Bitter Spirits (Roaring Twenties #1)(79)

“Not my concern that you can’t manage money.”

“Whatever scam that girl’s running on you, I can assure you that my lawyer will investigate every possible legal angle to prevent—”

Winter stepped closer and spoke in a lower voice. “Do you know who I am, Mr. Lane?”

The question hung between them for a moment. “Yes, I believe I do.”

“Then you know I don’t really have a great deal of love for the law. I’m also an extremely impatient man. So we can either handle things with grace and dignity, and you can prove to me that you aren’t the conniving prick I suspect you are, or I can come back later with my men and convince you in other ways.”

The man stared at him, nostrils flaring. “What do you want?”

“I want Sam Palmer’s army footlocker. I know it was sent to you, so don’t tell me it wasn’t. The army still has a record of the shipment—military efficiency is a thing of beauty.”

Mr. Lane stared at him, mouth agape, then brushed away invisible crumbs from his suit lapels. “It’s in storage. I’ll have to dig it out.”

“I want it delivered to my place of business by Friday.” He handed Mr. Lane a business card and took back the telegram, folding it as he talked. “If it isn’t delivered by five o’clock sharp in the afternoon, I will break a finger for every minute it’s late. If I run out of fingers . . . I’ll just have to get creative. Do we have an understanding?”

The man’s face was puce with rage. “I don’t know what you think you’re going to find inside.”

“Not everything is profit fodder, Mr. Lane. It is simply of sentimental value to the boy’s sister, and I want it.”

“Fine. Are we done?”

Winter’s gaze fell upon a photograph on the mantel. The man’s wife, he presumed. “One more thing. Your brother’s estate in Baltimore was appraised at twenty thousand dollars.”

“Now, you look here—I have no way of getting my hands on that kind of money. The estate was sold off for far less than it was worth, and that was a decade ago.”

“I know exactly how much you’re worth, Mr. Lane. I also know you have $5,607.02 in your account at Hibernia Savings and Loan. I want a check made out to Aida Palmer for that exact amount to be sent along with the footlocker.”

Sweat glistened across Mr. Lane’s forehead.

Winter picked up the picture frame on the mantel, removed the photograph, and handed the frame to Mr. Lane. An idle threat, but the man was a piece of shit who deserved to squirm. “Five o’clock on Friday. Enjoy your dinner.”

• • •

Winter knew something was wrong when Bo pulled into the driveway. The gate was standing open, the day’s last rays casting long shadows over the empty space where his mother’s Packard should’ve been sitting. But it was his staff lined up on the side porch that made his heart rate shift from flustered to panicked.

“What’s happened?” he said, slamming the car door behind him.

The maids fled, retreating through the screened door. Only Greta and Benita remained, and their dueling looks of worry versus titillation did nothing to calm his nerves.

“I warned her not to,” Greta said, shaking her head. “I told her you’d skin her alive.”

“What are—”

Excited shouting exploded from the street in front of the house. Bo was already jogging out front. By the time Winter raced to catch up with him, the source of the shouting revealed itself as Jonte. The reserved old bastard was running down the sidewalk, long arms akimbo as he signaled wildly to a car puttering down the street. Winter had never seen him so animated. What the devil was going on?

“Oh my God,” Bo muttered as he tore off his cap and stared at the spectacle.

Winter’s mind finally grasped what was happening. Jonte was running alongside Winter’s mother’s car, which lurched fast, then slow, then fast again. “Brakes!” the old Swede shouted. “Use the brakes before you turn, not after!”

The blood all but drained from Winter’s body when he spotted the Packard’s driver. Astrid? Mother of God, it was. His sister was squealing with either terror or delight—he couldn’t tell which—as she shifted gears and the car’s transmission made a sound that no one should ever, ever hear their car make. And Aida was perched in the passenger seat, cheering her on.

“Shit,” he murmured. “Shit, shit, shit.”

He scanned the street and saw a couple of other cars pulled over to the side, their drivers probably in fear for their lives—and he didn’t blame them. His sister was on a mad path of destruction that flattened a flower bed when she made a jerky, sharp turn into the driveway, veered erratically to the right, nearly smashing the car’s mirrors against the open gate, then came to a screeching halt a mere inch away from plowing into the back of the Pierce-Arrow.

Jonte stopped in the middle of the driveway and bent over, clutching his heaving chest. Bo ran to check on him, but the man was only winded. Probably the most exercise he’d had in years. Winter breezed past them and made a beeline for the Packard.

Astrid saw him coming and flattened herself against Aida on the car’s seat. “I only took it around the block a couple of times.”

His gaze skidded over the length of the Packard, looking for damage as he approached. He could hear the staff tittering on the porch behind him, all of them now back outside to witness Astrid’s exhibition.