The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (2 page)

"Hi, Doc," he said as he came in. "What's
for supper?"

I set the martini down on the coffee table and looked
up at his dirty mask of beard stubble. He hated to shave on
Saturdays. Maybe because shaving was such a big job for him— like a
farmer cutting a field of wheat. On a normal person a day's growth is
a faint shadow; on a Calabrian it's a death mask. I slid the glass
along on the rattan, watching the trail of condensed water it left in
its wake.

"Spaghettios," I said.

His face fell slack.

"Say it ain't so!"

He grabbed a cane chair and spun it around in front
of him. He straddled it backward, laying his head on his big beefy
hands, which rested on the top of the chair back. He tapped a Benson
8c Hedges out of a long pack and lit it. He studied my drink
carefully, the way Itzhak Perlman would study a Strad.

"It might interest you to know, Joe, that I've
been on the phone all afternoon trying to locate someone you
introduced me to last year: Johnny Robinson."

"Well, Johnny's usually not too hard to track
down, Doc . . . you know where to look. If you're using him
professionally, then what, may I ask, is Dependable Messenger Service
carrying for you?"

"
Remember Tom Costello? The stockbroker? Well,
I've completed an anterior fixed bridge for him. That's a whole set
of uppers all the way back to the canines, plus all the interior
joinery. In materials alone the piece is worth maybe a grand. In
terms of labor, add another grand. So I've been using Robinson and
Dependable to carry these expensive pieces from the lab. Lately a lot
of the mails from there have been ripped off—"

"Don't I know it. Post-office junkies looking
for the gold."

"So now I've got Tom all over my back. Don't
blame him, either. How can a broker peddle stocks with no mouth? The
piece was due yesterday, but so far I can't raise Johnny."

"Did you call Sam at Dependable's office?"

"
Yeah. Closed. Saturday."

"
Of course. Well, we could go up to Lowell and
hunt Johnny up if you need the thing right away. I know his hangouts
pretty well. Hey, were you serious about Spaghettios for supper?"

"Could be."

His eyes returned to my frosty glass. He eyed the
silver bullet wistfully.

B "Nice-looking booze you got there."

"Yes, isn't it though? Mmmmmmm. Dee-lish."

He drummed his big fingers on the cane back
irritably. He glared in my direction. Joe was about as subtle as his
sister. After ten seconds the glare became pronounced. Oh, all right.

"Would you uh, care for a drink, Joe?"

"You bring it and I'll care for it."

"Don't steal mine while I'm gone. I'll get Mary
and we can, uh, plan supper. To pass the time you might telephone
Robinson again. Want the number?"

"Naw. Every good detective in Boston knows
Johnny's number. But if he's not home I know where he is. Leave it to
me."

I headed for the sideboard to make him a gin and
tonic, and on my way thought about the unique career of john
Robinson. He was a black man about sixty years old. In his younger
days he was a lighter, although he never made it to the big time. But
he was tough and he was straight. These two qualities comprised a
natural foundation for what was to become his career. john Robinson
was a foot courier. With his partner, Sam Bowman, he had founded
Dependable Messenger Service in Cambridge. He walked around the city
carrying important papers, cash, stock certificates, jewelry, and
prize lottery tickets. Much of his business centered around the
wholesale jewelry houses down on Washington Street, for whom he toted
pocketfuls of ice and bars of silver and gold.

With his Smith and Wessons, his rearview mirrors, his
stun gas canister, and his two German shepherds he was a human Brinks
van. Only he could go through the twisty little Boston alleyways, up
and down dark stairs, and in elevators and such, where a van could
not go. He was routinely seen working in places and with people that
most security companies want no part of.

Mostly Robinson kept his mouth shut, discretion being
essential in his work. But every now and then he'd dangle a little
tidbit on the grapevine. Joe had told us several stories in which he
played a key part in bringing bad guys to justice. Generally he put
information on the line when he sensed that somebody good or innocent
was about to get hurt. Once his indiscretion almost cost him his
life. He screwed up a big deal for some North End biggies and they
had his legs broken. Then they had him dumped into the cold harbor
water off the General Ship and Engine Works in East Boston. Johnny
couldn't swim so well anyway; with two broken pins— not to mention
the pain— it was a bit tougher. But Robinson was nothing if he
wasn't tough, and he somehow got out of there before he died of
exposure. Later, he helped send the two thugs to Deer Island.

Mary was in her atelier firing pots. She was hovering
near a brick beehive structure in the center of the large workroom,
wearing old stained overalls, welder's gloves, and dark goggles. She
was looking in through the kiln peephole, and a bright circle of
orange light was flickering on her face. A blast-furnace roar came
from the kiln, which was fired by the bottled gas in big steel tanks
outside. I shook her arm and she removed the goggles.

"Baby brother's here."

"Joe's here: it must be Saturday. It's Saturday?
Oh jeez Charlie, and I haven't even thought about supper yet."

"Better start thinking; you know his delicate
appetite."

We walked back to the porch. On the way Mary doffed
her baggy overalls, which left her in jeans and a cotton blouse. The
cassette deck was now playing Bessie Smith singing "Merry
Christmas Blues" with James P. Johnson backing her up on the
piano. No trills and frills,. just solid stomping chords to accompany
that legendary voice that never sang a note without bending it.

"I can't get Johnny at the Lucky Seven,"
said Joe.

"What's the Lucky Seven?"

"
A bar up in Lowell where Johnny hangs out on
weekends. He doesn't go there to drink, just to visit with the
neighborhood regulars. Whenever I've gotten in touch with him before,
I've reached him either at home or at the Lucky Seven."

"Well, if and when you get him ask him about my
package from the lab, will you?"

A new number came over the tape: Art Tatum riffling
through "Cotton Club Stomp." It was a toe-tapper. Tatum was
going through the piece with that pyrotechnic, no-holds-barred style
of his that put his lingers all over the keyboard. He was everywhere
at once, making all other piano players, past, present, and future,
seem like they've got triple arthritis. The sound was so spellbinding
that Joe stopped and listened.

"Hey that's great. Who is that guy?"

"That guy was Art Tatum."

"Wow! Never heard of him."

"That was the problem; not nearly enough people
ever did. He died broke."

Like so many unrecognized geniuses in the arts, Tatum
drank himself to death before he'd even peaked.
Sic
transit gloria mundi
, as they say. "Any,
more thoughts on dinner?" I asked Mary.

"No. Gee I really don't feel much like cooking,
Charlie. I've been firing stuff all day and I'm hot and pooped. Don't
you guys think it's hot for early June?"

"Yeah," said her brother, who placed
himself directly beneath the whirling blades of the ceiling fan. Mary
seemed suddenly to be aware of his presence and went over and kissed
him. She almost took her skin off in the process.

"Why didn't you shave? You look awful."

"Got up late. I was going to shave here."
He hesitated a second before adding, "Uh . . . you know how I
sometimes stay for supper?"

"Sometimes?"

He gave me a hurt look, then turned back to his
sister.

"
We could go out to eat, or . . .or . . . I
could make my veal and eggplant parmigiana—"

This suggestion sent my salivary glands into a brief
grand mal
seizure.

"
Well why didn't you say so? Care for another
drink?"

"
What made me think of it was thinking about
finding Johnny Robinson up in Lowell. There's a great little meat
market up there. Not as good as Toscana's, but still great. They
slice the veal right off the carcass. Doc, if you really need that
thingamajig, I'm pretty sure I could track Johnny down for you. Then
we get the meat and eggplant and head back here. Mary, you can fire
your pots; Doc, you can relax— I'll do it all."

Well, that settled it. Mary wanted to come along, so
the three of us got into Joe's cruiser and headed up Route 3 to
Lowell, about twenty-five minutes away."

"And you really think we can track down Johnny?
It would be great if I could get that anterior bridge for Tom this
weekend," I said, watching Mary fiddle with the dials on Joe's
two-way radio.

"No guarantees. But I've known and worked with
Johnny for years. So have most of the other cops. His routine doesn't
vary much. He's got no family and sticks pretty close to his old
neighborhood where he grew up. I've got a hunch if he's up there,
we'll find him."

Lowell is not pretty; but it wasn't designed for
aesthetics. Like the other towns along the Merrimack River (Lawrence,
Nashua, and Manchester), it was laid out in the early part of the
last century to see how many big buildings could be squeezed along
the source of water power and barge traffic. Then a lot of effort was
expended to see how much machinery each building could hold: looms,
carding machines, spinning machines, and finishing machines, and how
many immigrant workers— of all ages and sexes— could tend these
machines for the maximum number of hours on scant wages without
falling down and dying of exhaustion, hunger, disease, or grievous
injury.

This cruel experiment in Social Darwinism lasted
roughly from the 1830s until the First World War. During its duration
a few families and corporations made enormous fortunes, and many
thousands of new Americans were chewed up and spit out by these
gargantuan mill complexes. Then in the twentieth century, at an
ever-increasing pace, the industries left for other places where they
could find other people to tend the machines for less money and so do
the whole ghastly thing all over again.

For all of its freedom and efficiency, capitalism can
be a nightstalker. A benthic fish with gaping jaws and snaggle teeth.
A jabberwock. Looking into these old buildings can be enough to turn
a hardened Republican into a trade unionist. If you ever get a
glimpse of these mills inaction (some of them are still working in
these New England towns), it's a spectacle you won't soon forget. As
you leave your car, even a block from the building, you can hear the
giant locomotive thump of the looms. The walls of the mills are thick
masonry, the windows shut or boarded, but the sound comes through: a
monstrous syncopated two-stroke thumping of the swinging loom arms
and frames. It is a pulsing mechanical heart that shakes the old
wooden steps as you climb inside. Then go through two or three more
doors and you see the huge interior halls with rows and rows of big
metal machines, with racks of bobbins twirling off thread like
fishing reels. And on the far side spills out cloth, inch by inch,
made in thunder. The women who work here wear ear protectors, but
they're deaf anyway.

You shout and cannot hear yourself. The women walk to
and fro on the old wooden floors, which are soaked with oozing oil
and clotted with fibers. The machines are fuzzy-soft with
grease-soaked lint. The floor shakes and trembles underfoot with the
swinging metal and spinning flywheels. Sometimes even the old endless
drive belts of wide leather remain overhead shrieking on the wooden
drums. Perhaps the most depressing thing is that the women don't
complain, don't plan to quit and move on to something else. They just
serve out their time here on the gummy wooden floors, ears protected
against the clank and thump, but already deaf.

And this scene makes you realize that there are two
New Englands. There's the one with kids dressed in blazers and madras
blouses strolling on green lawns surrounded by ivy-covered walls, and
there's this one trying to prop it all up. This one made of
veiny-armed, pocked-faced kids in factories, of frowzy old ladies in
cotton print dresses and torn stockings worn over purplish puckery
legs, tending the machines in the din.

We wended our way along the twisting streets to an
area near the river and the General Electric wire and cable plant. A
little side street off Broadway was lined with two-family houses. The
area was green and offered a nice view of the Merrimack River. The
university was within walking distance too. This was a nice section
of town; no wonder that Johnny Robinson had elected to stay here and
commute into Boston and Cambridge. Joe pulled up in front of a gray
house. It was sided with asbestos shingles and had white trim. It was
well maintained. There was a wide stairway up to the open front
porch. But Joe took us to a roofed side stairway that snaked up the
far side of the house and led to a door on the second story. He rang
the bell, waited, and knocked. There was no answer. We went
downstairs to ask the neighbors, but nobody was home.