The Wicked Redhead. Beatriz Williams

you remember? There was a fight at the Palm last night. I was defending your honor, as I often do, and you pitched in to help, as you often do.”

      “Oliver Anson Marshall. You disgraceful liar.”

      He smiles a little.

      “Why, you’re enjoying all this, aren’t you? You relish a little adventure.”

      “It’s what I do, that’s all.”

      “What you used to do, you mean.”

      “Yes. What I used to do.”

      I guess I ought to ask him the obvious question. Ought to ask him why we’re out here on this boat, heading into a little adventure, when he’s no longer employed by anybody to do such things, when he’s found himself a nice place of refuge with a floozy who adores him. But what’s the point? When a man’s trying to get back his honor, prove to the world and the Prohibition bureau that he’s nothing but an honest, straightforward fellow caught up in some scoundrel’s game, he’ll keep hunting and hunting until he dies, won’t he? He’s not going to stop trying to find the man who has cast him into purgatory.

      So instead of wasting everybody’s time, I just ask, “And me? You don’t mind dragging your dame into this nest of smugglers?”

      “Ginger, these Rum Row skippers, they aren’t the kind of fellows you need to be afraid of. They’re just businessmen. Sometimes not even that, sometimes just fellows trying to make a few dollars, who wouldn’t put their necks at risk.”

      “Then exactly whom should we be afraid of?”

      “Pirates, for one.”

      “Pirates! You don’t say. You mean like Bluebeard? Wooden legs and eyepatches? Chests full of gold doubloons?”

      “Chests full of Scotch whiskey is more like it. They don’t usually attack the big storage ships on Rum Row. But they’ll stop the boats ferrying liquor to shore, or else the schooners out of Nassau or Havana hauling in more stock. Not small potatoes like us—we’re not worth the trouble—and mostly at night, when the rackets from shore are doing their dirty work.”

      “And the men running the rackets? What about them?”

      “Pretty ruthless fellows, by and large. You’ll want to give them a wide berth.”

      “Thanks for the tip.”

      “Why, you’re not anxious, are you, Ginger?”

      “Of course I’m not anxious. The idea.”

      “Because if you’re anxious, I’ll turn this boat around and take you back to shore. Can’t have a nervy partner out there. They’ll smell it on you.”

      “Thought you said they weren’t dangerous.”

      “They’re not exactly sissies, either.”

      By now we have cleared the inlet entirely, and there’s nothing but blue sea ahead and yellow sand behind. The Atlantic wind drenches us clean. I savor the word partner on the back of my tongue. Glance across at Anson’s thick neck, pinkened by all that wind and excitement, and his eyes narrowed gleefully at the encounter ahead.

      “Why, then, Mr. Marshall,” I say, folding my arms across my chest, “if that’s the case, I guess you’re going to need my help.”

       10

      THEY LIE anchored in a line from north to south, at intervals so regular it’s practically unnerving, if you’re that breed of person who misplaces his nerves from time to time. From three miles out you can still see the shore, verdant and kind of mysterious, but it might as well be another universe for all the good it does you. The boat bobs nervously under your feet, the ship looms large and black-sided, sails folded neat against masts and spars. I turn toward Anson and open my mouth to tell him about my dream, about the schooner that looked exactly like this one, only packed to the hatches with dead men. But he’s concentrating on bringing the motor launch alongside, on some exchange of hails with the sailors on deck.

      I take his arm. “Are you sure about this? You know what you’re doing?”

      He gives me this amazed look. “Why, what’s wrong?”

      “I just got a feeling, that’s all. Chill down my spine.”

      Anson examines my eyelashes, slings his arm about my neck, and pulls me in for the kind of long, soft kiss that draws forth a chorus of whooping from above. I am surely too shocked to resist. When he’s done, he touches his forehead to mine and whispers, “You’re safe. Trust me.”

      I want to scream back that it’s not my safety giving me the chills, it’s his, but somebody’s calling down words of some kind—afraid I’m still too discombobulated by the kissing to hear them properly—and then a rope ladder falls at our feet, and the time for turning back has long past. Tick tock. Just swallow back your terror and climb that rope, I guess, doing your best to hold on with your one good hand.

       11

      TURNS OUT they know each other, Anson and this captain of his, I haven’t yet caught his name. He thinks it’s a great joke that Special Agent Marshall is no longer agent of anything to speak of. Pours him a bumper of Scotch whiskey to celebrate, and to my amazement Anson slings it right back. Yes, he does! Slings it right back, sets the glass on the table, and delivers me a slow wink that sets my insides to bubbling.

      “For you, madam?” asks the captain.

      “I’ll have what he’s having.”

      I sip my whiskey with considerably more reserve than Anson does. I figure one of us should remain sober. The captain—turns out his name is Logan or something—pours out another for Anson and another for himself, and Anson asks Logan how’s business since he’s been away.

      “Business is booming, Marshall. Business is booming. I can’t keep my vintage champagne in stock. Fellows come all the way from Palm Beach for champagne.”

      “Can’t they get champagne in Miami?”

      Logan makes a noise of disgust. “These boys out of Nassau, they got plenty of British liquor but they don’t get no French ships no more. So I have a fellow from up north who supplies me.”

      “From where? Saint Pierre?”

      “That’s the place. Ever been there?”

      “Haven’t had the pleasure.”

      Logan laughs and tops everybody off from a bottle of what claims to be a fifteen-year-old single malt from Ayrshire, though I have my doubts. In case you’re wondering, we’re sitting in the captain’s own cabin, which isn’t so grand as it sounds. Cramped, damp, dark, smells of fish and piss and wood soaked in brine, all of it baked together like some kind of stew in the oven of a Florida afternoon. There’s a bunk built into the wall, a green sofa—on which I’m presently sitting next to Anson—and an armchair for Logan the color of mustard, everything built of sticks and horsehair cushions and scraps of old upholstery. You’d think they were smuggling milk instead of a commodity so lucrative as rum.

      “Neither have I,” Logan says, setting down the bottle, “but I heard it ain’t much. Just some wet rock off the coast of Newfoundland with a port that don’t ice over in winter.”

      “I guess that’s useful, in your line of work,” I say.

      “Oh, it’s useful, all right. But the real kicker is it’s French.”

      “French? But doesn’t Newfoundland belong to Canada?”

      “Thrown around between the two of them for centuries. England and France, I mean. The point is,