The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)

Suddenly, Bell saw headlights blazing up the road, racing against the Detroit-bound traffic. The auto, a seven-passenger Packard, passed the parking lot. But instead of turning under the porte cochere, it stopped out front on the road. A man leaped out, gripping a stick grenade by its long handle. He jerked the detonating cord and wound up like a fastball pitcher aiming to burn one over the inside corner.

Isaac Bell sprang into motion, running as fast as he could.

The grenade flew on a flat trajectory, under the high roof of the porte cochere, straight at the veranda where men and women were shaking hands and hugging good night. A tipsy flapper stumbled on the steps. James Dashwood glided to her rescue and she fell into his arms instead of down the stairs.

25

THE GIRL LAUGHED, her face bright in the glare of the TEXAS WALT’S sign. The shadow of the grenade swooped across it like a bat. Dashwood turned toward it, too late. Isaac Bell was drawing near, sprinting among the revelers, long arm reaching, hand outstretched. He was so close that he recognized the grenade as the German Army Stielhandgranate. If it was a newer Model 24, it was loaded with almost two pounds of TNT, enough high explosive to kill everyone within fifteen feet.

It smacked into his hand like a line drive.

The 24s had a five-second delay. Bell had two seconds left to throw it as far as he could. His finger caught in the carrying hook. He grabbed the wooden handle with his other hand, wrenched it off his finger, and hurled it with all his might.

The Packard raced away. The thug who had thrown the grenade gaped, mesmerized, as it sped back to him like a boomerang.

Bell and Dashwood opened their arms wide and dragged as many people as they could down on the steps and floor of the veranda. The grenade detonated. A flash of light threw shadows on the front wall. A shock wave slammed Bell and Dashwood into the people. The explosion was deafening and blew out the front windows and half the lightbulbs in the TEXAS WALT’S sign.

In the light that remained, a cloud of dust hung heavily on the road. There was nothing to be seen of the gangster who had thrown the stick grenade. Through the ringing in his ears, Isaac Bell heard screams of fear. The roar of a powerful motor cut through the screams.

The Packard had turned around. It was racing back, windows bristling with rifles and pistols. Dashwood and Bell stumbled to their feet and staggered to the road.

• • •

THE DRIVER OF THE PACKARD saw two men emerge from the dust cloud the grenade had kicked up. He floored his accelerator. Tony, the boss beside him in the front seat, and the boys in the back started shooting, jerking their triggers as fast as they could.

The two men stepped into the middle of the road, turned sideways, raised pistols, and started firing back. A bullet shattered the windshield and knocked the driver’s hat sideways. Another broke a headlight.

“Get the big one!” shouted Tony. They shifted fire, and a lucky shot from the swaying auto knocked the bigger man off the road. The smaller, a skinny scarecrow, stepped into the lights, gun raised like a target shooter.

“Run him down!”

Flame lanced from his pistol. A left front tire blew, and the wheel jerked in the driver’s hands. The scarecrow fired again. The right front tire blew, and the heavy auto skidded and screeched on smoking rims straight at him.

• • •

JAMES DASHWOOD drifted aside like a matador. The Packard slid past. He fired a shot into each rear tire, and the car swerved into a tree with a loud bang. Three men were thrown to the pavement. The driver was impaled on the steering column. Van Dorns swarmed from the roadhouse and surrounded them. Dashwood ran to where Isaac Bell had fallen.

“Isaac!”

“I’m O.K.”

Dashwood mopped Bell’s brow with a handkerchief. “You don’t look O.K. You’re covered in blood.”

“Scalp, I think.”

“He’s fine,” said Walt Hatfield, who hurried up with a shotgun. “Just leaking a little.”

Hatfield handed Bell a bandanna. “You’re O.K., old son, aren’t you?”

The Texan’s anxious expression scared Dashwood more than the blood.

“Where are they?” asked Bell. His ears were ringing, his head spinning. He saw the wrecked Packard wrapped half around a tree. Bloodied gunmen sprawled beside it. “Anyone else hurt?”

“Folks on the porch are mostly shook-up.”

A siren howled in the distance.

Bell surged to his feet and stood, swaying. He gripped Dashwood’s skinny arm and pointed at the gunmen. “Give the cops all those louses except the boss. Bring him to the cellar. On the jump! They’ll be here any second.”