Chapter 7 - The Harbor Refuge
The South Street docks smelled of rot, salt fuel, and rusted shipping containers.
In the 1970s, this area had been the heart of the city's maritime union power; now, it was a half-abandoned industrial graveyard of cold storage warehouses waiting for developers to tear them down for luxury high-rises.
I walked into "The Anchor & Anchor"—a small, windowless tavern sitting at the end of Pier 17. The air inside was warm and thick with the smell of fried onions, stale beer, and pipe tobacco. Three old men sat at the bar watching a silent baseball game on a tiny black-and-white television mounted near the ceiling.
Behind the bar stood Arthur Vance—no relation to the officer who had tried to break my wrist, but a man who had spent thirty years as a senior shop steward for the longshoremen's union before Sterling’s friends had gutted their pension fund.
Arthur looked up as the heavy wooden door clicked shut behind me. His eyes swept over my wet hair, my torn, water-soaked jeans, and the bruised skin around my right wrist.
Without a word, he reached beneath the counter, pulled out a thick wool blanket and a mug of black coffee, and set them on the wooden counter near the far corner booth.
"You look like you fell out of the river, Brooks," Arthur said, his voice like two heavy stones sliding across gravel.
"I came through the waterworks, Arthur," I said, sliding into the booth and wrapping the warm blanket around my shivering shoulders. "Sterling’s men blocked the north exit."
Arthur’s face turned grim. He walked to the front door, turned the brass bolt, slipped the "Closed" sign into the window, and pulled down the dark canvas shade.
"Word’s already out on the wire," Arthur said, walking back to the booth and sitting down opposite me. "Sterling called an emergency press conference twenty minutes ago. He announced that an auditor named Elena Brooks had stolen confidential personal security files from the precinct and was believed to be armed and dangerous."
"He's setting up the legal cover to shoot me on sight," I said, taking a scalping sip of the hot coffee.
"He's trying," Arthur said. "But he's nervous. My cousin over at the 2nd Precinct says Sterling’s officers spent forty-five minutes searching Judge Carter’s private chambers. She threatened to hold the assistant chief himself in contempt if he didn't clear his men out of her office."
"She’s holding them off," I said, setting the mug down. "But it won't last long. Sterling will go to a federal magistrate by six o'clock and get an overarching warrant that bypasses her district authority. I need to get these files to the State Attorney General before five."
"You won't make it by road," Arthur said, shaking his head. "Sterling has state police checkpoints on the I-87 corridor and the bridge crossings. Every license-plate reader within fifty miles is tagged for your name and vehicle."
I looked down at the briefcase sitting on the booth cushion beside me. "Then how do I get out of the district?"
Arthur reached into his pocket, pulled out a brass key attached to a heavy cork float, and dropped it onto the table between us.
"The Martha Jean," Arthur said softly. "My old forty-foot tugboat docked at the end of Pier 19. Her engine's old, her paint's peeling, but she doesn't carry a digital transponder, and her registry is listed under the old harbor authority index that Sterling’s automated systems don't monitor."
"Can she make it to Albany?" I asked.
"She can make it to the Hudson channel," Arthur said with a faint, fierce grin. "And once you're on the river, you're under federal harbor master jurisdiction, not Sterling’s precinct deputies. My son David is waiting at the wheelhouse right now. He’s got the diesel engine warmed up."
I looked at Arthur, my chest tightening with a profound, quiet gratitude. "Why are you risking this, Arthur? Sterling could burn this pier to the ground if he finds out you helped me."
May you like
Arthur leaned across the table, his dark eyes fixed on mine with unyielding intensity.
"Because four years ago, my boy worked for the municipal transit department," Arthur said, his voice dropping into a harsh whisper. "He tried to report unsafe brake systems on the city buses, and Sterling’s squad threw him in a cell for thirty-six hours until he signed a resignation letter. This city’s been run by criminals with badges for twenty years, Elena. It’s time somebody brought the ledger to court."
