The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

Isaac Bell ran full tilt toward the sound of guns echoing in the tunnel.

Smoke darkened the corridor.

Whipping his pistol from his shoulder holster, shouting at passengers in his way, he stormed through the stateroom car and into the forward club car, which rode directly behind the express car. He pushed through the vestibule and pounded on the express car’s fortified door.

“Jake! It’s Isaac Bell. You O.K. in there?”

He had, as was Van Dorn custom, introduced himself to the express messengers who guarded registered mail, bearer bonds, cash, and gold. An extra, armed hand was always welcome, and favors were returned. Bell shouted, “I’ve got the back covered. No gunmen here.”

“Not here, either,” said Jake, unlocking the door. He had a double-barreled sawed-off in his hands and a puzzled expression on his face. “Fire on the tracks, barricade of rocks, and shooting like a war in the tunnel, but I don’t see no—”

Bell turned and ran back to Tetrazzini’s state room, tearing down the narrow corridors along the state rooms, shoving people from his path, praying he wasn’t too late.

Her door was still locked.

Through it he heard glass break and a terrified scream.

Bell levered off the corridor wall, sprang with all his strength, and hurled his shoulder against the door. It flew open, and the tall detective exploded into the state room, gun in his right hand, left fist cocked. He saw Luisa and Rosa on the day couch, seated where he had left them, their backs pressed against the cushions, their faces white with shock.

Through the smoke pouring in, a man materialized. He would have looked like a Gilbert and Sullivan pirate, with a grimy face and a gleaming stiletto clenched in his teeth, except for the Bodeo Italian Army revolver he was using to clear the sash of broken glass. His eyes fixed on Bell. The octagonal barrel flickered toward him. Bell landed a punch on his forehead and he fell backwards. The tunnel was narrow, rough-hewn through the mountain. The killer banged against the stone and slid down between the wall and the train. But as he fell, he managed to pull the trigger. The Bodeo’s .41 caliber slug creased Bell’s neck. It missed his jugular but plowed a fiery furrow in his skin, and the impact of the heavy bullet passing so close nearly knocked him over.

Luisa screamed.

Swaying on his feet, Bell pointed his pistol out the broken window and peered through thickening coal smoke down at the gravel ballast under the car. The man he had punched was struggling to stand. He was still holding his gun, and still had the knife in his teeth. Bell dove out the window, landed beside him, and slugged him with his automatic. This was one Black Hand gangster Isaac Bell had no intention of shooting. This one he would make talk.

The gunman staggered beside the train. Bell tackled him. Still, he tried to run. Bell clamped a hand on one ankle and swung at his knee with the heavy automatic. The man tripped and fell. Bell grabbed his shoulder, but the burning in his neck was draining his concentration. His quarry wriggled loose, over the rail, and under the train. Bell rolled over the rail and spotted him by the flickering of the fire burning ahead of the locomotive. He grabbed the intruder’s foot, and they wrestled in the shallow trough under the car, scraping fists on the splintery crossties and ballast, banging their heads and backs on the chassis.

The locomotive whistled. Three short shrieks were amplified by the rock roof and walls, and Isaac Bell realized that the engineer had to back the train out of the tunnel before his passengers were asphyxiated by the engine smoke. The Black Hander Bell was fighting realized it, too. His eyes glittered on the nearest wheel, three yards from where they struggled. As the air brakes released with a deafening blast, he grabbed Bell’s arm and threw his weight on it to wrench it across the rail.

The train started to roll, and Bell felt the rail and the ties vibrate with the heavy grinding of iron on steel. He fought to free his arm with the little strength he had left. The wheel flange—the iron lip that kept the train on the tracks—was inching down on him like a butcher’s slicing machine. He pounded the man’s kidneys. A heavy coat absorbed the blows, and the Black Hander did not budge. Bell bent his knee, dragged his ankle toward his free hand, and snatched his throwing knife out of his boot. He raised the knife. A protrusion from the moving chassis struck his hand, and the blade started to slip from his fingers. He squeezed hard and plunged it into his assailant’s kidney.

The man convulsed. Bell threw him off, jerked his arm from the rail, and flattened himself in the trough between the tracks. The car passed over him, as did the next stateroom car, the club car, the express car, and the tender. When at last the locomotive rolled away in gusts of steam and smoke, Bell sat up and took stock. He had two working hands. His neck began to ache savagely, and he was breathing hard, gasping to fill his lungs with the thin, smoky mountain air. The man who had stopped the train to attack Luisa Tetrazzini was staring at him with grinning teeth and empty eyes. Oddly, he seemed to have grown taller, until Bell observed that the head glaring blankly at him was on the far side of the rail, severed from its torso.

His stiletto had fallen beside his head.

Bell searched his coat for the sheath, then pocketed the weapon, retrieved his throwing knife, and staggered out of the tunnel.

Marion Morgan, a young, willowy straw-blonde with a beautiful, fine-featured face and a level gaze, was waiting at the railroad ferry pier. Isaac Bell sprang from the boat, ahead of the crowds, and swept her into his arms. “I am so glad to see you.”

They kissed warmly, oblivious to hundreds brushing past. After a while, Marion released him. “I cannot help but notice that you have an enormous bandage on your neck.”

“Cut myself shaving.”

“It looks like you’re still bleeding.”

“Just a scratch.”

“You’re white as a ghost.”

“Excitement . . . And joy.”

“Shouldn’t you be in a hospital?”

“I should be in bed. What are you doing for the afternoon?”

“But where is your opera singer?”

“I had Bronson’s boys meet the train at Oakland. They’ve got her covered.”