Down Among the Dead Men

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The scream knifed sharply through the March twilight, cutting above the grumble of the police-boat’s exhaust, the hrrush of the bow-wave. Steve Koski slid aft from the pilot-house, squinted across the river’s dark mirror. Against the far shore black dominoes lay side by side — canal barges moored under the towering gloom of Manhattan’s dimmed-out financial district.

“What you make of that, Sarge?”

“The dame who yelled? Ah...!” The blocky-shouldered individual at the Vigilant’s wheel made a pushing gesture with one huge palm. “Was only one of them barge floozies getting beat up.”

“Think so?”

“Her old man has prob’ly looked too long upon the whiskey when it is red.”

“Use some skull. She’d have hollered more than once if she was getting a mauling. That baby was scared.” Koski whipped off his felt hat, shielded his eyes from the port running light. The reflection from the water ruddied his long narrow face, high-lighted the prominent cheekbones so he looked more like a — weathered cigar-store Indian than a plainclothes lieutenant. His gray eyes searched the shoreline. “Run in, Irish.”

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