The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

Culp laughed. “O.K. So you lost everything. What do you want from me? Money?”

“I have plenty of money.” Still holding the string, he shrugged the rucksack off his shoulder and lobbed it onto Culp’s desk. “Look inside.”

Culp unbuckled the flap. The canvas bulged with banded stacks of fifty- and hundred-dollar notes. “Looks like you robbed a bank.”

“I lost only my ‘public’ business. I have my private business.”

“What’s your private

business?”

“Mano Nero.”

“Black Hand? . . . In other words, you used to hide your gangster business behind a legitimate business and now you are nothing but a gangster.”

“I am much more than a gangster.”

“How do you reckon that?”

“I am a gangster with a friend in high places.”

“Not me, sport.” Culp tossed the rucksack at the man’s feet. “Get off my train.”

“A friend so high that he is higher than the President.”

Culp had been enjoying crossing swords with the intruder, despite the very real threat of a dynamited coupler. But the conversation had taken a vicious twist. The man was acting as if he had him over a worse barrel than crashing down the mountain at eighty miles per hour.

“Where,” he asked, “did you get that idea?”

“Claypool offered me the job.”

“I don’t know what you are talking about. What job?”

“Killing Roosevelt.”

“Are you crazy? Claypool would never say such a thing.”

“He had no choice,” the gangster answered coldly.

30

The moon hovered inside a silver halo. Full and perfectly round.

It was beautiful and distant.

Cold rain sprinkled his lips, then a silken brush of warmth.

Suddenly, the sun filled the sky. It had a halo like the moon, but its halo was golden.

Isaac Bell opened his eyes. The sun was smiling inches from his face. His heart swelled, and he whispered, “Hello, Marion, weren’t you in San Francisco?”

Marion Morgan blinked tears away. “I cannot believe you are actually smiling.”

“I always smile at beautiful women.”

Bell looked around, gradually aware that he was in a bed that smelled of strong soap. A kaleidoscope was whirling in slow motion. Through it, he saw grave doctors, in modern white coats, and a nurse, glowering at Marion, the only non-medico in the room. He said, “Something tells me we won’t be enjoying the night in a hotel.”

“Probably not tonight.”