"Whaddya know Frankie?" greets Oil from a low chair beside a small wooden desk.
"Not much Daddy," his lean eighteen-year-old son grins, sitting across from the father he hasn't seen in seven years.
"How's that Duesenberg?" the old man fairly shouts, leaning onto his forearms.
"Rebuilt the carburetor," Frank beams, proud to have kept his dad's run-car going all those years.
"Now all it needs is a new starter," Oil observes, turning his head slightly away from the canvas flap and quickly tipping a thumb into his mouth.
Visitation at the temporary prison was in a small army tent with an armed guard standing watch at the entry. The Beatty men weren't very communicative in the best of circumstances, but a hostile audience brought on even more beating around the bush.
Orville had been a successful bootlegger during Prohibition. Working out of his legitimate bus garage in Hopwood, Pennsylvania, he and his sons had helped to supply the Pittsburgh black market in moonshine. Losing the bus business to the bank after the 1929 stock market crash left the side line exposed, so clandestine operations were moved closer to suppliers in eastern Kentucky. One of them was the Magoffin County court clerk serving his third term as arbiter of business, legal or otherwise.
"Where do ya get a starter down there?" queries the son with a tilt of his pointy chin to the southeast, knowing the car had no such need but playing right along with his father's ruse.
"Since the car's gotta be registered there anyway, you can ask the Magoffin county clerk."
"Will do Pop," nods the son, standing up as the guard grunts to signal time's up.
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