The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)

“Why would I need funds when the market roars?”

Storms greeted such naïveté with a kindly chuckle. “I meant, to borrow against your account to buy more stocks to put into it.”

“I am convinced,” said Marat Zolner. He cast Fern Hawley a princely smile and shoved the satchel across Storms’s desk.

“You can take my word for it,” said the broker. “This is the beginning and you’re getting in on it. So if you decide to sell any more jewels, you know where to come.”

“Let us see, first, how you make out with this.”

“Never fear,” said Newtown Storms, who fully expected that President Harding and Secretary Mellon would set a great bull market in full swing before most of Wall Street realized it. “You will get rich quickly.”

“In that case,” said the prince, extending a surprisingly powerful hand. “We will see you again, quickly.”

As Storms rose to usher them out, Fern Hawley said with her knowing smirk, “Next time we stop by your office, you can offer us a drink,” and handed him from Marat Zolner’s satchel a bottle of Haig & Haig.

• • •

ISAAC BELL paced the Van Dorn bull pen like a caged lion, flowing across the room in long strides, turning abruptly, flowing smoothly back, wheeling again. His gaze was active, and every detective in the room felt the chief investigator’s hard eyes aimed at him.

“It’s four days since Mr. Van Dorn was shot. Who did it?”

The squad of picked men Bell had drafted to track down the rumrunners who shot Van Dorn had nicknamed themselves the “Boss Boys.” They ran the gamut of Van Dorn operator types from deadly knife fighters who looked like accountants, to cerebral investigators who looked like dock wallopers, to every size and shape in between. Few appeared to have slept recently. There was a collective wince around the room when Isaac Bell repeated, “Four days. This is your city, gents. What is going on?”

The wince dissolved into shamefaced shrugs and sidelong glances in search of someone with something useful to say. Finally, the bravest of the Boss Boys, grizzled Harry Warren, who had headed the New York Gang Squad since the heyday of the Gophers, ventured into the lion’s den.

“Sorry, Isaac. West Side, East Side, Brooklyn, none of the gangs know who these guys are. I spoke with Peg Leg Lonergan and even he doesn’t know.”

Detectives stared at Harry in amazement and admiration, wondering how he had wangled a conversation with the closemouthed Lonergan and managed to return from Brooklyn alive.

Harry acknowledged their esteem with a modest nod. “If the leader of the White Hands doesn’t know about these guys, none of the Irish know these guys.”

“What about the Italians?” asked Bell.

Harry, who had changed his name, was known and respected in Little Italy. “Same thing with the Black Handers. Masseria, Cirillo, Yale, Altieri—none of them know.”

“What about Fats Vetere?”

“Him neither.”

“What makes you think they’re telling you the truth?”

“The bootlegging business is heating up. Gangsters and criminals are pushing out the amateurs. There’s so much money to be made. So if the White Hand or the Black Hand knew about these guys, they’d be wanting to get in touch either to buy from them or hijack them. But when I fished, they never fished back. The fact they didn’t try to pump me says the guys who shot the Boss are strangers to the gangs.”

Bell kept pacing. “What about the bootleggers?”

Several men cleared their throats and answered, briefly, one after another.

“The bootleggers I know don’t know, Isaac.”

“I went around the warehouses. They swear they don’t know.”

“Same thing on the piers, Isaac.”

“And the speakeasies. They’ve got no reason to lie to us, Isaac. It’s not like we’re arresting them.”

“It’s not like anyone’s arresting them.”