The Spy (Isaac Bell 3)

The tall detective was still too angry to smile, but he came close. “No,” he said. “Leave them where I can see them.”

A taxi horn blared in the street.

Bell shot a glance out the door. The taxi was sliding to a halt. Five grim-faced Van Dorn veterans and an up-and-coming young fellow spilled out bearing firearms. They were trailed at a distance by a squad of New York cops on foot. Harry Warren, the gang specialist, was leading the Van Dorns. He had a sawed-off pressed against his leg and a revolver tucked in his waistband. Passing the youngster a wad of cash, he gestured for him to deal with the cops, and assessed the front of Commodore Tommy’s with an eye to storming it.

Bell stepped out of the saloon. “Evening, boys.”

“Isaac! You O.K.?”

“Tip-top. What are you doing here?”

“Your Yale Club doorman telephoned the Knickerbocker. Sounded real worried, said that you needed a hand.”

“Old Matthew’s like a mother hen.”

“What the hell are you doing here?”

“Just out for a stroll.”

“Stroll?” They looked up and down the dark and grimy street. “Stroll?” They stared at Isaac Bell. “And I suppose a mosquito drilled that hole in your coat sleeve?” one detective remarked.

“Same one that shot the lock off this door?” asked another.

“And made those Gophers inside hold their hands in the air?” said a third.

Harry Warren beckoned the kid who had just returned. “Eddie, go tell the cops they should send an ambulance.”

Isaac Bell grinned. “Might as well call it a night, boys. Thanks for coming out. Harry, if you’d walk me home, I have questions for you.”

Harry handed his shotgun to the boys, shoved his revolver in his coat pocket, and passed Bell a handkerchief. “You’re bleeding.”

Bell stuffed it up his sleeve.

They walked to Ninth Avenue. The cops had cordoned off the area under the El where Weeks was hanging. Firemen were holding ladders for morgue attendants who were trying to cut the body loose.

“So much for connecting the Iceman to Tommy and your foreign spy,” said Harry.

“This connection is precisely what I want to talk to you about,” said Isaac Bell. “It looks to me like Tommy Thompson is moving up in the world.”

Harry nodded. “Yeah, I hear talk in the neighborhoods that the Gophers are throwing their weight around.”

“I want you to find out who his new friends are. Five’ll get you ten, they will be the connection.”

“You could be onto something. I’ll get right to it. Oh, here, they passed me this as we were leaving.” Harry fished in his pockets. “Wire came in for you from the Philadelphia office.”

They had reached the corner of 42nd Street. Bell stopped under a streetlamp to read the wire.

“Bad news?”

“They got a line on a German sneaking around Camden.”

“Wasn’t that a German who did the Bethlehem job?”

“Possibly.”

“What’s in Camden?”

“They’re launching the battleship Michigan.”