The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (16 page)

"
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 & 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.

She didn't move, even when I knelt down and shook
her.