“Why didn’t Mr. Riker leave you in the gutter with Billy Collins?”
“You’ve spoken with Billy? Of course. How is he?”
“Still in the gutter. Why didn’t Riker leave you there?”
“He was grieving for his son who had died of influenza. He wanted another.”
“And you were available.”
“I was garbage. I could barely read. But he saw something in me no one else could see.”
“And you repaid him by becoming a murderer and a spy.”
“I repaid him,” Riker said, his shoulders squared, his head held high.
“You’re proud of being a murderer and a spy?” Isaac Bell asked scornfully.
“You’re a privileged child, Isaac Bell. There are things you can never know. I repaid him. I say it with pride.”
“I say with equal pride that I arrest you for murder, Brian O’Shay.”
Katherine Dee darted through the curtain that screened the back room, slid her arm around Marion’s throat, and pressed her thumb to Marion’s eye.
50
BRIAN TAUGHT ME THIS TRICK FOR MY TWELFTH BIRTHDAY. He even gave me my own gouge. It’s made of pure gold, see?” T
he sharpened metal fit her thumb like a claw.
“Stay perfectly still,” Bell told Marion. “Do not struggle. Mr. O’Shay has the upper hand.”
“Obey your fiancé,” said Katherine Dee.
Eyes O’Shay said, “To answer your question, Bell, one of the ways I repaid the old man’s kindness was by rescuing Katherine as he had rescued me. Katherine is educated, accomplished, and free. No one can hurt her.”
“Educated, accomplished, free, and lethal,” said Bell.
With her other hand Katherine drew a pistol.
“Another birthday present?”
“Give Brian his sword, Mr. Bell, before your fiancée is blinded and I shoot you.”
Bell flicked the sword haft at O’Shay. As he expected, the spy was too sharp to fall for that trick. O’Shay caught it coolly without his eyes leaving Bell’s. But when he started to sheathe it, he glanced down to make sure the tip went into the sheath instead of piercing his hand. Bell was waiting for that split second of distraction. He kicked with lightning speed.
The sharp toe of his boot struck Katherine Dee’s ulnar nerve, which was drawn tightly over her flexed elbow. She cried out in startled pain and could not prevent her hand from opening convulsively. Her thumb splayed away from Marion’s eye.
But the gouge remained attached.
Marion tried to pull away from the smaller woman. Katherine whipped the gouge back at her face. Bell had his derringer in his hand by then and was squeezing the trigger. O’Shay screamed a piercing “No!” and smashed his cane down on Bell’s arm. The gunshot was deafening in the confined space. Solomon Barlowe dove to the floor. Marion cried out, and Bell thought he had shot her. But it was Katherine Dee who fell.
O’Shay grabbed the girl under one powerful arm and flung the door open. Bell lunged for them. He tripped over Solomon Barlowe. By the time he had hurled himself through the door, he saw O’Shay pushing Katherine into a Packard driven by a uniformed chauffeur. Gunmen in black derbies stepped from behind the car and from doorways, aiming pistols.
“Marion, get down!” Bell roared. The pretty-boy bruisers of Riker & Riker’s private protection agency unleashed a scathing hail of gunfire. Wild ricochets smashed glass and blasted stone dust from the walls and diamonds from the window display. Pedestrians dropped to the sidewalk. Bell fired back as fast as he could pull the trigger. He heard the Packard roar away. He fired again, emptying his Browning. The big car screeched around a corner and crashed into something. But when the lead stopped flying and he galloped after it, the Packard was smoldering against a lamppost, and O’Shay, Katherine Dee, and their gunmen had gotten away. Bell ran back into the jewelry shop, his heart in his throat. Solomon Barlowe was groaning and holding his leg. Marion was on the floor behind the counter, eyes wide open.
Alive!
He knelt beside her. “Are you hit?”