by Jack Tunney
“Hey, Mick.” Sandbag stood at the ship’s railing and peered down dockside with an agitated look on his long face. “We got company.”
I walked over and watched Falcone get out of one of them fancy American cars. He wore a nice suit and dark sunglasses, and the three gorillas with him wore nice suits too. All of them was heeled and I saw that immediately because nice suits ain’t always tailored to cover shoulder holsters. Marcell Simbari was there too, also dressed in a suit, but he didn’t look to be carrying no iron.
I leaned on the railing and felt the sweat running down my face. I wiped my stubbled jaw against my shoulder. This couldn’t be good.
Sandbag hollered at Hank Plaster, who was tying off a shipment in cargo netting to be lowered by boom arm later. “Go get the cap’n.”
Hank took a look over the side, then lit out at once.
Me and Sandbag, we’d been in rough ports before, and the cap’n had prepared for sticky situations. Pirates operated in the South China Sea and other places. We retreated to the wheelhouse and opened up the hidey-holes under the radio equipment where we kept the guns. I took out an M-1 Garand and a .45, shoved the pistol into my waistband, and headed back to the railing with the rifle in my fist. Sandbag carried a combat shotgun equipped with a sling.
By the time we got back to the railing, the cap’n was already limping out with the Tommy gun in hand. He glared at me and Sandbag and shifted his cigar to the other side of his mouth. “Something you swabs wanna tell me about?”
Sandbag shook his head. I kept my mouth shut.
“You don’t know what this is about?” The cap’n’s wooden leg thumped against the deck.
“No, sir.” I fell into step beside the cap’n. “We saw Falcone last night, but we didn’t have nothing to do with him.”
The cap’n cursed, stepped up to the railing, and peered down. I held the M-1 at the ready beside him.
Below, Falcone spotted us and our hardware and stopped dead in his tracks. His boys started to reach under their jackets, but Falcone waved them off. “I’m looking for the ship’s captain.”
The cap’n didn’t hesitate. “You’re looking at him.”
“We need to talk.”
“You’re doing that too.”
“I thought maybe we could talk aboard your boat.”
“She’s a ship, and that ain’t gonna happen. We ain’t entertaining right now.”
One of the men stepped forward, bristling like an old boar. “Hey, old man, maybe you don’t know who you’re talking to.”
Easylike, the cap’n dropped that Tommy gun into position and covered the man. “Maybe you want to step back and let the adults talk. While you’re still able to step. And breathe.”
Immediately, the man moved backward, but he cursed and looked embarrassed.
Falcone just stood there. “My name’s Falcone. Maybe you heard of me.”
“I heard of you. State your piece and get on your way. These men work for a living and I’m a busy man.”
“There was an incident last night.”
The cap’n didn’t say anything.
“Your men there,” Falcone pointed at me, “disrespected my boxer.”
The cap’n spoke to me, but he never took his eyes from Falcone and his boys. “That true?”
“No sir. I never spoke to his boxer.” I kept my voice low so only the cap’n could hear.
The cap’n raised his voice again. “My man says he didn’t talk to your boxer.”
Simbari stepped forward. “Your man disrespected my fight by starting a brawl.”
I spoke quietly again. “I didn’t start that brawl.”
The cap’n nodded and spoke softly. “But you finished it.”
“Yes sir. A drunk was manhandling a waitress.”
The cap’n sighed.
Falcone shot his cuffs. “So you see how it is, captain. There’s an issue of disrespect. My boxer got his moment of glory taken from him because of your man’s bad manners. There needs to be some restitution.”
“Restitution?” The cap’n’s voice rose, and that was never a good sign.
“Yeah, it means – ”
A frown shadowed the cap’n’s dark face. “I know what it means. I’m just surprised you can string together so many syllables.”
“What?” Falcone started to reach under his jacket.
I fired a round into his fancy car and shattered the passenger window in the back so that Falcone would have an airy ride back to wherever it was he was gonna go when we was done.
If he lived.
Glass spilled out onto the dock and people scattered all around us.
Coolly, Falcone took his hand back from his jacket. Message received. “You’re making a big mistake here.”
“No, I ain’t. The day I start letting myself – or my crew – get shoved around by the likes of you is the day I take this ship out in deep water and go down with her.” The cap’n nodded at the car. “You boys had best just pack up and go before this turns into something you can’t walk away from.”
For a moment, Falcone held his ground and I thought things was about to turn bloody. He was a stubborn man, but I knew the cap’n would kill him in an eyeblink. I’d seen him shoot men before.
Then Falcone waved to his boys and they all piled back into the car, but they all made a show of that retreat being the last thing they wanted to do. Glass crunched under the tires as they drove away.
Cap’n Slidell stood there a while longer and watched over the dock. I knew what he was looking for. I was looking for it too. Falcone might have left some of his boys behind in hiding that might try something. If they did, they was gonna find out how good I could shoot. The Marines trained me good.
Finally, though, the cap’n perched the Tommy gun over his shoulder and looked at me and Sandbag. “We’re gonna be in port here for about a week while I get things settled. You boys are gonna want to be careful while you’re out gallivanting around.”
“Yes sir.”
“It would be better if you boys stayed aboard the ship. You know that, right? But I guess that would be too much to ask.”
Me and Sandbag didn’t say nothing. We liked our liberty, and I wouldn’t one to tuck my tail when the going got rough.
“At least stay outta that man’s place of business.” The cap’n struck a match and set new fire to his cigar. “Them boys might have backed off today, but if they get the upper hand, they’re gonna take their pound of flesh.”
I nodded.
The cap’n headed back to his cabin where he was setting up the load. “You ain’t drawing pay to stand around, are you?”
“No sir.” I headed back to the wheelhouse to put the weapons away.
ROUND 12
Over the next three nights, we fought shy of the Mermaid’s Pearl when we got liberty, but I dropped by long enough to ask Estefania out to dinner. She agreed. She was curious about why me and the crew didn’t bring our business there, but when I explained about Falcone, she understood.
She’d looked at me with concern. “Stay away from Falcone. He’s a bad man. He’s not as big as some of the other bosses, but he’s part of Luciano’s group.”
I said I understood and we agreed to meet up after her shift ended. We had a good time that night, and there was plenty of things to do even that late at night. Afterward, we took to meeting a block down from the bar.
On Tuesday, the third time we went out together, she got off before eight and we took in a movie. It was called Blood Alley and starred John Wayne and Lauren Bacall. The fact that it was about a merchant marine captain fighting his way clear of Shanghai made it even better.
After the movie, Estefania asked me if Shanghai was really like that, and I told her it was worse. Them movie folks, they couldn’t show how bad the world really was. Then again, things in Havana was pretty bad too, so Estefania already pretty much knew the score and I wasn’t telling her something she didn’t know.
We got along great, me and her. I me
t her father, and he was a polite old geezer who really knew how to spin a tale. We knocked back a few beers over dinners during the next couple days. Estefania made dinner one night, and I bought Chinese takeout the next. There was a lotta Chinese living in Havana, brought over to help out with all the construction, and they had restaurants too.
Overall, I was happy, happier than I’d been in a while, but I knew it was gonna end pretty soon. Cap’n Slidell would have his cargo together and we’d be pulling up anchor. I didn’t kid myself, and neither did Estefania. Both of us knew we was gonna get pulled in different directions. I had a ship to get back to, and Estefania had her father.
But what we had, we enjoyed as much as we could.
That Friday night, though, things got sideways.
***
I was sitting on the steps outside the apartment building, just knocking back a beer and spinning stories for Estefania. It was about two in the morning and she’d only got off shift a couple hours ago. Cap’n Slidell was wanting to weigh anchor by Monday night or Tuesday morning, depending on a couple deals he had hanging in the balance.
We was gonna be shipping farm equipment, picking up a load from a ship that was laid up in anchorage. I wasn’t looking forward to leaving or to handling the load. Freight that big got dangerous out on the open sea when a storm blew up outta nowhere. A tractor got loose on us once and killed Mitch Miller while we was headed to Singapore.
I’d nearly got to the bottom of the bottle, Estefania was holding my hand, and things was feeling about as right as they could be. Then Morrie Wilson came running up the alley in front of Estefania’s apartment. I’d made sure all of the crew knew where to find me if something went wrong.
Morrie was about stove up when he got to me. I had to flag him down out of the darkness when he headed into the building.
“Hey.”
He froze in the doorway, then turned around to face me with a look of panic. “Mick! You gotta come quick!” He ran over and grabbed my arm as I got to my feet.
“What’s going on?”
“It’s Lou.”
“What about him?” Lou Hendricks was a Virginian, a young guy about my age. He told his war stories from the Army’s point of view, but they came outta Korea too. I had a lot of respect for him.
“He’s about to get himself killed over a woman.”
That wasn’t no surprise. Lou had an easy way with the women, part of the Southern charm of his, and he was a good looking man. The biggest problem Lou had was that he never asked if a woman was married.
Morrie pulled on my arm again. I excused myself from Estefania and took off like a shot. The sound of our running footsteps echoed through the alley as we splashed through the puddles left by the evening’s rain.
ROUND 13
Sandbag and the crew had dropped anchor in a dive called The Blue Light, and I could tell straightaway that it was a place built for trouble. There was dancing girls in the place, and most of ’em hardly had a stitch on. I ain’t a saint and I got me an eyeful as I looked around for the crew. I been in a lot of places like that bar, and I ain’t proud to tell it, but men are gonna be men, and strange ports mean you ain’t gonna have to hang around long to explain yourself or apologize in a confessional.
Everybody inside the club was jumping around and trying to get a good look at the fight going on in the middle of the floor. Lou and Sandbag was tied up with a couple toughs and going at it pretty hot and heavy. Punches was flying and curses was hot on their heels.
I shoved my watch cap into my jacket pocket and stripped out of the jacket while I looked at Morrie. “You wanna tell me what started this?” Sometimes it helped to know what the stakes was.
“One of those guys claimed Lou was sweet talking his girl.”
“Was he?”
Morrie looked at me, then at the nearly naked dancers on the stage in the center of the room. “I haven’t seen labels on any of these girls.”
Well, I didn’t have an argument for that. About that time, them boys Lou and Sandbag was fighting had about a dozen friends join in the fracas. I waded in then, and Wide Bertha’s crew waded in after me.
Things got real confusing real fast. I grabbed hold of guys I didn’t know, hauled them off of Lou and Sandbag, and elbowed and kneed everybody that got in the way. There wasn’t much room for boxing in all that. Things turned into a brawl. Tables and chairs got broke. One of the poles the dancers hung onto while performing got knocked down. Girls squealed. Guys standing outside the fight threw beer bottles and glasses at everybody throwing punches.
I think we had a shot at regrouping. Me and Sandbag was bellowing at the top of our voice, getting our boys together and getting ready to make a run for the door when we had the chance. Before we could make that happen, though, Cuban soldiers sprinted into the room and brought out their billys. They didn’t care who they hit, and those hardwood clubs smacked pretty good.
I coulda got loose, but I wasn’t one to desert my shipmates. I got down on my knees and put my hands behind my back when one of them soldiers told me to. Then his buddy that I didn’t see until it was too late cracked me upside the head with his billy and things went dark awful quick.
***
When I regained conscious, I had a throbbing headache. I also knew I was in jail without opening my eyes. The smell told me that. You get that much body odor and urine and alcohol fumes together in one place, jail was the only place you could be this side of Hell.
I was lying on my back on a stone floor. I had my arm slung over my face to block out the light. A bunch of voices kept at each other all around me. Most of ’em was whining and cursing, and a few of ’em was accusing each other of starting the fight. Other people was telling them to shut up.
Wearily, knowing I was gonna regret it, I pulled my arm off my face and sat up. A dizzy spell spun through my head, swift as a spider throwing a web. I lifted my hand to my head and traced my fingertips over the goose egg that sprouted up from my skull. I tested my sight in the dim light, but didn’t think I was seeing double vision. That was a good sign.
The headache, though, screamed at me something fierce.
“Mick? Mick, you okay?” Sandbag sat on a bed bolted into the wall just above me. I supposed he’d been looking over me. My watch was missing, but the soldiers musta taken that because I knew Sandbag wouldn’t have let one of our fellow prisoners take it while he was there.
“Yeah.” I put a hand against the wall and made my way to my feet. My head spun like a whirligig, but it stayed on my shoulder and I figured that was a pretty good thing.
The small jail cell held over thirty men. All of our crew looked to be there, some of the other guys we’d been fighting, and a lot of drunks that was a mix of Cubans and Americans.
I looked over at Sandbag. “How long we been in here?”
He shrugged and leaned back on the bed. “A few hours. It’s almost morning, I think.”
I gave the cell the onceover and realized there was no windows in the room outside the cell. I guessed we was locked up in a basement facility somewhere. “The Army has us?”
“Said they was military police.”
“You see any difference in that?”
“Nope.” Sandbag scooted over on the bed and I sat down beside him.
“They mention any charges?”
Sandbag smiled at me sourly. “They wasn’t in a talkative mood when they brung us in.” He had some bumps and bruises of his own, and I figured that some of them was from the Cuban soldiers. My ribs and back told me they musta been spiteful when they had us down. I been kicked enough when I was down to know what it felt like.
I leaned back against the wall and some of the dizziness left, but it was only making room for more pain. “I don’t suppose there’s any chance of breakfast?”
Sandbag threw me a crooked grin.
***
Cap’n Slidell came for us around noon. He wasn’t happy. His wooden leg clomped through the hallway leading down to the cell
and announced his presence. Every one of us stood like we was at inspection, and it kinda reminded me of when Father Tim called us on the carpet back at Our Lady of the Glass Jaw.
The cap’n didn’t say nothing, just waved at the door, then pointed out his crew. The Cuban soldiers routed us outta there pretty quick, and we followed the cap’n like ducklings, all in a row.
Out in front of the building, the cap’n pointed to an old cargo truck parked at the curb. He clambered up into the cab while me and the crew hauled ourselves into the back. We looked at each other while we was back there, and we was a sorry lot. About half the crew was hungover and plumb wore out from sitting in jail all night.
Nobody felt like talking, so we didn’t.
***
A few minutes later, we climbed outta the truck on the dock in front of Wide Bertha. The cap’n paid the driver, then walked over to us where we stood gathered at the foot of the gangplank. He squinted at me and Sandbag. “Somebody wanna tell me why I had to go bail out my crew?”
I started to say something, but I really didn’t know how to tell it because I hadn’t been there. Sandbag put up a hand like a kid in grade school and I let him tell it.
“Mick wasn’t there when the fight broke out, Cap’n. He come up to lend a hand. What it was, was this. Lou was talking to one of the dancers where we was. That’s all, just talking.”
Lou, his pomade knocked loose from the fight and untended all night, nodded vigorously. “That’s right. It was just talk. Then this big goon – ”
Sandbag held up a hand. “This big goon came outta nowhere and coldcocked Lou. I think he was out on a feet.”
Lou grimaced. “Aww, I was doing all right.”
Everybody took in his black eyes and bloody nose, and nobody believed that bilge. Oney blew a raspberry, but he didn’t blow it very loud.
Sandbag went on with his story. “This guy says the girl belongs to him, and that Lou was trying to make time with his girl. Personally, I think the girl was just turning Lou into a poor man, one dollar at a time, fleecing him like a sheep.”