The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

“I am, padrone. They didn’t say how, but it would not come down the chain. They have some other way of telling him the target.”

“And the money? The fifty thousand? How does that come?”

Ghiottone straightened up. “Through me. They will send me the money when the job is done. My job is to give it to you.”

Branco handed him the glass, saying, “That makes you a very valuable man.”

Ghiottone lifted it in both hands and threw back his head. This time, most of the water entered his mouth. He swallowed, reveling in the coldness of it, and tipped the glass to finish it.

Branco stuffed the body in a sugar barrel and nailed it shut and went to his stable, where he woke up an old Sicilian groom and ordered him to hitch up a garbage cart and dump the barrel in the river. Then he went hunting for Adam Quiller.

21

Late in the afternoon, when the Van Dorn detective bull pen filled with operatives preparing for the night by perusing the day’s newspapers and exchanging information, Isaac Bell sat alone, opening and closing a pocket knife, reviewing notes in the memo book open beside him, and listening.

“Tribune says the Harbor Squad found “Kid Kelly” Ghiottone floating in the river.”

“Looks like the Wallopers got some back.”

“Why would the Wallopers do Ghiottone? He didn’t run with Salata.”

“He was Italian, thereby permitting the Wallopers to demonstrate they, one, are enraged about their dope being lifted, and, two, have the guts to snatch him out of Little Italy. His body was a mess, according to the paper; looked like he was beat with hatchets.”

“That is not what happened,” said Isaac Bell.

“Thought you were napping, Isaac. What do you mean?”

“Ghiottone wasn’t beat up. At least not when he was alive.”

“What makes you think that?”

“Barrel staves were floating around the body.”

Every detective in the bull pen lowered his newspaper and stared at Isaac Bell.

“Meaning, they dumped the body in a barrel,” said Mack Fulton.

“And a ship hit the barrel,” said Wally Kisley.

“The steel-hulled, five-mast nitrate bark James P. Richards,” said Bell. “Outbound for Chile. According to the Harbor Squad.”

Bell continued practicing with the pocket knife. Mack Fulton voiced a question. “Can I ask you something, Isaac?”

“Shoot.”

“Your criminal cartel theory is driving you around the bend, and the Boss is all over you about the President.”

“I’m aware I’m busy,” said Bell. “Which is why I depend on you boys’ invaluable assistance. What do you want to know?”

“Being so engaged, what made you query Roundsman O’Riordan about an Eye-talian saloon keeper floating in the river?”

“What do you think?”

“Because,” Kisley answered for Fulton, “Isaac thinks Ghiottone is Black Hand.”

Bell shook his head. “That’s not what I got from Research, and they got their info straight from Captain Coligney, who used to ramrod the Mulberry Street Precinct. Ghiottone was a Tammany man—so what strikes me is, somebody’s got it in for Tammany Hall. Adam Quiller was tortured and murdered last Saturday; Harry Warren says he was Alderman King’s heeler. And this guy Lehane, Alderman Henry’s heeler, was also tortured.”

“Those reformers are getting meaner every day,” said Walter Kisley.