The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

He took his seat opposite. “Marion, I’ve never seen you lovelier.”

“Thank you, Isaac.”

Bell heard an uncharacteristic constraint in her voice. “You sound anxious. Shall I have us moved to a less noticeable table?”

“If I didn’t want to be noticed, I would not have bought a dress of cobalt blue.”

“Something is troubling you.”

She returned a tight smile. “You know me so well, don?

??t you?”

“If you’re worried about me, don’t be. My memory’s tip-top; I’m completely over the stupor, or coma, or whatever the devil the medicos call several solid nights’ sleep.”

Marion passed an envelope across the table. “I thought I should let you open this.”

Bell recognized the stationery even before he read the address.

Signora Marion Morgan

The Fiancée of Isaac Bell

Knickerbocker Hotel

Flushed with fury, Bell plunged his hand into his boot.

“People,” Marion warned with a significant glance at the full restaurant. She passed him an oyster fork, and with a grateful nod Bell used its wide tine to slit the envelope.

The silhouettes of a black hand, a revolver, and a skull pierced by a dagger were drawn with exceptional skill, the work of an artist. The wording of the threat was densely baroque, the threat itself, grotesque.

Dearest Signora Marion Morgan,

You have in your feminine power to persuade Isaac Bell to convince the highest authorities to act in accordance with listening to reason. Only you, beautiful lady, can make Bell entreat the powers that are to act for the goodness of all.

Bombing Catskill Aqueduct must be prevented.

This will require one million dollars to be gathered for necessary payments to prevent attack. Radicals and agitators and criminals are banded together. The City cannot protect the aqueduct. Water Supply Board helpless.

The Black Hand stands beside you. Together we stop tragedy before it befalls. Pay part day after next hundred thousand dollar at Storm King Siphon Shaft.

Fully aware that “Dearest Signora” and “in your feminine power” and “beautiful lady” were phrases deliberately calculated to set him off half cocked, Isaac Bell still had to fight hard to douse his rage. The intent of Antonio Branco’s poisonous message was the same as a threat to bomb a Little Italy pushcart—sow panic. At least, thought Bell, it was exactly what he had predicted: a Black Hand letter to rival all Black Hand letters.

Did it mean that President Roosevelt was in the clear? Was the assassination plot that Brewster Claypool had set in motion for J. B. Culp no longer active? Just the opposite. Antonio Branco had landed on his feet. All four feet, as the saying went.

“Why are you smiling?” asked Marion.

“Am I?”

“Like a timber wolf. Why?”

“Only in America.”

“What do you mean?”

“An immigrant gangster shakes hands with a blue-blood tycoon.”

“Antonio Branco and J. B. Culp?”