River Rouge plant with Henry Ford and monitored the Detroit Police Department’s twelve-week officer training course, and neither operation had worked more smoothly or with less waste. I stood out of the base path and conducted spot interviews.
Most of the loaders were in their twenties and younger, boys from poor neighborhoods whose heroes drove sixteen-cylinder Auburns and wore alpaca coats with tailored pockets for their revolvers. As they worked they leered at one another as if the common labor in which they were engaged—again, no laws had yet been broken—were somehow naughtier and less prosaic than stacking cartons in a market; as if they shared a practical and unprintably dirty joke. Asking them questions was not rewarding, unless sniggering and winking could be called good copy.
The oldest, a tall bareheaded bald man in his late forties named
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