The Penny Ferry da-2

by Rick Boyer

  "Where the hell did you get that getup?"

  "Been savin' it for the right guy…"

  "How can you walk in those? Or stand?"

  She shrugged and sneered.

  "Don't plan on stayin' upright that long."

  "Those pants are even tighter than the ones in the North End."

  "They're dance tights. You like?"

  She turned her back and wiggled, then sat down on my lap and kept moving.

  "Seriously, Charlie"- she kissed me- "do you like it?"

  "Be still my heart."

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  I took my coffee into Mary's atelier and watched her throwing big slabs of clay around. Fifty pounds apiece. Wham! Splat! She hefted them up and slammed them down on her sturdy bench to force the air bubbles out. If the bubbles remain inside the clay, the air explodes in the heat of the kiln during firing and your pot blows up- shatters all over the place. She bounced the big wads of clay around as if they were little hunks of cookie dough. That can make you strong; no wonder she was so good at arm wrestling. I pinched her on the butt.

  "Thanks for the cheap thrills last night," I said.

  "Aw don't mention it; the others never do."

  "Want to go on an adventure today?"

  She eyed me warily, then grabbed my wrist. She was relieved to see that I was still wearing the respectable, if boring, Omega dress watch.

  "Can't be too dangerous, you're not wearing that black watch Joe finally returned when you gave him his wop lighter back. What's the adventure?"

  "I've got an idea of how to try to find Johnny Robinson's courier pouch."

  She eyed me again, even more warily. Yours Truly is not famous for good ideas regarding adventures, as was borne out when I nearly got my brains splattered all over the place in the old Plymouth Cordage warehouse and factory. Mary reminded me of this past misadventure and it gave me pause. I shuddered.

  "And I was reading your Sacco-Vanzetti books this morning early when you went running. Did you know that Vanzetti lived in Plymouth and worked in that cordage factory? He even led a strike there."

  "Yeah I know. I try to forget about that place."

  She attacked the clay hunks with a new ferocity now, and threw them around like Liatis Roantis throws people around in karate class. She sank her fist into the clay, leaving a deep mark.

  "Bastards! God, I hate that Thayer. Even if I were a WASP I'd hate him!"

  "After you put those in the bags, follow me," I said. She did, still dressed in her white bib overalls and striped jersey. I carried a walking stick and a flashlight. We got into the Scout, bound for Cambridge.

  "Have you told Joe about this? And how smart is this idea?" she asked.

  "No, and not very," I said.

  We rang the bell at Dependable Messenger Service but nobody answered. I knew Sam Bowman was expecting us because I had called him earlier and set this adventure up. He had agreed eagerly.

  We rang twice more and finally heard loud cussing from behind the thick door. Along with the cussing was a deep growl.

  "I told ya I don't want none! Now git! I set the dog on ya!"

  "It's us, Sam. Mary and Doc."

  He let us in, apologizing. He said that two of the pushiest salesmen he'd ever seen had just come by and wouldn't leave.

  "They tryna sell me some roofing compound. It's silver-colored and dries up like metal, you know? I say I don't need no roofing compound, but they say can we take a look. Won't cost me nothin. So I let 'em. Had their own ladder on top of the van."

  "Ah! And- surprise, surprise- they then informed you that yes indeed, you do need roohng compound."

  "Zactly. And then they came inside to write out a estimate, even though I said I didn't want it. Who knows… might be closin' the place. Watch it! Watch it, Miss, he'll bite-"

  But it was too late; Mary was already close to the huge dog and bending down over him. Popeye went wild. He flattened his stubby black ears, squinted his eyes, and lunged at her. He licked her all over, then flopped over on his broad back and piddled up in the air. Embarrassed, he jumped back up again and tried to sit so she could pat him. But he couldn't sit because he was wagging his stumpy tail too hard. In fact, he was wagging his entire big butt. He sniffed and snorted, whined and yelped softly as she patted his wide, flat head. He squatted and leaked again briefly in ecstasy, then turned, wagging and whining, in a tight circle.

  "Silly boy… silly old boy," cooed Mary.

  "Now would you look at dat."' said Sam in amazement. "Popeye my man, whatsa matter witchu?"

  I was looking at the interesting objects on Sam's rolltop desk. He didn't see me looking at them.

  Popeye pawed at Mary's leg and whined until she patted him again. Then she walked around the tiny office and the dog followed her. She went to the safe, which was open, and the dog didn't do squat.

  "What happened to your guard dog, Sam?" I asked.

  "Damn! Don't know, Doc. Strangest thing I ever-"

  He stopped in mid-sentence because he saw me looking down at his desk top, where the jeweler's saw and the big fat cartridges lay strewn over the blotter. I picked one of the forty-five-caliber rounds up- still as big as a lipstick- and examined the tip of the bullet. Sam had used the fine metal saw to delicately score the metal casing that reached halfway up around the lead core. He'd made two cuts across the top, perpendicular to each other, in a cross, then two again in between the first two cuts, resulting in a delicate eight-pointed star in the front of each load. A finely wrought flower of death.

  "You do nice work," I said.

  He swept the rounds up in his big coffee-colored mitt and put the saw in a drawer.

  "That's no dumdum, Doc. I was just teasin' the noses a bit. just teasin 'em-"

  "Shall we go? You ready? Can you call off your big vicious attack dog?"

  "Gut-damn! Never seen ol' Popeye like this. C'mon, dumb-head."

  He shut the big safe with a heavy clunk and spun the dial. Then we got into the Scout, with Popeye and Mary in back. But before Sam joined me in the front seat he called out to a man who was walking toward the office. The man wore a blue guard uniform and carried a small satchel. He was about fifty years old, with a paunch and a Rudolf-the-Reindeer nose. Sam spoke to him briefly, reopened the office, and soon reappeared with a small bundle which he inserted in the man's satchel before sending him on his way again.

  "Don't know how long he'll last," growled Sam as we pulled away from the curb and headed north. "I went through two guys already. All of 'em too old and sometimes too drunk. Damn! Looks like we closin' down. All I get is old broken-down cops."

  I thought of those big pistol cartridges with the fancy tips, trying to imagine what kind of horrendous wound channel a doctored slug like that would leave in its victim. Not that the plain old undoctored ones wouldn't do plenty. What Sam had done was illegal, but I wasn't going to mention it. I let it drop from my mind. Then I thought of those pushy salesmen who had bothered him before we arrived. I asked him how long they'd hung around. When he answered that it was quite a while, it set me to thinking.

  As soon as we got into Lowell we headed straight for Johnny's apartment in the gray house. It was locked and sealed, and even Sam did not have the key, but all we wanted to do was lead the dog up and down the outside stairs a few times to fix the scent firmly in his mind. As soon as Popeye was led into the stairwell he began to whine and carry on. He bounded up the stairs, almost pulling Sam off his feet, and whined and scratched to get in. It was sad to see- rather like the movie of Lassie who travels all across the Highlands to sleep finally on her master's grave. We hung around the stairway for another fifteen minutes so the big pug-ugly pooch would know what we were looking for. Then we got back in the car and went over to the old blown-out factory where we'd found Andy's body in the rubble of the chimney. All the way there Popeye was fawning over Mary; couldn't get enough of her. Sam told me he was worried the dog had lost his mind.

  We climbed up the rubble mound in the
chimney with the big dog on a lead. He sniffed around but showed no further interest. We assumed then that neither Johnny nor his pouch had been near there. We walked into the big building itself and cruised the first floor, which was empty. The dog showed no interest and didn't even pause, except to lift his leg and leave an odoriferous sign that said in dog talk: Hey, all you cute bitches, I am a swell stud and will make you thrilled and happy. Follow this smell and you can't go wrong. P.S. You other guys beat it or I'll rearrange your face and body.

  He spent a lot of time doing this routine, and growling when he sniffed a smell he didn't like. Nix on floor one.

  On to floor two. We climbed the musty stairway at the end of the building. It stank of stale urine, dust, and mildew. Faint, shafts of sunlight came in through ancient grimy windows. There was no old machinery on this floor, but it was strewn with discarded furniture: ancient desks and chairs, timekeepers' booths, homemade footstools and cabinets. The rancid odors seemed to delight the dog, which didn't surprise me. Our doggies love dirty socks and underwear. Still, Popeye showed no recognition sign. On to the third floor, which contained some old carding machinery and canvas bins with dolly wheels on them for moving the wool. None of the items had seen service in a long, long time. From the far dark corners of the gloomy place came the flutter of wings hitting glass and wood, the dry skitter of rodent feet, and faint twitterings. We saw a group of old stinky matresses that smelled of vomit. Wino haven in the abandoned factory- a place of refuge from street toughs and cops. We cruised the place and struck out.

  "Don't look like pay dirt, Doc," said Sam.

  I looked out of one of the windows. We were high up. I admitted to Sam and Mary it was a long shot. I knew the Lowell and state cops had given the building a going-over too. just before we started back down I noticed two more buildings that seemed deserted. They were big as well. Not as big as the mill we stood in, but big. I peeked lower and saw a wire fence separating us from them. I dismissed the whole thing from my mind. But then I saw a break in the fence which led to a bridge which was almost hidden by locust and sumac trees. The yards connected. And those other buildings were sixty yards farther away from any street. It made me think.

  With a huff the giant dog was beside me looking out, his paws on the rotten sill. He huffed and puffed with heat, his tongue lolling out the side of his wide black mouth. It looked like a two-pound slab of used bubble gum.

  "We goin' now?"

  "Yeah, c'mon, Charlie. It's a bust. Sam, I'll buy you a beer at Johnny's old bar."

  So we left the big mill and walked out onto the cracked and buckled asphalt. Mary took the lead from Sam and walked the dog. I had them follow me to the fence, then to the opening and the bridge beyond. They protested, but I convinced them to try once more. The bridge spanned a stagnant canal once used to provide water power and barge transport. Now the water was dead quiet and thick with duckweed and scum. We walked over the small bridge in dark shade, then over gravel that crackled beneath our feet. I still carried the blackthorn walking stick, which I thumped along the ground. When we got to the door of the first building Mary announced she'd had enough of traipsing through depressing old buildings. She sat down on a concrete pier to wait. We went inside.

  This building was full of machinery. Rows and rows of it, all covered with the grease-soaked lint. All of it old and fuzzy-wuzzy. It looked as if the people just stopped work one afternoon and never came back. Nobody had cleaned up. Cotton and wool waste still littered the floor, black with dirt and age. Some bobbins and spindles were still in place. Old time cards with inky fingerprints were scattered all over. We walked through the rows of frozen metal, looking at scores, hundreds of things meant and made to move: worm and drive gears, wheels, cranks, ratchets, rollers, belts, levers,

  swing arms, hinges, drive shafts… all still and grease-clogged. We saw the embossed names of manufacturers on the knitting and spinning machinery: E. HASTINGS amp; SONS, MILLENOCKET, MAINE;. D.R. WHITNEY, WORCHESTER, MASS. KOEB-LENTZ BROTHERS, TORRINGTON, CONN. All still and silent.

  This was it, then: the underside. Or what was left of it. This was the New England not presented in the college catalogues and travel brochures. The one hidden in towns like Lowell, Lawrence, Manchester, and Fall River. Places where there weren't colleges, lawns, and quaint inns, but factories. And in England too, in many cities with identical names that were described by George Orwell and Jack London. And places worked in by people like Nicola Sacco and Bartolomeo Vanzetti, a shoe trimmer and a rope spinner who worked in factories just like these in the towns of Stoughton and Plymouth.

  "Kinda spooky, eh Doc? Can't wait to get out of here and dive into a beer. How 'bout you?"

  "Let's cruise the next two floors and beat it. I'm getting the creeps in here."

  It was on the second floor, almost dead in the center of all the rows of machinery, that we first heard it.

  The dog reacted first, freezing and half-lifting his right front foot. His nose was lifted, and a low growl rose in his throat, the back of his neck turning dark with raised fur. We all stood still and listened. It was a distant pounding. It sounded deep and heavy, not the sound of a light hammer driving a nail. Popeye backed up two steps and raised his big head still more. The blank stare was fixed on the ceiling twenty feet ahead of us. Sam whispered to the dog and we crept forward until we were directly beneath the sound. It was a muted clanging that came at regular, slow intervals. After each clang came a softer sound, like heavy raindrops on a shingle roof.

  Sam whispered: "Somebody up there breakin' through the wall. Hammer and cold chisel, then plaster and masonry fallin' on the floor."

  "Yep. Let's sneak up there."

  "Let's not."

  "C'mon, fraidy-cat," I said, and holding the cane up, I began a slow, tiptoeing, silent, George M. Cohan stage shuffle down; the grimy factory aisle. All I needed was a hat. I'm a Yankee Doodle daoauoaan-deeee…

  Sam looked at me as if I were crazy.

  I'm a Yankee Doodle boyyyyy… The song was playing slowly in my head as I crept along the floor as quiet as a cat. Right above me came a big thump. Dropped the hammer. Why? Then footsteps, slow and steady, walking toward the outside of the building. Toward the windows

  … I quickstepped it to the windows and looked out. Down below, Mary was still sitting on the concrete pier, bored. She had one leg cocked up and her hands clasped around her knee, like Marlene Dietrich in The Blue Angel. She turned and waved, but I something made me uneasy. I realized she wasn't looking at me; she was looking ten feet above me. She waved again, smiling. There was no sound from above. I tilted open the big metal frame of the pivot window and waved down at her. She saw me and frowned. I held my forefinger to my mouth, but it was too late.

  "Charlie? Then who's that?" she yelled, pointing over my head. I repeated the shhhhhh sign and motioned for her to move away, to get lost. She jumped up off the concrete and began a brisk walk through the yard. More footsteps from above, quicker this time, then back again to the windows. Mary was now out of sight. More steps and clanking of metal. Clanking, not pounding. Putting the tools in a bag? What? Sam and I walked toward the stairwell door. Popeye needed no urging to climb. He strained ahead on the leash, the fur on the back of his neck still raised. I walked right beside Sam, holding the knobby-headed cane by the bottom end. Sam slid his jacket zipper down halfway. We reached the top of the stairs and stood on the landing. I looked through the door and saw a wall with another door. The old wooden door was almost shut; we couldn't see what was beyond it. This floor had been divided up into smaller rooms, either for offices or for small work areas. We walked slowly into the first room and listened. I thought for a second I did hear footsteps, but then it did not matter because the dog blew it. He barked and snarled and dove right at the door, slamming it shut. Fast running steps now, going away from us. Sam's hand made a quick motion on his chest and the zipper was down all the way. That big hunk of bright nickel winked at me. He held the dog tight but it took effort. He
opened the door.

  I could see the man just disappearing toward the far end of a narrow hallway, scarred with ruined plaster and lath, that ran down the center of the building, with small doorways opening off of it. He wore a tan trenchcoat and a brown hat. He never turned around, just whisked around the corner outside the far door and was gone. The big dog leaped ahead, pulling Sam off his feet. I heard the distant pounding on the stairs. I jumped through the door and after the man. When I was halfway down the narrow hall I seemed to hear footsteps below me, running back in the direction I'd come from. I turned and shouted to Sam, who was being dragged along the old plank floor like a dogsled, that he was doubling back on the second floor. As I made the top of the stairwell I saw Sam back on his feet trying to go down the other end. But Popeye didn't see it that way and in the heat of the chase was hard to convince. I reached the second floor in time to see the stranger begin a leaping descent down the stairs. Sam, being pulled by the dog, followed an instant later. When I began down I heard distant running, a shout or two, and an explosion. A big hollow boom. Sam's revolver. I thought he'd lost his head until I heard another explosion from farther away. So the stranger in the tan coat who liked to chop at walls also carried a piece.

  I was beginning to think that this excursion was indeed a dumb idea as I shot out the building. As I cleared the doorway an arm snaked out and grabbed me by… the collar, jerking me back hard against the brick wall. I found myself standing next to Sam, who'd released the dog to grab me. He held the big revolver near his chest, with the barrel pointed up. A slug thumped into a wall somewhere and a big noise came with it. I didn't know where the dog was. We hugged the wall. And then I heard a long scream.

  It was Mary.

  We both left the wall on the run to the gate and the old bridge. I heard the dog snarl beyond the sumac. We were running hard on the gravel and I think I was crying. We didn't hear any more screams. Then we saw why. Mary was lying on the old rickety footbridge, just above the still brown water.