The Blood Lie. Shirley Reva Vernick
wages. For this I left Salonika?”
“You say something?” called Tiny.
“Yeah. I want you to tell me where to find the glittering gold roads and the marble sidewalks people told me about when I was a kid.”
“Don’t I know it?” Tiny said in his Irish brogue. “We all think we’re going to live the life here, and we end up just barely getting by.”
“Amen to that.” Gus started to light a fresh cigar when the diner door jangled open and Roy Royman limped in. Royman hobbled to a stool at the counter and leaned his walking stick against the railing. “Morning,” he said.
“You’re late,” Gus said.
“Hey, Tiny, whatcha cooking back there?”
“Shepherd’s pie, meatloaf, doughnuts about to come out of the fryer. You want?”
“Any hash browns left?”
Tiny shook his head.
“Eh, give me a slab of meatloaf, and save me a couple doughnuts, plain.”
Gus led Royman to the table nearest the noisy window fan.
“We on for tonight?” Royman asked.
“Rum boat’ll be here between midnight and two, depending.”
“Depending on what?”
Gus shrugged. “Depending on everything. Anyhow, get the truck here by eleven-thirty.”
“Why’s it got to be so late, that’s what I don’t understand,” Royman said. “What am I supposed to tell the missus?”
“My Bettina just thinks I’m out gin milling. Anyway, let’s make it eleven straight up, just to be sure.”
“Yeah, yeah, whatever you say.”
Gus and Royman’s smuggling operation was easy money during these Prohibition days. Whiskey and wine were legal a scant mile across the St. Lawrence River in Canada. All it took was knowing one Canadian with a boat who was willing to load up with alcohol and meet you somewhere. Then you let a few discreet friends know you had a supply. You might let the Mr. Lingstrom-types know, too. You might even let a Jew know because the Jews used wine to welcome the Sabbath, and if you couldn’t get business from the sheenies on your pies and meats, you might as well get them with the hooch.
Better yet, you kept your direct dealings to a few trusted customers, and let them sell their stuff to the Jews and the drunks.
Tiny appeared with a plate heaped with meat and biscuits. “Doughnuts’ll be another minute,” he told Royman.
“Anyways, I gotta work,” Gus said as the first paying lunch customer strolled in.
When Lydie and Emaline finished their stew, they settled into the living room to do some beading. Emaline was finishing up the bracelet she was making for her mother’s birthday next month. Lydie decided to try her hand at a choker.
After a while, Mrs. Durham came in from the garden and walked over to the telephone. “It’s 1:30,” she said. She picked up the receiver, then put it down, hesitated, then picked it up again. Finally she spoke to the operator. “Good afternoon, Bess. Would you put me through to my sister-in-law? Thank you.”
“Clarisse?” Mrs. Durham said after a moment. “Yes, Lydie’s right here. She can stay as long as she likes. Listen, Daisy didn’t happen to walk over there, did she?…No, everything’s fine. Maybe she wandered back over to the Pools’ house…Yes, I do trust that family, Clarisse… Yes, I know them well enough—Eva Pool is my friend…No, nothing else. I’m positive, Clarisse.”
Next, Mrs. Durham tried phoning the Pools, but no one answered. Then she called her cousin Mickey and the Pikes down the street, whose new litter of barn kittens drew the neighborhood children, but they hadn’t seen her. She called the Pools once more, again with no luck.
“Emaline,” Mrs. Durham called.
“Yeah?”
“Daisy must still be in the woods. Go fetch her, will you, before that stew spoils? Both of you.”
“Can we finish our beading first?”
“No,” she said more sternly than she meant to.
“Okay. Come on, Lydie.”
Mrs. Durham handed Emaline a biscuit in a paper bag. “Here,” she said. “Give this to her right off. She’ll be half-starved by now. And keep at it till you find her, you hear? I’ll whistle for you if she beats you home.”
After Emaline and Lydie had hiked the forest path for a little while, chatting and calling for Daisy every now and then, Lydie put a fresh piece of gum in her mouth and said carefully, “Your mother seems pretty upset.”
“She’s always upset,” Emaline said. “Upset and worried. Like I said, we haven’t pulled ourselves together like you and your ma have. She’s just overreacting. Honestly, how far could Daisy have gone? She’s only four year old! She’s probably poking around for frogs or stones, the way she always does.”
“Daisy?” Lydie shouted.
Another half-hour passed.
“Little girl, little girl, where have you been? Gathering roses to give to the Queen,” said Emaline. “Little girl, little girl, what gave she you? She gave me a diamond as big as my shoe. Daisy?”
“C’mon, Daisy, we’ve got a biscuit for you,” Lydie called. Her voice was getting scratchy. “What time is it, anyway? It gets dark so early this time of year.”
“It’s…God! It’s going on four. I had no idea. She’s been out here since—when did Ma say she sent her out?”
“I don’t know. Hey, do you see any deer traps?”
“Oh, no,” Emaline moaned. “Boys and girls come out to play, the moon does shine as bright as day. Come with a hoop, and come with a call, come with a good will or not at all… Daisy!”
The girls walked on until they were dragging. “Are your feet hurting as much as mine?” Lydie asked.
“They’re burning,” Emaline said. “I’d love to dip them in the river about now…the river! Ma never lets her near the water alone, it’s so cold, and the undertows and the drop-offs, what if she accidentally…?”
“No one jumps into the river by accident, Em, not even a little kid. Calm down. You either jump or you don’t, and she knows better…hey, listen.”
“What?”
“Shhh. Listen. Over there, I think, in the brambles. Footsteps.”
“Daisy? Daisy?” Emaline called. Twigs and leaves crackled underfoot, but no one answered. “Daisy?”
A raccoon waddled out into the open. It rubbed one eye and swished its plump tail, blinked, and scooted back into the brush.
“If I’d just gone straight home like I promised,” Emaline said. “If only I’d been on time. If only…”
“Look, maybe Daisy’s already home,” Lydie said. “Maybe your ma whistled for us but we were too far away to hear. Maybe that’s why we can’t find her.”
“So should we—?” She straightened abruptly. “Lydie, listen. I hear something…Daisy?”
“Nope, just us,” came a man’s voice. Emaline’s neighbor Jed Pike and his son Emmett stepped out from a crowd of evergreens. “Your mother called us about Daisy. Afraid we haven’t had any luck so far.”
Emaline