Corrine looked over at Ernie as he dipped the stir-stick into the barrel. “One thing I can do is put some meat on his bones,” she said. “I never saw a man who needed feedin’ more’n him.”

* * *

When Laurel came upon the road sign, she slowed down then rolled to a full stop. She stared at the sign’s uneven, hand-painted lettering, which was familiar because she’d passed it many times before. But the sign now had new, and more personal, significance.

She calculated how long she’d been away from the house, leaving her infirm father-in-law alone. She thought about the deal he had failed to cement with Lefty before the raid. She thought about Corrine and the abuse she’d suffered.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she made the turn. Earlier today, she’d been told she had sass. This would be a test of just how much.

The road was as corrugated as a washboard. Her tires kicked up dust as fine and white as talcum powder. It swirled around the Model T when she brought it to a stop. As the dust settled, she studied the uninviting structure. It looked deserted.

She hesitated, thinking that perhaps this wasn’t a good idea at all. She patted her pocket and, after feeling the reassuring weight of the Derringer, pushed open the car door and got out.

Warped steps led up to an equally uneven porch. The heels of her shoes tapped loudly on the planks and echoed in the crawl space beneath. The screen on the outer door was rusty and jaggedly torn in places, as though someone had taken a dull can opener to it. The wooden frame supporting it was splintery. It slapped against the solid door behind it when she knocked.

She heard muffled voices from within, and then a thudding tread as someone came to answer.

The individual who opened the door had to be Gert, because she was the female counterpart of an ogre. A cigarette was anchored in the corner of her lips, the smoke from it curling up around her face. She squinted against it, making her eyes appear even more hostile.

“We’re closed.”

“Not closed. Shut down.”

“Then what are you doing here?”

“To discuss business with Lefty.”

Gert took away the cigarette and barked a sound that was half laugh, half phlegmy cough. “I think your business is with me. You must’ve heard about the girl I lost to the raid. You figuring on taking her place?” She looked Laurel up and down. “There’s men who don’t mind small ones. What’s your name?”

“Laurel.”

“Pretty.”

“Plummer. And my business isn’t with you. It’s with your husband. Is he here? Or in jail?”

“I’m here.” A stick figure of a man materialized out of the dark and murky interior. “Plummer, you say? Kin to Irv?”

“His daughter-in-law.”

“Huh. Heard your husband blew his brains out.”

Laurel ignored Gert’s cruel remark and focused on Lefty. “May I have a moment of your time?”

“What for?”

“It would be in your best interest.”

Gert repeated the statement, mimicking the modulation of Laurel’s voice. “Who do you think you are, a fuckin’ Rockefeller?”

“Back off, Gert.” Reaching past her, Lefty pushed open the screen door. “Come on in, but I already told Irv no deal.”

“That’s not what Irv told me,” Laurel said as she stepped inside. “One of you is lying.” She gave the hatchet-faced man an arch look. “I suspect it’s you.”

He turned and crossed the large room to the bar, where he motioned her onto a stool. He sat down, leaving an empty stool between them. Laurel pretended not to notice the shotgun lying on the bar.

Gert lowered herself into a chair at one of the nearby tables and lit a fresh cigarette. By the time she’d smoked it down all the way, Laurel and Lefty were sealing a new deal with a handshake.

As Laurel stood to leave, she asked, “Do you know the O’Connor twins?”

“Don’t everybody?”

“Since Irv was wounded in the fracas last night, one or both of the O’Connors will take over making your deliveries. They’ll know the terms of our agreement. Don’t try to cheat me.”

“Wouldn’t think of cheating a lady,” he said, grinning. If that’s what you could call the exposure of his crooked teeth when he peeled his lips back.

“When do you think you’ll be able to reopen?”

“Tonight,” Gert said as she ground out her cigarette butt in the chipped ashtray on the table. She heaved herself out of her chair. “Smarty-pants, you keep undercutting people in this business, you’re gonna start pissing them off.”

“Thank you for the warning.” Laurel headed for the door.

“You got gumption. I’ll say that for you. If moonshining don’t work out, I could always use you upstairs.”

Laurel didn’t acknowledge that. Rather, she kept walking until she reached the door, and only then turned and confronted Gert. “You didn’t lose Corrine to the raid. She took advantage of the commotion to escape her imprisonment here.”

Gert’s face became bloated with rage. “That ungrateful little slut. Where’s she at? If you know, you’d better tell me. She owes me money.”

“While in your charge, she was disfigured, maimed, and half blinded. The only thing you’re owed is contempt.” She turned and stalked out.

The screen door banged against the exterior wall as Gert barged through it, but Laurel didn’t turn to look back. Gert was bellowing obscenities, most of which Laurel didn’t even know the meaning of.

She kept her head high and walked toward her car with purpose, although she was mindful of that handy shotgun. At any moment a blast from it could be the last thing she ever heard.

She made it to her car and thanked God that it started on the first crank. She drove away unscathed except for the blistering her ears had taken from Gert’s profanity.

But midway to the highway, when no longer in sight of the roadhouse, fear and trembling caught up with her. Like the night she’d escaped from Martin’s Café without being exposed as a moonshiner, she broke a cold sweat.

She braked her car, rested her forehead on the steering wheel, and gasped for breath as she willed her heartbeat to slow down. Hearing another vehicle approaching, she jerked her head up and looked behind her. But the sound was coming from ahead, not from the direction of the roadhouse.