The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)
Page 139
“That tanker makes me nervous. Pauline, you and I and Ed and Asa are going to Eleuthera.” He waved for Tobin to come back. “How are we on gas, Ed?”
“Full tanks.”
“Can we handle this weather?”
“Seventy feet long, four props, and eighteen hundred horsepower? I should think so.”
“Better rig the cockpit tarpaulin and the motor shrouds.”
“Already done.”
“We’ll need food and water in case we have to hole up for a few days.”
Fern said, “There’s a run on the shops. Come out to my yacht. I’ll give you food and water.”
• • •
“WOMEN,” Ed Tobin growled, helping Pauline with a heavy canvas bag. “Why can’t they travel light?”
“Because we pack things men forget.”
“Hope you don’t get seasick. It’s going to be a mess out there.”
“I’ve never been seasick on the Aquitania.”
They headed across the windswept harbor on one engine.
Fern’s captain had steam up. Maya’s decks were cleared, the awnings stowed. Stewards and deckhands formed a human chain to pass food and water out their pilot door, across their tender, and into the Van Dorn cruiser rafted alongside.
Bell went up to the mahogany wheelhouse while
Tobin and Asa lashed canvas over two of the idle engines to keep spray out of the straight pipes. Fern’s captain was an affable Connecticut Yankee. He showed Bell on his chart where he had seen the Sandra T. Congdon four days ago. Tiny Harbour Island was on the windward side of Eleuthera, the big island along the east side of Grand Bahama Bank.
“The tanker’s heavily laden, drawing too much to enter the lagoon. She anchored on the windward side, inside the Harbour Island reef.”
“Will she move for the storm?”
“She’ll put to sea if it swings east.” The captain glanced up at Fort Fincastle, where triangular red pennants flew. “But still only a gale warning. I just heard from a captain on the radiotelegraph that the storm is veering west across Cuba, while you’ll be heading east.” He nodded approvingly at Marion’s long, sleek hull. “It’ll be rough, but it’s only sixty miles, and your boat’s got a seakindly bow and plenty of power. If the storm changes course, you’ll have to hole up in Dunmore Town or Governor’s Harbour. Of course, the truly prudent thing would be to ride it out right here in Nassau.”
“Where are you going, Captain?”
“Bermuda.”
• • •
FERN INTERCEPTED BELL as he was about to go down the gangway.
“Can I come with you?”
“Sorry. Van Dorn policy: We don’t bring friends to gunfights.”
Fern smiled. “Does that mean I’m a friend?”
“Only as long as you behave yourself.”
“Isaac, what am I going to do? You’ve destroyed everything I believed in. Not you. He. I suspected, but you gave me proof, and it is terrible.”
Bell was anxious to clear the harbor. With any luck, he would trap Zolner on his tanker in two or three hours. “If you want to believe in something, try this: Prohibition is killing the country. Why don’t you join up with the society women trying to repeal it? Joe Van Dorn’s wife is leading them.”