Billingsgate Shoal (22 page)

Schilling spun on his heel and they stomped down the
ramp and seconds later I saw their dinghy—I swore it was the same
one I saw in Wellfleet—heading toward the cordage company's
commercial pier. I stared down at the empty plates and wondered what
to do next. Wearily, I rose from the booth and paid my bill.

Then I entered the phone booth and dialed Mary. I
told her what had happened, down to the smallest detail. There was a
longish silence ion the other end. When Mary finally spoke, her voice
was shaking. She told me to get home fast or she was going to call
the police and make them fetch me.

"Goddammit Charlie! Goddamn you, how can you
keep doing this to me—"

And so it went. On and on.

"Let me talk to Jack. Is he there?"

I got number-one son on the line and told him to meet
me at Duxbury Harbor with the
Hatton's
trailer at dusk. Duxbury is next door to Plymouth. This meant he had
to go to Wellfleet first, then deadhead back with the empty trailer
in tow. But time was of the essence. I had located my quarry, and had
no desire to sail back to Wellfleet in a boat that could be
recognized. It would be a simple matter for a big steel dragger like
Penelope
to cut me in
two with her high bows. That meant the cruise was going to end a lot
sooner than anticipated.

But perhaps finding James Schilling, Mr. X, in
Plymouth was more than just simple good fortune. Perhaps studying the
charts and thinking a lot had paid off. Perhaps I wasn't as dumb as
everyone seemed to think. I had some other theories too.

"Call me on the CB when you arrive in Duxbury. I
may not be inside the harbor when you get there, but I'll be within
earshot. Use the name
Ella Hatton
,
not our name; we may have eavesdroppers."

He agreed and I told Mary not to worry, then rang
off. As I emerged from the booth I felt resentful. Schilling was
sharp and cautious. Of that there was no doubt. He had a keen eye and
memory, and used them. The distant boat had alerted him immediately.
I felt out-foxed, and the dunk in the harbor added to my anger. I had
worked myself up to a pretty good rage by the time I was whining back
to the mother ship. I clambered aboard
Ella
Hatton
fuming. The son of a bitch! With a
pipe clenched between my teeth, I had a think session of about ten
minutes, then decided to approach the big pier and see what I could
see.

By the time I had the engine started and the dory in
tow, I had managed to convince myself that Schilling had not
recognized the
Hatton
.
I drew up the anchors and crept along at a snail's pace. I was
crouched under the gizmo, working the wheel and gazing out ahead
through the triangle opening of the canvas flap. The boat slid into
shallow water, and finally drifted to a stop between Gray's Beach and
the pier. I crept still closer after waiting there awhile, until I
was barely eighty yards from the dock. It was topped by a long
warehouse that extended the full length, much like the big fish pier
in Boston Harbor. I saw four big semi-trailer trucks on the dockside
between the boats and the warehouse. They were refrigerated trailers;
their compressors were grinding away. A few tiny figures moved behind
the maze of masts, cables, and white crescents of radar antennae.
Along the shore, behind the big warehouse on top of the dock were
several other big buildings of red brick. They looked deserted. There
was a huge chimney projecting out of this industrial wasteland. It
was the same one prominently marked on the chart of Plymouth Harbor.
It was a perfect landmark—much easier to find than the squat
lighthouse called Bug Light in the center of the harbor. I let go the
anchor cable and slouched in the cockpit, glassing the pier with the
binoculars.

No
Penelope
present, so Schilling had ditched her. But just then one of the
draggers began gliding away from the pier and, as she left, revealed
a white boat that was a dead ringer for the one I'd been looking for.
I glassed her carefully from stem to stem. It was her. No doubt about
it. She was painted white, and looked brand spanking new. Other than
a coat of paint, she wasn't changed except for some kind of
superstructure far aft. It looked like a raised hatchway. This
altered her appearance considerably, especially in profile. It would
fool anyone who wasn't looking carefully, or was unaware of what to
look for. How long had it taken the men to add it on?

Three or four days was my guess. And another
carpenter's certificate. I wondered what her new name was as I hauled
out my camera and a 300-millimeter lens from the aluminum case. I
read the name on her bow:
Rose
.
I set up the camera on the tripod and snapped away at the snow-white
boat at the pier. Nothing projected from beneath the gizmo canopy. I
was—for all practical purposes—completely invisible underneath it
in the gray drizzle. But of course
Ella
Hatton
was plainly visible to those
aboard. She was tauntingly visible. Were it not for the fact I was
moored in about three feet of water, the Rose could chug right over
and have a close look. Through the long lens I caught a flicker of
motion in the boat's wheelhouse. I raised the binoculars and had a
peek. I'll be darned if someone in the pilothouse wasn't looking at
me too. No, wait. The person was holding something up to his mouth.
He was talking into a microphone. I scurried down under the
companionway and turned on the CB scanner. I got a good variety of
jabbering. But one in particular made me stop the dial. It was
underlaid with a lot of hissing and buzzing common to Citizen Band
transmissions:

"mmmmmmmmm—sssstt! No so I'll stay put for
a-sssssst! You can catch us back here at the usual
t1me."

"OK general. You meeting the other party then?
When can I expectmmmmmmmm—or late tomorrow?"

"ssssst! Yeah tomorrow's fine. I gotta keep a
date first though. Got swordfish and tuna this time— fsssst."

"OK but don't forget me."

"mmmrrrrmmmm No
problem—"

* * *

Then there was a bunch of static and buzzing, and
nothing else. I moved the dial around. Most of the people were
calling each other "good buddy" and saying when they'd be
in, or to tell their wives and girlfriends that they'd be gone
another day or two. I couldn't find anything else. I peeped out to
see the person in the wheelhouse sweeping a pair of heavy lenses over
the
Hatton
. What did
it mean?

I had placed a stem anchor to make sure
Hatton's
sternside didn't swing around, so people on the white boat could read
her name or port. I grabbed the glasses and stared back, but from
inside the cabin about a foot behind the glass of the tiny porthole.
I knew he couldn't see me. . . but I could see him. It was the big
man. It was him. For half a minute I was tempted to drag the 30-06
from underneath the forward bunk and level it at his chest. What was
I saying? Had this slimy crook made a sniper out of me? Nevertheless,
I found myself breathing more heavily than usual, and my pulse was
pounding. I hoped, really hoped, he'd come a-hunting my boat.

But he didn't. Apparently, he did not recognize the
Hatton,
or its
occupant, or anything else. For several hours, until almost noontime,
the three figures walked to and fro along the boat's decks and up and
down her hatches. They came and went often from the new
superstructure aft, which was obviously a hatchway. So it was real,
not just a bunch of welded metal.

Not much was happening. Trucks continued to arrive
and depart the old quay, and loiterers and cane-pole fishermen
trudged wearily about the long dock, trying their luck in the slimy
waters below. The big warehouse had wide doorways every forty feet or
so. Some were open, some weren't. 

Occasionally men went through them wheeling carts
full of stuff. I saw a lift truck gliding along between the
semi-trucks. a The long rows of buildings and loading docks behind
the big warehouse were quiet.

Just before one o'clock a blue van pulled up on the
quay and the two men jumped from the Rose and went over to talk to
the driver. Schilling put his head into the window and nodded. I
snapped away at the proceedings, but then grew bored.

I decided to move on. There were three additional
piers in Plymouth. One was reserved for the Mayflower II and the gift
shops. Another was the main fishing pier. Finally, the Plymouth Yacht
Club had a small marina at the southern end of the big, wide harbor.
I weighed anchors and motored the
Hatton
in a wide sweep around the commercial pier. As I rounded it to make
for the main harbor, I knew that Schilling or his men could read
Hatton's
name and
hailing port on her transom, but it seemed they had lost interest in
me.

Hatton
snuggled nicely
into an empty slip at the fishing dock. On both sides of me were
trawlers whose high topsides rose up cavemously and hid me from view
except from the dock above. I wheeled up the ten-speed and rode down
the dock, out to Water Street and up to Main, which was route 3A. At
that intersection I thought of something. Should I be armed? No. I
didn't even know how to tote the pistols around. Then too there was
the weight problem. Even small bore handguns are much heavier than
you'd think. At night it would be a different story. For now, I'd
rely on Schi1ling's innate cowardice to protect me. It didn't take me
long at all to return to the cordage pier. There was a big white sign
telling me the place was called Cordage Park..Under the big letters
was a directory. Ocean Spray Cranberry Company had a big spread there
(as they did everywhere in the area), along with a wire cable
company, a soft drink manufacturer, two electronics firms, and a
fishery.

Some of the big buildings had connecting catwalks
that joined them several stories above the ground. Others had big
boilers and stackpipes attached to them—machinery that by the look
of it hadn't seen any action in decades. Some of the buildings were
U-shaped and had giant courtyards. The straight brick walls rose up
six stories high around these gloomy places, allowing little light to
enter. Most of these courtyards terminated in a truck loading dock at
the far wall. But the steel shutters were locked down tight. The
yards were deserted and silent. Row after row of these swept by as I
cruised along. Then I crossed over the railroad tracks. No doubt
these were the old spur that had once serviced the Plymouth Cordage
Company. Oil drums were everywhere. Some were bright red, most rust
colored or dirty gray. They were stacked in rows; they were strewn
about; they were tipped over; they were crushed and torn. Just beyond
the tracks was a tall Cyclone fence topped with barbed wire. A big
sliding gate that led out to the pier was drawn back on its rollers,
open. I parked the bike and loitered briefly near the gate. The Rose
lay back by the pier beyond two other draggers. She looked I out of
place though, truly a rose among the nettles. The big gate had a sign
on it that said it was closed at 6 P.M. sharp, and all strangers and
vehicles had to be off the quay by then. Period. I took in the whole
cordage compound in a long sweeping glance. If one were up to
something shady this spot certainly had its advantages. Old
broken-down warehouses. A quiet section of a quiet town. A
semiprivate pier. A locking gate and barbed wire.

The place was basically quiet. . .almost too still in
fact. Yet trucks did rumble, in and out. I took a final tour around
the huge old warehouse buildings and then headed out the main drive
toward the highway. Then I heard a truck coming behind me. As it
swept past I realized it was the blue van that Schilling had poked
his head into. I snapped it as it bounced down the road ahead of me.
I saw an elbow sticking out of the passenger window, but nobody
turned to look.

Back at the fish pier I called Brian Hannon and told
him I had located the
Penelope
.

"I'm overjoyed, Doc. I really am. You have made
my day."

I asked him if he could request that the
Rose
be boarded by the Coast Guard on suspicion.

"Suspicion of what?" asked Brian.

"Who knows? Smuggling's the best guess I can
think of."

"Absolutely not."

I told him I understood. But I said it in a very
clipped tone.

"Look," he finally said, "I have a
friend at the Massport Authority. After this episode he'll no doubt
be my former friend. . .but I could. . .I could relay your message.
They might tell the Coast Guard. . .they might not. But let me tell
you. If it's a wild-goose chase I'm going to be all over you like a
cheap suit."

He hung up. I called my brother-in-law, Joe, and
requested the same. Finally I called my buddy Lieutenant Commander
Ruggles and informed him what I found. Three requests. Hell, unless a
hurricane blew in, the USCG would have to follow up. There was no
excuse not to. Except of course one: that a private citizen had
suspected something. That wasn't very strong. Well, I'd done the best
I could, for the time being, at least.