Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 36, No. 6, June 1991

Day of the Moon by William Jeffrey

Flagg leaned against the crowbar until the hasp broke and the lock dropped to the pine-needled ground. He waited, listening, but the only sounds were the faint rippling of the mountain stream a hundred yards to the west, and the distant call of an owl in the surrounding woods. It was almost four A.M.

After a long moment, Flagg kicked the lock away, put the crowbar against the wall, and edged the door open. The light from the three-quarter moon illuminated nothing more than vague shadows in the black interior. Once he had stepped inside and pulled the door shut behind him, he took a small pen-flash from the pocket of his deer hunter’s jacket and clicked it on.

He was in the rear storage room of Barney’s Oasis, a roadside tavern set into a conifer grove which was ringed by tourist cabins. It was a box-shaped, clapboard building with a slant-shingled roof and a falsely rustic facade. Flagg had seen dozens just like it in the past two weeks, and he had begun to wonder if they were all put out from some master mold.

He moved deeper into the storage room, playing the flash. Along the near wall were cases of liquor and beer and quinine water, and along the far wall cartons of peanuts, potato chips, pretzels, and assorted other light snacks. He checked the liquor cases, opening one or two at random, and then went to a bank of shelves near the entrance to the bar proper. Soap, disinfectant, cloth towels — there was no sign of what he was looking for. He opened the door and stepped into the bar.

The barnlike room was bathed in the eerie, reddish-tinged shine of the neon beer signs in the long front window. Flagg glanced curiously at the scattered wooden tables with their matching chairs, and at the glitter-decorated musicians’ dais. Then he turned and went behind the long polished bar on his left.

The planking squeaked beneath his canvas shoes as he moved slowly along the back-bar. When he reached the well where the house bourbon was located he picked up the bottle of Old Pilgrim from which he had been served just before the two A.M. closing. He removed the pour spout and sniffed briefly at the neck. Then, for reaffirmation, he tilted the bottle to his lips and allowed a small amount of the liquor to wet his tongue. It was the same: sour, yeasty, very young — not at all of the high quality for which the brand was widely renowned.

Flagg examined the bottle carefully. The glass had a few small flaws, but it was generally a skillful replica of the genuine Old Pilgrim decanter. Only an expert such as Flagg could have told the difference. The label had been well made, from good engraving plates, but the manufacturer’s code was incorrect and the paper was of a cheaper quality than the high rag content of the real ones; too, the green of the ink had a slight yellowish cast that should not have been present. The federal tax stamp had a set of perforations that revealed it to be an obvious forgery.

He replaced the bottle. Now, at least, he had something definite to go on. If he could only locate—

The overhead lights suddenly blazed on.

Flagg whirled, crouching, his hand flashing inside the deer hunter’s jacket. But he let it freeze there when he saw the tall blonde girl standing in the storage room doorway. She was dressed in a pair of bluejeans and a plaid jacket, and she had a small, light deer rifle cradled in her hands. The muzzle was pointed at his belly.

She said, “Oh, so it’s you,” as if she were very disappointed. “You’re the last person I would have figured for a night prowler.”

Flagg relaxed, straightening up. The girl worked at Barney’s Oasis as a waitress, and he had been making small talk with her only a couple of hours ago. Her name was Terry Kenyon. “I thought you’d be long gone home by this time,” he said.

“I live in one of the cabins out there,” she told him coldly. “I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to take a walk. And I saw you fooling around at the rear door.”

“So you went home and got your rifle,” Flagg said. “Well, all right, you can put it down now.”

“The hell I can.”

He took a couple of short, exploratory steps forward. “Take it easy,” he said. “This isn’t what it looks like.”

“No?”

“No. I can explain.”

“You can do your explaining to the sheriff.”

Flag laughed. “That’s pretty funny.”

Her soft red mouth tightened. “I’m glad you think so.”

“You’re not going to call the sheriff.”

“And why not?”

“Because you don’t want him nosing around here,” Flagg said. “Not with this place pushing moon.”

“What?”

“You heard me. Moonshine. Bootleg liquor.”

“You’re crazy,” Terry said incredulously. “That kind of thing went out with Prohibition.”

“No,” Flagg said. “Illicit liquor traffic is heavier than ever, all across the country. It’s a multimillion dollar industry.”

“Well, I don’t—”

Flagg took two quick shuffling steps forward and jerked the rifle out of her hands. She made a small cry, her eyes widening. He backed off, holding the weapon crooked in his right arm.

She was frightened now. “What are you going to do?”

“That depends on you.”

“Meaning what?”

“I wasn’t kidding you about that moon,” Flagg said. “The Old Pilgrim that Barney uses for a house bourbon is pure shine.”

She brushed silklike strands of blonde hair back from her forehead. “I just can’t believe it.”

“You didn’t have any idea that’s what was going on?”

“No,” she said. “No, I didn’t.”

Flagg studied her for a long moment. He would have given odds that she was telling the truth. He decided to take a chance. “Look, Terry,” he said quietly, “I’m going to level with you. I’m probably putting my neck in a sling doing it, but I’m at a dead end otherwise.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I’m a Treasury agent,” he said, watching her face for a reaction.

Her eyebrows knitted, but that was all. No, she wasn’t in on it, he was certain now. He continued, “With the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax Unit for Northern California. Based in San Francisco. Somebody is manufacturing and distributing large amounts of contraband liquor in these mountains. It’s my job to find out who.”

She looked at him with a different expression, as if she were very glad he wasn’t a night prowler after all. “Why are you telling me all this?” she asked finally. “I told you, I don’t know anything about it.”

“You might be able to help me.”

“How?”

“By answering a few questions.”

“Well... all right.”

“How long have you worked for Barney?”

“About eight months.”

“Do you know where he gets his liquor? From which distributor?”

“From Kardin Wholesale, I think. In Eureka.”

“Just from there?”

“Yes, that’s the only one I know of.”

“Who else makes regular deliveries here?”

“Well, there’s the snack food company,” Terry said. “And the soft drink people. And Tru-Test Petroleum. That’s about all.”

Flagg said, “Tru-Test Petroleum?”

“Yes.”

“What’s that?”

“A fuel oil company.”

“How often do they deliver?”

“About once a week.”

“Drums, or what?”

“No, cases,” Terry said reflectively. “You know, it always did strike me as a little odd that Barney would use so many cases of oil every week...”

“Where does he store these cases?”

“There’s a small boiler room off the storage room.”

“Show me, please,” Flagg said.

They went into the storage room, with Flagg clicking off the overhead lights as they left the bar. The boiler room door was hidden behind some of the crates; he had missed it in the darkness earlier. It was locked, but he worked on the latch with his penknife and got it open. Inside, he broke open one of two dozen stacked cases marked FUEL OIL–INFLAMMABLE.

The case was filled with bottles of Old Pilgrim.

Flagg looked at Terry. “Where do I find this Tru-Test Petroleum?”

She was a little breathless. “In Emmetville,” she said. “That’s a small logging town about five miles to the west. Tru-Test is on the outskirts, on Hathaway Road.”

“Are the grounds fenced in?”

“Yes. They have guards at the main gate, and I don’t think you can get in without some kind of pass.”

Flagg nodded. “The Big Tree River runs parallel to Hathaway Road, doesn’t it?”

“Yes, it does.”

Flagg considered. “Who owns Tru-Test?”

“Riley Morgan.”

“What does this Morgan look like?”

“He’s a big redhaired man with a lot of freckles across the bridge of his nose,” she answered. “About forty or forty-five. He comes in here once in a while.”

“To have a drink or to see Barney?”

“Both. They usually go into Barney’s office.”

Flagg said, “Okay,” and smiled at her. “I’m going to trust you to keep quiet about all this. Don’t make a liar out of my intuition.”

“You don’t have to worry,” Terry said. “When it comes to the federal government, I’m everybody’s little angel.”

“Good,” Flagg said. “What’s your cabin number? In case I need you again?”

“Fifteen.”

Flagg broke open the rifle and emptied it and put the cartridges in his pocket. Then he handed the weapon back to Terry. “I’ll be in touch,” he said.

When she had gone, he relocked the boiler room door. There was no way he could cover up the broken hasp on the storage room entrance, but when Barney didn’t find anything missing in the morning, he would probably put it down to vandals.

Flagg moved off through the darkness toward where he had left his camper.

The sun was a brilliant red disc on the eastern horizon when Flagg appeared at the edge of the Big Tree River early next morning. He wore an old army jacket and rubber wading boots, and carried a tackle box and a glass trout rod. He puffed contentedly on a briar pipe.

He set the tackle box down on the spongy bank, opened it, removed a fly reel, and attached it to the rod. From the half dozen or so steelhead trout flies hooked to his jacket, he selected a Klamath Nymph and busied himself tying it on the nylon line. When he had finished, he adjusted the old and battered hat he wore, tested his boots in the rushing water for leakage, and then stepped into the narrow stream.

He glanced at the opposite bank from time to time, in a seemingly uninterested way. A dirt trail led up to Hathaway Road there, and less than fifty yards beyond the road was the fenced compound of Tru-Test Petroleum.

It was a large concern. The main entrance was some seventy-five yards to the south on Hathaway Road, and there was a sentry box with a uniformed guard. The gates opened electronically, from controls inside the box. Flagg could not see much of what went on inside the compound.

He spent three hours fishing in the Big Tree River, working his way upstream slowly until he had drawn opposite the main entrance. He caught four trout, and threw them all back. During that time, several dark green delivery trucks with the company name emblazoned on the doors and sides arrived and departed at regular intervals. One large diesel tanker came just before nine, and left forty minutes later. A new limousine driven by a redhaired man entered the Tru-Test grounds at nine twenty. There was no other traffic.

At eleven o’clock, Flagg packed up his fishing gear and left the stream.

Shortly before three that afternoon — twenty minutes after another of the large diesel tankers had arrived at Tru-Test, and half an hour after the redhaired man had driven out in his new limousine — a white panel truck with the words RIGHT WAY PLUMBING, INC. plastic-stenciled on the sides stopped before the locked entrance gates.

The uniformed guard came out of the sentry box and looked inside. “Yes?”

“Here to fix the john in the warehouse,” Flagg said. He wore a pair of faded blue overalls and a baseball cap. He was still puffing on his briar pipe.

The guard frowned. “Mr. Morgan didn’t mention anything about a plumber coming in.”

“Well, he called the shop less than an hour ago.”

“What’s the matter with the john?”

“He didn’t give me any details,” Flagg said. “Check with him, if you want.”

“He’s not here right now.”

“When’ll he be back?”

“Not until tomorrow.”

“Look,” Flagg said, “it don’t matter to me one way or the other if I do the job. There’s an automatic service charge just for me to come out here.”

The guard chewed at his lower lip indecisively. “I don’t know,” he said. “How long will it take?”

“Now, how would I know that if I ain’t seen the problem yet? That Mr. Morgan seemed to think I ought to get out here right away, but if you don’t think so, I’ll go off back home. Like I said, there’s a service charge whether I do the job or not—”

“All right,” the guard said. “Do you know where the main water house is?”

Flagg shrugged. “I’ve never been here before.”

“Follow the white lines until you come to a big corrugated iron building with a loading dock along one side. Go on around to Door 5 and ask for Lou. He’s in charge there.”

“Okay,” Flagg said.

The guard opened the gates from inside the sentry box, and Flagg drove the panel onto the Tru-Test grounds. He followed the white lines as directed, and a couple of minutes later he stopped in front of Door 5 in the long, narrow warehouse. He had seen the corrugated iron roof from the river, and accurately guessed the building’s purpose. There were three of the dark green delivery trucks pulled up to the loading platform in front of other numbered doors, and a good deal of activity on the dock itself. Pallets of boxes with markings identical to those he had seen in the rear storage room of Barney’s Oasis were being stacked at intervals by two forklifts, and freight handlers were hurrying back and forth with dollies between the pallets and the trucks.

Flagg got out of the panel, opened the rear doors, and took out a large tool kit. Then he went up several wooden steps and through Door 5. A short, fat man with thinning hair was writing on a clipboard. Flagg stepped up to him and asked, “Where do I find Lou?”

“I’m Lou,” the man answered, appraising him with cold eyes.

“Here to fix the john,” Flagg said.

“The john? What’s the matter with it?”

“Who knows? I got this call from Mr. Morgan to come out find fix it, that’s all.”

Lou continued to study him. Flagg puffed uninterestedly on the briar pipe. Finally Lou said, “Okay, then. Come on, I’ll show you where it is.”

Flagg followed him along the cement floor of the warehouse, past more full pallets stacked three high. At the rear wall, between the stacks, there was a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. Loud, vibrant sounds of machinery in operation filtered through the door. On one side was another door marked restroom, and Lou opened that one. They went in.

“Here it is,” Lou said. “It looks all right to me.”

“You can’t tell by looking.”

“How long will you be?”

“What am I?” Flagg asked. “Psychic?”

“Okay, okay.”

Flagg opened the toolbox and pretended to rummage around inside. After a moment, Lou went out and closed the door behind him. Flagg straightened and stood at the door, listening, for a full minute. Then he opened the door and peered out. Lou had disappeared among the stacks of pallets.

Flagg closed the door again and locked it. There was a window in the rear wall, and he went to it and brushed some dust from the glass and looked out. He could see across to where the fuel pumps were located. The diesel tanker that had arrived earlier was parked there, and three men were standing around it. One end of a huge black petroleum hose was hooked to a bottom outlet on the first of the tanker’s two reservoirs; the other end disappeared into a large, square metal plate set into the concrete yard.

Underground tanks, Flagg thought, and then: Well, I’ll be damned! He had just realized that with that hose hooked to the bottom outlet on the reservoir, they couldn’t possibly be filling it; they were emptying it. Strange. The tanker was one of Tru-Test’s, not a delivery vehicle from a manufacturer. Why would they be emptying fuel oil from one of their own trucks back into the underground tanks? Unless...

Unless it wasn’t fuel oil, at all. Unless it was shine.

Flagg smiled a little and then frowned. Of course, that was it. They were storing the bootleg in the underground tanks. But it made his job that much more difficult. They brought the bootleg in the tankers from the point where it was being made, and he had no idea where that was. He had hoped they had the actual still operation here at Tru-Test. That would have made things one hell of a lot simpler.

He listened to the machinery sounds coming through the wall and thought about the door marked no admittance. With the moon being stored here, and distributed from here, they were obviously bottling it here, too. He knew what he would find on the other side of that door: a long three-sided roller belt, with stainless steel machinery along it which would fill, cap, label, and stamp the bottles of “Old Pilgrim,” with a direct pipeline to the storage tanks outside. But he didn’t need to get a look inside there, now.

Patiently, Flagg allowed fifteen minutes to pass by his wristwatch and then he closed up the toolbox and unlocked the door and stepped into the warehouse. He found his way to Door 5. Lou was writing on the clipboard again. “All fixed?” he asked as Flagg approached.

“Yeah.”

“What was the trouble?”

Flagg made up something.

Lou laughed. “I’m glad I don’t have your job.”

“Sometimes I wish I didn’t either,” Flagg said sourly. “Well, hang in there.”

“You too.”

He went down the steps and put the tool kit in the rear of the panel. He drove back to the front gate, and the same guard came out of the sentry box. “That was quick.”

“Sure,” Flagg answered. “That’s our motto.”

The guard opened the gates and Flagg drove out and turned south on Hathaway Road. He parked the rented panel in the parking lot behind a supermarket in Emmetville a quarter mile away. In the rear, he changed out of the coveralls and the baseball cap, back into his fishing clothes. Then he retrieved the camper and drove back to a spot on Hathaway Road where he could watch the main gates of Tru-Test through a pair of binoculars.

Half an hour later, he saw the diesel tanker come out through the gates. It turned south and passed him. Flagg waited until it got a good distance down the road, then started the camper and swung out after it.

The tanker turned west onto a county highway just before Emmetville. The highway looped around to the north, bypassing the town, and then swung east, climbing into the mountains. Flagg followed at a discreet distance. They had gone some fifteen miles when the tanker turned off onto another county road, this one in relatively poor repair. A mile into there, it turned again, this time onto a packed earth road flanked with signs reading PRIVATE PROPERTY-TRESPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

Flagg passed by, looking up the private road. A couple of hundred yards along he could see two men with rifles. A third man was swinging a heavy wooden gate open to allow the tanker admittance.

Flagg followed the county road for another mile, turned around, and came back again. The tanker had disappeared, and the gate was closed. The men were still there.

He drove directly to Barney’s Oasis.

Cabin 15 had green shutters and an old, rusty-framed swing in one corner of its narrow porch. Flagg knocked on the door. After a moment it opened and Terry Kenyon looked out. She was wearing the short miniskirt and tight white blouse that composed her waitress uniform.

“Are you alone?” he asked.

She nodded, standing aside, and he went in. The interior was furnished spartanly, but it was clean and had a comfortable feminine touch. Flagg barely glanced at it. He put his hands on her shoulders. “Listen, how well do you know this area?”

She didn’t draw back from his touch. “I grew up in Emmetville,” she answered. “What is it, Flagg? Did you find out something?”

“Maybe,” he said, and told her where he had followed the tanker. “Do you know where that private road leads?”

“To an old abandoned mine. There are a lot of them around here, from the old gold rush days, I suppose.”

“Anything else in the area?”

“Just woodland.”

“What about this mine?”

“Well, for a while it was turned into a gravel pit. Some special kind used in making concrete. But even that was abandoned, about ten years ago. I remember that a lot of gravel was taken out of the base of the hill, so that the pit almost reached the main mine shaft.”

“It’s still abandoned, as far as you know?”

“I heard that somebody had bought the property and was going to reactivate the pit,” Terry said. “But if they’ve begun yet, I wouldn’t know about it.”

“Okay,” Flagg said. “Now, is there any way in there besides that private road?”

“The road itself only goes as far as the gravel pit. There’s a spur track which comes in from the other side and reaches all the way up to the mine tower. I think it goes inside the hill through an auxiliary tunnel there.”

“Foot trails?”

“None that you could follow for very long.” She paused. “Do you think that’s where the moonshine is being made?”

Flagg shrugged. “I’m not sure,” he said. “How do I find that spur you mentioned?”

“Follow the county road past the private entrance. About five miles farther along, the main railroad track crosses it. Walk back on the tracks to the second switch. Not the first, but the second.”

“Right.”

“You’re not going up there alone, are you?” Terry asked. There was concern in her voice.

Flagg grinned. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. He moved to the door. “Thanks.”

“Will I see you again, Flagg?”

“Maybe,” he said. “Take care of yourself.” He slipped out and closed the door quietly behind him.

Flagg found the spur without difficulty.

The sun was setting, and there was less than an hour of daylight left. He moved quickly along the side of the track, keeping to the brush as much as possible, stopping occasionally to listen. He wore khakis now, which blended with the surrounding terrain better than black or dark beige clothing, and a new navy blue seaman’s knit cap pulled down to conceal his prematurely salt and pepper hair. He had a long-bladed hunting knife sheathed at his waist.

He thought about the shine operation as he went. Two weeks ago, after three days of abortive low flying over every inch of the county in a chartered plane, he had been forced to admit that the still was extremely well hidden. During his prolonged study of the wild, mountainous terrain, he had uncovered no signs of activity in isolated places, no telltale columns of smoke to point to the possible location of the cooker, no signs of pollution in the streams he subsequently checked. Nothing at all.

He had begun the tavern-by-tavern search then, drinking Old Pilgrim in each one, asking carefully veiled questions in the hopes of uncovering information about discounts and deals. Until he came to Barney’s Oasis, he had drawn a total blank. It was obvious that Riley Morgan was distributing most of the moon out of the county, and perhaps out of the state.

But Morgan had been selling shine to Barney, and that was his big mistake. It had given Flagg the lead he needed. He now knew almost everything he needed to know: that the fuel oil company stored and bottled and distributed the bootleg, and that it was being manufactured in the old abandoned mine. At least, he was almost positive that was where the still was located; logic told him that the tankers would drive through the gravel pit and inside the main shaft of the mine to load from the vats. Too, Terry had said the spur tracks led inside an auxiliary tunnel; that would undoubtedly connect with the main shaft, as would other passages. These would serve as the still’s ventilation system, explaining why he had seen nothing from the air. Nevertheless, he had to make absolutely certain; that was his job.

He rounded a slight curve in the tracks, moving silently and staying in the protective cover of a high growth of juniper. Suddenly, through the thicket, he saw a man dressed in a pair of Levi’s and an old plaid work shirt. The man was sitting on a high, flat-topped rock next to the tracks, his back to Flagg, throwing pebbles at a rotted log on the other side. A rifle rested beside him, propped against the rock.

Flagg backed off a few steps and made a wide circle around the guard, climbing over rocky ground. He could see the mine tower now, a crumbling wooden structure outlined against the sunset sky in gloomy emphasis.

Several minutes later, he stood hidden behind a large boulder at the entrance to the auxiliary tunnel. The timbers of the tower were ridden with termites and worms and dry rot, and the structure looked near collapse. The iron elevator wheel tilted where a support had fallen away. Debris cluttered the weed-choked ground. Off on one side was a crude stone fireplace and chimney, all that remained of a mine office.

Flagg left his concealment and approached the black mouth of the tunnel cautiously. When he was certain there was no one about, he swept aside vinelike weeds and slipped inside. The blackness was absolute, and he groped his way along one of the cold, damp walls until he had penetrated some fifty feet. Then he took the pen-glass from his pocket, shielded it in his handkerchief, and switched it on.

In its faint light, he could see that the tunnel was nearly a cave-in, with mounds of earth and shale and fallen timbers choking the passage. He moved forward carefully.

Five minutes passed. A collapsed section of the tunnel forced Flagg to crawl part of the way on his hands and knees. But as soon as he was able to stand again, he reached a dead end; the tunnel was completely blocked. At first, he thought it was another, final cave-in, but then he realized that the obstruction had been manmade. This must be where the tunnel connected with the main shaft.

He worked the dim flash along the wall of dirt and rock. Near the top, he found a small opening which appeared to pass through to the other side. He dug carefully at the opening, enlarging it, working as silently as possible. Finally, he was able to see through clearly. He stared down a long incline at a widened grotto in the main shaft of the old mine.

The still was there.

The boiler and distillation column jutted upward, disappearing into the rock, probably to another tunnel. Steam rose lightly in the murky, floodlit cavern. He could see five large vats clustered at one end, with piping to carry the mash to the column. Even as near as he was, he could not smell much of the fermentation process; the vats were well covered. An underground stream no doubt supplied the water and carried off the waste, which would be well filtered by the time it reached the ground level. There were half a dozen men around a control panel full of gauges and valves, and another group near one of the vats. Flagg, watching, gave grudging admiration to the builder. This still was a thoroughly professional job.

He continued to peer down into the grotto for another full minute. Then he headed back. He had seen enough. Now that he knew the exact location of the still, his job was almost finished.

He made his way to the tunnel opening, made sure the area was still free of guards, and then moved out. It was dusk now, and the long shadows of gathering darkness afforded him a good deal of protective cover. He followed the spur tracks to the main rail line, and then to where he had left his camper, without incident.

He drove back to Barney’s Oasis and went into the public telephone booth at one end of the parking lot. He dialed a number from memory. On the fourth ring, a man’s voice answered. “Alcohol and Tobacco Unit, Northern California. Adamson.”

Flagg gave it to him fast, talking through interruptions until Adamson was listening intently. He outlined the entire shine operation, and then went back and detailed it, missing nothing. When he had finished, he asked, “Have you got it all? Clear?”

“I’ve got it,” Adamson said. “But listen, who is this? Who’s calling?”

Flagg smiled. “You don’t know me,” he said. “I’m just a concerned citizen. A teetotaler.”

He rang off and stepped out of the booth. Churlak would be pleased, he thought. Churlak was a progressive, a member of the new breed, a big business executive. These damned independents deserve to get busted, he had told Flagg. They never learn. There’s just no way they can buck the Organization and make out, no way at all. But why waste time and manpower and invite undue publicity by putting them out of business ourselves? Why not let the feds do it — legally?

And so Flagg, the troubleshooter, had gone to work.

He put another dime in the slot and dialed Churlak’s private number in San Francisco. While it was ringing, he thought about Terry Kenyon. He hoped he wouldn’t have to report to Churlak in person until sometime tomorrow.