Speakeasy (True North #5)(30)

“Not bad?” I echo. “That’s all you got? This is my best ever. Some of the stuff tourists drive two hundred miles to taste at my bar isn’t as good as that.”

“Tasty beer, son,” he says with a shrug. “But Vermont is lousy with excellent beer. You’re gonna make yourself insane with this idea that you can get rich making the next Goldenpour. It ain’t easy hitting it big. You gotta make a great product and then market it just right and then buy a fricking lottery ticket because it’s really just luck that makes these things big.”

My blood pressure spikes. “Thanks for making that clear. Like I don’t know that business is hard. But it’s a big world out there and someone’s going to appreciate this, even if you can’t.”

I’ve said too much. But all I get from this man is negativity.

“You gotta put in the time,” he says. This is his favorite rant, and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t even apply to my situation. “A business builds slowly. Your bar is getting there, but you can’t spread yourself too thin yet.”

“I know your stump speech,” I point out. “But diversification matters. I need a plan for the day when I can’t get my hands on whatever limited-edition beer is all the rage. If I make my own, at least I can control it.”

“Just in case Chelsea gets tired of you, right?” Zara puts in.

I give her a death glare.

“I get it,” Benito puts in. “That’s called a vertical business structure.”

Both my mom and Zara laugh immediately.

“What?” Benny yelps. “I read it on Bloomberg News.”

“You read Bloomberg News?” Otto asks. “Now there’s a boy that’s goin’ places.”

“Yeah?” Benito asks. “Then this might be a good time to tell you all that I just quit my job at the DEA.”

And just like that, my brother sucks all the oxygen out of the room with this announcement. “What?” my mother gasps.

“Yay!” Zara cheers.

“That was a stupid-ass thing to do,” Otto says.

My uncle Art just sucks on his teeth.

And me? I’ve lost the conversation. And that’s really not okay, because I need Otto’s help. This spring I need him to let me borrow the fermentation tank where he makes perry during the winter. I have to modify it a little for beer, but it could change my life.

Right now I’m making good money because I serve up specialty products that aren’t so easy to get. The beer tourists have found me, because I advertise like crazy. I target Connecticut beer lovers. Come to Vermont and taste the magic. During leaf-peeping season, half the cars on the road are from Connecticut.

Word gets around, and I sell a lot of fancy beer. For now. But as my sister pointed out, my supply depends on the whims of the marketplace and the good graces of the distributor.

And I need to keep investing in my space. I need to save up for Hamish’s property, to insure that nobody can ruin the neighborhood. And my bar needs a kitchen so we can also serve food. I have the space, but I don’t have the equipment or the chef.

I need cash to grow. And here’s where it gets really tricky—Otto has cash to invest. I’d rather pay him instead of a bank. But when last we chatted about it, Otto wanted a fifty-one percent stake in the bar, but I said no. The Gin Mill is my baby, and I took all the risk to open her, even when he said I’d fail. So I offered him twenty-five percent. He turned that down.

How could he expect me to agree? He’s spent my life telling me I’m incompetent. If I gave him control, I’d be basically agreeing with him.

Now we’re stuck at this impasse. Sunday dinners are tense. The thing is, I’d give him fifty percent of a brewing operation. That’s something I’m willing to split down the middle, even though I’d do all the work, because we’d be using his equipment.

So far, no deal. And I think he’s resisting just to spite me.

“The new job,” my brother is saying, “is funded by a grant to the Vermont State Police. Six new drug-fighting employees.”

“And here I thought your new job would be safer,” my sister grumbles.

“Nope!” my brother says cheerfully. “But it gives me a better shot at taking down Jimmy Gage.”

My mother wrings her hands any time our ex-neighbor Jimmy Gage is mentioned. “You don’t have to take him down personally,” she says.

“Yeah, I kind of do.” My brother’s voice is low and serious. “Nobody else has done it yet.”

There is a silence at the table while we all consider my brother’s bravery. He probably will single-handedly solve Colebury’s drug problems. Benito has always been the serious kid.

I’m the party-boy fuck-up. Just ask Otto.

“Any luck finding that asshole who almost killed your sister?” Otto asks Benito. For once it’s Ben getting grilled instead of me. It isn’t even Benito’s job to solve the hit-and-run that almost ended Zara. But Otto expects us all to do the impossible.

“Not yet,” he says. “But I’ll never stop looking for that truck.”

“Time for cake,” my mother announces. “Once you guys clear the table, I’ll cut it.”

Everybody gets up, and once again I’ve failed to get anywhere with the most stubborn man in the world.