The Whiskey Sea

by Ann Howard Creel

  Trying to swallow, Frieda found her throat had gone dry. How could he remain so unfazed? Rudy seemed amazingly calm, too. Maybe because they had been through this before and were better prepared for it. She had no money to pay off a fine. Rudy and Dutch had already had the chance to put money away for something like this. She began to feel sick, her heart thumping as her throat constricted. She managed to force out, “Do we have to dump the liquor?”

  “Not yet. I’m not sure what she’s up to,” he said, meaning the coast guard boat.

  The guard boat was gaining on them. Dutch stood solemnly at the wheel, stealing occasional glances over his right shoulder to check on their pursuer’s progress. Frieda’s knees were turning boggy. She thought she might fall, even though she’d always been as steady as the ballast in a boat. “They have to identify themselves, and they can’t shoot at us,” he said over the sound of the boat thwacking down in the troughs between waves. Dutch was taking the same way in as he’d come out, and now he eased past the same buoys, beacons, and anchored boats he’d carefully maneuvered around before. He shouted to Rudy, “Take a look-see.”

  Rudy took the binoculars. The guard boat was allowed to traverse the waters blacked out until it was time to identify herself. A small hand lamp normally used in the pilothouse to take a quick glance at a chart was shined upward at the coast guard ensign on the picket boat’s halyards. Next it was shined onto the face of the skipper, who smiled in a manner that Frieda didn’t know how to interpret.

  Rudy laughed. “It’s Parker.”

  Frieda had no idea what that meant, and with the guard boat within earshot now, she didn’t want to ask for fear of saying something wrong. Though Dutch and Rudy’s tension had subsided, her panic would stay for a while. Dutch throttled down and let the boat come to a drift. After a little skirting about the Wonder, the skipper of the guard picket boat pulled alongside, came aboard, and gazed around. “Boys, where have you been?” He shook Dutch’s hand, and Frieda got a look at his face. Even in the darkness she could see his high-bridged nose and its hooked tip, like that of a falcon, and she wondered if he had always had that air of arrogance about him, or if it was something he had acquired along with his commission. “And what have you for me tonight?”

  Dutch told the skipper to take his pick. What else could he say? As the guardsman started passing cases back to the other men on the picket boat, he said, “I heard there’s some French perfume out there on some of the boats tonight. Didn’t happen to get any, did you?”

  Dutch shook his head, remaining pleasant, and said, “What’s the matter? Don’t like the smell of your own armpits?”

  The skipper laughed, and his men then knew it was alright to laugh, too.

  “I was thinking about the wife. Wouldn’t hurt her to learn some French ways in the fucking department.”

  Everyone laughed except for Frieda.

  The skipper strolled toward her. “What do we have here?” he asked.

  She stood up. She had no idea what to say.

  Dutch answered for her. “My engineer skedaddled on me. This here’s my new engineer. Name’s Frieda.”

  “Well, I’ll be . . .” the skipper said, and reached out to touch Frieda’s hat. He removed it from her head as she stood in the rocking boat without flinching. Her hair fell in a long mess of tangled waves past her shoulders. The skipper said in a more soothing voice, “You should’ve warned me, Dutch, on account I wouldn’t have been so crass.”

  “Don’t worry about me.” Frieda finally spoke, but her voice did not come out as firmly or as strongly as she had wanted it to. “I’ve heard it all,” she said, even though that wasn’t exactly true. She’d never been treated completely like one of the boys before. Even the hard men who’d been her mechanical work customers had minced their words around women, including her, most of the time.

  “You’re the engineer?” he asked.

  “I can do anything with an engine. I could take it apart and put it back together again blindfolded.”

  He stared at her briefly, as if she were some new breed of bird that he had yet to catch in his talons, then continued about his business, while all around them other boats went in toward the shore with their hauls.

  After the guardsmen had taken about 150 cases, they sped off, and Frieda sincerely hoped she had seen the last of Parker and his sorry lot.

  The rest of the return journey was uneventful. The engines were purring, so she scampered up to the bow to sit with Rudy, whose job was to keep watch for obstacles and other boats at all times. The Wonder put in at Highland Beach, where transport cars from the city were waiting, and Frieda helped unload the cases while Dutch sold the booze. It was better to be moving about in the cold than sitting and suffering. Her body warmth was oozing away, but by the time the liquor had been unloaded and sold and they had tied back up at the dockside, a new warmth entered her body, and she found herself enlivened with unexpected energy. She had been awake all day and most of the night, too, and yet she had just awakened to a new life.

  Dutch said good-bye and left, but not without giving Frieda her night’s pay and a wink that let her know she had passed the second test he’d given her. She had performed well; she had done it.

  “You’re smiling,” Rudy said as he looped the excess mooring lines on the dock.

  She hadn’t realized she had been smiling. Stuffing the money into her pockets, she blew a stream of frosted white breath into the coldest air of the night so far. Memories of the night’s events came in vibrant flashes, and she knew she would never forget them. Now, she, too, had a part to play in all the tumultuous change around her. “I guess because we made it, and it was . . . except for a moment or two . . . it went well, don’t you think?”

  Rudy stood up. “Yeah, it went well.” He grabbed his things and started to walk down the dock. Then he stopped and turned around. “Are you coming?”

  She hurried to catch up.

  “Listen to me,” Rudy said as they walked. “Next time it might not be one of the guard boats on the take. Next time it could be real trouble, or worse, it could be a go-through man.”

  “What’s that?”

  “A go-through man. A hijacker. A pirate. Criminals, I mean real criminals, not like us dabbling in it for a while. They’ll kill every one of us to get the money we have on board going out, or the booze we have on board coming in.”

  Frieda walked close by his side. “Can’t anything be done?”

  He laughed at the obvious irony of it. “What are we going to do? Call the law?”

  Frieda looked ahead as they reached the place to go separate ways.

  “Tonight we were lucky,” said Rudy. Under the dock lights she could see that his eyes were shadowed behind his glasses, and his face was cheerless. Rudy had a quick mind and a sense of righteousness about him despite his business. He was making money—but maybe not without incurring costs of other sorts. She had the sense that no one really knew what they had drifted into.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Didn’t Dutch?”

  “Not the way you just did. He probably assumes I know all about rumrunning, including all of the risks.”

  Rudy sighed. “Dutch doesn’t like to think about the risks, much less talk about them. But I want you to know it’s not all fun and games. It could be dangerous.”

  “If it’s dangerous, then why are you doing it?” Frieda asked him.

  He looked at her as if he wanted her to understand. What do most people do when a better life, usually beyond their reach, is suddenly sitting at their doorstep, or in their case, sitting right out at sea? Even Rudy had worn a thick new sweater tonight, and he drove a newer Model T to the docks.

  Rudy answered, “Same reason as everyone else.”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  1925

  At the bar on a May afternoon, Frieda sat surrounded by locals, who had come to celebrate the birth of Rudy’s third son, Martin. Another redhead, as she had predicted. Frieda sat hunched o
ver her shot of whiskey, willing the kinks out of her neck and waving away approaches from men who didn’t know her and her ways. Her new life had transformed her; she belonged down on the docks, she belonged with the runners, and she had money for the first time in her life. She had done what she wanted, and she had done most of it on her own. The engineer’s job on Dutch’s boat and its success had made her a young woman to be reckoned with. She had grown to trust Dutch and Rudy like family.

  The bar was without a single window, and a bright beam of sunlight pierced the gloom each time the door was opened. Men stood outside on the lookout for police, but most everyone in the bar glanced up anyway when the door banged open. To Frieda’s surprise it was Bea who burst through the door, waving an envelope in her hand and searching for her sister through the dense smoke.

  “Frieda!” she called out over the sounds of people laughing and shouting, music blasting, and the clinking of glasses. Frieda waved her sister over. Bea weaved her way through the throng of people trying to get to the bar for service.

  “What are you doing here?” Frieda said as she stood up.

  “My acceptance,” said Bea, and held out an envelope. “It came in the mail.”

  “You don’t belong in here,” Frieda said. Although Bea was now eighteen and had graduated from high school second in her class, Frieda still viewed her sister as sheltered. Bea didn’t belong in this seedy shoreside establishment; she belonged at home with her books, magazines, and dreams. Frieda had seen to that, just as Silver had seen to it before the stroke had knocked him down.

  Bea was wearing a straight, low-waisted, garçonne-style dress and a smart cloche hat on her head, and she smelled of soap and cologne, not of salt and seawater. Clothes and toiletries that Frieda’s rumrunning money had provided. It had also paid for a hairdresser’s professional cut in the shingled style that Bea now sported, and even more importantly, a new roof on the house, work on the foundation, and anything they wanted from the grocer’s.

  Bea squeezed into the space between two barstools and handed the acceptance letter to Frieda. Bea had applied to NYU, and Frieda had socked away the money to pay for her to live and study in the city and earn her degree.

  Over the past two years Frieda had served as the full-time ship’s engineer on Dutch’s boat. In April of 1924 the United States had increased the limit of jurisdiction to twelve miles instead of three, making it harder for them all, especially the smaller boats. Now the offshore boats had to wait about twenty miles out, and the contact boats’ trips took longer. But the Wonder was up to the task, and her crew had gone out about twelve nights a month, depending on the moon and the weather—more in the warmer months and less during the winter. For the most part the runs went smoothly, and their roles were clear: Dutch was captain and took the helm, Rudy was first mate and lookout man when they ran dark, and Frieda was in charge of the engine, helping out with other tasks as needed. Several times they were chased by guard picket boats bent on arrest instead of collusion, and twice Dutch had to dump the cargo over the side of the boat, though he did so with the booze connected to strong Manila rope lines tied to semisubmerged buoys. Then the next day, with Rudy keeping watch for any reappearance of the picket boat, they went back to the spot, hauled the load, and sold it in the usual way.

  Rudy had grinned at her when they found the stash. “It’s too easy,” he said.

  Other boat captains used a flashlight in a weighted and stoppered five-gallon glass jug. Dropped a foot or so below the surface and set with a rock anchor, the jugs could be found by crews the next night by the glow of the dim underwater light.

  Once Dutch had to jettison the cargo before any lines or buoys could be attached, because the guard was firing so heavily, tracer bullets landing all around and almost hitting the boat. But he took bearings on shore landmarks and he knew the depth of the channel, so the next day they returned with a clamming rake and some oyster tongs and retrieved most of it. Another time, when this happened close to shore, locals had watched the entire chase from shore, then went out first thing in the morning in rowboats and canoes and took the booty for themselves.

  Dutch had grumbled, “Stealing sons of bitches.”

  “Not like we’re legal,” Frieda said back.

  “Whose side are you on?” he asked with a laugh.

  Some boats used rifle fire to shoot out coast guard searchlights during night chases, smashing the lenses and even once killing the man at the beam. Others deliberately tossed aside wooden whiskey cases that could potentially sink or damage guard boats. Yet others sent out phony distress signals that the guard had to answer; after all, their duty was first and foremost assistance at sea and rescue. The government tried to crack down with a blockade and add more boats to the coast guard fleet, yet still the runners and the shore boats were slipping in so much contraband that liquor flowed in restaurants and bars across New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, and beyond. Frieda’s rolls of money grew.

  One bitterly cold winter night they had to dodge floating ice, and Dutch was more nervous than Frieda had ever seen him. Each time they passed another ice floe, he said, “Another damn sinker. They’re as thick as fleas on a mutt.”

  Suddenly, the boat had flooded with light. A guard boat had found them with its searchlight. Normally Dutch would simply outrun them, but with all the ice floes around it was too risky to go full speed ahead. Yet still he had to throttle up somewhat to get out of the range of the searchlight, and Frieda held her breath, preparing for collision.

  Once out of the light’s reach, Dutch said, “Change of course.” He made a slow, wide, arching turn in the opposite direction, back toward the guard boat.

  Frieda said through chattering teeth, “What are you doing?”

  “The last thing they’ll expect is us turning around and getting near ’em again. They’ll keep going in, hoping to trap us.” He gave her a rigid look. “Don’t question me, Frieda.”

  And she had no choice but to say, “Aye, captain.”

  The ploy worked. Aided by the cover of snow that had begun to fall, the Wonder thwarted her would-be captors and passed the guard boat so silently and slowly the guardsmen had no idea she had slipped away right under their noses.

  Another time, on the way in the propeller hit something, most likely a big piece of driftwood or a lobster trap buoy, and the prop was bent so badly that the boat’s speed was cut in half. They limped back to the shore, while the boat vibrated from bow to stern. On that night they could’ve been caught handily, and the slow slog back was endless.

  Dutch had said then, “Keep your fingers crossed. Or if you’re the praying sort, pray.”

  Well inside the bay a boat came near, and it didn’t take long to see it was one of the guard picket boats. Frieda and Rudy prepared to dump, even though the guard boat was gaining on them so fast they probably couldn’t have tossed all the cases in time. Because of the damaged prop, the Wonder couldn’t try to outrun them, and all seemed lost until they recognized the captain, who happened to be one they knew was on the take. As they had done several other times before, they let the guard captain off-load what he wanted.

  By now they knew which guard boat captains could be paid off with booze and which ones wanted money. They knew the cops in town who turned a blind eye to the goings-on in exchange for some of the proceeds. They knew the best judge to go before if they were ever charged with anything. They also knew the guardsmen, policemen, and other authorities who were playing it straight. And there were plenty of strict law enforcers, too, so on that night they were lucky.

  One night the fog was so thick that Dutch couldn’t find his way back into the bay, and they had to toss out the anchor and spend the rest of the night at sea, but near enough to shore so the anchor would hold. Dutch, Frieda, and Rudy took turns, with two sleeping while the third kept watch, but when it was Frieda’s time to sleep, all she could do was listen to the sound of powerful breakers colliding with the shore, the full force of the fathomless seas behind them, a
nd nothing but one small anchor separating them from the same fate as those waves. She had stared into the murk, looking for even the faintest blink of a star, while doubts played out in her mind. What was she doing? The sea could eat alive even the strongest soul. But by morning she had decided that the dangers on the sea were not as frightening as the dangers of being poor.

  Occasionally they took their chances and went out during the day. On her first daytime run, Frieda was overcome by the bright new world of blue sky and blue seas, lacy froth and stomach-lurching swells, lemon sun, and bulging clouds. Dragonflies had skimmed the surface of the water as the Hook slowly slid away.

  Frieda was seldom frightened, but what truly did scare her were the go-through men. Their name came from the fact that they would go through anything to get what they wanted, and they were a merciless, lowlife group of men who preyed on the inshore contact boats. Typically they advanced in powerful, black-hulled boats just after dusk, when the contact boats were heading out, an hour or so before the coast guard began any pursuits, so there would be no witnesses. No one knew who they were or where they came from, but they were rumored to carry Thompson submachine guns they didn’t hesitate to shoot. The Wonder found herself under chase one night, but that time the other boat was no faster than theirs, and Rudy tossed overboard a contraption of wood, junk, and wires he’d made just for this possibility, and the go-through boat’s prop hit it and their speed slowed to a crawl. Others weren’t so lucky, however, and Frieda had heard that along Long Island, dead men had been found on contact boats—and other boats had simply vanished.

  On the other hand, they’d made close to two hundred runs without any problems whatsoever, which explained why more and more shore boats were getting in on the action and the money.

  When they weren’t running or retrieving, the threesome often spent time together in the local speakeasies, where Frieda finally partook of some of the cargo they ferried. She downed shots of whiskey with the men and finally understood the allure of alcohol as she let the worries that had always plagued her slip away for a few hours.