The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)

“Funny way for a rumrunner to get shot . . . What would the Cheka be doing in New York?”

“Strictly speaking, they would not be Cheka but Comintern, the Russian Communists’ foreign attack force. The Comintern would be in New York for the same reason they’re in Germany. To lead revolution.”

Bell shook his head. “They call it revolution, but what they really want is to replace the old empires the war destroyed with new ones.”

/> “What gun did the killer use?” Pauline asked.

Bell looked at her curiously. “The boys at the police laboratory are pretty sure it was a Mann pocket pistol.”

“German. Why do they think it’s a Mann?”

“The cops found a shell that had expansion marks from the chamber groove.”

“That could only come from the new model. The 1920. Or the ’21.”

“That’s what the cops said. Apparently the 1920 model has a circular groove to permit an ultralight slide. I’ve not seen one yet.”

“You will love it,” said Pauline.

She reached under her skirt. Bell caught a flicker of a shapely white thigh encircled by black lace. She pressed a tiny semiautomatic pistol into his hand. It was smaller than a deck of cards, finely machined, and amazingly thin—less than three-quarters of an inch. It was too little for his hand, perfect for hers.

“Five shots,” she said. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

The aluminum grips were warm from her skin, and Bell wondered, not for the first time, why such a beautiful girl had neither married nor kept a steady boyfriend.

“She is secretly in love with you,” Marion had told him.

“She knows my heart is spoken for,” had been Bell’s reply. He admired Pauline’s courage and her razor-sharp mind, and there was no denying she was wonderful to look at. But he, as he told Marion, was already in love.

“Is it accurate?”

“I trust it to twenty feet.”

Bell handed it back.

Pauline slipped it in its holster. She looked up with a smile. “Doesn’t it seem that our murdered rumrunner has experienced a more complicated death than an ordinary Prohibition gangster?”

“It might,” said Bell. “Except Prohibition’s get-rich-quick promises tempt all sorts.”

The liner’s whistle thundered overhead.

Pauline walked him to the gangway, where officers were urging visitors to disembark. “Auf Wiedersehen, Isaac. It was lovely to see you. Thanks for coming.”

“Glad I did. Your Genickschuss was worth the ride to Hoboken. Not to mention meeting your little Mann.”

She stood on tiptoe, kissed his cheek, and switched to English. “Please, give my warm regards to your wife.”

“I will as soon as I see her. She’s making a picture in Los Angeles.”

Deep in thought, Bell stood out on deck as the Hoboken Ferry steamed across the Hudson River. He looked back when it landed at 23rd Street. The tugs were turning Nieuw Amsterdam into the stream. For an instant, his keen eyes picked out Pauline among the passengers lining the rails, her hair a fleck of shining gold.

If Marion was right, he’d have to find a way to change Pauline’s mind.

He hurried into the terminal, searching for a coin telephone.

“Mortuary.”

“Dr. Nuland, please . . . Shep, I saw you retrieve powder samples.”