Upside Down

88

As Winter started down the Algier's Point ramp toward the waiting ferry, Faith Ann tried to make out the skyline across the river through the growing fog. She had studied fog in science class, and she knew that it happened when cold air came in over warmer water. The temperature had really dropped since the sun went down, and she was thankful it hadn't been this cold when she was riding on the roof of the church van.

There were a dozen vehicles in line with them for the less-than-ten-minute ferry ride between Algiers Point and Canal Street, maybe a mile's distance. The wait while the ferry loaded stretched the time of travel to more like twenty-five minutes. The twin bridges, just a couple of miles upriver, were a faster way across, but a lot of people still liked the ferry better. A ratty-looking pickup truck filled with pieces of salvaged wood and steel scraps was right behind them. A silver BMW, which had swooped past them before they made it over the levee, was in front of them.

“Which fire hose case?” Winter asked.

“Around on the other side,” she told him. “Near the front. The stern.”

“The bow,” he corrected. “Bow front, stern rear, port is the left side and starboard is the right. I think the last two are correct, but I might be wrong.” He smiled.

“So port side would be the side where we drive on?” she wondered out loud. “Port wine stern?”

“I think so,” Winter answered.

He didn't get her joke, she knew, because he was distracted. Sometimes when her mother was thinking about something or reading, Faith Ann could get her to agree to things she later swore she hadn't. More than once she had taped her mother agreeing to something like putting a cotton candy machine in Faith Ann's bedroom if she made an A in Science-her best subject. It had been funny. Thinking about it now made her sad, though.

Winter followed the silver BMW sedan around the ferry's central structure and parked on the starboard side facing the stern. The vehicles parked in the lanes that circled the center structure so that the first vehicle on would be first off. Female deckhands wearing orange vests directed traffic. One of them smiled and waved at Faith Ann, so she waved back.

“That's the fire hose holder I put it in,” she said, pointing out her window as the car passed by.

Winter nodded, took a radio out of his jacket pocket, and pressed the button once. “Nicky, we're on the ferry.”

“Got it,” a voice replied.

Winter put the radio in his pocket, looked up at the rearview mirror and then through the windows at both side mirrors.

“I'm going to get the envelope now,” he told Faith Ann. “You sit tight. Lock the doors when I leave.”

After he opened the door and stepped out, she locked it by pressing the button. People were moving from their cars to the railing to enjoy the wind in their faces, the view from the railing. As Winter walked back toward the hose holder, Faith Ann undid her belt, got on her knees on the seat, and watched him in the side mirror.

Faith Ann's heart pumped furiously as Winter stopped at the hose case.

Yes! Now it was done. Now Horace Pond will be free, Mama, and the man who killed you will be arrested and…

When Faith Ann noticed a figure step out from between two cars behind Winter, her chest filled with ice.

That woman!

He doesn't see her!

Without thinking, Faith Ann jerked up the lock, threw the car door open, and leaped from the car waving her arms. “It's her!” she screamed at Winter. “It's her!”

The smile vanished from Winter's face.

“Hold it there!” a voice yelled from behind Faith Ann.

The woman, aiming the gun at Winter, didn't fire. Faith Ann saw the woman's eyes shift from Winter, light on her, then look behind Faith Ann for the source of the yelled command.

In a motion so fast it looked like a blur, Winter reached inside his jacket, crouching as he turned.

A hand grabbed Faith Ann's sweatshirt and jerked her off her feet, dragging her around between the BMW's trunk and the Dodge's grille.

“Friend,” a voice connected to the hand said.

She gasped, looked up at the man who had pulled her to safety and at the other man in a suit with short hair, who had yelled and who now stood next to the wall beside the BMW. His gun was aimed at the woman. A walking cane was leaned against the Dodge's grille.

The bald man kneeling beside her, gun in hand, looked familiar, and she remembered that the man without any hair or eyebrows had been on the street the night Hank and Millie were run over. The cane was his.

“I'm Nicky Green, a friend of Hank's. That's Agent Adams. You're safe, stay down and let us handle this.” He winked at her, then peered at the stern area through the BMW's windows.

“Put down the gun!” Agent Adams hollered.

Faith Ann saw Adams take a step toward the woman, his gun still aimed at her.

“Now hands against the wall, Marta!” she heard Winter command.

Faith Ann ducked to look under the cars toward where Winter was standing.

Nicky straightened suddenly and aimed his gun over the BMW's roof. Faith Ann turned and looked under the BMW.

She was aware of the bald man ducking down…

A series of quick, deafening explosions…

Empty brass shells spattered the deck like they had been poured out of a box.

Glass shards rained over both her and the bald man.

She watched the two-tone shoes until they vanished around the corner.

Faith Ann had never heard a machine gun before up close and real, but she knew that was what destroyed the BMW's windshield. And, she recognized those shiny two-tone shoes.

The man who had killed her mother had just shot at Mr. Massey.