A Pure Double Cross

by John Knoerle

  “We had a lot of snow early in the week, a lot of wind the last few days,” I said to Henry as Jimmy monkeyed his way back from the bow, swinging from cleat to grab rail. “If one of the whatchamacallits, a pressure ridge or window…”

  “Wind row.”

  “Right. If one of those was already in place wouldn’t it act like a snow fence? The ones you see along the highway, keep snow off the road?”

  Jimmy joined us on the rear deck. “It’s solid, top to bottom.” The Schooler swore a blue streak.

  I continued. “The whatchamacallit collects the windblown snow, the temp falls, the snow freezes. The temp rises, more snow falls and drifts against the snow fence. The temp falls, the snow freezes. And so on.”

  “That doesn’t explain the wave formation,” said Henry.

  “But it explains how you can have a five-foot wall of ice on a frozen lake. Once it’s in place the onshore wind does the rest, shapes and chisels it. Hell’s bells it’s nothing but a frozen snow drift!”

  I looked to my audience for acknowledgement of my brilliant bit of deductive reasoning. Jimmy put hands in his armpits and attempted to stamp feeling back into his feet. The Schooler said, “I should’ve installed a bow prop.”

  The hell with ‘em. God was not conspiring against me. It was only Lake Erie and Chester Halladay, and I could lick them any day.

  “The ice on the other side of that wall should be thin, right?” I asked. “Just like the snow on the lee side of a snow drift.”

  “Presumably.”

  “Then all we need to do is bust through and we’re home free.”

  The Schooler roused himself from his funk. “Here’s what we need to do.”

  -----

  You wouldn’t think it possible to work up a sweat standing on a frozen lake at night in single digit temperatures but you’d be wrong. It was boathooks again, but The Schooler had replaced the hooks with a new attachment, a big-toothed saw with a sharpened tip.

  Funny joke on ol’ Hal. I thought The Schooler had rescued me from Jimmy’s sawed-off because he valued my smarts. Turned out he just wanted another swabbie, deckhand, ice hacker, whatever it was Jimmy and I were as we balanced on slick lake ice and stabbed and sawed at the sculpted wave with ten-foot aluminum poles. This was not easy to do in bedroom slippers.

  We were stabbing and sawing because The Schooler had made a mistake. He had neglected to ironclad the hull all the way up to the gunwales. If we were to breach that five-foot wall it would be at the point of a big-toothed saw.

  Jimmy stood to starboard of the hull, I stood to port. The plan was to cut a notch in the frozen wave large enough for the cabin cruiser to pass through. Jimmy was sawing away at a furious pace, I took a more measured approach. The ice below my feet was spider webbed with cracks. I wasn’t taking another dip in Lake Erie no matter what.

  Then I heard the far off drone of an airplane.

  I notched the saw and used the ten foot pole like a towline to pull myself across to the frozen wave. I straddled it, unscrewed the attachment, set down the pole, grabbed the big-toothed saw in my gloved hands and got busy.

  My saw strokes were short and quick, no handle to hang on to. Jimmy’s strokes were longer, using the full length of the blade. Long and strong beats short and quick every time so I pushed down on the blade with all my weight. The plane droned closer. It was flying slowly, searching.

  Jimmy and I were hard at it, neck and neck with about two feet of ice to go when our captain yelled, “Back on board!”

  We looked up and saw why. The plane banked and turned, about a mile away. It looked like a twin engine Grumman Goose, there was no mistaking that squat high-winged profile. It was conducting a spotlight-sweeping grid search of the lakefront. The area it was searching was Whiskey Island.

  Jimmy punched at the notch in the frozen wave with the butt of his pole before we shuffled along the ice and climbed into the back of the boat. The notch didn’t budge.

  The Schooler nudged the bow of the Tin Lizzie against the sawed notch and gently throttled up. He couldn’t gun it for fear the icy wave would tear open the bow above the steel skin. The Schooler reversed engines and tried again. And again.

  “Not working, we need to raise the bow,” said The Schooler. “If we haul the ballast in the hold up to the stern we might…”

  We looked skyward as the Grumman did another bank and turn. There wasn’t time to rebalance the cargo load. The Schooler removed an anchor from a stow box on the main deck and clipped the end of the anchor chain to a metal ring on the stern. He handed the anchor to Jimmy.

  “Toss it high, on the ice, as close to our wake as you can get.”

  Jimmy reared back and let ‘er rip. The anchor landed on the ice, to the right of the channel the boat had carved. It landed and lay there in a heap. None of its prongs had bit. Henry Voss turned to us, full face.

  “An extra twenty gees to whoever climbs out and plants that anchor.”

  “I’ll go,” I said. “But I’ll need some better shoes.”

  It wasn’t just the promise of an extra twenty thou that returned me to the frozen surface of Lake Erie in white socks and Jimmy’s shoes - they were one size too big but perfect for ice walking with their rippled soles. It was basic geometry.

  You can kick a sphere from here to Sandusky, you can stomp a rectangle flat. Only a triangle wants to stay put and be itself. Jimmy needed The Schooler to get his payday. I did too. The Schooler needed us to help him get where he was going and back him up when the exchange was made. We were a triangle now, Euclid’s indomitable structure.

  I dug two anchor prongs into the ice and pressed down with my foot to make it fast. I gave The Schooler the go sign, he nursed the throttle forward. The anchor chain grew taut, the Chris Craft sat back on its haunches. I heard the search plane bank and turn.

  If I remembered rightly the amphibious Grumman Goose carried up to five passengers. Five armed-to-the-teeth G-men would be my guess.

  “Go, dammit!”

  The Schooler counted down. Jimmy unclipped the anchor chain from the stern on three as Henry throttled all ahead full.

  The armored bow of the Tin Lizzie leapt up and busted through the notch in the frozen wave, smashing it to smithereens and surging into the thin ice on the other side, free and clear.

  I minced forward on the slippery surface, keeping an eye out for gray spots. I leaned myself against a section of the sculpted wave, watched the Chris Craft tear northward, listened to the throbbing drone of the Grumman Goose and waited to see if Euclid was right about that triangle.

  Chapter Forty-three

  I wasn’t left to freeze to death on Lake Erie. Euclid was right about the triangle.

  The Tin Lizzie reversed engines after crashing through the sculpted wave. I wished for a camera. Were I fortunate enough to survive this screwy adventure no one would believe this part of the story.

  The Schooler cut the inboards, the cabin cruiser drifted back through the notch in the wave. I cringed when I saw Jimmy pick up a ten-foot pole but he had, thoughtfully, unscrewed the spear point saw. I grabbed the pole, pulled the boat close and lunged for the gunwale. Jimmy, in another thoughtful gesture, snagged me by the back of my belt and dumped me face first on the deck.

  I stood up and shook myself off. “Nice slippers.”

  Jimmy ignored me, he was staring skyward. The twin-engine Grumman was no longer crisscrossing Whiskey Island, the search plane was now circling in a tight pattern. They had found something of interest.

  The Schooler cranked the throttle, the Tin Lizzie took off. I used my newly acquired ripple-soled shoes to secure my balance. Jimmy sloshed around on the sloppy deck and fell on his butt.

  The Grumman was still a half mile off and we were running without lights. They hadn’t seen us, but they were examining something under that thousand-watt spotlight. Only one answer to that question. The G-men had spotted the narrow channel we had carved in the ice.

  The Schooler gripped the helm for
dear life as the cabin cruiser bucked and galloped. The ice was scattered here, free-floating plates that offered hit and miss resistance to the steel hull.

  The good news was that we weren’t leaving much of a trail, what with the scattered ice. The bad news was that the Grumman was no longer circling in a tight pattern. The twin-engine amphib was now buzzing straight up our icy trail.

  I huddled in a corner and attempted to keep the contents of my stomach where they belonged. This was something I knew well, hunkering in a bunker, waiting for the devastation from above. Jimmy did not. He reached into his coat and palmed his nickel-plated .45 as he watched the Grumman sweep closer. He was ready to do battle.

  Hardee har har.

  The Grumman Goose had wing-mounted machine guns if memory served but the feds wouldn’t use ‘em. They didn’t want the Tin Lizzie at the bottom of the lake. Chester Halladay would want a clean capture of the bank robbers and their ill-gotten gains. The ill-gotten gains anyway. Halladay would not be overcome with grief if the bank robbers in general and Harold Schroeder in particular weren’t around to answer embarrassing questions.

  The pilot would swoop down low to let the G-men squeeze off short submachine gun bursts through the slid-open hatch, targeting the inboard motors and anyone dumb enough to remain up top. Hiding below decks would keep me alive for a minute but then what? Once the Tin Lizzie was disabled the pilot would land the Grumman, the feds would board the boat and some hotshot G-man would top me off as I cowered in the head.

  I watched the Grumman bearing down and thought of another airplane, a lone B-24, and a farmhouse outside Heilbronn, swallowed up in flames. My death would not be so heroic as Alfred and Frieda’s but damned if I was going to die in the toilet.

  I stood up and walked to the stern and held on to a grab rail. I looked up at the starry sky.

  “Beautiful night, isn’t it?”

  Jimmy turned to face me. “What’re you, nuts?”

  “That’s entirely possible.”

  Ah, but it was a beautiful night. Made even more so by a sudden warming wind from the north.

  I had become a halfway decent meteorologist in my two-year overseas employment, accurate weather reports being critical for bombing runs. Spikes in temperature were usually accompanied by incoming weather systems. Clouds, big fat beautiful low-scudding clouds. When the mercury was really surging ground fog would rise up to greet them. If we could buy ourselves another fifteen minutes we might be able to escape under cloud cover. But one man’s fifteen minutes is another man’s eternity. Ask Einstein you don’t believe me.

  The Grumman Goose reached the frozen wave a mere two hundred yards to stern, but they no longer had a clearly carved ice channel to follow. Continuing due north would put us square in the crosshairs.

  “Change course, ninety degrees!”

  The Schooler didn’t argue. He pinned the wheel to the left and leaned into the turn.

  I clutched the grab rail on the stern of the Tin Lizzie with both hands and watched the furiously boiling wake.

  Chapter Forty-four

  Our course correction worked. The Grumman Goose continued north. And then the clouds rolled and the mist rose and the Tin Lizzie was swallowed up in heavenly vapor. The Grumman Goose kept its noisy vigil but they were flying blind. So long as the weather front kept us company we were snug as a bug.

  “Free and clear on the high seas mates!” said The Schooler in his hearty sailor voice.

  I echoed the sentiment with the only maritime expression I knew. “Anchors aweigh!”

  Jimmy laughed at me, like he was an old salt from way back.

  Truth was I had never understood why anyone would voluntarily abandon the feet-on-the-ground security of terra firma in order to be cooped up on a sea-tossed tub. My only nautical experience came from troop shipping over to Liverpool with a boatload of GIs. I wasn’t in uniform and I wasn’t permitted to say why. The OSS had warned me against fraternizing, which was a strange word to use for a young mope stuck on a passenger ship with a couple thousand other young mopes just like himself, scared, lonely, seasick. Fraternize is what you’re not supposed to do with the enemy.

  The clouds rolled and the fog swirled. The thrum of the twin engine Grumman grew faint. I drew a full unhurried breath for the first time in six hours.

  The Schooler continued west at full throttle, which meant we weren’t bound for Canada. Good, too obvious. And too far to go before dawn. Where else? Port Clinton? Sandusky? They’d have their PDs and Coast Guards on hot standby as the teletype Paul Revere’d its alarum from post to post. Where else could we reach before dawn?

  “Gimme back my shoes,” said Jimmy all of a sudden. He was squared up on the rear deck, raring to go.

  “Why should I be the only one who looks ridiculous?” I said, lightheartedly.

  “Gimme the fuckin’ shoes!”

  So much for the lighthearted approach. “Come get ‘em tough guy.”

  Jimmy doffed his topcoat. I removed my windbreaker and assumed the position. Jimmy was a handful, no question. But if I couldn’t handle a guy wearing bedroom slippers on a slippery deck it was time to hang up my cub scout beanie.

  “Stow it, you nitwits,” shouted Henry.

  “He won’t give my shoes!” said Jimmy.

  “What’s wrong with your shoes Schroeder?”

  “They’re frozen!”

  “Then set them on the engine block and give Jimmy back his pair,” said the long-suffering headmaster.

  “Okay, on one condition,” I said to Jimmy. “You tell me how you got to the boathouse.” This wasn’t much of a condition. Jimmy was dying to tell me about his clever subterfuge.

  “You made a phone call.”

  “Yeah I did. How’d you know that for sure?”

  “I din’t,” said Jimmy, “you told me.”

  Sumbitch was right about that. All Jimmy knew for certain was that I was AWOL for a short bit of time at the brown brick monastery. He’d called my bluff and I bit, saying I had phoned Jeannie.

  “You din’t go through all that bullcrap just to call your lady friend,” said Jimmy. “You called for reinforcements, feds or crooks. Neither case was I getting behind the wheel of that panel truck.”

  “If you knew that going in why didn’t you rat me out to the old man?”

  “If you called the feds the deal was dead, nuttin’ I could do about it. But if you called in a new crew, well, I do what I did.”

  Let the new hires risk their necks. Hide yourself under a rowboat in hopes the new hires got lucky. Then ambush them with your sawed-off.

  The Tin Lizzie buzzed through the scattered ice, the clouds rolled and the fog swirled. I asked the question again.

  “How did you get to the boathouse?”

  “In an Alfa Romeo roadster. Lizabeth’s car.”

  “You swiped her keys.”

  “She drove me herself,” said Jimmy with a lurid grin.

  The Schooler was standing at the helm, the seat of the captain’s chair bracing his lower back, grinning, talking to himself, in his glory. I nodded my head in his direction.

  “You want to say that a little louder Jimmy?”

  “Gimme back my shoes!”

  I did so, taking my sweet time, then shuffled my slippers down to the cabin to retrieve my soggy brogans. I opened the bulkhead door.

  My knees buckled and my head swam. Heat. The cabin was heated. I had stripped off my clothing in this very room, I would have noticed. Unless I was too frozen. Or the heat hadn’t kicked in yet. And how does a cabin cruiser heat itself anyway?

  I flopped down on the narrow bunk and fell dead asleep.

  Chapter Forty-five

  I woke up on the floor of the cabin about four hours later. 3:40 a.m. The Tin Lizzie was no longer slicing through icebound Lake Erie like a hot knife. In fact we seemed to be moving backwards at the moment.

  Then we reversed gear, shot forward and smacked into something, hard. The hull of the ship shuddered and groaned. We backe
d up and did it again. No wonder I woke up on the floor.

  Jimmy banged in. “Wake up Sleeping Beauty.”

  “And you must be the handsome prince.”

  “It’s boathook time, funny boy.”

  I climbed to my feet and followed Jimmy up to the rear deck. We sat on the gunwale and held fast as The Schooler put the iceboat through its paces, backing and ramming, backing and ramming. We had outrun our warm front. The night was clear and bright with stars, and cold as a banker’s smile. I looked to see what The Schooler was trying to bust his way through.

  Plates of ice had fissured and overlapped. The obstruction wasn’t nearly as tall as the sculpted wave but it was a damn sight wider. The Tin Lizzie backed and rammed once again, then sat back on its scuppers, exhausted. I looked again. The boat had only carved a small vent in the windrow or pressure ridge or whatever it was.

  The Schooler looked down at us from the wheelhouse. Jimmy handed me a boathook pole with the big-toothed saw attachment. I stood up and sat down.

  I’m a trooper, I’m a super-duper double trooper. But Jimmy and I weren’t equipped to do the work of a 10,000 hp diesel iceboat with bilge pumps that move the ballast fore to aft. I said as much.

  “You’re the genius Henry. Dazzle us.”

  The Captain of the Tin Lizzie took this challenge with a snide smile. He bent to his stow box and removed what looked like two leather bridles.

  “And I suppose we’re the horsies.”

  The Schooler did a hearty pirate version of his flat clipped laugh. Herr herr herr. Herr herr herr.

  Turned out the bridles were safety harnesses - you clip ‘em onto the hand railing so’s you don’t fall off the boat when you snag a big one. Jimmy and I shrugged into them. The Schooler positioned us amidships with our boathooks, saw attachments removed. Jimmy was starboard, I was port. Then he backed the Chris Craft up the channel a good thirty yards.