“The drugs come from somewhere over there. For the stories, I need to be able to describe the docks from the water.”
The trip across the harbor to Bayonne took two beers. They came out of the dancing confusion of all the other small boats—there was nothing to look at in Bayonne—and stopped near the freight terminal. All was quiet. Novak, who knew the Jersey waters from boating with his father, took the Drug Merchant through the Kill Van Kull, the narrow strait between Staten Island and Bergen, and headed the craft toward more docks near Newark. The view got uglier: warehouses, freight terminals, chemical plants and refineries. Boxy buildings, piping, and steams and bad airs. An industrial stink—melting plastic and hot tar—hung in the air, overwhelming any hint of the sea.
A small fishing boat puttered out of a channel at the Port of Newark.
Taylor put down the Schlitz can. “Strange place for a fishing boat.”
“Shall we board ’er, captain?” said Novak in a pirate accent.
“Just an observation.”
The fishing boat, running with lights off, chugged toward them, presumably heading for the Kill Van Kull. Out to fish? Or to drop off drugs? Taylor’s imagination was running as fast as Novak’s. The craft could be up to anything. At least he’d get a look at it.
A big powerboat raced from the direction of the Kill and flew past them, its giant wake sending the Drug Merchant rocking. Taylor grabbed the rail, his buzz retreating in the face of a nauseous squeeze from his stomach.
“Assholes,” said Novak. “There’s miles of room out here.”
The powerboat rocketed straight for the fishing boat. The fisherman turned from its course.
Men on the powerboat—three, maybe four—began firing pistols. Whoever was on the fishing boat returned fire.
Chapter 13
“Shit, goddamn real pirates!” Novak throttled back. “The fishing boat is going for the Arthur Kill. Won’t make it. Doesn’t have the speed.”
“What’s the deal with kill in all the names out here?” Samantha rose up the ladder, her Colt in her right hand.
“Means stream or waterway in Old Dutch. Today, means kill.”
“It actually could be a drug drop being intercepted,” Taylor said.
“Can’t be sure of that. Did you see who was on the powerboat?”
“Went by too fast.”
The fishing boat definitely lacked the speed—but it had firepower. The attacker wouldn’t go straight at her, but instead circled, running fast, the crack of gunfire rising above the roar of the motor.
Novak got on the radio, and surprisingly, became befuddled. “There’s an act of piracy or, er, a gunfight. Some kind of battle.” The Coast Guard officer took the details and said boats were on the way. Novak hung up the mic. “I’m not getting any closer.”
Taylor, staring hard to make out anything or anyone, shook his head. Even he knew that was a terrible idea.
The rear of the fishing boat blew up and spread fire across the water. The blaze lasted only seconds, after which the entire craft exploded in a yellow fireball inked by black smoke. Burning debris fell to the water. What was left of the craft’s hull disappeared into Newark Bay. The attacker circled a couple more times, pouring gunfire into the remaining flotsam.
Maybe they could see bodies. Taylor couldn’t. “What if they come this way?”
They didn’t. Instead they turned and cruised slowly toward the Arthur Kill, the strait between Staten Island and New Jersey.
Novak pushed the throttle forward and took the Drug Merchant to the area where the fishing boat had been. Burning gasoline. An oil slick. A bobbing clutter of wood pieces and other items that weren’t readily identifiable. No sign of life from the distance Novak thought safe to wait.
“I don’t believe a bullet hitting something did this.” Novak began a slow circle. “More like a bomb.”
“Or a grenade?”
Maybe the attacking craft hadn’t noticed the Drug Merchant before pulling away and now did and didn’t want witnesses. Or maybe the bad guys preferred someone not look at the wreckage—or what might be recovered. For whatever reason, the powerboat executed a quick turn, hit the gas and came straight at the Drug Merchant. The men onboard, only black outlines against the sunset, fired at them before they were even in range.
“I can’t outrun that thing,” Novak said. “If I put my back to them, we lose the protection the boat gives us.”
Samantha leveled her revolver and looked down the sight. “Get yours out.”
“I can’t hit the broad side of barge,” Taylor said.
“They don’t know that.”
Novak put the boat on the other side of the wreckage from the oncoming attackers. “Really hope they don’t have explosives.”
A bullet pinged off their hull.
All three ducked below the windshield.
“All right, fuckers.” Samantha squeezed off a shot, then another—slow, timed, precise. One of the silhouettes flew back from the windscreen of the powerboat. Four more shots. Samantha pulled a speed loader from her belt and put in six more rounds.
Taylor held off. Whatever they would or wouldn’t know, he wanted half a chance to land his shots. He couldn’t yet. Not from this distance. At least two more bullets smacked somewhere in the boat.
Novak slowly turned the Drug Merchant. “They’re trying to get behind us and come up our ass.”
Maybe they had been, but Novak’s maneuver changed their strategy. The powerboat pointed itself straight at their bow. Bullets fwipped into the water near their hull.
Closer.
Two men were hunched at the windscreen, shooting. Samantha continued firing. Taylor added to it, not even sure if the .32 had the range.
Closer.
A third man was up. The one Samantha had hit? If so, he was firing with vigor. More bullets tore into the fiberglass at the front of the boat. The attacking craft adjusted to a course that would have the speedboat race right past their side, allowing the bad guys to rake them with gunfire.
Even closer.
A bright light washed over the Drug Merchant, the debris, the powerboat, and the water.
“U.S. Coast Guard. Stand down and prepare to be boarded or we will open fire.”
The powerboat almost flipped over reversing course and sped for the entrance to the Arthur Kill. A Coast Guard boat took off after it. A larger USCG craft, the one with the spotlights and a machine gun trained at Novak’s bridge, eased closer to the Drug Merchant. Samantha and Taylor put their guns on the deck, and they all raised their hands.
Taylor and Samantha climbed the stairs to the apartment on Middagh Street in Brooklyn Heights, their home for the past five months. They both had been highly motivated to move. She’d wanted out of the Bronx neighborhood where her murdered and disgraced father, NYPD Sergeant Mick Callahan, had also lived. Taylor wanted off of City Island and the dry-docked houseboat he’d been borrowing since losing his house in Queens. It had been too far from everything.
Mason the Labrador was all over both of them, running in circles, tail batting back and forth like it was machine-powered. Taylor volunteered to take the dog out. He and Samantha were both too tired for one of their leisurely strolls on the Brooklyn Heights promenade.
To Mason, he said, “This is once around the block and back again. All business done.”
Mason looked up like he understood.
As it turned out, there was a great deal to sniff on a single city block.
By the time they got back, Samantha was on the couch in shorts and a T-shirt with a glass of beer. He turned on the all-in-one stereo sitting on milk crates. Captain & Tennille destroying the great song “Shop Around” blared. He left WNBC playing in tribute to the far better version by the Miracles and went to the kitchen. The top of a Rolling Rock seven-ounce came off with a fitz. He thought about taking a second bottle to the living room, but that would break the spirit of his first rule of drinking—beer in little bottles. Which meant one at a time. The wal
k to get the next one would slow him. Yeah, by about 20 seconds. Still, they were his rules—never explained to anyone—dreamed up to avoid becoming an alcoholic like his father.
Back in the living room, he instantly reached for the stereo when “Afternoon Delight” by some abomination called the Starland Vocal Band came on. Flipping the knob to tape deck, he pushed play and the album “Born to Run” picked up from where he’d hit stop last night. He’d been playing the album solidly for almost a year. He didn’t expect to stop. It wasn’t all he listened to. The Ramones were on a lot, along with Patti Smith, the Velvet Underground, and the Talking Heads. Some workdays, Television’s “Marquee Moon” would haunt him until he could get home and play it. Springsteen was different from all of them, though. He’d tapped into the rock and roll of Taylor’s youth, added some of the R&B of the Miracles and other groups, and wrapped it all in his own riffs and lyrics to create a new sound telling stories of a tough, ugly world. They might be set in Jersey, but Springsteen’s songs could easily be about characters who walked the streets of Taylor’s old neighborhood, walked them wondering what happened to their big dreams.
Samantha’s legs, those of a former track star, swept in curves to the bottoms of tattered running shorts labeled Our Lady of Perpetual Help. She was braless in his Beatles T-shirt that had somehow survived from 1966. She leaned over and gave him a slow, lingering kiss. He’d seen other men stare at those legs. Instead of a kiss, they usually got a challenge she could—and would—back up.
Taylor relaxed into the ratty blue couch the previous tenants had left behind and took a swallow of beer. He knew Samantha had noticed his weird drinking habits. She never took a Rolling Rock—though she was welcome to one or more—buying cans of Schaeffer instead. She never asked any questions about why he drank the way he did.
Nine-plus minutes of “Jungleland” finished, auto-rewind clicked, and the tape whirled back to play side one, track one. “Thunder Road.” He got up for another beer.
When he returned, she stretched her legs, re-crossed them, and sipped from her glass. “What did we witness out there?” Her ivory cheeks flushed as they always did when she drank.
Mason did two turns and lay in front of both of them.
“No fucking idea. Coast Guard gave me nothing. By the time we left, they still hadn’t caught the attacking boat, far as I could tell. Two bodies pulled from the water. Squat on them from the Coast Guard too. I could spin up some yarn about a drug connection. Plain fact is I don’t have a clue about a gunfight on the water the night before the Bicentennial. That makes me hinky. I don’t know what or if there is a connection.”
“It’s all about connections.”
Taylor nodded at her echo of his favorite refrain and chugged the Rolling Rock dry. “Least Novak was pleased. He’d said the stations would only be happy with bad news this weekend if something blew up. Well, something fucking blew up. They don’t even care there’s no why or who to the story. Read it and move on. I can’t move on. But I have to. I’ll be too busy with the Bicentennial to check out this story, with no one available anyway to answer my questions, even if I had the time.”
“What about what you heard on the Clearwater? The police really think one of those ships is trying to bring in drugs.”
“A rumor spread by sailors. I don’t know what to think. Maybe everybody and their brother believes a big event like this is a great time to pull a score. Six hundred thou in diamonds yesterday. Dumping Bridget Collucci. Smuggling drugs. Blowing up a boat.”
“Tomorrow’s going to be a long day.”
“Counting ships, interviewing people, and trying to figure out what crimes might be going on in one of the biggest harbors in the world on the busiest day in its history. Perfect. I won’t find out what went down until after. Probably long after. The police won’t either.”
“You won’t be behind the cops. Something to be happy about.”
He set his beer down. “Something to be happy about is you.” He took her hand, pulled her on top, and kissed her.
She thrust her hips at him. “You sure this won’t make you seasick?”
“Ow, oh. No. Watch the ribs. Absolutely nothing about you could make me sick.”
“Now you’re going to make me throw up, Mr. Romance.” She laughed, burying her head in his shoulder.
He grabbed her rear with both hands. They kissed again.
They moved into the bedroom. She was naked in a minute. Taylor took longer peeling off sweaty clothing, feeling bad he hadn’t showered like Samantha had, but not bad enough to want to delay getting into bed with her. He moved on top and she took hold of him, stroked slowly while kissing fast, and eased him inside her. They made love, a bit quickly for them. It had been a few days with their busy schedules. They made love like they’d missed it.
Samantha sat up in bed with a third glass of Schaeffer. Taylor had his fifth pony. Out the one window in the bedroom was a redbrick building across Middagh, a mirror of their own walkup. This was odd in itself. Most of the buildings on the street were wooden—few other streets in Brooklyn Heights had more of the ancient wood-framed structures.
If he stuck his head out the window and looked right, Taylor would see the buildings of Lower Manhattan, and in front of them, the East River.
Location was a big benefit of moving in together. Taylor’s commute from the Bronx’s barnacle-encrusted dowdy seaside outpost of City Island had been killing him. An unreliable bus, plus the subway from the beginning of the line could take more than an hour and a half. Brooklyn put him closer to work and to home, his original home—Queens. Next to it, in fact. Yet, he was still a million miles away from the streets he knew. Every neighborhood in New York had its own culture. The boroughs were like nations and the neighborhoods their villages. Brooklyn and Queens were so different he didn’t know where to begin the list. They were just different.
Brooklyn Heights, sitting where the Brooklyn Bridge connected the borough to Manhattan, was a place he rarely came to before they moved here. Like most of the rest of New York, it had experienced its own economic slide in its own particular way, a long descent that had come close to destroying the place. When the subway arrived at the turn of the century, the patrician fat cats abandoned the area and the decline started, continuing when construction of the Brooklyn Queens Expressway lopped off the neighborhood’s northwest corner. Probably would have gone into freefall like many other great old neighborhoods, hitting some ugly bottom. The seventies had so far been all about bottoms in too many places. But the Brownstone Revival saved the Heights. Or at least stalled it somewhere in between. Some gentrification. Some rundown buildings. Some, well, in between.
His big problem was he didn’t know Brooklyn like he did Queens. He had the Mets and the World’s Fair and the geography of neighborhoods and streets as blood memories. The good news: he was closer to home, a lot nearer work, and most importantly, he was with Samantha. That would do for a good long while.
Samantha leaned over and kissed him. “That was a bit fast for me.”
Rather than defend himself, he set the Rolling Rock on the side table. She slid on top of him.
Chapter 14
They’d gotten up early—too early after Saturday’s running around—because Taylor wanted a viewing position at the Battery Park City landfill. His press card would get them in, but they had to be there at something like the crack of dawn because of the number of reporters.
The crowds thickened as Taylor and Samantha hurried past the World Trade Towers, where bleachers were also set up. After the light crowds in Manhattan yesterday, reports said officials had gotten worried. Their concerns were misplaced. Millions were flooding into the city to celebrate the 200th birthday of the U.S.A. by watching the parade of ships of sail and the naval review. They could also eat, dance, and get patriotic at the July 4th in Old New York Festival spread across lower Manhattan, where cars were banned for the day. The weather might cooperate as well. The temperature was approaching seventy unde
r scattered clouds. It was supposed to warm up as the day went on but stay less humid than yesterday. Scattered showers were possible.
Preceded by a fireboat spraying arcs of water in every direction, the Coast Guard’s Eagle led the parade of sailing ships with nine small triangular sails set. They were jibs, staysails, and a spanker, the reporter next to Taylor said, for decoration only, as the sailing vessels needed to use their engines for the trip up the Hudson past Manhattan and New Jersey between the lines of naval ships. If she couldn’t show off her sails, the Eagle made up for it; her crew was arrayed on the yards, evenly spaced, a formation of seaman up to the highest perch saluting the naval vessels and crowds. The Eagle’s white hull was set off near the front by the striking red stripe all Coast Guard ships sported.
Same red stripe as on the two smaller boats that had saved Samantha, Novak, and Taylor last night. A gunfight on the water. A boat destroyed by an explosion. What the hell was it all about? He could speculate about heroin coming from the docks to Brooklyn and intercepted—maybe by the Leung tong—but he might as well be writing fiction. He didn’t know anything yet. There could be hundreds of reasons for the battle. Radicals set off bombs in Boston two days ago. Maybe terrorists were involved? The whole thing went on the long list of leads in need of checking.
As they had yesterday, small sailboats, yachts, motorboats, houseboats, and seemingly everything that could float were out in force, escorting the Eagle up the river. In fact, it was worse than yesterday. The little boats were now so thick on the water, you could almost walk across the Hudson to Jersey by stepping from boat to boat.
Novak, somewhere in the undulating crowd of water-born humanity, was patrolling around. He planned to play reporter for the first time since the Messenger-Telegram went belly up.
Taylor could make out an NYPD boat helping to clear the way for the Eagle. That, in turn, brought him back to his main story—the murder of Bridget Collucci and the heroin connection. That story wouldn’t move forward this July 4. He’d never been so frustrated looking at a scene so astounding.
A Black Sail Page 11