“Poaching?” Puck echoed. “Sonny, I was in the union when you were still—”
“Put a cork in it, Pops, nobody’s talking to you.” Romanik didn’t even look at Puck. Too busy trying to stare me down. Big mistake.
Puck glanced the question at me. I gave him a “Why not?” shrug. And Puck popped him. Clipped Romanik with his elbow, just above the ear. The blow only traveled about five inches. And fifty-odd years. But it hit Romanik so hard his eyes rolled back. He was out cold before his face bounced off the table.
“Damn it, Puck!” I griped, sliding out of the booth. “Look what you did! The guy’s gonna bleed all over my hash browns.” By now I was up, facing Romanik’s thugs, who were still staring in stunned surprise. “Just chill out, fellas,” I whispered. “Don’t buy into this.”
The goons looked past me. Mafe Rochon and my crew were already up and grinning, eyes alight at the prospect of kicking some ass for dessert.
The biggest thug shook his head. Smarter than he looked. A pity.
“Good man,” I nodded. “Now get your boss out of here before anybody else has an... accident. Okay?”
“You won’t get away with this,” the goon muttered as he and his pal helped Romanik up, heading toward the door. “We’ll file a complaint with the union. We’ll get you all canned.”
“I wouldn’t do that,” I said. “If we’re unemployed, we’ll have plenty of spare time to hunt you up. We’ll make messing with you a full-time job. Tell your boss that. When he wakes up. And tell him anybody he sends nosing around my job site had best have his major medical paid up. Clear? Now take a hike.”
They hiked. We finished our lunch. But our problems were just starting. Later that day, Mafe found the booze.
“I’m workin’ in the basement,” he explained, grinning like a kid in a candy store as we toured the miniature brewery. “I’m tracin’ down power lines when all of a sudden I smell it. Whiskey. Swear to God.”
“I believe you.” I sighed. The four stills were in a concealed room in the back of the basement. Invisible to the eye. But not to an educated nose.
There were even a few bottles on a shelf. “Belknap’s Best,” Mafe read, blowing the dust off one of them. “Best what, I wonder?”
“Put it back,” I said. “We’ll have to turn it over to the law.”
“Are you nuts? This stuff’s gotta be fifty years old! Lemme have one taste, anyway.” He took a deep draught, came up sputtering. “Whoa! Tastes like turpentine. But, man, what a helluva kick.” He started to raise the bottle again. I snatched it out of his hands.
“One more jolt and you’re fired, Mafe.”
“You gotta be kiddin’, Danny.”
“Do I sound like I’m kiddin’? You know the rules.”
“Yeah, yeah,” Mafe said, wiping his mouth with the back of a greasy hand. “You’re no fun anymore, Shea.”
“He never was,” Puck snorted. “Boy was born forty years old. Hey, check out the setup, boys, a Michigan twist. Car radiators instead of copper line to distill the hooch. Model T Fords, looks like, from the ’twenties. Must have set all this up during Prohibition, used it right on through the war. No booze shortages at the ole Gin Mill. Who do we report this to, Danny? Eliot Ness?”
“We’ll let Mrs. Belknap worry about that. Meantime, nail the door shut, Puck.”
“What the hell, Danny,” Mafe protested. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” I said.
“Don’t take it personal, Mafe,” Puck added. “He don’t trust nobody else, neither.”
Mafe laughed. But Puck wasn’t kidding.
I’d been staying at an el cheapo motel outside Malverne, but after the hassle with Romanik and his goons, I moved a sleeping bag into the Belknap Building. Just in case.
There were plenty of bedrooms, two floors’ full. But I felt most comfortable sleeping in my office on the floor. Very lightly.
Which is why I heard the truck.
Early the next morning, six A.M. or so, a vehicle pulled up out front. Snapping awake in a heartbeat, I crossed to a window with a view of the street. A pickup truck was parked at the curb, engine idling, driver eyeing the building. Checking the place out before he made a move.
I made mine first. Grabbing a chunk of two-by-four, I trotted out to the truck. Black guy at the wheel. I rapped on the side window and he rolled it down.
Café-au-lait complexion, work clothes. Calm brown eyes. “Yeah?”
“It’s awful early, pal. What are you doing out here?”
“It’s a public street, isn’t it?”
“Sure it is, but we’ve had some trouble. So I’m asking. Politely. Is there something you want?”
“I’m looking for Dan Shea.”
“Why?”
“That’s my business.”
“Mine too. I’m Shea.”
“Really? You don’t look much like a boss.”
“I’m still Dan Shea. Want to check my driver’s license?”
He smiled. A good one. Warmed his whole face. “I’m Guyton Crowell,” he said, offering his hand. “I’m looking for a job. I’m a finish carpenter. Got a notebook here with some of my work in it.”
He passed me the ring binder and I flipped through the photographs. Kitchen cabinets, entertainment centers, even a spiral staircase, all expertly crafted.
“You do good work,” I said. “Or you fake good pictures. Did the union send you down here?”
“Nah, I heard you were fixing up this building, thought I’d come down, see if I could help out.”
“Why?”
“My granddad worked here years ago. A waiter in the old Gin Mill. Had an accident. Fell down some stairs. Lost his sight.”
“Tough break.”
“Could have been worse. Old Cyrus Belknap took care of him. Paid his hospital bills, put him through a trade school. Did the same for my dad, later on. Back in the day, the Belknaps hired black people when nobody else would. I figure maybe I owe them something for that. Anything else you want to know?”
“Yeah. When can you start?”
Guyton Crowell was a treasure. A master craftsman, easy to get along with. He even hit it off with Mafe Rochon. Had Mafe laughing till the tears came two minutes after they met. A rare talent. One I envied.
Crowell also found me the journeymen I needed. Two young guys fresh out of trade school. Hard workers. I told Guyton about our trouble with the union but he shrugged it off.
“This local’s no help to Aframericans. But folks around Idlewild still remember what the Belknaps did for ’em during the War. You just let me know if you need any more people.”
Actually, I was getting more people than I needed. Artie Cohen, the gawky Banner editor, came by my second-floor war room of an office a few days later, with an older black gentleman in tow. A slender man, maybe seventy, a halo of silver hair around a bald pate, granny glasses, expensive gray suit, and a Moroccan leather briefcase.
“Mr. Shea, this is Reverend James Jackson, of the First Bethel Baptist Church. We were wondering if we could see the old Gin Mill.”
“It’s not exactly prepped for tourists—”
“I don’t mind a little dust,” Jackson said quickly. “It would mean a lot to me, Mr. Shea. My mother used to work there. And Artie said you had some questions about the old days...?”
I had plenty of them, but I saved them until we were actually in that strange, silent room with the moving lights from its revolving mirrored ball dappling the dance floor and the tables.
Jackson looked it over, then walked slowly to the stage, staring up at the microphone for a long time. Then he nodded. When he turned to me, his eyes were misty.
“I was here a few times, as a boy. Twelve or thirteen in those days. Rehearsal days. My mama sang with the band, Coley Barnes and his Barnstormers. Lula Mae Jackson. Went by the name Misirlou. Wonderful singer. My daddy was high church, didn’t approve of Mama singing here, but she loved it so. And truth was, the family needed the money. I brought some pictures with me.”