The Assassin (Isaac Bell 8)

“He did better than that, according to Harry Warren. He wrangled a job on the black gang. Sneaked across the ocean shoveling coal in the ship’s boilers five decks under my nose.”

“Resourceful.”

Suspicion caromed through Bell’s mind. Had Edna and Nellie brought him decent food or visited him or let him rest in their cabin? Not likely on a strictly run German liner. They allowed no mingling of the classes, much less passengers and crew.

“I gather from your expression,” said Van Dorn, “that Harry Warren didn’t arrest Mr. Matters.”

“Matters brained a customs guard who spotted him sneaking off the ship. Harry Warren caught wind of it, traced him to the black gang, where he got a description from the engineers, and put two and two together.”

“So he’s somewhere in New York.”

“Or boarding a train going anywhere in the country.” Bell stood from the table. “I better warn Wish just in case he’s headed to Cleveland.”

“Do you think he’ll take another shot at Rockefeller?”

“He’s had a week to stew while shoveling coal in a hundred-ten-degree stokehold. And he knows we’ll catch him in the end. He’ll want to wreak more damage than killing one man.”

“Wanting and doing are two different things. Like I said, Matters is a business man on the run. Even if he’s a mastermind, being on the run makes him a fish out of water.”

“Until he joins up again with his personal assassin.”

33

Isaac Bell knew the great industrial city of Bridgeport well, having gone down to college in nearby New Haven. Bridgeport had provided Yale students carousing grounds beyond the long arm of the chaplain. More recently, he had bought his Locomobile at the company’s Bridgeport factory.

He parked the big red auto in front of the Zimmerman & Brassard gun shop. The partners Zimmerman and Brassard had long since retired on fortunes made from the Civil War, leaving the shop to a talented apprentice with the business acumen to retain the famous name that was set above the door in gunmetal letters. He was middle-aged by now, a slight, precise man with a pencil-thin mustache and wire-rimmed spectacles.

“Mr. Beitel?” asked Bell.

Beitel turned from the electric lathe, where he was working, and nodded. He was wearing arm garters to keep his shirtsleeves above his wrists and a four-in-hand necktie snugged under a shop apron. Physically, he appeared the opposite of the powerful Dave McCoart, with one exception: like McCoart, the casually able manner in which he hefted a cutoff tool said he was an artist, a man who could already see the shape of what he would fashion from the length of metal stock that was turning on his lathe.

His workshop was as neat and precise as he. It had a sturdy bench with drawers and a lip around the top to keep things from rolling off, several vises, a chest for small tools and parts, and a converted bedroom bureau with large drawers. He had just opened one, and Bell saw pistols waiting to be repaired, sandpaper, abrasive cloth, and steel wool. There was a power grinder with stones and a wire brush, a drill press, and an all-angle drilling vise for mounting telescope sights, a motor sander, and the long bench lathe where he was turning a rifle barrel.

“Good morning,” said Bell. “I was at the Locomobile factory—ran into a little trouble on my way to Hartford—and they told me you were a particularly fine gunsmith, so I figured I’d stop on my way. My card. Jethro Smith.”

“Hartford?”

“Head office. My territory is in Oregon.”

“Who told you I was a fine gunsmith?”

“One of the mechanicians.”

“Really. Do you mind me asking which one?”

“The factory was a madhouse. They’re all excited about the Number 7 auto they’re entering in the Vanderbilt Cup. It’s next month, coming up soon.”

“Oh, I know. Everyone in Bridgeport’s planning to take the ferry over to Long Island . . . Which mechanician was it who mentioned me?”

“Let’s see . . . His name’s on the tip of my tongue.” It had been worth the six-hour drive through crowded towns to get his story straight at the auto factory. He snapped his fingers. “Gary! Gary . . . Crisci. Know him?”

“Gary Crisci? I sure do. That is, I know of him. They say he’ll be Number 7’s mechanician. He’s a top hand. I’m honored he’s heard of me. What’s your interest in guns, Mr. Smith?”

“Rifles.”

“Are you a marksman?”

“I shoot in the occasional match,” Bell answered modestly.