H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy

by H. J. Gaudreau

  “It should be in here someplace.” Eddie said.

  “Ready your light,” Phil called to his deck hand.

  The boat coasted gently into the night. “How far are we from shore?” Abe asked.

  “I’d guess about a hundred forty, maybe a hundred fifty yards. See the edge of the beach there?” Phil pointed.

  Only a few brave stars shown in the black sky, but to Phil the night was bright. To Abe and Eddie it was dark as a coal mine.

  “There!” Phil called and pointed. “Light to port, just off the bow. You got it?”

  In answer a deckhand had shined the spotlight in a zigzag across the water, finally resting on the Chris-Craft. The boat sat with its bow above its stern and pitched on its left side twenty degrees. The surface of the lake strained to reach the stern rail but fell short by a foot. They quickly dropped anchor and tied to the wreck.

  Few words were spoken. One member of Phil’s crew jumped to the stranded cruiser while another passed tools, a large tarp, and a long, wide-mouthed hose. Then they attached a line to the stern cleats and prepared to pull the boat off the rock that had doomed Dolly Grongoski.

  When all was in readiness for the pull the tarp was lowered into the water and pulled under the boat with lines affixed to each side. These lines were then tied off on the boat rails so the tarp hung under the boat like a sling.

  A voice from inside the Chris-Craft called, “Start the pump!” Another man, stationed at the bow of the towboat gave a sharp tug on a pull cord starting a small gasoline engine. The engine caught and soon a rhythmic clatter filled the air. An instant later the discharge hose of the pump filled, gushed water and settled into a steady stream.

  Once Phil was satisfied the pump was working he backed the towboat’s engines. The Chris-Craft slowly slid off the rock. The stern nearly swamped, the bow bobbed up and down but the cruiser eventually settled bow down in the cold water. Immediately water tried to rush into the hole caused by the rock. They were ready for this. Two men ran from line to line and pulled the tarp tight against the hull. The pump caused a slight decrease in water pressure inside the hull, the natural displacement of the craft caused pressure outside the boat and pushed the tarp into the hole. Immediately the gash was sealed.

  The pump did its job and slowly emptied the flooded craft. Gradually the bow raised itself out of the water and the boat leveled. Both Abe and Eddie smiled and shook Phil’s hand. “Impressive Phil,” Eddie said with a grin.

  “We ain’t done until she’s back in her happy little boathouse,” Phil replied. He knew that his job wasn’t done and they had a long way to go across a sometimes angry lake. More importantly, Phil knew that seeing the morning sun wasn’t a sure bet until the Chris-Craft was back in the boathouse.

  “Yeah, well…this is a good start ol’ buddy,” Abe replied.

  They began the long tow back to the boathouse. Forty minutes later Abe leaned over to Phil and said, “Put in at Grosse Ile.” Phil started to question the change, thought better of it and kept his thoughts to himself. Slowly reducing the throttle Phil gradually approached the haul-out bank.

  Several men directed the Chris-Craft into position using a combination of ropes made fast to the bow and stern. Finally, the big cruiser was in place and a pair of lines were directed forward to a matching set of winches, began to tighten. Gently the boat was pulled forward until it came to rest on a wooden boat cradle. The cradle sat on a steel wheeled dolly, which rode on a pair of rails. A large engine turned a drum and a cable attached to the dolly pulled tight. Gradually the dolly was pulled up a shallow incline until the Chris-Craft sat in a cradle on dry land.

  Phil was impressed with how efficient the operation had gone, but this was not terribly new or unusual to a man who had spent his life around boats and boatyards. Then the unusual did occur. A large diesel powered crane roared to life and came rumbling toward the Chris-Craft. As it approached, a truck with an oversized flatbed trailer drove into position next to the crane. Men swarmed around the Chris-Craft. Six-inch wide straps were strung from side to side and over the top, culminating at a single universal hook, which was then attached to the crane’s lift cable.

  Moments later the cruiser lifted from its cradle, swung through the air and was gently lowered to a similar cradle on the back of the truck.

  Abe Axler and Eddie Fletcher had left the towboat and were supervising the loading of the Chris-Craft from next to the cab of the truck. As the last cable was being secured to the side of the truck trailer Eddie grabbed the driver’s arm.

  “Forget what you’ve been told. I want you to take it to the orchard. One of the boys will have the equipment. Change the paint, I want the top blue. Change the name; call it…” He stopped, searched the yard for Axler then called, “Hey Abe! What the hell was that horse’s name. You know, the Derby winner?”

  Axler flicked his cigarette. “Eddie, how the hell could you forget a name like Burgoo King?”

  “Have ‘em paint Burgoo King on the back. Then put it in the shed and lock it up. We’ll get back to it next spring.” The driver nodded.

  “I don’t want anyone seeing it go in the shed, understand? That means you do all this at night. In fact, you drive only at night. Take the back roads, no state roads. You got all that?” Eddie jabbed a finger into the driver’s chest. The man’s eyes widened slightly.

  “Yeah. Night, no state roads, backroads only. I got it Eddie.”

  “Good, don’t screw this up.” Eddie pointed and lifted his thumb, the universal sign of a gun. “Or…” His thumb flexed forward.

  “Really, I got it Eddie, no worries.”

  Eddie grinned and slapped the man on the back. “Good” he said.

  Several minutes later Abe and Eddie watched the truck leave the boatyard. “We all good here?” Abe asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What about Phil?” Abe glanced in the direction of the towboat.

  Fletcher thought for a moment, then decided, “He’s okay. Who knows, maybe we’ll need him again.”

  “I’ll tell him.” Abe said, then turned and walked back to the towboat. “Phil” Abe yelled the name as he jumped from the dock to the boat.

  “Yea…Yeah?” Phil could feel his chest and throat tightening.

  “Phil, you know you owe us a good amount of money? We’ve extended a lot of credit.”

  “Ah geeze Abe. Times is hard. I’ll pay you back as soon as I can, I promise I will.” Phil could feel his bladder convulse and wondered if he was going to wet his pants before they killed him.

  “I don’t like debt Phil.” Abe stopped. The silence nearly crushed Phil as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Abe was enjoying Phil’s discomfort. “Phil, I don’t like debt, yours or mine. And if I didn’t pay you for tonight’s work, I’d be in debt to you right?”

  “No, no Abe. Really, consider it a favor, really.”

  Phil could feel the warmth on the inside of his leg.

  “Phil, I don’t do favors and I don’t want favors. You understand Phil?”

  “Yeah, yeah, sure Abe. But I was just considering this to be among friends.”

  “I don’t have friends Phil.” Abe studied the man. Several seconds passed, Phil began to shake. Urine began to run down his leg. Finally Abe said, “Well Phil, tell you what. You did us a favor tonight. We’ll call it even.”

  Phil couldn’t believe his ears. He could feel his heart pounding. He thought about his wet leg, then he smiled, and then he slumped back against the rail. “Thanks Abe. Thanks. Any time I can do something for you boys you just let ol’ Phil know.” His relief was palatable. Phil knew he could just as easily have ended the night as carp food.

  Axler and Eddie Fletcher didn’t get back to the Chris-Craft the next spring. The raging war among the Italian Mafia spilled into Detroit. The East Side Gang became the Detroit Partnership. As time slipped by Charles “Lucky” Luciano took over the New York organization and the Mafia war ended. Luciano formed ‘La Cosa Nostra’ from the nation’s t
wenty-four most powerful Mafia crime families. The Partnership was one of them. The organization was too big, too powerful for the Purples or anyone else. In November, Abe and Eddie were taken for a ride. Their bodies were found in a car on an isolated country road. It was just business.

  Chapter 19

  Cole David Prestcott was, by any definition of the word, an exception. A man that, by breeding, intellect and disposition should have been a penniless leech on society was, from all appearances, doing exceptionally well, thank you very much.

  Cole had barely graduated from Petoskey High School, located in the town of the same name on northern Michigan’s west coast. No one was sure which was worse, his academics or behavior. Fortunately, Cole did have one talent. He was a hockey phenom. His grace, power and skill on the ice led to several scholarship offers by the top hockey schools in the upper mid-west. Eventually he chose Ferris State College, a school which always threaten a deep run in the national championship tournament.

  School would have been a disaster had it not been for hockey. Coach Guy Boucher had strict rules about study hours and curfews. Woe be it to any player that ignored those rules. Suspension from the team was never considered. Extra hours on the ice, skating endlessly from one end to the other, stick in hand, puck constantly moving was.

  The formula worked. Cole completed his Bachelor’s degree at Ferris State College. Sadly, his size and a shoulder injury his senior year, kept him from the pro hockey game. Lost and adrift he attempted a Masters Degree at Michigan State University, but too much drinking, too many girls and not enough studying quickly put an end to that idea. After a year with a small parts manufacturing firm in the auto town of Dearborn he decided to move back to Petoskey. Cole struggled. Jobs in northern Michigan are few and far between. Life was hard and dollars scarce. Cole was reduced to pan-handling when he couldn’t pick up some sort of day job.

  An old proverb holds that “sometimes even a blind squirrel finds a nut” and Cole David Prestcott proved the validity of that observation. A man from down state hired Cole to paint his lake cabin. In payment, Cole was given a jet ski. This was perfect, it filled his unemployed summer days and all the girls wanted a ride. Soon family, friends and then complete strangers were asking if they could rent the machine.

  Cole purchased three more and began renting the speedy watercraft to the tourists who swarmed northern Michigan’s lakeside villages from Memorial Day to Labor Day. It didn’t take long before the business was expanding, then doubling, and doubling again.

  He had found a niche. He rented ski boats, then large party boats. Cole bought out the competing Mom and Pop boat rental businesses. Those that would not sell found one of Cole’s ultra modern, rental “salons” being built next door. Soon the family boat rental shops faced cut-throat prices and newer inventory. Within ten years Cole dominated the boat rental business from Houton Lake north to Mackinaw Bridge.

  Life was good. Cole married the stunningly beautiful Elaine Mary Johannsen from Grand Rapids. He had it all and Cole was not afraid to show it off. The irony of the thing was not lost on him. Born to a typical middle class family Cole had been a disappointment to his domineering father and never-to-be pleased mother. His older brother’s law degree had only added to the pressure. Now, they could all go to hell. Cole was the one with the multimillion dollar house and business.

  Elaine and Cole were cut from the same cloth. They met on a Wednesday night at one of the many East Lansing pubs catering to college students. She was a premed student who had been bested by the first test in her second semester of organic chemistry. She had been sitting alone at a table full of girls, contemplating a grade point average fading into the “we’re sorry, but you do not meet our academic standards” range. He was back in his favorite bar after a day looking at used boats. Elaine was drowning her sorrows in mixed drinks with words like “Fuzzy, Sunset, Pink, and Lady” in their name. She had spent the better part of that afternoon in a tear filled discussion with her less than honest roommate. By nine that evening Elaine had decided that a “Mrs.” degree was much easier to obtain than an M.D. degree. Her roommate readily agreed since she was also a pre-med student and there were only a limited number of students carried forward each year.

  Cole’s timing couldn’t have been better. It had not been Elaine’s pre-med brain that attracted Cole. Which was fair since it wasn’t Cole’s brain that attracted Elaine. What attracted Cole was the fact that Elaine was a twenty-one year old gymnast and football cheerleader with a figure that had caused more than one out-of-bounds player to momentarily forget the game.

  What attracted Elaine was Cole’s larger than average wallet. Time passed. Cole got his trophy wife and Elaine got her “Mrs.” degree.

  Cole joined the local Chamber of Commerce, the country club, the Rod and Gun Club and was often seen skiing, boating and playing on the lake with various friends and associates from the local business community. To them, Cole was a great guy.

  To his wife he was a no-good, two timing SOB, who had imprisoned her in the uncultured hinterlands of northern Michigan. But she liked the money, had no skills outside of the bedroom and at the age of thirty-four had never earned a paycheck from anyone other than her husband. Elaine was not a fan of working for a living, though she had worked full time in the business until recently. She still did some occasional work for the company, but only when it suited her. And, it suited her only when opportunity presented itself. Elaine couldn’t conceive of working for a living, so she stayed with him, or so Cole thought. But then, Cole didn’t think too hard about people.

  Cole’s ego matched the size of the Great Lakes. In a few years he sold his home in Petosky and moved several miles south to the shores of Lake Charlevoix. Here Cole let his imagination and wallet run wild. Cole intended that everyone cruising those bright blue waters knew that Cole Prestcott had hit the big time.

  He purchased seven acres of land jutting into the western end of the lake near the little puddle known as Round Lake and the canal which led to Lake Michigan. He tore down the nine hundred square foot cabin that had occupied the lot for seventy years and replaced it with a modest home. Modest only in the sense that it wasn’t as big as Oprah Winfrey’s Chicago home.

  Built to impress, using the most eco-friendly technology available, it was a six thousand square foot Northern Michigan white cedar log cabin with gray slate roofing. It held six bedrooms, three massive stone fireplaces, one each in the living room, master bedroom and in front of the full length bar in the “man cave” basement plus a game room, family room and formal living room. The home was, of course, professionally decorated in a dual logging and maritime motif that captured the heritage of the area perfectly. The fact that Elaine could stay at home, yet go days without having to see Cole had a certain appeal to her.

  The “cabin” was truly beautiful. Elaine hosted several dinner parties each year; parties meant more to cement their role in society’s elite than to fraternize with friends or each other. And, while Cole loved the status conferred by the most elegant house on the lake, he was less impressed with “his cabin” than he was with his boathouse.

  The boathouse was massive. Constructed of white cedar logs to match the “cabin” it was two stories high, its east and west sides lined with tinted glass allowing the morning and afternoon sun to filter in and illuminate the space for the entire day. The building, actually two buildings, one on each side of a waterway covered by a roof, had been built on concrete pillars sunk into the lakebed. The walls were festooned with oars, paddles and fishing poles of various types. On the south, or land side, of the structure the left and right corners contained an office and machine shop respectively. Protruding some forty feet into the lake, the northern end contained storage and machinery rooms. A deck, with four docks forming berths stretched around the building in the shape of the letter U. Boats entered through the chain driven overhead doors at the open end of the U and rested comfortably in the eight cozy berths. Cole had dredged the lake bottom a
nd designed the structure to allow his deep draft sailboat to be housed between the berths, lengthwise in the U. The mast extended neatly through an opening in the ceiling like a straw in an ice cream float. The docks were where Cole kept his current favorite watercraft ready to exit through the “port” as Cole called the north opening; “door” as his wife called it.

  While the floor plan and dock system were impressive, what Cole really counted on to impress his visitors was the hoist system. Cole’s people could lift a boat out of the water at four berths and suspend it over the water underneath. This allowed another boat to slip into the now vacant dock space. Cole employed two “deck hands” in the boathouse to complete the maintenance on the various boats, most of which were wood and required a considerable amount of care. The deckhands also maintained the boathouse and moved the boats here and there on the hoist. At present, Cole’s boathouse held six different boats, not counting of course the numerous kayaks, canoes and wave runners which were suspended from the ceiling or placed on racks along the shore side wall. Cole had everything from a thirty-foot sailboat to an eight-foot canoe under one roof.

  His pride and joy however was a perfectly restored 1922 Standard twenty-six foot Chris-Craft speedboat which he used to visit friends, lovers and the grandiosely named small town of Boyne City at the opposite end of the lake. Cole loved everything about the boat and was a fanatic Chris-Craft boat owner.

  That Cole was an expert on the Chris-Craft line of boats came as no surprise to the few childhood friends he had, emphasis on the past tense. Cole had always viewed a Chris-Craft boat as the definition of luxury. Movie stars, captains of industry and the rich and famous of all brands had once made Chris-Craft the definitive mark of success.