The Bootlegger (Isaac Bell 7)

“Judging by Mr. Rosenthal’s floral contribution,” said Bell, “you might be right. You and Ed and Dash stay here. I’ll follow that Rolls.”

The funeral cortege began pulling slowly from the church. Bell followed on the sidewalk, battling through the crowd to pace Sam Rosenthal’s Rolls-Royce. Suddenly, his senses jumped to even higher alert.

A Pierce-Arrow Limousine Landau slipped out of a side street, and the police blocked the cars behind it so it could join the file three cars ahead of Rosenthal’s. What had drawn Bell’s eye was a glimpse of the passenger, a mourning woman in a black cloche hat with a veil. Max’s wife? No, a wife would not be alone in the car but surrounded by family. His mistress, was more likely. He could not quite see her face behind the veil, but something about the cock of her head was familiar.

Fern Hawley? But how could a rich society girl be riding in a gangster parade? Yet, he could swear it was her. He had observed the heiress closely when he and Marion had bumped into her and Prince André at Club Deluxe. If it was Fern, he saw no sign of Prince André. Unless he was driving. Not likely. Bell tried to see the driver behind the front window, but reflections in the glass revealed only the silhouette of a chauffeur’s cap.

He was struck by an even more peculiar thought. Prince André, as he remembered Fern’s friend, looked similar to speedboat builder Bill Lynch’s description of the man who bought Black Bird. As with most big ideas, as soon as it coursed through his mind he wondered why it hadn’t occurred to him earlier. The answer was context. It was probably nothing, but there was a simple way to find out. Bell made a mental note to have Research show Lynch a photograph of Prince André from the society pages. He returned his attention to pushing through the spectators packing the sidewalks to keep up with the Rolls-Royce.

He heard music—strings—piercing the blare of motorcycle and auto engines, and loud voices ohhhing and ahhhing over the limousines and flowers. On a street corner far ahead, he saw a band of violinists in black coats and slouch hats. They were serenading the cortege with a slow and halting arrangement of “O Sole Mio.”

A Neapolitan love song seemed an odd choice of music to bury an American gangster of Jewish and Irish heritage. Maybe, thought Bell, it was the only tune they knew. They sounded painfully shrill, even at a distance. Maybe it was his headache, but in fact two were wielding their bows like carpenter saws and had their eyes fixed desperately as drowning men on the tall, wraith-thin violinist in the middle, who seemed to be carrying the lead.

Bell felt his every sense drawn to him. The musician’s face was shrouded by the broad, low-swept brim of his hat, his instrument, and his bowing arm. But Bell had seen his silhouette before, the same supple reptilian grace he had seen on Roosevelt Hospital’s roof, and again—it hit him with electric force—on the dance floor of Club Deluxe.

The Pierce-Arrow wheeled out of the cortege as suddenly as it had slipped in and disappeared around the corner where the band was playing. No chance for another look at whether it was Fern Hawley in back. But at this moment, what Bell wanted much more was an up close look at the tall violinist.

He peered over a rippling sea of ladies’ cloches and men’s cloth caps and fedoras. There were hundreds of people between them. The crowd jammed the sidewalk, from the buildings to the police line at the curb, weirdly multiplied by a spasm of double vision. He squinted his eyes to clear the carnival.

The hearse and the limousines gathered speed.

Sam Rosenthal’s Silver Ghost passed Bell. It was almost a full block ahead when it reached the musicians. Rosenthal extended his pale white hand to toss them a tip. Gold coins flew through the air, glittering in the sun. The people murmured, acknowledging his gesture: The new king was generous. The music stopped abruptly.

Isaac Bell saw the musicians duck to the sidewalk to pick up the coins. They popped up in unison. All five were cradling Thompson .45 submachine guns, bracing them against their ribs by their double handgrips.

The tall, thin violinist triggered his first.

His henchmen followed his lead with an earsplitting roar.

Shards of glass flew as hundreds of slugs riddled Sam Rosenthal’s Rolls-Royce. The sight of flame-spitting guns stampeded the people nearest to the car. They turned and ran, the bigger trampling the smaller. Those farther off who heard the shattering blast of gunfire threw themselves to the sidewalk.

Isaac Bell leaped over prone forms and shoved past people too stunned to duck. He ran toward the gunmen, who continued to rake the Rolls-Royce even after the lifeless bodies of Sam Rosenthal and his bodyguards and driver had spilled onto the avenue. Before he could get halfway there, the car caught fire. The shooting stopped. The gunmen stuffed their Thompsons into instrument cases and ran down the side street.

Bell reached the pile of violins and violas in time to see the Pierce-Arrow limousine that he thought was Fern Hawley’s speed away from the carnage. A cop ran after it, waving his pistol. A burst of .45 slugs cut him down.

27

COLD-EYED MEN who traveled

light arrived from Cleveland, Toledo, Chicago, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, and Pittsburgh, and jumped to the Michigan Central platforms before their trains stopped rolling. They hurried on their way, across town to a former Wells Fargo Express office that Isaac Bell had rented on Woodbridge Street.

The building was in the freight district between the Michigan Central and New York Central depots, a block from the Detroit River. Thick walls, small windows, and steel doors made for a fortified headquarters. The out-of-town detectives—valuable men who knew their business whom Bell had summoned from the Midwest field offices—were greeted by the sobering sight of workmen wiring mesh over the barred glass to keep out hand grenades. What even the sharpest-eyed did not see were the snipers James Dashwood had installed atop a water tower that overlooked the approaches.

• • •

HAVING HOUSED an express company, the new Detroit headquarters, which the detectives nicknamed Fort Van Dorn, was wired for a variety of telephone and telegraph lines. Within hours of taking possession, Bell had local and long-distance telephone connections, private telephone and telegraph lines to the rest of the field offices, a Morkrum telegraph printer, and an overseas cable link.

“I underestimated Marat Zolner,” he reported to Joseph Van Dorn at Bellevue Hospital by long distance. “And I overestimated the effect of what I thought was a body blow we gave them in New York. The Comintern did not flee from New York. Zolner expanded to Detroit.”

“Interesting hunch,” said Van Dorn.

“It’s more than a hunch.”

“But you could just as easily conclude that Zolner machine-gunned the boss of the Purple Gang out of desperation.” Van Dorn’s voice was stronger, and Dorothy told Bell when she answered the telephone that he was sitting up in a chair. “You drove him from New York and he’s desperate to start over in Detroit.”

“No,” said Bell. “Zolner is fighting from strength, not weakness. We bloodied his nose in New York, but we did not break up his alliances. The profits from his New York bootlegger partners are funding the expansion.”

“If bootlegging made him that rich, why didn’t he buy his way into Detroit? Why’d he pounce with all four feet?”