Fifty-to-One

Prohibition and two wars against the Fatherland. Damned if he knew how they’d pulled that off, what palms they’d had to grease, what lies they’d had to tell, what business they’d had to pretend to be in. But there they were, celebrating their fiftieth year in the same location, according to the brass plaque by the entryway.

This stretch of the Gowanus area of Brooklyn stank, not just of industry and trash and too many people in too close a space, but of fermentation and hops, since in addition to whatever spills and leaks Volker’s produced on a daily basis there was, right next door, a one-time leather-work factory that had more recently been turned into a brewery. The painted brick wall still said JAS. PORTER — SADDLES, RIDING GEAR, &C. — FOUNDED 1870, but the smell said something else altogether.

Volker’s eldest son, Adolphe—and speaking of saddles, could his father possibly have saddled the poor boy with a more unfortunate name?—greeted Mike at the door, pinning his hand in the iron grip of one who spent all day every day lifting barrels off ships and onto trucks. “Marie tells me you were coming. Is there anything the matter with our shippings?” He’d been born here; there was no reason for his English to be less than perfect. But it was, and slightly accented, too, as if he’d taken over more than just his father’s business when the old man died.

“Not at all,” Mike said. “You’re on time every time. I just need a favor.”

“What is it, Michael? Anything, for one customer of ours.”

“I’m looking for a boat that’s down here somewhere. Its name’s A Diet of Treacle. Does that ring any bells?”

“Diet of tree-kill?” Adolphe scrunched up his forehead in thought. “Not a bell,” he said. “Not a one. But someone here might know.” He walked down onto the floor and called out something in German to the brawny workers moving crates stacked five-high on metal hand-trucks. Mike saw a few shrugs, some heads shaken from side to side. One man said something, though, and Mike looked to Adolphe for a translation.

“He says he does not know this boat himself but suggests you ask at Biro’s down the block. Many shipping folk can be found there.”

“Thank you,” Mike said. And to the man who’d made the suggestion: “Danke.” It was all the German he remembered from his time on the front.

Outside in the sun again, Mike scanned the block for a sign that would point him in the right direction. He spotted one swaying in the wind, a wooden shingle with the word “Biro” painted on it in faded letters over a sketch of a bull standing in what looked like a pool of blood. He approached a little cautiously, half expecting to walk into an abattoir, but Biro’s turned out to be a saloon. The walls were lined with wine bottles, the labels incoherent to any but one of Mr. Biro’s fellow Magyars.

“That one’s called ‘Bull’s Blood,’ ” said a voice behind Mike’s left shoulder. “Specialty of the house. It’s from a town called Eger. You have heard of Eger?”

“No,” Mike said, “but I’ll try a glass.” He laid a ten dollar bill on the bar. “You can keep the change if you answer a question for me.”

“That must be some question,” said the man, a compact fellow with a broad face and a florid mustache. Mr. Biro, presumably.

“We’ll see,” Mike said. “You ever hear of a boat called A Diet of Treacle?”

Biro snatched the bill, made it vanish into the pocket of his vest quick as a dog swallowing a scrap of meat. “Mr. Kraus got a telephone call about it just a few minutes ago. You can talk to him over there.” He pointed to a table in a shadowy corner where a white-haired man sat alone. “I bring your wine.”

“Mr. Kraus?” Mike said, extending one hand as he approached. The old man looked up from where he sat, stooped, over a half-empty glass. There was a telephone beside the glass, its cord dangling beneath the table.

The man straightened as much as he could, which wasn’t very much. “Yes?”

“My name’s Mike Hanlon. I’m trying to find a boat called A Diet of Treacle. I was told to see you.”

“You were told right,” Mr. Kraus said. His voice was soft and he had a wet sort of lisp, as if his dentures hadn’t been fitted quite right. “It’s my boat. I imagine you’re curious why I gave it that name.”

Mike wasn’t, particularly, and more importantly felt the urgency of Charley’s situation weighing on him—but he figured saying he wasn’t interested was no way to gain the man’s confidence. “Of course,” he said, sitting down. A hand appeared over his shoulder and set a glass of red wine before him. He sipped it. It was nothing special.

Mr. Kraus said, “My first name is Dorman. Dorman Kraus. In school, the other boys called me Dormouse. Like in Alice In Wonderland.”

“And...?”

“Are you not a reader, Mr. Hanlon?” Kraus said. “The Mad Hatter’s tea party. The Dormouse tells a story about three girls who live on a diet of treacle.”

“Sure,” Mike said unconvincingly, “that makes perfect sense.”

“What did you want to know about my boat, Mr. Hanlon?”

“Do you ever rent it out?”

“Certainly not.”

“That’s odd,” Mike said, “because I understand someone is making a trip in it this evening.”

“Nonsense,” said Mr. Kraus.

“What was the phone call you got about it?”

“Who says I got a phone call about it?”

“Biro.”

“He’s wrong.”

Mike dug a ten dollar bill out of his pocket and slid it across the table. Mr. Kraus stared at it.

“I don’t need to know much,” Mike said. “Just where you dock the boat. That’ll be plenty.”

“It might be too much.”

“How so?” Mike said.

“I may be an old man,” Kraus said, “but I look forward to living a few years still. Why should I risk that for ten lousy dollars?”

“Another man’s life is at stake, too. A friend of mine. A young man, who should have more than a few years ahead of him. He won’t if you don’t help me.”

“This is not my concern,” Kraus said.

Mike set a second ten dollar bill on top of the first.

Kraus took out a pocket watch, stared at its face, wound its stem, returned it to his pocket. “It is starting to concern me somewhat more,” he said.

“But not enough?”

“Not quite.”

A third sawbuck joined the other two. Krauss neatened up their edges, folded the bills in two and then in two again, set his palm down over them. “Come with me,” he said and slowly, painfully stood. He took two teetering steps away from the table with the aid of a cane. “Will you take my arm? I don’t walk very well anymore.”

“You don’t have to walk,” Mike said. “Just tell me where it is and I’ll go there myself.”

“No,” Kraus said. “I’ll take you there. Or you can have your money back.” When Mike hesitated, Kraus said, “Those are my terms.”

Mike reluctantly took his arm, walked with him to the door. On the sidewalk outside, Kraus looked at his watch again, then set off at a snail’s pace in the direction of the water.

They walked up First Avenue, pausing repeatedly to let Kraus rest and catch what little remained of his breath. In this fashion, they passed warehouses and slips and a cavernous import-export arcade where traders of various sorts maintained one-man booths and fanned themselves to combat the stifling heat. At the pier off 57th Street, a tugboat labored valiantly to pull an overladen barge out of its dock. At 53rd, the pier was walled off and Mike could only see the upper decks of the two ships tied up there.

When Kraus halted for the third or fourth time in one block, Mike considered abandoning him and continuing his search by brute force, hunting down every boat one by one. But there were too many—too many boats, too many buildings, too many blocks. He could spend the next three hours at it and not see them all. And what if the Treacle was docked behind one of the waterfront’s locked gates?

Between 50th Street and 47th, the piers were overgrown with grass and weeds, but a profusion of boats still stood at them, bobbing gently, while others rode at anchor just off some the longer outcroppings of the shore. Mike scanned the hulls, looking for any names longer than a word or two. “How much farther?” he asked. And, each time