Seventeen Against the Dealer by Cynthia Voigt Read Free Book Online Page B

fortress, as if it had been built to protect the city behind it, or even to protect the whole country that stretched out behind the coastal city. It wouldn’t be able to protect anything, however, so it looked like something it wasn’t. She crossed the bridge over College Creek—just a hyphen between two roads—turned up the road in front of the college, rounded Church Circle, and then went down the long hill to the arched drawbridge over Spa Creek, where the Yacht Club watched over its long docks. The bridges marked her passage into, across, and out of the city.
    She parked the truck beside Ken’s van, but instead of going right into the office, she walked down to the creek. Looking west, she saw the creek flowing into the Severn, and the Severn opening out into the bay. At her feet, the water blew up against the pilings and bulkheading. Looking inland, Dicey saw masts, somany that they seemed grown as thick as marsh grass, all up the creek and along the labyrinthine docks built to serve apartment complexes. She began to get the choked and crowded Annapolis feeling. “A good place to live”—that was what Ken had said about it—“but a rotten place to visit.” Ken liked to count up all the money those masts represented; but then, Ken liked money, liked talking about it and thinking about it.
    She was only looking, Dicey reminded herself, she wasn’t planning to buy, she was planning not to be interested in this wood. She didn’t bother knocking on the office door, because off-season everybody went home at four-thirty, so there’d be nobody to hear her. She went right through the reception area, glancing at the photographs of work Ken had done—cabinets, tables, bunks, planking in varnished mahogany or oiled teak—and on into the shop. She couldn’t afford to be interested in the wood, now she thought about it.
    Half an hour later, she had the larch piled in the back of the truck, its projecting ends marked by a red cloth Ken had given her. She was using the hood of the truck as a tabletop, to write the check. “It’s a good buy,” Ken told her. He’d grown a red beard over the summer and fall, which made him look like a modern-day Viking.
    She couldn’t quarrel with him. It was a bargain price he was giving her. “Except, of course, you’ve got no use for it and you don’t want to have to store it,” she reminded him.
    â€œSo, you scratch my back and I scratch yours. Anything wrong with that?”
    â€œNot by me,” she agreed, passing him the check. She’d worked for Ken one summer, and they got along fine. As she was turning to climb back into the truck, two men came into the lot. One of them, in a sheepskin jacket and heavy mittens, she knew—Jake Mitchell, she’d stitched sails for him the summerbefore she worked for Ken. The other, in scuffed docksiders and jeans worn through at the knees, in a down vest over a flannel shirt, she’d never seen before. His clothing was pretty scrungy, but his face, even in the fading light, looked pinkly healthy, freshly shaved, and his hands had none of the thick calluses workingmen’s hands had.
    â€œI hoped we’d catch you before you went home, Ken,” Jake said. “Hey, hi, Dicey. How’s it going?” he asked, but didn’t wait for her to answer before introducing her. “Tad Hobart, Dicey Tillerman.”
    â€œCall me Hobie,” the man said, smiling at her. He was old enough to be her grandfather, and Dicey wouldn’t dream of calling him Hobie. He didn’t even want her to, anyway. If she hadn’t already noticed his cheeks and hands, she’d have figured him out from the way Ken and Jake stepped back, to let him take the lead. A lot of wealthy people who had to do with boats dressed like workmen; but they always had something about them to make sure you knew what they really were. This man, pulling back his