“It didn’t belong to Virginia Maddox. You can’t sell what you don’t own. And I was happy to buy it from you and avoid an unpleasant legal battle, but as you refused to sell it, I had no choice but to repossess it,” she said with the slightest sinister hiss.
“How do you know all this? How do you know everything you think you know about Red Thread?”
“I am Red Thread,” Paris said with the slightest sigh like she was admitting to a bad habit.
“Red Thread is dead.”
“A nice rhyme. You should have been a poet.” She raised her chin toward the filing cabinet. On top of it sat the bottle. “Look at it. Read the label. Tell me what it says.”
McQueen knew what the label said, but he took the bottle anyway and held it label side up toward the light.
The label was faded and yellowed, close to peeling. It was a hundred and fifty years old, after all. The font was an elegant script that said “Red Thread—Kentucky Straight Bourbon Whiskey.” Beneath those words it read “Distilled and bottled—Frankfort, Kentucky.” And underneath that in tiny script he read, “‘Owned and operated by the Maddox family, 1866.’”
“There we go,” Paris said.
“Where do we go?”
“Owned by the Maddox family.”
“You aren’t the Maddox family.”
“Are you saying that because they were white and I’m not?”
“I’m saying that because I’ve looked for the Maddox family for years, and I haven’t found a single one of them, by blood or by marriage, who had anything to do with Red Thread. The whole Kentucky line died or disappeared after the distillery burned.”
“Why did you look for us?”
“First of all, I don’t believe you are a Maddox. You’re going to have to show me some proof.”
“You’re holding the proof in your hands. One hundred proof.”
“Funny.”
“Oh, yes,” she said with an exaggerated Southern drawl. “I’m a card. Why were you looking for us?” she asked again.
“I wanted to buy Red Thread. What’s left of it. I’ve been wanting to open my own distillery for years. Red Thread is part of Kentucky history. I’d like to be part of Kentucky’s present.”
“Some things are better off history.”
“Bourbon isn’t one of them.”
“It’s too late anyway, Mr. McQueen. Someone else beat you to it.”
“Beat me to what? Buying Red Thread?”
“Reopening the distillery. Under a new name, of course. And under new management.”
McQueen understood at once.
“You,” he said. “You’re Moonshine, Ltd.? I tried to contact you.”
“That’s my company, yes.”
“You own the old Red Thread property?”
“Owner, operator and master distiller.”
“You?”
“You don’t think a woman can be a master distiller? I have my PhD in chemistry. You can call me Dr. Paris if that sort of thing turns you on.”
“I get it,” McQueen said, nodding. “I do. This is the first ever bottle of Red Thread, the original bottle. Part of the company’s history and you want it because you own Red Thread now. Makes sense. I’m even sympathetic. I might even have loaned it to you to put on display when the company reopens for business. But now you’ve pissed me off. And if you don’t tell me one very good reason why I shouldn’t call the police, I’m picking up the phone in three seconds. Three...two...”
“I can tell you what happened to Red Thread,” she said. “I can tell you the whole story. The whole truth.”
Well.
That got his attention.
“You know why it burned down?”
“I know everything. But if I were you, I wouldn’t ask. By the time I’m done telling you the story, you’ll hand over that bottle with your compliments and an apology.”
“Must be one hell of a story, then.”
“It’s what brought me here, the story.”
“Your story?”
“My story. I inherited it.”
“I think I’d rather inherit money than a story.”
“I have that, too, not entirely by my choice.”
“You don’t want to be rich?”
“God favors the poor. But don’t tell rich people that. It’ll hurt their little feelings.”
McQueen sighed and sat back. He buttoned the middle buttons of his shirt, crossed his leg over his knee. He should call the cops. Why hadn’t he called the cops? Embarrassed he’d fallen for the oldest trick in the book? Beautiful woman in red goes home with him, fucks him and robs him while he sleeps. He could laugh at himself, but he wouldn’t let anyone else laugh at him. Yes, he could call the cops.