The Whiskey Sea (5 page)

He sighed and snuck a few furtive glances her way. She waited for him to speak, and she knew that eventually he would. He still admired her in some strange way; that was evident, although she wished it wasn’t. The way he held himself so upright made it clear that he was still hoping for something, and the way his hands and fingers had moved while he’d moored the boat made it obvious that he wished he was touching something softer.
Stroking
something softer. Glimmers of longing swam in his eyes. It was as if a storm were brewing inside Hicks, and yet the storm did not feel dangerous to her, only to him. She had an awful feeling that it would be his undoing.

He asked, “What you been up to?”

She shrugged. She’d been hunting for shells to sell to the gift shops by day and roaming around like a lost soul by the light of the moon. One night she’d built a sand castle at the water’s edge and then watched as the tide came in and washed it away. She took midnight swims and then sat facing the stars, trying to figure out her future.

She felt exposed and weak, as though her as-yet-unspoken plea was already sitting out in the harsh open. She hated to ask anyone for help. Anyone. And now she had to ask the man who’d taken her boat. Hicks’s face was full of shades of light, and she could not look into his longing eyes.

Finally she answered, “Trying to figure out some things.”

He glanced her way. “Anything I can help you with?”

She stared down at her hands, the way they curled into her lap. Drawing them into fists, she turned to look at him. The idea had been forming over the past two weeks, but she had not yet committed it to words. “I want you to teach me about boat engines.”

He gazed at her with an eager but baffled expression. “Boat engines?”

She pulled in a deep breath. “Why, when you were making a good living working on engines, did you have to go and buy Silver’s boat?” She clamped her mouth shut. She had to get the irritable edge out of her voice. Desperation had made her shrill.

He seemed to ponder her question. “I don’t want to work on other people’s boats my whole life. I want to work on my own. I want to have my own. I’d rather be on the water than on the docks all day long.”

She could’ve said she’d wished for the same thing, but that he and Silver had squashed her plans. Truth was Silver would’ve found someone to buy the boat no matter what, though. Once he’d set his mind to something, there was no changing it.

Hicks said, “I’m still going to work on engines, too. Especially in the winter.”

A gust of sudden wind leaned all the sailboat masts in the same direction. “That’s what I wanted to talk to you about,” she said, her mouth dry.

Slowly he said, “OK.”

Swallowing, she held up her chin. “I want to learn how to work on all these boats. I want to become the best mechanic out here, second only to you.” Frieda admired her idea more and more every day since it had first sparked to mind. She’d always been manually inclined, she liked to figure out how things fit together and functioned, and working on boats would keep her down on the docks. She could make money within reach of the waters.

“Why do you want to work on engines?”

“They’re
boat
engines. And I love boats. It’s a good skill to have, plus it’ll keep me down here near the water, where I belong. I’ve always liked to figure out how things work, especially powerful things. Why not boat engines?”

Hicks rubbed his chin, his day-old stubble beginning to show. “I don’t know how the men out here would take to a lady mechanic.”

“If I know what I’m doing, they won’t care if I’m a monkey.”

He smiled. He had the smile of someone who didn’t take anything people said to him too seriously, as if life and everything he expected from it were close to cheerful.

Frieda found it frustrating. “You got my boat. The way I see it, you owe me something in return.”

“I bought the boat fair and square.”

“Let’s not get into what else you thought you were buying.”

Hicks looked down, and she could swear he was blushing. Good. He
should
feel ashamed about that part of the deal. She was not and had never been for sale. Even the idea of that made her cringe, because her mother
had
sold herself. Oh, to have been a fly on the wall and listened to the conversation between Hicks and Silver. Based on the kind of men they were, Frieda figured that the arrangement had probably never been said aloud, only inferred, and yet fully understood.

Hicks composed himself a moment later and asked, “What do you want me to do?”

Frieda’s hands clenched. “Give me your knowledge, give me lessons. Let me be your apprentice.”

He waited a few moments, as if letting the idea roll around inside his head. “You’d be working with all these watermen down here. I didn’t think you cared for them.”

Truth was she sometimes worried each one around or over the age of forty could be her father or Bea’s, but she always brushed those thoughts aside. She didn’t want to know. “I don’t like them. But I’ll deal with it. I’ll take their money for honest work.”

“It’s dirty work,” Hicks said.

She laughed. Everything down here could be considered dirty work, and yet she loved it. Even the smell of dead fish, the heat in summer, the freezes in winter, the shabby old boats. The place had character. Where else did she belong? She had not liked school, had never enjoyed church, and couldn’t stand the smell of indoor establishments. She hated to cook and clean. A secretary? What had Silver been thinking? She would have had to kowtow to male bosses, put up with flirtations from men and gossip from women, all the while confined in a small office space. Never in a million years. Nothing but an unconventional occupation would do.

He sighed again. “I have a fair number of old motors we can take apart and put back together. That’s how they taught us in the navy. It takes a long time to learn what you need to know and lots of practice. I’ll have to help you with your jobs for a while.”

“That’s what I want. That’s why I’m asking.”

“If you’re sure . . .”

She stuck out her hand. “Deal.”

Hicks took her hand slowly, holding on to it for a moment longer than necessary. “Deal.”

She had to look away, staring out at the horizon at a stream of boats going out. She’d been seeing them for weeks now, boats that headed out at dusk. They made course out beyond the Hook and the bay to deep water. First a few and now more, going out most every night, especially on no-moon nights.

She gestured at them. “What are they doing?”

He followed her gaze. “Heading out to the rum boats.”

She shook her head once.

“Don’t you wonder how the liquor gets into bars here—and everywhere else for that matter?”

Truth was that Silver wasn’t much of a drinker, and he had never once taken the girls into a bar. “I haven’t thought about it.”

Hicks gestured out to sea. “About five or so miles to sea are boats from Canada full of crates of whiskey and all sorts of spirits. They call it Rum Row. Some of the men around here have been going out at night, picking up liquor, and bringing it back to sell for big money. They serve as go-betweens between the large rum boats and the buyers, so people call them contact boats.”

“What about the law? The coast guard?” Just across the water, Sandy Hook peninsula jutted out as a barrier between the Highlands harbor and the open sea, and a coast guard station watched over the waters right there.

“What about them?” Hicks said. “There’s a lot more fishing boats than guard boats to chase them. And if a man finds himself under chase, he can hide in some secret inlet he knows is too shallow for the guard boats. Or if he’s caught outright, he can throw the liquor overboard and get rid of the evidence. Sometimes he comes back the next day and gets the booze, but even if he loses one night’s load he makes up for it soon enough.”

“You make it sound easy.”

He shook his head. “Those littler boats take all the risks. The big rum boats sail under foreign flags and hold out far enough that they can’t be confiscated. Contact boatmen face all sorts of possible dangers: rough seas, engine failure, capture on the way in, and maybe even prison. Even if they dump their loads, they can still get fined for running without lights or refusing to halt on command. Fine’s a thousand dollars.” Hicks sat still. “But then a thousand dollars ain’t much when you consider what they’re making.”

“How much is that?”

“I hear . . . even the smallest boats are starting to make about four hundred to a thousand dollars a night. Depends on how much they can carry.”

Frieda shifted her weight as the meaning of all this sunk in. This explained the changes she had witnessed but not questioned, even though she’d been curious to know. A few people who normally had nothing had been buying used Model Ts—even a new one here and there—nice coats and dresses, and had painted their houses. Now she understood where that extra dough had come from. She took a good look at Hicks. “What about you?”

He picked up a piece of clamshell littering the pier and tossed it out to sea. “Not for me. I’ll stick to what’s legal.”

She watched the boats heading into the fading daylight, and God help her, a burn, a strange excitement bloomed inside her chest. Those boats were going out after a different kind of catch. They were shredding through these seas for a new purpose and new riches. It took them out on the ocean, way out, much farther than she’d ever been before. She’d never been beyond sight of land. What would it feel like to look in all directions and see nothing but a watery world? Stars stretching from one horizon to the other? She closed her eyes and imagined it.

Her heart banged hard, her breath drew short, and she opened her eyes. Going against the liquor law was kind of exciting, too. Everyone hated this stupid new amendment. It hadn’t changed anything; in fact, people seemed to be drinking more than before. The law had made it exciting, rebellious, and more alluring than ever to get drunk. And the money!

But it felt as distant as the dance clubs in New York City she’d heard about, the fancy verandas on the hill houses, and the hotel rooms with clean, white, scented towels. She had no way to join in. Even with the wakes of those contact boats making silvery ripples that rolled to the water below her and the new knowledge that the big rum boats were out there beyond the three-mile limit of United States jurisdiction, dancing around on the water like lures, she never guessed that it would have anything to do with her.

CHAPTER FOUR

1923

Over the next two years timing and Lady Luck were on Frieda’s side. Highlands was the closest New Jersey town to Rum Row, and more and bigger boats with faster, powerful engines were harboring in Highlands and making night runs to buy booze and bring it back to sell both locally and in the city. Those men needed engines they could count on, engines that wouldn’t fail them when chased by the guard.

Frieda had been a dedicated student of Hicks’s and had become the trusted mechanic to many of the men who ran against the law. She could keep the old boat engines in top shape, as well as the war surplus airplane engines that many of the lobstermen had refitted for their boats for extra speed. She had been hired to work on a new Liberty, still in a crate; a fisherman had bought it for a hundred dollars from the government, and she had converted it to marine use.

In addition, new boats, built strictly as shore boats, were being launched every day, most of them flat thirty-footers with fast Sterling or Liberty engines. All the engines needed alterations to get more speed, and Frieda had a knack for making adjustments that could coax out more power. She was as highly skilled as the men doing the very same thing, and yet her customers paid her less simply because she was female. She’d had to accept that, even though it struck her as vastly unfair. Plus some of the fishermen’s wives didn’t want her working around their husbands. She had built a decent business since going out on her own, but she still needed more work. She had competition from another new mechanic. Despite fishing full-time, Hicks was still trying to help her. Some fishermen continued to seek his advice about their boats, and often he gave them her name. Every day she went to Bahrs Landing, which sat by the water and had become a base of operations, and she scoured for business.

Inside the restaurant well-dressed buyers from the city waited around one or more of the iron stoves for warmth, chatting, playing poker, or reading the newspaper until they received a signal that the boats were coming in. But it was the local men who made the dangerous sea runs—good seamen, lobstermen, and clammers who apparently didn’t see anything wrong with breaking a law that was mostly unpopular, largely ignored, and brought in more money than they’d ever seen before.

She was pleased by her work and status as a boat mechanic, but that old longing for the sea had never left her. She knew that someday, some way, she would find a way out there. An opportunity would present itself, and she would know it when it came.

I will watch and wait. I will be ready.

A windy winter morning. Frieda packed a school lunch for Bea and tended to Silver, who’d been down with a cold. Wrapped in blankets, he sat on the divan and blew his nose into an old handkerchief. “Got work for today?” he said as he folded the handkerchief and set it in his lap.

She turned and studied him. His face was grayish, his nose red and raw, and his eyes rheumy and tired. “Not yet. Have to go see if I can rustle up a job.”

“Winter’s tough on the boats. Ought to be some fishermen needing repairs.”

“Yep,” she said.

“Yep,” Silver replied, then adjusted his position on the couch and suffered through a coughing spell.

Concerned, Frieda filled the Thermos that Silver always used and brought it to him. “I might not be gone long. I’ll come back and check on you, even if I land something.”

“I’m OK,” he said croakingly.

Frieda stood still.

Silver gazed up at her through bloodshot eyes, as if some new knowledge had just come to him; as if something had shifted. His voice soft now, he said, “Did I tell you I’m proud of you?”

She gazed down. They weren’t the sort of family to heap praise on each other. Many things were known but not said.

“I hear tell you’re the best mechanic out there these days.”

Frieda shrugged as if it meant nothing. Only it meant a lot.

“I’m proud of you, what you’ve made of yourself.”

Frieda studied her boots and finally whispered, “Thank you,” before leaving.

Dockside, she asked around, but no one needed any repairs or maintenance that day. Bad weather was slowing things down. The winter had been brutal so far, and many of the smaller shore boats had been unable to go out. It was as if the weather itself knew strange business was stirring.

She spoke to all the locals, with the exception of Hawkeye. She’d been able to avoid talking to him for two years now, because he didn’t own a boat any longer. Lost it somehow, and so he worked as relief man for the other dockmaster, something he had done before, and he crewed on other fishermen’s boats. But his demeaning interest in her and in everything she was doing had not waned. Often he followed her around with his piercing eye, as if he were judge and jury presiding over her life. She’d heard from some of her customers that he’d asked how well she was working out as a mechanic. The nerve! His nickname was perfect; he was like a circling hawk, waiting to attack.

At Bahrs she sat on a stool, ordered Florence Bahrs’s clam chowder, and then looked around. The tables were covered with sheet metal, and there were no tablecloths, menus, or napkins. But some of the clammers’ wives sported new fur coats against the cold of winter and wore diamond rings on their weathered fingers.

When Hicks came in, he took a seat beside her. Dressed in his fisherman’s coveralls, a woolen jacket and muffs on his ears, he brought with him the briny smell of the sea mixed with the scent of sweat seeping through wool. He took off the muffs and set them on the table.

Improbably, Frieda had come to like Hicks. They’d grown close over the past two years, like siblings or best friends in her view. But she had the uneasy feeling that he still had a crush on her. It came during awkward silences, when their hands accidentally brushed against each other, and when he did things like drape his coat over her shoulders when a cold wind began to blow. Sometimes she glanced up and saw that old longing in his eyes, and it made her both sad and a bit scared for him. But she pushed her concerns aside. They had so much to do, and when they worked together, which was rare now, they often found they were thinking the same things. They finished each other’s sentences. Being around him made her feel warm, as if a coal lay in her core. During a few peculiar moments Frieda had felt a momentary burn, as if the coal could spark to flame, but the sensation slipped away as fast as it had come. She wondered if she was now immune to the lure of love. Her girlhood fantasies about romance had faded away over two years of grueling work. There was no room for daydreams when her mind was filled with everything about engines and building her business. Even as girls from her high school were marrying and having babies, she let her starry-eyed imaginings slide away and concentrated on learning her craft. Her focus had been on gleaning everything she could from Hicks, working beside him, and nothing else.

“You’re in early,” she said.

He tore off some ragged gloves. “Too rough out there in the bay. I’ve been fishing flounder and fluke in the river. Not much biting.”

She shoved her chowder in front of him. “It’s still hot.”

Picking up a spoon, he stared into the steaming chowder and then at her. “What’s wrong? Why aren’t you eating?”

She gazed around and then gathered her sweater across her chest. She cocked her head in the direction of Hawkeye, wearing a water-stained jacket and moth-eaten woolen cap and having sat down at a table nearby. She said, “I lost my appetite.”

Hicks looked over at Hawkeye. “Never understood what you have against him.”

“You don’t need to understand.”

His eyes swam with a stricken look. Here it was again—another instance of him revealing his feelings for her. No! She could so easily hurt him. Damned if he didn’t still care in the wrong way. She had to be careful and tread lightly. She wished there was a kind way to flush his attachment to her out of his system. Quickly she said, “I’m sorry. That didn’t come out right. I only meant that it’s personal. Between him and me. I’m not much for talking about it.”

Hicks shrugged, then slurped down the chowder, and Florence Bahrs came by to ask if Hicks wanted more. He shook his head, and Florence left them alone. She was the maternal type, with a smile that warmed a round and fleshy face. She wore old-fashioned blouses and skirts, always covered by an apron, and her hair piled high on her head. An excellent cook, she fed the waterfront. Her husband, John, had bought the two-story boathouse and built bunks, filled the mattresses with straw and cornstalks, and made a living renting boats and selling bait, beds, and meals.

Hicks asked Frieda, “What else is wrong?”

“What makes you think something else is wrong?”

“I can tell when you’re thinking hard on a matter. You start grinding your teeth.”

She kept her eyes averted. “Do not.” Then she smiled.

Their gazes met and held. Frieda had to look away.

“So, come clean. Out with it.”

She sighed and breathed in, then slowly exhaled. “I’ve been thinking. Come better weather we should go for the liquor, too.”

“Oh no you don’t.”

“I could work for you on the boat. We could do it together.”

Hicks wiped his mouth on his sleeve and shook his head firmly. “It’s not for me.”

Leaning forward, she inched closer, not bothering to lower her voice. Everyone knew about the business being conducted here. There was no need for secrecy. “Everybody’s doing it.”

Hicks scraped the last of the chowder from the bottom of the bowl. “Not interested. And even if I was, the
Wren
ain’t big enough to bring back a large load.”

“It could bring enough.”

He sat back. “Enough for what?”

She didn’t answer. She thought it was obvious.

“What do you need that you don’t have?”

“I have responsibilities. Bea’s in high school now, and she’s going to graduate in another couple of years. I want to send her to a real college, in the city. She’s been looking for a part-time job, but so far no luck. She has no practical skills, and I’m worried . . .”

She didn’t say she feared Bea would fall into her mother’s footsteps someday, that she needed to get Bea away from the town’s memories and lasting gossip, but Hicks gazed at her as if he understood.

She continued. “And Silver—well, you know. He’s too old for this life now. He can’t hardly take going out with his buddies on the good days. I got both of them to take care of.”

“You’re getting by, ain’t you?”

She shifted in the chair. “Yeah, I’m getting by. That’s the point. I’m getting by and managing to put a little money away, but it’s not much. I have no security, no safety net.” An image of that awful room above the bar flashed in her mind. Neither she nor Bea could end up there!

Hicks fixed her with a stern glare. But as always he spoke softly to her. “You’ll worry a whole lot more if you’re running against the law.”

“Even the guard doesn’t care. I hear the in-charge officer on the Hook gets a call that the rum boats are coming, and he sends his patrol boats and runners to look in another place, like Perth Amboy. Those men find nothing, but the officer finds a case of prime Canadian whiskey waiting for him on the dock.”

“They aren’t all like that, and the guard keeps moving men around so they don’t get too comfortable and tempted in one spot.” Hicks rose. “Want some coffee?”

“Wait,” she said.

He stood still. “They’re getting better. The guard. Mark my word. They’ve made a few big arrests. And they’re learning how to spot the decoy boats, and they can light up the darkest night with tracer bullets. Some have even taken to firing warning shots across the bow of the boat they’re after, and some of those shots have come mighty close. Someone’s going to die, Frieda.”

Around her she saw no signs of danger. She saw no death, only new lives as more people in Highlands joined the fray. Men who’d fished, worked as seiners, crewed on oyster boats, hauled lobster pots, and tonged for clams were now eating well, dressing better than they ever had before, and providing for their families as never before. Simple people who’d never been able to afford homes or new cars were pulling up in front of their just-built frame houses in cars off the showroom floor. The fishermen’s children were for once as well dressed and well fed as the hill people’s kids. Women could go to the hospital to have their babies. The city was growing and building up around them.

She’d never had much interest in the trappings of wealth, but the opportunities it could buy for Bea . . . ? The protection it could provide so that neither of them ever faced the predicament their mother must have faced? And the fact that it meant crossing the sea, sometimes several nights a week—that thought bloomed inside her chest. “If it’s dangerous, then everyone wouldn’t be getting in on the action and the money.”

“No. Not everyone. Look at the Bahrs here”—he gestured around—“still making an honest living. And Hawkeye, though you hate him; he isn’t doing it, either.”

She glanced away. The evening was coming on, but despite the weather and sea conditions, some of the larger contact boats were still running. There was no moon, so it would be pitch-black out there, as they preferred. She had picked up on just about everything about running. The local boatmen going out to the foreign-registered, big rum boats and bringing back the liquor were essentially the middle men. They bought, ferried, and sold the offshore boats’ contraband to the city men. The city men kept a lookout over on Highland Beach, where they’d get the signal from high-powered flashlights when the shore boats were coming in, and prearranged signals would tell them where to meet the drop men and the boats in Highlands, Leonardo, Belford, or other places. The city men drove to the drop site, bargained with the captain or his drop man, made their purchases, and then jumped into REO Speed Wagons or long sedans outfitted with heavy-duty springs to carry fifteen or more cases of Canadian booze into the city. The captain’s drop man would take any surplus and store it in hidden barns and sheds until it could be sold.

“And me,” said Hicks slowly. “I’m doing what I’ve always done.”