Читать книгу The Evil That Men Do - Dave White - Страница 11

Prologue

1938

Joe Tenant tied the barge to the dock. The water licked its sides, and the boat swayed back and forth. The chill of the morning air made him shiver, and he wished for the sun to rise a little faster. He pulled the knot tight, made sure it was secure, and stepped onto the wooden planks.

A few men sorted through their lunch boxes, looking for a quick breakfast before starting the day shift. Tenant always thought that odd, because, as long as he’d worked the night shift, the morning had always signaled dinner to him. Working nights was difficult, adjusting to the schedule, keeping a wife happy, but Tenant enjoyed the silence.

“Hey, Tugboat, how’s the water today?” one of the daymen asked. “They’re transferring me to nights next week, so I want to enjoy it while I can.”

Tenant smiled at his nickname. He hadn’t liked it at first, thought the men were mocking him, but he’d soon learned that everybody had a nickname on the water.

“How are you, Sops? Water’s kind of rocky, might be a storm later in the day.”

“Fantastic,” Sops said.

Tenant wished them a good day and headed toward the parking lot. The warehouses that surrounded the lot expelled smoke and steam, doing their best to spur the economy. The air smelled like fish and soot, and Tenant would be happy just to get home.

He reached his car and was reminded how lucky he was. In these days, it was good fate to have a car when hardly anyone did. Meanwhile those guys down in Clifton were trying to build that dog park, and doing whatever the hell else FDR wanted them to do. And all that shit out in Europe, he was living a blessed life.

He unlocked the door and got in. And as he sat down, he realized he’d left his lunch box on the barge. He sighed, got out of the car, and started the trek back to the boat. The water slapped against the dock, and it wobbled a bit. He knelt down and reached for his lunch box.

“We warned you.”

The voice was loud, rising over the water. Tenant looked to his left toward the source of the sound. About thirty feet away, two men slouched along the shore, staring downward. A thin stream of light reflecting off the river illuminated them. The light came from a docking boat farther down the river.

Tenant could tell the men were out of view to anyone in the parking lot. He’d gone down to the shoreline to fish out his shoe when a coworker played a joke on him. He knew you could be seen only from the dock he stood on.

“No, please.” Another voice. “It was only business.”

Between the two men, a hand rose out of the water, as if the person needed help standing. One of the men slapped the hand away.

“Don’t worry, Maxwell. This is only business too.”

The second man raised his arm over his head. In the light Tenant saw a thick shape, probably a blackjack. The man swung it downward, and it landed with a sickening thump. Water splashed around his arm. The man repeated the move three more times.

Tenant should have just turned and run away, but his muscles wouldn’t move. His eyes wouldn’t look away.

The other man kicked at the body in the water until the current took it. He turned his head to watch it float away, and his pale face faced Tenant, his features caught momentarily in the thin light off the river. Joe Tenant tried to memorize them. The reddish hair, freckles, the crooked smile.

If the man saw Tenant, he didn’t react. He just turned back toward land and walked off.

Tenant peered over the edge of the dock. Dark waves ebbed and flowed, and the water was deep enough here that he couldn’t see the bottom. The dock rocked again, hard enough that Tenant had to brace himself. He crossed to the other edge and peered over.

At first he didn’t notice it, he looked too far left. But once the dock rocked one more time, he looked to the right. Bile rose in his throat.

Facedown in the water, the body of a man in a pin-striped suit bobbed in the current, sleeve caught against the pier.

Tenant closed his eyes and swore.

Maybe he wasn’t as lucky as he thought.