Red Grass River

mean.”

John Ashley’s smile eased off his face. “What you mean?”

“There’s somethin I wasnt first.”

The number ended and Frank and Ed Ashley came to the table with their arms around their girls to listen in and look more closely on the stranger. Hanford Mobley moved up behind John and Laura, Glenda beside him and holding to his arm with both hands. When Roy Matthew’s gaze fixed on her for a moment, she flushed and averted her eyes.

“I asked you what you mean,” John Ashley said.

“I want in,” Roy Matthews said. “Whatever you do with this, I want in on it.”

“On what, dammit?”

The band surged into “Second-Hand Rose” and the floor once again began to spin with dancing couples.

“Tell me I’m in.”

“You might could be in your grave you dont tell me what I’m askin.”

Roy Matthews sighed deeply and regarded John Ashley with a bored look. “I aint been scared in so long I dont even remember what it feels like. I’m gettin up and leavin if you dont say I’m in.” Hanford Mobley said, “You aint doin a damn thing but what we—”

John Ashley cut him short with an impatient wave of his hand. Hanford reddened but held silent. John stared at Roy Matthews as if trying to hear the man’s thoughts. Then smiled. “Bedamn if you dont believe you some kinda hardcase, dont you? What’d you say you name was—Ray?”

“Roy.”

“All right, Roy, you’re in. There. Now tell me what I just let you in on.”

Roy Matthews smiled tightly and leaned over the table and said in low voice, “This bunch from Chicago, they’re bossing a big clan of moonshiners in Georgia and they’re runnin the stuff from there camps down to Miami.”

John Ashley stared at him. “That’s right,” Roy Matthews said. “Right down the Dixie Highway. Right through Palm Beach. And I dont mean a few cases at a time. I mean they’re runnin truckloads. Sometimes one truck and sometimes two or more at a time. Might be only a coupla hundred cases come down one time and then five or six hundred the next. Depends on how many trucks and how big they are.”

“God damn,” Frank said. John Ashley glared at him and Frank said, “Well I dont like it, Johnny, and I dont give a shit who knows it.”

“I didnt quess you would care for it,” Roy Matthews said. “Nary you.”

“Daddy aint gonna be real happy about it for damn sure,” Ed said.

“It aint all,” Roy Matthews said. “They bringin in stuff from the islands too. But there’s so much Coast Guard off Miami and Lauderdale it’s too big a risk anymore to beach the booze there. A coupla weeks ago they started puttin some of it off in Palm Beach and drivin it down the rest of the way.”

The Ashley Gang men exchanged narrow looks.

“Might innerest you to know,” Roy Matthews said, “some New York fellas tried gettin in on the Miami trade too but the Chicago boys pretty quick discouraged them. Chicago wants Miami for theirself, I mean to tell you.”

“Discouraged them New York fellas how?” Ed Ashley asked.

“How?” Roy Matthews said. “Told them they wanted to talk about bein partners. Took a couple of them for a boat ride on the Gulf Stream. About a mile out they got the jump on them an tied them hand and foot and hung a concrete block around their neck and gave them a little push over the side. All but their ears. Sent their ears back to their bosses in New York by way of the U.S. mail.” He took his time about lighting a cigarette. “They know all about you fellas. Know all about your daddy bein the big-dog moonshiner round here. They probly gonna want to see him pretty soon, talk some business. They probly wanna talk to him about bein partners.”

John Ashley’s eyes were gone thin. “Tell me somethin, Roy. How you know so much about it?”

Matthews blew a blue plume of smoke at the overhead lights. “I was workin for them Chicago boys until recent. A friend of mine in Memphis knew a fella who knew a fella who got us hired on as load runners to Miami. Job like that, you hear things now and then, here and there. You know how it is.”

“How come you tellin us?” John Ashley said.

Roy Matthews took a deep drag and exhaled a series of small perfect smoke rings to sail slowly between John and Laura and bear directly for Glenda’s nipples jutting against the clinging bodice of her satin dress. Hanford Mobley abruptly batted the rings to haze before they lit on her. Glenda had started to smile and then blushed brightly and seemed not to know where to direct her eyes. Hanford Mobley glared furiously at Roy Matthews who affected not to notice.

“The fella who runs things for Chicago in this town,” Roy Matthews said, “is a sumbitch named Bellamy— excuse my language, ladies.” He smiled with boyish rue at the women, who all showed smiles in return. Frank looked at Ed and rolled his eyes.

“Anyhow,” Roy Matthews said, “him and my friend Cormac never did like each other for spit. He shorted us on our cut the last two deliveries we made and we knew it. So last week we went over to the Taft Hotel to see him about it. Now it so happens I dont like this Bellamy even more than Cormac dont like him, so Cormac figured it’d be better if just him went up to see him and I wait downstairs. That was all right by me. So I’m waiting around in the lobby and old Cormac hadnt been up there five minutes before there’s gunshots. I look over and the desk clerk’s gone, the bellboy, everdamnbody’s gone. It’s just me in that lobby. Then I hear them comin down the stairs and I can tell it’s more than one and I’m already headed for the back door when they come off the landing and I see they got guns in their hands and brother I hit that door on the fly. I hear bam and a chunk of wood tears off the doorjamb yay close to my head and thats how I got this scratch here. I run down so many alleys and crawled under so many cars and clumb over so many fences that by the time I was sure I’d lost them I was damn well lost myself. I looked like somethin the cat drug in, I mean to tell you.”

“They were shootin in a goddamn hotel?” Frank Ashley said. “Didnt it bring a bunch of cops down no them?”

“Well now I wasnt around to find out. But the Taft’s been their headquarters since before I started runnin hooch for Bellamy and ever cop I ever saw in there was gettin his palm greened or was havin hisself a drink or was there for a free one with one of the third-floor girls. I’d say if the shootin brung any cops it was only from upstairs to tell them hold the noise down.”

Ed Ashley said, “Hell, you could fire a machinegun in this town and nobody’s hear it a block away or pay it any mind if they did, it’s always so damn much noise in the street.”

“Why they wanna shoot you and your partner anyway?” Frank Ashley said.

“Why?” Roy Matthews said. “Well I’d guess old Cormac probly irritated the man some, dont you reckon? Irritated or scared him, one. Maybe he told him pay up what he owed us or else, and Bellamy figured or else meant he best shoot Cormac while he had the chance—then me too for bein the partner. Hell man, I dont know why and I dont give a damn. Coupla sumbitches—scuse me ladies—coupla fellas come at you with guns in they hand you dont stand there and ask how come they upset. Why dont matter a damn. What’s all that counts—and they tried to shoot me is the what of it.”

John Ashley smiled. “So you’re gonna get even by tellin us where they’re landin the stuff and we take it from them.”

“And, I get a cut,” Roy Matthews said.

“Hell, boy, what makes you think we need your help to find where they landin their booze?” Ed Ashley said.

“I guess you dont,” Roy Matthews said. “I’m just hopin you’ll do the sportin thing and let me in on it since I’m the one who told you.”

Hanford Mobley snorted and said sardonically, “The sportin thing.”

“We’re of heard about it soon enough,” Frank Ashley said. “Dont nothin happen in Palm Beach County we dont hear about it soon enough.”

Roy Matthews nodded. “I reckon. Still, I’m the one brung it to you first.”

Hanford Mobley said maybe they ought to go over to the Taft Hotel and see this Bellamy fellow and ask him if