Chapter Seventeen

Shadow Men

Wednesday, March 26, 1924

At 2:10 am, Tom won the last hand of the evening. He pulled the meager pile from the center of the table and added the coins to his small heap. After five hours of sleep and an hour of coffee and poker, he and Kevin were both back where they started. It was time to head down to Lock 3. Kevin poured shots of whiskey.

“For luck.”

“Better not need any,” Tom muttered. “Just get in, get it off, and get out.”

“And get paid,” Kevin said. “Don’t forget that part.” They drained their whiskey and climbed to the deck to discover rain like fine, soft needles, and suspended water vapor catching ambient light from the city. The area around the scow was unlit, but they could see well enough to work without a lamp. And well enough, they hoped, to steer into the locks.

Through Georgetown the towpath leapfrogged to the north side of the canal and the river was a few blocks to the south. The scow was tied up above Lock 4, and Lock 3 was one block further east, near 30^th Street. Kevin and Tom removed hatch 3 and extracted the logs that hid Finn Geary’s two barrels, sliding them back onto the stern hatches. Tom took the tiller as Kevin crossed the fall-board to get the mules ready. They started downstream with their bow-lamp dark.

The dirt towpath had grown wet and Kevin found the footing slippery as mud clung to his soles. Georgetown was at its quietest now and they had already passed the mills, but Kevin still heard distant metallic shrieks, iron striking iron, someone yelling in the distance. The rhythm of mule-hooves slapping wet dirt was the metronome for this nocturnal orchestra. Lock 4 was set for a loaded boat and deserted. Kevin slowed the mules and Tom steered a clear course. They locked through quickly. Ten minutes to three.

Kevin found himself eyeing the warehouses and dirt lots to his left and right as the scow passed Jefferson Street and approached Lock 3. A three-story brick foundry across the canal had been converted into a veterinary hospital for canal mules, and its hulking form loomed over Lock 3 like a giant watchdog. The diffuse glow of a streetlamp splashed onto the front of the hospital, but the side of the building facing the lock was cast into deep shadow. At the base of the shadow a dirt road ran parallel to the canal, and Kevin thought he saw a gleam of metal from the darkness as he drew closer.

He guided the mules past the lower gates and turned to check on the scow. Tom’s course looked good. Kevin snubbed the boat to a stop after it entered the lock. When he looked up, the shadowed veterinary hospital was directly across the canal and he could see the outline of a flatbed truck parked beside it. Two silhouettes leaning against the truck stepped forward. Kevin leapt onto the scow and Tom joined him on deck as the men approached.

The man on the left tilted back his hat-brim so that Kevin and Tom saw a glimmer of white from his eyes. He was taller than either Emory but looked young -- barely twenty, Kevin thought. His anemic mustache was a light color and a toothpick bobbed in the corner of his mouth. The second man was Kevin’s height with black sideburns and a dark mole near the tip of his broad nose. Even in the dim light he looked powerfully built.

“You the Emorys?”, asked the young man with the toothpick.

“That’s right,” Kevin said. “Who are you?”

“Mr. Geary sent us. We’re supposed to pick up a package for him.”

Tom’s hand drifted toward the knife at his hip. “You got something for us?”

“That’s been taken care of,” said Toothpick. He turned toward Mole-nose. “Get the sling.” Mole-nose walked back to the truck, retrieved a barrel sling, and rejoined Toothpick at the lock wall.

“Let’s go,” Toothpick said.

Kevin hadn’t seen either man before, but he had encountered enough others like them to believe they worked for Finn Geary. He and Tom guided them to hatch 3. The light rain sprinkled the barrels, which lay end to end like enormous oaken eggs in a nest of firewood. Mole-nose unfolded the barrel sling -- two six-foot hickory staves connected by three equally-spaced lengths of heavy rope. They worked the ropes under the first barrel, struggled to lift it, and carried it over to the truck.

“Straight to the center,” Toothpick said in a strained voice, guiding Kevin and Tom to the middle of the flatbed. Toothpick synchronized the men and with a grunt they lifted the staves higher, swung the barrel out over the flatbed, and then lowered the sling. Geary’s men jumped onto the truck, set the barrel upright, and wheeled it to the center of the bed.

“Let’s go,” Toothpick said again, leaping down and striding back to the scow. Mole-nose grabbed the sling and followed with Kevin and Tom trailing. Kevin cast a glance across the canal toward the mules. They were nosing around the fringe of the towpath but his eye was drawn beyond them, toward the intersection of the towpath and 30^th Street. Two figures were standing on the edge of a dirt lot next to the sidewalk. They were backlit by a streetlamp, and he felt a chill when he recognized the outline of a policeman’s cap on the figure nearest the curb. The man’s clothing seemed to fit snugly, like a uniform. The other man was further from the light, but Kevin could see that he wore a large brimmed hat and a long coat. Did the two men just arrive? If not, Geary’s men should have noticed them, since they could be seen clearly from the truck. It was too late to change anything. With one barrel on the truck and one on the scow -- and the lock gates closed -- whatever was going to happen was ordained. He followed Geary’s men and Tom back to the open hatch.

They hoisted the second barrel in the sling and humped it over to the truck, this time without words. Toothpick and Mole-nose climbed onto the flatbed and lashed the barrels together, roped them to tie-down rings in the corners, then threw a tarp over them and tied that down as well. Kevin and Tom watched from the adjacent dirt road. When they were finished securing the cargo, Geary’s men hopped down from the truck.

“Well you fellas have a good trip to wherever you belong,” Toothpick said, tilting the brim of his hat forward and acknowledging each Emory. “We got to get moving. You’ll get the barrels back next time.”

“I think you’re forgetting something,” Tom said. His voice was low and hard-edged and his hand eased toward his knife.

Toothpick smiled. He plucked the toothpick from his mouth and addressed Tom slowly, as if talking to an imbecile. “I told you,” he said. “That’s been taken care of.”

Kevin felt a stab of apprehension. Maybe these weren’t Geary’s men after all. And maybe “taken care of” meant something less desirable than being paid. He glanced over his shoulder toward the two figures he’d seen across the canal. The man with the policeman’s cap had moved closer to the scow and Kevin was convinced now that he was wearing a uniform. The other man was gone. Kevin turned back toward the truck and saw Toothpick and Mole-nose walking toward the cab. He sensed a rising fury and saw Tom take a step in their direction, knife in hand.

“I’d put that away if I were you,” said a mellifluous voice from the direction of the scow. “I don’t think you’ll need it.”

Kevin pivoted and watched the man with the large-brimmed hat and long coat approach. He was thickset but moved with an athletic lightness of foot. When the man stopped in front of them, Kevin recognized Finn Geary. His face was pockmarked with craters left by forgotten acne and his nose betrayed a youth spent in a boxing ring, but his eyes were dark and playful. Under his thick mustache, the corners of his mouth curled upward. A gap between his two front teeth contributed to an expression that Kevin interpreted as either bemused or mocking.

Geary pulled an envelope from his coat pocket and handed it to Kevin before advancing to converse with Toothpick, who had climbed into the driver’s seat. Kevin backed away from the flatbed when he heard the engine start. The envelope in his hand was unsealed; he spread it open and saw a thick stack of bills inside. The truck pulled away slowly and Geary rejoined the Emorys.

“You better count it. My accountant gets distracted sometimes.”

Kevin instinctively looked up to check on the position of the figure across the canal. The policeman hadn’t moved and was facing in their direction.

“You don’t have to worry about him,” Geary said without turning to follow Kevin’s gaze. He looked at Tom and Kevin in turn and smiled knowingly. “You just have to worry about me.”

Kevin extracted and counted the bills, brow furrowed as he did the arithmetic in his head. Eight hundred, minus forty, plus fifteen. He looked up at Geary and nodded. “It’s all there.”

“It better be,” Geary said in a serious tone. “And the same goes for your barrels. If what’s on that truck isn’t what you gave Carruthers, you’ll never make it back upriver.” He smiled again. “But you already know that. That’s the nature of the business we’re both in.”

Kevin nodded, glancing back at the scow. Tom shifted impatiently from one leg to the other, and Kevin wondered whether the coffee and whiskey had caught up to him.

Geary tilted his head toward the watching policeman. “Now that guy, there,” he said. “He’s just a working man. He’s like all the other working men beaten down by Prohibition. They can’t afford the clubs for the high-rollers and the politicians.” He looked from Kevin to Tom with his hands thrust deep into his coat pockets. His eyes twinkled and he smiled broadly. “The temperance movement has been a great friend to me,” he said. “And maybe to you as well. But it’s been nothing but a kick in the balls for them.”

He retreated toward the scow with the Emorys following and turned in the middle of the deck to shake their hands. “Stay in touch,” he said with a fleeting smile. He walked off the boat onto the towpath and Kevin watched his figure recede into the shadows.

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