The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)

“Why don’t you deliver it by rail? From your siding?”

“Have you forgotten trains are trapped on tracks? Rails are easily choked. The Prohibition agents would love nothing more than the opportunity to seize a railcar full of booze. We scatter it on the highways. If they’re lucky, they catch one auto in ten.”

“But you concentrate it here.”

“Many miles from the market in a dark and lonely place.”

“How do you get it here?”

“The boats.”

He turned out the garage lights and walked a gravel path to another large building on the bank of a still creek. The boathouse had no windows, so only when Zolner opened the door did Antipov see that it was brightly lit inside. Two large boats were tied in separate bulkheaded slips. One was broad beamed, a forty-foot freight boat with two huge motors.

“She carries a thousand cases at twenty-five knots,” said Zolner. “The price fluctuates according to demand, but in general her cargo will earn us fifty thousand dollars. A lot of money for a night’s work.”

“You have made a success of bootlegging.”

“The boats are the rum-running side of the business. Distributing and selling it is the actual bootlegging. I’ve made a success of that, too.”

“What is that other boat?” It was much longer than the freight boat and much narrower.

“My pride and joy,” said Zolner. “She, too, will carry a thousand cases, but at fifty miles an hour. And if anyone gets in her way, look out. She’ll gun them down. Her name is Black Bird.”

“Your pride?”

Zolner ignored the mocking note in Antipov’s voice.

“Her sailors are Russian—the best seamen in the world.”

“Why have they disassembled her motors?”

The heads were off all three Liberty engines. Carborundum growled against steel, cascading white sparks as a mechanic ground valves.

“The price of speed,” shrugged Zolner. “These motors burn up their valves on a regular basis.”

“Intake or exhaust?” asked Antipov.

“I forgot, you apprenticed as a mechanic. Exhaust, of course. It’s the heat that builds up. No one’s come up with a good way to cool them, though not for lack of trying every trick in the book, including hollow valves filled with mercury or sodium. Fortunately, the United States built seventeen thousand Liberty engines, most of which were never used in the war. We buy them for pennies on the dollar.”

He gestured at wooden crates stacked against the rear wall. “Believe it or not, it is often more efficient to replace the entire motor than waste time on the valves.”

“I would believe almost anything at this point.”

Antipov spoke softly, but he was seething with anger.

Now was the time, Zolner decided, to get this out in the open.

“What is it?” he asked. “What is troubling you, Yuri?”

“What of the revolution?”

“What of the revolution?”

“You are a Comintern agent, Comrade Zolner. You were sent here to spearhead the Bolshevik takeover of America.”

9

“WHAT PRECISELY have you done to spearhead the Bolshevik takeover of America?”