Ride the River (1983) Read Online Free PDF Page A

it could be arranged. Come to think of it, he did work for Brunn." He glanced up. "Imagine you remembering that."
    "Tonight, George? I would like to see him tonight."
    Pendleton glanced at his watch. "Finian, you are a most difficult man. I should have known you had something on your mind."
    Reluctantly Pendleton got to his feet. "I don't know. I could send a messenger - "
    "We shall go ourselves. Or rather, I shall. I do not wish to interrupt your dinner."
    "But - "
    "Don't worry about it. I shall go myself, if you will just tell me where to find him."
    "Sir, you cannot consider such a thing! Gibbons fancies himself as a writer. Oh, he's reading law, all right, and a very astute young man he is, but he is also planning a book on Philadelphia's history as a seaport. He will not be in his room tonight, but in some dive on the waterfront."
    "Very well, then that is where I shall go. I must see him. He will certainly know something of the Sackett case, and I must have the information before calling upon White."
    "Sir?" Chantry turned at Archie's voice. "I could go with you, sir. I shall be finished here in a few minutes, and I know the waterfront well. I went to sea at one time."
    "Thank you, Archie, I shall appreciate the company."
    The big black man hesitated. "You know, sir, it is very rough down there?"
    "Archie, I am an old man now, but I, too, spent time at sea."
    "Very well, sir."
    "Do you know Johnny Gibbons?"
    "I do sir. There are only a few places he might be, where seamen gather and he can pick up the stories."
    Finian Chantry waited at the door for his carriage and for Archie to join him. He felt oddly exhilarated. How many years since he had walked the waterfront? Too many years, far too many.
    "You are eighty-six years old, Finian," he said to himself, "of no age to go to the sort of places you will be going tonight. I wonder just how much is left of that young man who commanded his own vessel? Have the years carried it all down the drain? Or is there something left?"
    He wore the long trousers that had come in shortly after the beginning of the century, and a top hat. He carried a cane ... was never without it.
    "Sir?" Archie spoke quietly. "We must be careful. There are men down there who would murder you for a shilling, a guilder, or a dollar."
    "I have met them before, Archie, when I was younger. I am an old man now, but I wonder how old."

    Chapter 4
    They found Johnny Gibbons seated over a mug of ale in the Dutchman's, on Dock Street. The room was crowded with a sweating, smoking, drinking melange of seafaring men from Copenhagen to Cape Town and all the ports between. They were men from ships which came in with the tide and would be off again in a day or a week. They came ashore for the women, the whiskey, rum, or gin, and some even made it back to their own vessels. Others were shanghaied by crimps and awakened in a dirty bunk aboard a ship strange to them, their belongings lost to them, their future in doubt.
    Finian Chantry pushed the door open with his cane and stepped into the room, recognizing Gibbons at once. That young man glanced up, his eyes riveted, and his mouth dropped open in astonishment. Archie led the way through the crowded room. Finian glanced around, enjoying himself, then seated himself opposite Johnny Gibbons.
    Johnny was embarrassed and worried. "Sir? With all due respect, you shouldn't have come to this place! It is dangerous, sir. There are a lot of honest seamen here, but almost as many crimps and thieves."
    "Johnny, 1 spent my youth in such places. In and out of them, at least. I commanded my own ship with crews who were more than half of them pirates."
    "I know, sir, but - "
    "Johnny, you worked for Adam Brunn? Do you remember the O'Hara case?"
    "Of course, sir. It was the last case on which I was employed. One of the O'Haras, the last of that line, I believe, was a friend of Mr. Brunn. It seems the first of their family had been beholden to Barnabas Sackett, and very close to