The Striker (Isaac Bell 6)

He started down. The boy called after him, “Are you a Pinkerton, mister?”

“No. I’m a Van Dorn.”

“Wow,” said the boy, willing, Bell noted ruefully, to accept a distinction that Mary Higgins had not.

He continued down the sloping passage to the end. The wrecked train had been removed and the tunnel dug deeper into the seam. Bell worked his way back up to the lowest gallery, then counted up four props and felt behind the fourth for the crack where he had hidden the broken bridle link.

* * *

Wally Kisley was deep in conversation with a miner for whom he had bought a schooner of beer in the dirtiest saloon he could recall when the man suddenly clammed up. Young Archie, who was doing a good job of standing around not appearing to be on lookout, rapped a warning on the bar, and Kisley looked up to see a pair of Gleason company cops sashay in like they owned the place.

They walked straight up to him, said “Get out of here” to the miner, who scooted away without finishing his beer. Then one said to Kisley, “That’s the ugliest suit of clothes I ever seen on a man.”

Wally Kisley studied his checkerboard coat sleeve as if seeing it for the first time.

The second cop said, “Looks like a clown suit.”

Wally Kisley remained silent. The first cop noticed Archie Abbott and said, “What the hell are you looking at?”

The tall, young redhead answered slowly and distinctly, “I am looking at absolutely nothing.”

“What did you say to me?”

“Let me revise that, if I may,” said Archie, staring back. “If it were possible to look at less than nothing, then you would provide the opportunity to look at less than nothing.”

Wally Kisley laughed. “Kid, you’re a blessing in disguise.”

“What?” said the cop.

The barkeep, who had been listening anxiously, left the room.

Wally replied conversationally, “My young redheaded friend sees the joke in the fact that a man who is so ugly his face would stop a clock would criticize the appearance of my garb.”

The cop pulled a blackjack, and his partner pulled his.

“Enough,” said Mack Fulton, materializing from a chair in a dark corner with a Smith & Wesson rock-steady in his hand. “Vamoose!”

* * *

Four Gleason cops and two Pinkerton detectives caught up with the Van Dorns in Reilly’s Saloon.

Kisley and Fulton and Wish Clarke and Archie Abbott were sharing a bottle while waiting for Isaac Bell. Archie was playing the piano, a dusty upright not too badly out of tune, and Mack and Wally were harmonizing in full-blown Weber-and-Fields style on the new Chicago hit, “If Money Talks, It Ain’t On Speaking Terms With Me.”

The cops and detectives walked in with pistols drawn.

Reilly vanished into his back office. The miners at the plank-and-barrel bar, who had been talking boldly about rumors of a strike, tossed back their whiskeys and hurried out the door.

Wally and Mack kept singing: “If money talks, it ain’t on speaking terms with me…”

Wish Clarke said, “If you boys are waving those firearms at us, you seem to be forgetting that the Van Dorn Agency is working for the Gleason Consolidated Coal & Coke Company, hired personally by Black Jack Gleason, who feared, with ample evidence to back him, that you boys were not up to detecting saboteurs.”

“Not for long,” a beefy West Virginia company cop drawled back. “Word is, company’s fixing to fire you all soon as Mr. Gleason returns from New York City.”

Kisley sipped whiskey and glanced at Fulton.

Fulton sipped whiskey and glanced at Wish Clarke.

Wish Clarke drained his glass, refilled it, and said, “When and if Mr. Gleason decides to terminate our employment, we may go home. Or, we may continue to enjoy the pleasures of fair Gleasonburg like the free citizens of America we are. In the meantime, we’re girding our loins for what this establishment claims will be supper. So if you boys care to gird with us, pull up a chair. If not, trundle on, and we’ll commence to eating.”