1520 Main

21

He initialed one of the three and slipped it back through the door, then made sure the fellow sauntered off as if going to work. He went to his office, which was intact although his poor divan was still suffering. He really did love that divan. He changed into his worst clothes, let himself out the back door to the panel van that had ICE in big letters on the side. He puttered on down to Union Station and found his shipment of oranges in the cargo claim area.

"Hey, Mac! Can I buy an orange off you?"

"Sure."

Trey surreptitiously initialed the second piece of paper and the fellow wanting an orange initialed the third. They exchanged the papers.

Trey reached into his crate and pulled out an orange. "Nice doin' business with ya."

So Trey spent his morning loading a whiskey shipment. He had no idea who'd sent it, but he got one intermittently on a schedule he couldn't figure out. He paid a front corporation downtown in person, in cash, after presenting the bill of lading the deliveryman—a different one every time—initialed.

It was like that all the time. He didn't know who his supplier was, which was why he couldn't tell Lazia (not that he would), and neither Lazia nor Trey had been able to trace the supplier back to George Remus's Cincinnati operation. At least, he assumed Lazia hadn't because he was still trashing Trey's office looking for the name. He wouldn't question a shipment of oranges for the bar.

The bills of lading always came in from Florida. But the whiskey was dirt cheap and he didn't have to pay freight. He didn't know who was subsidizing him and while he was grateful, he was wary, too. That gravy train wasn't going to last and it wasn't going to come without favors. No, Trey didn't take or give favors, but he couldn't refuse a favor from someone he didn't know.

He'd told the cat he paid that he wanted to pay fair market value plus freight. The cat had pulled out a rate card.

Look, Dunham, see here? That is fair market price for oranges plus freight built in. Why do you come in here begging to pay more?

I don't want any favors. Everybody in town knows how I do business.

You aren't getting any favors. Clean exchange, just the way you like.

He also didn't know how many people up the delivery line knew he wasn't getting oranges. A bushel of oranges weighed almost exactly the same as twelve bottles of whiskey. He got eight bottles well packed in straw and enough oranges to cover them.

He always picked it up himself, no matter what time of day or night. He always unloaded it himself. Lazia couldn't put his men on Trey all the time, nor could they stake out shipments that may or may not come through Union Station.

It was unnerving, was what it was.

But Trey wasn't going to turn down good, smooth whiskey for which he was paying below market. George Remus's distillery was in Cincinnati. He wasn't exactly advertising that he was stepping outside Prohibition, but bootleggers knew he was still in operation. Clearly Lazia was trying to get some, but for reasons Trey couldn't fathom, his supplier was refusing to do business with Lazia.

Trey's clientele asked for their whiskey by brand to avoid fake whiskey and everybody in town knew 1520 Main had the real stuff. Lazia's whiskey, however, was suspect. Perhaps it wasn't too badly watered, but it wasn't pure. Maybe Trey's unknown supplier-benefactor knew Lazia would tamper with it, halve and water it, whatever he did, and the brand would suffer.

Trey could tell Lazia he didn't like the stuff Lazia distributed and none of Trey's customers wanted it, but he could not accuse him of watering it or cutting it with questionable substances without causing a war.