Read Half of Paradise for Free Online Page B

then.”
    “A hundred now, and a hundred when you get there.”
    “Where am I going?”
    “You’ll learn that tonight. Erwin will give you the address of the warehouse.”
    “Is this a one-man job?”
    “Another truck will go with you.”
    “What is it? Whiskey?”
    “Give him the address, Erwin.”
    The hustler tore open an empty cigarette pack and flattened it against the wall and wrote something on it in pencil. He gave it to Toussaint.
    “Here’s your bread ticket, daddy,” he said.
    “Bonham Shipping Company,” Toussaint read. “Are you Bonham?”
    “Yes. I am. Pick up the truck at nine.”
    “You ain’t give me the money yet.”
    “He’s real sharp, ain’t he, Mr. Bonham?” the hustler said.

AVERY BROUSSARD

    It was night and the moon was high, and Avery sat on a log in the clearing while Tereau took the coffeepot off the fire. Tereau was three parts Negro, one part Chitimacha Indian, and he made the best moonshine in southern Louisiana. No one knew how old he was, not even Tereau, but a Negro must live very long before his hair turns white. He had fought sheriffs and federal tax agents to keep his still, and some people said that he carried a double-edged knife made from a file in his boot.
    Tereau poured coffee in their cups and added a shot of whiskey from the pint bottle he carried in his coat pocket. They were waiting for the bootleggers who were to slip through the marsh in an outboard and meet them. The mules and the wagon were off to the side of the clearing by the trees, with the heavy kegs of whiskey loaded on the bed. Avery took another shot in his cup.
    Tonight ain’t a good time to be drinking too much corn,” Tereau said.
    “What happened to the bootleggers?”
    They’ll be along. There’s a lot of moonlight. They got to be careful.”
    “Do the state police ever catch any of them?”
    “Sometimes, but they usually get rid of the whiskey before they’re caught. It don’t take long to dump them barrels overboard.”
    Tereau rolled a cigarette and handed the package of rough-cut string tobacco to Avery.
    “Them bootleggers don’t take much chance,” Tereau said. “They’re always moving and they got nobody except the state police to look out for. I got to worry about federal tax agents. They never give up looking for my still. Every month there’s a couple of them wandering around in the marsh trying to find it.”
    Avery laughed.
    “They almost got me once,” Tereau said. “When I leave the still I run a ball of string around it in a big circle, about a inch off the ground. One day I come back and the string was slack on the ground. I snuck around to the other side and seen one of them tax people hid behind my boiler. I went and got my brother and two cousins and we brung the wagon up close to the still, then I sent my brother down to the tax fellow’s car. It was parked about a mile away on a side road. My brother stuck a match in the horn button to keep the horn blowing, and the tax fellow took off to see what the matter was, and while he was stumbling through the briars we took the still to pieces and loaded it on the wagon and moved the whole outfit to the other side of the marsh.”
    “You crazy old man,” Avery said.
    “I don’t see no old men around here.” Tereau puffed on the cigarette and flicked it into the fire.
    “Why’d you want to come with me, Avery? You ain’t never been one to break the law,” he said.
    “Since they took the farm I got nothing else to do. Breaking the law seems like a good enough way to pass the time.”
    “If you don’t end up busting rocks on a work gang.”
    “They never caught you.”
    “That’s because I been at it a long time. My grand-daddy taught me all the tricks when I was a little boy. When he was a young man he sold moon to both the Confederate and Federal army, except he might have added some lye or fertilizer when he sold it to the Yankees. I hope you ain’t planning on making this your life’s