The Penny Ferry da-2

by Rick Boyer

  "Hey that's great. Who is that guy?"

  "That guy was Art Tatum."

  "Wow! Never heard of him."

  "That was the problem; not nearly enough people ever did. He died broke."

  Like so many unrecognized geniuses in the arts, Tatum drank himself to death before he'd even peaked. Sic transit gloria mundi, as they say. "Any, more thoughts on dinner?" I asked Mary.

  "No. Gee I really don't feel much like cooking, Charlie. I've been firing stuff all day and I'm hot and pooped. Don't you guys think it's hot for early June?"

  "Yeah," said her brother, who placed himself directly beneath the whirling blades of the ceiling fan. Mary seemed suddenly to be aware of his presence and went over and kissed him. She almost took her skin off in the process.

  "Why didn't you shave? You look awful."

  "Got up late. I was going to shave here." He hesitated a second before adding, "Uh… you know how I sometimes stay for supper?"

  "Sometimes?"

  He gave me a hurt look, then turned back to his sister.

  "We could go out to eat, or… or… I could make my veal and eggplant parmigiana-"

  This suggestion sent my salivary glands into a brief grand mal seizure.

  "Well why didn't you say so? Care for another drink?"

  "What made me think of it was thinking about finding Johnny Robinson up in Lowell. There's a great little meat market up there. Not as good as Toscana's, but still great. They slice the veal right off the carcass. Doc, if you really need that thingamajig, I'm pretty sure I could track Johnny down for you. Then we get the meat and eggplant and head back here. Mary, you can fire your pots; Doc, you can relax- I'll do it all."

  Well, that settled it. Mary wanted to come along, so the three of us got into Joe's cruiser and headed up Route 3 to Lowell, about twenty-five minutes away."

  "And you really think we can track down Johnny? It would be great if I could get that anterior bridge for Tom this weekend," I said, watching Mary fiddle with the dials on Joe's two-way radio.

  "No guarantees. But I've known and worked with Johnny for years. So have most of the other cops. His routine doesn't vary much. He's got no family and sticks pretty close to his old neighborhood where he grew up. I've got a hunch if he's up there, we'll find him."

  Lowell is not pretty; but it wasn't designed for aesthetics. Like the other towns along the Merrimack River (Lawrence, Nashua, and Manchester), it was laid out in the early part of the last century to see how many big buildings could be squeezed along the source of water power and barge traffic. Then a lot of effort was expended to see how much machinery each building could hold: looms, carding machines, spinning machines, and finishing machines, and how many immigrant workers- of all ages and sexes- could tend these machines for the maximum number of hours on scant wages without falling down and dying of exhaustion, hunger, disease, or grievous injury.

  This cruel experiment in Social Darwinism lasted roughly from the 1830s until the First World War. During its duration a few families and corporations made enormous fortunes, and many thousands of new Americans were chewed up and spit out by these gargantuan mill complexes. Then in the twentieth century, at an ever-increasing pace, the industries left for other places where they could find other people to tend the machines for less money and so do the whole ghastly thing all over again.

  For all of its freedom and efficiency, capitalism can be a nightstalker. A benthic fish with gaping jaws and snaggle teeth. A jabberwock. Looking into these old buildings can be enough to turn a hardened Republican into a trade unionist. If you ever get a glimpse of these mills inaction (some of them are still working in these New England towns), it's a spectacle you won't soon forget. As you leave your car, even a block from the building, you can hear the giant locomotive thump of the looms. The walls of the mills are thick masonry, the windows shut or boarded, but the sound comes through: a monstrous syncopated two-stroke thumping of the swinging loom arms and frames. It is a pulsing mechanical heart that shakes the old wooden steps as you climb inside. Then go through two or three more doors and you see the huge interior halls with rows and rows of big metal machines, with racks of bobbins twirling off thread like fishing reels. And on the far side spills out cloth, inch by inch, made in thunder. The women who work here wear ear protectors, but they're deaf anyway.

  You shout and cannot hear yourself. The women walk to and fro on the old wooden floors, which are soaked with oozing oil and clotted with fibers. The machines are fuzzy-soft with grease-soaked lint. The floor shakes and trembles underfoot with the swinging metal and spinning flywheels. Sometimes even the old endless drive belts of wide leather remain overhead shrieking on the wooden drums. Perhaps the most depressing thing is that the women don't complain, don't plan to quit and move on to something else. They just serve out their time here on the gummy wooden floors, ears protected against the clank and thump, but already deaf.

  And this scene makes you realize that there are two New Englands. There's the one with kids dressed in blazers and madras blouses strolling on green lawns surrounded by ivy-covered walls, and there's this one trying to prop it all up. This one made of veiny-armed, pocked-faced kids in factories, of frowzy old ladies in cotton print dresses and torn stockings worn over purplish puckery legs, tending the machines in the din.

  We wended our way along the twisting streets to an area near the river and the General Electric wire and cable plant. A little side street off Broadway was lined with two-family houses. The area was green and offered a nice view of the Merrimack River. The university was within walking distance too. This was a nice section of town; no wonder that Johnny Robinson had elected to stay here and commute into Boston and Cambridge. Joe pulled up in front of a gray house. It was sided with asbestos shingles and had white trim. It was well maintained. There was a wide stairway up to the open front porch. But Joe took us to a roofed side stairway that snaked up the far side of the house and led to a door on the second story. He rang the bell, waited, and knocked. There was no answer. We went downstairs to ask the neighbors, but nobody was home.

  "The dogs weren't barking, so he's got to be out with them," said Joe, leading us around the corner.

  We went over to the Lucky Seven tavern, which at five in the afternoon was filled with regulars sipping draft beers and rye and gingers and watching the Red Sox. A man behind the bar was adjusting a rack of potato chip bags. He had a damp bar rag slung over his shoulder. Nobody had seen Johnny, so we walked back to the house.

  "There's his car," said Joe, pointing to a new Olds Cutlass. "He can't be far."

  "Where do we try next, the laundromat?"

  "Dunno. He'll be back shortly. Listen, Doc, I just know that if Johnny did pick up that dental work for you, it's sitting right on his coffee table. Tell you what. You two wait here. Sit down on the front steps while I go get the groceries. Be back in twenty minutes."

  So we sat there until he came back. Still no Johnny. Now Joe rubbed his beard stubble and looked a bit worried.

  "When was he supposed to deliver the stuff to you?"

  "Yesterday."

  "And he didn't call or anything?"

  "Nope."

  Joe went back to his car, opened the trunk, and returned carrying a metal toolbox.

  "Follow me," he said. And we did.

  At the top of the small side stairway, just outside Robinson's door, Joe set the toolbox down and opened it. It was dark up on the landing but we could see that the box was packed with tools, most of which were strange to me. The most familiar things were two gigantic rings of keys.

  "Johnny's not going to like this particularly, but it's not like him to default on a delivery and not telephone. Hmmmm. Medeco D-Eleven deadbolt… piece of cake. Baldwin pin tumbler mortise lock… Big lock's unfastened- he's been home…"

  He hummed a little ditty while he burgled the door, and before very long we stepped inside the dim apartment. "Good thing I'm an honest man," he said, turning on the lights. The living room opened righ
t off the door. The window shades were half up and the sunlight looked bluish in contrast to the yellow-gold glow of the sun passing through them. Faded gingham curtains wafted in and out with the slight breeze from one window which was wide open. There was a love seat against the wall and two old stuffed chairs that had seen better days. Much better days. A TV sat on a small table facing the couch. Above the couch on the wall were boxing photos of Robinson in his prime; with his almost shaven head, he looked a bit like another Massachusetts fighter: Marvin Hagler of Brockton. There were some big posters too, publicizing upcoming fights.

  "Oh Christ," said Joe in a weary voice. I followed his gaze down the short hallway and saw Robinson sprawled on the floor. He had that frozen spastic look, that almost comical appearance of the silent-movie pratfall, an embarrassing frumpy look of a pile of old clothes with a person inside.

  He was dead.

  Joe stayed where he was and held up his hand as a sign for us not to move.

  "Tommy! Here Tommy!" he called. "Susie! Susie? Here girl!"

  Silence and stillness. Mary started for the man on the floor, but her brother held her in check.

  "Hold it, Mare. If Johnny's here he's got a hundred and eighty pounds of fur and fangs with him. And they can tear hell out of a Tyrannosaurus Rex when they're mad. Here Tommy! Here Susie!"

  I started down the hallway.

  "Tommy and Susie are either gone or indisposed," I said, "or they'd have been on us like lightning when we first came in."

  I knelt down on the worn carpet runner and looked at the late john Robinson. Handsome. Smooth, nut-brown skin that was tight and unwrinkled. A kind face with large and expressive eyes. Short salt-and-pepper hair, like mine except curly. His eyes were open a fraction. He still wore his Windbreaker jacket. His clothes were the ones he wore when working: blue gabardine uniform well tailored, almost dapper on his fine body. There wasn't a mark on him. I could see no blood anywhere. Heart attack? Sudden cerebral hemorrhage?

  Joe knelt down beside me and let out a slow sigh.

  "This was one nice guy, Doc. A good man who never made a crooked buck and who always helped people who needed it, even if it meant sticking his own neck out. This makes me sick."

  "Could have been accidental. Look, the body's cold but not stiff. Then he's been dead for over twelve hours. He's still got his coat on; he'd probably just come home. Maybe he was walking toward the kitchen and just collapsed. An autopsy will tell us."

  "Where are the doggies then? Tommy! Susie?"

  I looked up at the old black wooden door at the far end of if the short hallway. The doorknob side was cracked and splintered along its length, as if the door had been smashed open. I opened it and looked inside at the tiny bedroom. Mary stood behind me, looking over my shoulder.

  "Here they are, Joe. In here. Looks like it wasn't accidental after a1l."

  One dog was just inside the door, lying on its back and twisted through the body as if it had died in pain. It was a female shepherd, the one Joe had called Susie. The bigger, darker one- Tommy- was frozen in front of a window that was open all the way. He was lying on his stomach, his head on his outstretched paws. His mouth was partly open and his lips curled in a frozen snarl. Both dogs were unmarked.

  "How the hell were they all killed? Doc, see any signs of bludgeoning?"

  "No. But that doesn't mean there wasn't any."

  Joe went back to Robinson and knelt down again, pointing at the holster on his belt.

  "Look here," he said to us. "Smith and Wesson model ten, a standard-issue thirty-eight. Never taken out of the holster."

  "But look," said Mary, "this strap is unfastened. Don't people carry it snapped?"

  "Good eye, honey; yes they do. So Robinson came home, shut the door behind him, and began walking down the hall with his jacket still on. Then something happened. Somebody jumped him and the dogs… or something. But whatever it was, it was fast. He saw it or heard it, but only had time to flick off his carrying strap."

  "And he had the reflexes of a boxer, Doc. He was very fast for an older guy, and tough too. I wonder…"

  Joe pulled up Robinson's right pantleg. There, was a small holster strapped to his leg with a tiny snub-nosed revolver in place.

  "His belly gun. Smith and Wesson Bodyguard Airweight. Untouched. Let's try the other leg."

  Up went the left pantleg. Fastened to the left calf was a bone-handled stiletto. Finally, on his belt up under the Windbreaker was a spray canister of Mace.

  "He was a walking Sherman tank," I said. "Too bad it didn't do him any good."

  "This is real nasty, Doc," said Joe, glancing around nervously, "and it looks like a pro job too. Looks like some of Johnny's old enemies finally caught up with him."

  "But what killed him?" asked Mary.

  "A good question. No marks are visible on him or the dogs. No blood either, except in the bedroom, where Tommy tore into someone. So john Robinson, lighter, armed to the teeth and with two big attack dogs, comes home from work Friday afternoon. Now they're all dead. Doc, how would you handle a heavily armed boxer with two dogs?"

  "Gas."

  "Exactly."

  I dropped to my hands and knees and looked around.

  "'There's no odor remaining," I said, "but that's to be expected. It was yesterday and windows are open. Thing is, how was it dispersed? It had to be fast-"

  "To your right," said Joe. "There, next to your knee-"

  I reached over and retrieved a pair of glasses with gold frames and tinted lenses. Attached to the top of the frames were two small convex mirrors, one on each side. They were the type worn by bicyclists for seeing backward. With these two mirrors out on both sides Robinson could see directly behind himself, in the manner of horses and deer. The mirrors were most useful when he walked up dark narrow alleys and stairwells, where hiding places and thieves abound.

  "Now," pursued Joe as he leaned over me, "these glasses were thrown off to Johnny's right side. Let's assume he was walking down the hall as you suggested. His glasses being four feet from him means they were flung off his face, right?"

  "Right. Probably when he spun around fast."

  "Real fast, Doc. As fast as only a boxer can turn, like to avoid a punch, no?"

  "Uh-huh," said Mary. "He spun his head to the right and at the same time jerked the safety strap off his gun. So there was somethinglike a noise- right near this table."

  And on my hands and knees I was looking at it. A faint conical stain lay on the wallpaper directly under the table. It spread out as it rose like an inverted triangle. It was dark; it looked like smoke. I decided not to lean over and sniff it. Then all three of us were looking at it. There was no doubt it was a scorch mark.

  "An explosion," said Joe.

  "Yeah. And the explosion is what sent the gas flying all over the place instantly. Thing is, how'd they get the explosion to occur when Robinson was right nearby? And what sort of canister did they use?"

  "Took it all with them. We'll be able to identify the gas, though. I'm gonna call the lab now. Don't move anything."

  Joe went out to his cruiser to call the crime lab and the locals. We had some time to kill. I wandered back into the small living room and snooped. I wanted to see if my anterior bridge was anywhere around.

  Snooping is something I deplore in people, like gossiping. But it's surprising how easy it is to become a snooper. Looking around at the possessions of one absent or deceased, you find yourself saying, I wonder why he had that thing? Or, why on earth did she have so many of those? I stared at stacks of old magazines.

  Most were back issues of The Ring. They went all the way back to the late sixties. Did Johnny have a girlfriend? There was no evidence of it. And when Joe came back he said he knew of no romantic interlude in Robinson's life since the death of his wife in 'fifty-eight.

  "The dental work you said would be here isn't," I said.

  Joe and I sat on the love seat and speculated on the murder. Mary went back toward the bedroom, saying she wo
uldn't touch anything. Joe said there were lots of people who had reason to hate Johnny Robinson. I was staring at the tan-and~gray carpet when Mary screamed from the bedroom. We rushed in and found her backed up against the wall, as if at attention. She was gritting her teeth and shaking all over. A trembling hand reached out and pointed at the corpse of Tommy, the dog next to the open window.

  "L-look in his mouth…"

  I leaned over and noticed something between the dog's clenched fangs. When I tried to pull the teeth apart I felt them touch me, and shuddered.

  "What are they?" asked Joe.

  "Fingers."

  CHAPTER THREE

  The boys from the lab, and the local police, weren't long. Prior to their arrival Joe and I busied ourselves by trying to reconstruct the sequence of events. One of the first things we noticed was a recently bored hole the size of a pea in the broken door of the bedroom. The hole was at eye level. A peephole.

  "Okay, here it is, Doc. The guy, or guys, watch the hallway with the door closed. They're here behind the closed door when Robinson and doggies come home. They watch. When he's opposite the gas bomb in the hallway they somehow fire it- "

  "Yeah, but the dogs don't die right away. Maybe they're hip to something fishy a few seconds before the gas explodes around them. Maybe they smell trouble. So they charge this door and smash it open. Then the gas does its work and they die too. But not before Tommy grabs one of them- I keep thinking there's more than one- by the hand and rips off two fingers. Then the killers escape by this window here that we found ajar. See? There's a small porch roof just below it, then an easy drop to the ground, even for an injured guy."

  "Won't work, Doc. if the dogs broke down the door the gas'd get the killers too."

  "No, Joe. They'd be wearing masks. You can bet on it. If the gas was to be at all effective, especially against two quick dogs, it'd have to be very potent. They'd have masks."

  "Then how'd they set off the charge from in here?"

  "Some kind of juice; a trigger of some kind. Let's look around a little outside till the help comes."