The Whiskey Sea (22 page)

“Pay no attention to me,” Charles finally breathed out as he squeezed her hand. “Just a moment of doubt. But we’ll be going out on dark nights. And you have a homework assignment to make the boat faster.”

But his doubt had already infected her. “Maybe I shouldn’t. Maybe we should all quit. Dutch and Rudy have kids, and Rudy already told me he’s thinking about getting out when summer’s over. Maybe it’s not right for me to enable them to go on risking their lives.”

After dropping her hand, Charles lowered his brow and looked away. “Don’t mistake this for a moral issue. Either you want to continue and find better ways to do so or you don’t.”

“But it
is
a moral issue.”

Charles smiled in a sad way. “I don’t see it that way. I don’t see things as black and white, wrong or right. But then again I’ve always lacked much of a moral compass. I couldn’t kill another person, but that’s about it for me. I can’t help you make any decisions, Frieda. It’s your call.”

Frieda smiled weakly in vague assent, then gazed into the falling sky. She had never sought guidance from him, only love and the willingness to let her love him. But it would be nice to really discuss things and come to mutual conclusions. She found it more interesting than off-putting that they differed so much in the way they saw things, but for the boat to keep being successful they all had to be in agreement. Silently he stepped away and went back into the house, leaving her alone with a tangle of thoughts. Bea. The boat. The lost men. Whitey. Dutch’s demands.

But there was never much doubt about what she would do. Dutch had given her a job. He trusted her with his boat, and she’d made a lot of money because of him. She felt as if she owed him.

And lastly, Charles. Loving him was perhaps like peering into the rain—a sort of sightlessness, akin to stumbling about in a storm, grabbing the things you want to find, and letting the others wash away.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

The next morning she readied herself for a day of work on the docks. She had been away with Silver and then Charles for too long. Now she was ready to shake herself free of burdens of the heart and focus on the boat instead. Besides, she had orders.

She went to see the man who knew more about boat engines than anyone else in the area: Hicks. A day of solid rain had temporarily masked the scents of sea, and it smelled of wet earth. The streets were littered with leaves, branches, and bits of soggy newspaper. She found the
Wren
in its usual slip along the dock, but there was no sign of her owner. Frieda almost boarded the boat to wait for Hicks at the helm, but the boat brought back memories of Silver. It was a glorious summer day, the kind that Silver would’ve loved—sun bouncing white off the water and a blue sky crossed by gulls cawing and swooping. Water sloshing against the piers, revealing barnacles that glistened in the light, and an easy wind on her face.

She walked away and went to look in the dockside bar for him, the same one where she’d first been acknowledged by Charles. That night now seemed a lifetime ago as she opened the door to the smoky, cavernous place. A few of the regular drunks sat inside, but there were also some men she’d never seen before. Hardened types. Criminal looking. What were they up to?

No sight of Hicks, she walked toward Bahrs; along the way she ran into a man she knew was a friend of both Dutch and Hicks. A rail-thin, rheumy-eyed man with a limp by the name of Hector. Also a good mechanic, one who had formerly worked for Dutch, and she greeted him, but before she could start talking, Hector pulled her down a small alley.

“What’s wrong?”

“Lots a strangers around lately.”

She really had been out of touch for a long time. She had never seen people act so suspiciously, as if a wave of paranoia had swept in during her absence. “I saw them. Who are they?”

“I don’t know, but steer clear, and don’t let anyone overhear your conversations.”

When she finally raised the subject of the boat, he told her to replace the carburetors with new ones and consider adding naphtha to the fuel to boost octane. But new carburetors were expensive and naphtha was highly flammable. He advised her to consider the changes carefully and warned her a final time about the strangers in town.

She went to discuss the ideas of naphtha with Dutch. He was captain and owner and should make the decisions. She found Rudy at the pier washing the boat, and he told her Dutch had gone for a meeting with some new buyers at the Highland House Hotel. Frieda wouldn’t dare interrupt his meeting, but she decided to head over there in hopes of catching Dutch on his way out.

The hotel, built in 1898 in the old Victorian style, stood on Navesink Avenue near the bridge, one of four grand hotels in the borough. Frieda sat on the steps leading up to the ornate portico fronting the building and waited while the sun poured down and the air turned stagnant and still.

Dutch finally emerged. After she told him they needed to talk about the boat, he nudged her farther down the steps toward the street.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

“Some runners have quit and gone to work for the government. I don’t want any one of them leaning in on my conversations no more.”

“Who?”

He rattled off some familiar names. It was shocking.

Knowing that these men had been as eager about running as Dutch himself, Frieda shook her head. “Why would they go work for the government?”

“They can get a nice little salary and then blackmail all their old friends for a portion of the take, so they’re still making money, but with nearly no risk. Bloodsucking sons of whores, double-crossing crooks. Don’t trust anyone now.” Frieda blinked once, hard. Compounding this news, she recalled seeing other strange and unknown men down at the docks—the innocuous, quiet, shifty-eyed sorts. Were they government guys? She would have to advise Charles to be careful about talking in public now, even down at the docks and in Bahrs. She blinked again and then stared at Dutch. His hair was now a mix of blond and white, his skin aged and ruddy, and he looked more the Viking warrior than ever.

She told him what she’d learned about the carburetors and naphtha, the pros and the cons. And then finished with, “The new carburetors are expensive.”

He didn’t hesitate. “How much money is it worth to stay alive?”

Frieda gazed out at the view, so beautiful from these heights. The tide was still, a momentary calm before it swept back to the sea.

She spun her gaze to Dutch. “Are you saying you want me to do it?”

“Hell yeah, I’m saying I want you to do it. So I have to lay out some cash. The money we’re pulling in from the booze will make up for it. ’Specially if we don’t have to worry about them bastards chasing us down, we can go out more often. It’ll be better than ever.”

Frieda glanced away again, toward the water. “The naphtha is risky.”

“Everything we do is risky.”

“I think we should give it more thought.”

“Bullshit. This is the best news I’ve had in weeks. Get on it right away, will you?”

She hesitated. “O-K. I guess.”

“That’s an order, girl. Remember you said you’d always follow my orders?”

“Of course, but—”

“No buts. Time’s a wasting.”

“I’m going to do it
right
, Dutch. Not in a hurry.”

“I didn’t say not to do it right. But you can be right and fast at the same time, cain’t you?”

“No pressure.”

“I’m under pressure. Don’t talk to me about pressure. No money coming in: that’s pressure.”

“I know, I know.”

He reached over and patted her on the shoulder. “Atta girl.”

She shook her head and smiled grimly at the same time.

When she returned to the docks, more fishermen and clammers had come in for the day, and some of them looked at her strangely. At first she thought it was because of Silver’s death and the fact that she’d been away for a while. But then she remembered what Dutch and Hector had told her about locals and runners who had turned informant, and it occurred to her: maybe they were worried that with Silver gone, she’d stop running and turn against them. Trust was hard to come by these days.

Hicks was on board the
Wren
. Wearing his fishing gear, but with his hair combed back with pomade, he was coiling the mooring lines. She followed him on board, where he told her he’d spent his morning at the funeral service for Whitey and the other men lost on his boat.

“But there are no . . . bodies,” Frieda said solemnly, tears threatening to fall at that brutal realization. She sat next to Hicks and stared down at her hands, curled into a knot.

“I guess the wives wanted to have some kind of service anyway.”

“How was it?”

“Lots of weeping.”

“That makes sense.” She peered upward. “But I’m surprised you went. I didn’t know you knew Whitey all that well.”

“I didn’t know him well.”

“So . . . why did you go?”

He looked away, and she could tell that Hicks didn’t want to answer. Frieda decided it wasn’t worth prying and changed the subject. There was nothing more to be said about Whitey and his men anyway. They were gone; their story had ended, and in such a vile way, no one wanted to fixate on it. She told him what she planned to do with Dutch’s boat, and he cautioned her against adding naphtha, saying the dangers were too great. “You can carry five-gallon containers of naphtha on board in case you want to add it as a booster, but the stuff could blow up like a bomb. It’s like liquid dynamite.”

Frieda frowned, her chest tightening.

“Find ways to lighten the boat instead—take only what’s necessary and nothing more—but don’t use the naphtha.”

She listened intently to what Hicks said, but in the end she told him she was doing it anyway. “Will you help me with the carburetors?”

“Not a chance.”

“I’m under Dutch’s orders, and I’m going to do it. If you help me, I know it’ll be done right.”

Hicks looked tormented, as if the decision was tearing him apart. Finally he breathed out, “I can’t. I just can’t . . .”

She felt strongly that Hicks wanted to say more, and she knew what it was. She could’ve finished his sentence for him: “. . . spend that much time around you anymore.”

Frieda closed her eyes for a moment. “Understood.”

“I’ll look in on you as you replace the carburetors, but I’ve never used naphtha. You’re on your own there.”

“Understood,” Frieda said again.

The next few days were spent below deck on the
Pauline
, replacing the carburetors and making adjustments for a for a new fuel mixture. She worked all through the daylight hours and then at night by a light Hicks had rigged up. Despite what he’d said, Hicks didn’t exactly leave her on her own. He wouldn’t help directly with the work, but he stayed nearby. He brought her mugs of steaming coffee, handed her tools, went in search of anything she needed, and even advised her on a few of the adjustments. He was helping with something that he didn’t think was right, and all because of her.

The night she completed the work, he suggested they take the boat out for a short test run. Frieda glanced toward the hills and the house where Charles awaited her return. She would’ve rather headed back to him, but it was difficult to turn down Hicks’s offer. So they started the engine and slid away from the docks on that sickle-moon night. They rode free of other boats, then opened up the throttle out in the bay. The boat was loaded with only Frieda’s tools and gear, and she flew over the surface as if it were made of slick oil instead of heaving salt seas.

They throttled down to a crawl, turned around, and let her drift for a few minutes. Frieda looked around, always searching the seas, always on the alert for danger. Which made her think of Whitey again, despite her desire to push his memory away.

“Did you figure out that Whitey was Bea’s father?” she asked Hicks while staring into the night.

Slowly he said, “Yes.”

A simple answer, but one that left her longing for more. Normally around Hicks she felt comfortable and serene, but something was nagging at her tonight. What he wouldn’t say to her. The killers out there. The boat. The naphtha. Charles. Hicks’s one-word reply felt incomplete, and it seemed everyone was withholding something from her.

Hicks was too kind to suffer one of her snarky comments, so she simply asked, “How long ago?”

“Does it matter?”

Frieda let loose a sigh. “Probably not. I’m just curious.”

“Not sure when I guessed it, but it was a long time ago. Probably the first time I ever laid eyes on Whitey. The resemblance, their coloring, it was too close to be coincidence. Right off I was pretty sure.”

Frieda nodded. “Is that why you went to the service?”

He fixed his soft gaze on her. “I figured Bea doesn’t know.”

“You’re right.”

“And you—you figure out everything. But I guessed you wouldn’t go, so I went for you.”

Why did he always do that? Things that made her feel as if she owed him? But she had never managed to stay angry or annoyed with Hicks. He was too kind, and she knew he could tell that she was unhappy. She was sure he also knew that he couldn’t fix her unhappiness. Part of her despair came from what she had let herself become: a woman consumed by a man. And how could Hicks help her with that?

In another few days the moon had waned to the slimmest of scratches, and Dutch decided they were back in business. On the first night they were to go out, both he and Charles were late for the cast-off time.

With everything ready to go, Frieda and Rudy waited for them in the boat.

Frieda glanced around as the town began to fall silent behind them and lights clicked off in houses settling down for the night. “I’m surprised Dutch would be late.”

Rudy took off his glasses, brushed off some dust, then replaced them, curling the ends around the back of his ears. “A palm reader’s been in town telling people’s fortunes. Making the rounds of all the speakeasies. I saw Dutch with her.”

Astounded, Frieda turned to Rudy. “He’s getting his palm read?”

He nodded knowingly. “Dutch is a strange man. Superstitious as hell. Behind all that bravado there’s a lot of restlessness rattling around.”

Frieda could scarcely imagine Dutch succumbing to the hype of a palm reader. “How long have you known him?”

“Long time. He was a friend of my uncle’s, so I always knew who he was, and when I first started fishing he showed me some tricks. He always had better luck than me.”

“And he’s ended up a captain.”

“I don’t envy him. I think he’s made too much money. The more material things you have, the more you have to lose. And hell, I’m a good first mate.”

Frieda thought about Dutch for a minute longer. He was as unpredictable as a teenage girl at times, but solid as Ulysses on the water.

“Did you go to the palm reader?”

“Not me,” Rudy said. “I don’t want to know what’s around the next corner. I like my life mysterious.” He winked. “I’d rather wait and see.”

Frieda relaxed in the glow of Rudy’s company. She always felt a tinge of wonder when he talked. She hated to bring up a serious subject but was curious. “Have you made a decision about quitting yet?”

“Nah. Just waiting and seeing.”

Frieda nodded.

“Besides, I haven’t got that sailboat yet.”