“You wouldn’t be entirely wrong,” I said, grabbing the banister for the next flight down and allowing myself to laugh at the Bridgegate memory. “Nope. Not only was Fort Lee the birthplace of the motion picture industry-”
“For real?”
“Yup. Thomas Edison’s film studio, Black Maria, was built here, and dozens of others followed. Long before there was a Hollywood. And more than a century earlier than that, General Charles Lee of the Continental army held down this escarpment for old GW himself.”
“Was there a battle here?” Jimmy asked.
“Yeah,” I said, looking down. “This point is the highest piece of land in all of Manhattan. Pure schist. Washington decided that twin forts here could stop the British warships.”
I had never brought Coop to this point. She would have loved it for the spectacle of the river view, if I kept her away from the edge and the open heights, and she would have listened to my history with her usual keen interest. I leaned on the banister for fear my own knees would go weak on me each time I envisioned her with captors.
“I guess they didn’t,” Jimmy said.
I shook my head. “Did you ever hear of chevaux-de-frise, kid?”
“Never took French.”
“I wish the same were true of Coop.”
Jimmy grabbed both my shoulders from behind me, a step above, and rocked me a bit. “She’s going to be okay, Mike. With the info going out to the entire patrol force this morning, we’re going to get lucky today. I’m sure of it.”
I was babbling to keep my mind from wandering back to visions of Coop’s condition. I was staying in my comfort zone, in the history that was my escape from death and darkness.
“Chevaux-de-frise were a medieval form of battle defense,” I said. “I clearly have a lot of educating to do with you. They were portable frames, Jimmy, usually made from logs. Anyway, Washington had them constructed to be sunk here into the river-right at the bottom of this staircase and all the way across to the Jersey side. They were loaded with boulders from the heights, where the fort was, sunk to the bottom, and chained into place with giant hooks on both sides of the river in order to paralyze ship movement on the Hudson.”
I put my hands in my pockets and kept spiraling down. “Can you see all the way to the ground?” I asked. “Washington had batteries directly beneath us-where this bridge foundation stands today. It’s called Jeffrey’s Hook, a piece of land that juts out into the water. And batteries on Spuyten Duyvil Creek, and on the King’s Bridge, crossing the Harlem River. The fort itself was shaped like a five-pointed star. Five bastions that-”
“Like Fort Jay?” Jimmy asked. “That’s a coastal star-shaped fort on Governors Island.”
He had probably been reminded of the fort by Vickee’s comments this morning-a scene that was apparently the genesis of Coop’s unhappiness with me.
“Fort Jay is four points. Fort Wood-that’s the one on Liberty Island, at the base of the statue-that one’s an eleven-point star. Fort Washington here was built like a pentagon, with five bastions.”
A sharp whistle screeched from below. It was Mercer trying to get my attention. Jimmy and I were about halfway down the tower.
“Yo!”
“Let’s move it, Mike,” Mercer yelled.
I picked up the pace and started trotting down the stairs. “You ought to read about the battle of Fort Washington,” I said. “Great story, bad ending. Three thousand troops in this very fort, with General Washington himself watching from across the river. The British had four thousand Hessian troops backing them up. Wiped this place out at the end of ’76, and Washington retreated to the west.”
“Will do,” Jimmy said. “Maybe I’ll come back with you and get the whole picture. Tour all the forts, okay?”
“You’re likely sucking up to me or you’re a good man,” I said, calling out over my shoulder. “Either way works fine for me.”
Mercer was waiting for us in the small enclosure at the foot of the giant tower.
“You got my girl?” I asked. “Or are you just whistling ’cause you’re lonely down here?”
“We got places to go, Mike,” Mercer said. “Peterson just called me. There’s some junk starting to float in from all over the city because of the alert that went out to every cop on the job when we left Scully’s office. Blondes in Brighton Beach, trench coats abandoned on the subway, an unidentified young woman who overdosed on Metro-North last night. But-”
“So he’s going to send me out on some wild-goose chase so I don’t-?”
“Suit yourself, Mike,” Mercer said, turning his back on me. “Just suit yourself.”
“What’s the ‘but’ about, man?”
“I was about to say to you that Major Case may have something to look at, is all. You’re either with me or-”
“I’m with you.”
“The cop in Central Park who saw something on his way into work?” Mercer said, reminding me of one of the items on this morning’s checklist. “Seems there’s a second piece to his encounter. Worth a shot, if you’ll come with me to see if it takes us anywhere. To see if it gives you any ideas.”
“Of course I will,” I said, tailing behind Mercer with Jimmy North. “Where to?”
“The boat basin. The 79th Street Boat Basin.”
The Upper West Side marina was in the Hudson River, about five miles in a straight shot downriver from the GW Bridge.
“A sighting?” I asked, closing my eyes to squeeze out a thought of any possible connection between Coop and a boat parked in a marina.
“Not that,” Mercer said. “But at two o’clock in the morning, in the off-season, it’s a weird time and place for a guy to be swapping out license plates on his SUV.”
THIRTY
I stood under the vaulted Guastavino tile ceiling of the giant rotunda, marked by the same classic arches and design as the Oyster Bar in Grand Central Terminal, and sipped another cup of black coffee from the Boat Basin Café.
The vista was unique. Right off 79th Street, built in 1937 as part of a project to cover the New York Central’s West Side railroad tracks, the marina was still the only place in Manhattan that offered year-round residency on boats. The rotunda was below street level, underneath the circular road that held the heavily trafficked entrance and exit to the West Side Highway.
“Low rent, river view,” Mercer said, joining me to look out at the Hudson. The tidal currents were so strong in this riverway that very few boats dared make it a permanent home.
“This place is in bad need of repair,” I said. The slats in the wooden dock were broken and splintered. “I think I’ll keep my coffin, even without the scenery. How many slips are there?”
“One hundred sixteen. Peterson’s ordered the names of all the owners.”
“And the guy who’s working in the office?”
“He came on at eight this morning,” Mercer said. “The office is closed overnight this time of year. Just a security guy who swings by-when he’s not asleep at the switch. Peterson’s waiting on him now, but on the phone he claims he didn’t see anybody around.”
“Nothing missing? No boats?”
“Not even an oar, Mike.”
“Stealth operation, then, if it happened here.”
“Or they greased the hand of the security guard.”
We stepped out into the sunlight and headed toward one of the wooden docks, to the right of the café exit. We were waiting for the lieutenant to appear with the two witnesses we needed to download.
Mercer followed me onto the dock. The first few vessels were houseboats that looked like they’d been berthed at the marina since it opened. They didn’t appear to be seaworthy or comfortable but seemed attached to the wooden piers like barnacles to the bottom of a skiff.