Blues in the Night

Chapter VI An Inch from Hell

Running to the Vigilant’s bowline, Koski shouted. “Never mind Remsen, Sarge. Shove off.”

The sergeant was reluctant. “He’ll not be far off, Steve.”

“Cut the gab. Clutch in. Quick.” Koski hastened to the stern line. “Climb aboard, Vann.”

The restaurant owner came to the police boat’s gunwale. “Where you going?”

“After that liquor.” Koski grabbed Vann’s arm. “That wasn’t an invitation, mister.” He hauled the tall man into the cockpit.

Olsan said, shamefaced, “We lost Chuck overboard, Mister Vann. We hit a barge.”

Vann snarled. “Hell with Chuck. I hope the crabs go to work on him!” He flopped on the engine housing as Mulcahey gunned the motor and the patrol boat lurched toward the black channel marker. “What’s with Hal Remsen, Officer?”

“Under arrest.” Koski was brusque. “Watchman was killed during that whisky heist. Remsen’s sister jumped in the river afterward.”

“Ellen?” Vann said sharply. “You talking about Ellen Matless?”

“Yeah. One who works for you.”

“What the hell was she doing at the pier?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.” Koski gave him a curt brushoff, went in the pilothouse. “Let her out all the way, Irish. And keep your whistle going.” He put the shortwave receiver to his ear. “Patrol Nine to Eee Pee Eee. Set?”

The mechanical voice said, “Come in, Nine.”

“Request Patrol Twelve, City Island, to intercept steam tug with three sand and gravel barges in tow. Probably bound to Throgs Neck. Warning. May be armed men aboard. Detain for investigation. Koski, Lieutenant.”

After the acknowledgment, Mulcahey asked, “Them babies that rolled us, are they comin’ through Buttermilk?”

“Scotch could have been transferred from the party boat to one of the barges while they were in tow. Sarge.”

“Holy hat! An’ we’ve been within anchor’s throw of ’em! But why you so sure they aren’t heading up the Hudson?”

“If that tug had been out of Bayonne or Perth Amboy or Staten Island, it’d have been on its way by eight o’clock to take advantage of the tide, Joe. You know that. Costs too much coal to drag those barges against the current when you can go with it. If they’d started four hours ago, they’d be past Yonkers by now. So — she’s on a short haul. Say, from Gowanus to, well, Throg’s Neck.”

“We’ll never catch them, Steve.”

“Might. Nova Scotia steamer and those Fall River freighters come in through Hell Gate around midnight. The two might have to crawl past Mill Rock waitin’ for the go-ahead from the bridge. Sock it to her.”

“Yeah. But this fog’s not thinnin’. If we hit a floatin’ railroad tie or somethin’—”

“The boys at Randalls’ll have some hull planking to fix, that’s all. You get every knot you can out of her.”

Mulcahey glanced at the whistling buoy off Coney. “We’re doing thirty-four in flat water. With the push the tide’s givin’ us, we’re doin’ close to thirty-eight.”

“Keep her kiting.” Koski returned to the cockpit.

Vann slumped straddle-legged on the housing, bent over with his face in his hands. “She was worth all the rest of this garbage, Lieutenant. Her ratty husband. Her prissy brother. This putzface here.” He indicated Olsan. “Her little finger was worth the whole lousy lot.”

“Kind of had a yen for her, didn’t you?”

“I’ll say I did.” Vann raised his head. “I’ve been trying for six months to get her to leave that stinkin’ Matless. She wouldn’t. She’d made her bargain. A rotten bargain. I might have known the only way she’d leave it was — the way she did.”

Koski didn’t enlighten him. He used the Vigilant’s searchlight, peered at the wharves along the Brooklyn shore as they thundered through a wall of vapor past Gravesend, past Red Hook, into the East River. The tug might have sneaked in somewhere for a quick tie-up and a second transfer of the whisky.

He saw nothing until the police boat had roared under the Brooklyn and Williamsburg bridges, past Welfare Island, beneath the Fifty-ninth Street, the Triborough, the great arching span of Hell Gate itself.

Halfway to the powerful light on North Brother Island, Mulcahey shouted, “Barges ahead!”

Koski unracked the T-gun once more, climbed on the foredeck. The stern of a red scow, high-banked with yellow gravel, was only a couple of hundred yards distant.

“Come fight up astern, Irish,” Koski called to Mulcahey.

“Can do.”

The Vigilant slowed. Koski saw a long strip of gray tarp stretched along the starboard side of the nearest barge. That canvas could cover a lot of whisky cases.

No one was visible on the stern. A single yellow spark of light came from a kerosene riding light on that tail barge. Queer, there would be no one on that barge.

The police boat came within twenty yards. Ten. Five.

“Now!” Koski called. He jumped to the walk board beneath the gray tarpaulin.

Before his boots hit the planking, he saw the upswinging shovel. He couldn’t dodge or duck. He was bringing the T-gun level when the shovel edge slashed down on his head, knocking him to his knees.

Instantly wet arms encircled him, held him between the shovel-wielder and the Vigilant. In that brief glimpse, Koski dizzily recognized a huge, beak-like nose, a pair of sharp, narrow-set eyes.

Matless yelled, “Sheer off, you! Don’t try any gun work either, unless you want a dead cop to go overboard.” He brandished a forty-five.

Koski grappled with the soaking figure at his back, wrestled with him, shouting, “Hell with him, Sarge! Come ahead!”

Mulcahey came ahead.

As the police boat careened in against the stern of the scow, the shock of the smash brought sand avalanching down on the two men battling on the narrow walkway. It was at Koski’s knees when he heard the glass in the Vigilant’s pilot house break from Chuck Matless’s bullet. It was at his waist as he struggled to pin the other’s gun arm. The avalanche kept on.

Chuck screamed when the sliding sand pushed him off the walkway. He dropped his gun, clutched Koski’s leg in desperation.

His weight was too much for the bracing Koski could give himself. They went over, down and under the water. The Harbor Squad man brought his knee up to the pit of Chuck’s stomach. Then he let his muscles relax until the force of the downplunge had been spent. No sense burning up that oxygen.

Chuck kept fighting even under water. He clawed at Koski’s throat. The lieutenant made no attempt to break the grip. The party boat captain wouldn’t have enough breath to hang on long — unless they surfaced quicker than Koski thought they would.

He felt the current pull at his legs as they began to come up. Chuck used one hand to thresh the water. Koski’s head bumped hard into wood. The tide had swept them beneath the barge.

He had to grab Chuck then. The fool had gone panicky as soon as he realized they were trapped eight feet under water. He wrapped his arms around the lieutenant’s legs in a death grip. Koski was lucky to break it.

Koski took two precious seconds to put one hand up, feel the caulking between the scow’s bottom planks, to make sure he didn’t try to swim the length of the scow. Even then it was a long chance. He might have been swirled around so, under water, that he’d lost his sense of direction. But he had to make a choice. He chose the side where the hrrush of water along the side of the barge sounded louder. He headed for it with all the power of his one free arm and his kicking legs.

Chuck was dead weight when Koski felt the turn of the scow’s bilge above his hand. His own lungs were at the point of exploding. Streaking comets of light burst in front of his eyes. He did lose consciousness for the brief moment it took to bob to the surface.

But his lungs reacted with a reflex gasp. He gulped cold air that stung his lungs like hot needles, and was surprised to find his left hand in Chuck’s collar. His arm felt paralyzed.

He shifted his grip to the chin, got the beaklike nose above water. The man was out, so helpless he’d have sunk in no time if Koski let go.

That made it tough.