The Penny Ferry da-2 Read online

  For I was a hog on a slaughterhouse floor.

  But try as I might, I could find no evidence of the slit throat. And I was glad. The cause of all the bloodletting, I finally remembered, was the gash on my forehead. What reminded me of this was the throbbing in that location. My hand felt a puffy swelling and a huge sticky crust forming on it. Head cuts bleed like Niagara Falls anyway because the human head is laced with, blood vessels. When you're pumped up, as in a football game, a boxing match, or a less orthodox fight, your blood pressure soars and makes even a scratch on the head bleed like there's no tomorrow. I had a deep gash up above my eye- perhaps even a skull fracture too, and I had indeed bled like a stuck pig. I sat up on the tile floor. It felt cold beneath me. I was cold. I was freezing. The place was dark now. I saw the dark, chocolate-colored stains everywhere, especially on my clothes.

  I staggered to my feet and turned on the light. I looked at myself and wished I hadn't. I washed the dried blood from my face and neck but left the wound to clot over. All the time I stood at the sink my stomach churned and my knees trembled. Then I felt sick and scared. I was scared at what had happened- at how close I had come to dying. I was afraid the police would find me in the house and throw me in the slammer. I tried to check my watch but it wasn't there. They had taken it, perhaps to make the thing look like robbery. Then I realized that my belt buckle was unfastened and my fly was unzipped. Why? Had they molested me? Were these guys fags as well as crooks? But then I noticed my shoes and socks were off and my pockets turned inside out. No. They had searched me, and thoroughly too, to see if I had recovered the item.

  I crept dizzily along the hallway, leaning on the wall and breathing hard as I went. The couch seemed a mile away. I sat down on it and almost threw up.

  I'm as hard as nails, I am.

  I sat there for some time, moving my head back and forth, up and down; and rubbing the back of my neck. I patted my feet against the floor to stop the pins and needles. Then I staggered back to the john and took three long drinks of cold water. It almost made up for the blood l'd lost. They had taken not only my watch but my car keys and wallet. The phone in the apartment had been disconnected. The only way out was to trek over to the Lucky Seven and call Mary.

  But before I could get started I heard steps on the porch below.

  Adams, this just isn't your day.

  I heard the door at the foot of the stairs open. Then once again came the scraping tread on the stairway. We just had this tape, I told myself. Why are we playing it again? Well, I could barely stand; I was certainly in no condition to fight. As the steps grew louder I panicked. How did I know it wasn't the two men returning to finish me off? Perhaps their boss had told them to go back and do the job right

  …

  I searched around the dim living room with my eyes; my body was too slow and sore. I unplugged a lamp with a turned wooden base, wrapped the cord around it, removed the shade, and held it like a billy club. With this I snuggled against the wall near the door so I'd be out of sight when it opened. It did, and in the near-darkness I saw a stocky, menacing profile stalk into the hall. His deep, noisy breathing was almost a growl and made him more ominous. He was wearing a narrow-brim tweed hat and a droopy coat. Lord only knew what was in that coat- maybe an antiaircraft gun. I was taking no more chances; I had gotten the drop on this hood and he was going to pay. After dimming his lights I was going to get his gun and go outside, putting a hole into anybody who blocked my way.

  The shadow half-turned and came right into range, and I swung the club down on the hat… hard. The man fell without a sound. lt was only after he rolled over and his hat slid off that I had the sickening feeling I knew him. Getting to my knees and peering down into the face confirmed it. I

  "Oh sweet Jesus," I moaned. "I'm awful sorry, Brian."

  ***

  I had our chief of police propped up on a low pillow with his feet raised. Suspecting at the last instant that I might be doing a damn fool thing- which I do often enough to realize I'm prone to it- I had eased off on the blow in the last millisecond before its delivery. Also, the thick tweed hat helped cushion the blow a little. Still, knowing Brian Hannon well, I predicted he would not regain consciousness in a very sociable mood. It so happened that this was the one thing I was right about that afternoon. When he finally managed to open his eyes, stare at me, and speak, his words were not encouraging.

  "Listen, butt-wipe," he growled, "do you have any idea of the kind of trouble you're in?"

  "Don't worry; I can explain everything," I replied, placing a soaking cold towel on his head. He ripped it off and threw it at my face. Brian was going to be okay. He struggled to a sitting position and sat against the wall, glaring at me. Then he called me more bad names. I finally helped him to his feet, and he seemed to see my injury for the first time.

  "You look like shit warmed over, Doc. Know that?"

  "Yes I know that. And I obviously didn't mean to clip you; I thought you were the bad guys come back to finish me."

  "I'm not the bad guys, Doc. Know who I am? I am the law. You have assaulted a law officer. You're going-"

  "All right, Brian, all right. Pipe down. You've been watching those Broderick Crawford reruns again. Let's get out of here."

  He took a pair of handcuffs from his hip pocket and told me to put them on; I told him to shove it and walked him down the stairs. He grumbled and cussed all the way down, and together we limped over to his cruiser. I said I'd drive, and put him in the front seat beside me.

  "Know how I happened to come up here?"

  "No."

  "Mary called me. Didn't know where you were. Know how much trouble you're in with her?"

  "I can guess."

  "Well, we got your assistant to spill the beans on where you'd a gone. You're just lucky I'm not going to fill out a report."

  "You're not?"

  "No. Not my jurisdiction here, dummy. Although as an off duty policeman I'd be well within line if I did."

  "It surprises me that you're not."

  "Yeah, well I figure that after Mary gets through with you, you'll wish you were in Walpole instead."

  I thought of what awaited me back home. It made my forehead ache, so I must have been wincing to myself.

  "Can I spend the night in the Concord jail?"

  "No. You may not."

  We drove on into Concord, and I noticed that Brian seemed to doze off and on. I didn't like this, or his slurred speech. I pulled into the emergency parking lot at Emerson Hospital, where we dragged ourselves out of the car, across the lot, and into the waiting room. We were a couple of tough guys, all right. We were right out of a Charles Bronson or Clint Eastwood flick.

  "You poor, poor old men," purred the young nurse who examined us.

  "We're not old," snarled Brian.

  "Aaaannything you say, sweetie," she said, patting him on his stubbly cheek. Then she went to get us booked for the CAT scan. The very fact that they thought we should have the scans disturbed me. When the attending physician said he thought everything appeared normal I felt better, but Brian was diagnosed as having a mid-sized concussion. Needless to say, I didn't feel good about this, and neither did he. They laid him down in a bed with his head between sandbags, and he was to remain in situ for at least twenty-four hours.

  "I'm going to get you for this, Doc. Count on it. Sooner or later you're gonna pay. And I'm in this case now too. I've got my damaged skull invested in it. I'm going to be hanging around like a wind chime."

  A dark hand shot in front of me and swept gently over Brian's forehead. He smiled at its owner..

  "Hi Mary. See what your husband did?"

  She bent down and kissed him and murmured kind words. He reached up and squeezed her arm. It was a touching scene.

  "That's nice of you, honey," I said. "I'm sure that-"

  "You be quiet!" she snapped without turning around. "The car's outside waiting. We're going home and you're going to stay there. You're grounded."

  "Yo
u can't do that to me."

  "Hell I can't." She turned around and looked at me for the first time. "So you'd better get- Charlie! Your head!"

  She stared at me for a few seconds and then started crying and swearing at me. I was glad she was letting off the steam, anyway. But closer examination of my head convinced her that I needed stitches. It was good to be with her; it almost made me forget the pain.

  They had to drain the swelling first, since enough time had elapsed for the lump to grow and spread the cut wide apart. They were able to use butterfly bandages instead of sutures. Scarring would then be absent or minimal, and my forehead would not look like something Dr. Frankenstein put together.

  After it was over they had me wait in the recovery room. It was a sit-up recovery room and had a TV. After all I'd been through I sat rather mesmerized, watching a special report on the upcoming gubernatorial race. Apparently the reporters expected a close race, with Joseph Critchfield III having announced his I candidacy a week before.

  Mary sat with me, her gaze leaving the television now and then to glare in my direction. At quarter to ten we were finally ready to leave. We went in and said goodnight to Brian. He was not in a particularly good mood. Neither was Mary, considering other minor matters like my stolen wallet and car keys. I sat in front on the way home in Mary's Audi. We got settled on the couch and she wanted to hear all about what happened in the little gray house up in Lowell, and I told her. She listened intently, and I felt confident she'd approve of the way I attacked old Four-Eyes, since he had whopped her with his loaded coat as well. But she just sat there holding the bridge of her nose and squinting. She was repeating a word over and over, mumbling it. I listened close and heard it: "dumb… dumb.. . dumb."

  But little by little she began to calm as we sat and visited. Some music, some beer (I was still terribly thirsty), and some rock lobster tails and we were as good as new. Except that during dinner I realized that my left rib cage had been aching. I pulled up my shirt to reveal a mass of dark bruises there. The sumbitches had kicked me when I was down. I swore inwardly to get even with them. But I didn't tell Mary. We had hot raspberry tarts and vanilla ice cream for dessert, and Irish coffee. I had talked myself into believing I really wasn't beat up and weak. But halfway through the laced coffee I felt the room shift a bit, as though we were dining in a stateroom on the Cunard Line. I began to nod, and Mary helped me into the bedroom and into the sack.

  ***

  When I woke up I realized how seriously I'd been hurt. My left side had stiffened up badly, and I had a permanent headache from the blow to the head and a forehead that itched and stung from the dressing. I sat up in bed and drained the ice water waiting for me on the bed table. Under the big frosty tumbler was a note: Dear Charlie:

  I meant what I said: you're grounded. I will be out till four. I had Susan cancel all your appointments. Stay in bed. If you get up, don't leave the house. Joe's coming for dinner.

  M.

  Well of all the nerve, I thought as I drew on my clothes. I'd show her who ran things; I was going to hop in the car and go in to Louis's and buy a sport coat, then go over to the Rod and Gun Club for some silhouette shooting. Grounded my ass. But as I was eating breakfast it occurred to me that I had no car; it I was sitting up in Lowell on a side street. I had no car keys, and Mary had taken the other car. I looked at the key rack and noticed she had also taken my motorcycle keys. That made me angry.

  But I had a spare set hidden away in the garage. I put on my jacket, grabbed my helmet and the extra keys, straddled the big BMW, and started it. Those big transverse cylinders thumped and purred with about as much fuss as a Singer. I would show her who was grounded. Then I tried to put on my helmet and almost fell off the bike from the pain. There was no way that that snug Simpson full-face brain bucket was going to fit around my swollen and bandaged head. And also, I considered as I hefted the big machine back onto its stand, riding a bike when you're not 1oo percent fit is just dumb. I switched it off, dismounted, and went back inside.

  Well, she was right. Two hours were spent calling emergency credit-card numbers to report my lost cards. I wanted to run but knew it was unwise. So I took my ten-speed out and rode over to the hospital to see Brian, who was due to be released that evening. His mood had not improved, and in fact he had reported the incident to Joe, who was none too pleased either. As I left the hospital I was considering joining the Foreign Legion, except I doubted they'd take me.

  It was only half a block to the Concord Professional Building, so I went to the office and did some paperwork and went over some castings. A gaunt, shaggy head poked in through the doorway.

  "Well well well, if it isn't da cat burgIar," said Moe. "I saw Mary earlier when she was chewing out Susan for letting you sneak off like dat. Wow! Some clout, eh? Did they knock any sense into your thick skull?"

  "No. I'm still the same."

  "Pity."

  "Where's Lolly? I need to be cheered up; the sight of her prancing around bare-assed does me a world of good."

  He frowned and tsk-tsked at me.

  "Loretta is a problem. She's too old for a foster home and I can't have her staying wid me. It's just… well, it's not right. So she's both too old and too young. I'm putting her up for now in a rental room with an older couple; it seems to be working."

  "She happy?"

  "Uhh. No. But there's nothing gI can do right now."

  "Listen: if you want to help somebody, call the Dedham jail and help spring a guy named Amos Railford who's being held there on the most tenuous grounds? I told him the story of the big Jamaican, which I knew would touch his soft heart. "It's the least we can do in memory of Nick and Bart, Moe." He agreed.

  I pedaled back home and saw a New England Telephone van parked in the driveway. I eyed it warily, considering the untoward events of late. But it appeared to be a genuine phone company truck. As I passed it I heard a loud psssssst."

  A large and heavy-set lineman sat smoking a cigarette and listening on a phone in the van's driver's seat. He was sitting sideways on the seat with the door open and had his hard hat on, which was a white helmet with a blue telephone-company symbol in front. He annoyed me, sitting casually and uninvited in my drive. I heard a thumping sound and the van rocked slightly. The smoker had friends in the back. I liked the whole scene less and less, but considering the shape I was in, I sure didn't feel like getting tough. The man nodded, said good-bye, and put the phone back. He looked up at me.

  "Hiya Doc," said Joe. "Where's Mare?"

  I approached him and saw Kevin O'Hearn, also dressed as a lineman, peer around the corner.

  "Hi Doc," he said. "Hey kid, you're in trouble."

  "Oh really, what else is new?" I said, leaning the bicycle on its kickstand and moving over to the door. "What's all this for anyway?" '

  "We're going to go and get Carmen DeLucca in about half an hour, that's what," said O'Hearn.

  "We know he's holed up in Lynn, right above a sub shop," said Joe. "Been watching the place two days. Way he's moving lately, we figure it's time to make the tag. I'm just waiting here to get the word to start up there; Don't want too many of us, converging on the place at once. But Kev's right, you know. You are in trouble. You wanna take a fall for B and E?"

  "Of course not."

  "Then stay out of it, Doc. Really. You're either going to get yourself killed or get me canned."

  "Can't I just go up to Lynn and watch you nail DeLucca?"

  "Naw," said O'Hearn. "It might get rough. DeLucca's no pussycat."

  "What you could do, though," said Joe, "is to drive up to Lynn so I can get a ride back here for supper."

  "I don't have a car. I'm grounded."

  "Oh. Well look, I'll do you a favor. If you promise to stay out of this thing, I'll write a little note to Sis saying you're riding up with us. You can watch all the preparations too. But when the hammer's about to fall I want you safe in the back of this vehicle, on the floor. Deal?"

  "Deal."

&nb
sp; "Okay with you, Kev? After all, we're only the communications 5 team. The SWAT boys will pull the dirty stuff. Remember, Doc: mum's the word."

  So I parked my bike and climbed in. The inside of the van was crowded but comfortable. A phone-company van was perfect cover; it allowed the fuzz to plant stakeouts just about anywhere and stay as long as they liked without attracting attention. Most important, the cops wore headsets or talked into phones as they waited around the van or up on poles. Thus they could stay in close touch without attracting the least suspicion- and they could tap into common phone lines to do it, which meant their messages weren't subject to radio surveillance.

  I sat amidst a sea of props, most of them functional. There were orange traffic cones, Mm Working signs, yellow blinkers… The van was equipped for protracted engagements too. There was a chemical toilet and a tiny gas cylinder stove for making coffee. The cops had added all these touches after they purchased the vehicle from Ma Bell.

  We bounced and swerved along Route 2, then around the rotary at Fresh Pond and on to 16, which is called Alewife Brook Parkway there and soon becomes Revere Beach Parkway. I sat hunched on a carton right behind the two men in front. Before long the view opened up a bit, revealing distant smokestacks and fuel storage tanks, factories and warehouses.

  "Where's my wop lighter?" asked Joe, frisking himself. He found it and lit a Benson amp; Hedges and Kevin's Kent. The smoke in the tiny van was awful, and I scooted back to open the plastic rooftop vent with a steel crank. It worked; the smoke got sucked out the tiny hole faster than the two smokers could put it in. I liked the cozy van, which reminded me slightly of the cabin in our little cat-sloop, the Ella Hatton.

  "You really love that lighter don't you?" said Kevin.