It’s not as if my part will be difficult.
I fluff my Sunday best dress over my legs, feeling more comfortable in its longer length. While finalizing details ’bout our alcohol run, Blanche complained how she could wear a dress just as well as I could, but Mary countered with how innocence was the proper look. She needed a doll, not a moll. And Blanche didn’t fit the bill.
I bob my knee anxiously as we drive, Buck announcing we’re only a few minutes away from the restaurant. For the umpteenth time, he looks in the rearview mirror.
“Everything okay?” I ask, not sure I want to know the answer.
“Yup. My brother is tailing us.”
“Your brother?” I twist to peer over the seat. Two pinpricks of light stare back.
“Yep, the one and only Clyde Champion Barrow,” Buck says with a wink. He takes another puff of his cig. “He’ll flash his lights if he spots any po-lice taking notice of us on the way.”
“Why’d they care ’bout us now? We don’t got the bootlegs yet.”
“Well,” Buck says, and licks his lips, “this here car is hot.”
I jolt straight up in my seat. “What?”
Buck chuckles. “Can’t expect me to use my own car. Don’t even have one.”
Panic seizes me. Going on the run to begin with is one thing. A big thing. Going on this run in a stolen car is a whole other shebang. “I want out. I want out this very second.”
“Sorry, Saint Bonnelyn, not going to happen. If we don’t show up where we said we would, when we said we would, these jokers are going to come looking for us. And trust me, we don’t want that happening.”
“Trust you? Why would I ever go and do a thing like that? You all lied to me.” My voice rattles ’round the car, hurting my own ears. “My God, did Blanche know?”
“She’s the one who suggested not telling you.”
“No,” I say, rubbing my forehead, needing for that not to be true.
“She said to give ya a few minutes and you’d come ’round.”
I drop my hand to my lap, clutch it with my other hand. My nails dig into my skin, but I almost relish in the pain, something I can control when everything else is moving too fast.
“Look, it’s safer this way.” Buck pats the steering wheel. “No one will know she’s gone for a few hours. But if I were to take the doctor’s car and things go south, the car will track back to him, and most likely to us. Can’t have that, can we?”
I feverishly shake my head, but it’s not only to answer Buck’s question. It’s also out of disbelief that I haven’t thrown open the passenger-side door.
“I know why you’re here, Saint Bonnelyn. Blanche told me how money is tight at home.”
And that, right there, is why I’m still here. I stare out the window, the betrayal I feel from Blanche growing. But she ain’t wrong. I wish things were different for my family.
“Want to know why I’m here?” I turn toward Buck, and he takes that as a yes as he says, “My brother got real sick a while back. Doc Peterson kept him alive. So if he asks something of me, I’m going to do it.”
“Why does he even do this?” I let out a slow breath, trying to regain my composure. “Why’d he open Doc’s?”
“Doc Peterson uses whiskey to treat patients. It’s allowed, ya know, medicinally.” I nod, although I didn’t fully realize that. “And the pharmacies were having a hard time filling his alcohol scripts ’cause of low production. The government controls all that. Doc Peterson took matters into his own hands.”
“For his patients?”
“Yup. Patients like Clyde got the ball rollin’. Then him and a few of his buddies started playing poker in his basement, which eventually led to the full-blown Doc’s.”
My lower back is moist from all this talk, but my head ain’t spinning anymore, even if nerves still jump ’round my stomach. “Has this been going on for a while?”
“Which part? Bootlegging?”
I scratch my nose, my chin. That word makes me uncomfortable. “Yes. No. I guess everything.”
“The doctor covers his tracks, if that’s what you’re after. He’s been bootlegging for medicinal purposes for years and years. The poker playing—not as long. Maybe three or four years. I ain’t too sure. Doc’s is still a baby, just a few months old. Took years to discreetly get everything set up downstairs. And I can assure you he was discreet. That’s why that raid was nothin’ but a false alarm.”
I also don’t like the sound of that word. It would’ve spelled bad news for my family and me if it’d been real. But it wasn’t. I’m okay. We’re okay. Better than okay, maybe. Makes me wonder though … “How come Doc’s is so busy?”
“What ya mean?”
“Many places are doing great after the war. But Dallas ain’t spreading its wealth too well.”
He nods a few times, like he’s familiar. “For those pinching pennies, I suppose they like pretending. Ya know, it ain’t illegal to drink.”
“It’s not?” I scour my memory. My parents weren’t big drinkers. But Roy’s daddy was, alcoholism running in his family and all. His ma was plenty happy when Prohibition was passed.
“Nope. Anyone is free to drink the stuff,” Buck says, turning his head left and right. He crosses a small intersection. “The government just wants ya to think you can’t. But the law says ya can do it in your home. You just can’t make, sell, or distribute it.”
I narrow my eyes, thinking. “But how do you get it to drink it?”
Buck slaps the wheel and I jump, my nerves already on edge. “Attagirl, Saint Bonnelyn. He’s corrupt, ain’t he?”
“Who?”
“The government. There’s so much poor going on and he’s focusing on what? Booze? Ridiculous. I ain’t surprised people take matters into their own hands,” he says, half paying attention, peering through the windshield. His voice lowers, as if talking only to himself. “Here we are.”
I get a chill. On our left, we pass MacGregor’s Restaurant, and Buck releases an audible breath. That ain’t helping my nerves. When we make a left turn into its alleyway, his fingers tap against the wheel, the noise pounding in my head.
Buck pulls the brake lever, silences the engine, cuts the lights. I shift again to see over the seat. Clyde’s car passes in the streetlight’s glow.
“All right,” Buck says. “This will be easy-peasy.”
I snort at his vocabulary, as if Little Billie said it and not some bimbo in a suit.
He hops from the car. Before I know it, my door is opening. Buck stands there, backlit, making it hard to see his face.
He offers me his hand. I hesitate.
“It’s okay,” he says. “I know you ain’t crazy ’bout any of this, but I’m okay.” I’m barely able to distinguish his facial features, but I can still tell my hesitation hurts his feelings. “Ya know I was arrested, don’t ya? Is that why you’re squirrely ’round me?”
My expression must betray my desire not to admit it. His outstretched hand drops to his side.
“What I did wasn’t so bad.” Buck flicks his cigarette into the dirt and twists it into the cracked pavement with his shoe. “I got caught with stolen goods last year—me and Clyde did. Funny story, really.”