The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

“Big aqueduct contractor. Must be Black Hand.”

“Did you tell Branco that Culp sent you to Brandon Finn?”

“Culp is my friend,” gasped Claypool, and Isaac Bell watched him die with that typically enigmatic answer on his lips. Culp is my friend told no one whether Branco’s savage interrogation had forced him to reveal that J. B. Culp was the boss he had been tracking.

Bell checked his pulse and pressed his ear to his chest, but the fixer was dead. He reached for the knife protruding from the body, pulled it free, took it under the nearest light bulb. It was a folding pocket knife with a legal-length blade. The handle was the narrow sort that Detective Warren had described, barely wider than the blade itself, and tapered even thinner at the hinge that transformed it, when open, into a stiletto.

Bell saw no maker’s mark. It had been fabricated by a specialty cutler.

He slung Claypool’s featherlight frame over his shoulder and carried him down six stories to the sidewalk and up Broadway to Cortlandt Street and into his building. There were no cops yet or police detectives. Back on the street, Bell met up with Warren, Kisley, and Fulton, who had caught up in a REO town car the agency had on promotional loan from the manufacturer.

“We’re going to Prince Street,” Bell told them. “Move over, I’ll drive!”

“Branco?”

“He’ll need escape money. I saw him. Claypool fingered him. And I have his knife.”

Isaac Bell drove as fast as he could, straight up Broadway, toward Prince Street. Traffic was heavy even at this late hour, but not at the standstill of business hours. The REO’s motor was fairly powerful and its horn was very loud. His Black Hand Squad, crowded in beside Bell and in the backseat, checked over their guns, and traded info about the case.

Bell’s Black Hand and President Assassin cases had converged like a pair of ocean liners on a collision course. The saloon keeper Ghiottone had recruited a Black Hand man to kill President Roosevelt, and Antonio Branco had seized the opportunity to send the ultimate Black Hand letter.

“The scheme backfired when Ghiottone told Branco.”

“Instead of killing the President, Branco killed his way back up the recruiting chain to blackmail the man on the top.”

“Can you imagine what Culp would pay?”

“Branco could imagine,” Mack Fulton said to general laughter. Bell wondered, though. Would it be enough for Branco to risk his entire setup or did he have his eye on something more?

Ghiottone’s saloon had been taken over by the dead man’s cousins and was doing a roaring business again. Across the street, Branco’s Grocery was dark and shuttered.

“Hang on,” shouted Bell.

He wrenched the steering wheel. The REO jumped the curb. He drove onto the sidewalk and blasted through Antonio Branco’s front door ten feet into the store. The Van Dorns leaped out, guns drawn. They fanned out into the maze of stock shelves, Bell in the lead.

“Find lights . . . Wait! I smell gas.”

“Maybe Branco stuck his head in an oven.”

“Stove in here is fine,” Mack Fulton called. “No leak.”

“Don’t turn on the light. Get out. Get out now!”

The odor was suddenly so strong, it smelled as if a torrent of gas was gushing into the store straight from a city main. Bell felt light-headed. “Get out, boys! Get out before it blows.”

The Van Dorn Black Hand Squad bolted for the door they had smashed.

“Leave the auto.”

Bell was counting heads, vaguely aware that he was having trouble keeping track, when he heard Harry Warren shout. He could barely make out what he was saying. Warren sounded blocks away.

“Come on, Isaac! We’re all out.”

Bell turned slowly to the door.

He saw a flash. The REO reared in the air like a spooked horse. Cans flew from the walls. Jars shattered and barrels split open, but the tall detective had the strangest impression of total silence. It was like watching a moving picture of a volcano.

Then the floor collapsed under his feet and the ceiling tumbled down on his head.