Read Chapter 9: The Speakeasy Queen

The Green Lamp smelled of spilled beer and cheaper perfume, and Jack Malloy had been nursing the same glass of rye for an hour while he watched the door. On the other side of the room, Mickey was doing his best to look like a man who belonged in a saloon rather than a loading dock, though the way he kept tugging at his collar told a different story. Leo had stayed outside with the truck, engine running, the twenty cases of Scotch sitting in the back like a bomb waiting to go off.

Molly O'Keefe appeared at Jack's elbow without a sound. She always did that, moved through the smoky dark like she was part of it.

"You look like a man waiting for a hangman," she said, sliding into the booth across from him. Her dress was deep green tonight, cut low enough to be a statement but not quite a scandal. "Relax. Ashworth doesn't bite unless you're holding something he wants."

"And if I am?"

"Then he'll bite exactly the way you need him to." She picked up his glass and took a sip, her eyes holding his over the rim. "You've got the goods. I told him about you. He's interested."

Jack leaned forward. "What exactly did you tell him?"

"That you're the most capable smuggler on this coast who isn't already dead or in prison." She set the glass down and smiled. "I left out the part about the collateral on your father's house."

"That's not funny."

"It's not meant to be." Molly's smile faded. "You're playing with house money, Jack. That makes you dangerous and hungry, and men like Ashworth love dangerous and hungry. They just don't want to know how deep your debts run."

The door of the Green Lamp swung open and a man stepped inside. He wasn't tall, but he carried himself like someone used to rooms parting for him. Expensive wool coat, polished shoes that had never touched a dock plank, and a face that had probably been handsome once before money had smoothed it into something harder to read. He scanned the room once, clocked the exits, then walked straight to their booth.

"Mr. Malloy." His voice was low and measured, the kind of voice that expected to be listened to. "I'm Elliot Ashworth. Molly speaks highly of you."

Jack stood and shook the offered hand. The man's grip was firm but brief, like a business transaction in itself. "She speaks highly of everyone who can buy her a drink."

Ashworth's mouth twitched. "She speaks highly of me, and I've never bought her anything but trouble." He slid into the booth beside Molly without asking, signaling the bartender for a whiskey that would remain untouched. "I hear you've come into some Scotch. Our mutual friend tells me it's quality stock."

"It's the real thing," Jack said. "Duty-free from across the pond."

"I know where it comes from. I want to know where it's going."

Jack glanced at Molly. She gave him nothing, just watched the two of them like she was reading a chess problem.

"Right now it's going wherever the highest bidder points it," Jack said. "I've got twenty cases sitting in a truck outside, and I need to move them before the fish find them more interesting than I do."

"I respect directness." Ashworth's whiskey arrived and he wrapped his fingers around the glass without drinking. "I own three clubs in Boston and two more down in Providence. My clientele has more money than taste, which means they'll drink anything I tell them is exclusive. But I don't buy one shipment. I buy relationships."

Jack felt the hook sink in. "How many cases are we talking?"

"Fifty a week to start. Maybe a hundred once you prove you can deliver." Ashworth finally took a sip of his whiskey, made a face like it had personally insulted him, and set the glass down. "You'll supply my clubs exclusively. That means when I hear about another speakeasy selling your product, our arrangement ends. Violently, if necessary."

"Exclusive costs more."

"It does. But it also guarantees you a buyer who won't disappear when the Coast Guard tightens its noose." Ashworth's eyes were flat and patient. "Your other option is selling case by case to nervous men in back rooms who'll barter you down to nothing and stiff you on payment. I've watched a dozen smart operators die that way. Slowly, through poverty."

Molly spoke for the first time in minutes. "He's offering you a floor, Jack. Something to stand on while you build higher."

Jack turned the numbers in his head. Fifty cases a week meant a steady run every three or four days, meaning a bigger boat, more crew, more risk. But it also meant predictable money, enough to cover the O'Malleys, enough to buy his father's house free and clear, enough to never stand on a dock holding a manifest for some shipping company that paid him slave wages.

"The Scotch I have now is twenty cases," Jack said. "That covers your delivery costs toward proof of concept. Take it as a sample."

Ashworth almost smiled. "A sample worth four thousand dollars at retail."

"Good product convinces faster than promises." Jack stood up. "I'll have it unloaded at your Providence club by midnight tonight. If your buyers like it, we talk numbers on the next shipment."

"You're moving fast, Mr. Malloy."

"Dead men move slow."

Ashworth studied him for a long moment, and Jack had the uncomfortable feeling of being weighed on a scale he couldn't see. Then the older man produced a card from his coat and slid it across the table.

"I'll expect your truck at the freight entrance on Purchase Street. Ask for Reyes. He handles my inventory." Ashworth rose, buttoning his coat. "If this goes well, we'll talk about the future." He paused at the door and looked back. "Molly, you find interesting company. Try to keep this one alive."

The door swung shut and Jack let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding.

Molly watched him with something close to approval. "Not bad. Most men fold when he starts talking about violence."

"I grew up with violence. It's not that impressive." Jack picked up the card, turned it over. Nothing on the back. Whoever this Ashworth was, he didn't need to advertise. "What does he actually do when he's not buying Scotch?"

"Everything." Molly leaned back, crossing her arms. "Most liquor in this region flows through three pipes: the O'Malleys, Gus Moran, or Ashworth. Moran's got the muscle but Ashworth's got the reach. He's connected to politicians, judges, men who wear badges and men who give men badges."

"You didn't tell me introducing me to a rival of the O'Malleys could put me in the middle of a war."

"I told you I'd vouch for you with Gus Moran." Molly's eyes glinted. "You just didn't ask how close my relationship with Moran's competition was."

Jack felt the room shift slightly. "What do you want from me, Molly?"

Her smile turned slow and knowing. "The favor I mentioned. I've decided what it is." She slid out of the booth, close enough that he could smell her perfume—something floral trying to cover the cigarette smoke. "My brother runs a club in Albany, and he's been having supply problems. Once you're established with Ashworth, I want a pipeline. A small cut of your overflow shipments, routed north."

"Your brother runs a bootlegging operation."

"I run introductions. He runs a business. Family looks after family." She tilted her head. "That's something you should understand."

Jack thought of Frank, alone somewhere in the city, probably nursing his hurt pride with a bottle he couldn't afford. He thought of Patrick's letter, still warm in his memory before he'd burned it.

"Fine," Jack said. "When I've got overflow, your brother gets first call."

Molly extended her hand and Jack shook it. Her grip was surer than most of the longshoremen he worked with.

"That's the best deal I'll make all night," she said. "Now go deliver your cargo. Ashworth doesn't like to be kept waiting."

Jack stepped out into the cold Atlantic night, Leo's truck rumbling to life at the curb. Mickey was already in the passenger seat, rubbing his hands together for warmth. Jack climbed into the back with the cases, letting the cold air slap his face clean.

Providence was four hours south if they pushed it. They'd make the delivery by midnight with room to spare.

But as the truck pulled away from the Green Lamp, Jack couldn't shake Molly's last words, the way she'd said family looks after family like she was reading his mind. Or the fact that he hadn't told Frank about this meeting. Hadn't told him about Ashworth, hadn't told him about the deal that could pull them both out of the gutter.

He'd tell him tomorrow, he decided. After the delivery, once there was a check in his pocket and a new future laid out in front of them. Frank would understand then, would see why Jack had to move fast and alone.

The truck bounced over a pothole, and one of the cases shifted against Jack's shoulder. He could smell the Scotch through the wood, rich and promising.

Tomorrow, he'd tell Frank. Tonight, he had a cargo to deliver.

The streets of Providence were quiet as they pulled up to the freight entrance on Purchase Street, and a thin man in a spotless apron was waiting for them by the loading dock. He didn't say a word, just pointed to where he wanted the cases stacked, counted them twice, and handed Jack an envelope fat with cash.

Reyes, presumably. Efficient as a clock.

"That's four hundred over what we agreed," Jack said, thumbing the bills.

"Mr. Ashworth pays for speed," Reyes said. "You were fast."

Jack tucked the envelope into his coat and felt something loosen in his chest. For the first time since this whole operation had started, he was in the black.

And then he heard the whistle.

Three sharp blasts, coming from the harbor. The Coast Guard signal.

Reyes froze, eyes tracking toward the sound. "That's not for you. You're already in."

Jack stayed still, listening. The whistle came again, and then a shout, and then the crack of a gunshot that echoed across the water like a skull breaking.

Reyes's face went carefully blank. "That's off the Point. Not our problem."

But Jack was already walking toward the water, because he'd recognized the second voice that followed the shot, shouting through the dark. Young, angry, and way too stubborn.

Frank's voice.