NOTHING TO SNEEZE AT
The man in the pea jacket led them southward along South Street. On
their right stood the long row of buildings occupied by wholesale
sea-food merchants—identifiable now even in the darkness by an almost
overpowering smell of fish. Across the street, on their left, were the
great sheds and docks that extended out over the East River itself.
Sometimes, beyond them, the black bow of a freighter could be seen
looming up against the gray-black sky.
They passed the huge Fulton Fish Market, where only a few lights
twinkled now in the vast empty spaces that would swarm with activity
when the early-morning deliveries began.
The man ahead of them walked at a steady pace, hands deep in his
pockets, the collar of his pea jacket turned up high around his ears.
He seemed in no hurry to get inside out of the cold.
“Wow!” Ken said softly, as a sudden bitter gust of wind straight off
the icy river almost drove them back against the building they were
passing. “If this turns out to be a wild-goose chase—if he’s just a
sailor on the way back to his ship with a couple of cartons of
cigarettes—”
“Stop!” Sandy told him. “There’s got to be some good reason for us
going through all this.”
“There ought to be,” Ken agreed grimly.
His eyes were watering from the wind. He rubbed his gloved hands across
them, clearing his blurred vision in time to see the man they were
following veer across the street on a long diagonal. Suddenly he
vanished around the corner of a ramshackle building built directly on
the river. The boys speeded up.
“Easy,” Ken said, when they reached the building.
Just beyond it the sidewalk was edged by a tall fence of corrugated
iron, but between the building and the beginning of the fence was an
opening.
“He went through here,” Ken said, as they approached it. He peered
around the edge of the building and saw that the fence walled off a
great cement-floored dock, stretching into the river some five hundred
feet.
At its far end glowed a single light, which faintly silhouetted the
figure of the man in the pea jacket, still moving steadily away from
them.
The boys slipped through the opening after him.
“Keep against the wall,” Ken said.
They moved quietly forward, in the deep shadowy protection of the
building that bordered the dock for its first hundred feet or so.
Beyond the building, in the open water that surrounded the rest of the
great pier, the boys could discern a row of moored boats, the stern of
one snubbed against the bow of the next.
“Fishing boats,” Sandy murmured. “But they wouldn’t be going out this
early in the evening, would they? He wouldn’t be reporting to work now
if—”
He broke off as the man, up ahead, swung toward the opposite side of
the long pier.
For the first time the boys saw that there were craft moored there too.
It was too dark to make them out clearly, but they were obviously much
larger than the fishing boats.
“Barges?” Sandy whispered questioningly.
They flattened themselves against the wall of the building, near its
riverward end, to see what the man would do. When he reached the edge
of the dock he seemed to wait a minute, perhaps peering around to see
if he was alone. And then they could see his shadowy shape mounting
what must have been a ladder against the craft’s side.
A moment later there was the sound of a door creaking open and shut,
and then a weak yellow light appeared some distance above the water. It
flickered, dimmed, and then brightened again.
“It’s a barge all right. He’s gone into the cabin,” Ken said. “Let’s go
take a look.”
They hurried across the windswept dock into the partial shelter of the
craft moored on the opposite side.
There were three barges, all of them large and each supplied with a
small cabin aft. But only the cabin of the barge nearest the shore—the
one the man had entered—seemed occupied. The barges were moored end to
end, the flat stern of the first one backed up against the shore. Its
heavy timber bulwarks rose some six feet above the level of the dock,
and the boys could dimly make out the rough curve of its piled cargo
rising even higher. It seemed to be coal or stone. At the aft end they
found the ladder the man had mounted.
Their feet were almost silent on the concrete of the pier’s floor, but
the wind was noisy enough to have covered any accidental sounds they
might have made as they walked on down toward the end of the dock.
“Nobody aboard either of the others,” Sandy said.
“Doesn’t seem to be,” Ken agreed. “Let’s climb aboard the middle one.
Maybe from there we can see what’s going on in our friend’s cabin.”
Sandy hesitated only for an instant. “I don’t suppose we have any right
to be doing it,” he said. “But come on. Let’s go.”
Ken scrambled up the ladder of the middle barge. He paused when his
head was level with the top.
“O.K.,” he whispered down to Sandy below him. “All clear.”
Ken was standing in the protection of the barge cabin’s aft wall when
Sandy joined him.
The cabin occupied about two-thirds of the barge’s twenty-five-foot
width, leaving a passageway only a few feet wide on either side,
between the cabin wall and the bulwark that dropped sheer to the water
line. The faint glow from the lights on the street disclosed that the
ten-foot space aft of it was mostly open deck, cluttered with heavy
coiled lines. To one side a small shed was attached and a sizable bin
filled with large lumps of soft coal. Forward of the cabin was the
cargo hold, heaped high with crushed stone.
They looked down toward the lighted cabin of the next barge, nearly a
hundred feet away. Its hold also was loaded with stone. The single
window in the cabin’s forward wall was small and partially covered by
curtains.
“We certainly can’t see anything from here,” Sandy said disgustedly.
“I was afraid we couldn’t,” Ken admitted. “If we want to find out
what’s in that package, we’ll have to get closer.”
They moved reluctantly aft, away from the wall’s protection, until they
were standing at the gunwale. Four feet of black space separated them
from the other barge.
“It’s an easy jump,” Ken muttered.
“Sure,” Sandy agreed. They couldn’t see the water, swirling and eddying
below, but they could hear it sucking and gurgling against the hulls of
the barges. “But I’d hate to miss it. If we fell down between these two
tubs—”
“We won’t miss it,” Ken assured him.
He leaped lightly across the expanse of treacherous water. For an
instant, as he landed on the far side, he waved his arms to maintain
his balance on the eighteen-inch-wide timber that formed the barge’s
bulwark. Then he steadied himself and reached a hand back toward Sandy.
“O.K.?” he asked, as the other landed beside him.
Sandy sighed with relief. “O.K.”
They stood there for a moment, considering the best way to get forward
toward the cabin.
There was clearly only one route to take. It would be impossible to
cross the mound of stone in the hold without causing a clatter that
would reveal their presence. They would have to walk around the edge of
the barge, along the narrow bulwark.
Ken started toward the left—the side of the barge away from the dock.
As soon as he reached the corner and moved carefully around it, to
start aft, the wind caught him so fiercely that he had to drop to his
knees to keep from being blown off his feet.
He felt Sandy drop down behind him a moment later.
The vicious gust blew itself out shortly, but not until both boys were
stiff from holding that huddled position in the freezing air.
“Come on.” Ken barely breathed the words as he got slowly to his feet
and started aft again.
There were other gusts after that, not quite so fierce as the first
one, but strong enough so that Ken could feel himself tottering toward
the sharp-edged pile of stone on his right. And when he leaned his
weight against the wind, to steady himself, the black water below
seemed to rise toward him, its oily surface glinting with menace.
Halfway along the length of the barge they had to rest, lowering
themselves to their knees again and grasping at the splintery timbers
with numb hands. The lighted window they were heading for still seemed
a long distance away.
When they finally reached the small aft deck, and dropped down from
their hazardous perch, they huddled together for a minute. Both of them
were shaking, partly from cold, partly from the nervous tension of
their precarious journey.
But as soon as Ken could breathe evenly again he started toward the
cabin, feeling Sandy behind him. He headed toward the rear corner of
the little structure. There was a window in the back wall, too, as he
could see, and on that side they would be protected from the worst of
the wind.
Bracing himself lightly against the cabin wall for support, he raised
himself upright from a crouched position, until he could peer through
the narrow slit between the imperfectly drawn dark curtains. When Sandy
rose up beside him he shifted slightly to make room for him. Then they
turned and looked at each other in the faint light that came through
the slit.
“And we risked our necks to see that!” Sandy breathed.
Ken had no answer.
He didn’t know what he had expected to see inside the cabin, but
certainly he had anticipated something more dramatic than the scene
that showed itself there.
The interior of the tiny room was snug and pleasant. In the light of an
oil lamp, hung on an old-fashioned wall bracket, the room glowed warmly.
“Like a picture on a calendar,” Ken thought to himself with anger and
amazement.
The man they had followed was no longer wearing his pea jacket or his
cap. In a heavy turtle-necked sweater he sat at ease in front of a
small, round coal stove. There was a white mug in his hands, and he was
in the act of tipping his head back to drain the last swallow from it.
Then he leaned forward toward the stove, refilled his cup from a white
enameled coffeepot, and settled back again.
His feet were propped on the rim of the sand-filled box in which the
stove stood, while his whole big body relaxed in warmth and comfort. As
they watched he reached toward a paper bag on a gleaming
oilcloth-covered table and pulled out a fat doughnut.
The boys could only see his back, but even the thick folds of his neck
seemed to wrinkle with pleasure as he dunked the doughnut in the coffee
and carried the dripping object to his mouth.
“Let’s get out of here,” Sandy muttered. “This is killing me.”
“Wait a minute.” Ken craned his neck, trying for a new angle of vision
through the narrow slit. Finally he spotted what he had been looking
for. The package the man had brought from the cigar store lay, still
unopened, on one of the bunks against the port bulkhead.
“I’d certainly like to know what’s in that thing,” Ken whispered.
“I’ll go in and ask him,” Sandy offered. “Maybe he’ll give me a cup of
coffee and a doughnut while I’m there. Even if he slit my throat
afterward,” he added, “it would almost be worth it.”
The man had finished the doughnut. He took his feet off the box rim and
let his chair come down on its front legs with a thump. Still holding
his coffee mug in one hand, he reached for a poker with the other,
shoved aside the stove lid and shook down the fire.
A shower of brilliant sparks flew out of the chimney above the boys’
heads, immediately followed by a burst of thick acrid black smoke. The
wind twisted it down onto them in a choking cloud.
They buried their faces in their arms, trying to protect themselves
against the cabin wall.
Ken choked back a cough, his head pounding with the effort. Then he
felt Sandy, close beside him, heave convulsively in the first stages of
a vast sneeze.
Sandy’s head jerked back, his mouth uncontrollably open.
Ken clamped a swift hand over it. “Quiet!” he begged, in a frenzied
whisper.
Sandy made a final effort. The sneeze came, but only as a slight snort
muffled by the whipping wind. The thunderous noise Ken had dreaded
didn’t occur.
“O.K.” Sandy straightened. “I’m all right now. But let’s move, huh?”
“Might as well,” Ken agreed reluctantly.
He was convinced that the package lying in there on the bunk contained
something far more significant than two cartons of cigarettes. But he
had no proof for his belief, and he could think of no way of finding
such proof.
“Back the way we came?” Sandy’s whisper was definitely unenthusiastic.
Ken took one last glance through the window. The man was seated in his
chair again, the coffee mug beside him on the table now and a newspaper
spread wide in his hands. He had the air of a man who has settled down
for a long quiet evening.
Ken shook himself impatiently. There was certainly no reason for them
to remain here longer.
He realized that he hadn’t answered Sandy’s last question. He didn’t
want to return the way they had come any more than Sandy did. And the
ladder leading down from the barge they were on was less than twenty
feet away.
He jerked his head toward it. “Let’s take a chance and use this one.”
Sandy nodded his agreement.
They walked carefully toward it across the deck, sliding their feet in
the darkness to avoid the possibility of stepping down on something
that might upset their balance.
They had covered only half the distance to the ladder when they both
started and froze where they stood.
A car had swept onto the dock, through the same opening in the fence
which they had used earlier. It swerved to the right after it had gone
only a few feet, and its headlights illuminated the barge in a wash of
light.
With a single motion the boys dropped flat on the deck.
Somewhere below them the car stopped. The buzz of its engine was cut
off and the lights disappeared.
Ken touched Sandy’s arm. “Get back.”
If the driver of the car came aboard the barge, they would certainly be
discovered where they lay. And it was too late to use the barge ladder
now. They might walk directly into the arms of whoever had just driven
up on the dock below.
Slithering along the deck like eels, they went back the way they had
just come, and on past the cabin window to take shelter behind the
cabin’s far wall, in the narrow space between it and the bulwark.
As soon as they stopped moving they could hear sounds. Somebody was
climbing the ladder. There was a dull thud as the new arrival jumped
down onto the deck of the barge.
From inside the cabin there was a metallic banging, and suddenly once
more the boys were enveloped in a cloud of choking smoke.
Sandy had learned his lesson. He jerked down the zipper of his
windbreaker and ducked his head inside at the first whiff.
Ken, who had been concentrating on the sounds around the corner of the
cabin, was caught completely unprepared. He had inhaled a lungful of
smoke before he realized it. His shoulders began to heave as Sandy’s
had done a few minutes before.
Ken held his breath. He pinched his nose tightly between thumb and
finger. But the sneeze pushed harder than ever at the back of his
throat.
Even through the buzzing in his ears he could hear the knock at the
cabin door and the voice that said, “Open up, Cal. It’s me.”
Ken gasped. He felt as if his eyes were about to pop out of his head.
The urge to sneeze was irresistible.
“Coming,” the man inside the cabin answered, and the stove lid
clattered back on the stove.
There was nothing Ken could do about it. He sneezed. His whole body
seemed to erupt in one vast explosion, loud enough—it seemed to him—to
wake the dead.
There was a clang inside the cabin and pounding footsteps across the
deck outside.
Before Ken and Sandy could even scramble to their feet an overcoated
figure loomed above them at the corner of the cabin wall. Even in the
faint light from the window he was recognizable, although he apparently
was still unable to see in the darkness.
It was the man they knew as Barrack. His eyes were slitted in an effort
to penetrate the black shadow thrown by the cabin wall.
“Who’s there?” It was not the affable voice he had used the night
before when he had called so inexplicably at Richard Holt’s apartment.
It was a curt, furious snarl.
The boys held themselves motionless. The slightest gesture would give
away their whereabouts.
Then Barrack, who had been fumbling in his pocket, drew out a torch and
flicked it on. Ken and Sandy, spotlighted in the brilliant glare,
instinctively shut their eyes against it.
For a long moment none of them stirred.
Then Barrack spoke in a voice of controlled fury. “What are _you_ two
doing here?”
Ken opened his eyes a fraction of an inch into the bright white light.
It was enough to show him the gun that Barrack was holding leveled at
their heads.
------------------------------------------------------------------------