The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

BOOK III

Storm King

26

The streets were crawling with cops and Van Dorns.

Antonio Branco stepped from a tenement doorway, hurried twenty feet to Banco LaCava, and tapped his signet ring on the glass. David LaCava looked up from the gold he was stacking in his show window. Branco watched his expression and got ready to run. LaCava saw Branco. He gaped, shocked. Then relief spread across his face and he ran to unlock the door.

“You’re alive!”

Branco pushed through and closed it behind him.

“They said you were missing in the explosion.”

Branco made a joke to lull the banker. “Almost as bad. I was upstate in the Catskills.” Then he turned fittingly grave. “I came back on the night boat. I only heard of the explosion this morning when we docked.”

“How bad is it?”

“I couldn’t see. The cops and firemen and sewer and building departments are squabbling over who commands the recovery. Fortunately, none of my people were in my building. But they say some poor souls are trapped in the tenements.”

“There’s a rumor Isaac Bell was in the building.”

“I heard that, too—God knows what he was doing there. Here! Take these.” He thrust a wad of paper into LaCava’s hands.

“What is this?”

“Receipts and bills of lading for a pier house full of wine I stored on West 21st Street. You can see my situation. All my store stock is lost. I need to borrow cash to fill orders for the aqueduct.”

“Is Prince Street insured?”

“It will take time to get the money and I need to buy new stock now. Total these up; you’ll see the wine’s worth fifty thousand. Can you advance me thirty?”

“I wish I could, my friend. I don’t have that much on hand. My depositors are only trickling back.”

“Whatever you can lend me right now . . . Immediately.”

Ten minutes after the grocer left with a satchel of cash, grim-faced detectives from the Van Dorn Black Hand Squad burst into the bank.

“Have you seen Antonio Branco?”

David LaCava said, “You just missed him. May I ask, is there any word on Mr. Bell?”

“No. Where did Branco go?”

“To buy stock. He has orders he must fill for the aqueduct.”

Harry Warren and Eddie Edwards stared at the banker.

“Aqueduct?” Warren echoed.

“What are

you talking about, Mr. LaCava? Branco’s not filling orders; he’s on the run.”

“What do you mean?” asked LaCava.

“The thieving murderer blew up his own store,” said Warren.