THIRTY-FIVE
The Bangor was already boarding when Miles and Floyd met at the steamship terminal the next morning.
"Is that what you're wearing to Seattle?" Floyd asked, seeing that Miles was dressed in his usual work clothes.
"Do you ask just to make a point, or do you really expect me to answer?"
"Well, it's just that—"
"Floyd, I find it a little strange that you worry more about my clothes than I do."
"I find it a little strange too."
Miles grinned. "Would it make you feel better if I told you that I packed a suit just in case we have to go to a fancy speakeasy?"
Floyd gave a curt nod.
As the Bangor slipped her moorings and steamed out of Friday Harbor in the calm and salty morning air, Miles found himself leaning against her stern rail and gazing back at the waterfront with a vague sense of loneliness, if not loss—much as he had when he left for the war on the very same vessel in 1918. His mind drifted to thoughts of Marion's looming return to New York, and it took considerable effort for him to refocus on what they might be heading for in the not-yet-entirely-civilized Western city of Seattle.
It was a clear day, so Miles roamed the sunny wrap-around deck, watching for eagles and orcas as the ship ran down the San Juan Channel, across the Juan de Fuca Strait, and into Admiralty Inlet—the busy shipping lane leading to Seattle, Tacoma, and beyond. As the buzzing maritime hub of Port Townsend came into view off the steamer's starboard bow—framed by a backdrop of the jagged, glaciated Olympic Mountains—Miles realized that they were passing into what locals referred to as the Triangle of Fire: an area within range of three massive U.S. Army Coast Artillery Corps bases built to protect the strategically critical shipyards and ports of the inner Puget Sound. Between the three bases, there were more than a hundred pieces of heavy artillery in bunkers and fortified emplacements, their great barrels trained on the very stretch of water the Bangor was steaming through. Not even the Imperial German High Seas Fleet would have dared try to pass through such a zone of destruction.
He stepped into the main passenger cabin to find Floyd, white-knuckled once again, sitting slumped in a chair that faced an interior wall. He seemed to be staring at the base of the wall, which offered nothing more interesting to look at than glossy white marine paint over riveted sheet metal.
"Hey, you doing alright?" he asked Floyd.
Floyd exhaled loudly. "Never better."
"Keep an eye on that wall. Make sure nobody tries to paint any Bolshevik slogans on it."
"Ha."
"Can I bring you a cup of coffee from the galley?"
"No. No thanks," Floyd said, shutting his eyes tight. "It defies logic. I fully understand the scientific principles of buoyancy. And yet . . ." His eyes still squeezed shut, he shook his head.
"Hang in there."
"Uh-huh."
*****
It was late morning by the time the Bangor passed the West Point Lighthouse and entered Elliot Bay—where the ever-growing skyline and bustling waterfront of Seattle at last came into view. Suddenly, there were vessels everywhere—some under way, some tied up at piers, some at anchor out in the bay. Ships bound for or arriving from heaven only knew what ports around the Pacific Rim and beyond. Large ocean liners. Cargo ships—most of them built of steel, some still built of wood and rigged for sailing. Stubby tugboats, their funnels churning out columns of black coal smoke. And numerous small passenger steamers of the so-called Mosquito Fleet, motoring between Seattle and various islands and hamlets all over Puget Sound. In fact, it was to the very epicenter of Mosquito Fleet activity that the Bangor was headed: the always busy Galbraith Pier, at the foot of Spring Street.
It took another twenty minutes for the crew to maneuver the ship into its berth, tie up, and secure the gangplank. Floyd was the first passenger to disembark, practically running down the ramp with relief, the color returning to his face. He and Miles waited for a porter to hand their bags through the vessel's cargo door, then made their way to the terminal exit leading out onto Railroad Avenue. There, Miles happened to make momentary eye contact with a man who was leaning against a utility pole on the sidewalk, holding an open Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper that flapped violently in the wind. It struck Miles as an odd place for the man to be trying to read given that the entryway to the Mosquito Fleet terminal offered ample shelter from the stiff breeze blowing down the waterfront. The man's eyes quickly dropped to his flapping newspaper. Respecting a gut feeling, Miles watched him for a moment. He was a big man. Not quite as big as Miles, but big enough to intimidate most people. He wore a diamond pinky ring and a striped suit Miles thought was just ostentatious enough to suggest the man might be a gangster.
Calm down, he thought. You're being paranoid again.
Then, as Miles was just about to ask Floyd where they should go first, the man's eyes lifted and locked on Miles once again. This time it was Miles who averted his gaze, not wanting to appear rude, worried the man would realize he'd been staring at him.
They set off to find Miles a decent but cheap hotel room, with Miles looking over his shoulder more than once to make sure the big man with the newspaper wasn't following them. A few blocks down the waterfront, they came across a five-story brick establishment called, quite simply, the O.K. Hotel. It was an unpretentious workmen's hostel fronting Railroad Avenue, adjacent to the waterfront and a new elevated trolley trestle. They got Miles checked in and dumped both of their bags in his Spartan third-floor room. Floyd took the opportunity to splash water on his face in the sink, hoping to shake off his jitters from their voyage south. Then, intending to go straight to Seattle Police Department Headquarters to gather information on where the King of Rumrunners, Otto Stenersen, might be found, they stepped back out the front door where, to their happy surprise, they spotted a large sign for the Deepwater Salvage Company attached to the front of a cargo pier directly across the street. It was the company that owned the Deepwater Doubloon—the professional salvage vessel spotted loitering near D'Arcy Island the evening before the Lucky Lena was spotted adrift. Since it was the middle of the business day, and since they'd intended to eventually stop in anyway, they went there first.