Raiders

by William B. McCloskey

  Hank tensed, but said mildly, “That’s their language, Gus. How else would they write it?”

  “See what I mean, Hank? You can’t help being on their side, son. Now Jody or me, we’d have found somebody in two days to translate them papers and find what they said. Two years later our bureaucrats, they’re still figuring it out.”

  “Planning another Pearl Harbor, were they?” said an easy third voice. It showed that others at anchor were listening.

  “Just as sneaky, Ralph! I heard it was instructions clear as a Boy Scout handbook, a do-it-yourself on how to trick the observers and inspectors, so to catch and hide twice what they reported.”

  “Sorry to hear that,” said Ralph. “I’ve done pretty good with Japs. They bargain slick but keep their word.”

  “Ah so ah so,” mocked another voice. “Fu Manchu velly smart, watch out.

  Jody looked at Hank’s face in turmoil, and took the microphone from his hand. “Gus, you rumormonger! I’ll bet if the man in the moon whispered in your ear that foreigners had six toes you’d call it around.”

  “Now Jody, it’s just what I heard.”

  Three days later the Shelikof roe pollack fishery resumed in such glowing clear weather that ice became a nightmare forgotten. A tender returned Jody to town at last. She and Hank had talked around and around his declaration to the Coast Guard. At the pace that bureaucrats acted—Gus was right on that—any consequence would probably be long down the road. Having taken action, Hank’s anger subsided to a calm burn. What to do about Kodama? What to tell Seth? How to face old Tsurifune and son after their treachery? It had been difficult to reach anyone by radio since the closed-in mountains blocked clear reception (although boat talk somewhere off Hawaii came in clear). Seth had not answered Hank’s static-laced calls to the ship. Swede was away in Seattle, and John Gains was in Japan. Hank might have tried to reach others for news, but he wanted to keep his concerns private.

  Back in town, when the tender Jody rode passed the cannery piers, Jody saw the Puale Bay still moored at Pacific Future. After thanking her host when they moored two canneries down the line, she walked to it and climbed aboard. The ship was deserted except for a uniformed marshal who sat in the galley with a civilian poring over papers. “You’ll have to get off, ma’am. Can’t talk, I’m sorry,” he said.

  Tensely Jody hurried across the pier, through the processing lines, and upstairs to the desks. She passed John Gains coming from his private office. He carried a heavy taped box in his arms. Sweat plastered his loose black hair. “Thought you were in Japan,” she said.

  “Back last night.” He appeared uneasy and looked away. “Hold that gate for me? Thanks.” She started to ask questions but he was gone.

  Swede’s office was adjacent to Gains’s, each protected from casual visitors by a roomful of desks occupied by a manager and several clerks. A suitcase blocked half of Swede’s doorway as if it had just been dropped. Swede stood by his desk leafing intently through a handful of papers. He looked up and motioned her in. “Just got here. What the hell’s happened?”

  The office manager trailed in, a nervous clerk type who declared, thank God the people in charge had finally come back. “Now you can deal with those government men who came yesterday and took over the Puale Bay out there!” He said that for two days he’d been fielding instructions from Japan, some for actions beyond his authority. Shoji Tsurifune had called personally to order the Puale Bay kept in port until Kodama’s replacement arrived, and had authorized Kodama’s immediate return to Japan.

  “ ‘Whether the fellow wants to come or not!’ is how he put it about Kodama,” said the manager. “But that poor guy didn’t object. He’s barely eaten or spoken, just sits back here in the storage room with his bags packed. No plane seat was available until this afternoon. Then this morning when I opened up, Mr. Gains’s office was locked and somebody bumping around inside. I called security, but it was Mr. Gains himself. He was supposed to be in Hokkaido for another week.”

  In addition, the manager continued, a Seattle bank had been calling to speak to Hank. Also today two registered letters with signatures required had arrived for Henry and Judith Crawford.

  “Where’s Seth O’Malley?” asked Jody.

  The manager didn’t know. “Last I saw him yesterday he was cussing so loud around the ladies in the office I told him take it outside, and he left, but I didn’t mean for him to disappear. That was after the marshals went down to the ship, though they wouldn’t tell me anything.”

  Jody accepted the letters and opened them while Swede eased out the office manager and closed the door. Both letters were from the Seattle bank with which Hank had contracted to the Japanese. One gave notice of foreclosure on their house, the other of repossessing the Jody Dawn.

  For the first time since she had left on the tender to tell Hank of Seth’s accusation, Jody was frightened. She told Swede all that had happened.

  He was silent for a while, then muttered, “This is the other side of the Tsurifunes.” He paced the office, then sat at his desk. “We might have patched this up somehow if Hank had held his fire. I’d been trying to warn him.”

  “We decided together,” said Jody firmly. “We decided to stay honest.” Swede opened the drawer that was known to contain a bottle, considered, then closed it again. “You two never learned to maneuver. When you put the Federals onto something, they’ll either ignore you or tear you apart. Unfortunately, the Commerce Department’s suddenly gunning for proof of foreign cheats. Fishermen are pushing their congressmen to end the foreign quotas and Commerce needs ammunition. State Department won’t get tough on quota negotiations without ammunition. Hank’s set off firecrackers at the least, maybe a bomb.”

  Swede had only just arrived from the Seattle-Anchorage flight. When he heard that John Gains was back, he went out to find him. One of the clerks said that Mr. Gains had left with three or four big boxes he’d packed and carried out by himself, and his station wagon was gone.

  Jody decided to see Kodama even though his betrayal had injured them. She found him in a back storage room, seated in the center on a straight-backed chair surrounded by his luggage. His tightly clasped hands rested on legs parallel in front of him. His eyes in a face turned lean looked sternly ahead at nothing. “Why did you do it?” she demanded.

  “Having duty, madam.”

  “And what does it get you back in Japan? A medal?”

  “No, Madam.”

  “Oh, Kodama. Hank trusted you!”

  His mouth worked but he said nothing.

  She thought of his shy pleasure at each new thing American however small, and his fond gentleness toward Pete. “Have you eaten?” she asked less sharply.

  “Not necessary.”

  “Come on. We’ll go get a hamburger.”

  He shook his head and continued to stare.

  “What can I bring you, then?”

  Kodama shook his head again.

  She strode around to face him, so that his eyes had no choice but to focus on her. “Tell me straight. Did somebody force you to change the catch logs, or was it your own idea?”

  His expression of raw anguish startled her, but all he repeated was, “Having duty, madam.”

  Jody left him, shaken herself.

  She phoned Madge. Her friend said, “Oh, your kids are fine. They’ve gone with mine to Jebby Stevens’s birthday party so they wouldn’t welcome your coming for them yet. Make it for dinner, just meatloaf, and tell us all about the storm.” Jody agreed with lively cheer, even though she wanted with sudden desperation to hold her children one by one.

  When she returned to the open area of desks, Swede was speaking to three clerks in a low voice. The women were tense. The adjacent door to John Gains’s office stood open, guarded now by a uniformed policeman. Inside, the office manager nervously watched two men open file cabinets.

  “What kind of boxes?” she heard Swede say.

  “Heavy, I think,” said the woman addressed. “They weig
hted his arms down straight, that’s all I saw. And no, he didn’t say where he was going. Is something going to happen to us?”

  Swede reassured her. Back with Jody he muttered, “It’s happening fast. Court order just came from Anchorage. Gives them access to all catch records of Tsurifune Suisan. Gains keeps a locked file that I never see. It’s not locked now, and there’s nothing in it but old law books. Did you see Gains head off?”

  “Yes, but no idea where. He doesn’t consult you then?”

  “I run the plant. Gains plays their games in Japan. Some days we don’t even pass each other.”

  Jody went out and brought back for Kodama two hamburgers, a chocolate milk shake, and popcorn, all things she remembered he liked. Back in the room she arranged them on a table, and told him to come eat.

  “No, madam.” He continued to stare ahead, but tears welled in his eyes.

  Jody took his head in her hands and hugged him, then left him alone.

  Back in the offices a grim, overweight man Jody had never met sat at Swede’s desk. He was conducting two phone conversations alternately, and appeared to be relaying messages from one party to another while scribbling on a notepad. It was Justin Rider, Swede told her, counsel for Tsurifune Suisan, just arrived from Seattle. “You might do well to stay out of his way, Jody,” Swede suggested.

  “Why?”

  “From his clients’ viewpoint, Hank started all this fracas around us.”

  “I’ll settle that!” She waited, in his sight. The man sweated enough to keep wiping his face, but he exuded an unflustered energy that was commanding. When he put down the phones she stepped up to speak.

  He rose with his notes and brushed past her with, “Who are you? Excuse me.” Moments later she heard his voice raised in John Gains’s office, where agents were still looking through files.

  When Rider returned to Swede’s office Jody introduced herself. He studied her, then said, “Yes. I’ll be dealing with you and your husband later. I suggest you read your contract. Now please excuse me.” Without ceremony he motioned her out the door and closed it.

  She accompanied Swede when he drove Kodama to the airport. Kodama walked straight and insisted on carrying all his own baggage. The food she had brought remained untouched. Jody pitied him. “Your wife and children will be glad to see you, I’ll bet,” she said to make conversation.

  “Yes, madam,” he replied from the backseat.

  “Now, you have a son, how old? Bet you’re proud of him.”

  After a long pause, “Son will now see father in disgrace.”

  At the airport Kodama stood holding his bags while Swede checked him in. His stance was so rigid that he might have been carved of wood. Jody could find nothing further to say, but she waited beside him in case it gave him comfort. She herself had begun to tremble. What had been unleashed? When the time came for parting she hugged him again, and murmured: “Take care. I think it wasn’t your fault.” Kodama’s body remained stiff but he bowed his head.

  As she and Swede left the terminal, she noticed John Gains coming briskly from the shipping entrance. He saw her and hurried back through the door.

  Jody’s next day passed in a nightmare of legal issues. Henry Sollers, the lawyer Swede had arranged for her to see who had examined and faulted the new Tsurifune contract, said he’d now need to study the original contract. When Hank told her where to find his copy and Sollers had studied it, he said, “Your husband didn’t do much to protect his back. Whoever wrote this one tied you coming and going.”

  Another lawyer found her who represented Jason Shub, “crewman lately aboard the trawler Jody Dawn in Shelikof Strait.” His client had filed a claim for medical bills, plus $250,000 in damages for willful negligence that led to his life-threatening injury. Jody told him brusquely that the boat was insured by the Tsurifune company, while she wondered to herself what kind of help they could now expect.

  “But the negligence part,” said the lawyer (and he seemed to enjoy saying it), “is against Henry Crawford personally. My client suffered abuse from Mr. Crawford, and this abuse so upset Mr. Shub that he was unable to concentrate on his duties, which led directly to his injury. And the abuse continued into callous neglect while my client lay helpless in agony.”

  “That’s bullshit!” Jody exploded. “The mealy little bastard hid in his bunk during a crisis. We needed to turn to to save our lives, and he was hauled out to do his share. Then we nursed the whining piece of shit the best we could.”

  The lawyer smiled. “We see where the atmosphere of abuse comes from.” He handed her papers.

  Jody’s indignation served no better with Justin Rider. “I don’t know what you hoped to gain,” he told her, “by starting a witch hunt against all Japanese. But it’s clear that Director Tsurifune misplaced trust in your husband. I might add that your husband deeply overstepped his bounds with the director in Anchorage two months ago. I was shocked, and the director’s son was offended. It was only through the director’s generous nature that we didn’t close the book on your husband that night.”

  Jody stared at him with the coldness that she felt. “You’d already been cheating him, and it didn’t stop you.”

  “Watch your accusations, young woman. Your husband has acted on hearsay, not proof, and there’s such a thing as slander. After we’ve proven our innocence, be grateful if you get out of this with only a few losses and a reputation for incompetence in the fishery. Your husband has been what we term a poor producer.”

  And what proof do we have? Jody wondered. But she narrowed her eyes and stormed ahead. “Hank a poor producer? Only because you doctored his catch logs! Ask anybody what kind of fisherman Hank is. Ask even John Gains right here in the office. He once crewed for Hank. Go ask him now!”

  “I’d need to go all the way to Japan to do that.”

  “No. I just saw him here yesterday, with a box.”

  “You’ll find that he flew out last night.”

  And with boxes, Jody realized. Probably with the documents that might have proved cheating. And with poor Kodama on the same flight, the only true witness to what had been done.

  “I’m sorry to say it, Mrs. Crawford, but you need to look for a new residence. Mr. Tsurifune doesn’t want to be unfair, so he’s instructed me to give you an entire week to move from the property our bank holds. We’re now examining our roster to find captains for both our fishing vessels Puale Bay and Jody Dawn. Your husband can expect to be relieved out there in a day or two. I’m sorry for you, but these are things that your husband should have considered before trying to betray someone as important and respected as Director Kiyoshi Tsurifune.”

  Radio reception was clear when she reached Hank. All that she wanted to say was private, but she had no choice except to tell it on open band. “Jesus,” was all he could mutter, and then, humbly, “I’m sorry for what I’ve done to you.”

  By now Jody had pulled herself together. “Unfortunately Adele’s sublet her house for the winter so we can’t go there to catch our breath. But I’ve found one of the Aleutian Homes houses on the hill that’ll take just a six-month lease.”

  “Those run-down dumps that should have been torn down ten years ago?”

  “Don’t exaggerate. This one has enough rooms if Henny and Pete double up. And the price for Kodiak could be worse.”

  “But my boat. My boat.”

  She found Seth at last, drinking with Mo midday at Tony’s with only two or three habitues at the bar and the jukebox blaring. He scowled at her as if preparing to leap from his stool to begin a fight. Mo rose respectfully.

  “What can you prove about this?” she demanded.

  “What I counted is what.”

  “Papers? Did you keep any papers?”

  “Mo’s and my fish-counts we kept. And yeah, I slid one of Kodo’s crooked counts in my pocket before Kodo took all the rest up to the office. Did you know those damn marshals came down and told us to pack up in ten minutes? And it was papers they were looking for.
If they’d known what I had, they’d have waved their badges and taken it.”

  “Wait till Boss hears,” rumbled Mo. “No time even to grab our oilskins from deck. Nobody better steal them.”

  Seth kept a two-room apartment in town, where he and Mo now stayed. The rest of the crew were waiting idle in the cannery bunkhouse. “Right beside the Viet and Mex fish-plant workers,” said Seth. “Take it or leave it, all their stuff.”

  Mo threw out his large hands. “What do we do now, Jody? It’s no good stuck ashore like this with no boat. Look now, all afternoon ahead and then there’s night, and I’ve already had all to drink I want.”

  Jody had no answer except to make them come with her for something to eat. After a glum meal of burgers and fries they were drawn to the pier where the Puale Bay lay tied and embargoed. They stared for a while. “Heck with this!” Mo declared, and climbed down to collect their oilskins from pegs in the covered gear alley.

  Mo was coming back up when the wheelhouse door flew open and a voice demanded, “Hey, where you going with those?” Mo turned belligerently, and the voice continued, “That Mo? What the hell, man!” It was Tolly Smith, gold earring and all. He followed to the top of the pier.

  It turned out that the Tsurifune people had instructed Tolly to bring in the smaller boat he fished for them, and had just told him that he was to captain the Puale Bay. “Wow, this setup!” Tolly exclaimed, waving an arm. “Leaves that tub they put me up in back to nowhere. What happened, Jody? Hank get tired of doing black cod? Great opportunity for me. Jennie really got excited when she heard. Ownership and all.”

  Jody told him what had happened.

  “Oh shit,” said Tolly. “They’ve already had me sign papers. Nobody told me any of this.”

  Jody exclaimed in anger. She strode across the pier and up the stairs to the company office and unlatched the gate that led into the offices as she’d always done routinely to call on Swede. The clerk who controlled the gate hurried over, embarrassed. “Jody, I’m real sorry. Mr. Rider says you’re not allowed in.”