Rick Boyer - Billingsgate Shoal

There were lights on here and there in the complex of buildings. The nearby buildings were newer than the others, small wooden things with sloping shingled roofs. They resembled houses. Behind them were several huge warehouse-type sheds, then the really big buildings on and near the wharf that comprised the old factory. The entire place was absolutely still and deserted. For all its size I would have been surprised if there were no night watchmen. I left the side of the fence and waited between two small spruce trees for a few minutes. My feet were turning to ice. Nothing happening. As Jim and I had seen, the wharf was hardly Grand Central Station during working hours. At night it was like the innermost chamber of Tutankhanien's tomb. I kept in the shadows and skirted the edge of the park where no lights shone. If someone had been watching me I would certainly be visible, but they'd have to be looking. I didn't think anyone was.

I crept up alongside a building and. looked at the inner fence, the one that sealed off most of the big cordage factory and wharf from all the other parts of the park. The gate, open wide in the day, was slid shut on its roller track, wound with heavy chain and padlocked. This fence, too, was topped with barbed wire. The place resembled Concord Prison, except the wire was strung straight on slanted brackets instead of being wound in giant spirals, concertina fashion. I stood in the dark and shivered and looked at the big fence. It looked tight as a bloated tick. It ended against the wall of a smaller brick building at the far end of the factory, toward the south. I walked along this deserted stretch of fencing, around the small building, and saw that it was perched on a sea wall about twelve feet high. It was low tide and the flats extended along this wall and-believe it or not-led all the way back to the park on the sea side. So the way to penetrate these fences was to do so where they met the water. I climbed over the parapet, hung by the top of the wall with my good arm,. and dropped a few feet to the soft sandy muck. I then walked around the sea wall, under the low building, and up on the beach. I had simply walked around the fence. Of course it meant that at high tide I was trapped in the complex. But I still had a few hours to look around before the water came in. From the narrow beach, littered with flotsam, it was a short walk up to the roadway that ran around the factory on the harbor side and connected with all the courtyards and delivery routes on the other side. There were no lights on this side, but the whole place was sparsely illuminated by the water and overcast sky, which cast a faint metallic glow onto the buildings. An enormous vertical black cylinder was fastened to this side of the factory wall, with many big pipes issuing from it. It looked like a boiler tank, and probably was. Some of the pipes ran along the wall at waist level. I thumped one with my knuckle. Heavy cast iron. They were for steam all right, or had been once upon a time. They snaked all over the complex from building to building. They climbed walls, traversed rooftops, over courtyards, went into, under, over, through buildings, sheds, and abutments.

I walked along this narrow roadway that fronted the harborside. The big building was to my left. It was about four hundred feet long. At its end I found myself on the main roadway that led from the wharf and its warehouse all the way through the old factory complex, through the rest of what was called Cordage Park, and out to the highway. I saw the fence I had just circumvented. I walked up to it and peered through at the rest of the huge buildings on the other side of it. The roadway went straight ahead, and I saw the familiar series of courtyards created by U-shaped wings of the big factory buildings that opened off to one side of the road. Each courtyard was surrounded on three sides by walls six stories high. Big black pipes and high voltage wires crisscrossed these courtyards overhead.

I planted my fanny on an old truck tire and thought for a minute. It sure didn't seem as if there was much going on. A sound reached me from several courtyards down the narrow service road. It was an engine grinding away. I supposed it to be some kind of generator or cooling, compressor. It sounded just like a semi-trailer truck idling at a truck stop. I rose up and walked toward the wharf. The end of the fence came back again and snaked around its far side. I noticed a foul stench as I walked, and saw the dark object stuck on the Cyclone wire. I remembered the severed codfish head, and went up to it. It was the biggest fish head I'd ever seen. The big eyes were gone, eaten out by maggots. All that remained were two holes as big as tennis balls in the leathery carapace of the skull. The mouth was bucket-shaped, like a bass's. The big hook came up through the lower jaw. The fish, when alive, could have swallowed a bowling ball without knowing it.

I walked out to the wharf on the service road, the one Jim and I had seen the lift truck on, the same one that I'd spied the blue van on. Behind me the road went into the factory complex and the courtyards of the big buildings. I saw big dark shapes on the water. Four of them. The draggers sat stone still in the shallow water. There were no lights aboard them, not even little sparks on the spars, or cabin lights. Nothing. The wharf too was dark. I crept along the building, passing the big corrugated steel doors. There were small swing doors in between each one. There was a fifth boat behind the four big ones, a small cruiser. And I'd be damned if she didn't have a blue hull, white topsides. I moved slower now, keeping snugly against the warehouse wall on my right. The light was faint on this side of the buildings, the north side, and I knew I was invisible in the shadows in my dark clothes. When I was abreast the little boat I looked down at her for a long time. She was quiet and dark. It was too dark to read her bow numbers and I didn't dare show a light, so I sat and tried to remember things about her. I had been gazing and thinking for a few minutes when I saw a flickering motion out of the side of my left eye. I looked down toward the foot of the long dock and could see nothing; it was all dark. Then, looking back at the boat, the flickering came back. In dim light you can see much better out of the sides of your eyes than dead ahead. This is because the area of your retina where the image is focused is also the point on the retina where the optic nerve enters. Consequently it is almost devoid of the light-sensitive rod and cone cells.

I shrank back against the wall and sidestepped slowly about eight feet to my right, toward the end of the dock. There were two stacks of fish bins there, stuck into one another like cardboard hamburger baskets. They smelled mighty ripe but I was glad; nobody in his right mind would get within six feet of them. l snuggled right in between them, and then slid down to my knees. I peered out down the dock again. Now the flickering movement was close enough to be visible when I looked straight at it. Two of them, and they weren't midgets either.

They came up the wharf slowly, as quiet as alley cats. They, too, wore dark clothes. I drew out the folding hunter and opened the blade, locking it. It was mighty pathetic, but if they saw me and came at me, I was going to lash out at them with a couple of wide swipes, then run for the end of the dock and dive in. I was getting good at midnight harbor swims.

I shrank back as the two men approached. As they walked by one grabbed the other by the sleeve and pointed at the small blue cruiser. The other man looked at it awhile, then turned to the other and spoke in a barely audible whisper.

"Them?"

The other nodded.

"We'll go in the back then. I haven't the stomach for it-"

"The word's come down. McGooey."

"Come on-"

They crept on toward the very end of the wharf. I caught the faint whiff-very faint-of liquor. One man spoke with a real brogue, but it didn't sound like the man I'd met in the Buzarski barn. The other man sounded like an American. I peeped out at them as they paused beside the wall. I heard a metallic clack. It was either a doorlatch or the cocking of a pistol. The men were gone. I waited perhaps half a minute to make sure they weren't going to pop out again, then eased up into a standing position. Inching along the wall I kept eyes and ears alert. Nothing. I picked up the pace, heading toward the fence.