The Blood Lie. Shirley Reva Vernick
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Название: The Blood Lie
Автор: Shirley Reva Vernick
Издательство: Ingram
Жанр: Учебная литература
isbn: 9781935955139
isbn:
“Just what?” Lydie asked, flicking her ashes on the ground.
“You know, denigrating the dead.”
“That’s the best time to denigrate someone—when they’re dead. They don’t get their feelings hurt that way. Honestly, I bit my tongue so often when he was alive, I’m lucky I can still talk. Ma and I are better off without him, and that’s the truth.”
Emaline tried to take a puff, but the smoke made her cough this time.
“Sorry,” Lydie said, rubbing her cousin’s back. “Sorry to spout off like that. Didn’t mean to make you have a fit.”
“I’m okay. I’m glad you told me. I should have figured it out for myself. It’s just, you know, thinking about the accident and all…well…Ma wanted us home by 12:30 and it’s past that now. We should go.”
“Right.”
Lydie and Emaline dropped their cigarettes and stamped them out with their feet. “Here, I have some Lifesavers,” Lydie said. “Take one. Aunt Jenna will have a cow if she finds out what’s been keeping us.”
Mrs. Durham was heating a venison stew when the cousins walked in. “Finally,” she said, pulling her hair back and leaning down to breathe in the gamey aroma. “Ah, that’s perfect.”
“I’m starving, Ma,” Emaline said.
“Wash up and I’ll get you some. Say, what’s in the box?” She lifted the lid and examined the hat from different angles. A tall, statuesque redhead—people said she looked like President Coolidge’s wife—she had a good eye for fashion and was always smartly dressed. “Very nice. Perfect for the autumn. By the way, Daisy was right behind you, wasn’t she?”
“No,” Emaline said.
“I just sent her out to call you. Told her you could all have lunch together. I thought that’s why you came.”
“We just got here, is all. Plus I’m famished.”
“You must have crossed paths then. Well, she’ll be along when she’s done straggling.”
Mrs. Durham sprinkled the stew with a medley of herbs and salt that she kept in an old milk bottle. She loved milk bottles and used them to hold everything from flowers to spices to the occasional pollywog. They were her closest connection to her Frank, who’d run the Sweet Creamery Dairy with his brother, and she kept them in every room.
She ladled out two bowls of stew and set them on the table. “All right, clean up after yourselves, girls. I have some bulbs to plant out front. I think I’ll just give Daisy a shout first.” She opened the back door and made a long, low whistle.
Gus Poulos was standing behind the register at the Sit Down Diner counting the dollar bills, while Sarah Gelman took inventory in the pantry and Tiny, the cook, stood over the deep-fryer.
“Twenty-three,” Gus said to no one as he bit down on his cigar. “Twenty-three miserable little clams. And that’s before you take out wages. For this I left Salonika?”
“You say something?” called Tiny.
“Yeah. I want you to tell me where to find the glittering gold roads and the marble sidewalks people told me about when I was a kid.”
“Don’t I know it?” Tiny said in his Irish brogue. “We all think we’re going to live the life here, and we end up just barely getting by.”
“Amen to that.” Gus started to light a fresh cigar when the diner door jangled open and Roy Royman limped in. Royman hobbled to a stool at the counter and leaned his walking stick against the railing. “Morning,” he said.
“You’re late,” Gus said.
“Hey, Tiny, whatcha cooking back there?”
“Shepherd’s pie, meatloaf, doughnuts about to come out of the fryer. You want?”
“Any hash browns left?”
Tiny shook his head.
“Eh, give me a slab of meatloaf, and save me a couple doughnuts, plain.”
Gus led Royman to the table nearest the noisy window fan.
“We on for tonight?” Royman asked.
“Rum boat’ll be here between midnight and two, depending.”
“Depending on what?”
Gus shrugged. “Depending on everything. Anyhow, get the truck here by eleven-thirty.”
“Why’s it got to be so late, that’s what I don’t understand,” Royman said. “What am I supposed to tell the missus?”
“My Bettina just thinks I’m out gin milling. Anyway, let’s make it eleven straight up, just to be sure.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”
Gus and Royman’s smuggling operation was easy money during these Prohibition days. Whiskey and wine were legal a scant mile across the St. Lawrence River in Canada. All it took was knowing one Canadian with a boat who was willing to load up with alcohol and meet you somewhere. Then you let a few discreet friends know you had a supply. You might let the Mr. Lingstrom-types know, too. You might even let a Jew know because the Jews used wine to welcome the Sabbath, and if you couldn’t get business from the sheenies on your pies and meats, you might as well get them with the hooch.
Better yet, you kept your direct dealings to a few trusted customers, and let them sell their stuff to the Jews and the drunks.
Tiny appeared with a plate heaped with meat and biscuits. “Doughnuts’ll be another minute,” he told Royman.
“Anyways, I gotta work,” Gus said as the first paying lunch customer strolled in.
When Lydie and Emaline finished their stew, they settled into the living room to do some beading. Emaline was finishing up the bracelet she was making for her mother’s birthday next month. Lydie decided to try her hand at a choker.
After a while, Mrs. Durham came in from the garden and walked over to the telephone. “It’s 1:30,” she said. She picked up the receiver, then put it down, hesitated, then picked it up again. Finally she spoke to the operator. “Good afternoon, Bess. Would you put me through to my sister-in-law? Thank you.”
“Clarisse?” Mrs. Durham said after a moment. “Yes, Lydie’s right here. She can stay as long as she likes. Listen, Daisy didn’t happen to walk over there, did she?…No, everything’s fine. Maybe she wandered back over to the Pools’ house…Yes, I do trust that family, Clarisse… Yes, I know them well enough—Eva Pool is my friend…No, nothing else. I’m positive, Clarisse.”
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