Bell tossed the letter on the tablecloth. “This pretty much confirms what Vito Rizzo ‘confessed.’ The man he helped at Storm King was Branco himself. He’s probably in Culp’s mansion by now, warming his feet on the hearth.”
“Why would a man as rich and powerful as Culp shelter a criminal?”
“Each offers what the other wants. Branco wants power. Culp wants the President dead.”
Marion picked up the letter and read it.
“What is this about?” she asked, and quoted: “‘The City cannot protect the aqueduct.’”
“Branco is reminding us that it is nearly impossible to guard anything a hundred miles long.”
“What about this? ‘Water Supply Board helpless’?”
“Same thing . . . Except, funny you ask . . . Grady in Research said that initially there was a huge battle in New York whether to make the aqueduct a City-operated public project or a privately owned enterprise that charged the City for the water. The City won, but it was close-fought. You can bet the losers hate the Water Supply Board.”
“Was Culp the loser?”
“It was fought by proxies. Shell companies. Could have been. Who knows?”
“I wonder why Branco wants the money delivered at the Storm King Shaft. Where is that?”
“Fifty miles up the river at Cornwall Landing.”
“Do you suppose that the ‘powers that are’ received their own letters like this?”
“I’m sure the Water Supply Board and the Mayor both got them. Ours was probably an afterthought to get my goat.”
“Will they pay?”
“Not if I can help it.”
“But Branco dynamited Giuseppe Vella’s church job, and he bombed Banco LaCava. If he follows his pattern, he will attack.”
“The only question is where,” Bell agreed.
Marion said, “Storm King Shaft.”
“How do you reckon that?”
“An explosion or sabotage anywhere else could be deemed an accident. But a bomb at the same place he names in the letter would leave no doubt that he means business.”
Bell looked at his fiancée with deeper admiration than ever. “You’d be a crackersjack extortionist.”
“It has the ring of truth, doesn’t it?”
“It does indeed.”
Bell signaled a waiter.
“Pack up our dinner in a picnic basket. And ask Mr. Rector if he would use his influence to book us a last-minute state room on the night boat to Storm King.”
Marion put on her gloves and picked up her bag. “Isn’t there a Van Dorn Detective rule against bringing friends to gunfights?”
“This infernal letter makes you a candidate for round-the-clock Van Dorn protection—I guarantee no gunfights in our state room.”
“How about fireworks?”
Drill heads battered the rock a thousand feet under the Hudson River. Boring into the circular heading, they scattered a pink powder of pulverized granite. Water seeping from minute seams in the vaulted ceiling turned the powder to a sticky grime that caked helmets, slickers, boots, and faces.