THE FIRST I KNEW ABOUT THE NEW YORK mobsters coming into our area was about a week before Thanksgiving. A stranger with a flashy tan fedora cocked over his forehead came in the store and bought a pack of cigarettes. Then he sat on the public bench just down from our front door to smoke them. Anybody who came by, he struck up a conversation.
“Name’s Stanley Culp, and that’s a fine old cemetery you’ve got there behind the church,” he’d remark.
Or: “You mean there’s a police station in this sweet little town? Can’t imagine what ever goes wrong here!”
Or: “What, that place there’s the post office? Not much bigger than a postage stamp, is it? Haw, haw!”
He’d raise his hat to the pretty farm wives driving in for supplies. “Morning, ma’am, fine-looking boy you’ve got there. Nice weather we’re having. Yes, I’m from New York City, you guessed right.”
The reason people were guessing right about his origins was his car, which was a fancy twin-six engine Packard sedan with New York plates. He didn’t let on what his business was, but soon enough people began to understand. He was there for the special purpose of making friends.
He gave fifteen dollars to the Bishop’s Fund at St. Mary’s and an equal amount to the collection plate at the Congregational Church on Sunday morning. He tucked a dime into the pocket of any child who came past his bench, which picked up business at the store’s candy counter a good bit.
When Abner Wilcox, whose wife, Marie, had just died after fifty years of marriage, wobbled up on his cane, Stanley Culp bought him a chocolate bar and talked to him for a solid hour. That was an act of unusual kindness. Though everyone in town was suspicious, we all had to admit that Mr. Culp was doing good.
“And asking nothing in return. So far,” Mildred Cumming whispered when she came in for a soda pop one afternoon. She’d been keeping her eye on him from the police station.
“Charlie’s having kittens wondering who he is,” she added. “I’ve never seen him in such a state.”
“What’s the chief say?” Dr. Washburn asked her. He’d come by for a hunk of store cheese and some pipe tobacco.
“Chief McKenzie’s been out of town all week. Far as I know, he doesn’t know anything about it.”
“Where’d he go?”
“Took Jeddy up hunting to Vermont for the Thanksgiving holiday. Said he needed a break.”
“I can believe that,” the doctor replied. “From what I hear, he and Charlie’ve been spending more time going at each other than after these infernal bootleggers.”
Relations between Chief McKenzie and his deputy had gone sour over the summer. They rarely covered cases together anymore, and had been seen arguing in public. Charlie’s manner, never specially pleasant on even his best days, was now continuously surly, while the chief went about with a new smugness, as if he’d received some promotion that Charlie didn’t qualify for. And perhaps he had. I was still keeping a wary eye on the chief, and one thing I’d noticed was that Mr. Culp’s Packard wasn’t the only vehicle with New York plates showing up regularly in town. More than a few afternoons, there was another car, a racy black sedan, parked in plain view in front of the police station.
About an hour after Mildred left with her soda, Charlie himself came over. He stood outside the store and started a conversation with Mr. Culp that was soon audible all the way back into the stockroom, where John Appleby and I were stacking crates. We went up front to see what was happening.
“As official law-enforcement deputy of the town, I’m ordering you to vacate these premises!” Charlie was yelling when we got there.
“Oh, come along,” Mr. Culp said, giving him a friendly grin. “I’ve been having a grand time meeting these folks.” He gestured toward Dr. Washburn and the small crowd of us who’d come out of the store. Fanny DeSousa was there, and Aunt Grace, too, over from the post office. “Can’t see no reason to leave now.”
“I know why you’re here. You can’t frighten me!” Charlie bellowed, sounding scared down to his underwear.
“Frighten you?” said Mr. Culp, looking up lazily. He knew who Charlie was the same way he knew everything about our town. A week of sitting on that bench had accomplished a lot more than just us getting to know him. “Why would I want to frighten you? If I was to want anything, it’d be to say this: if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em. That’s my message to you.”
Charlie brayed out a laugh. “So, you think you’re going to join up with us? Hah, that’s a good one. You can’t barge into a town like this.”
Mr. Culp smiled. “No, no, you misunderstand. I’m not doing nothing like barging in. I’m telling you, real nice, it’s time to take a powder.”
Charlie practically expired with fury over this. “Take a powder! Meaning what?”
Mr. Culp removed his flashy hat and set it down on the bench beside him. “What’d you say your name was?”
“My name is Deputy Sargeant Charles Pope!”
“Yes, Deputy Pope, meaning this. About now, if I was you, I’d be heading on back to that run-down caboose of a police station. I’d put my feet up on the desk and take a good long snooze.”
Charlie let out a snort and shook his head.
“Let me put it even more clearly,” Mr. Culp went on. “There’s a change coming, a new wind in this town. If you try to stop it, why, my guess is it’ll blow you down.”
All of this was said in a mild tone, as if Mr. Culp was sorry to be speaking these words but saw no way around it. What he meant was only vaguely understood by most of us looking on, but Charlie knew. His eyes bulged and his tongue came out for its snaky flick over his lips.
“You won’t get away with this,” he snarled. “Chief McKenzie’s due back tomorrow. He won’t tolerate it!”
Mr. Culp smiled. “Oh, I don’t think the chief’ll mind too much. Ralph and I have come to an understanding about matters of this kind. Now, go on along before somebody has to take you.”
To our amazement, Charlie did. He turned and walked away toward the police station on legs stiff with rage. Stanley Culp watched him. When Charlie had disappeared, he took out his pack of cigarettes and offered them around to the men, passing over John and me and Fanny DeSousa and Aunt Grace. It was still considered improper in our parts for ladies to smoke in public, and like us, they wouldn’t have expected to.
“Fine cold weather we’re having,” Mr. Culp said when he’d seen to it that everybody was lit up. “I hear autumn’s the choice season on this coast. Better than spring, they say. Clearer, bluer, beautiful sunrises and sunsets. You never want to leave a place like this in the fall, am I right?”
There was something about the tone of this question that caused us all to nod quickly. Mr. Culp smiled. He put his hat back on, winked at me and launched into one of his New York jokes. It wasn’t that funny, but beside me John Appleby gave a big laugh. When I went inside, he stayed to shoot the breeze with Mr. Culp. He was still there a half hour later when my father noticed and ordered him back to work.
The Monday after Thanksgiving, Marina came to find me in an outbuilding behind the store where I was working my afternoon shift.
It was the first I’d seen of her since mid-October. She’d been going out of town that fall, staying with some high school friends in Harveston over the weekends, commuting to school from up there and coming home to catch up on housework during the midweek days. I’d heard she and her father were at odds over it. He wanted her home, taking care of him and Jeddy, the way she had been doing since her mother died. I no longer knew the inside workings of their family, but the word was she’d stood up to him and declared independence. Which she’d won, it appeared. Recently, and not without a lot of grumbling, the chief had started hiring old Mrs. Smithers to come in part-time to cook.
Harveston was where Marina had spent all of the Thanksgiving holiday while Jeddy and the chief were in Vermont. Now they were back and she’d come home, in a blaze of new glamour, I thought. She’d been to Boston and bought a smart wool coat, deep green with a leather collar, high style to my countrified eyes.
She hadn’t come by to impress me, though, or to show me any special interest at all. What she wanted was to give me a lecture. Her subject was Mr. Culp.
“Don’t you know who he is? He’s with the New York mobsters. They’re trying to break in around here. You should tell your dad to run him off,” she announced, before I’d hardly had time to say hello. That set me on edge.
“My dad said he’s sitting on a public bench and it’s none of our business,” I answered. “Anyway, the guy’s giving out cash and people are coming in here and spending it, so we don’t mind.”
“You should be protecting folks, not setting them up,” Marina replied. “The man is looking for a fix, that’s plain as day.”
“A fix!” I said. “Who does he want to fix?” I’d never heard her talk this way. She seemed to have acquired a whole new vocabulary since we’d last conversed.
“Your dad, for one. He wants him on his side when the shooting starts.”
“If there’s going to be shooting, why don’t you tell your own dad? He’s the one with the badge.”
I turned to walk off.
“Ruben, wait.” Marina caught my arm. “My father won’t do anything and neither will yours. They’re both in it up to their necks.”
“That’s a lie!” I told her. “Speak for your own family, not mine.” I was offended that she’d lump my father in with hers, when anyone could see there was no comparison.
Marina gave me the kind of glance you give a five-year-old who thinks the moon is made of green cheese.
“There’s something else,” she said. She lowered her voice. “Remember how those Boston gangsters came in and killed Tom Morrison’s dog last spring?”
I glared at her. “Of course I remember.”
“They were looking for the ticket to a big liquor shipment.”
“I know that, and it’s long past,” I said. “That shipment must’ve come in months ago.”
“It didn’t,” Marina whispered. “It’s still coming. And the word going around is, the ticket’s still good. Over three thousand cases, signed, sealed and paid for. The big syndicates have got wind of it and they’re looking to horn in. That’s one reason you’ve got a New York mobster sitting outside your store. Ruben, listen to me: Billy Brady wants to see you.”
Suddenly I saw where all this talk of “fixing” and “setting folks up” and “mobsters” was coming from.
“So you’re in touch with Billy?”
“We talk now and then.”
“That’s right, he lives in Harveston.” I put two and two together. “Lucky thing you have friends up there.”
“Yes, it is. So what?”
From her tone, I suspected there was a lot more going on between her and Billy than she was telling. That galled me. I didn’t have a leg to stand on with Marina, but the idea that Billy Brady was moving in on her touched a nerve. All those years eating supper in the McKenzies’ kitchen had mounted up in my mind to a form of possession, I guess.
“Billy’ll be down at Tom Morrison’s late this afternoon,” Marina said. “He’ll come in by boat. Will you go to see him?”
“I will not! All he wants is to get his own hands on that shipment. He’s after money, same as everyone else.”
“That’s not true,” Marina said. “You don’t know him. People in Harveston say he’s been helping families out from what he makes. That’s why his crew’s got the good name it has.”
“Well, I wish he’d stay away from Tom Morrison,” I shot back. “He’ll get him in trouble hanging around there all the time. It’s not fair to drag an old guy like that into anything to do with the Black Duck.”
Before I’d even finished saying those words, Marina was reaching to cover my mouth.
“Shh-shh! Not so loud.”
I tore her hand off me. “There’s nobody around here.”
“There’s always somebody around everywhere,” she whispered. “You just don’t notice. And Ruben, they’re watching you specially.”
“Nobody’s paying any attention to me, that’s one of my problems.” I sent her a furious look.
“They are. It’s why Billy wants to see you. There’s a new rumor that you’ve got it. The ticket, I mean, the thing you and Jeddy found.”
I’d already guessed that was where this discussion was headed, and it scared me. I wasn’t about to show that to Marina, though.
“Who says I have it, Charlie Pope?” I asked, stonewalling the best I could. “Look, I’ve said it a hundred times, all there was on the guy was his pipe and—”
Marina slapped her hand over my mouth again, and this time I let it stay there. From behind us came a soft squeak. We looked around. The trapdoor in the floor across the room had risen up a little. After a moment of silence, John Appleby came up the ladder out of the old root cellar, a storage area no longer in use since part of it had caved in during the winter.
“John, what’re you doing down there?” I demanded.
“Just getting some potatoes,” he said. He held up a bag.
“Potatoes are in the side shed now. There’s nothing in that place.”
“Yes, there is,” John Appleby said. “There’s potatoes.”
He slid by us with a smug look.
“See what I mean?” Marina whispered after he’d gone. “You should be careful what you say.”
“John Appleby’s not a spy. He’s a kid with a big chip on his shoulder is all.”
Marina shook her head at me. “Will you go and meet Billy?” she asked again.
“No!” I told her. “Even if I wanted to, I couldn’t. My dad won’t let me off for anything anymore. We’re all working like dogs here to keep up. You tell Billy Brady you delivered the message. Someone is watching me. Well, I’m real glad to hear it!”
I stormed off, and this time Marina let me go. When I looked back, she’d disappeared up front.
I stayed away from that part of the store for the next hour and didn’t see her again. Toward the end of the afternoon, though, I opened the trapdoor of the old cellar and looked in. It was black as pitch inside, so I got a book of matches and went down the ladder. All it took was one strike to see that there wasn’t a single bag of potatoes in the whole place.