Free Cargo for the Styx by Louis Trimble

of the lock when the blast let loose. I looked up just in time to see Blimey’s Shack lift itself from the pier. The whole affair seemed to hang in the air for the time it took me to draw a deep breath. Then it disintegrated.
    Army service has its points. For one thing it teaches you to hit the dirt and hit it fast. I was flat on my face and half under the car when the concussion wave rolled over me. I felt it shake the convertible.
    The rains came. A piece of two-by-four drove a jagged end through the windshield. Small chunks of wood drummed down on that part of me sticking out from under the car. Something heavy landed on the hood. I could hear metal cave in. Two tires blew. The sound of litter hitting the grille was like a midwestern hailstorm.
    Sound stopped. Nothing moved, no traffic, no pedestrian. I gave it a count of ten and decided the silence meant the rains had left. I crawled to my feet. I saw the jagged end of a two-by-four that had gone through the windshield. It had buried itself in the front seat.
    In the distance a siren howled. I glanced toward the shack. The freakishness of the explosion had played the usual tricks. The rear wall still stood. So did the grill. Three of the four counter stools were upright, but the counter itself lay on its side. I saw that much before an eddy of wind lifted smoke from somewhere and drifted it over the end of the pier. Then I saw the small tongues of fire.
    I started to run. Loosened pier boards jarred under my feet. Behind me someone shouted. Ahead the flames were feeding themselves on aged wood and grease. All I could see was billowing, ugly smoke.
    A puff of breeze sucked in by the heat cleared the smoke briefly. I was almost to where the doorway had stood. I stopped, squeezing my eyes to see.
    I saw the edge of the tipped-over counter. I saw the stools still upright like crazy, long-stemmed mushrooms. I saw the smoke closing back in again.
    And I saw the hand. It was a small hand, the size of a woman’s hand. It was motionless.

CHAPTER XIII
    I STOOD BESIDE Lieutenant Nicolo, Homicide, and watched the firemen douse the last of the fire. He said, “You were lucky, Zane.”
    I said, “Hell, it isn’t even safe to want a cup of coffee anymore.”
    He gave me a sideways look. “Did anyone know you wanted that cup of coffee?”
    I could have said “Yes,” and told him about Vann and Otho, about Clarence, about Prebble. I could have, but I didn’t.
    I said, “Not unless someone was reading my mind, Lieutenant.”
    I watched the smoke turning into steam. An hour ago I might have considered letting the police hold up the sailing of the
Temoc
. But not now. Now I had an idea. I would play a hunch and keep Marine Mutual from having to pay off on delay of shipment of cargo. And I’d keep them from having to pay off on the
Temoc
at all.
    I couldn’t do any of this with the police hungry to help.
    Nicolo said, “Are you on a case, Zane?”
    I grinned at him. My face felt stiff, but he didn’t seem to notice. I said, “I just wound one up.”
    Nicolo grunted. If he had anything else to say it was lost when Biddle, the city’s arson expert, came up. “Let’s go in and look for that hand you were howling about, Zane.”
    The three of us walked down the pier. Biddle talked about dynamite and explosion patterns. He said, “It was planted under the pier and set off with a timing mechanism. We dug pieces of clockwork out of the pilings.”
    I didn’t say anything. We were back where the front door had been. I kept on going, picking my way through debris. The remains of the floor were awash with water. The stench of wetdown wood and of burned grease clogged the air. But the smoke was gone; I could see what there was left to see.
    The hand was still there. It stuck out from the end of the counter. Smoke and fire and water hadn’t made it unrecognizable. From ten feet away it kept looking like a woman’s hand. I clenched my teeth and sloshed toward it. My weight on the