By Hook or By Crook

by Gorman, Ed

  The place was familiar to me. “Yeah, I remember Gallops. It was used as a training facility. For cooks, radiomen and medics. What did your man train for?”

  “Radioman,” she said simply. “Later ... later I found out that being a radioman was so very dangerous. You were out in the open, and German snipers liked to shoot at a radioman and the officer standing next to him ... that’s, that’s what happened to Roger. There was some very fierce fighting and he was ... he was ... oh God, they blew his head off...”

  And then she bowed and started weeping in her tissue, and I sat there, feeling like my limbs were made of cement, for I didn’t know what the hell to do, so I cleared my throat and said, “Sorry, miss ... look, can I get you something to drink?”

  The tissue was up against her face and she shook her head. “No, no, I don’t drink.”

  I pushed away from my desk. “I was thinking of something a bit less potent. I’ll be right back.”

  • • •

  About ten minutes later, after spending time in my private quarters and hovering over the hotplate, I came back with two chipped white china mugs, and passed one over to her. She took a sip and seemed surprised. “Tea?”

  “Yeah,” I said, sitting back down. “A bit of a secret, so please don’t tell on me, okay? You know the reputation we guys like to maintain.”

  She smiled, and I felt like I had won a tiny victory. “How in the world did you ever start drinking tea?”

  I shrugged. “Picked up the habit when I was stationed in England.”

  “You were in the Army?”

  I nodded. “Yep.”

  “What did you do?”

  I took a sip from my own mug. “Military police. Spent a lot of time guarding fences, ammo dumps or directing traffic. Pretty boring. Never really heard a shot fired in anger, though a couple of times, I did hear Kraut artillery as we were heading east when I got over to France.”

  “So you know war, then.”

  “I do.”

  “And I’m sure you know loss, as well.”

  Again, the tightening of my hand. “Yeah, I know loss.”

  And she must have sensed the change in my voice, for she stared at me and said, “Who was he?”

  I couldn’t speak for a moment, and then I said, “My older brother. Paul.”

  “What happened?”

  I suppose I should have kept my mouth shut, but there was something about her teary eyes that just got to me. I cleared my throat. “He was 82nd Airborne. Wounded at the Battle of the Bulge. Mortar shrapnel. They were surrounded by the Krauts, and I guess it took a long time for him to die...”

  “So we both know, don’t we.”

  “Yeah.” I looked down at the pad of paper. “So. What do you need me for?”

  She twisted the crumpled bit of tissue in her hands. “I ... I don’t know how to get to that island. I’ve sent letters to everyone I can think of, in the Army and in Congress, and no one can help me out ... and I found out that the island is now restricted. There’s some sort of new radar installation being built there ... no one can land on the island.”

  I knew where this was going but I wanted to hear it from her. “All right, but let me say again, Miss Williams, why do you need me?”

  She waited, waited for what seemed to be a long time. She took a long sip from her tea. There were horns from outside, a siren, and I could hear music from the nearest burlesque hall. “Um ... well, I’ve been here for a week ... asking around ... at the local police station ... asking about a detective who might help me, one from around here, one who knows the harbor islands...”

  “And my name came up? Really? From who?”

  “A ... a desk sergeant. Name of O’Connor.”

  I grimaced. Fat bastard, never got over the fact that my dad beat up his dad ten or fifteen years ago at some Irish tavern in Southie, and always gave me crap every time he saw me. “All right. What did he tell you?”

  “That you used to work with your dad in the harbor, pulling in lobster pots, working after school and summers, and he said ... well, he said...”

  “Go on, Miss Williams. What did he say?”

  “He said, ‘if anyone could get me out to the islands and back, it’d be that thick-skulled mick Billy Sullivan.’”

  I tried not to smile. “Yeah, that sounds like the good sergeant.”

  She looked at me and her voice softened, and she said, “Please, Mister Sullivan. I ... I don’t know what else to do. I can’t get out there without your help, and getting those memories from my man ... that would mean the world to me.”

  “If the island is off-limits during the day, it means we’ll have to go out at night. Do you understand, Miss Williams?”

  She seemed a bit surprised. “I ... I thought I could draw you a map, a description, something like that.”

  I shook my head. “Not going to work. I’m not going out to Gallops Island at night without you with me. If I find that box of mementoes for you, I want you right there, to check it out.”

  “But — ”

  “If that’s going to be a problem, Miss Williams, then I’m afraid I can’t help you.”

  My potential client sounded meek. “I ... I don’t like boats ... but no, it won’t be a problem.”

  “Good. My rates are fifty dollars a day, plus expenses ... but this should be relatively easy. And that fifty dollars has to be paid in advance.”

  She opened her purse, deftly pulled out three tens and a twenty, which I scooped up and put into my top desk drawer. I tore off a sheet of paper and wrote something down, and slid it over to her. “There. Address in South Boston. Little fishing and tackle shop, with a dock to the harbor. I’ll see you there tomorrow at 6:00 PM. Weather permitting, it should be easy.”

  My new client folded up the piece of paper and put it in her purse, and then stood up, held out a hand with manicured red nails. “Oh, I can’t thank you enough, Mister Sullivan. This means so much to me, and — ”

  I shook her hand and said, “It’s too early to thank me, Miss Williams. If we get there and get your shoebox, then you can thank me then.”

  She smiled and then walked to the door, and I eyed her legs and the way she moved. “Tomorrow, then.”

  “Tomorrow,” I said.

  And then she shut the door.

  I counted about fifteen seconds, and then, probably no doubt to the surprise of my new client if she knew, I immediately went to work.

  • • •

  I put on my hat and coat, and went out, locking the door behind me. I took the steps, two at a time, and then went out to the chaos that was Scollay Square, and then I spotted her, heading up Tremont Street. I dodged some more sailors and some loud red-faced businessmen, the kind who had leather cases full of samples and who decided to raise hell in big bad Boston before crawling back to their safe little homes in Maine or New Hampshire.

  My client went around the corner, and then, when I made the corner, I had lost her.

  Damn.

  I looked up and down the street, saw some traffic, more guys moving around, but not my client. A few feet away was a man in a wheelchair, with a tartan blanket covering the stumps that used to be his legs. Tony Blawkowski, who was holding a cardboard sign: HELP AN INJURED VET. I went over to him and said, “Ski.”

  “Yeah.”

  He was staring out at the people going by, shaking a cardboard coffee cup filled with coins. “You see a young gal come this way?”

  “Good lookin’, small leather purse in her hands, hat on top of her pretty little head.”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Nope, didn’t see a damn thing,” he said, smiling, showing off yellow teeth.

  I reached into my pocket, tossed a quarter in his cup. “Well, that’s nice, refreshin’ my memory like that,” Ski said. “Thing is, she came right by here, wigglin’ that fine bottom of hers, gave me no money, the stuck-up broad, and then she got into a car and left.”

  Somehow the noise of the horns and the burlesque ha
ll music seemed to drill into my head. “You sure?”

  “Damn straight. A nice Packard, clean and shiny, was parked there for a while, and then she got in and left.”

  “You see who was in the Packard?”

  “You got another quarter?”

  I reached back into my pocket, and there was another clink as the coin went into his cup. He laughed. “Nope. Didn’t see who was in there, or who was driving. They jus’ left. That’s all.”

  “All right, Ski,” I said. “Tell you what, you see that Packard come back, you let me know, all right?”

  Ski said, “What’s in it for me?”

  I smiled. “Keeping your secret, for one.”

  He shook his head. “Bastard. You do drive a hard bargain.”

  “Only kind I got tonight.”

  I walked away and then looked back, as a couple of out-oftowners dropped some coins in Ski’s cup, and thought about the sign. It was true, for Ski was an injured vet. He had been in the Army and one night, on leave here in town a couple of years ago, he got drunk out of his mind, passed out in front of a bar, and was run over by an MTA trolley, severing both legs.

  Nice little story, especially the lesson it gave, for never accepting what you see on the surface.

  • • •

  About a half hour later, I was at the local district headquarters of the Boston Police Department, where I found Sergeant Francis Xavier O’Connor, sitting behind a chest-high wooden desk, passing on whatever was considered justice in this part of Boston. In the lobby area, the tile floor yellow and stained, two women in bright red lipstick, hands cuffed together, shared a cigarette while sitting on a wooden bench. O’Connor had a folded-over copy of the Boston American in his hands, his face red and flush, and he glanced up at me as I approached the desk.

  “Ah, Beantown’s biggest dick,” he said, looking down at me over half-glasses.

  “Nice to see you, too, sergeant. Thought you’d be spending some time up at your vacation spot, up at Conway Lake.”

  “Bah, the hell with you,” O’Connor said. “What kind of trash are you lookin’ for tonight?”

  I leaned up against the desk, my wrists on the wooden edge. “What I’m looking for is right in front of me.”

  “Eh?”

  “Quick question,” I said. “Got a visit tonight from a young lady, mid-twenties, said she was from Seattle, looking for some help. She told me she came here, talked to you, and somehow, my name came up. Why’s that?”

  He grinned, bounced the edge of the folded-over newspaper against his chin. “Ah, I remember that little flower. Came sauntering in, sob story in one hand, a Greyhound bus ticket in the other, and she told me what kind of man she was lookin’ for, and what the hell. I gave her your name and address. You should be grateful.”

  I said, “More curious than grateful. Come on, Francis, answer the question. Why me?”

  He leaned over, close enough so I could smell old onions coming from his breath. “Figure it out. Young gal had some spending money, spent it for some info ... a name. And you know what? Her story sounded screwy enough so that it might fuck over whoever decided to take her on as a client, and your name was first, second, and third on my list. Any more questions, dick?”

  I stepped away from the desk. “Yeah,” I said. “Your dad’s nose still look like a lumpy potato after my dad finished him off?”

  His face grew more red and he said, “Asshole, get out of my station.”

  • • •

  The next night I went into the Shamrock Fish & Tackle, off L Street in South Boston, near where I grew up, and in the crowded place, I went by the rows of fishing tackle, rods, other odds and ends. Out in the back, smoking a cigar and nursing a Narragansett Beer, Roddy Taylor looked up as I came in. He had on a sleeveless T-shirt that was probably white at one time, and khaki pants. He was mostly bald but tufts of hair grew from his thick ears.

  “Corporal Sullivan, what are you up to tonight?”

  “Looking to borrow an outboard skiff, if that’s all right with you.”

  “Hell, of course.”

  “And stop calling me corporal.”

  He laughed and leaned back, snagged a key off a nail on the wall. He tossed it to me and I caught it with my right hand. “Number five.”

  “Okay, number five.”

  “How’s your mom?” Roddy asked.

  “Not good,” I said. “She ... well, you know.”

  He took a puff from his cigar. “Yeah. Still thinking your brother’s coming home. Am I right?”

  I juggled the key in my hand. “I’ll bring it back sometime tonight.”

  “Best to your mom.”

  “You got it.”

  • • •

  Outside I went to my old Ford, went into the back seat and took out a canvas gym bag. From the dirt parking lot I went out to a dock and went down the line of skiffs and boats, found the one with a painted number four on the side, and undid the lock. I tossed my gym bag in the open skiff, near the small fuel tank and the drain plug at the stern. I stood up and stretched. Overhead lights had come on, illuminating the near empty parking lot and the dock and the line of moored boats.

  She was standing at the edge of the dock. She still had her leather purse but the skirt had been replaced by slacks and flat shoes. “Miss Williams,” I said.

  “Please,” she said, coming down the dock. “Please call me Mandy.”

  “All right, Mandy it is,” I said.

  She came down the dock and looked down at the skiff. “It looks so small.”

  “It’s big enough for where we’re going,” I said.

  “Are you sure?”

  “I grew up around here, Miss — ”

  “Mandy.”

  “Mandy, I’ve grown up around here.” I looked about the harbor, at the lights coming on at the shoreline of Boston harbor and the islands scattered out there at the beginnings of the Atlantic Ocean. “I promise you, I’ll get you out and back again in no time.”

  She seemed to think about that for just a bit, and then nodded. She came closer and gingerly put one foot into the boat, as I held her hand. Her hand felt good. “Up forward,” I said. “Take the seat up forward.”

  My client clambered in and I followed. I undid the stern line and gently pushed us off, and then primed the engine by using a squeeze tube from the small fuel tank. A flick of the switch and a couple of tugs with the rope starter, and the small Mercury engine burbled into life. We made our way out of the docks and then were on the waters of Boston Harbor, motoring into the coming darkness, my right hand on the handle and throttle of the Mercury engine.

  • • •

  After about five minutes she turned and said, “Where are the life jackets?”

  “You figuring on falling in?”

  She had a brittle laugh. “No, not at all. I’d just like to know, that’s all.”

  I motioned with my free hand. “Up forward. And nothing to worry, Mandy. I boated out here before I went to grade school, and haven’t fallen in yet.”

  She turned into herself, the purse on her lap, and I looked over at the still waters of the harbor. It was early evening, the water pretty flat, the smell of the salt air pretty good after spending hours and hours on Scollay Square. Off to the left, the north, were the lights of Boston Airport, and out on the waters were the low shapes of the score or so more of the islands of Boston Harbor. Off to the right was Boston Harbor, and the lights of the moored freighters.

  One of the islands was now off to starboard and Mandy said, “What island is that?”

  “Thompson,” I said.

  “I see buildings there. A fort?”

  I laughed. “Hardly. That’s the home of the Boston Farm and Trade School.”

  “The what school?”

  “Farm and trade. A fancy name for a school for boys who get into trouble. Like a reform school. One last chance before you get sent off to juvenile hall or an adult prison.”

  She turned and in the fading light I co
uld make out her pretty smile. “Sounds like you know that place first-hand.”

  “Could have, if I hadn’t been lucky.”

  Now we passed Thompson and up ahead was a low-slung island that had no lights, and the wind shifted and there was a sour smell, and Mandy said, “What in God’s name is that?”

  “That’s Spectacle Island. That’s where Boston dumps its trash. Lots of garbage up there, and probably the bodies of a few gangsters. Good place to lose something.”

  “You know your islands.”

  “Sure,” I said. “They all have a story. All have legends. Indians, privateers, ghosts, pirates, buried treasure ... everything and anything.”

  Now we passed a lighthouse, and I said, “Long Island,” but Mandy didn’t seem to care. There was another, smaller island ahead, and I said, “That’s Gallops. You ready?”

  “Yes,” she said, her voice strained. “Quite ready.”

  • • •

  I ran the skiff aground on a bit of sandy beach, and waded in the water, dragging a bowline up, tying it off some scrub brush. There was a dock just down the way, with a path leading up to the island, and by now it was pretty dark. From my gym bag I took out a flashlight and cupped the beam with my hand, making sure only a bit of light escaped.

  “I want to make this quick, okay?”

  She nodded.

  “I asked around,” I said. “I know where the barracks are. Now, do you know where his bunk was located?”

  “Next to a window overlooking the east, in the far corner,” she said. “He always complained that the morning sun would hit his eyes and wake him up before reveille.”

  “All right,” I said. “Let’s go.”

  • • •

  From the path near the dock, it was pretty easy going, much to my surprise. The place was deserted and there were no lights, but my own flashlight did a good job of illuminating the way. We went along a crushed stone path and halfway there, something small and furry burst out of the brush, scaring the crap out of me and making Mandy cry out. She grabbed my free hand and wouldn’t let it go, and I didn’t complain. It felt good, and she kept her hand in mine all the way up to the barracks.