The Raft

by Christopher Blankley

  #

  At its construction, the Kalakala had sported a below decks bar called the Tap Room, located off the ferry's engine room. While the Passenger Deck had its lady's lounge, exclusively for the use of the ship's female passengers, the Tap Room was the dark, dank, smoky escape for their male counterparts.

  With shower facilities and its titular beer supply, it had serviced the burly dockyard workers who rode the ferry between the city's waterfront and the naval dockyards of Bremerton.

  Inevitably, the toxic mix of testosterone and liquor that the Tap Room attracted turned into more trouble than it was worth to the owners of the Kalakala, the Black Ball Line. During World War Two, the Tap Room was shut down, closed off from the rest of the vessel. Its access stairwell was eventually completely removed.

  Though Gandalf's restoration of the Kalakala attempted to restore the ferry back to its original glory, paying attention of every possible detail, the space that had once been occupied by the below decks bar he designated for a very different use. Its access stairwell was completely closed off, hidden underneath a flush hatchway in the floor of the car deck. A single spiral ladder led down from the hatch, deep into the bilge of the old ferry. Illuminated by a single bare bulb, the bottom rung of the ladder faced onto a large, foreboding steel door with a single huge keyhole and handle.

  It was Gandalf's vault, hidden away in the belly of his restored ferry. He'd converted the whole of the old Tap Room into one great armored safe. It was where he stored his gold, the precious metal that backed his Exchange, the rock on which the currency of the Raft was built.

  Sum, his money, had real value. Unlike the greenbacks printed by the US Government, the Raft would tolerate no fiat currency. Sum kept the Raft free from the worst excesses of the mainland: inflation, runway taxation, government waste. Aboard the Raft, a dollar – or an hour – in your pocket really meant something. It meant wealth. A store of value. It couldn't be taken away by a faceless bureaucrat either by edict or through the need to hide his own reckless indebtedness by debasing the whole of the money supply. Backed by gold, an hour of Sum was something with real, objective value. Stored away safe in Gandalf's vault.

  A vault to which Maggie now had the key.

  Despite the large gathered crowd, Rachael, Maggie, and Tiger Print were able to make their way towards the rear of the large car deck without encountering a soul. The spectators were standing at the bow of the vessel, feverishly watching the unfolding races and oblivious to anything else. Tiger Print led Maggie and Rachael directly to the hidden hatch at the rear of the car deck unobserved.

  Maggie had perhaps stepped across the hatch a thousand times in her years of coming and going aboard the Kalakala, yet until Tiger Print looped a finger through its handle, she was unaware that the hatch was below her feet. It was hidden in plain sight, masterfully integrated into the car deck. Just one more square yard of steel.

  With great effort, Tiger Print lifted the hatch, swinging it up on its old hinges. It groaned with the agony of a door that was seldom opened and closed. Halfway up, the weight proved too much for Tiger Print. Maggie and Rachael quickly caught the door, pulling it up and over and back down onto the car deck with a clang. Tiger Print reached a hand down into the darkness, snapping on a switch. Down below, a single fluorescent flicked to life in the depths of the ship.

  “Down there,” Tiger Print said, sniffing and pointing down into the gloom. She wiped her eyes with a handkerchief and blew her nose.

  “If you don't mind,” Maggie said, gesturing for Tiger Print to lead her down into the darkness.

  “What?” Tiger Print said dizzily. “Oh, alright,” and Tiger Print stepped forward, carefully hooking her toes onto the ladder and descending.

  “Maggie.” Rachael gave Maggie a stern glance as Tiger Print vanished below them. Maggie didn't return the disgusted stare, she simply waited until the ladder was clear and started down the rungs herself.

  Irritated, Rachael followed.

  There was barely enough room at the base of the ladder for all three women. Tiger Print and Maggie squeezed into the cramped antechamber, their bare feet standing on the very hull of the Kalakala itself, the frigid waters of the Puget Sound only an inch below. As Rachael came down the ladder, she paused a few rungs from the bottom. There wouldn't be enough space for her and the others before the giant steel door.

  “This is ridiculous,” she said, still above Maggie and Tiger Print's heads. “I'm climbing back up.”

  “No, just wait there for a second,” Maggie replied. “Let me open the vault.”

  “What? Why? Why did you make all of us climb down here?”

  “To answer one last question,” Maggie said cryptically.

  “What? What question?”

  “The only question that's really mattered all along,” Maggie said, fishing the key out of her jeans. “Why was Meerkat killed?”

  “And the answer is in the vault?” Tiger Print asked in surprise.

  “It is,” Maggie said with all gravity.

  In the gloom, she put the wide, flat key into the oversized keyhole. It slid into place and Maggie wiggled the key. It turned clockwise to the sound of a great many gears and levers moving inside the door.

  Unlocked, the door shuddered noticeably inward.

  Maggie put her shoulder into it, pushing on the door with all her might. From her perch up on the ladder, Rachael could only see the dark floor of the vault as the door swung open. Following it, Maggie vanished into the blackness inside. Tiger Print hesitantly watched as Maggie stumbled forward into the room. She seemed curious, she was no longer crying. Slowly, she stepped forward, also disappearing into the blackness of the vault.

  Rachael found herself alone, still clinging to the ladder.

  Hurriedly, she climbed down, turning to the vault and seeing nothing in its darkness. Maggie and Tiger Print had stepped into its depths, but Rachael couldn't make out their silhouettes. Rachael moved forward, reaching out before her blindly. She could see nothing in the darkness, and felt around for anything before her.

  There was nothing. Where had Maggie and Tiger Print gone? There must be a light, Rachael reasoned, instinctively turning to her left. She groped forward until her hands came in contact with the wall of the vault. Weren't light switches always to the left of a door? Rachael asked herself. She'd never really given it much thought, but now in the pitch black she wished she had. She felt around, running her fingers over the cold steel walls of the vault. She found something that could be an old-style twist light switch. She grabbed it firmly between her thumb and forefinger and gave it a hard twist to the right.

  Three banks of long, white fluorescent tubes flicked up against the ceiling of the vault. From total darkness to glaring brightness, the vault was suddenly bathed in a torrent of light.

  Rachael raised an arm to shield her eyes, but not before catching a glimpse of the blurs of Maggie and Tiger Print standing in the center of the vault. Grunts of pain filled the echoing room and everyone tried to adjust to the flickering fluorescents.

  As her eyes adjusted to the glare, Rachael began to comprehend what she saw. Or rather, comprehend what she didn't see. The vault, lined on three walls by heavy-grade shelving, was almost totally empty. Nothing glittered in the bright, stark light that was blinding Rachael. No gold. Blinking, Rachael strained to examine the room. Nothing, just a moderate-sized lockbox at one end of the room.

  “Where's the...” Rachael began, but had already answered her own question. “There's no gold.”

  “No,” Maggie said, her hands coming away from her face. “No, no gold.”

  “You knew, didn't you?” Rachael asked.

  “I suspected,” Maggie answered.

  “Then why bring us all the way down here?” Rachael looked between Maggie and Tiger Print. “Did you know?” Rachael asked Tiger.

  Tiger Print's eyes were again full of tears. “Oh yes,” she replied meekly. “All Gandalf's talk of a secret room full of
gold, it was all so much hot air. All our money, you see, he sunk into this ship. The restoration, that was what Gandalf really cared about. The Exchange... well, that just happened. And it so quickly got out of hand. The first time there was fear of a run of the Exchange, Gandalf was able to quash it by implying the existence of this gold room.

  “But that too so quickly got away from him. Soon it was what everyone associated with Sum, the reason they believed in it. They trusted it because the gold backed it. So Gandalf had to keep on lying, he had to keep up the pretense. You see, as long as everyone trusted in Sum, believed that this room was filled with gold, then there was no need for any of it. If word had escaped, however, that this vault was really empty this whole time...”

  “Then there'd have been a run on the Exchange and Gandalf would have had to open up the vault and prove the gold's non-existence.”

  “Yes,” Tiger Print said softly, her small voice echoing off the empty vault. “Ironic, really.” And she again began to cry.

  “And this,” Rachael asked, stepping forward and peering around the vault in wonder, “was why Meerkat was killed?”

  “Yes,” Maggie replied, stepping up to the lock box.

  “She knew? She knew there was no gold? She knew Gandalf's secret, and he killed her because of it?”

  Maggie flipped open the lid of the lockbox and looked down into its bottom. She reached in and came back with a bundle of greenbacks. They were old and well used, wrapped in a rubber band. She flipped through the stack of hundreds and showed it to Rachael.

  “Gandalf must have brought her down here to give her the blackmail money that she gave to Horus. This was the sum total of Gandalf's wealth. Greenbacks. What money he had was in dryfoot currency, not gold. Here, in his vault.” Maggie tossed the bundle of notes back into the lockbox.

  Rachael's mind raced. She was desperately attempting to piece it together – put together the whole picture as Maggie had so obviously already done. But it was all bouncing around in her head: Meerkat, Horus, the Senator, Galahad. Her teeth hurt and the positive effects of her breakfast were starting to wear off. She, frankly, had just about had enough for one day.

  “Then Gandalf was paying Meerkat to smear the Senator? Using her and Horus to implicate Hadian in a sex scandal?”

  “As you heard me tell the Kid. Gandalf's fingerprints are all over it. But this empty vault explains so much more than what I told Galahad...”

  “Like?” Rachael prodded.

  “Like Meerkat's double identity: Joanna Church and Rebbecca Oldrich. Why the SPD was unable to spot that fake ID in Meerkat's pocket.”

  Maggie looked up at the flickering bulbs above her, blinking, then directly at Rachael.

  “Because it wasn't a fake ID. It was a real one. A real, government issued ID.”

  It hit Rachael. “Witness Protection.”

  “Exactly. Rebbecca Oldrich was gone, replaced by Joanna Church. Rebbecca's past life, the warrants in Arizona, had been wiped clean. Meerkat was leaving the Raft not because she was pregnant or to escape Horus, but because she'd made a deal with the authorities. Meerkat was putting on her boots to claim a new life.”

  “But informing on Horus doesn't get you Witness Protection,” Rachael said, watching Maggie's face intently.

  “No, it most certainly does not. Horus is – was a small fish. Someone the police could have scooped up at any time. No, in rehab it wasn't the local authorities concerned about drugs that had approached Meerkat. It had been the Feds. The Kid. And it wasn't Horus that interested him, but Gandalf. Gandalf and his Exchange. Any information that could undermine the Exchange could undermine the whole Raft. In trade, Meerkat would get her old life erased. A new identity. A new beginning.”

  “Galahad,” Rachael hissed in shock. “He knew all along.”

  “That's why he reacted so aggressively. The blockade. It wasn't the Seattle Police implicated in Meerkat's death, but the FBI. They were climbing all over Horus's boat that night, not looking for him, but for Meerkat. She was late for her rendezvous with the Feds. When she washed up dead in the morning... they had to try to keep a lid on the whole incident. If that meant sinking the Raft in the process, so be it.”

  “But he didn't see the Senator getting pulled into the mess?”

  “No, Gandalf's plan almost worked. All the pieces were in place. All he needed to happen was for Horus to get arrested. For him to open his big mouth on the record. Then the situation would have exploded in the FBI's face. Dead informant, Senator implicated in torrid sex scandal. If only I hadn't gone ashore. If only I haven't intervened.”

  “But you did your job too well,” Rachael added.

  Maggie shrugged.

  “Then, Gandalf did kill Meerkat to send Horus to jail? It was his only move when... what? He realized that no one was investigating Horus's drug trade?”

  “No.”

  “He discovered she was an FBI informant?”

  Maggie's expression subtly changed. Perhaps she shifted on her injured foot. “Oh, no, Gandalf would never have hurt Meerkat, no matter what he discovered. For all his failings, for all his machinations, he wasn't the sort to hurt a girl.”

  “But you said the answer to who killed Meerkat was in this vault?” Rachael asked, confused.

  Maggie's gaze turned and fell on Tiger Print. “And it is.”