Billingsgate Shoal

by Rick Boyer

  "How's the wrist?" asked Mary.

  "Still hurts. And I can't drive golf balls. I can't beat you at tennis. I can't swim. I can't practice my trade except to remove stitches from previous extractions?

  "What makes you so sure you'd beat me at tennis? And anyway it's your left wrist."

  "How could I serve?"

  "Oh. That brat. Did you ever decide on an appropriate torture, by the way?"

  "Yes, I have in mind a dual program for the lad: the Agony of the Thousand Cuts to be followed by Impalement. Well?"

  She nodded approvingly as she popped the last forkful into her mouth.

  I got the number of Murdock's boatyard in Gloucester and called all day without an answer. Then I called the Boston office of the Coast Guard. At the Department of Marine Safety, they informed me that the USCG kept a case log—a file—on all recently missing boats, regardless of size or purpose. They had various investigative procedures to track them down too, like phoning likely harbors and boatyards. If the errant skipper left a float plan, or indicated even vaguely his plans of destination, the Coast Guard cutters would traverse the probable routes, looking for the vessel or wreckage of same. After a "reasonable time," the files were closed, with the vessel and crew presumed lost. I asked what a reasonable time was, and was told it varied. If a vessel disappeared during a violent gale, the reasonable time was not as long as under other conditions. This seemed to make sense.

  "Where can I get a list of vessels lost during the last month or two?"

  "From where, sir?"

  "From the entire New England region, but especially from the Cape and the Islands northward to, say, Portsmouth."

  "We have that information here. It's available to the public."

  I thanked him and hung up. Mary was in the hallway in front of the mirror trying on a new straw hat. She canted it at various angles and spun on her toe.

  "Honey, I'm going to put my unexpected vacation to use. I'm going to locate the Penelope."

  "That's good. How?"

  "Tomorrow I'm going up to Boston and through some files. Then I'm going to track down some boatbuilders and reporters."

  "You could work on the gutters and repair the broken window in the garage."

  "Can't. Are you forgetting the wrist?"

  * * *

  I was at the outskirts of the city in a little over an hour, and shortly thereafter was pulling Mary's car into the lot behind the Boston Garden. I turned left on Causeway Street and went right past the regional Coast Guard headquarters to the smaller building next door that housed the Boston station.

  There I was shown the files that contained the case logs. I began to scan them, starting with cases that occurred in May. Some of these were already marked for abandonment; the CG was assuming the boat lost, the crew dead. Two of these were draggers that disappeared in heavy weather over Georges Bank. I went through all the files. As might be suspected, the recent cases were more numerous. Presumably these would be whittled down as people gave up hope and as boats were found. I imagined they found quite a few of them tucked away in small coves and in big marinas, the owner with his case of whiskey and his girlfriend explaining lamely that geez, they just seemed to forget about the time. . .

  One case caught my eye immediately. It stuck out like Ayer's Rock. It was a boat named Windhover that disappeared—or rather failed to report back—June 25. She was out of Gloucester, and her dimensions matched those of Penelope to a T. Windhover disappears end of June in calm weather (so the report said). Penelope appears, having been allegedly built in same port, in Wellfleet two months later.

  The Windhover was a noncommercial vessel engaged for a the purpose of "archaeological salvage" (this phrase directly from the report). I remembered now Ruggles's comment as shown on the Penelope's documentation certificate, that she was also noncommercial. Most of all, her home port stuck out: Gloucester.

  Penelope had allegedly just been built by Mr. Daniel Murdock of Gloucester. But Sonny Pappas, who'd repaired her, said she wasn't new. I felt little bells tinkling in the back of the gray matter.

  The Windhover's owner was a man named Walter Kincaid, of Manchester-by-the-Sea, a posh town just south of Gloucester. I left the Coast Guard and started up toward Beacon Hill with the name ringing in my head. Walter Kincaid. Walter Kincaid. Where had I heard that? I was standing on the corner opposite the Saltonstall Building on Cambridge Street when it came to me: Wallace Kinchloe. Wallace Kinchloe was the owner of the Penelope. Walter Kincaid—Wallace Kinchloe.

  I trudged up the hill. The chimes at the Park Street Church boomed ten o'clock. I had a fifteen minute walk to Copley Square and the Boston Public Library. I crossed over Beacon Hill, just skirting the State House and dodging piles of dog shit that littered the old cobblestone sidewalks. On the average day in Boston you will smell four things, this being one of them. The other three odors are Italian cooking, garbage, and the Bay if the wind is right. I crossed the Boston Common, and made my way through clots of winos, dopers, religious fanatics, street jugglers, street musicians, thugs, pushers, and street crazies, to Boylston Street, where I turned right and headed up to Copley Square.

  Once inside the library I made my way to the periodical room and scanned a series of microfilms of the Boston Globe. I asked for the last week in June and the first week in July. It wasn't long before I found the account of the missing boat. This is what I read:

  Windhover Still Missing

  GL0UCESTER—The research vessel Windhover, owned and operated by Walter Kincaid of Manchester, is still reported as missing. by the Coast Guard. The Windhover set out from Gloucester June 25, and has not been heard from or seen since. Mr. Kincaid, a retired businessman who founded the Wheel-Lock Corporation of Melrose, used the vessel for exploring various archaeological expeditions along the New England coast.

  According to his wife, Laura, Kincaid was headed to Provincetown as a first stop in an expedition that would take the Windhover down the outer Cape coast to the islands.

  The disappearance of the boat is all the more baffling to the Coast Guard because of the mild weather recently, and accompanying calm seas.

  But what was really interesting was the photograph that went along with the aiticle. This was what I had been seeking. The Windhover looked familiar. Of course this wasn't surprising considering that she was a converted commercial fishing boat. Draggers, trawlers, and lobster boats look a lot alike. So in fact, do pleasure boats. Yet there was a certain lilt of the gunwale line, a rise and sheer of her stem particularly, that struck a familiar chord. I shunted the photograph around in the microfilm viewer machine with the knots on its sides. I read the credit on the photo's bottom: Globe Photo by Peter Scimone.

  OK, I'd call him and get a print. I returned the microfilm and on the way back down Boylston Street stopped at the Boylston Street Union for a run and a sauna bath. I ran five miles around the gym floor; there is no track at the Boston YMCU. There is no pool there either. In fact there isn't anything except an old four-story stone building that's loaded with old musty locker rooms, an ancient gymnasium, and a healthy population of cockroaches. The lobby, if such I may call it, looks like the Greyhound bus station in Indianapolis in 1936. And that's doing it a favor.

  Well then—you might well ask—what does the YMCU have? What it has or rather what it is, is a microcosmic slice of that place called Boston, thinly shaved, stained, and mounted in a slide. If you want to see Boston, don't go to Newbury Street. Newbury Street could be anywhere. The North End is good; it could only be in Boston, or New York, but it's all Italian. Likewise the city of South Boston (or Southie, not to be confused with the South End of Boston) is all Irish. Moreover these ethnic enclaves leave out groups like the blacks, Chinese, and Spanish-speaking Bostonians. But everybody's at the Union. Everybody. Guys named McNally and Ferreggio. Washington and Pekkalla, Chang, Papadopoulos, Garcia, Frentz, Jainaitis, Hudachko, and. . .and Adams. Just about every third guy who goes to the Union checks a piece at the front desk: .38
police specials, .22 autos, I've even seen a few .357 magnums and .45s too. They're cops, detectives, and prosecutors. We don't got no violence or trouble at the YMCU. Nope. Because the place is crawling with fuzz. And to help them out are the body builders, muscle freaks, and karate/Aikido addicts who can eat Buicks for lunch and break cement with their pinky fingers.

  I have two friends at the YMCU. One is Liatis Roantis, the Lithuanian ex-mercenary who teaches martial arts. He spent some years with the French Foreign Legion and some with the U.S. Special Forces, where he taught guys how to kill people with their earlobes. Somebody once asked me to describe him. I said that if you took every Charles Bronson movie ever made and took all the characters that Bronson ever played and melted them down in a test tube, the result would be Liatis Roantis. I had taken four courses from him: beginning and intermediate judo and karate. Boy is he good. To mess with him in any way—especially after he's had about seven beers—invites death or severe permanent injury. He is a pit bulldog in human shape. '

  The other guy is Tommy Desmond, the immensely handsome Irishman from the D Street section of Southie. He can hit the speed bag and the heavy bag like a pro. The only thing he can't fight off is women. I yelled out a greeting to him as I ran around the gym. He was busy with the heavy bag.

  "Oh my Jesus! Doc, how ya been?"

  Whap! The big bag jumped up and swung near the ceiling. Tommy circled it with a look of detachment in his icy blue eyes, a sheen of sweat beginning to glow on his big shoulders. Nobody can hit the bag like Tommy. He stands there gazing at it, his blue eyes darting back and forth as the heavy bag swings on its big chains. Then, almost lazily, languidly, he begins the crouch, the sideways lean. . .the bag is swaying and spinning slowly. Tommy's crouch deepens, the lean lengthens, the arm begins to snake around slowly. WHAP! The bag is gone.

  I had given him money once for a "charity" called NORAID. Supposedly it was to help the poor widows and orphans of Ulster. In reality it was to supply money to buy arms for the Provisional Wing of the IRA. After I found this out I gave no more money to Tommy. It was less because of my political stance on the issue than my hatred for violence. I think he understood; we were still friends.

  I finished the run, took a sauna and a shower, and walked out by the wrestling mat. I saw two big bearded black men with shaved heads in white karate suits sternly circling each other. They rocked and parried on their toes, trying for a chance to take each other's heads off with their feet.

  When I left the Boylston Street Union, I hoofed it over to the Cafe Marliave. I ordered an antipasto deluxe, a small spaghetti Bolognese, and a split of Bardolino. I hardly ever eat lunch, so when I do, I do it right. I pumped coins into the phone and called the Globe. After a lot of hee-hawing on the other end, and spending half my life's savings in small coins, I was informed that Peter Scimone was really a stringer who lived up in Gloucester. I got his number and called him. I said I'd lay three crisp tens in his hands for a series of eight by ten glossies of the Windhover he photographed a month ago. He said for three crisp tens he'd begin running the prints instantly, and they'd be ready for me when I arrived.

  Scimone lived down near the water in East Gloucester, just on the borderline of the artists' colony called Rocky Neck. It was a shack, but nicely kept up and decorated with many potted plants hung from macrame holders. Peter emerged from his darkroom with four prints of the Windhover. I glanced at them and was instantly on edge, and excited. Even at first blush the missing Windhover and the phantom Penelope were very similar.

  Scimone had done the job quickly on a moment's notice for the local Gloucester paper, and the print was a year old when the Globe bought it. He didn't remember much about any of it. A gray-haired man sat on the deck of the boat with two other men. On the dock behind the boat was an attractive young lady with long blond hair. Scimone knew nothing about her, had not seen her before or since. I paid him and left with the prints.

  On the way back through town a name, crudely painted with a big brush on a mailbox caught my eye. The name was Murdock, and the house was near the water. I pulled over and walked to the mailbox. If it was Daniel Murdock, and he couldn't construct a boat any better than he could write his name on his mailbox, I wouldn't want to be out in a millpond on one of his vessels.

  I knocked at the door which, like the house, wasn't in very good repair. I waited. The gulls cried and cars whispered by behind me on the road. A curtain fluttered in a window above me. A voice called out asking me what I wanted.

  I said merely that I wished to speak to the owner, Mr. Dan Murdock.

  "I've got a boat that needs work on it. Where can I reach .him?"

  "Who wants to know?"

  "Doesn't he do repair work?"

  "Who wants to know? He ain't heah."

  "Where can I find him?"

  "Try the Schooner Race or the Harbor Café. He'll do it. . .if he's not too drunk. He owe you money?"

  "No. I just want to talk with him briefly."

  The window slammed shut and I walked toward the car. But I stopped, and chanced to look back beyond the tiny frame house toward the harbor, whose slimy water, coated with prismatic and rainbowesque swirls of petrochemicals, gave off a heavy aroma. A shack was back there, perched over the harbor like a stork over a lily pad. I began ambling down the gravel lane toward it, I was curious to see the spot of Penelope's conception and delivery.

  I heard the window slide up again with a clunk.

  "He ain't heah! Mistah, go away!"

  But stubborn soul that I am, I kept at it. When I was halfway to the shack, I heard the ring of a phone inside it. It rang once. That's all.

  I stood in front of the doorway. The place was dark inside. I peered in through the windows. There was the looming dark shape of the bows of a big boat silhouetted by the shiny harbor water behind it. I tried the door. It wouldn't budge. But why only one ring? Had the caller hung up after only one ring? No. Murdock was in there, in amongst the tools, timbers, and old beer cans that lay strewn everywhere. I looked again through the windows of the dismal place, but nothing moved in the dark. I pounded on the door, then peeked again. Then left. The single ring was probably a warning signal sent by his wife. Lord knows how many people were anxious to make contact with Mr. Murdock. From his apparent drinking habits and the slovenly state of his operation, I guessed that he owed quite a lot of people money.

  "Mrs. Murdock? Mrs. Murdock!"

  Curtain flutter. Window up again.

  "Mistah, look he ain't—"

  "I know. Listen, tell him a man wants very much to speak to him about the Penelope. Tell him I'll call again in a couple of days, OK?"

  Window slam. No answer. I left for The Breakers. It had been a tiring day. As I drove back down to Eastham the vision of poor Sarah Hart stayed in my mind. I saw her in tears, pushing her fragile wrists through the broken glass of her window.

  * * *

  As soon as I arrived I sat at the leather-topped desk in the study corner of the living room and switched on the brass student lamp. I laid out the photos that Scimone had given me, and next to them the eight by tens of the pictures I had taken of the Penelope during her brief sojourn in Wellfleet. I studied the photographs for twenty minutes. At first it was obvious they were the same boat. Then for a while I saw how it was clearly impossible that they could be. Then I saw it was possible. The common dimensions were one factor, but I knew that the forty-foot—or thereabouts—length is one of the most common for bay trawlers. But the bows did flare out in exactly the same way. The sweep of the gunwale lines were congruent. These things, I knew, could not be altered. But what of the things that could be altered?

  The superstructures of the two vessels were very different: the Windhover had a lot of cabin space, the cabin extending far forward and leaving only enough foredeck for a crewman to stand and heave a line; the Penelope, typical of commercial fishing boats, had a small wheelhouse with a lot of foredeck. The Windhover however, preserved her work-boat appearance by retaining
the tiny round portholes (invariably the mark of an older vessel) on her topsides just under the foredeck, whereas Penelope had instead the more modern rectangular single ports located roughly in the same place. In fact, I mused as I studied the pictures, exactly in the same place. Squinting my eyes slightly and glancing quickly from Scimone's photo of Windhover to my own pix of Penelope, I saw that the ports, which are very uncommon on small fishing craft, were located congruently on the two boats, except Penelope had one longish porthole instead of two round ones close together. And how difficult would it have been to cut out the intervening metal between the two ports with a power hacksaw to make one big one on each side?

  "Do you want beer?"

  "No."

  "Do you want coffee?"

  "No."

  "Tea?"

  "No."

  "Me?"

  "No."

  "Hey what the hell is this—"

  I felt a sharp kick in my calf.

  "Come 'ere, Mary. Look at this."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  I OVERSLEPT THE next morning; was up late playing chess with Jack, who told me Tony suspected he'd caught the clap. I told Mary and Jack shot me a look as if we had betrayed his brother. Mary took it in passively. After confronting kidney failure, cardiac arrest, and terminal cancer every working day, gonorrhea was a minor affliction. Her face remained impassive, and beautiful. Dark olive skin, wide-set eyes, arched cheekbones, and mountains of black hair, still no gray at forty-three. Her nose and profile look as if they've been taken off a Roman statue. She cleared her throat.

  "Have him call us and describe his symptoms to me or Dad, and then he should have a culture taken at the nearest clinic. Tell your brother he should be more choosy about whom he sleeps with—God knows he's handsome enough to be picky. And tell him to wear a condom too, that way we won't have to worry about pregnancy as well. Clear?"