Perry Scrimshaw's Rite of Passage (29 page)

The hug was ferocious, knocking
Perry’s hat to the floor and squeezing the breath from his
chest.

‘
By not
getting caught,’ Perry gasped.

‘
Will you come
with us?’ Santi asked.

Perry cleared his throat, shook
his head no.

‘
Will you go
back to England?’

Perry nodded, unable to
talk.

Santi opened the envelope and
took out about half the notes. ‘Take this.’

Alejandra took a step forward.
‘But Santi, we need everything there, we have mouths to feed.’

‘
If it wasn’t
for him, we wouldn’t be together at all. We should really be giving
him it all. We’ll get by.’

‘
Thank you,’
Perry croaked and stuffed the notes in the pocket of his linen
jacket.

Santi rested his hand on
Perry’s shoulder.

‘
Suerte
amigo.’

‘
Suerte,’
Perry replied, ‘good luck,’
he said in English.

Perry joined Pocha and Beto
outside. The rain had stopped, but the streetlamps reflected the
puddled lakes on the road. He watched Alejandra, Teresa and Santi
step inside the carriage. Santi tapped on the roof, ‘Vamos!’ and
waved out the window at them.

With a lump in his throat,
Perry waved dumbly back. The horse hooves splashed forth and the
coach wheels squelched, finding purchase in the mud, rolling it
forward, pulling Santi forward into some future that Perry hoped
would be quiet, untroubled and happy. Perry watched with Pocha and
Beto as the coach shrank into the grey evening. The moment he could
no longer see it, Beto bade Perry a stiff, ‘Good luck,’ and pulled
Pocha inside by the arm.

‘
Thanks for
the clothes,’ he yelled to the closed door, wishing he’d said so
before. He hardly blamed them for their abruptness. You needed a
damn good reason to be burdened with fugitives and being family
evidently brought little more than a change of clothes and a bit of
money. He half-wished he was on the coach with Santi and his
family.

Alone, he stuffed his hands in
his oversized trouser pockets. Somewhere up above someone was
practicing the violin, screeched notes sliced the air, plaintive
and raw. A tram bell dinged, perhaps a couple of blocks away, as if
notifying him it was time to go.

He checked up and down the road
for police. Nothing yet, but they’d be coming, he was sure of that.
He angled his hat down and hurried towards the docks.

3
4

With the storm
gone, Buenos Aires was left damp and fresh. Under a starless black
sky, the boats in the
Madero
docks swayed in the water. A line of lamps hung
along the edge of the dock, radiating soft halos of light along the
path.

The break in
rain had brought people out. An old man was brushing puddles out
with a broom and pushing the storm detritus into the dock water
below. A family walked a dog and bade a
“Buenas noches”
to a couple strolling
the other way. The dog barked at the couple until they’d safely
passed.

At the
harbourmaster’s building, the barking sent an arrow of fear
straight to Perry’s heart.
Bloodhounds.
He peered round to see
the family dog and clutched his chest in relief. His heart was
thumping like it was trying to beat its way out of his
chest.
Pull yourself together, come
on.
He scanned the various timetables for
passenger liners coming in and out of Buenos Aires. Tracing his
finger down grimy glass to the Hamburg South American Line, seeing
that the
SS Curityba
had departed three days before with a stop in
England.

‘
Damn!’ he
pounded his fist into his hand. He tried the Royal Mail Steam
Packet timetable and that didn’t come until Monday week. The next
boat would be the
SS Olinda
making berth at Santos, Rio, Southampton and
Hamburg and that didn’t leave until Wednesday. Could he wait that
long? He was so scared, like a hand might clap on his shoulder at
any moment and bring him in. He checked about him again, the family
with the dog had passed by, not noticing him in the
shadows.

He returned to
the lists. He had no choice; it would have to be the
Olinda
on Wednesday. He
looked for the rates of cabin passage to Southampton, his eyes
skipped straight over First Class to Second. A shared four-person
cabin cost sixty-five pesos for a single - far too much. But below
that there was Steerage, at a more affordable thirty-eight. He drew
the money from his pocket and feverishly counted out twenty-three
pesos given to him by Santi. It wasn’t going to be enough. He tried
to pick out the small print underneath. It said
Children between one and twelve are half
fare
. That was no good, he was almost
seventeen and there was no way he’d pass for one so young.
Infants – free
and then
one final line that nearly made him laugh out loud.
Special rates for Clergymen & their
families.
His disguise was probably in
ashes now at Beto’s tango bar.

Perhaps the extra couple of
days before the ship left were a good thing. He could lie low and
scrape together the rest somehow. The prospect of stowing away
would have to be the absolute last resort.

He put the
money back in his pocket and, hearing voices, looked up in panic.
Two figures stood at the mouth of
Venezuela
Street, the road that led
back downtown. The two people were hunched over a piece of paper.
Then he saw the outline of a dog, leashed, its nose twitching in
the evening air. He focussed closer on the men. A shiver crawled
over him. They were police.

Had they seen him? He couldn’t
be sure. If he went up the walkway it would be too suspicious. He
lifted his jacket a little higher over his neck and walked casually
towards them. As he neared, the two policemen were talking, arguing
about something on the paper - a map. He passed them barely a metre
away; the dog’s tail wagged as he passed. He kept at the same
casual pace, his blood piston-pumping round his body.

‘
Hey!’

Perry froze.

‘
Come here a
second will you?’

Perry spun round to face the
two policemen. ‘Of course,’ he put on the most gentile accent he
could muster and wandered to the men, nestling between them. He
swallowed hard, yanked his collar.

‘
What seems to
be the matter?’

The policeman to his left had a
moustache and a cap that seemed to hang down over his eyes. He
pointed north and then down to the piece of paper. It was indeed a
map.

‘
Is that Dock
Two, or Three?’

‘
Three,’ Perry
said definitively.

‘
I told you,’
said the other Policeman angrily.

‘
Fine you were
right, I don’t want to have to hear about it
all
shift!’

‘
They do all
look similar,’ Perry offered diplomatically. He wrested his
breathing under control, buoyed by their inane question. ‘May I ask
is there any trouble I need to be wary of officers?’

The one with the moustache
rolled up the map and tucked it under his arm. ‘There’s been an
escape at the National Penitentiary.’

‘
Gosh,’ Perry
said, ‘are they dangerous?’

‘
They?’
interjected the second policeman. ‘How do you know it’s
they
?’

Perry smiled, bile rose into
his mouth and he swallowed it back down. ‘Well, it’s the finest
penitentiary in South America! You mean to tell me someone managed
it alone? Impossible.’

The policemen both looked at
each other and he nearly dropped to his knees and offered himself
at their mercy - but they nodded their head in time. ‘Quite right,’
one said and Perry nearly burst out in laughter he was so
hysterical.

‘
Two escaped
as it happens. And dangerous? You never know. We’ll catch ‘em, you
can bet on that.’

Perry gathered himself. ‘I just
hope they are brought to justice quickly and efficiently.’

‘
Oh yes,’ said
the one with the moustache, ‘they’ll hang for this. We’ll get these
docks covered and the train station manned soon enough. Bastards
are clever, making a break for it on a Sunday.’

They’ll hang
for this
.

He knew the stakes, but to hear
it so casually…

‘
Keep an eye
out though young man, just to make sure.’

‘
I will,’
Perry gulped, wanting to leave but equally wanting to know how much
they knew. ‘May I ask what or whom am I to keep an eye out for
officers?’

‘
We don’t know
much yet, just that they’re dressed as Priests, both of them,
should be easy to spot.’

‘
Priests? I
say, whatever next? And do you have descriptions? Putting up
posters and the like?’

‘
Hard to say.
In the past we’ve got a sketch artist to do some work for
us.’

‘
Doubt we’ll
get one this time. Budgets are tight,’ said the other.

‘
Well then,’
Perry inclined his hat in farewell and gave the dog a little ruffle
on the scalp between its ears.

‘
If you notice
anything suspicious-‘

‘
-I’ll be sure
to let you know.’ He walked away, feeling their eyes on his back
with every step he took. Once he got to the mouth of
Venezuela
Street he
looked back. They weren’t looking his way. He nearly fell over with
relief and ducked down the next side street.

He got his
bearings; he’d worked not far from here and knew the streets quite
well. On
Bolivar
there were three policemen and he threw himself behind the
cover of the wall before they spotted him.

‘
Shit, shit,
shit,’ he had to get off the street. He knew a bar a couple of
blocks away. He doubled back on himself and walked around the
block. He found the narrow lane and saw light hitting the street
and laughter spilling out from a doorway. Thank God it was
open.

It wasn’t busy inside, a
smattering of older men on bar stools smoking and chatting.
Regulars, he guessed, with some arrangement to get their booze fix
on the day of rest. He was eyed with some curiosity as he took a
seat at the bar. He’d rather not spend any of his money but if
twenty-three pesos weren’t enough to buy a voyage, then twenty-two
pesos seventy-five centavos wouldn’t be either, plus he could
really use a drink right now. He ordered a glass of bock. The
bartender drew the tap and slopped the beer in front of Perry and
sliced the top of the head with practised precision. He wiped the
spilled drops from the bar surface with an apron-towel. Perry
clasped the glass, staring into the depths of its brown and gold
brooding swirls. He took a sip, sucking the foamy surface, warm,
bitter and enormously comforting. He leant on the bar, just another
guy.

The bartender rubbed a tankard
dry with a cloth, placed it on the shelf. Perry felt better now he
was off the street.

‘
Hey, you got
any rooms here?’

The barman
shook his head. ‘Sorry pal, not here, there’re some hotels that
aren’t too bad on
Corrientes
, or if you’re on a budget
there’s a street of lodging houses not six blocks from
here.’

He knew all that already.
‘Thanks anyway,’ Perry took a long draw on his beer. He felt
uncomfortable and couldn’t work out what his next move should be.
He didn’t have enough money for a voyage yet, the police were
crawling the docks making stowing away seem like a ridiculous
possibility.

Helplessly he looked about him,
as if the answer to his problems might miraculously lie in the bar.
His gaze rested on sharp blue eyes of one of the patrons sitting at
the other end of the bar. The eyes grew wide in recognition. He
knew the face too, it took a second or two to place, a second in
which Perry’s confusion broke into surprise and gave way at once to
a wave of horror that broke over him all at once. He rose from his
stool. The man did too. Perry was unsure what to do next, but the
decision was made for him. Inspector Niels Saldrup made a dash for
the door.

3
5

Perry caught him before the end
of the lane and slammed Saldrup against the wall, surprising
himself with his own strength. The Dane grunted and struggled while
Perry pinned his arms behind his back and pushed his face against
the wall.

‘
Don’t move a
muscle!’ Perry ordered through gritted teeth.

Saldrup’s legs were shaking.
‘Help!’ he spluttered.

‘
Quiet!’ Perry
twisted his arm further.

‘
Arggh.’

Perry checked up and down the
lane, nobody had left the bar to check on them.

‘
Listen. Just
be quiet. I’m going to let go of you now alright?’ Perry loosened
his grip. ‘Real easy now, you run or scream and I’ll have
you.’

Niels Saldrup slowly turned to
face him and massaged his wrists. He looked scared.

‘
You got out,’
Saldrup’s voice was small.

‘
Evidently.’
Perry poked Saldrup in the chest. ‘No thanks to you!’

‘
Ow! Get off!’
Saldrup pushed him away. ‘How did this happen? The trial…I
thought…’