The Aquitaine Progression (68 page)

“That was a rotten thing to do,” said Converse, breathing hard, still holding his stomach. “Now, you bastard,
your
jacket!”

“
Was …?
”

“You heard me! Take it off, hold it upside down, and shake the goddamned thing!”

The German slowly, reluctantly, slid off his waist-length coat, twice darting his eyes to the left of Joel, toward the wheelhouse door. “I look only for drugs.”

“I’m not carrying any, and if I were, I suspect whoever sold them to me would have a better way to get across the river than with you. Turn it upside down!
Shake
it!”

The captain held his coat by the bottom edge and let it fall away. A short, ugly revolver plummeted to the floor, clacking on the wood, followed by the lighter sound of a long knife encased in a flat bone handle, flared at the end. As it struck the deck the blade shot out.

“This is the river,” said the German without elaboration.

“And I just want to cross it without any trouble—and trouble to someone as nervous as I am is anyone walking through that door.” Converse angled his head, gesturing at
the wheelhouse entrance on his left. “In my state of mind, I’d fire this gun. I’d probably kill you and whoever else came in here. I’m not as strong as you, Captain, but I’m afraid, and that makes me much more dangerous. Can you understand that?”

“
Ja
. I not hurt you. I look only for drugs.”

“You hurt me plenty,” corrected Joel. “And that frightens me.”

“
Nein. Bitte
… please.”

“When do you take the boat out?”

“When I say.”

“How many crew?”

“One man, that is all.”

“
Liar!
” whispered Converse sharply, the gun thrust forward.

“
Zwei
. Two men … 
today
. We pick up heavy crates in Elten. On my word, is normal only one man. I can’t pay more.”

“Start the engine,” ordered Joel. “Or engines. I only know Chris-Crafts and Bertrams, which is a silly fucking thing to say.”

“What?”

“Do it!”

“
Die Mannschaft
. The … crew. I must give orders.”

“Wait!” Converse crawled sideways past the wheelhouse door, glancing above to his left at the thick wooden paneling of the pilot’s window, his gun never once wavering from its line of fire into the German’s chest. Again, he used the bulkhead and his braced legs to shinny himself up the wall; he was in shadows, with a clear view of the bow and, through both wheelhouse windows behind him, the stern of the boat. In sight were the fore and aft pilings on both sides, the lines looped around the thick protrusions of weather-beaten logs. The two crewmen were sitting on a storage hatchway, smoking cigarettes, one drinking from a can of beer. “All right,” said Joel, clicking the hammer back on the automatic—a weapon he was not sure he could use accurately within ten feet. “Open that door and give your orders. And if either of those men down there does anything but free those ropes, I’ll kill you. Can you understand that?”

“I understand … everything you say, but you do not understand me. I search you for drugs—not a
grosse Mann
—the
Polizei
do not go after such people, they leave them alone.
They go after the small people who use the riverboats. It makes them look good, you see. I would not hurt you. I only protect myself. I want to believe what my
Neffe
—nephew—told me, but I must be sure.”

“Your
nephew
?”

“The seaman from Bremerhaven. How you think he got his job?
Ach, mein Bruder
sells flowers! It is his Frau’s shop! He once sailed the oceans as I did. Now, he is a
Blumenhändler
!

“I swear to Christ I don’t understand anything,” said Joel, partially lowering his gun.

“Maybe you understand if I tell you he offered to pay me one half of the fifteen hundred dollars you pay him.”

“A consortium of thieves.”

“
Nein
, I not take. I tell him buy a new
Gitarre
.”

Converse sighed. “I have no drugs. Do you believe me?”

“
Ja
, you are only a fool, he told me. Rich fools pay more. They cannot tell people how foolish they are. The poor do not care.”

“Do those little bromides run in the family?”

“What?”

“Forget it. Cive the orders. Let’s get out of here.”

“
Ja
. Watch through the windows, please. I do not want you to be more afraid. You are right. A man afraid is much more dangerous.”

Joel leaned back against the bulkhead as the captain shouted his orders. The engines started and the lines were released from their pilings. It was so contrary, he thought. Hostile, belligerent men who struck out in anger were not always his enemies, while pleasant, seemingly friendly people wanted to kill him. It was a world he knew nothing about, a long stretch from a courtroom or a boardroom where courtesy and “killing” could mean a variety of things. There were no such gray areas a hundred years ago in the camps and the jungles. One knew who the enemy was; the definition was clear on all sides. But during the past four days he had learned that there were no defined lines for him now. Converse stared out the window, at the pockets of mist rising out of the water, a few spiraling up to catch the early light in their clouds of vapor. His mind went blank. He did not care to think for a while.…

“Five, perhaps six minutes,” said the captain, swinging the wheel to his left.

Joel blinked; he had been in a peaceful, rest-filled void, for how long he was not sure. “What are the procedures?” he asked, conscious of the rising orange sun firing what was left of the river mists. “I mean, what do I do?”

“As little as you can,” answered the German. “Just walk like you walk the pier every morning and go through the repair yard to the street. You will be in the south part of the town of Lobith. You will be in
die Niederlande
and we never saw each other.”

“I understand that, but how?”

“You see that
Bootshafen?
” said the captain, pointing to a complex of docks with heavy winch machinery and hoisting devices across the water.

“It’s a marina.”

“
Ja
, marina. My second petrol tank is empty—I say I test. I stall the engines three hundred meters offshore and go in. I yell at the Dutchman’s price but I pay, because I do not buy from the
deutsche
thief this far downriver. You get off with one of my crew, have a cigarette and laugh at your stupid captain—then you walk away.”

“Just like that?”

“
Ja
.”

“It’s so easy.”

“
Ja
. No one said it was difficult. You only have to keep your eyes clear.”

“For the police?”

“
Nein
,” said the captain, shrugging. “If there is
Polizei
they come to boat, you stay on board.”

“Then who am I looking for?”

“Men who may watch you, may see you walk away.”

“What men?”

“
Gesindel, Gauner
—what you call scum. They come each morning to the piers and look for work, most still drunk. Watch for such men. They will think you have drugs or money. They will break your head and steal.”

“Your nephew told me to watch the men on your own boat.”

“Only the new man, he is a
Gauner
. He chokes on his beer hoping it will clear his head. He thinks he fools me but he does not. I keep him on board, tell him to scrape the rail, something. The other is no problem for you. He is loyal to me, an
Idiot
with a strong back and no head. The riverboats do not hire him. I do.
Verstehen?
”

“I think so. By the way, I have to get to Amsterdam. Is there a train here?”

“No train in Lobith. You take the omnibus to Arnhem. The train to Amsterdam is in Arnhem. I use it many times when my ships dock in
die Niederlande
. The omnibus stops at the railroad station. Not long ride.”

“Ships? Large ships?” asked Joel, struck by the captain’s words.

“I once sailed the oceans, not a stinking river. Fifteen years of age I ship out with
mein Bruder
. By twenty-three I am
Obermaat
—‘petit’ officer—good money, good life.… Very happy.” The German lowered his voice as he throttled back the engines and spun the wheel starboard; the boat skidded on the water. “Why talk? It is over,” he added angrily.

“What happened?”

“It is not for you,
Amerikaner
.” The captain pushed the throttle forward; the engines coughed.

“I’m interested.”

“
Warum?
Why?”

“I don’t know. Maybe it takes my mind off my own problems,” said Converse honestly.

The German looked briefly at him. “You ask? Okay. We never see each other.… I stole money, much money. It took the company purser nine months to find me.
Aber, ach
, he
find
me! It was many years ago. No more oceans, only the river.”

“But you said you were making good money. Why did you steal?”

“Why do most men steal?”

“They need it—the money—or they want things they can’t have normally, or they’re just basically dishonest, which I don’t think you are.”

“Go back. Adam stole the apple,
Amerikaner
.”

“Not exactly. You mean a woman?”

“Many years ago. She was with child and she did not want her man on the seas and the ships. She wanted more.” The captain permitted himself the slightest glint in his eyes and a touch of a smile on his lips. “She wanted a flower shop.”

From the core of his stomach, his pain momentarily forgotten, Joel laughed. “You’re quite a guy, Captain.”

“I never see you again.”

“Then your nephew—”

“Never
see
you again!” the German broke in, now laughing
out loud himself, his eyes on the water as he headed into the Dutch marina.

Converse leaned against a piling smoking a cigarette, the visor of his cheap cap angled over his forehead, his eyes roaming up and down the pier and beyond to the repair yard in the Dutch marina. The men milling about the huge machinery were mechanically going about their tasks while those around the boats seemed more intent on inspecting than doing, shaking their heads solemnly. The captain argued with the dispenser of fuel, making obscene gestures at the rapidly climbing figures on the glass-encased face of the pump while his. softheaded deckhand grinned several feet away. On board, the
Gauner
alternately leaned over the railing, a large wire brush in his hands, and abruptly turned back to his scraping whenever his employer glanced over at him.

The time was right, thought Joel as he pushed himself away from the piling. No one anywhere had the slightest interest in him; the dismal chores and the early-morning dissatisfactions took precedence over the insignificant and unfamiliar.

He started walking up the pier, his pace casual to the point of being slovenly but his eyes alert. He proceeded to the edge of the repair yard approaching a row of hulls in dry dock. Beyond the last elevated boat, no more than three hundred feet away, was an inordinately tall hurricane fence and an open gate. A uniformed guard sat on the left drinking coffee and reading a newspaper, his chair angled back into the crisscrossing wire mesh. Seeing him, Joel stopped, his breath suspended, an internal alarm going off—for no reason. Men passed back and forth through the gate, but the guard did not so much as glance at anyone, his eyes devouring only the tabloid on his lap.

Converse turned, a last look at the river. Suddenly he became aware of the captain. The German had run to the base of the pier and was gesturing wildly, pressing his hands forward in short, rapid strokes. He was trying to warn Converse. Then he shouted at the top of his lungs; men stared at him and turned away, none caring to be involved. They had seen too much in the early hours on the waterfront, the slashing with hooks too frequently the language of the docks.

“
Lauf!
Run!
Get out!
”

Joel was mystified; he looked around. Then he saw them.
Two—no
three
—burly men were lurching up from the pier, their glassy eyes focused on him. The first man staggered forward to the left of the captain. The German grabbed his shoulder, swinging him around, stopping him, but only for seconds as the other two men crashed their fists into the captain’s neck and spine. They were animals—
Gauner
—their nostrils inflamed by the scent of a trapped fat quarry who might keep them in food and drink for days.

Converse dove under the row of dry-docked boats, smashing his head on several hulls as he scrambled toward the other side and the shafts of light beyond. He could see frantic legs pounding the earth behind him; they were gaining on him; they were running, he was crawling. He reached the end of the suspended row of hulls, sprang out and started for the gate. He pulled out his shirt, tore off the lower section and held it against the cuts on his head as he walked rapidly past the guard and through the gate. He looked around. The three men were arguing furiously, drunkenly, among themselves, two crouching and peering unsteadily under the boats. Then the man standing saw him. He shouted to the others; they stood up and started after Joel. He ran faster, until he could see them no longer; the animals had given up.

He was in the Netherlands; the welcome was less than gracious, but he was there, one step closer to Amsterdam. On the other hand he had no idea where he was right now except that the town was named Lobith. He had to catch his breath and think. He stepped into a deserted storefront, where a dark shade behind the entrance made the glass a dim mirror; it was enough. He was a mess. Think. For God’s sake,
think!

Mattilon had told him to take the train from Arnhem to Amsterdam, he remembered that clearly. And the captain of the barge had said he had to take an “omnibus” from Lobith to Arnhem; there was no train in Lobith. The first thing he had to do was reach the railroad station in Arnhem, clean himself up, then study the crowds and judge whether to risk becoming part of them. And relative to this consideration, his mind darted in several directions at once. The plain-lensed glasses had long since disappeared, undoubtedly during the insane events in Wesel; he would replace them with dark glasses. There was little he could do about the scrapes on his face, but they would appear less menacing after soap and water, and certainly in or around a railroad station something could be done about his torn clothing.… And a
map
. Goddamn
it, he was a pilot! He could reach Point A from Point B—and he had to do so quickly. He had to reach Amsterdam and find a way to make contact with a man named Cort Thorbecke—and call Nathan Simon in New York. There was so much to do!