The Whiskey Sea by Ann Howard Creel Read Free Book Online Page A

enjoyed church, and couldn’t stand the smell of indoor establishments. She hated to cook and clean. A secretary? What had Silver been thinking? She would have had to kowtow to male bosses, put up with flirtations from men and gossip from women, all the while confined in a small office space. Never in a million years. Nothing but an unconventional occupation would do.
    He sighed again. “I have a fair number of old motors we can take apart and put back together. That’s how they taught us in the navy. It takes a long time to learn what you need to know and lots of practice. I’ll have to help you with your jobs for a while.”
    “That’s what I want. That’s why I’m asking.”
    “If you’re sure . . .”
    She stuck out her hand. “Deal.”
    Hicks took her hand slowly, holding on to it for a moment longer than necessary. “Deal.”
    She had to look away, staring out at the horizon at a stream of boats going out. She’d been seeing them for weeks now, boats that headed out at dusk. They made course out beyond the Hook and the bay to deep water. First a few and now more, going out most every night, especially on no-moon nights.
    She gestured at them. “What are they doing?”
    He followed her gaze. “Heading out to the rum boats.”
    She shook her head once.
    “Don’t you wonder how the liquor gets into bars here—and everywhere else for that matter?”
    Truth was that Silver wasn’t much of a drinker, and he had never once taken the girls into a bar. “I haven’t thought about it.”
    Hicks gestured out to sea. “About five or so miles to sea are boats from Canada full of crates of whiskey and all sorts of spirits. They call it Rum Row. Some of the men around here have been going out at night, picking up liquor, and bringing it back to sell for big money. They serve as go-betweens between the large rum boats and the buyers, so people call them contact boats.”
    “What about the law? The coast guard?” Just across the water, Sandy Hook peninsula jutted out as a barrier between the Highlands harbor and the open sea, and a coast guard station watched over the waters right there.
    “What about them?” Hicks said. “There’s a lot more fishing boats than guard boats to chase them. And if a man finds himself under chase, he can hide in some secret inlet he knows is too shallow for the guard boats. Or if he’s caught outright, he can throw the liquor overboard and get rid of the evidence. Sometimes he comes back the next day and gets the booze, but even if he loses one night’s load he makes up for it soon enough.”
    “You make it sound easy.”
    He shook his head. “Those littler boats take all the risks. The big rum boats sail under foreign flags and hold out far enough that they can’t be confiscated. Contact boatmen face all sorts of possible dangers: rough seas, engine failure, capture on the way in, and maybe even prison. Even if they dump their loads, they can still get fined for running without lights or refusing to halt on command. Fine’s a thousand dollars.” Hicks sat still. “But then a thousand dollars ain’t much when you consider what they’re making.”
    “How much is that?”
    “I hear . . . even the smallest boats are starting to make about four hundred to a thousand dollars a night. Depends on how much they can carry.”
    Frieda shifted her weight as the meaning of all this sunk in. This explained the changes she had witnessed but not questioned, even though she’d been curious to know. A few people who normally had nothing had been buying used Model Ts—even a new one here and there—nice coats and dresses, and had painted their houses. Now she understood where that extra dough had come from. She took a good look at Hicks. “What about you?”
    He picked up a piece of clamshell littering the pier and tossed it out to sea. “Not for me. I’ll stick to what’s legal.”
    She watched the boats heading into the fading daylight, and God help her, a burn, a strange