AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“Lots,” Dave said. “Thanks.”
“I haven’t done anything yet,” Ty answered, leaning back in his chair. “But I am here to find out what happened to you. Who slipped you the Mickey. And I will.”
Gloria had risen and set a cup of coffee that held a splash of the labeled brandy bottle in front of him as she took her seat again. After taking a sip, Ty asked, “You remember anything you can share?”
His eyes were bloodshot and his pallor was still the color of a sailor on his first trip across the ocean, but otherwise Dave seemed no worse for wear.
“There’s nothing to share,” Dave said. “I bought a milk shake at Charlie’s drugstore in St. Paul and went into his back room to wait for a prospect who never showed up.” After taking a drink of water from his glass, Dave added, “I felt an edge coming on and the next thing I remember was the police station and you telling me it was time to go.”
“There’s something else we need to talk about,” Roger said gruffly.
Life was full of the unexpected, and Ty was always prepared for it. “The news Withers brought?”
“You heard?” Roger asked.
Ty shook his head. “Assumed. Why else would he be here in street clothes.” He phrased it as a statement, not a question. The assumptions he had could lead in several directions. He just needed a bit of conversation to tell him which path to take.
His line of business made Roger Nightingale a hard man, and tonight he looked the part. Formidable in his three-piece maroon suit, with his graying bushy brows knitted together and his blue eyes glittering with antagonism. But in the short time Ty had been at the resort, he’d seen the man in other roles. A worried brother-in-law, a savvy resort owner and, most telling of all, a parent who’d thought—if even just for a moment—the worst had happened to one of his children.
“Minneapolis is full of snitches,” Roger said. “So is St. Cloud. But money talks in St. Paul, and it talks in these parts, too. Informants know that, and stay clear, knowing they’ll only be sent on wild-goose chases at best. And end up in a pine box at worst.”
Ty refrained from answering. He kept his breathing smooth, even as his pulse started knocking hard beneath his skin. It was impossible for anyone to have learned his identity, but not impossible for them to wonder about it. Especially Norma Rose, which might explain her stomping away from the cabin.
That stuck. She’d have been skipping like a school girl if she’d convinced her father he was a snitch. The smile that thought created, although well concealed, gave him more reassurance than anything Roger could say. Ty lassoed his thoughts to hear what the man was saying.
“Times around here were tough. During the war, the government begged farmers to grow more crops. Shiploads went overseas every day, but as soon as the fighting stopped, so did the demand. Folks in this area had more land than they could afford. They’d mortgaged everything they owned to acquire more land and buy new equipment. The bills started choking them, and they had no way to pay them.”
Ty picked up his coffee cup, but never took his eyes off Roger, letting him know he was listening, and interested.
“Minnesotans are a hearty lot,” Roger continued. “We are strong-willed and determined, and find ways. When all others moan and beg for help, we put on our boots and start kicking. Minnesota Thirteen didn’t come by accident.”
Ty was completely interested. The homemade whiskey coming out of central Minnesota was exactly what Bodine was after, the money and conglomerate behind it. Few other mobsters had tried, but the farmers didn’t let strangers in. The extortion that worked in the big cities hadn’t worked here, and as far as he’d learned, Nightingale was the only man exporting large quantities. Not personally, of course, but he brokered the deals.
“Those Germans have always taken their still-making seriously, and making whiskey that is often better than the stuff the Canadians export has provided them with a way to feed their families again. It’s allowing entire communities to thrive. Hardware stores, grocery stores—hell, the entire automobile industry would be nothing but empty lots if not for bootleggers.”
“Amen,” Gloria agreed.
“My business is no different,” Roger said. “The resort employs more people than some factories. If not for Nightingales, Dol’s grocery store would only be half its size, Lester would only need a portion of the cows he milks every morning and Scooter wouldn’t sell enough gas to keep his doors open.”
“As well as most every other business around here,” Gloria said. “Money makes money, there’s no mistaking that.”
Roger’s chair creaked as he leaned back and crossed thick arms over his barrel chest. “And I won’t let some sniveling snitch stick his nose where it doesn’t belong.”
Ty withheld the urge to swallow. Maybe Norma Rose had convinced her father. It was impossible, though. His file was sealed in cement and dropped in the river. So to speak. In truth, someone digging hard enough might uncover something. But only if there was a snitch in his department, which consisted of two people. Him and his boss.
“Who do you think it is?” Ty asked.
“An outsider,” Roger said. “Everyone around here wants things to stay just as they are. They remember what it was like, just a few years ago, eating nothing but potato soup on good days. It’s outsiders that wanted drinking to end. Not Minnesotans.”
“People all across the nation were against Prohibition,” Ty said, though he wondered why. More of the nation had voted wet than dry, but the drys down south, added to the big cities of New York and Washington DC, had been enough to calculate a win.
“Yes, they were, and are,” Roger agreed. “And Minnesota Thirteen is keeping them wet.” He intertwined his fingers and popped his knuckles. “Withers thinks the snitch is a fed. A federal agent sent up here to infiltrate the community.”
“Why here?” Ty asked. “Minnesota Thirteen is brewed west of here, more north of St. Cloud.”
“A man can be at any one of those stills—Avon, Holdingford, Albany, Melrose—within a few hours from here,” Roger answered. “Running shine is risky, and men do it in many ways—hay wagons, extra gas tanks, crates and barrels marked bibles or produce, even piano boxes or under the floorboards of a truck hauling a bull.” With a guffaw he added, “A calf sells for five bucks, so does a bottle of shine. But those are little runners. Local deliveries to speakeasies and blind pigs. The big shipments, the ones that make it to Chicago, New York, California and beyond, take real transportation.”
Ty’s pulse was knocking again. He’d known Nightingale was in deep, and the amount of money already invested in the resort proved this man was making money left and right. The latest figures estimated over two million a week was made on illegal alcohol sales in Chicago alone. A man making that kind of money wouldn’t think twice about putting a bullet in someone trying to stop him.
“The same trains that haul in sugar and yeast and bottles and kegs, haul out sugar and yeast and bottles and kegs, just in a different combination.” Roger was rubbing his chin now, rather thoughtfully.
Ty took another sip of his coffee. Nightingale wasn’t giving out any specific details, but was leaving a lot of room for assumptions.
“So, where does Withers think this snitch is?” Ty asked.
“His informant doesn’t know. Right now it’s hearsay from someone who’d heard, from someone who’d heard. It’s happened before, someone needing a little cash claims to know something, and so the story goes, but this time my gut tells me there’s more to it than just a hungry homeless person or a drunk flyboy. I’m also thinking whoever is behind Dave’s poisoning could be connected to the snitch, if not the man himself.”
The ounce of relief that oozed over his stomach wasn’t as strong as Ty would have liked. “Then my work is cut out for me,” he said. “Catching two birds with one stone.”
“Your work is cut out for you,” Roger agreed with a nod. “I want that snitch. I want him in my office by the end of the week.”
Unwilling to set himself up for failure, Ty shook his head. “I told you I’ve got some suspicions and inklings, but I’m going to need more than a week.”
“I’ve got my suspicions, too,” Roger said. “And I won’t give you more than a week.”
He should have seen this coming. Staring into his empty coffee cup, he let the others—Roger, Dave and Gloria—watch him intently and form a few more suspicions and doubts. When the air was as thick as morning fog, he pushed the cup away and stood. “Then I’m not your man.”
Chapter Eleven
Normally the music had people dancing, but Wayne, despite how hard he tried, just didn’t pull people off their seats. In fact, when they did stand up, they walked toward the door, not the dance floor.
Norma Rose had watched that happening, but her searing mind wouldn’t let her try to resolve the issue. “This isn’t any of your concern, Rosie,” her father had said when she’d taken the sheriff to Dave’s cabin. “Your concern is seeing that everyone at the resort is happy—now go to it.”
