Gangway! (12 page)

    "Ittzy, this is Gabe Beauchamps, and that's Francis Calhoun. We wondered if we could talk to you for a minute."

    Ittzy shook hands with the two fellows and pulled out the chair Vangie indicated.

    Vangie said, "You ran away from your mother again, huh?"

    "I'm thirty-four years old," Ittzy said. "I want to have a life of my own."

    The tough-looking one, Gabe, stared at him in awe. "You're thirty-four years old?"

    "Well, I know I look a little younger."

    "You look goddam nineteen."

    Vangie explained, "It's because he never worries."

    "But I got to thinking this morning," Ittzy said. "I mean, the Book says I get threescore and ten, and next month's my birthday. You know what that means?"

    "What does that mean?" Francis Calhoun asked.

    Ittzy wasn't sure about the look this Calhoun fellow was giving him. If he didn't know better he'd think it was jealousy. But that couldn't be. He said, "Well, it means I've used up half my time next month. You know? Thirty-five gone, thirty-five to go. I mean, it's time I got out on my own."

    "It sure is," Gabe Beauchamps said. "Vangie told me about your problem, Ittzy, and she thinks you're a fine fellow. It occurred to us we had something you might just consider a possibility right along those same lines, so we thought we'd let you in on it."

    This Gabe fellow certainly was talking fast. Ittzy said, "You are?" And looked at Vangie. "You, uh, uh, are?"

    "What you need," Gabe Beauchamps said, "is financial independence. What I mean to say is money of your own."

    Ittzy had never heard anybody talk so fast in his life. He looked at Vangie, "Uh, uh?"

    Gabe was leaning toward him, elbows on the table, gesticulating to emphasize his words. "If the farthest your finances will take you is the other side of the Bay, how can you ever get away from your mother's emporium? No, my friend, I have exactly the prescription you need right here. And what it is, what you need, is money. Big money."

    Ittzy frowned. He certainly did like Vangie. And he had nothing against her friends. But this was beginning to sound familiar. "I don't want to go prospecting," he said.

    "Huh?"

    Francis Calhoun looked alarmed. "Prospecting?"

    Ittzy said, "People always want me to go prospecting with them. I hate prospecting."

    Gabe was grinning from ear to ear. "My friend those are exactly my sentiments, isn't that a coincidence? I mean to say, I couldn't agree with you more, you're exactly one-hundred-percent entirely right. Even a rinky-dink town like this is better than slogging around in all the rain and mud out in the sticks there. Yes sir, you are absolutely right."

    "You mean you don't want to go looking for gold?"

    "Well now, I wouldn't go exactly that far. We are looking for gold, yes indeed."

    Ittzy was disappointed. He began to push his chair back. "I'm sorry. I'm just not interested in prospecting."

    Gabe touched his arm. "Even if you don't have to leave San Francisco to do it?"

    Ittzy frowned. "There isn't any gold in San Francisco," he said.

    Gabe grinned and winked, and leaned back to hook his thumbs in his vest pockets. "Well, yes, there is," he said. "As a matter of fact, there is."

    Ittzy looked at Vangie, but she was looking at him and that only made it more difficult to think. "Uh," he said, for no reason, and looked back at Gabe. "Where is it?" he asked.

    Gabe gestured toward the outside world, nodding in that direction. "Up at the top of the hill there," he said. "Up at the Mint."

    Blinking, Ittzy said, "Up at the Mint?"

    "You're right," Gabe told him.

    "I am?"

    Vangie said, "Ittzy, Gabe means to steal the gold from the Mint."

    "Oh, steal!" Ittzy beamed and nodded; now he understood. He knew what stealing was. It was merely a continuation of merchandising by other means. "Well now, that's much better."

    Vangie stared at him. "You mean you'd do it?"

    Gabe gave her a sharp glance. "Why shouldn't he? Ittzy's a grown man. He's thirty-four years old. He doesn't have a thing in the world to be afraid of, do you Ittzy?"

    "Nothing except my Mama."

    "Exactly. And with that gold you could be safe from your Mama for ever and ever."

    "Why I guess I really could, couldn't I?"

    "Why of course you could, my friend. Of course you could." Gabe leaned forward very close to him. "You with us?"

    Ittzy looked around at the three friendly faces. So much better than the back room of the shop and the staring eyes at the peephole.

    "I'm with you," he said.

    

    

    Gabe felt proud of himself. It was the first con spiel he'd essayed since he'd left New York, and he'd been afraid he might be getting a little rusty. But it had worked with Ittzy and he felt a whole lot more confident now.

    "The next thing we need," he said, "is a boat."

    Francis said, "A boat? What kind of boat?"

    "A big one. Maybe a ship."

    Vangie gawked at him. "You're going on a ship?"

    "For a million dollars I'm willing to throw up a little."

    "I swear I never thought I'd see the day."

    "Well, it's the only way. I've thought and thought, but there's no other answer. Look, we have to get the stuff out of San Francisco. That means either a boat or a wagon. There's only one wagon road-down the Peninsula-and they could telegraph ahead and cut us off."

    Vangie said, "Couldn't you cut the telegraph wire?"

    Gabe frowned at her. "But what if there was an emergency and somebody had to telegraph for a doctor or something? I mean, you can't just go around cutting Western Union wires all over the place. Somebody could get hurt."

    Francis said, "Besides, with a wagonload of gold you wouldn't be able to go terribly fast, dear. They'd overtake us in just no time on horseback."

    Gabe said, "It's gotta be a ship," and waited.

    Francis said, "I'm sorry, old cock, I'm afraid I don't know anyone with a ship."

    "I know somebody," said Ittzy.

    They all looked at him. Gabe said, "Who?"

    "Flagway," Ittzy said. "His name's Captain Flagway. He has a ship."

    "What does he do with it?"

    "Nothing. His crew jumped ship and ran away to the gold fields."

    Vangie said, "He could have hired Roscoe's crimpers to get him a new crew."

    "He won't do that. He says it's wrong, I don't know why."

    Gabe said, "Does he need money, by any chance?"

    "He sure does," Ittzy said.

    Gabe stood up. "Well, the only thing we'll get if we wait around here is whiskers. Let's go see this guy."

    Along the waterfront Gabe kept his eyes averted from the Bay side of the street. In New York you could live thirty years without once seeing a ship. You could completely ignore the fact that Manhattan was even an island. But in San Francisco you could hardly look across the street without being confronted by roiling water and heaving ships.

    Ittzy led them to a bedraggled sailing ship with several masts. Gabe wouldn't know a clipper from a dinghy, but this one looked plenty big enough, whatever make and model it was.

    Whether it would go more than five miles without sinking was another question. It seemed ready to disintegrate at a moment's notice. Most of the paint was worn off and he wood beneath was splintery and rotten. The big mast in the middle of the ship was slightly off kilter and looked about to fall over. The entire vessel appeared to be in an advanced state of dilapidated decay.

    It was tied up at an equally rotten pier, half a mile below the main waterfront. The dock area around here consisted mainly of abandoned shacks and windowless warehouses.

    Gabe was beginning to feel queasy before they even stepped onto the dock, but he took a deep breath and persevered.

    The ship's name was painted across the stern in faded red letters.
San Andreas
. Above that a flag hung from a staff canted vertiginously over the stern. Gabe didn't recognize the colors. "What country's that?"

    Ittzy said, "Paraguay."

    "Paraguay?"

    "It's a country in South America," Vangie said.

    Francis was frowning. "Something's decidedly fishy about that."

    "You can say that again," Gabe said, wrinkling his nostrils.

    "No, I don't mean that, old cock. The thing is, you see, Paraguay's a landlocked country. No seacoast. No ports."

    It sounded like Heaven to Gabe.

    Ittzy said, "Well they do have a flag. That's it right there."

    "But how can they have ships if they haven't got any harbors?" Vangie asked.

    Nobody seemed to have an answer for that. They headed for the gangplank that came down from the side of the boat to the dock. Gabe stopped at the foot of the plank. "I think I'll wait here. You go aboard and bring him out, and we'll take him somewhere for a drink."

    Vangie said, sympathetically, "Is it getting to you?"

    "I'll be all right," Gabe said. "As long as I don't have to talk about it."

    "We'll be right back," she said.

    "That's fine," he said, and turned purposefully away as Vangie, Francis and Ittzy went up the undulating gangplank and on board the ship.

    Gabe waited with his back to the sea, fixing his eyes on the hills inland. He could still hear the sickening slap and gulp of the water against the pilings and the ship, but he bore up stoically until the others finally returned.

    "Nobody's on board," Vangie said.

    Ittzy said, "He must be around somewhere. He never goes far."

    "Well, let's find him, then," Gabe said.

    They walked off the pier and turned up the street toward town. Things were very quiet and deserted down in this neighborhood.

    As they passed an alley, Gabe glanced into it and saw an unhappy gentleman in semi-nautical attire, engaged in a dispute with two burly guys. Another look and Gabe realized that they were Roscoe and his partner, the crimpers. They were approaching the nautical gentleman from opposite sides with rope manacles.

    "Help!" the gentleman cried. "Oh, do help!"

    Ittzy shouted, "That's Captain Flagway!"

    "Ho, ho," Gabe said.

    He headed into the alley, reaching for his knuckle-duster with one hand and the loaded whisky-flask with the other. As he approached Roscoe's identity was confirmed, if it needed confirming, by the gamy odor that infused the alleyway.

    Roscoe and the other guy squared off to meet his approach when from behind him he heard Francis say, loud and clear, "Roscoe, you put that man down this minute!"

    It made Roscoe look past Gabe. Suddenly he became very embarrassed. He released Captain Flagway at once, looked at his partner, and turned away with a disgusted look, fading back into the narrow passages between the warehouses. His baffled partner hesitated a second, then followed.

    Gabe looked over his shoulder in bewilderment at Francis, who was looking after the attempted crimpers with a very stern expression on his face, like a fussy housewife finding muddy footprints in the parlor.

    Gabe shook his head and turned back to Captain Flagway, who had staggered to the nearest wall and was leaning against it, mopping his brow. "Oh, thank you, dear friends," he said.

    "Any time," said Gabe.

    "I kept telling them," Captain Flagway said, "that I was captain, not crew, but they wouldn't listen."

    Ittzy, coming forward, said, "Are you all right, Captain Flagway?"

    The captain looked up in surprise. "Ittzy? Is that you?"

    "We've been looking for you," Ittzy said. "These are some friends of mine. Uh, Vangie, uh, Kemp. And Gabe Beauchamps. And Francis Calhoun."

    "I am delighted to meet you all," said the captain. "I assure you I'm delighted."

    Francis said priggishly, "That Roscoe is an absolute menace. He's going to get himself in a great deal of trouble someday."

    Gabe said to the captain, "I hear you've been stuck in this port for a while."

    The captain nodded, his expression becoming mournful. "Three years," he said. "Three years and two months, to be exact."

    "It must be tough on you," Gabe said.

    "Mine," the captain said, "is a long sad story."

    Gabe took him by the arm. "We'll buy you a drink," he said, "and you can tell it."

    

    

    Captain Flagway reached for his drink. "My story began in Baltimore," he said, "where I was a clerk in my Daddy's apothecary shop. One night on Eager Street I was approached by two men not unlike the two you kind people just rescued me from. Their intent was, I daresay, the same-to impress me into the crew of an understaffed steamer. I fear that night in Baltimore there were no Good Samaritans such as yourselves to come to my aid in my moment of distress. And so my saga of despair began. I was in fact impressed and found myself aboard the Magna Carta, a British vessel transporting cotton to Liverpool."

    He drank. "I had hoped to jump ship on its return to Baltimore-I knew Daddy would be worried. Unfortunately, however, the Magna Carta's next consignment was a cargo of cotton loincloths billed to Lagos, which is of course in Africa.

    "On the way I had an altercation with bos'un and found it discretionary to leave the ship in Lagos. I had several adventuresome tribulations before signing on a passing French freighter called Egalite, anticipating returning to Europe and there, surely, finding another ship bound for the States."