Текст книги "Gangway!"

Автор книги: Brian Garfield

Соавторы: Donald E. Westlake
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Текущая страница: 8 (всего у книги 13 страниц)

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

    Captain Flagway reached for his drink. "My story began in Baltimore," he said, "where I was a clerk in my Daddy's apothecary shop. One night on Eager Street I was approached by two men not unlike the two you kind people just rescued me from. Their intent was, I daresay, the same-to impress me into the crew of an understaffed steamer. I fear that night in Baltimore there were no Good Samaritans such as yourselves to come to my aid in my moment of distress. And so my saga of despair began. I was in fact impressed and found myself aboard the Magna Carta, a British vessel transporting cotton to Liverpool."

    He drank. "I had hoped to jump ship on its return to Baltimore-I knew Daddy would be worried. Unfortunately, however, the Magna Carta's next consignment was a cargo of cotton loincloths billed to Lagos, which is of course in Africa.

    "On the way I had an altercation with bos'un and found it discretionary to leave the ship in Lagos. I had several adventuresome tribulations before signing on a passing French freighter called Egalite, anticipating returning to Europe and there, surely, finding another ship bound for the States."

    He drank. "Unfortunately, however, Egalites consignment was a cargo of indentured servants billed to the Caribbean, whence she took rum to Brazil. In Rio de Janeiro I once again switched vessels, and found myself on a ship carrying coffee to the Azores. Surely, I felt, somewhere in the Lord's vast sea there must be a ship heading for the States. Unfortunately however, I did not encounter such, and then at last, in South America once again, I boarded an Argentine clipper, the San Andreas, which was bound for San Diego with a cargo of sandals and Sangria."

    He drank. "There were at that time approximately fourteen separate and distinct wars being carried on simultaneously throughout South America, with each nation participating in five or six alliances and two or three of the wars. Under those conditions it was not unnatural that privateers should be numerous and active, of course, and one constantly risked being accosted at sea by such ruffians-they were everywhere, always claiming ships for this or that country.

    "We succeeded in beating round the Horn in a savage maelstrom of wind, snow and hurtling ice, but in our voyage northward along the Pacific coast we were unfortunately discovered by a roaming man-of-war. It was a sad affair I can assure you. We were captured by Venezuelan freebooters. They, in turn, were taken by Chilean privateers. Next we were overwhelmed by elements of the Ecuadorian Navy. We then headed in toward shore but were ambushed by Colombian commandeers who, like the rest, took the ship as a prize of war."

    He drank. "There was more, of course; I touch only the surface. They all began to run together in my mind after a while, and one finds it most difficult to sort out the proper order of events. In one six-month period, never leaving the ship, I sailed under nine different flags."

    He drank. "Not being South American myself, and therefore not suspected of patriotic alliances or emotional ties with one side or another, I found that I was considered more trustworthy than most crew members. For that reason I rose rapidly through the ranks to the quarterdeck. In due course I had earned the position and rank of Third Mate, the post I still held when a party of Paraguayans in a stolen skiff rowed out to our ship one dark night and pirated the San Andreas from its then-possessors, who may have been Brazilians. Or Costa Ricans, I forget which. Paraguay, which is a landlocked nation as you know, had been at some considerable disadvantage in possessing no navy of its own. Therefore, the capture of the San Andreas was a victory of signal importance to that nation. The San Andreas became the whole of the Paraguayan Navy. As a matter of fact I suppose she still is."

    He drank. "Shortly thereafter, however, Paraguay lost its several wars. As a result our captain and his men were understandably reluctant to venture ashore anywhere on the South American coast, for fear of encountering hostile forces whose brutality was well known to us all. Therefore, we fled northward and, after many peregrinations and misadventures, we finally arrived at the Golden Gate, and found a berth for our weary ship here in San Francisco.

    "The captain and his crew at once deserted the ship and set out for the gold fields. I had been promoted Second Mate on the voyage up, and after a suitable interval alone on the ship I appointed myself Acting First Officer. Sometime after that, I assumed-not without some audacity, I'm sure-the temporary title of Captain."

    He drank. "And all the while I had in my mind the unhappy state my poor Daddy must be in, attempting to run the apothecary shop without my help."

    Gabe said, "You've been here three years you say?"

    "Yes. I keep myself alive by fishing off the windward side of the ship. But I appear to owe the city three years' worth of dock fees and, in fact, the harbormaster of late has made ominous statements about impounding the ship."

    "Your father must be pretty worried about you by now," Vangie said. "How long have you been away from Baltimore?"

    Captain Flagway drank. "Twenty-four years," he said. "But I suppose Daddy has made do with temporary help."

    Saying which, he passed out and slipped quietly to the floor.

    He awoke in the night, and they were all sitting around watching him. They smiled. Someone gave him a drink and he clutched it gratefully.

    Gabe said, "Feeling all right now?"

    "Just one more swallow… ump… yes, that'll do quite nicely, I'm sure." He beamed.

    "Looks to me like you could use a little money, captain."

    "Lord, yes. Why the dock fees alone are a terrible worry in my mind, sir."

    "I was thinking more along the lines of a railroad ticket to Baltimore."

    A bright blue flame of hope burst up in Captain Flagway. "You don't really think that's possible!"

    "It isn't," Vangie said flatly. "But he thinks it is."

    The captain frowned. "I don't understand."

    "Ignore her," Gabe said. "It's only that what we have in mind is… well, maybe just a bit illegal."

    "Oh." The captain considered. "I've never done anything illegal," he said. "In fact, now that I think upon it, I've never done most legal things."

    "What we're going to steal is the…"

    "Oh, dear! Stealing?"

    Gabe smiled in an honest and forthright manner. "Well," he said, "maybe that wasn't exactly the right word, Captain. You couldn't really call it stealing, not the way you'd think of what stealing actually is. What we have in mind to do is take the gold from the United States Mint up on the hill there."

    Captain Flagway looked at him doubtfully. "That does sound like stealing," he said.

    "Well, now, just a minute, Captain," Gabe said. "Let's consider this. If I take money away from you, that leaves you in direct trouble. Broke maybe, possibly hungry, or even with bills to pay."

    "Like dock fees," the captain suggested.

    "That's a good example right there," Gabe agreed. "So if you take something from a man that that man needs, that's stealing. Would you say I was right in that?"

    "It does sound right to me," the captain said.

    "Well, you can't leave the Government broke and hungry," Gabe said. "It just can't be done. The Government isn't a man. Think about it for just a minute here. What is the Government, anyway?"

    Captain Flagway shook his head in honest bewilderment. "I haven't the faintest idea," he said.

    "Why, my friend," Gabe said, "the Government is your Government, my Government, Vangie's Government, Ittzy's Government, and Francis's Government-even Roscoe's Government. The Government is nothing more nor less than the combined will of all the citizens in the nation… of the people, by the people, for the people."

    "That's a nice phrase," the captain said. He nodded, smiling, pleased with it. "You do have a knack for the phrase," he said.

    Gabe frowned, thrown off the track for a second. Francis, leaning forward into the conversation, said, "Captain, where were you in, say, sixty-four?"

    The captain stroked his jaw, trying to remember. "Let me see," he said. "Sixty-four. That would have been Brazil, I believe, although I may be mistaken."

    Gabe said, "Francis, that's neither here nor there. The point, Captain, is that the Government is the people, and we're the people. We're citizens, so we're part of the Government."

    The captain nodded, seeing the wisdom in that. Beside him, the girl Vangie was giving Gabe looks of astounded admiration, and now she said, "Why, Gabe, I never knew you thought deep thoughts like that."

    "I'm thinking all the time," Gabe told her. Back to the captain again, he said, "Getting back to the Mint for a minute-if we take gold from the Government, it's just exactly the same thing as if we switched our own money from one trouser pocket to another, isn't it?"

    The captain frowned. He felt all at sea suddenly, though not in any familiar way. He said, "Is it?"

    "Of course, it is," Gabe said.

    Still trying to work his way through the logic-pretty much like chewing a twenty-cent steak-the captain nodded and said, "I guess I just never looked at it that way."

    "In fact," Gabe went on, "the newspapers are saying exactly the same thing. Have you been reading the papers?"

    "No, I… I'm afraid I don't…"

    "Well, I'll tell you," Gabe said. "The papers are saying that since this so-called financial panic started it's the policy of our Government to get more cash money into circulation. And that's just what we're out to do, my friend."

    Francis joined the conversation again. "Why, Gabe, you're right," he said. He sounded surprised and pleased, as though he hadn't expected to find himself in agreement with his friend, though why that should be the captain had no idea. "I do see what you mean," Francis said. "It's actually patriotic, isn't it? Circulating the money."

    The captain found himself nodding along with Francis. It seemed to him he could make out light at the end of the tunnel. "It is, isn't it?" he said. "Patriotic. In a way."

    "A darn funny way, if you ask me," Vangie said.

    Gabe leaned toward the captain. "Then you're in?"

    "Well " Suddenly the captain had a familiar feeling. It was as though he was being crimped again-without the rough hands and the burlap sack, but just as effectively being whisked away into somebody else's plans. Trying to be cautious, he said, "I don't really know. I mean, what would it involve? I couldn't hit anyone on the head, you know, or anything like that."

    "No, no," Gabe said, "you wouldn't have to."

    "Not hold a gun," the captain went on, "or stab anybody."

    Francis and Vangie both looked a trifle green. Gabe, patting the air in a calming manner, said, "No no, not at all. Definitely not."

    "I couldn't strangle anybody with my bare hands," the captain explained earnestly. "Or cut them apart with an ax, or bury them in wet cement, or drown them in the sewer, or…"

    Francis and Vangie kept leaning farther and farther away, out of the conversation. Gabe too was looking green by now, and his voice was somewhat loud and shrill when he said, "Nothing like that. I promise you, Captain. You don't have to go on; I understand the kind of thing you're talking about. It won't be anything like that at all."

    "Well, that's good," the captain said.

    Ittzy said, "We just want your boat."

    "That's fine," the captain said. He felt great relief. "Then I wouldn't have to throttle anybody or…"

    "Just the boat!" Gabe said, fast and loud. Then he lowered his voice again. "Just the boat. To make our getaway in."

    "Very good," the captain said, nodding. Then he stopped nodding and frowned. "But I have no crew."

    "We'll take care of that part," Gabe said.

    Vangie gave him an odd look, one the captain couldn't quite fathom. "We will?" she asked.

    Gabe ignored her. To the captain he said, "The question is, will that boat of yours… I mean, I don't want to say anything against her, but she is sort of…"

    "A rotting old tub?" Captain Flagway asked.

    "Well, yeah. Now," Gabe said, "I figure a million dollars in gold…"

    The captain blinked. "A million dollars?"

    "… should weigh in at about two and a half ton. Will the San Andreas carry that much weight?"

    The captain considered the question, then shook his head. "To be absolutely truthful with you," he said, "I really don't know."

    "The thing is," Gabe said, "we wouldn't want it to sink with all that gold on board."

    "I can see that," the captain said.

    Gabe scowled, frowning toward the middle distance. "If there was only some way to test it," he said. "Get two and a half ton of something else on board ahead of time, and see if she kept on floating."

    "That would be very good," the captain said.

    "Hmmmmmm," Gabe said.

    Francis said, "Old cock, I might have a small suggestion."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

    Ittzy sat in a chair in the center of a big square that was roped off to keep the people from crowding too close to him.

    It was on the afterdeck of the San Andreas. People were swarming aboard to stare at him. Ittzy stared right back. He was getting sick and tired of all this. With the money they were going to get out of the Mint he'd never have to put up with this kind of attention again.

    They had come down to the waterfront in the morning and met Captain Flagway at the dock. Flagway had the physiognomy of a bassett hound anyhow and this morning his eyes were bloodshot and he walked around very carefully balancing his head on top of his neck as if it were about to fall off. Ittzy had never been drunk enough to get hung over and he didn't want to try, judging by the examples he'd seen in the past fifteen years in San Francisco.

    When they had arrived at the ship in the cold morning light Gabe had looked at it again and made a sickly face and remarked, "You know I get the feeling the only thing keeping that tub on top of the water is some sandbar it's sitting on. I mean, for God's sake look at it, it's got barnacles growing on top of the barnacles."

    Francis had said, "Oh, I don't know, old cock, she doesn't look all that dismal to me."

    Vangie had said, "I still don't understand this idea of yours."

    "My dear, it's simplicity itself. The problem being how do we get two and a half tons aboard the San Andreas to test her, without breaking our dear old backs."

    "But how does putting Ittzy in a chair on the deck solve that problem?"

    "By inducing two and a half tons of human flesh to walk on board the ship, my dear Vangie."

    Captain Flagway was keeping them moving right along behind the rope barrier. At the head of the gangplank Vangie was taking the one-dollar-a-head admission charge. And down on the dock at the foot of the plank, Gabe and Francis were counting heads as the gawkers arrived.

    It was a nice sunny morning. If it hadn't been for all the people staring at him, Ittzy would have enjoyed sunning himself in the mild balmy breeze on deck. He glanced past the people toward the signs they had put up-lettered in Francis's fine hand-at the head of the dock, announcing that for one day only Ittzy "Good Luck Charm" Herz could be visited on board. Now the crowd on the ship was steadily growing. The idea was to get fifty people on board all at once. Gabe and Vangie had sat down and worked it out with pencils; they figured forty people would weigh about the same as the gold, and the other ten people would equal the weight of the crew they were going to have to find to man the ship.

    Ittzy watched Vangie and Gabe and Francis and the captain and he smiled. He had grown to like his new friends.

    Down on the pier Gabe called out, "Sorry folks, that's all for today. We don't want to exhaust Mr. Herz, now do we. Visiting day's over. Sorry about that, my friend, but better luck next time…" He was putting up the chain across the foot of the plank. Some of them were grumbling but gradually they began to turn away.

    So there must be fifty people aboard.

    The gawking faces were, at least, friendlier than just an eyeball at a time in a knothole.

    Then he noticed somebody was starting to bellow and yell down on the pier. He looked that way again, and it was the people who hadn't been allowed on board. They were raising a ruckus, refusing to take no for an answer.

    They were crowding forward toward the gangplank. Ittzy heard Gabe's voice raised in protest, trying to head them off, but it wasn't working; a ruckus was starting and it looked ready to assume the proportions of a general brawl. Slowly Gabe and Francis were giving way under the onslaught, and the brawl worked its way up the gangplank. The ship was about to be overloaded for sure.

    And here came Mama.

    Ittzy could see her, flanked by Officer McCorkle, thundering along the pier like the transcontinental express.

    Ittzy got to his feet. He didn't feel that danger threatened-he never felt that danger threatened-but it did seem as though, between the brawl and Mama, life was going to get uncomfortable pretty soon. And on such a sunny day, too.

    Vangie and Captain Flagway had both come closer to him now, and flanked him, one on each side. The customers were fighting one another all over the place, and both Gabe and Francis were completely lost to view.

    Mama was almost to the foot of the gangplank, coming along the pier at full speed with Officer McCorkle in her wake and brawlers scooting out of her path as though she were a fire engine.

    Ittzy, pointing, said, "That's my Mama."

    Vangie clutched his arm. She seemed very nervous. "We'll hide you," she said.

    "My, yes," said Captain Flagway. "We'll hide you and stay with you." He seemed in a big hurry to help Ittzy get away from all this, and Ittzy felt immediate gratitude.

    The three of them went through a narrow hatchway and down a steep flight of narrow steps-more ladder than staircase-closing the hatch behind them, shutting out the sunlight and some of the noise of the fighting. There were barrels lying around in the semidarkness, so they righted three of those and sat on them to wait things out.

    It was dank and foul down here, below decks. Ittzy was about to say that maybe things weren't so bad up above after all when Vangie put a quick finger across his lips and said, "Ssshh. You don't want your Mama to find you here."

    No, he didn't. He was also totally undone by the sensation of Vangie's finger actually touching his lips. He whispered, "Uh," three times, rolled his eyes, gulped and remained silent.

    Overhead the brawl thumped and thundered. Voices shouted in rage. Someone fired a shot. Vangie cocked her head and said, "That sounds like Gabe's knuckle-duster. Maybe it'll scare them off."

    Ittzy listened to the racket with his eyes tight shut. Oh please don't let Mama find me down here. He thought again of all that gold. Freedom.

    "Somebody's coming," the captain said softly.

    "Shhhhhh," Vangie said.

    Footsteps. Up above, the shrilling of police whistles and the stomp of boots on deck.

    The bulkhead door opened slowly. Ittzy didn't open his eyes; he buried his face in his hands. If Mama caught him now, here like this, she'd chain him into that peephole room and throw the key away.

    "Oh, here you are."

    It was Gabe's voice. Ittzy looked up in vast relief.

    Francis was with Gabe. They both looked disheveled. Gabe's soft cap was tilted far over on his head, about to fall off. Francis's cape had a rip in it. There was a big bruise on Gabe's cheekbone.

    They closed the door behind them and sat down on waterkegs. "Let's just sit tight till the cops clear those damn fools off the decks," Gabe said.

    "Oh dear," Francis said, "they've ruined my cape, utterly ruined it."

    "You'll have enough to buy a cape factory in a few days," Gabe growled. Then he brightened. "Must be eighty, ninety people up there stomping around. At least we know the old tub holds up all right."

    The ship was creaking and settling a little, but she did seem to be remaining afloat. Ittzy listened for the unmistakeable sound of Mama's tread, and he was sure he heard it several times. He shivered and made himself smaller in the dark corner.

    Gabe was beginning to look oddly weak and pale. He cleared his throat several times and said, "Okay, okay, the boat's all right, now we need a crew. Come on now, everybody think. Any suggestions?"

    Ittzy tried to think, but all he could think about was Mama up there on deck. Dust was shaking down from the beams overhead; the pounding continued up there, the police whistles shrilled much nearer, and Ittzy recognized Officer McCorkle's hoarse voice.

    Francis said, "Well, you may not agree with this, old cock, but actually there's only one man for that job."

    "Who?"

    "Roscoe Arafoot."

    "Who?"

    "You know. The chap who was crimping Captain Flagway yesterday."

    Flagway said, "You must be daft. You'd have dealings with that scoundrel?"

    "You do want a crew, don't you? Well, dears, that's Roscoe's job. Everyone's an expert at something, and crew… getting is Roscoe's specialty. Besides, I'm sure I can… ah, handle him. You needn't worry your gentle hearts."

    "But he's a… a blackguard, sir!"

    "Yeah," Gabe intervened. "But Francis is right The guy can recruit guys for a crew for us." He looked up at the dust that was still coming down from the beams in puffs and clouds. "Soon as this weather clears let's go have a talk with the son of a bitch."

    Captain Flagway was obviously not greatly pleased, but he didn't have anything else to say, and for a few minutes the group sat in silence, listening to the noise from above. Ittzy felt warm in the midst of this group, sheltered amid their friendships. He said, "You don't think my Mama will find me down here, do you?"

    Vangie patted his hand, which turned him to jelly all over again. "Don't worry, Ittzy," she said, "you've got us now."

    Ittzy smiled. "Thank you," he said. He had never felt so safe.