Scandal at the Speakeasy Page 2

  It had worked for almost three years, before the state police busted Duane. He’d been out of jail within a couple of weeks, with little more than a hand slap, for running a speakeasy, but had realized that if the police had found his manufacturing site, he’d have been doing serious time. He also understood if he was caught again, they wouldn’t go as easy on him and had finally listened to her ideas. If he wanted a speakeasy, it had to be hidden, and it had to be guarded. As hidden and guarded as his distilling site, and because people didn’t trust him, he couldn’t have anything to do with running the joint—other than collecting money of course.

  Lisa had created the Depot, and loved the fact that she was in control for the first time in her life. She enjoyed knowing the town of Junction, the people and businesses that her real father had known and loved, were once again thriving.

  The bull had set his mug on the counter, refused a refill and was now walking toward the door. The place was hopping tonight—standing room only, as most Thursday nights. Leaving Buck and Toby to tend bar on their own would slow down the drinks, but things were going too good right now for her to take a chance at getting busted.

  “That guy tell you his name?” she asked Buck while filling four glasses of hooch.

  “No.”

  After sliding the glasses onto the bar, she set the empty whiskey bottle in the crate beneath the bar. “Mark their cards. I’ll be back.”

  Lisa wasn’t sure what she was going to do, but she had to do something. She squeezed between Buck and the line of beer kegs on the back wall, and lifted up the hinged section of the bar near the wall, where the bull had been standing.

  He wasn’t yet to the door, and she rushed in that direction, caught his arm just as he reached for the door handle.

  “Hey, Rupert.” It was the first name that popped into her head. “You aren’t leaving without dancing with me. You promised and this is my favorite song.”

  He turned, stared at her with a frown that wrinkled his forehead.

  Her mouth went dry. Up close, he was handsome. So. Very. Handsome. She forced down a swallow, irritated at herself for being caught off guard. Especially by a man’s looks. He was handsome all right, in that turn a woman’s head sort of way. That wasn’t her. No one ever turned her head. She knew a cake-eater when she saw one, a man who thought he was a real lady’s man. Other women, those who liked flashy billboards—men who were too handsome for their own good—would have their heads turned by him. Due to how his brown hair was cut short on the sides, but longer on the top, combed to one side so it fell over one of the dark brows that arched over his deep blue eyes. But not her. His hair or eyes didn’t matter to her. She was immune to men.

  “I’m not Rupert,” he said.

  She had to swallow again, just to bring about her senses, then forced out a giggle, a silly-sounding one. “I guess you aren’t, but this is my favorite song.” She tugged on his arm. “Dance with me.”

  His frown increased. “Who is going to pour drinks while you’re on the dance floor?”

  The fact he recognized her from behind the bar didn’t surprise her. A bull would be looking to see who was pouring drinks. That’s what he was. A bull. One she couldn’t let bust her place. “The guys have it covered,” she said, tugging harder. “A gal needs to have some fun.” Men said that to her all the time, and she refused them all the time.

  He remained still. “You’ll have to find Rupert.” Taking hold of her hand, he lifted it off his arm. “I’m leaving.”

  To keep from balling her hand into a fist at how it burned from his touch, she grabbed the long string of pearls she had tied into a knot near her breast bone and swung the beads in a small circle, while batting her eyelashes at him. She hated flirting, and didn’t do it very often, if ever. This situation called for whatever she had to do. “But you just arrived.”

  “I’ve been here long enough,” he said, twisting toward the door.

  “Wait!” She grabbed his arm again, desperate. Trying to come up with another reason, she said, “The magician hasn’t started his show yet.” Stepping closer, she lifted her chin, grinned at him. “He’s supposed to be magnificent.”

  He glanced over her shoulder. “How do you know that?”

  She twisted her neck, spied the magician. “Because his name is—”

  “Rupert the Magnificent,” he said dryly.

  Horsefeathers! No wonder that name had popped into her head. Why hadn’t she realized that before saying it? She’d been the one to hire Rupert the Magnificent! This bull just had her so flustered!

  “It’s embroidered on the back of his cape,” he said, mockingly.

  She knew that! Dagnabit! If there were two things she hated, it was bulls and being wrong. It took all she had to hold on to her temper. To keep from telling him that she knew the magician’s name and that she knew he was a bull, but not a state policeman. She knew the ones who patrolled this area, they were regular customers. That meant he was a fed. A Federal agent was one of her greatest fears. She couldn’t get busted. And wouldn’t. Not by him. Mr. High and Mighty Bull.

  “Good night,” he said, while removing her hand from his arm once again.

  This time she had to ball her hand into a fist. Both hands. She waited until he’d walked out of the door and was sure he’d crossed through the checkpoint before she wrenched open the door. Thad was reclined on his chair. She slapped the table beside him, making him bolt upright. He and Toby were brothers. Buck was their cousin. She depended on the bulk and brawn of the three farm boys regularly. Toby and Buck behind the bar with her and Thad guarding the door. “We are going to follow that guy,” she said, walking to the second door.

  Rising to his feet, Thad asked, “Why?”

  She pushed back the sliding piece of wood and peered through the opening. “Because I said so.” He even walked like a bull. Purposefully. With his shoulders squared and his back straight. His head upright. A cocky swagger in his step. The overhead light bulbs in the tunnel made his dark hair glisten. His suit, too. Like the pinstriping was made of silver threads.

  Just looking at him made her mouth go dry again. That had never happened to her before. Why did it now?

  Why did he do that to her?

  Because he was a bull!

  What was he doing here? That was the question she should be asking!

  The Depot hadn’t been on anyone’s radar, her sources would have told her if it had been. He had to be after Duane. That’s what the feds were after. The distilleries.

  “When?” Thad asked.

  “As soon as I say.” She was waiting for the bull to turn the first corner, so he wouldn’t sense the door opening. Bulls were like that. They could sense things.

  She could, too. Her insides were steaming like the brewing pot of a still. Every bubble that popped said she wasn’t about to let this fed bust her. No way in Hades or hell.

  He turned the corner and she counted to five before pulling open the door and stepping into the hallway.

  On the tips of the toes of her patent leather shoes, she rushed forward, and then held her hand up, telling Thad to stop behind her as she paused near the wall and slowly leaned around the curve to peer down the tunnel. It was empty and she waved her hand so Thad would continue to follow her. Silently.

  She paused again at the next curve, peered around the corner and frowned. The tunnel was empty. That bull must be running in order to be so far ahead of her. Her temper rose. She wanted to catch him in the tunnel. Justifying that might not happen, she concluded that the depot building would be just as good. Fred Myers would be there. Not that she’d need more help than Thad, but she’d be able to find out why Fred had let the bull enter the tunnel in the first place.

  “Where’d he go?” Thad asked.

  “He’s fast, and slick,” she answered. Federal agents were like hound dogs and foxes rolled into one. “Fred
will see him at the top of the stairs.”

  “But will he stop him?”

  Blast it! Fred wouldn’t stop him! He’d let him in and wouldn’t think twice about letting him out. She bolted forward.

  “Why are we after this guy?” Thad asked, running beside her.

  “He’s a bull.”

  “Didn’t look like one to me. He knew the password.”

  “Half of Missouri and Kansas knows the password,” she hissed while sliding to a stop at the door to the basement of the train depot.

  “How do you know he’s a bull?”

  “I just do!” She opened the door, and, like the tunnel, the basement was empty.

  “How?” Thad asked.

  She held up a hand to silence him and walked to the stairs, peered up them. Empty. The door at the top of the steps was closed. “Go back to your station.”

  “You don’t want me to go up there, find him?” Thad asked, towering over her and looking up the stairway.

  “No.” There was no need. The bull was gone. She doubted Fred would have given him a second look, but still started up the steps. “I’ll be back after talking with Fred.”

  “What if—”

  She cut him off with another wave of her hand. “I’ll be fine.”

  Forcing herself to stay strong, keep her back straight and her head up, she marched up the stairs. She’d had to learn to assert herself when she’d started running the Depot. Her stepfather had said that she’d fail straight off, and she’d been determined to prove him wrong. Because she was short, small boned and a woman, other men besides her stepfather had thought she didn’t have what it took to manage anything, let alone a speakeasy. As if size or gender had anything to do with it.

  She’d learned to bark orders, demand action and expect results, all the while completing a handful of her own tasks. It hadn’t been easy, and at times she hadn’t liked it, but she’d forced herself to do whatever it would take to make the Depot successful.

  People listened to her without question now, knew she was the one in charge. There were nights when she’d take the cash box up to her house that she couldn’t believe how successful she had become. More than she’d ever imagined, and she certainly wasn’t going to let a nosy, spiffy-looking federal agent take away everything she’d worked so hard to achieve.

  Not by a long shot. The town needed her to keep Duane in line so they could succeed, and she wasn’t about to let those people down.

  Fred Myers was in his office across from the basement door, feet up on his desk and reading a book. Her lips pursed as the air she drew in and let out through her nose grew hotter with every breath.

  Fred glanced up, saw her and dropped his feet to the floor. “Trouble brewing?” he asked, shooting to his feet.

  Holding her composure because calm seriousness got her further than out-of-control mad—which was how she felt—she asked, “Where is the man who just left?”

  “What man?” Fred adjusted the temple stems of his gold wire-framed glasses. “I didn’t see anyone.”

  “Tall, brown hair, wearing a black and gray pinstriped suit.”

  Fred rapped his knuckles on the top of his desk. “Nope. Ain’t seen no one fitting that description, and I’ve been here the whole time.”

  “What about half an hour ago, when he entered?”

  Sticking his thumbs behind the black suspenders over his yellowed, once white, shirt, he shook his head. “No one’s entered since the train arrived. Was he one of them? From Kansas City?”

  “You’ve been here the entire time?”

  “Yes.”

  Fred knew the importance of his job, and hadn’t failed her in the past. He and his connections with the engineers of the trains between here and Kansas City were major pieces of how well everything was working right now. “You haven’t left this office since the train pulled away?”

  He nodded, then shrugged. “Except for going across the street for a sandwich shortly after the train left. Hilda has turkey ones today.”

  Fred always went to the grocery store across the street for supper. That bull must have been watching, knew exactly when to sneak in, and snuck out just as quietly.

  “Why? Who is he?”

  She sucked in a breath so deep it made her lungs hurt. “A federal agent.”

  “No?”

  “Yes.”

  Chapter Three

  Mick watched the depot from across the street, in the shadow of the awning of the brick grocery store that also gave him a clear view through the open depot door. The woman had followed him all the way through the tunnel, and now stood in the hallway, talking to the agent who’d been sitting in the office reading a book when Mick had snuck past him and out the door.

  Pretty didn’t describe her appropriately. She was more than pretty. Her eyes were so dark blue he’d almost been able to see his own reflection in them. Her lashes were thick and dark, and not because they were coated with mascara. Her face had been so flawless, so pretty, it had taken him aback for a moment, like catching a glimpse of a movie star’s photo on the cover of a magazine, where he had to take a second and third look, because they looked too perfect to be real.

  She was real, and she’d been as nervous as a dog in a thunderstorm when she’d stopped him at the door, on the pretense of dancing. He didn’t dance. But he was an officer of the law, and she knew it. He’d recognized a certain alarm in those dark blue eyes. It was impossible to explain exactly what it was, but people got a certain tremor in their eyes when they realized they were talking to a cop. They couldn’t hide it, either. Especially those who had reason to be afraid because they knew they were about to be caught in some form of action that was against the law.

  Running a speakeasy was against the law. He could have saved her the worry. Told her he wasn’t here to bust anyone. He had considered it for a split second, but had decided it was better if she remained afraid, because someone as young as her shouldn’t be that deep in illegal activities. It could ruin her life. He wouldn’t be around to see it, but what she was doing was putting her on a road to nowhere.

  He didn’t like that idea.

  He wasn’t overly sure why she’d followed him, either. Had she thought she could overpower him? The goon who’d been selling tickets at the door had been with her in the tunnel, but it would take more than that to intimidate him—he was from Rochester, New York. A farm boy goon was nothing compared to the mob torpedoes he’d encountered in the past. The only reason he hadn’t stopped, hadn’t confronted them, was because then he’d have to follow through, and that speakeasy was none of his business. He was here to get Tony Boloney’s daughter. Nothing more.

  The woman disappeared, and, certain she’d gone back to the speakeasy, Mick left the shadows of the awning and walked up the road to the hotel. The sun was setting now, and, oddly enough, even though the closed signs were on the doors and shades were pulled, there were lights on inside the stores.

  Maybe that wasn’t so odd. The entire town seemed peculiar to him.

  Back at the hotel, he took a bath in the bathroom at the end of the hall, and then returned to his room, more than ready to get a good night’s sleep.

  The sheets smelled like sunshine and the bed was comfortable, but sleep evaded him as his mind circled back to the speakeasy woman. She was far too young to be running a joint. He’d be surprised if she was twenty. The top of her pearl-encircled head had barely reached his shoulder. Her dress had been a dark purple silky number, trimmed with fringe and decorated with that long set of white pearls she’d twirled like a lasso while batting that set of long dark lashes at him.

  He grinned recalling her flirting, and her blunder over the magician’s name. That had flustered her. Maybe he should have played along, shown her how dangerous her snake charmer game could have been. Would be when the day came that she encountered someone with less restraint
than him.

  Later, while he was still waiting to fall asleep, still thinking about why a girl that young would be running a speakeasy, noise filtering in through the window drew his attention. A glance at the clock said it was eleven thirty. Tossing back the covers, he rose and pulled back the curtain. It was dark, but streetlights shone down on every corner, and several lit up the depot.

  There were now several cars parked along the streets and tables were set up all around the depot building, like it was some sort of marketplace. More tables were being taken out of cars and trucks and carried toward the depot, along with crates, baskets and bags.

  This town really was strange, and too curious not to check it out, he slid on his pants, socks and shoes, and his shirt. By the time he arrived at the store across the road from the train station, people were trickling out of the depot building. People he recognized both from the train and the speakeasy.

  Once again, he stayed under the awning, watching as people wandered through the makeshift bazaar, buying sandwiches and other food to eat, as well as other wares being sold at each of the tables.

  A short time later, a bell rang. So loudly that had he been asleep, it would have woken him. Within five minutes, what appeared to be the entire speakeasy emptied out through the door of the depot and those tables were overrun with customers picking the tops clean. The sound of the train whistle caused a frenzy of last-minute buyers scarfing up anything that was left.

  Mick stayed, watching as the train filled up and the market vendors packed up their tablecloths, signs and cash boxes into their crates and bags. As the train pulled away, heading north toward Kansas City, the vendors carried their tables, bags and boxes toward their vehicles and stores.