The Penny Ferry - Rick Boyer (4 page)

"
You guys wanna start sumpin'?"

"Mary, how many of those have you had?"

"That was my third. I don't like to feel fingers
when they're not attached to a guy. But I'm better now. Gonna have
coffee."

"I thought you didn't like gin," I said.

"
Don't. This is peppermint schnapps. Tastes just
like a candy cane. Want one?"

"No. You stay here. We just checked out the
lower apartment of the house. It's been vacant for some time."

"lt sure made it easy for them, Mare," said
Joe in a low voice.

"Hey, you didn't tell the guys at the end of the
bar anything about—"

"No. I just said we couldn't find him. Listen,
come pick me up here when you're through. And it better be soon."

She pounded the thick little glass on the varnished
bar. "Bar-keep! Round four," she said.

"
Hey, thought you were having coffee now,
Toots.'

"Changed my mind. And don't call me Toots."

We walked in the alley behind the little gray house
that now looked ominous to me, that was too silent and cute. Too
buttoned up. I was looking at the garbage cans in the alley. Then I
looked at the asphalt. It was old and hard as rock. There were no
impressions there. A light metallic-blue Chevy sedan swung around
into the alley toward us. Its tires crackled on the loose cinders. A
man was leaning out the driver's window, wearing a fedora. He yelled
and Joe hollered back. Then I recognized Kevin O'Hearn, Joe's
detective partner. The beefy Irishman squinted at both of us and
spoke low.

"You call the lab, Joe? They're up there now.
Jeez, sumpin', huh? Poor Johnny . . ."

"Hey, Kevin," I said, "can you give us
a ride up the alley a ways? We're looking for something."

"What?" asked Joe.

"If you had the remains of a gas bomb what would
you do with it? Would you carry it around in your back seat or
trunk?"

"Yeah right. Okay. Go slow, Kev," said Joe.

We rolled along through the dismal alley choked with
litter and sparkly with broken glass. I pretended I was one of the
killers as I watched the garbage cans slide by the window. They all
looked too full and too small. In the third block I saw the angular
jaw of a big dumpster and told O'Hearn to stop. We all got out and
had a go at the big metal container. We lifted up the heavy lid and
tried to rummage around inside but it was chock-full of old plaster
and lath boards. The stuff was all tightly packed and very heavy; I
hated to guess what the whole thing weighed— probably about as much
as a destroyer. We drove on for another block and ran out of alley.
We were back on Broadway. I swore, and Joe suggested we try a few
more alleys, since the labboys wouldn't want us getting in their way
anyhow. We cruised around, never going more than ten blocks or so
from the gray house. Joe and I both figured they'd have dropped the
evidence off fast, not wanting it in the car.

We struck pay dirt on the fourth alley. There was a
dumpster there, filled with the usual trash and garbage. We grabbed
an old fence board and snaked around in the mess awhile before we
turned up a shopping bag with a canvas strap sticking out of it. I
reached down and plucked out the bag by a corner. Inside were two
army-issue gas masks. Canvas and rubber, brand-new, each in a little
canvas carrying pouch. I kept rummaging with the fence board, turning
over juice and booze bottles, beer cans, frozen-dinner trays, plastic
garbage bags, and junk. Then I saw it.

"Look. There's your bomb, Joe."

"That can? Hey yeah. Look, Kev, it's all burnt.
I see a horse on the side of it. A horse jumping over a fence."

"It's a tobacco can," I said. "Kentucky
Club. A tobacco can with a pry-off top is perfect; don't you see? The
lid's a friction fit, and airtight."

I drew out the scorched can carefully, holding it by
the lip. It was a few minutes before we located the burnt and
blown-out lid with the little metal sliding pry lever still attached.
We looked at the can. A household electrical cord ran from its side
right near the bottom edge. The hole had been made neatly; it was
just the right size. Putty had been packed in around the cord. On the
can's interior bottom the broken copper strands of the wire were
fused solidly, and all around the wire ends was a white powdery
ashlike deposit.

"Take that goddamn thing away from your nose,
Doc, you'll croak!" yelled O'Hearn. I thanked him for reminding
me.

"Wire's melted all over in here," I said.
"It took a terrific amount of heat to do that. I'd say they used
powdered magnesium, or flash powder. Maybe they mixed in some crude
gunpowder too, for more oomph. This stuff here would be magnesium
oxide."

"
How come you know all about that chemistry
stuff?" asked O'Hearn belligerently. "Thought you were a
doctor."

"A lot of medicine is chemistry. In my work with
teeth I deal a lot with metals and alloys . . . and their oxide
residues come with the territory I guess."

The cord was long, about twenty feet, and terminated
in a standard-issue plug. They'd used current from Robinson's
apartment to set off the lethal bomb. Seven feet from the plug, the
wire on one side of the cord was stripped and cut. The wire on the
other side remained whole.

"See? Here's their crude knife switch," Joe
said. Then, holding the wire ends about a half-inch apart by the
insulation still cleft on the cord, he touched them together several
times.

"This opens and closes the circuit just like a
switch in the cord. Now the ends of the wires in the can were joined
to a fuse wire— a thin wire that'd heat up really fast as soon as
house current was run through it. Then this wire is covered with an
explosive substance, like flash powder."

"Yeah, a rocket fuse," said O'Hearn. "But
how 'bout the gas? Where does it come from?"

"
Don't know. There's lots of different kinds.
Phosgene— that was the favorite of the Third Reich. Cyanide is
probably the most widely used. That's what they use in prison gas
chambers? "Then aren't there special military gases? Nerve gas?
Paralyzing gas? Stuff like that?"

"Yeah. But if it was homemade, which it appears
to be, then cyanide is the best bet. All you need, if I remember
right, is ferrocyanide crystals and sulfuric acid. You can get those
chemicals. It's hard but it can be done. Then when they're mixed—
bingo, poison gas. Sometimes it goes by the name prussic acid. Same
deal though. Instant death. Let's take this stuff back to the house
for a mock-up."

The lab boys were all over the place. They had
Robinson and his two dogs covered and placed on litters in the living
room. The print guys were dusting windowpanes, doorknobs, chrome
table legs— everything that would take a print. They blew powder
all over the place, swept big soft brushes over surfaces, lifted
prints off with special Scotch tape. It was absorbing to watch them,
like watching bricklayers or blacksmiths.

One guy was working on the wallpaper that had been
scorched in the hallway. He was delighted when we handed him the
empty and burnt-out Kentucky Club can. When the can was placed
against the wall under the small table the scorch mark began right
above its lip and fanned out and upward. You could almost visualize
the big flash the explosion had made, probably blowing the metal lid
up against the table. The cord ran back under the carpet runner,
under the bedroom door, and into the wall socket with some to spare.
Enough cord was left for a person to stand behind the door staring
through the peephole with the pieces of cut cord in his hands. When
he sees Robinson come up the hall, he touches the wires together.
Boom! Poison gas in the hall. Robinson falls, dogs charge the door in
a death agony. We acted it all out. The pieces fit.

The lab man fiddled with bottled solutions and test
paper. He took scrapings from the can and the wallpaper.

"Potassium-cyanide," he said softly as he
watched the solutions change color. "Or prussic acid; take your
pick of names. Lethal within seconds."

"
What do you think, Larry? Pro job?"

The man nodded and left, taking the evidence with
him. We sat at the kitchen table now that the crew was through
dusting. My brother-in-law sighed.

"
Nice going with the can and stuff, Doc. Gotta
hand it to you. Well, the big boys got Johnny at last. A simple gas
bomb, made with everyday things impossible to trace, but deadly, and
built with a lot of experience. Poor guy. And I guess you're out of
luck as far as the dental piece goes too."

"Good God, Joe! Mary! She's been in the Lucky
Seven all this time. Do you think—"'

We hustled downstairs and around the corner. There
was I quite a crowd around the bar now. It was getting on toward
evening. Mary was nowhere to be seen. We asked the barkeep and he
nodded in the direction of a crowded table.

The men around the table were huddle-tight. They were
yelling encouragement at invisible parties. We approached and saw two
arm wrestlers at the table. One was a wiry guy about my age with
rolled-up sleeves and tattoos. His arms were stringy and pretty
thick. He looked strong. The other combatant was Mary. She seemed to
be winning.

The crowd's chatter increased. Money was changing
hands. Mary's face contorted with effort and pain as she pushed to
put the man down.

"Come on, Mare!" shouted Joe.

"
Hey, you know that broad?" asked a
bystander. "Man, is she strong!"

"And mean," I added.

"
Yeah?"

There were three more shot glasses near her left
hand, all empty. But then I saw a bottle snake in and out, and one of
the glasses was full. Mary reached for it with her free hand and
knocked it back. Now where the hell did she learn that? As her head
went back she saw my face and slammed the glass down.

"Hi good-lookin'!" she called. And lost the
match.

Her opponent, sensing her lack of concentration, made
a final assault and slammed her hand down on the table. Some of the
crowd booed, but I couldn't tell if it was directed at the opponent
who took advantage or at Mary's defeat. A half-dozen guys were headed
for the bar to buy Mary some more liquid candy cane; I stepped in and
snagged her.

"That's the nicest place!" she exclaimed as
she tripped along the cracked sidewalk between us. We helped her
negotiate it now and then.

"Those guys were just trying to get you drunk,
Mare. They weren't being nice," said Joe.

"Right," I said. "They were just
trying to get you drunk so they could get in your pants, right Joe?"

"Absolutely."

Mary stopped and weaved. She stared at us, squinting
in incredulity.

"Really? Really, you guys? They wanted to get in
my pants?"

"Yep," I said. "That's all they
wanted. They just— hey!"

She was heading back toward the bar. She wasn't
dawdling either. We caught her and turned her around.

"You gotta watch Sis . . . hasn't changed a bit
since the old days."

"What do you mean by that?" I asked.

"Nevermine Charlie . . . jes' neveryoouuumine .
. ." she said.

When we rounded the corner O'Hearn was waving us over
with his arm. Mary said she was tired. I parked her in Joe's car,
where she stretched out on the back seat, Before I'd shut the door
she was asleep. No more Lucky Seven for you, kiddo.

O'Hearn swung his car around fast with Joe in front.
I hopped in the back. Joe turned and looked at me.

"Well guess what? They just found another stiff
in a ruined factory off Western."

"What?' What the hell is this, a Cagney flick?
Joe, correct me if I'm wrong, but Lowell's not a murder town, is it?"

"Naw. It's a tank town but not a murder town.
It's scruffy and rough, but not mean. Killing is pretty rare up here;
that's why I think the Mob's in on this one."

"
Factory we're goin to's an old textile mill,"
growled O'Hearn.

"Found this dude inna chimney."

"In a
chimney
?
Look you guys, all I wanted to know was what happened to my dental
work, and so far we haven't found out anything."

"And sad to say you probably won't now. If it's
not back at Dependable's office, I can't imagine where in hell it is.
The murderers might have just grabbed everything. Shit— now I'm
going to have to phone Sam Bowman and tell him that his partner and
friend john Robinson has been murdered. I tell ya, my job's a barrel
of laughs sometimes."

"You think Johnny might have left the stuff he
was carrying at his office?"

"A chance. We'll check it out tomorrow. Turn
here, Kev."

We turned and saw a Lowell black-and-white parked
over beyond the old factory gate, its blue lights winking. We drifted
into the yard. It had all the earmarks of a hundred-year-old textile
mill: huge chimney for the boilers, loading docks, sheds, long, low
buildings with roofs of tar and corrugated metal, but mostly the mill
itself, a huge building of dun brick with narrow, metal-frame
windows, an old clock turret, and tiny street-level doorways. It had
a wall around three sides. It was a brick penitentiary. It was dismal
and deserted. It was a little frightening, perhaps made more so by
the nature of our errand.