Wooden Nickels: White Lightning Series, Book 1 Read online

  Vincent leaned in to call Lefty’s attention to the fact, but paused as the dull sheen of gunmetal emerged from the cab.

  The brother lifted what appeared to be a simple hunting rifle out of the cab, keeping it tucked behind the door.

  Cooper cleared his throat, pointing his Tommy gun at the brother. “Hey, keep your mitts where we can see ’em!”

  Tony jerked his head toward the gunman who pulled the rifle up to the door window and cranked the bolt with a shout. The barrel was trained directly at Tony, whose gun was still aimed at the dirt.

  The gunman’s finger clamped down on the trigger.

  With a blink, Vincent pinched time.

  The boom of the rifle shot shuffled into a muddy whisper, like a stone thrown into water with a deep kerplunk.

  Vincent took a half-second to size up the postures of everyone gathered, and realized he was too far away—over twenty yards. The area of halted time had extended at least that far, plus a few more to capture the truck. He hadn’t made a conscious calculation of his time pinch…he never did. He only knew what he needed, and his powers reached out and made it happen. It was often a bill that was tallied after the fact to Vincent’s chagrin.

  This bill was going to be painfully high.

  Vincent reached for the tree trunk beside him and used it to push himself out into the time-frozen air. His legs hammered against the ground, swimming through the mire, trying to close the distance before the time pinch began to shred his guts. He could already feel it tugging at his chest.

  It felt like an eternity, and from the inside of this bubble it might as well have been. Step after step, he strode forward through the thickness of air until he reached the truck.

  The rifle was in mid-lift from the kick, the gunman’s eyes squinted hard. A brilliant plume of hot black powder exhaust hovered in the middle of the truck door window, shedding its light in a dull shine like an overweight firefly. The slug itself hung in the air several feet away, almost halfway to Tony’s chest.

  Bile filled Vincent’s throat as his abdomen twisted. It usually didn’t set in quite this quick, but he was extending a larger area of effect than usual…and it was wearing him down. He wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold it.

  He had to make quick decisions.

  First, he reached for the stock of the rifle, careful not to touch the fire-heated metal, and jerked it clear of the brother’s hands. When time restored its flow, it would continue up in its recoil, probably flying into or over the gunman’s face. There would be no second shot.

  Vincent then gripped the open truck door and pulled himself into motion in a direct line alongside the flight of the bullet. He knew better than to touch the slug. His powers never actually fully halted time. The best he did was to slow the flow of time to such a speed that it appeared to stop. But some things that had enough speed, such as light itself, or even a bullet midflight, still packed enough punch to cause severe injury. He’d learned that the hard way, to be sure.

  Keeping clear of the slug, he reached for Tony, pulling him by the arm until his body canted at an angle, like a diver going sideways through frozen water. When time returned, he’d fall to his side, gun clear of his legs…and most importantly clear of the bullet.

  Vincent’s throat lurched, and he dry-heaved. A burning heat filled his torso, and a trickle of blood slipped from his nostrils. He didn’t have time to return to the trees. No, that would kill him. Best he could do was to step clear of the bullets.

  He pushed hard against the ground, reaching his arms out, and dove. His body remained suspended for a half-second in the thickness of the space.

  And with a blink, he released his time pinch.

  Gravity grabbed hold of his body, sending him into freefall just as the rest of the rifle shot pounded in his ears. He landed in the grass beside the road and turned on his hip.

  Tony lay sprawled out on the dirt road, turning his head slowly back and forth.

  Cooper stood rigid, his gun half-raised, blinking. “What the—?” he bellowed.

  A clack behind the truck caught their attention. The hunting rifle had swung up and over the gunman’s head. He stood, hands still held in a pantomime of a rifle, eyes wide.

  Cooper released a blood-curdling shout and pulled the Tommy gun to his shoulder.

  Gunfire filled Vincent’s ears.

  Sparks flew off the angles and edges of the truck.

  Shouts.

  Blood.

  Tony remained on his side, lifting his gun to join in the barrage. Bullets clinked along the undercarriage, pounding the tires flat. The Dryfork patriarch spun several times under the impact of Cooper’s bullets, bouncing against the front fender of the truck, then onto his back. Tony angled his gun at the open truck door. The brothers turned on their heels to run, but the bullets from both gangsters perforated the door…and the brothers.

  Both of the gangsters held their triggers down until their magazines had emptied, then remained in place, sucking in ragged breaths.

  Lefty trotted out of the copse of trees, eyes scanning the scene back and forth.

  Vincent pulled himself to his feet and waved him down. “Over here, Lefty.”

  Lefty trotted over to him, sizing him up.

  “You hurt?” he grumbled.

  “Pulled too hard,” Vincent wheezed.

  A gurgle in his throat announced a fresh wave of bile. Vincent spun around and vomited into the grass.

  Tony stood up and eased Cooper’s gun down. The two approached the driver, whose lifeless body didn’t respond to repeated nudging from their wingtips. Then Tony rounded the door to check on the brothers. He lifted a hand and gave them a thumbs-up.

  Cooper hustled around the opposite side of the truck, pausing only a moment to shake his head at Vincent. He proceeded toward the rear of the truck, then released a whistle. Six barrels sat on the bed of the truck, each branded with a stylized DF-WV emblem. Several streams of clear liquid sprang from the barrels closest to the cab.

  “How’s it look?” Tony asked.

  “Looks like we still got ourselves four good barrels! Front two’s spitting out, but there’s four left.”

  Tony laughed. “Well, I suppose negotiations broke down. Huh?” He slapped Cooper on the shoulder with a chuckle.

  Vincent spat his mouth clear and shook his head. It spun, and would continue to do so until he got some rest. His powers did real damage this time. Tomorrow would not be kind.

  Lefty inched toward the truck. “Where’s our man?”

  Tony stepped back into view from behind the truck. “What, now?”

  “You said we had a man on the inside. That he was with them. Either you two just laid him out, or he stayed behind.”

  Cooper said, “Maybe he knew this would hit the skids?”

  Lefty approached the cab, then turned away sharply.

  Vincent gasped, “What? What is it?”

  Lefty’s face, usually stone-cold and unaffected, fell several shades paler. He shook his head and moved away.

  “No,” he whispered. “He was here.”

  Cooper approached the driver’s side door. He released a string of vulgarities and turned away, as well.

  Vincent pulled in several breaths, straightened up…and regretted it. A migraine pounded inside his skull. Cold sweat erupted across his brow and the small of his back. He forced his feet forward, heel to toe, until he could see inside the cab.

  The body of a young boy no older than ten years lay twisted and bloodied.

  Vincent clamped his eyes shut and held himself up against the side of the truck, his face pulling into a grimace.

  Tony said, “Hell’s bells. Someone could’ve told us it was just a kid. What a damn mess.”

  The ground shifted beneath Vincent’s feet, and he pitched to the side. He felt Lefty’s hand guiding him to the ground, and though he opened his eyes…he could see nothing but darkness. Nothing but sickness and pain.

  And grief for that little boy.

&n
bsp; Chapter 5

  Hattie regarded herself in her mirror and pressed her palms against the yellow gingham dress her mother had given her. No matter how hard she pressed, the array of permanent wrinkles continued bunching up along the sides. Thin straps dug into her shoulders, and years of her mother’s wear had created stretched-out swaths where curves had once filled what Hattie’s figure couldn’t. She was used to hand-me-down garments, but every time she received something “new,” she ran through the ritual of identifying what was wrong with it.

  One day, God willing, she’d have a dress that only she had worn. Or at least one her mother hadn’t worn.

  Reaching for her purple straw hat, Hattie settled it onto her head, making sure her bangs drifted across the front of her brow. The band of the hat was faded, and it had lost most of its ornaments long ago. The purple wasn’t exactly a match for the yellow gingham, but it was her only hat, also inherited from her mother. She searched the room for some sort of purple accessory to at least make an attempt, but came up empty.

  Not that it mattered. Hattie wasn’t trying to impress anyone. She was only going to see Lizzie.

  “Tin Lizzie” Sadler, the widow of the late Jake Sadler, kept long hours at the warehouse of corrugated tin panels at Locust Point, whence she’d earned her moniker. The warehouse was utterly unremarkable, save for Jake’s Runabout parked at the front. It was a new car when Jake had bought it. That was almost one month exactly before he got himself shot. In the years since, Lizzie’d stepped into his shoes. In many ways, she’d improved the affairs of their tidy little booze-running business. Money still came in…not as many large payouts, but it was more regular. She’d even forgiven the loan Raymond took out from Jake in order to buy the boat they used to this day. And despite her sour puss and vinegared ways, the woman never played games with their money. No short dealing. She paid on time and in full.

  What hadn’t improved was their relationship with the Baltimore Crew. Jake had kept the mob at arm’s length, choosing to do business with representatives of representatives. Those connections died with Jake—literally. The death toll on the day the Charleston deal went south was steep for both sides. So, Lizzie had little choice but to come to Capo Vito personally, in order to assert their place on the Bay.

  It worked, to an extent. Lizzie’d drummed up a regular discourse with a man by the name of Tony Esposito. He was little more than a gunman, but he had a silvered tongue and some education. The man was all business, and Lizzie always defended him when deals were scratched, or shipments were delayed. “Professional courtesy” was what Lizzie called it.

  Hattie figured otherwise, but she’d let it be. Whatever Lizzie did on her own time was her business, even if it was with some petty gangster.

  The air inside the warehouse was a good bit cooler than outside, a welcome reprieve from the long road out of town. On foot, the journey was enough to break a sweat, even in May. Hattie shoved the front door closed with a loud squeal, blinking at the darkness to allow her eyes a moment of adjustment.

  “That you, Malloy?” Lizzie shouted from the rear of the space.

  “Aye,” Hattie replied, stepping over the even concrete with muffled thuds of her dirt-caked Spectators.

  The entire warehouse was nearly empty, feeling more like a tomb than a place of business. The thought put a hook in Hattie’s guts as she approached Lizzie’s office. Two walls cut an office space from the far corner of the warehouse, up a tiny flight of stairs. An old oak desk sat at a meaningless angle to the corner of the office, strewn with newspapers and ledgers. Lizzie peered up through thick spectacles, her brown-and-gray hair pulled back into a long braid. The woman removed her spectacles and wiped them on her denim shirt, gesturing for Hattie to take a seat.

  “Heard you had a long night,” she grumbled, leaning back in her seat with a squeak of springs.

  Hattie sat down across from the desk and pulled her clutch up to her lap. She snapped it open and removed the remainder of the payout from the Upright Citizens.

  “It was, at that. No thanks to Little Teague.”

  Lizzie took the cash, then paused, leveling a glare at Hattie.

  “What, now?”

  “Raymond and I drove on up to Winnow’s, like usual. We found Little Teague tearing out of there like his arse was on fire. According to Teague, Winnow’s was crawling with Treasury men.”

  Lizzie pulled the wad of bills from the remains of the brown paper wrapping. “And they weren’t?”

  “No. He said he was heading north, so we shuffled down to McComb’s. Where the actual Treasury men were shaking down everyone with a skiff and a stick.”

  Lizzie’s mouth drew tight, then curled downward.

  She flipped through the bills and huffed.

  “You’re short Raymond’s pay?”

  Hattie nodded. “Didn’t expect you’d mind, since we were out to dawn.”

  “It’s fine.” Lizzie doled out several bills, then slid them across the top of one of the ledger books toward Hattie. “Your math adds up.”

  Hattie took her pay and slipped it into the clutch. Lizzie flipped open a ledger book with verve, sending a couple papers flying in its breeze. She pressed into the ledger with sharp motions as she entered the payment.

  “What’re we going to do about the Solomons?” Hattie asked. “I don’t expect we’ll let this lie.”

  Lizzie answered with slow, deliberate syllables as she continued her accounting, “No. We will not let this lie.”

  She finally closed the book and dropped the remainder of the cash into a file drawer. Lizzie’s eyes were narrow and hard. Hattie hadn’t seen her this incensed in a long, long while.

  “I’ll tell you what we’ll do,” Lizzie declared. “We’ll have a word with the Baltimore Crew. At this point, they’ve strangled all other traffic out of Maryland, and back in again. They only use us freelancers because it saves them money and a headache should the G-men get us. If I put a word in with Tony that the Solomons Island Boys are trying to run a racket on the Bay, squeezing out competition, I’m confident he’ll understand the implications.”

  “Which are?”

  “It’s business, Malloy. You got two boat runners vying for business, they’re going to quote you low so they make sure they get the job. The moment that number of boat runners drops to one, the quotes go up. Vito’s going to have to pay more if he wants to keep from using his own men.” Lizzie knitted her fingers together. “Though I doubt they’ll be eager to stick their noses into the rank-and-file of a squabble between two freelancers.”

  Hattie shrugged. “Fine. We’ll take care of it ourselves.”

  Lizzie shot her a sharp grin. “That’s the best attitude. They’ll want us to do the housekeeping for them. Best we offer that up front.”

  “What’ll they give us?” Hattie asked.

  “No way to tell until they do. But, and this is important, whatever we do, we’ll have to keep the peace on the Bay. We have to give Teague nothing more than a bloody nose. Do him too much damage, and suddenly we’re the ones asking too much money.”

  Hattie smirked. “Is that such a bad thing, now?”

  “It’s a bad thing when the Baltimore Crew decides they have some nephews or uncles who need work and are willing to cut us loose and keep all the business in-house.”

  Hattie winced. “Aye, I see your point.” She regarded the warehouse behind them. “Lots of air in this place.”

  “You notice that, too?”

  “What’s our next job?”

  Lizzie shook her head. “Not a lot’s come in. I hear from the inside that there’s some new artery shunting booze from West Virginia straight into Pennsylvania. With any luck, the Crew will shut that down, and we’ll get the mountainside moonshine contracts flowing again. In the meantime, Teague’s got the gin-juice locked down. And every boat coming in from the Carolinas is just asking for trouble.” Lizzie’s face darkened at that. Trouble from the Carolinas. That’s what had made her a widow.

  H
attie nodded. “So, what do you want from me?”

  “Right now? Nothing. Raymond’s got the little one to tend to, so he’s happy for the time off.”

  “If you haven’t noticed, I don’t have any little ones screaming for my attention. I’d rather have a payday.”

  Lizzie sighed. “I know, I know. But things’re tight. Been heading that direction for a while, now. Look…just give me a couple days to talk with Tony. I’ll see what we can do about Little Teague.”

  Hattie lingered for a bit, helping to tidy up the warehouse for a few extra coins, before Lizzie gave her a lift back into the city.

  The market had just opened, and Hattie had a clutch full of walking-around money. Why not pick up some produce for Ma and Da? She waved to Lizzie as the woman drove off, and stepped carefully past the ruts of the trolley line into the wide street in front of the Light Street Market.

  A line of awnings stretched out over shop fronts and brick-paved archways, blocking out the late morning sun. Short shadows fell over barrels of lettuce and chard. A crate of radishes here, a box of spinach there. The row of produce was mostly green, devoid of the peaches and plums that came in late summer. Hattie hoped the business would take a turn for the better by then.

  She nosed around the produce stand, walking away with a package of fresh spinach, a bag of pea greens, and some fiddleheads. A barker from the fish market called out some fresh-caught shad, and Hattie paused to consider it. Fresh fish. How often could they afford that? And with her father’s health suffering the way it’d been for these past few months, some clean meat would do him good.

  After a half hour and a lungful of fish fumes, Hattie had the shad fillets packaged under her arm. The exhilaration of shopping filled her chest with a light feeling. Paydays were the best days. Too often, Hattie’d resorted to passing slugs with tiny pinches of light to make them appear as nickels. She wasn’t proud of it, but during the winter that was often the only way they got bread. And even though Hattie kept a strong tally of the money in her clutch, knowing that most of it would go toward her parents’ rent, she managed to while away all her concerns for just an hour. It was enough to walk in public, among the regular people, and not worry about undue notice.