A Black Sail

by Rich Zahradnik

  The Amerigo Vespucci from Italy, a full-rigged ship (according to the same adjacent reporter, who said he worked for Boats and Boating or Ships and Boating or something like that), topped the Eagle, with sailors seemingly standing in pyramids—five seamen, four, three, two, one, one—on net-like ropes running to the tops of the masts.

  Taylor turned to his new friend, who answered, “They’re called ratlines.”

  “And why is it a full-rigged ship again?”

  “All the masts are rigged square. Our Eagle is a bark because the mizzenmast—the last mast—is rigged fore and aft.”

  Taylor had typed the same information on Thursday but it hadn’t stuck. Probably because it had nothing to do with a violent crime.

  The crew of the Nippon Maru beat them all with a performance that might have been an audition for the Rockettes. Spaced evenly, legs apart on lines below the yards, arms spread as wide, the Japanese crewmen waved their yellow caps and repeatedly yelled something no one on shore could understand.

  The Eagle, as the first ship, returned south with all her sails unfurled. The mood of the people watching, of the whole city, seemed as light as the cloud of canvas passing to the sounds of constant cheering. The ship docked at South Street Seaport.

  The thought returned one more time. Taylor wouldn’t let it go. The ships were having that effect on him. Was he witnessing the fresh start the city so badly needed? Had New York finally set sail again (probably tomorrow’s Daily News headline)? He only had to think of other headlines he’d seen this week to know better. The second fiscal year under austerity had begun five days ago with 45,000 fewer employees on the city payroll. The head of the fire department claimed his operations were crippled. Over at the health department, they were reporting a breed of “super rat” able to eat ten times the lethal dose of poison and live on in subways, tenements, and sewers. The murder total was on track to again cross 1,600 this year, more than double the number a decade ago. Heroin use, an epidemic, was also going in the wrong direction, while cocaine and PCP were becoming their own serious problems. Yeah, the same old New York would sit surrounded by this water tomorrow. Taylor couldn’t begrudge anyone a celebration. The city had come so close to going over a cliff; everybody deserved a break—a party while perched on the brink.

  He stretched. “Jee-sus, what a lot of boats.”

  “At least you weren’t throwing up,” Samantha said.

  “I like the land.”

  They walked toward South Street Seaport, where a few other tall ships were joining the Eagle, including Norway’s Christian Radich, the Clearwater and the Pioneer, a school ship the seaport ran to train addicts living in a downtown rehab program.

  They visited the Clearwater first and found the crew in a fine mood. Everyone seemed to have stowed politics for the day. The songs, which were ever present on the little sloop, had a patriotic, if folkie, flavor.

  The captain smiled, big white teeth standing out from his tanned face. “I’ll never see that many ships under sail again in my life. Amazing experience, man.”

  “Hear anything more about the drugs?” Taylor asked.

  The captain paused. Probably didn’t want to talk bad news on a patriotic day even the hippies were enjoying.

  “Nothing. Cops seemed to pull back. To let the day be what it should be.”

  Taylor noted pigs had become cops, at least for today.

  The Christian Radich, Norway’s full-rigged three-master, was loaded with 16- and 17-year-old students, all armed with an astounding collection of photographic equipment. They were shooting pictures of the crowd, the harbor, the other ships, pretty much everything. Taylor got some good quotes from the kids.

  Keill Thorsen, the captain, gave him the best line. “Never before have so many ships gathered like this in peace and friendship. I am a navy man, a fighting man. But it is time to stop fighting. This is the chance to get together for peace. It will not happen again. I shouldn’t think. I hope this time it will work.”

  Taylor’s question about rumors the fleet may harbor drug smugglers got him nothing but a Nordic frown and the caution this wasn’t the time for such a topic. That was better than on the Eagle. The bark’s captain ordered him off right away, even as Taylor was trying to explain why he asked—after all, stopping smugglers was one of the Coast Guard’s primary duties. Just made the guy angrier.

  Samantha joined him on the pier a few minutes later. “You keep making friends.” She hadn’t been thrown off. They would have let her stay all day, and cadets leaned over the rail to continue getting a look at her.

  “Have to work the drug smuggling story too. The great Bicentennial festival in New York. Ships. Smiles. Sailors. Do that in my sleep. Still don’t know if the smuggling was anything more than a rumor. Or what yesterday’s battle on the high seas was about. With all the ships tying up now …. Unless the cops close in—and it sounds like they’re backing off—I may never find out.”

  He called everything in to Cramly, who for about the ninth time that weekend said he would be taking a whole week off for the overtime he was putting in. Taylor didn’t care what Cramly did as long as he shut up and typed as quickly as Taylor dictated.

  With much of the day’s work done, Taylor and Samantha explored the July 4th in Old New York Festival. The thick crowds they moved through were by and large friendly, a pleasant surprise in itself, as New Yorkers usually lost patience if they didn’t get where they wanted instantly. Lower Manhattan’s winding streets, the same plan as in the city’s earliest days (though now skyscrapers towered over those narrow byways), did give the festival an old city atmosphere. They walked up Water Street to Liberty. Ethnic groups stationed in various locations offered food, dance, music, and a bit of the usual politics. Italians, Ukrainians, Slovaks, Armenians, Poles, Koreans. The Turks staged belly dancing and provided spinach and cheese pies. The Chinese held a dragon dance and a cooking demonstration in front of police headquarters closer to Chinatown. The Irish played music and discreetly collected money for the IRA.

  America as melting pot. The obvious theme. Like hit you-over-the-head obvious.

  Taylor and Samantha sampled all the food they could handle, and a little more on top, until they arrived at the patriotic portion of the fest. The Declaration of Independence was being recited while citizens lined up to sign the document with eager energy, like each of them was needed to make already-200-year-old independence a possibility. George Washington sat high on his horse, signing dollar bills for fans, while King George III lost his head every half hour.

  As the afternoon waned, Taylor led Samantha to Jeremy’s Bar at Front Street and Peck Slip. The bar was out of the way, or as out of the way as you could get in downtown’s choked streets. Taylor stretched his legs. His feet throbbed from the walking they’d done and his side ached more. He put away one Rolling Rock, then another. The alcohol was having no effect because of all the food he’d eaten.

  He ordered a third and a second Schmidt for Samantha.

  Setting both beers on the table, he said, “Here’s the important news. Tomorrow I get back to normal. Cops and robbers. I’ve got a good story. But the clock is ticking. The police can’t keep Bridget Collucci’s murder under wraps much past Monday. They wanted to protect the big pageant. Pageant is over tonight. I need to nail down the rest of the story. And fast.”

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “Talk to Collucci again. I need to get back to what happened to Bridget.”

  Samantha went to use the lady’s and returned with worry written all over her face. “I called Wendy at the halfway house. Mary took off late last night.”

  “Shit.”

  “Wasn’t ready to kick.”

  “She doesn’t understand the trouble she’s heading to.” He stood, leaving the beer untouched but for a sip. “Let’s go.”

  The door to Lowell’s shooting gallery swung open on one hinge. All the junkies’ possessions were gone, unless the pile in one corner was their stuff. The rest
of the floor was clear, as if someone wanted to make a statement.

  Taylor stepped past the door hanging at an odd angle. That couldn’t be the only damage done here.

  “Hello?”

  Samantha followed, pistol out.

  The second room matched the first. Definitely a statement.

  “Anyone here?”

  A bare foot was visible in the door to the kitchen Lowell used.

  Once in the doorway, Taylor found Mary sprawled across the black and white tile floor. The cable-spool table had been shoved out the window but made it only halfway. Mary had been shot in the chest, maybe more than once. It was hard to tell with all the blood, which had soaked through the flower-print sundress she must have been given at the halfway house. Blood pooled on the tile around her, thickening and drying near the edges. Her black eyes stared up at the cracked ceiling.

  Samantha, careful not to disturb anything, took the pointless but necessary step of checking Mary’s pulse. She shook her head.

  “Shit.” Taylor kicked a hole in the plaster wall. A second. “Shit!”

  “Easy. This is a crime scene.”

  He stopped, barely under control. He looked around the kitchen without touching anything, but without any focus either. He didn’t want the story at this cost. No one else had needed to die. Not even to get a story on the new heroin that might flood the city and kill more. Mary could have gotten out. He was sure of it. Not fucking now. Anger and guilt swirled inside him, a mix of red mist and gray mud. He’d thought of her as a minor source on the path to the big story. Instead, he’d set her on the path to her death. The muddy gray guilt threatened to bury his anger and immobilize him.

  Grandpop always fed him clichés with the omelets, but the true kind, harsh in their meaning at a time like this. The ends don’t justify the means. What made it worse—Taylor hadn’t even considered the impact on Mary. He’d used the cash she craved to get her to lead him to the pusher.

  Samantha called him back just as he was about to go through the pile of stuff in the middle room.

  “You know better. You can’t.”

  “I got her killed.”

  “Bullshit. She could’ve stayed at the halfway house. You had no idea the tong suppliers were going to show up to meet Reggie. And you told her to get the hell out of there.”

  He waved her off. “Don’t let me off the hook. I don’t want it.”

  Back out in the hallway, Taylor took in the shooting gallery again.

  Samantha headed for the steps. “We need to call this in.”

  A squeak. He put up his hand to halt her. The familiar squeak again. The sound of the roof door.

  Taylor crept up the stairs with Samantha right next to him, revolver still out. The door was open, just barely, swinging a couple of inches in and out as it was caught between the air coming up from the stairs and whatever breeze came across the roof.

  Taylor put his hand flat on the door and pushed it slowly open. Lowell sat against the roof’s low wall about ten feet away. Taylor and Samantha walked over. Lowell’s lip was split, right eye was black, and the same side of his face swollen and bruised. He coughed and spit. “If it isn’t Mr. Apocalypse himself.”

  “What happened down there?”

  “You happened. Those chink bastards came looking for Mary. They kicked the shit out of everyone and chased ’em all away. But me. I had to stay. Waited and waited. Mary finally showed, as I’m sure you saw. They got so fucking excited when they grabbed her that I was able to bolt up here while they were distracted. Didn’t think I’d get very far on the street all banged up. Figured that’s where they’d look anyway. I heard her pleading. I heard her scream. Shot her twice. Was always going to happen. They like us fine as customers. Long as we’re quiet, re-up every day. They kill snitches.”

  All because of me.

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “No shit. My place is closed. Chinks said so. Anyone uses it gets a beating. The tong boys believe in group punishment.” He coughed and spit. “Reminds me of a year I spent in Catholic elementary. My momma thought the nuns would save me. They didn’t, and they were meaner than the tong.”

  “We’ll take you to the hospital.”

  “Uh-uh. I know another place, one where I can start again. Need to claim it. I was waiting to make sure it’s all clear down there.”

  “It is. We’re going to have to call the cops about Mary.”

  He got up. “Then I need to get the hell out of here.” He hobbled down the stairs and leaned on Taylor as they walked four blocks farther north to a condemned building with boards nailed across the front door. Taylor walked back to an empty lot, rummaged around, found a piece of rebar, came back and pried off the planks.

  “They boarded this one up a few weeks ago,” Lowell said. “I noticed. You always got to be looking for new opportunities.”

  Lowell picked a two-room apartment on the second floor. “Better to be above the street. I can expand once I heal a little.”

  Samantha called 911 while Taylor made a quick run to Lenox Avenue, bought two days’ worth of SpaghettiOs, bread, cold cuts, tuna, and Royal Crown Cola and returned.

  He put the bags in the kitchen where Lowell was already settled in.

  “From Mr. Apocalypse to Samaritan. This because you screwed things up for us?”

  Taylor didn’t answer.

  Lowell shuddered. “Okay, waited long enough.” He hiked up his pant leg and rolled down his sock to reveal a dirty rolled-up towel. “Too busy beating on me to search here. Nuns wouldn’t have made that mistake.”

  Inside the towel were the tools of an addict’s trade, including three bags of Ace of Diamonds as well as cash in small bills.

  Lowell poured powder into a large metal lid that had come off something like a pickle jar. He pulled a plastic toy army canteen from the big front pocket of the once gray, now nearly colorless, cardigan he wore and added a little water to the powder. The Bic flared to life. Lowell held the jar lid with a blackened pair of tweezers to heat the solution.

  Taylor and Samantha left for Lowell’s old place, where the police where already on the scene. Taylor found a detective and told him everything he knew.

  “Conspiracy theory, huh?” The detective closed his notebook and walked away without asking a question. That was as much time as the cop was willing to put into a junkie’s death.

  Lenox Avenue was empty of any sort of cab. Taylor suggested the subway, and they hustled in the direction to get off nighttime streets. After a couple of minutes, Samantha looped her arm through his. “This is what happens when you’re in the business of helping strays. They’re not all going to get out safe. Or alive.”

  “I put her in the crosshairs. It’s my fault Lowell and the rest got attacked.”

  “Then you’re going to be out of a job. You have to ask questions. To get your stories. Questions cause people to act. The tong attacked them. You didn’t. I don’t know how you’re going to live with yourself if you hurt every time someone in a story gets hurt.”

  He looked over at her. “Don’t know. Don’t have a good answer. I feel like shit. Mary shouldn’t have died for a story. Not ever. Lowell, all those junkies, they shouldn’t have been beat up. There’s a drug war starting. It needs to be covered. I’m split right in two.”

  Taylor and Samantha approached the 135th Street stop for the No. 2 and 3 express trains, either of which would rocket them straight home to Brooklyn. It couldn’t be quick enough. Taylor had some drinking rules to break.

  The sky due south flashed in the way of a big heat-lightning storm. Not the right colors, though. Gold. Silver. A streaking trail of red sparks climbed high enough so they could see it all the way up in Harlem for what it was. A chrysanthemum of light exploded outward, blue and more gold and silver. The giant fireworks display, New York’s biggest ever, was lighting and relighting the sky over New York Harbor to end the Bicentennial celebrations.

  Samantha and Taylor hurried into the subway.

>   Chapter 15

  Cramly plopped the Daily News on Taylor’s desk. “Guess you can quit with the stakeout crap. They’ve got your murder.”

  “Shit.”

  Taylor set down the bag with coffee, two cream, two sugars, and a buttered hard roll. Grease stains already splotched the brown paper. He read the story twice, the second time going through for every detail the News included. Bridget Collucci of Dobbs Ferry had been murdered and dumped in the water next to the Brooklyn piers. Her husband was allegedly connected to the Fronti crime family.

  Wait.

  He checked the story a third time—to make sure. The News had nothing on the drugs attached to Bridget’s body. Or the drug war theory. Details were being withheld to assist with the investigation, according to the Brooklyn DA. You bet your ass. Only the killers and the cops would know about the drugs. And Taylor.

  Did that leave him with a story or scraps? The News sure as hell would have the best from its cop shop on this, as would the New York Post. The suburban connection might even pull in the New York Times, which could put a half dozen on a crime story deemed worthy of its regal attentions. He hadn’t lost everything he had, but he was fast running out of time to write something new on a story that should have been all his in the first place.

  He couldn’t walk away yet, even if he hated chasing the pack. Mary Singer was dead.

  He’d spent yesterday staking out Reggie’s new corner, Hamilton Place and West 138th Street. Taylor’s hope was the pusher would get another resupply. He planned to follow the tong thugs back to base. He wasn’t nuts enough to go in looking for an interview. Their location would get him something in trade. From the cops. From the DA. Maybe he’d even get the confirmation he desperately needed of the tong going up against the mob for the Harlem heroin trade. The cops would then bust the tong. He’d write the story. That was the plan, at least. And why he’d held off writing up Bridget Collucci’s murder.