by John Knoerle
“Poles at the ready gentlemen,” called The Schooler as he gunned the engines.
I raised my ten foot pole up high like I knew what I was doing. We motored forward at a stately pace. If Captain Bligh intended to blast his way through the jumbled ice plates he had better pick up the pace.
He did. Ten yards shy of impact The Schooler redlined the inboards, raising the serrated bow of the Tin Lizzie just enough to ride the carved vent up and onto the thick mass of ice.
“Pole, you worthless buggers, pole!” shouted Henry in his hearty sailor’s voice.
We poled. We dug the boathooks into the starchy ice and oared the boat forward with all we had. I counted six full strokes before the cabin cruiser ground to a halt.
“To the cutwater!” crowed The Schooler.
I unclipped my harness and followed him to the prow of the boat. Jimmy was already there. The Chris Craft was teetering on a precipice of ice plates. All we needed was a shift in the cargo load to get us over the hump and into the thinner ice below.
Jimmy, the big hambone, climbed over the bow and hung from the handrail like a grotesque figurehead. Henry and I did our bit by jumping up and down, but it was Jimmy’s triumph when the Tin Lizzie slowly, finally, slid down to the other side.
Just as the prow dove into the thin ice the hull shuddered and made a long loud wrenching sound. It came from the stern, starboard side. The Schooler clambered back to inspect the damage. I held fast to the handrail and understood about boats.
I’ve always been a car guy. My best ever was a deuce coupe Ford. I tinkered with it, spent money on it, took it out on the weekends. But I didn’t sit up nights worrying about it, it didn’t have a name. Then again I didn’t have to worry about an untimely burial at sea if the oil pan sprang a leak.
El Capitan surveyed the hull and gave us a thumbs up. Untimely burial at sea postponed. He climbed back onto the bridge, throttled forward and ground his way through the brittle harbor ice.
And harbor ice it was. Smudgepots of light glimmered in the distance, dead ahead. We were approaching our destination. An island.
Chapter Forty-six
An island. A place for this weary landlubber to rest his bones. A place for this sorry backstabber to sort things out.
I had double crossed both The Schooler and Jimmy Streets and lived to tell about it. I assumed The Schooler would forgive and forget, given how things had rounded out. Then again I had messed with his masterpiece.
And I had committed the cardinal sin with Jimmy Streets. I had tried to chump him, which meant I thought he was stupid. The wheel had turned in his favor but Jimmy wouldn’t forget. The moment he glommed his share of the laundered money our ironclad triangle would pull apart.
Or sooner. If I’m Jimmy why wait for the mob juice dealer to show? Why not clean house with my sawed-off and get in the wind, find a way to launder the newly-minted money my own damn self?
Come to that if I were me why wait for the money broker? I was the one who said and the juice dealer will bring friends.
It grew colder on the rear deck as the cabin cruiser ground its way toward the island. The racket was ear-busting in the dense air. Jimmy Streets sat across from me on the portside gunwale and pretended he wasn’t freezing his miserable ass off. His performance was unconvincing, something to do with the tiny icicles hanging from his eyebrows. We passed an icebound bell buoy and set it rocking side to side. Its clapper made a sound no louder than a hiccup.
The Schooler piloted the boat north, abreast of the island, away from the smudgepots of light. The ice thickened. We were barely making three knots, and were about to lose the cover of night.
I looked to the east. Jet black. I blinked ice from my lashes and looked again. Jet black with deep purple underneath. I dug ice crystals from my ears and listened for twin-engine aircraft. All clear.
The cabin cruiser plowed on, the Ancient Mariner at the helm. How he kept himself unfrozen and alert after all these hours I couldn’t tell you. A point of negative light came into view. A tip of landlocked darkness circled by icy starshine. It looked like the tip of a peninsula. Where the hell were we?
The Tin Lizzie was laboring mightily now, making little headway. The Schooler consulted a navigation chart, throttled back to neutral and joined Jimmy and me on the rear deck.
“The channel gets shallow here. It’s solid ice to the shoreline.”
I let Jimmy ask the dumbass question for once.
“So whatta we do?”
The Schooler looked amused. Amused, ruddy-cheeked, bright-eyed and very pleased with himself.
“We gather up our ill-gotten gains and walk across the frozen lake to shore.”
Jimmy and I executed a perfect vaudeville turn - to Henry, to the shoreline, back to Henry. The shore was a quarter-mile distant and the twelve blocks of cash were a bulky load.
The Schooler ticked his head. We followed him down to the cabin.
He threw open a closet, we grabbed the loot. The stack reached our foreheads. The Schooler pulled the bunk mattress off its box and removed the contents underneath. A kid’s sled with a pull rope.
Jimmy and I tottered up to the rear deck and dumped the cash. The Schooler dropped the sled on the ice. Jimmy grabbed his sawed-off from a stow box.
“Over you go,” he said.
Over we went. The Schooler handed down the twelve blocks of cash three at a time. We piled them on the sled. He handed me a roll of tape, I secured the money blocks to the Flexible Flyer.
The Schooler returned to the helm and backed up the Tin Lizzie twenty yards or so. I figured he was going to get a flying start and shoot her across the ice as far as he could, then haul her in from shore with a rope and winch. But Henry killed the engines and went below decks.
The boat shivered her timbers and lurched slightly to port. She shivered again and lurched slightly to starboard. She settled lower in the water as The Schooler climbed out and walked forward to join us, carrying a gunnysack. His shoes made a squishing sound.
“Ballast plugs,” he said by way of explanation.
The Tin Lizzie wallowed from side to side as she descended, struggling against the inevitable, every wallow pulling her lower. I watched The Schooler’s mug for signs of distress but he was stolid as Abraham on the mountain.
The boat sank stern first, her serrated steel prow rearing up angrily before she was sucked under. Wherever the hell we were, we were here to stay.
The ice burned through the soles of my shoes. I looked down. Check that, I was still wearing The Schooler’s leather bedroom slippers. My spit-shined brogans had gone down with the ship. Shit oh dear, it was going to be a long walk to shore.
“What do they call this place?”
“Kelleys Island.”
We started towards the shoreline. Three dark figures crossing the frozen lake in the purple dawn. One pulling a kid’s sled piled high with blocks of cash, one carrying a shotgun at his side, the other slipping and shuffling behind, trying to keep up.
I imagine we made quite a sight.
Chapter Forty-seven
The three-story Victorian flanked by cedars had seen better days, years, decades. The roof sagged, shutters hung from loose screws and all the windows were boarded up. The chimney looked solid though, that’s all I cared about.
Jimmy, The Schooler and I picked our way up the stony shoreline. I knew my feet weren’t frostbitten because I felt the painful outline of every pebble.
This too shall pass, Schroeder. Soon, very soon you’ll stretch out your weary dogs in front of a roaring fire, a snifter of cognac in hand. The Schooler thought of everything, which meant he had stockpiled foodstuffs for our arrival. Wisconsin cheddar, Westphalian ham, plump squab we could roast on a spit. I struggled up past the rocky shoreline and sat myself down on a fallen log.
Jimmy stopped and looked contemptuous, something he did well.
Screw him. I was simply taking a breather, a moment to rest my weary dogs. The Schooler leaned against the high-stacked sled. Now t
hat he was a landlubber again he looked as beat down to the ankles as I did. We took a breather.
A knife-edged gust of wind and visions of a crackling fire got me up again. We trudged through shin-high snow to the front of the house. A long boat dock jutted out from the craggy tip of the peninsula. It was covered in virgin snow. So were the front steps of the Victorian. We were alone.
Jimmy climbed the snowy steps and put a shoulder to the front door as I unwound the tape from the sled. We played pitch and catch with the blocks of cash as The Schooler sat with his back to us on the bottom step.
“That’s the crop,” I said when we were done. “Henry?”
The Schooler slumped over sideways and lay there in a heap.
I scrambled over to him and put my finger to his carotid artery. I felt a pulse and thumbed open his eyes. They were bloodshot.
“What happened?”
“You fell asleep.” I said. “You okay?”
The Schooler took a deep draw of arctic air, sat up and shook himself back into order. “Never better.”
I helped him to his feet. He took the snowy steps slowly. I picked up his gunnysack, it was heavy, bulky with stuff. Cheddar, ham and squab no doubt.
-----
“This was our drop off point,” said Henry Voss. “We ran bonded booze from Canada. It arrived on commercial fishing boats, it shipped out on pleasure craft, sailboats mostly. Coast Guard didn’t bother them much.”
We were seated on cane-backed chairs in the parlor of the Victorian at 6:45 p.m. The sofa was too moldy and spring sprung to sit on and, no, I wasn’t toasting my weary dogs in front of a roaring fire for fear the smoke would announce our presence. Two kerosene lanterns were our only source of heat. That and a bottle of 20-year-old Armagnac from the gunnysack.
“They knew what we were up to, the island folks, but they let us be. They hated the feds. They were wine growers, Prohibition put them out of business.”
I nodded and took another bite of bologna on a hardtack wafer. I’m not an expert on these matters but bologna and vintage Armagnac seemed an odd pairing. The only other goodies in the gunnysack were three fat oranges.
I asked a question. “Was this when Teddy Biggs ran the show?”
“No, Teddy didn’t take over till ‘36.”
“You said you’d tell me all about it sometime.”
Jimmy sat on a turned around chair, arms folded over its cane back, half asleep, the bottle of hooch dangling from his hand. The Schooler said his name, Jimmy passed the bottle. Henry took a quick pull.
“Teddy Biggs died eighteen months after he took the reins. Drowned, on a fishing trip to Canada.”
“Were you there?”
“Yes I was.”
“You give Teddy Biggs any help?”
“No. And no. Teddy didn’t need any help falling overboard, and he didn’t get any help when he tried to climb back on.”
“What happened then?”
“I came home and told the boys he fell off a boat and drowned. They didn’t believe me, they figured I clipped him and most were glad to see him go. I wasn’t next in line but Teddy’s successor celebrated himself to death in short order so I took over,” said The Schooler. “Teddy was a lone wolf, nobody outside the gang noticed he was gone. The FBI still doesn’t know.”
“How can that be?”
“You’ve worked for the government Schroeder, you know how they are.”
I did indeed. Factual reality was a poor cousin to the revealed truth that resided in some bureaucrat’s file cabinet. If it was typed on a form and filed in a drawer it was true, everything else was just rumor and speculation.
“When’s the juice dealer get here and what happens after?” demanded Jimmy, suddenly, furiously, awake.
“The juice dealer gets here when he gets here and what happens after depends on you.”
“Which means what?”
“It means,” said Henry so softly I had to lean in to hear, “that the size of your dib and your ticket off this island depends on how well you behave. Both of you.”
Jimmy didn’t much like the sound of this and I wasn’t crazy about it myself. Neither one of us figured we’d be where we were now. Sitting in the drafty parlor of an old house on Kelleys Island, waiting for the headmaster to tell us what to do.
“Who’s to say this juice dealer’s not gonna show up with a buncha goons and top us off?” said Jimmy, jumping up, spittle down his chin. “He ain’t gonna come alone!”
Not a twitch, not a ripple disturbed the downy surface of The Schooler’s mug. He stood up. “There are blankets in the closet,” he said and wandered off to a room by the kitchen and closed the door, leaving the bottle of Armagnac on the floor.
Jimmy seethed. I drank. I forget the rest.
Chapter Forty-eight
I woke up with a skull-bender at 3:36 a.m. I was wrapped in army blankets on a moth-eaten rug in the parlor. Jimmy was elsewhere. I counted the blocks of cash stacked against the front wall. All twelve were present and accounted for
I had heard of Kelleys Island as a kid. Nice resort, good fishing, dead in the wintertime. Were there permanent residents? The Schooler said something about island folks. How did they provision themselves, get back and forth to the mainland?
I sat upright. My headache accompanied me. I rolled my head around on my neck, stretched and took some deep breaths. I did it again. I felt like shit.
They would cross to the mainland by ferry in summer, by car or sled when the lake was frozen solid. Seemed like we were betwixt and between at the moment. The harbor ice was solid enough to hold a vehicle but I wasn’t sure about the ice further out. I would need a vehicle big enough to haul me and $300,000, one third of the take. I’d wanted half originally but things had changed. And I’m a pig not a hog, I could scrape by on three hundred grand. I imagine a dollar bill goes a long way in Fiji.
Jimmy and I were going gun to gun as soon as the juice dealer money exchange was made. I would deal with that when the time came but Jimmy didn’t figure to wait that long. He would try something sooner rather than later if he thought the money broker and friends were set to take him out.
Of course I was the genius who put that idea in Jimmy’s head in the first place.
I couldn’t plug Jimmy in the back, I wasn’t that kind of rat, and The Schooler might object. But I could yank his tripwire maybe, needle him, taunt him into pulling his piece in the presence of Mr. Big. I’d have no choice but to defend myself.
I let this idea marinate for a minute. I liked it. It was ju jitsu, using your opponent’s hard-charging aggression against him. But it would be tricky to execute, the jibe mild enough that The Schooler wouldn’t suspect what I was up to yet raw enough to prompt Jimmy’s gun. Something personal. Something Jimmy didn’t know I knew. Tricky, hell, it was damn near impossible.
What did I know about Jimmy’s background? Not a ding-dong thing. What did I know about his weak spots? He hated being pegged as stupid. But calling him a dunce was way too obvious.
I jumped to my feet at an enormous rumbling SHRUNNK. I dug for my gun and took inventory.
Nothing but wind. Wind strong enough to shake an old three-story Victorian to its foundations.
I relaxed and walked the floor, arms swinging freely, enjoying the cold for once. I did have a few clues to Jimmy’s background. I knew he liked strong coffee, bebop, garlic...and something else.
Chapter Forty-nine
We were sitting at a round table in the kitchen, if you can call a room with no icebox and bare cupboards a kitchen. It did have an old wood-burning stove we were forbidden to use. The time was 12:08 p.m. and Henry, Jimmy and I were dining on bologna and hardtack with melted snow chasers. The pipes were frozen. We melted the snow by cradling glasses of the stuff between our thighs. We were that parched.
“Sir, Henry, Mr. Big,” I said, “Are you as hungry for some good eats as I am?”
The Schooler chewed and swallowed. “My apologies for the grub, it’s an old sup
erstition of mine. Best fishing trip I ever took somebody stocked the galley with bologna, hardtack and oranges. Turns out walleye like bologna better than night-crawlers.”
“Learn something new everyday.” I said and turned to Jimmy. “I don’t know about you, but the first chance I get I’m going to take my ill-gotten gains and have me a serious feast. One of those soup to nuts meals like Grandma used to make, you know, takes two hours to eat it all.”
Not a flicker of interest.
“I’d start with a big bowl of liver knödel soup - don’t laugh, it’s delicious - then a cucumber salad to ‘wash the tongue’ as Oma used to say.”
Jimmy dug out a Lucky, tossed it high, thumbed his lighter and caught the cig in his craw as the flame erupted. He held them apart, the flame and the cigarette. “What’s your point, G-man?”
“No point,” I said pleasantly. “Just killing time.”
White winter sun leaked through the splintered plywood window board. Jimmy lit his cigarette. I kept my yap shut. Time passed.
The Schooler picked up the slack. “And what’s the main course?”
“That’s what I’m trying to decide. You can’t go wrong with sauerbraten and red cabbage, or beef goulash and noodles. You know, been simmering on the stove all day, so tender you don’t have to chew, just kind of mush it around in your mouth before you swallow. But it’s not a serious feast. You know?”
I shut my yap some more. Jimmy was sucking that cigarette like a hog teat and there was a slight glimmer in his good eye.
“And what’s a serious feast, Krauthead?”
“Krauthead, that’s funny. How many Jerries you kill Jimmy? I lost track myself.”
Jimmy didn’t answer. All he did was suck that burning dinch into his mouth, chew and swallow.
Well. There’s something you don’t see everyday. Henry endeavored to break the tension. “So what’s on the menu?”
“Spannerferkel mit kaiespaetzle. Spit roasted baby pig served with dumplings cooked in cheese and butter, fresh-baked Bavarian rye on the side. You know, to sop up all that good juice.”
