The Gangster (Isaac Bell 9)

“Did Detective Abbott happen to mention the rich man’s name?”

“Sure.”

“Why sure?”

“I asked him. You told me find out everything the Van Dorns are doing, remember?”

“I am puzzled that a private detective would tell you so much about a case he was working up.”

“I told you, he’s mine.”

“I find it hard to believe he would be that indiscreet, even with you.”

“Listen, he’s got no reason not to trust me. He’s the one who started us. I set it up so he thinks he made the first move at the Knickerbocker. In fact, lately I’ve been wondering—”

“What’s the rich man’s name?”

“Culp.”

Again the Boss fell silent.

“J. B. Culp, the Wall Street guy,” she added, and pressed her cheek to the glass to look down the row of booths. The angle was too shallow. She couldn’t see inside the other booths, only the operator’s stand at the head of the row and the pay clerk at his desk.

Still not a peep out of the Boss.

“It’s funny,” she said. “Everybody reads about J. B. Culp in the papers—the swell’s rich as Rockefeller. But only little old Francesca knows that a whole squad of detectives are going to bust his door like he’s operating a low-down bookie joint.”

“Did Detective Abbott tell you why the Van Dorns are raiding Culp’s estate?”

“No.”

“Did you ask?” the Boss said sharply.

“I nudged around it a little. He clammed up. I figured I better quit while I was ahead of the game.”

“When is the raid?”

Francesca laughed.

“What is funny?”

“When you read about it in the morning paper, don’t forget

who told you first.”

“Tonight?”

The grappling hooks whistled, cutting the air. Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott swung their ropes in ever-growing circles, building momentum, then simultaneously let fly at the wall that loomed slightly darker than the cloud-shrouded night sky. The hooks cleared the top, twelve feet above their heads, and clanked against the back side. Bell and Abbott drew in the slack and pulled hard. The iron claws held.

“Cut the wires!”

It went like clockwork. Up the knotted ropes, over thick folds of canvas to cover the broken glass, drop the rope ladders, then down the inside and running along a mowed inspection track that paralleled the wall. There were no lights in the gymnasium, the barracks, or the boathouse. The main house was dark upstairs, but the ground floor was lit up like Christmas.

“Dinner in the dining room,” said Bell.

Bell sent two men to capture the prizefighters and another man down to the river to rendezvous with the boat. Then he and Archie Abbott led squads to the house. Bell took the back door, Archie the front.

“They’re here,” said Branco.