Tales of Time and Space

by Allen Steele

  “You need to stop frightening people like that,” I said as he came in. “We can’t afford to lose any more clients.”

  “Wang dang doodle.” Queequeg rested his harpoon against the wall, then removed his beaverskin stovepipe hat and hung it on the rack. As tall and solid as a mainmast, his walnut-brown skin was etched with so many tattoos that he looked like a lithograph. Queequeg was from somewhere in the South Seas—Samoa, Tahiti, Fiji; I was never quite sure—and he was probably too weird for even that place. I guess that’s why he came to America; here, he fit right in. He was big and scary, the best goon in New England.

  “Yeah, that’s our new client. Some looker, huh?” Queequeg shrugged as he sat down and reached into his overcoat pocket for his pipe. “She wants us to see if her husband is cheating on her. Ever heard of some guy named Ahab?”

  “Poppa poppa ooh mow mow mow ooh mow mow mow.”

  “Yeah, I know he’s a captain. She told me that already. The Pequod’s his tub. What I’d like to know is whether he’s knocking boots with someone who isn’t his wife.”

  “Ee ah ooh aah ahh.” He lit his pipe, blew a smoke ring at the ceiling. “Ting tang walla walla bing bang.”

  “Yeah, I was thinking the preacher might know something. He’s pretty sharp about stuff like this.” I stood up and walked around the desk. “By the way, did you manage to shake down that deadbeat Hawthorne? He owes us some serious bucks.”

  Without a word, Queequeg reached into his other coat pocket and pulled out a gnarly object about the size of an apple. He handed it to me, and I looked down to see two tiny eyes and a mouth that had been sewn shut. I sighed. No one was going to read a sequel to The Scarlet Letter any time soon.

  “Great,” I muttered. “Just great.” I gave the shrunken head back to my partner. “I didn’t mean for you to take me literally. A threat would have sufficed.”

  “Bum bum bubbagum bum bum.”

  “All right, never mind. Can I borrow your harpoon, at least? I left mine in New York.” Stuck in someone’s chest, I might have added, but didn’t. No sense in encouraging my partner. He was bloodthirsty enough already.

  “Wamma bamma ding dong.”

  “Thanks. I’ll bring it back.” I picked up the harpoon, slung it over my shoulder. “See you later.”

  “Shaboom shaboom.” Standing up, he walked over to a wall cabinet, opened it, and added the head to his collection. I was glad he’d remembered to shut the cabinet the last time he was here. If Mrs. Ahab had seen how he treated clients who didn’t pay on time…

  The Whaleman’s Chapel was located a couple of blocks from the waterfront. You wouldn’t think that a church would get much business in that neighborhood—hell, the best whorehouse in town was just up the street—but I guess a lot of sailors wanted to get right with the big guy before they shipped out again, because Father Mappel held services there every morning. I’ve never had much use for religion, but the preacher and I weren’t strangers. He was one of my best sources for what was happening on the street.

  Father Mappel was winding up the daily sermon when I arrived. The door was open, so I stood in the foyer. The Whaleman’s Chapel looked pretty much like any other run-down, working-class church on the outside, so it wasn’t until you went in that you saw that it wasn’t the place where your folks dragged you every Sunday. The first time I saw Father Mappel’s pulpit, I thought it was pretty clever that he’d had one built to resemble a ship’s bow, complete with a rope ladder dangling from its side. It wasn’t until later that I learned that the pulpit really was what it looked like. After a schooner ran aground on a sandbar in the Boston harbor, the preacher had it salvaged and towed to New Bedford, then removed its bow and installed it in his church. Pretty impressive, even if it was overkill.

  As usual, the sermon was the one about Jonah and the whale, retold in a weird amalgam of Jonathan Edwards-style hellfire-and-damnation and seaman’s vernacular that bore only a faint resemblance to the Old Testament version. It was the only sermon I’d ever heard the preacher deliver. I don’t think he’d changed his shtick in years. It went down well with the toothless wonders in the pews, though, and they never seemed to mind hearing it again, so the good reverend had never bothered to write something new.

  I leaned against the door and watched while he wrapped things up. The offering plate was passed—a handful of coins, along with the occasional gold tooth someone no longer needed—and an off-tune recital of “That Old Rugged Cross” soon followed. The preacher waved a hand in a desultory sort of benediction, then everyone got up and shuffled out the door, either off to work or to the nearest tavern for their own brand of communion.

  I waited until Father Mappel climbed down the rope ladder from the pulpit, then I left my harpoon in the foyer and walked down the aisle to meet him. “Nice sermon. Ever thought of buying a new one?”

  He’d just bent over to pick up one of the spittoons placed in front of the pews. “Careful, my son,” he murmured, standing up to glare at me. “The lord dost not tolerate blasphemy. In the words of the prophet Ezekiel…”

  “Knock it off, padre. Save it for the civilians.”

  He sighed. “Sorry, Izzy. Get carried away sometimes.” He bent over again to pick up the spittoon, then grimaced. “Oh, for the love of…can’t these guys ever hit the thing?”

  “Are you kidding? How many eye-patches can you count when you’re standing up there?”

  “You got a point.” Father Mappel took a seat in the nearest pew. “Man, when I took this gig, I thought it would be easier than fishing. Kind of wish I was still working the lobster boats.”

  “Naw, you’re good at it.” I nodded to the offering plate on the altar. “Besides, look at all the tips you get.”

  “Sure. Two bits a day and all the leftover hardtack I can eat.” He ran a hand through what little hair he still had. “So what’s on your mind? Don’t tell me you’re here for confession…guy like you, that’ll take all day.”

  “Funny. Very funny. Ever hear of someone named Ahab? Captain Ahab, of the Pequod?”

  “Maybe. Name kinda rings a bell.” He squinted a bit, rubbed his forehead. “Y’know, I’ve always got a lot on my mind. Like collecting donations for the widows and orphans fund…”

  I fished a couple of coppers from my watch pocket and dropped them in the offering plate, then came back to sit down next to him. “Uh-huh, now I remember. Yeah, I’ve heard of him. Strange dude, even for this place.”

  “I know about the peg-leg…”

  “That ain’t half of it.” He lowered his voice. “The captain never set foot in here, but I get his wife in my confessional every Sunday. Man, if I could marry a woman, that’s the one I’d want…but from what she tells me, he’s been cold-cocking her since day one. I hear about it because I’m always having to give her penance for what she does to make up for it.”

  “She’s on the loose? I had the impression that she wasn’t…sort of.”

  “You’re right. She ain’t…but that doesn’t keep her from looking. She’s a walking Tenth Commandment violation, only in reverse. I’m tellin’ ya, Izzy, beneath that prim and proper exterior is one very repressed lady. If she ever got a guy in bed, she’d probably break his back.”

  “She hired me to see if her husband was fooling around. She thinks he is…someone named Moby.”

  “Yeah, she’s told me that, too. But you know as well as I do that women don’t go aboard whaling ships…they’re just not allowed, period. And believe me, if there was a slut in town who goes by the name of Moby, I would’ve heard about her. So there’s something else going on behind her back, and it ain’t no girl.”

  I was beginning to think that the preacher might be right. Whatever Ahab was obsessed about, it wasn’t a dame. But my client wasn’t paying me to tell her that her suspicions were wrong; Mrs. Ahab wouldn’t be satisfied until she found out who Moby Dick was. “Maybe his crew knows something,” I said.

  “They might.” Father Mappel shrugged. “Their h
angout is the Spouter Inn, so you might check there.” He paused, then dropped his voice again. “Just be careful of Starbuck, their chief mate. He and his pal, second mate Stubb, are two galoots you want to avoid.”

  “Thanks, padre. I’ll keep it in mind.” I stood up to head for the door. “Blessings?”

  “Yeah, yeah.” He made the sign of the cross. “May the Lord bless you and keep you, yada yada. Now get out of here.”

  I retrieved my harpoon from the foyer and stepped out into the street. It was almost noon; the first winos would be showing up at the Spouter Inn to get a head-start on their drinking. Some of them might be Pequod men. Time to buy a few drinks and strike up a conversation or two.

  I hadn’t walked a hundred feet from the chapel before someone took a shot at me.

  It didn’t even come close. The lead ball chipped a cedar shingle off the corner of the tackle shop I happened to be walking past; it missed me by about six feet. A half-second later, I heard the bang of the gunshot from across the street.

  Looking around, I saw a little guy with a mean face standing at the mouth of an alley. He’d lowered the flintlock pistol he’d just fired and was pointing the other one at me. If he’d bungled the shot so badly when he’d fired with his right hand, his aim probably wouldn’t improve when he fired with his left. I wasn’t taking any chances, though, so I dove behind a row of wooden kegs on the sidewalk in front of the shop. I’d barely taken cover when his second shot shattered a window pane behind me. Damned if he didn’t get better the second time…

  All around me, townspeople were either running for their lives or finding some place to hide. This wasn’t the first time shots had been fired in the streets of New Bedford; now and then, a couple of guys would settle an argument this way, usually after they’d had a few pints. The town constable would be here soon, but not soon enough. Whoever that character was, he wanted me dead. When I peered between the barrels, I could see that he hadn’t run off, but instead was standing behind a stack of old lobster traps. Probably reloading, which meant that he was carrying only two pistols.

  I began to count to fifteen.

  There’s three reasons why I carry a harpoon instead of a pistol or a musket. First, it looks tough. Second, carrying a harpoon in New Bedford is much less conspicuous than carrying a brace of pistols. The latter means you’re looking for trouble; the former means you’re looking for a job. My line of work requires a low profile, so it behooves me to appear to be just another harpooner searching for his next billet.

  And third, guns are for losers. They can be fired only once before you have to reload, and that means half-cocking the hammer, pouring a dose of black powder into the muzzle, dropping in the ball, packing it down with the ramrod, priming the flash pan with a little more powder, closing the pan, then cocking the hammer all the way. If you don’t make any mistakes, the pistol won’t blow up when you fire it and leave you picking your nose with a hook for the rest of your life. And if you’re really fast, you can do all this in about fifteen seconds.

  Takes only a second to throw a harpoon.

  When I got to fourteen, I stood up from behind the barrels, raised my harpoon, and waited. A couple of seconds later, the killer stepped out from behind the lobster traps. Since I hadn’t returned fire, he probably figured that I was unarmed, hence a sitting duck if I remained where I was, or little more than a moving target if I tried to run for it. He hadn’t even bothered to reload his second pistol, that’s how confident he was that he’d get me on his third try.

  Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

  The instant I saw his face, I let fly with the harpoon. I’d had lots of practice with the thing, so I knew just how to chuck it. There was a look of dumb astonishment on the killer’s mug as he caught a fleeting glimpse of what was coming his way, but there was no time for him to duck before it slammed into him. The harpoon’s iron barb, which Queequeg kept it nice and sharp, went straight through his chest, entering the solar plexus and coming out through the middle of his back.

  I didn’t wait for him finish dying before I strolled across the street to the alley. He lay on his side in a red pool that had already spread far enough to enter the sidewalk gutter, and his wide eyes and gasping mouth reminded me of a brook trout that some Indian had just speared. But he was still breathing when I crouched down beside him.

  “Hello, sweetheart,” I said.

  “H-h-h—” he coughed up some blood “—how d-did…?”

  “How did I nail you? You made a mistake. You brought a gun to a harpoon fight. Your turn…who are you, and who sent you?”

  “St-st-st…” Pink froth bubbled upon his lips “Stubb. S-s-s-sent by sta-sta-star…”

  “Starbuck?” I finished, and Stubb managed a weak nod. “Both of you work for Ahab. Did he order you to…?”

  A low rattle from somewhere deep in his throat, then a stench as something foul left his body. Stubb sagged against the harpoon’s wooden shaft, and that was it. He’d told me enough, though, so I found a couple of pennies in my pocket and carefully placed them upon his unseeing eyes. He’d tried to kill me, sure, but I always pay my informants. At least he’d have something for the boatman he was about to meet.

  I’d just stood up when I heard a voice behind me. “St-st-st-stop right th-th-there, Ishma-ma-mael, and p-p-put your h-h-h…”

  “Hands up? Sure.” I raised my mitts, then slowly turned around. “’Bout time you got here, Billy. What took you so long?”

  Constable Budd stood just outside the alley, pistol pointed straight at me. He wouldn’t miss if he fired, but I knew he wouldn’t. Billy and I went way back, when we’d both served on the same ship in the Navy. He was a pretty handsome guy, with the kind of angelic looks that make girls swoon, but he was a lousy foretopman and had never been able to do anything about his speech impediment. Now he was just a stuttering flatfoot who was never around when you needed him.

  “I-I-I w-w-w—” Billy stopped, counted to ten, and then went on. “I was handling another call when I heard about what was happening here. What made you kill this guy?”

  “He tried to kill me first. You can ask anyone.” A small crowd of bystanders had come out of hiding and was beginning to gather around us. I had no shortage of witnesses. When Billy turned to look around, he saw a lot of heads nodding in agreement with what I’d just said.

  “Uh-huh.” Billy wasn’t completely convinced. “And w-why w-would he do something like t-that?”

  “Beats me. I was just defending myself.” Ignoring the pistol pointed at me, I planted a foot against Stubb’s body, grabbed the harpoon with both hands, and gave it a good, hard yank. The harpoon made a wet sound as it came loose.

  “Yeah, I’m s-s-sure that’s all you w-were do-do-doing.” Billy remained skeptical, but at least he lowered his weapon. “Y-y-you don’t t-t-think it has anything t-to do with something y-y-you m-might be working on, do y-you?”

  I wiped the harpoon clean on the corpse. “I haven’t the foggiest what you’re talking about.”

  “Oh y-y-yes you do.” Billy stuck his pistol back in his belt. “I-I-I’ve t-told you m-m-many times, Ish-Ish-Ishmael…st-st-st-stay out of p-p-p-police b-b-b-business!”

  “I’ll keep it in mind. Want some advice of my own? You really need to make another appointment with your speech therapist.”

  Constable Budd cast me a cold glare, but he knew he wouldn’t get anything out of me. “G-g-get out of h-h-here. C-come d-down to the st-st-st-station later s-s-so w-ww-we can get a…a…a…”

  “A statement. No problem.” I shouldered my harpoon again, stepped around him. “C-c-catch you later.”

  “J-j-j-jerk,” he muttered.

  Making my way through the crowd, I continued walking down the street. Time to drop by the Spouter Inn and learn why Starbuck had sent Stubb on an errand that would’ve left me dead if only he hadn’t been such a lousy shot.

  It was happy hour at the Spouter Inn, which meant that the proprietor had just opened the doors and let the drunk
s in. If it hadn’t been for local ordinances, I don’t think Pete would have ever bothered to close up; he probably would have just hired another bartender to handle the graveyard shift, rented cots to the chronics, and mopped the floors every other week. On the other hand, perhaps it’s just as well that he gave the regulars a chance to sober up. They’d only come back again the next day, anxious to damage their livers with the nasty swill Pete made from fermented apples and rubbing alcohol. Pete’s last name is Coffin. Don’t get me started.

  It was half past noon when I walked in, yet the tavern had this perpetually lightless gloom that made it seem as if midnight never went away. Sailors and derelicts were sitting around tables, using wooden spoons to slurp up bowls of the reeking foulness Pete called clam chowder; if you ever find a clam in there, please carry it back to the ocean and let it go, the poor thing got lost. The regulars were gathered at the bar, where Mr. Coffin himself was holding court. He noticed me almost as soon I found a vacant stool and sat down.

  “Hey, Izzy…I hear someone took a shot at you.” He grinned as he spit into a beer stein and wiped it down. “What’s the matter? Someone’s husband upset with you again?”

  One day, a smart fellow is going to invent a rapid means of communication. I’d be willing to bet that it might have something to do with electricity. Whatever it is, though, it won’t be half as fast as the waterfront grapevine. The guys at the bar laughed, and I faked a smile.

  “Wouldn’t know, Pete.” I rested my harpoon against the bar. “Why don’t you ask your wife?”

  More laughter. Pete picked up another stein. “I will, soon as she gets back from giving your sister swimming lessons so she can catch up with troop ships.”

  “You win,” I said, and as a consolation prize he filled the stein with ale and slid it down the bar to me. “Thanks…say, you wouldn’t happen to know someone named Starbuck, would you?”