Otto is in his usual seat behind home plate, flanked by Elmer and Slim. The Knoxville nine is taking a beating. It is only the top of the third inning and the score is eight to zero. Not that either Elmer or Slim care. Neither man is a fan of the game. Slim is reading a racing form, marking the bets he would make later with a bookie over on State Street, and Elmer is twisting this way and that in his seat, looking for eligible women in the bleachers. Elmer is always looking for eligible women, although not that many women are looking back. Elmer’s face is pockmarked with acne scars and he has a vivid five-inch slash along his left cheek, a souvenir from a Saturday night knife fight outside a juke joint in Atlanta.
The first batter at the top of inning laces a double to left center. The outfielder bobbles the ball and the runner keeps going, sliding into third, well ahead of the throw. Second base or third doesn’t matter, because the next batter hits the ball over the scoreboard in right field, landing somewhere out on Jessamine Street.
“Where did they find this rube?” Otto asks.
Slim looks up from the form, a stub of a pencil between his teeth. “What rube?”
“The so-called pitcher,” Otto says. “I’ve seen mules could run faster than that boy can throw the pill.”
Slim goes back to his nags and Otto begins to berate the southpaw from the seats.
“You got a rubber arm!” he shouts. “My grandma could pitch better than that!”
The harassment continues off and on for a couple more innings, at which point the score has grown to thirteen to one. By then Otto has seen enough. He tells Elmer to get the car. Before leaving Otto sticks his head in the Smokies dugout and yells at the manager for being a “brainless sack of shit.” The manager knows who Otto is and makes no reply.
Boone Saunders is waiting in the loading area of the Empire Hotel on Third Avenue, the back room that serves as Otto’s office in the city. There is a desk there, with a half-dozen chairs, and a tiger-eye maple icebox in the corner.
Boone has his oldest boy Val with him and they’ve been waiting for a couple of hours by the time Otto and the others show up. Boone is not in a particularly good frame of mind. Like the baseball manager, though, he is not about to mention that to Otto.
“So what do we got?” Otto says when he walks in.
No handshakes or salutations. No apologies for being tardy. Boone and Val have been sitting on packing crates by the freight elevator while they wait, smoking and nipping from pints of busthead. They’d been wishing that Otto would show, while at the same time thinking that it might work to their advantage if he didn’t, given the news they were about to share with him.
Elmer and Slim walk over to sit down in the chairs along the wall. They both lean back, tilting on the rear legs while they watch the two men across the room. Elmer lights a cigarette, then smokes, snapping his Zippo open and shut with his thumb and forefinger.
“Not a lot,” Boone replies. “We got hit by the revenuers again last week. Not the stills, but they set up a roadblock at Rocky Gap and got a shipment of a hundred and twenty gallons.”
“How’s a thing like that happen?” Otto wants to know.
“New driver,” Boone shrugs. “Kid from West Virginny. I did time with his father once and took him on as a favor. Kid figured he needed to stop off in Piney to see this skirt he’s got there. Somebody saw the truck parked in the alley. Got suspicious and called the local sheriff, who got in touch with the Feds. Currying favor, no doubt. Feds set up the roadblock and grabbed the kid and the cargo both when he was leaving town. Bad luck all around.”
“Christ,” Otto says. He goes to the ice box and gets a bottle of beer for himself. He doesn’t offer one to the Saunders boys, or to his own men either. “I trust you shot the driver?”
“He’s in the hoosegow.”
“Shoot him when he gets out,” Otto advises.
Boone nods. He may or may not shoot the driver when he gets out. He is a dumb kid who has allowed his pecker to do his thinking for him. Boone has no qualms about killing him, but only if he can get away with it. Boone has no intention of doing a twenty-year stretch in Central Prison over a stupid kid from the backwoods.
“I promised a hundred gallons to Nashville,” Otto says. “I said by the weekend.”
“We’re cooking this minute,” Boone tells him. “We brung you twenty gallons tonight. It’s in the truck.”
“What am I going to do with twenty gallons when I need a hundred?” Otto asks.
“Well, that’s what we brung.”
Otto has a drink of beer, looking at Boone. “When do I see the rest?”
Boone glances expectantly at Val, who takes his time replying, as if he is figuring in his head. “We can have that much come Saturday. Or Sunday.”
“Which is it, boy?” Otto asks.
“It’s Saturday or Sunday,” Val tells him. “You hard of hearing?”
Otto’s face goes dark and Boone is on his feet, quick as a cat, to run interference. With that, Elmer and Slim both stand as well, watching the boss and awaiting instruction. Elmer slips his Zippo in his coat pocket and leaves his hand there.
“You’ll have it Saturday,” Boone says.
Otto is staring at Val though. “What did you say to me?”
“He didn’t mean nothing,” Boone says.
Otto tilts back the beer and empties the bottle in a long continuous gulp. Then he winds up like a pitcher and throws it at the brick wall behind where Val stands. The bottle misses Val’s head by a couple of feet and explodes when it hits the brick. Foam drips down the wall and a shard of broken glass comes to rest on Val’s shoulder. He brushes it off while glaring angrily at Otto, who stands there, legs spread, returning the look. Boone moves between the two and gives his son a hard look of reprimand. Even then, it takes Val a few moments to settle.
“I’m right sorry, Mr. Marx,” he finally says, albeit reluctantly and without a tincture of sincerity. “I didn’t mean no disrespect to you.”
Otto holds the cold stare for another few moments, then smiles, as if at some private joke only he could hear, and goes to retrieve another bottle of beer. Opening it, he nods to Elmer and Slim to go unload the shipment.
“You best go on and help them boys,” Boone tells Val.
Val does as he is told and follows the others outside. He’s careful not to look again at Otto.
“He’s a good boy,” Boone says. “Gets too big for his britches sometimes and needs to be reminded of that. I was the same way at that age. I expect we all were.”
“Not me,” Otto says. “My britches have always fit just fine.”
“I didn’t mean you.”
“I’m not worried about your boy, Saunders,” Otto says. “I don’t know him from Adam. Either he’ll watch that tongue of his or he won’t. If he don’t, then that’s something that will need to be addressed.” Otto has a drink. “What I am worried about is our business arrangement. I have more markets than you can even imagine in that hillbilly head of yours. If I order a hundred gallons, I expect to get one hundred gallons—not ninety or eighty and sure as hell not twenty.”
“Like I said, the revenuers—” Boone begins.
“I don’t want to hear about any fucking revenuers,” Otto says. “Up to you to handle that end. I don’t care if you got to drive around them or over them or through them. That’s your concern. My concern is the product. And if you can’t deliver, then I’m just going to find somebody who can. Those hills are full of you people, all of you cooking up that good old mountain dew. What I’m saying is—you ain’t even a little bit precious to me, Saunders.”
Elmer and Slim come back then, lugging the crates with the jugs of busthead packed inside. Val follows moments later, with a third crate. He keeps his head down as they stack the booze by the freight elevator and head back outside for the rest.
Otto inspects the cargo, picking a jug at random and opening it for a taste.
“This the same stuff?” he asks.
“Same as always,” Boone says. “Why?”
Otto shrugs. “Something different about it.”
He pays Boone from a wad of bills in his jacket, after which Boone and Val leave without another word. Otto watches them out the window as they climb into Boone’s Cadillac and drive off, heading south out of the city.
“Fucking hillbillies,” he says before turning to Slim. “Get the gloves out of the car. I want to play some catch.”