Prohibition is the law of the land, but Nellie needs cash - after socking a gangster in the face, she's got ten days to make it right. Frightened and caught empty-handed, Nellie turns bootlegger.
She accepts a job from her sly friend Lola to pick up...
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MONDAY, MAY 25 1925
Even if I have several doubts about Lester Howard, it's easy to imagine him sitting all straight and pretty in a college lecture hall somewhere, raising an objection to a theory or a formula. I don't really think he'll betray us—more out of his infatuation with Lola than anything else. Lola's assured me that his heart's in the right place; his mind's just figuring out the best way to get there.
I focus during my walk from the streetcar to the Midwest Perfume & Company building. It'll be just like selling crumb cake, and the best part about it is everything is all true. But the closer I get, the angrier I am. At myself, at the crooks who take advantage of the city—I should never have yelled at my landlord.
And at the door I spot him. Richie Caulfield. Good-for-nothing, slimy liar that he is.
"Richie," I say, with precise venom. He hasn't said anything yet. His nose is crooked. And he's wary. "I'm here to see Tim Wells."
I glare up at him. I glare at him for the way he made me feel in my own home. I glare at him for the throb I still remember in my knuckles. I glare at him for the nerve that he had, barging into my apartment. For the lack of a little something called decency.
Richie furrows his brow.
"I don't think he's got time for the likes of you," he says.
"And you want to take that chance?" I shoot back, "Your odds weren't very good the last time, were they?"
Richie's glaring too, now. I don't back down. He does. He vanishes behind the door, then grunts for me to follow.
The warehouse is still mostly a mess from the disaster a few days ago. The broken glass and splintered wood has been swept away, but there are dents in the walls and there's a lingering smell of new paint. Richie hands me off to someone else. Even though this particular fella gives me a look like I'm something stuck to the bottom of his loafers he lets me through to Wells' office.
Wells is using a shiny adding machine at his desk. There's a swirl of white ribbon spooling out of it already.
"Just a moment, Miss Sypek," he says, and I sit, saying nothing. He works slowly with the machine. I keep my mouth shut, though, even though I'm aching to say something about how it's been much longer than a simple moment. I take a deep lungful of paper-dust and air.
"I'm here because of a warning, and an apology."
"You're going to have to explain that to me," Wells says.
"Lola Collins swindled me," I say, and some of the hurt—the lingering twinge—I felt when Lester first told me weaves its way into my words. "She passed me some marked bills. And I passed them onto you."
Wells narrows his eyes. He's the one who told me to come to him, and by coming now, trying to warn him about the money I gave him, I'm hoping to show my loyalty.
"So it seems I still owe you five hundred dollars," I say.
"That's not much of an apology," Wells says. He taps his pencil along the edge of the desk. There's little scuffs all along the polished edge of it already. It's probably a habit.
"That was the warning," I say, "You're the one who owes me an apology. For what Richie did."
He's silent. I smother my fear like a candle flame between my fingers.
"Lola used me," I continue, "She played me like a fiddle. I thought we trusted one another. Her and that dirty cop boyfriend of hers—"
"Is the cop's name Howard, by any chance?"
I nod. So far, so good. But I'm a little thrown by how Wells knows Lester's name.
"Anyhow," I continue, "I thought I could trust her. But she won't help me to get Felix back. She's too damn busy scheming with Howard." I look Wells straight in the eyes.
"Will you really keep your word? I can bring Felix back?"
Wells considers me carefully. I keep my hands out on top on his desk. I've got nothing to hide. I'm selling the jilted friend act pretty good.
"Miss Nellie," he says, "Do you know what I positively can't stand?"
I swallow. "Liars?" I guess.
"Close." Wells spreads his fingers wide. There's a scar on the back of his left hand; it stretches along his bony knuckles. "Hypocrites."
The old fear returns and laps at my insides like a rising tide. Does he mean me? Felix?
No, I realize, he means John Travers.
"Travers," I whisper, and Wells nods.
"Men like Travers," he says, "Saying one thing, doing another. I knew men like that in the war. Me? I know I'm a crook. I'll be the first to say I'm as bent and twisted, crooked as they come."
I nod. All that booze that the Juniper Gang moves from distillery to speak certainly has him off the straight and narrow.
"Travers preaches one thing and does another. He's the maggot sucking on a corpse." Wells takes a breath—suddenly, like he's surprised he's got so many words to spare.
My mind races. Do I know for sure this is really what Wells is after?
Can I trust a crook?
"So, Mr. Wells," I say, slowly, "Am I to understand that if John Travers suddenly found himself in a bit of trouble, you wouldn't be especially motivated to lift even a pinky finger to help?"
I've played my hand. The seconds grind by. I'm sweating through my stockings I'm so nervous. But then Wells smiles.
