Hot Cargo

CHAPTER ONE

I WAS LOOKING at her ass-end first. Her heavy stern rose high, full, and rounded to exacting proportions from the skimmed-off, oil-soaked dock water. A couple of grapefruit rinds and a patch of yellow scum foam washed lazily against her exposed rudder.

Riding so high out of water meant she had a long time before her belly would be full of the crude black. A tanker can soak up a lot of liquid.

I slowed my walk. Here I was, in plenty of time. And sorry as hell about it, too.

One good look cooled my already frigid interest. The stern lines of the fan tail of a tanker can be a beautiful thing. This ship had more dents, scales, and rust on her bottom than an aging madam. I wasn’t sure, now that I had seen her, that a quick cruise south was better than ducking blackjacks at two paces.

But then again I was. Really, I was.

I walked along the mace wire fence until I got to the guard house, then let the heavy sea bag roll off my shoulder and fall six feet to the ground. The guard popped out of his little house like one of those wizened figures in a hand-carved weather box and stood looking up at me. He must have been a hundred years old.

He grinned. I grinned.

By gum, big fella, ain’tcha, he said in a cracked voice.

I searched through the pockets of my tight-fitting, gold-buttoned jacket and found my card and papers.

If you fell down, you’d be halfway home, he said.

I held the card up close in front of his eyes. Anybody who would use such an old gag must not be able to read good enough to keep up with the new jokes.

Sailor, eh? he said, squinting at the card. He took it out of my hands and compared the picture with the real thing. Brown hair, brown eyes, scar on chin … that’s you all right.

For a moment I had myself fooled, I said.

Comic, eh? Let me see your pass.

I fished out the hiring hall slip and handed it over.

Brody’s the name, eh? Knew a fella named Brody once. He died. The old guy was quite a talker. "You got the right place. Pier 6. The good ship Patty Sue."

I hoisted the sea bag and retrieved the papers.

Wait a minute, young fella, the old man said, and ducked into the guard shack. He was back in a minute with a dock badge which he pinned on my coat lapel.

Just like wartime, I said.

It is wartime, buddy, he said, otherwise I wouldn’t have a job.

I looked ahead of me at the tanker, at 129,000 barrels of highly volatile oil. And otherwise they would have scrapped this heap, I said.

I walked down the pier. The closer I got the worse became that dreaded stench. I had known what it would be like, 129,000 barrels of oil smell, crude octane oil smell, oil tar smell, and more oil smell until that stench was in your hair, eyes, ears, pores.

But this one was worse than usual. There was more rust than paint on her plates; the barnacles were clear up her sides, halfway to the tank deck and all the way to her scupper holes. They clung sucking to her sides like a million newly born piglets at a massive sow’s teats.

"Patty Sue, you are unclean," I said to her, and went up the gangplank.

No, sir, I didn’t even hesitate.

There wasn’t anybody in sight on the poop decks or catwalk, so I ankled my way to the monkey island amidships and looked for the best polished brass doorknob. There wasn’t much leeway in my choice, but the first one I knocked on turned out to be the captain’s cabin.

Who the hell are you? he growled.

Who the hell do you think I am? I answered.

What kind of talk is that to a master?

Where do you get off cussing at a licensed third officer?

Third …

That’s right.

He folded up in the fight department too fast. I didn’t like that.

He put a finger in one of his splayed, moisture-shiny nostrils and left it there while he looked me over.

You’re too young, he said. Where could you have got eight years’ apprentice?

I could convince another captain easier, I said, and shouldered my sea bag.

Then he laughed in my face. He had me pegged.

I shrugged my shoulders and put the sea bag down. Then I laughed with him because I was so goddamn miserable.

Let’s see your papers, the captain said. It took him only a minute to check the license, my log, and ask me the question I was prepared to answer honestly.

How honest are you? asked the captain.

Not very, I replied.

We’ll get along.

Sure.

We stood looking at one another.

Tell me, he asked finally, how did you catch it so quick?

What skipper would take a guy off the beach with my record? You knew who I was when I knocked on the door.

Sure. I know the guy at the hiring hall. You were made to order. A one-trip sailor because you can’t let the booze and broads alone.

Now tell me how you knew I would stick, I asked.

What American sailor in his right mind would bother to even come on the pier? It’s a war surplus T-2 tanker with more loose rivets than the law allows. A Panamanian flag-flying, tax-ducking, seaman-killing scow…. How long have the cops given you to get out of town, boy?

Time was up three days ago, but there weren’t enough of the bums still fit to get up a gang big enough to take me again. I just got tired of waiting them out.

Oh yeah?

Yeah.

I believe you, boy, he said hurriedly. We’ll be out of here on the tide tonight. I’ll get the steward to take your gear to your cabin.

Outside, I took a deep breath and let the tar oil air burn some of his stench out of my head. If I had been his father I wouldn’t have hesitated. I would have turned the rock back over.

A mess boy, who was a young thirty-five, led me to my cabin. It wasn’t much. There was a steel bunk suspended by chains from one wall—just like in a jail, I thought. The wash basin was corroded with a yellow stain under each faucet, and the floor underneath was gummy around it.

The one closet would hold all my clothes—if I could ever get it aired out—and there was a small wall desk and chair to round out the complement of furniture.

How had I ever got myself in this spot? I asked no one in particular. All the good intentions in the world didn’t seem to help. You sweat out a trip on a lousy cargo, tramp or tanker, stay out of the poker game, remain sober, and say your prayers. You’re going to bank your roll, save a wad of it so you can have something to show for ten years inside tin cans—and you do it, too—all except that last part.

When they put you ashore with cash in hand you start for the bank, a smile on your face, and a mental pat on your back.

Then it happens. It happens every time.

There she stands, a bit of fluff, silk, nylon, a smile, and thirty-six inch thrust.

You stop; she stops; you look her over. Ankles, calf, thigh, hips, and the juice begins to move; buttocks, waist so small, and that thirty-six inch personality.

She’s looking you over, too. Her eyes are riveted on you. She knows; they all know. They must be able to smell it. And you wake up six days later with a headache, sore loins, and a sad, broken promise.

This time it had been worse. Six hundred dollars’ worth of sour taste in your mouth.

Try to get even, you say. So you find a wide open game in a basement in downtown Houston where the cards aren’t new and the faces are. You try to get even, and you get even worse.

What a laugh! Those guys cheated. So you cheated, too. Do unto others what they damned well did to you.

Then a fight and another fight until they had to drive you out of town before you became a successful one-man crime stopper.

I fingered the bruise behind my right ear. Well, I got a couple dozen before they got me. I’m not running—just recuperating. This was just a little pleasure cruise to get the Caribbean air.

And this time I was going to save my pay, bank it.

I laughed at that one. I’m not always so funny.

The captain had me pegged. The only difference between us was that I was dishonest with myself only. I wondered what his game was. He was probably breaking a couple of rules. Pay kickbacks, underman the ship, carry a packet full of uncut heroin ashore. He probably pulled them all.

He could have it. I never played it that way.

I went out on deck and headed aft toward the engine room. The mess boy was standing at the railing picking his nose and looking down the coast line.

I could see a rowboat out there with two people in it, fishing.

If you haven’t anything better to do, you can go to work on my cabin, I told him gently. I want it clean —C-L-E-A-N—when I go to bed tonight.

Yes, sir, he said, and looked up at me out of big, soft, brown eyes. He gave me a funny smile and moved away switching his fat hips. So it was that kind of ship. Well, everybody to his own taste.

The engine room was under the poop deck. I crawled down the ladder, noting the grease and waste littering the floor and the gook built up in the corners.

There were two sailors sitting on boxes playing cribbage on an orange crate.

I’m Ed Brody, I said, the new chief engineer.

They looked me over.

I’m Harry MacGill, said one of them. He had red hair, freckles, and forearms like a wrestler.

The other guy said, Francis Garcia. He was short, dark, and spoke with a strong accent. Probably one of the Panamanian hands.

We shook all around.

What are we doing? I asked, and nodded toward the pump controls.

Bringing on fuel oil, Harry said. Running it in full suction. We should be loaded by nightfall.

When was the last time you checked the gauges? I asked.

They looked at each other, silently folded the cribbage board, and got up.

Get this stuff out of here, I said, kicking the boxes.

Francis started carrying them up the ladder.

How many men in the engine gang? I asked Harry.

Sixteen, not counting you.

I had been afraid of that. It was the absolute minimum to handle the four shifts. One guy gets hurt or sick and we would have to double up. New tankers have an engine room that can be handled by one man, if necessary, but not this old tub.

Where are the other two men? I asked. There should be four of you down here. Go get them … wait, get them all down here. I want this place cleaned up.

My method was to start tough.

Harry was back in two shakes, followed by a few of the most bedraggled specimens that I would care to describe. It didn’t look like they could be capable of running anything but out of money.

Most of them were South Americans, but the States boys looked the worst.

Where are the rest of them?

About half are on liberty; they won’t be back till sailing time, if then. A few of the guys had to get dressed, said Harry.

Okay, break out the gear and put them to work.

I looked over the oil burning furnace while the crew got busy. It was sound, thank God. There was an engineer check list book stuffed away in a drawer at the chief’s table. I got it out and started going over the whole works. When we tried to pull away from the dock I would know that everything worked.

It had only been a few years ago that a tanker just like this was ready to pull out when something went wrong and caused the Texas City disaster.

I sent Harry up to the bridge to ring up the signals so that I could see they weren’t reversed or anything silly like that, and then told him to keep the crew working. I wasn’t going to depend on him for anything but the cleaning detail—not yet, anyway.

With the list of names of my crew, I went up the catwalk to make up the watch list.

There were a few men in sight now on the tank deck gingerly checking the valves to the various tanks.

The captain wasn’t in sight and the second mate hadn’t put in his appearance yet. It looked like I was going to have a lonely trip. A guy wouldn’t have to be a snob to look down his nose at this tub.

Just before dark, I grabbed a bite to eat. There wasn’t time to stop long in the greasy smelling galley. In another two hours we would be pulling out, and there was a lot to do.

When I went out on deck it was dark and the tank deck was deserted. I went forward on the catwalk first. I wanted to see how we were tied up all around, so I would know what lines were being cast