The Bourbon Thief

  wealthy and powerful man and had the audacity to think he deserved both his wealth and his power. He’d inherited the money, and the power that came with the name, also inherited. The world gave him everything he ever wanted except a son to pass it all on to—the right son, a white son. He thought the world owed him that, as well. What does the world owe you, Mr. McQueen?”

  “Nothing,” McQueen said.

  “Good answer,” Paris said. “If you really believe that, you might have a soul under all that money.”

  “Tamara’s around my daughter’s age. I can’t...” He shook his head, attempting to dislodge the image of a man his father’s age touching his daughter. “Was she arrested?”

  “No, she wasn’t. I don’t think the police even questioned her. With that red ribbon around his finger, everyone assumed, naturally, that he’d been drinking heavily. The investigation was open and shut. George Maddox was drunk, went to take a piss, unzipped his pants, fell and hit his head. When the floodwater came in the house, he drowned. George Maddox was a pillar of the community. No one wanted to know any different. No one wanted to know why they found his corpse in his granddaughter’s bedroom with his pants around his knees. They didn’t ask questions. Tamara didn’t answer any. They buried him. The end. Except it wasn’t the end.” Paris smiled a satisfied smile like she’d thought of a good secret.

  “You don’t sound like a fan of the Maddoxes.”

  “What is it they say? You can’t choose your family? Although, in a way, I suppose I did choose them. But that’s another story.”

  McQueen stood and took her now empty shot glass from her.

  “What’s your poison?” he asked.

  “Can you make an old-fashioned?”

  “With my eyes closed.”

  He walked to the bar, a polished and carved mahogany number that had once stood in an Old West saloon. Saloon, the dealer had said. All signs pointed to brothel, including the brass plaque on the back that read Property of Mollie Johnson, Queen of the Blondes. He’d bought the bar despite all the little scratches in it that had most likely come from fingernails. He himself had eight claw marks on the back of his shoulders, courtesy of the widow Paris, so he had a fondness for the damage left by the fingernails of well-pleased women.

  “My father insisted I get a real job in college,” McQueen said. “Didn’t want me mooching off the family money until I’d proved I could make my own way in the world.” He returned to the sitting area with her old-fashioned and his bourbon, neat with a splash of cold water. “So I got a job in a dive bar.”

  She took the drink from his hand, sipped it and nodded her approval.

  “They taught you well in the dive.”

  “Thank you.” He sat back on the leather armchair opposite her. The only thing between them was a coffee table and the truth.

  “You ready for more?” she asked.

  “I don’t think so.”

  “You think hearing this story is bad, try living it.”

  “You’re trying to make me feel guilty,” he said.

  “You are guilty,” she said. “Now I’m trying to convince you to make your restitution.”

  “Tell the story, then.” Restitution. As if he owed anyone anything. He paid his debts in time and in full. But if she wanted to keep talking, he’d keep listening. God knew it was the most interesting evening he’d had in a long time.

  “George Maddox was many things,” Paris continued. “Most of them bad, but he didn’t turn Red Thread into a two-hundred-million-dollar property by being a fool. He was a smart man, and a ruthless man. He knew how to get people to dance for him. Yes, he left everything to Tamara in his will. Of course, he’d fully expected to get something in return for his largesse, but he died before the blessed event could take place. To all the world, Tamara Maddox was the one and only living Maddox. As you and I know, this was not the case. The will was read once Mr. Maddox was in the ground. Everything went to Tamara, but it was held in trust by her mother until that time she was married or she turned twenty-one, whichever came first. George Maddox had likely planned to get Tamara pregnant and then have her married off—very quickly—to one of his handpicked cronies. And the child Tamara would give birth to would be the real heir because George Maddox had fathered it.”

  “What if it had been a girl?”

  “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

  “I think I hate George Maddox.”

  “I think I agree with you,” Paris said.

  “So Tamara’s father wasn’t Tamara’s father.”

  “Nash Maddox was gay,” Paris said. She took another sip of her drink. “You didn’t get to be gay and out in Kentucky in the 1960s. You got married to a woman, you lived that lie and you took that secret to the grave with you. Nash did.”

  “My son is gay,” McQueen said. “Told us last summer.”

  “Do you love him any less?”

  “No, of course not.”

  “You gonna force him to marry a woman?”

  “Never.”

  “George Maddox did. He threatened to cut Nash off unless he got married. They had Virginia Darling standing by, the daughter of one of George’s business partners and best friends. They’d grown up together—Virginia, Nash, Eric and Daniel Headley. The parents considered it a given she’d marry one of the Maddox boys. Everyone expected it. Everyone wanted it. And so it came to pass. At age nineteen Virginia Darling found herself a couple months pregnant. No choice then. She had to get married. Nash had to get married, too, or his father would send him packing without a penny to his name. Nash lasted in the marriage as long as he could. He killed himself when Tamara was twelve years old.”

  “I might have killed myself, too.”

  “I don’t blame Nash at all. Tamara didn’t, either, once she knew the whole truth.”

  “Was she okay after that night?”

  “I wouldn’t use the word okay to describe her,” Paris said. “I would use the word determined. Soon as George Maddox was dead and buried, Virginia Maddox fired Levi. He was gone in a day. You have to remember back then if someone wasn’t in the phone book, there wasn’t much chance of finding him. No internet.”

  “The Dark Ages.”

  “Exactly. So it took Tamara a while to get her plan in gear. She played the grieving granddaughter well. She held herself together at the funeral, went back to school and got excellent grades, graduated at the top of her high school class a year and a half later. Mother and daughter barely spoke to each other after that night. And all that time Tamara was looking for Levi while her mother was looking for a buyer for Red Thread.”

  “She wanted to sell the company?”

  “Virginia Darling knew how to paint her nails, knew how to dress like a lady, knew how to keep a house. She didn’t know how to run a company. Nobody expected anything of her other than to get married and that’s all she’d done with her life. She didn’t want to run the company, and there were dozens of buyers at her door the day after George Maddox was in the ground. Tamara had to hurry up and find Levi.”

  “I suppose Levi could have contested the will. Did she find him?”

  “Virginia Maddox accepted a buyout offer on Red Thread from a rival bourbon maker. The next day Tamara finally found Levi. It was fate, it seems.”

  “Fate. Sounds romantic.”

  “You must not know anything about mythology, then, Mr. McQueen. In all the old myths, the Fates were the villains.”

  9

  1980

  Her name was either Cheryl or Sherry—he could never remember which—so Levi compromised and called her Cher. Not that Cher/Cheryl/Sherry seemed to be paying a bit of attention to anything he said. Maybe she didn’t remember his name, either, since the only words coming out of her mouth at the moment were “God,” “Harder” and “Oh, baby.”

  Levi had Cher on her back with a horse blanket between her and half a dozen hay bales. Whatever her name was, she was only a couple years older than him—thirty-two
, he remembered her saying—but she’d certainly done better for herself in life than he had. The pants he’d pulled off her were Gloria Vanderbilt, her panties were fine silk and lace and were currently dangling off a well-turned ankle. The diamond engagement ring likely cost more than his truck, but in his unspoken opinion, his truck was a helluva lot more useful.

  “Harder,” she said again, and Levi obliged her. It was hot in the loft, airless and stank of horse sweat and human sweat. The sooner he finished, the better. So he dug his boots into the hay trying to find traction and pounded into her until she stopped barking orders. The rubber he wore made it difficult to feel much of anything, but when she came, her fingernails made sure he knew it.

  He wasn’t done yet, but she didn’t put up any objection while he took his turn. She lay there with her eyes closed, a pretty girl if not beautiful, and patiently took it until he came with as little fanfare as possible. Cher had been loud enough for the both of them.

  When it was all done, he tossed the rubber while she pulled herself together.

  “Best horseback riding lesson I’ve ever had.” She shoved her feet into her boots and Levi helped her onto her feet.

  “I aim to please.”

  “Same time next week?” she asked, strolling to the ladder that led down to the stalls.

  “If your fiancé wants to keep paying for private lessons, I’ll keep giving them to you. Although one of these days he’s gonna want to go riding with you, and he might wonder why you don’t know a horse’s head from its ass.”

  “You know why he gave me riding lessons, right?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  “While I’m up here fucking you, he’s at his office fucking his secretary.”

  “Nice system you two worked out.”

  “Everybody’s happy.” She started down the ladder steps but stopped and turned toward the window.

  “What?” Levi asked as he buckled his belt again. Somewhere around here he had a clean T-shirt. He found it under his copy of the Tao Te Ching and pulled it on.

  “I think your five o’clock is here.”

  “I don’t have a five o’clock lesson today.”

  “Then who’s that?” She pointed out the dingy window that looked down on the gravel parking lot. He’d been too busy with Cher to hear anyone drive up.

  Levi walked to the ladder and squatted down to see out the window. First he saw the car, a baby blue Triumph Spitfire, a little girl’s sort of sports car. Then he saw the little girl it belonged to.

  “Fuck,” Levi breathed.

  “What? Someone you know?”

  “Someone I don’t want to know.” Levi shook his head. Goddamn. “Go on. I’ll see you next week.”

  She rose up on her toes on the rung and kissed him quick on the mouth before heading down the ladder with ease. Levi didn’t follow at first. He kept staring out the window. What the hell was Tamara Maddox doing here? There was no way this was a coincidence. The girl didn’t need riding lessons. She could outride him, not that he’d ever told her that. Not that he planned on telling her that. He hadn’t planned on telling her anything ever again.

  He had to tell her something, though. Out in the parking lot, Tamara leaned back against the hood of her little blue car and shoved her hands deep into her jeans pockets.

  She was waiting. Well, she could wait a little longer. Levi took the first few rungs of the ladder, jumped down the rest of the way and landed easy on his feet. The stables had running water and a tiny closet of a bathroom for the little kids who couldn’t hold it long enough to make it to the main building, where the owner of Happy Trails sat in his air-conditioned office talking on the phone all day. Levi splashed cold water on his face, ran wet hands through his hair, made sure he didn’t have hay sticking out of his jeans. He didn’t care if he looked good for Tamara or not, but it gave him sweet satisfaction to keep her waiting.

  Levi took his hat off a nail right outside the bathroom door and shoved it on his head before emerging into the bright June sunlight. The second Tamara saw him, she came to attention, standing up straight, no longer leaning on the hood of her car. She pushed her sunglasses up on top of her head and smiled.

  “Hey, Levi,” she said.

  Levi walked past her and kept walking.

  He walked straight to the pile of straw bales stacked behind the woodshed, picked one up by the cords and carried it back to the stables.

  Tamara didn’t speak to him again, but she followed him. She’d done that all the time back when he worked for her grandfather, trailed behind him like a duckling, quacking questions at him. Why do you work for Granddaddy? Do you want to go to college? Do you ever want to get married someday? Do you think my black boots or my brown boots are prettier? Can I ride your horse? He ignored half her questions, told her lies to the other half. He worked for her granddaddy because his career as a ballerina hadn’t worked out. He was already married—seven wives, one for each night of the week. All her boots were ugly and she could ride his horse the second she was as tall as he was and he would happily stretch her out on a rack if she wanted to speed up the growing process.

  Today she didn’t ask a single question as she followed him into the stables. He dropped the hay bale in a stall, pulled out his pocketknife and cut the cords. When he stood up, Tamara had a pitchfork in her hand.

  “I won’t turn you into a spaghetti strainer, I promise,” she said, wearing a halfhearted smile.

  “Then what are you doing with that thing?” He nodded at the pitchfork.

  “Helping.” She speared the straw with the fork and tossed a good quantity of it on the bare stall floor.

  “I never thought I’d live to see the day Tamara Maddox did hard labor without someone holding a gun to her head.”

  “Congratulations,” she said, spearing the hay bale again. “You lived longer than you thought you would.”

  He didn’t help. No, this show was too good to interrupt. He stood outside the stall and watched her.

  “Can you bring me another bale?” she asked. “Please?”

  “That’s enough.”

  “It’s too thin. Kermit got twice that much bedding.”

  “Kermit’s owner is a rich girl, not the cheapskate who runs this place.”

  “Ex-owner. I don’t have him anymore.”

  Tamara used her feet to even out the hay on the floor.

  “What happened to poor Kermit? Miss Piggy finally got to him?”

  “Momma sold him. She sold all the horses after Granddaddy died.”

  “Why? I’m not the only man in Kentucky who can muck a stall. She couldn’t find anyone else to take care of them?”

  “She did it to punish me.”

  “For what?”

  Tamara met his eyes for a moment, then went back to work smoothing out the hay.

  “What do you think?” she asked.

  Levi felt the tiniest little pang of sympathy. He squashed it under the heel of his boot.

  Still, he left her in the stall, walked out to the woodshed and returned with another bale of straw.

  “Thank you,” Tamara said. He watched her pull a knife out of her boot. Not a little pocketknife. A serrated four-inch blade, a nasty little knife. She cut the cords with it, slid it back in her boot and went to work spreading the bedding.

  “When did you start carrying a knife with you?” Levi asked.

  “After Granddaddy died. Maybe I’ll stab Momma to death with it someday.”

  Levi laughed. “Nice to know your mother’s an equal opportunity bitch, then. And here I thought it was just me she loved treating like shit.”

  “Not just you.”

  “That’s a big knife, kid. You could hurt yourself with it.”

  “The world’s a dangerous place,” she said.

  “Then move.”

  She gave a little smile. “You always were good with the wisecracks, Sam Spade,” she said.

  “You’re not too bad yourself, Pam Pitchfork.”

  Levi ope
ned the stall door again and took the pitchfork from her hand. It was the closest he’d been to her since that day, and