Sara Paretsky - Deadlock

“It wasn’t that difficult, Niels. The police patrol that facility. They were questioning everyone who’d been down there between midnight and six Sunday morning, inspecting their cars, too, I’m sure. So whoever put the body in the holds had to get to the ship without going by the police. Once I realized that, it was pretty easy to see it must have come by boat. A helicopter would have attracted too much attention.”

It pricked his vanity to have his great idea treated lightly. “We won’t run those risks with you, Vic. We’ll leave you a couple of miles offshore with a good strong weight to hold you down.”

I have always feared death by drowning more than any other end-the dark water sucking me down into itself. My hands were trembling slightly. I pressed them to the sides of my legs so that Grafalk couldn’t see.

“It was the destruction of the Lucella I couldn’t figure out at first. I knew you were angry with Bledsoe for leaving you, but I didn’t realize how much you hated him. Also, the Eudora shipping contracts I looked at puzzled me. There were quite a number of orders last year which Pole Star gave up to Grafalk Steamship. For a while I thought you two were in collusion, but there wasn’t any financial advantage to Bledsoe from the Lucella being blown up. Quite the contrary.

“Then he told me Monday that you’d pressured him while he was financing the Lucella -you knew he’d never raise the money if word got out on the street that he’d been in jail for embezzling. So you promised to keep it to yourself if he’d give you some of his shipping contracts.

“That explained the water in the holds, too. Once the Lucella was financed, you could tell the world and be damned, as far as he cared. He started underbidding you-considerably-and you got Mattingly to bribe one of the sailors to put water in her holds. So she lost the load, and in a rather expensive way.”

Grafalk wasn’t so relaxed now. He drew his legs up and crossed them. “How’d you know that?” he asked sharply.

“Boom Boom saw Mattingly there. He wrote Pierre Bouchard that he’d seen Mattingly under odd circumstances. I thought it must have been up here on the Brynulf , but Paige told me Mattingly didn’t go on that expedition. The only other really odd place for my cousin to have seen him was down at the Port. It bothered Boom Boom enough to try to get Bouchard to trace Mattingly, and he wouldn’t have done that for something trivial… But what I really want to know, Niels, is how long Grafalk Steamship has been losing money?”

He got up with a sudden movement that knocked his brandy glass over. “Who told you that?”

“Niels, you’re like an elephant on a rampage. You’re leaving a trail of broken trees behind you and you think no one else can see them. You didn’t have to tell me Grafalk Steamship was the only thing you really cared about. It was obvious the first day I met you. Then your fury with Bledsoe for deserting you was totally irrational. People leave jobs every day for new jobs or to set up their own businesses. I could see you might feel hurt if you gave Bledsoe his big chance. But, my God! You acted like King Richard when one of his barons broke the oath of fealty. Bledsoe didn’t work for Grafalk Steamship-he worked for you. It was a personal betrayal when he left you.”

Grafalk sat down again. He picked up his glass and poured some more Armagnac; his hand wasn’t quite steady.

“Now you’re a relatively smart man, and you don’t need money. Not personally. There wasn’t any reason for you to get sucked up in Clayton’s scheme for your personal gain. But there was if your steamship company needed help.

“My first day down at the Port I heard your new dispatcher on the phone trying to get orders. He just couldn’t get his bids down low enough. You’re operating this antiquated fleet. When the Leif Ericsson ran into the wharf, Martin Bledsoe asked if that was how you were planning on getting rid of your old ships. That was when you needled him about his prison background. He reacted violently, and everyone’s attention was diverted. But you did need to get rid of your old ships. Martin hadn’t been able to persuade you to build the thousand-footers, and you were stuck with these unprofitable clunkers.”

He swept the brandy decanter from the table with a violent movement and sent it flying against the starboard wall. It smashed and a shower of glass and Armagnac sprayed my back.

“I never thought they’d be profitable!” he shouted. “They’re too big. There weren’t many ports that could handle them. I was sure they were a passing fad.” He clenched his fists and his face took on an angry, brooding look. “But then I started losing orders and I just couldn’t get them back. And Martin! Goddamn him to hell! I saved him from prison. I gave him his life back. And how did he thank me? By building that damned Lucella Wieser and flaunting her under my nose.”

“Why didn’t you just build your own at that point?” I asked irritably.

He bared his teeth at me. “I couldn’t afford to. The steamship company was overleveraged by then. I’d mortgaged a lot of my other holdings and I couldn’t find anyone to lend me that kind of money.

“Then I found Phillips and his pathetic wife and I saw a way at least to get some orders. But last fall your damned cousin started nosing around. I knew if he got onto the truth we were all in trouble, so I sicced Paige on him.”

“I know that part. Spare me a rerun-these sentimental stories make me gag… What made you blow up the Lucella ?”

“That crack of Martin’s-had I deliberately run the Ericsson into the wharf? At first I was wishing I could blow up my whole fleet and collect the insurance. Then I had a better idea. Get rid of the Lucella and close the upper lakes to the big ships at the same time. I can’t keep the Poe Lock shut forever. But I’ve got three of those bastards stopped up at Whitefish Bay. They’ll have to trundle tiddlywinks between Thunder Bay and Duluth for the next twelve months and there’s no place big enough for them to dock for the winter up there.”

He laughed crazily. “I can carry a lot of freight this summer. I should be out of the woods by next spring-I’ll be able to start capitalizing some new freighters next year. And Martin should be wiped out by then.”

“I see.” I felt tired and depressed. I couldn’t think of any way to stop him. I hadn’t left a trail of my investigation. I hadn’t even told anyone about the documents taped in my old copies of Fortune .

As if reading my thoughts, Grafalk added, “Paige told me you had those invoices Boom Boom threatened Clayton with. Sandy went over there early this morning-no kids with bread knives to get in his way. He had to tear the place up a bit, but he found them. Pity you weren’t there. We wondered where you were.”

The anger had subsided in Grafalk’s face and the look of suppressed excitement returned. “And now, Vic, it’s your turn. I want you to come on deck with me.”

I pulled my utility knife from my back pocket. Grafalk smiled at it tolerantly. “Don’t make it difficult for yourself, Vic. I assure you, we’ll kill you before you go overboard-no unpleasant drowning for you.”

My heart was beating faster, but my hands were calm. I remembered a day many years ago when Boom Boom and I had taken on a gang of South Side bullies. The excitement in Grafalk’s face made him look like one of those twelve-year-old punks.

Grafalk started around the table for me. I let him follow until he was behind it and my back was to the door. I turned and ran down the hall toward the bow, slashing through my shirt sleeve with the knife as I ran. I cut the surface of my arm and blood rolled down it to my hand.