Wooden Nickels: White Lightning Series, Book 1 Read online

  The short man held the bottle up to the sunlight. His gaze pressed hard into her illusion, sending shocks of pain into her chest. But she maintained focus, ensuring the man saw green glass with golden oil, not an amber bottle of embarrassingly young brandy.

  He lifted the bottle to his face, giving it a sniff.

  Three dimensions.

  Hattie whimpered as the illusion flooded the man’s nostrils with the aroma of olive oil.

  Don’t taste it. Don’t taste it. That fourth dimension would be too much for her to handle at this distance. She’d pass out. And probably wake up in the hoosegow.

  The man drew in a second sniff, then a third.

  Hattie’s heartbeat pounded in her neck, all the way down to her feet. Her guts lurched in waves as he breathed in the illusion, then breathed it back out. The ground softened, and she gripped the side of the truck to keep from falling over.

  Finally, slipping the bottle back into the crate with a chuckle, the short man turned to his compatriot.

  “Guess those Guineas gotta eat something besides crab!”

  The tall man sneered at the coarse words, but simply made more notes on his pad before giving Hattie and Raymond a tip of his hat.

  Hattie held tight to the side of the truck for what felt like an eternity, until the two men stepped out of sight. Then, with a low, husky moan, she dropped the illusion and pitched forward onto the grass.

  Raymond dove to catch her, easing her onto her knees.

  “You okay, baby girl?” he whispered.

  Hattie swallowed hard against the tides of nausea threatening to send breakfast out onto the grass. After several long minutes of cold sweat, the nausea subsided. She opened her eyes, the field of parked cars still swimming in her vision.

  Raymond gave her shoulders a brisk rub. “Hey. You with me?”

  “Close call,” she whispered.

  He nodded. “Yeah. Thought we was pinched, for sure.”

  “Pinched,” she said as she ran a sleeve underneath her nose and pulled it back to reveal a long smear of blood. “Not today.”

  “Come on,” he urged as he guided her to her feet. “We’re gettin’ you home. You look like death warmed over.”

  “No. We have a job.”

  Raymond cocked his head. “You’re a stubborn mule of a child. You comin’ down with the fever or something?”

  “I’m fine.” She shot him a look filled with significance. “The Feds are here. That means Winnow’s is clear.”

  Raymond scowled. “Little Teague set us up. You know that, huh?”

  “Aye,” she snarled. “Pieced that together on my own.”

  “It’ll be dark before we let in. You sure you want to run these out today, with the goons sniffin’ around?”

  She gripped the side of the truck and sucked in a long breath. The headache began its inexorable slide into the space behind her eyes. Hattie lifted fingers to her temples to give them a quick massage. “I’m sure. Let’s go. I want to get out on the water.”

  He shrugged. “Suit yourself. But I’m drivin’.” He held the passenger door open for Hattie. “I don’t think you or the truck will survive in your condition.”

  She took a seat, and as he closed the door, she shot him a weary smirk.

  “Bully.”

  He smiled in return. “Brat.”

  Chapter 2

  The cramped closet had barely enough room for Vincent to change into his costume. He called it a costume. In reality it was his usual black suit, with the addition of a fez and lots of stage makeup. Gripping a horse-hair brush in one hand he drew his left cheek away from his brow, spreading the eye shadow across his top eyelid, and giving his already olive complexion a dark Valentino quality. Then he set aside the brush and double-checked his face, pulling the single lit candle closer to the mirror.

  Perfect.

  He stood up, leaning away from the wood shelves loaded with dry goods for the downstairs grocer, and snatched the fez to settle it onto his thick, black hair, which had been slicked into a neat part down the middle.

  Clearing his throat, he spoke out loud, “Mysterious.” Not good enough. “Mys…teerious.” The accent was everything. Without the accent, he was just Vincent Calendo. But with the right lilt and tone, a hiss of consonance here, an exaggerated gesture there…he was The Great Mustafa Damir.

  “Showtime,” he whispered, before gathering himself and blowing out the candle. Stepping out of the closet, he ducked beneath two red satin curtains he’d nailed to the door frame and stood with fingers neatly tented up near his necktie.

  Three elderly women watched with blanched interest from a tiny card table draped in black velvet, their jaws slack and eyes wide.

  “Good…ev-en-ing,” he declared. “I am the Great Damir.”

  One of the women started to clap, but the others glared her down.

  Vincent took long, dramatic strides as he paced around the table. The old ladies sat stiff, their heads on swivels as he rounded them like a panther.

  “I am the purveyor of the Secret Knowledge,” he announced with his finely practiced if utterly manufactured Arabic inflections. “The keeper of the Hidden Flame. I see beyond the veil between the living…” he leaned in close to the third woman, “…and the dead.”

  One of them released a low gasp.

  He straightened and continued his circle back to his seat.

  “I understand you are seekers, each of you. You have loved ones who have passed…beyond.” He lifted his hand out in front of him, palm down, sliding it out to the side as if to reach into the afterlife itself.

  They all nodded.

  “Now,” he said with sudden volume, taking a seat at the tiny table. “I trust you’ve each brought what I’ve requested. The names of your dearly departed, and a personal item you feel they have clung to.”

  Each nodded, the first lady going as far as to pull her purse up to the table. She unsnapped it and reached inside.

  Vincent held up a hand. “Please, please. I do not wish to see them. I only require that they be present. Here, in the room with us. For it is this item which beckons your loved ones. They call to them.” He closed his eyes and lifted his chin a little. “A song of life, echoing only a little into the great beyond. With luck, these songs will be heard.”

  He opened his eyes once again. Each of these women sat in that same familiar posture. Stiff, rigid, upright. Face pale. Eyes so wide the irises were surrounded by white. This was the mix of blasphemous fear and desperate need he’d learned to cultivate in his audiences.

  Vincent cracked his knuckles and laid his palms flat on the table.

  “And so, first I must find my center…before reaching out across the Veil.”

  He closed his eyes and released a low hum. That hum lifted into a major third…and back again. This continued for several seconds until he put words to the chant.

  “Al…leppo. Al…manna. Al…Jeddah. Khartoum.”

  In the dim, candle-flickered space, with a bowl full of fresh pipe tobacco smoldering in the far corner, this chant sounded perfectly foreign. Perfectly spiritual. In truth, Vincent got the words off a world globe he spotted at the Old Moravia Hotel sitting room, and felt they sounded sufficiently Arabic. But his clients weren’t world travelers. They were widows, by and large, most barely literate and desperate for some sort of closure.

  Vincent ramped up his chant, opening his eyes into a maniac’s leer, shivering his arms in the air. He had to watch it at this point…sometimes the old ladies were so frightened by the theater of the moment, they’d either bolt out the door or pass out.

  When he felt he had their nerves stretched to a proper tension, Vincent balled fists and hammered them onto the table top.

  And with a blink, he pinched time.

  The smoke rising from the bowl in the corner froze midair. The street sounds from the open window dropped into stony silence. The women all sat in mid-cringe, their eyes clamped shut out of reflex from the sudden slap on the table.
/>   This was Vincent’s method. Make them flinch, then pinch time when they couldn’t tell the difference. It helped when he released his grip on the flow of time, just in case he didn’t return to his seat at just the proper and exact position. If any of the women had kept their eyes on him, the effect from their point of view would be like a moving picture, when the jump from reel to reel isn’t quite perfect.

  He’d done this enough times, however, to iron out such wrinkles. Now he had them all frozen. Now he could do his reconnoiter.

  Vincent eased out of his chair, pushing through the stiffened air as he reached for the first old lady’s purse. He snapped it open and removed the tiny slip of paper within. He found the name scrawled in impeccable script. Harold. Within the purse, alongside two five dollar notes which he assumed was his donation, was a thick silver ring. He recognized the emblem on the sides as it rose to a fake ruby. Knights of Columbus.

  He pressed on, swimming through the time-frozen space to the second woman, searching her belongings for the name of her dearly departed. It seemed she was looking for Horace. He shook his head. The H-names had a bad year. Tucked in the pocket of her coat, Vincent found a monogrammed statesmetal flask, a florid “HTM” etched onto the side. He shoved the flask back into her pocket, making sure it reached bottom before moving on. When he pinched time, he found that gravity by-and-large kept its grip on things, but it wasn’t as sure as it was without his assistance.

  Finally, he moved on to the third woman. She carried a purse as well, and Vincent was glad for it. He had to extend his powers to encapsulate the entire room. Life out on the street was progressing as normal. He didn’t have the constitution to freeze an entire street. As it was, this dimension of space was enough to tug at his guts. That familiar wave of nausea was creeping into his throat, and he knew that the second dimension of duration would prove detrimental to his health.

  Vincent slipped his fingers into her purse, pulling away a tiny scrap of paper. When he lifted it to the light in order to read the final name of the dearly departed, he winced. This was a name…of sorts. He assumed it was. Problem was, it wasn’t written in any language he recognized. Certainly not English, and he only knew just enough Italian to get by with his coworkers.

  But this? This was some sort of Slavic scribble. Letters just familiar enough to be strange greeted his eyes. A back-facing R. A lowercase A. Something strange, and a loopy-loop.

  Vincent clamped his eyes shut, then shook his head. What now?

  He searched the rest of her purse as the pressure began to build inside his stomach. His fingers hooked around a ring of steel, and he pulled it up. It was heavy, and completely filled the woman’s purse. This wasn’t any trinket. It was massive. When the nose of a 6.35 millimeter revolver emerged from the mouth of the purse, he bit down on his tongue. This was a vest gun, the sort with which Vincent was far too familiar.

  A spasm rocked his midsection, and he shoved the gun back into place alongside the slip of paper, and eased the purse back into the woman’s lap. Vincent pumped his legs, shoving himself through the time-frozen molasses-like air back into his seat, settling his fists onto the black velvet.

  And with another blink, he released his pinch.

  The smoke wafted up to the ceiling. Cars outside chugged alongside outspoken pedestrians. The women all released a sudden gasp.

  And Vincent swallowed back a throb of bile.

  The effect of the time pinches suited the task. To these ladies, he was wracked with pallor and a cold sweat due to his contact with the spirit realm…whatever that was supposed to be.

  They watched as he collected himself.

  Turning to the first woman, he cleared his throat and declared, “Madame.” He winced immediately, unsure why he decided to go French on her. Oh well, they probably wouldn’t notice, or care. “I sense a presence.”

  She leaned forward, lower lip trembling.

  Vincent reached for his brow, rubbing it as if nursing a phantasmic migraine. “The Great Damir speaks to you who approaches! Stop now, and speak your name.” He closed his eyes and made listening motions. “Ah…Har…Harold?”

  The woman sucked in a sharp breath, and tears immediately flowed from her eyes.

  Vincent stared at her. “Your husband?”

  She nodded.

  “His name is Harold.”

  She nodded again.

  “The Great Damir sense that his faith…in the Church…was strong.”

  She clasped her hands in front of her face, and whispered, “He was a lay minister.”

  Vincent reached for her hands and gripped them with firm assurance.

  “Your husband, I am happy to say, is in the glorious embrace of the Christian God.”

  Her mouth lifted into a laugh-grimace, and she sucked in several breaths.

  Vincent added, “And though he urges you never to treat with…this is embarrassing for me, but I am only the messenger…a Moslim such as myself, he wishes you to know that you are welcome at the Gates of Peter. And he awaits you there. Be at peace.”

  She clamped her eyes shut, sobbing so thoroughly that it produced high-pitched moans. He nodded, and the other two offered a meager applause.

  He waved them off, then stared at the second woman.

  “My dear…” Yes, that was better than French. What was he thinking? “I sense the presence of…Horace?”

  More tears, more nodding. This would be simple, but his thoughts were already planning for the tough nut of the group.

  “Was he your husband?”

  “He was,” she whispered.

  “Did he have a love for…the fermentation of the grape?”

  She sighed. “The man was a drunk.”

  “I see,” he cooed. “And this was the cause of his death, I feel?”

  She nodded sadly.

  “Well, I can tell you by his posture, such as it is. He is contrite. He blames himself, and he feels grief that he has caused you great suffering during his time in the light.”

  The old woman wiped tears from her eyes.

  “However,” Vincent declared with a lift of his expression, “your Horace sees things now unclouded by the fume of liquor. He sees farther than any of us still living. And what he sees…is a bright place.”

  The woman smiled and clutched her purse to her bosom.

  Vincent nodded. “Yes. His guilt is assuaged by the Universal Mind. The great kings of the ancient world have granted him mercy. And he is prepared to move on to the next life.”

  Vincent waved his hands in what he assumed was a mysterious fashion.

  She asked, “Next life?”

  “My dear, his soul sees beyond the ultimate mystery. I am not permitted to inquire further, lest my own life become forfeit. So please, simply know that he is at peace, and that you are free to seek your own destiny.”

  She released a held breath and shook her hands in thanks.

  This was the best line of lemon juice to pour for the widows of drunkards. Too often they resented their husbands, and often with the bruises to drive that home. Time to time, they were looking for confirmation they were roasting in Hell. But this one, Vincent could tell, was simply sad. She needed the memory to die, as well as the man. With luck, that’s what he gave her. In truth, if the man had lived in any other state in this great Union, he’d probably be alive today. But Maryland chose to sit out this Prohibition. The clubs were open and pouring spirits when the rest of the country had to get their gin in basements and back alleys.

  All this musing amounted to so much stalling. Vincent had to rely on a cold read for this last woman. It’d been a while since he’d had to feel out a goose like this the hard way. He didn’t like it. Less control. And control was everything when he was performing for little old ladies in his free time.

  Control. That’s what this was all about, really. He didn’t keep the cash. Vincent earned enough from his stipend from the Baltimore Crew. This was about his powers, and using them on his own terms for a damn change.
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br />   Still, though, he had a woman staring at him with increasing agitation. He had to come up with something.

  “I feel as if,” he began, searching for the words in long pauses both for effect and in genuine, “someone is not eager to answer your call.”

  She tucked her head.

  Vincent nudged, “However, he…is here. This shyness proves difficult, but if I may be so bold… I sense violence.” He kept a firm gaze on her as she lifted her frail eyes to meet his.

  Bullseye.

  “Violence,” Vincent repeated, “that has haunted his life for quite some time.”

  She nodded once.

  “Violence…that has brought you great suffering. I fear this may have been the strong wind that has snuffed out his flame?”

  The old woman closed her eyes, and through trembling lips she whispered, “Yasha.”

  Vincent’s stomach dropped.

  That name…

  “This was not your husband, I think,” he prodded.

  She shook her head. “He was my son.”

  The word escaped Vincent’s mouth before he could check it for the faux-Arab accent. “Dmitrivich?”

  The woman straightened in her seat, then nodded vigorously.

  Vincent closed his eyes and shook his head, the knot in his stomach not due to his powers, but from genuine misery. This wouldn’t be a cold read, after all.

  With a clearing of his throat, Vincent checked back into character and said, “Yakov Dmitrivich, I call to you.”

  At last, tears flowed from the third woman’s eyes.

  “Yakov Dmitrivich, I compel you. Face your mother now. Tell her of your guilt. Of your deep regret. I…sense his presence now. Yes. He was a, what is the word? A gangster?”

  She covered her face with her fingers.

  Vincent surged on, “He worked for the mob. This…Baltimore Crew. He was not…family, as they would say. But they hired him all the same.”

  She whimpered, “We are Russian. They only take in their own kind.”

  He hid a wince. “Indeed, but they make use of the rest. No?”

  She lowered her hands and nodded with a scowl.