The Wrecker (Isaac Bell 2)

“Not that swill! The company knows goddamned well I will only drink Mumm.”

The steward bowed low.

“I’m terribly sorry, Senator. But as Renaudin Bollinger was the favorite champagne of Queen Victoria, and now of King Edward, we hoped it would make a worthy substitute.”

“Substitute? What the devil are you talking about? Bring me Mumm champagne or I’ll have your job!”

“But, sir, the Pennsylvania Railroad’s entire store of Mumm was destroyed in the explosion.”

“A VICTORY AT LAST,” repeated Joseph Van Dorn. “And if you’re right that the Wrecker is trying to discredit the Southern Pacific Railroad, then he cannot be happy with these results. ‘Sound Southern Pacific Management’ indeed. Exactly the opposite of what he had hoped to achieve with this attack.”

“It doesn’t feel like a victory to me,” said Isaac Bell.

“Savor it, Isaac. Then get busy finding out how he set this up.”

“The Wrecker isn’t done.”

“This attack,” Van Dorn said sternly, “wasn’t planned overnight. There’ll be clues in his method as to what he is scheming next.”

A search of the section of the schooner’s stern that had been hurled onto the railroad float revealed the body of a man the Marine Division police knew well. “A water rat named Weitzman” was how a grizzled patrol-launch captain put it. “Hung out with that schooner’s captain, a son of a crocodile named Yatkowski. Smuggler when he wasn’t up to something worse. From Yonkers.”

The Yonkers police searched the old river city to no avail. But the next morning, the captain’s remains drifted ashore at Weehawken. By then, Van Dorn operatives had traced ownership of the schooner to a lumber dealer who was related to Yatkowski by marriage. The dealer admitted to no crimes, however, claiming that he had sold the ship to his brother-in-law the previous year. Asked whether the captain had ever used her to smuggle fugitives across the river, the dealer replied that when it came to his brother-in-law, anything was possible.

As Bell had surmised in Ogden, the Wrecker was changing tactics. Instead of relying on zealous radicals, he was proving adept at hiring cold-blooded criminals to do his dirty work for cash.

“Did either of these men ever use explosives in their crimes?” he asked the launch captain.

“Looks like this was the first time,” the water cop replied with a grim chuckle, “and they weren’t all that good at it. Seeing as how they blew themselves to smithereens.”

“BEAUTIFUL GIRL TO SEE you, Mr. Bell.”

Bell did not look up from his desk in the Van Dorn offices at the Knickerbocker Hotel. Three candlestick telephones were ringing constantly. Messengers were racing in and out. Operatives were standing by to make their reports and awaiting new orders.

“I’m busy. Pass her on to Archie.”

“Archie’s at the morgue.”

“Then send her away.”

It was forty hours since the explosion had shaken the Port of New York. Experts from the railroad-backed Bureau of Explosives combing through the wreckage had discovered a dry cell battery that led them to conclude that the dynamite had been skillfully detonated using electricity. But Bell still hadn’t a clue as to whether the dead schooner crew had set off the dynamite or had expert help. He was wondering if the Wrecker himself had wired it to explode. Had he been on the schooner? Was he dead? Or was he preparing his next attack?

“I’d see this one if I were you,” the front-desk man persisted.

“I’ve seen her. She’s beautiful. She’s rich. I don’t have time.”

“But she’s got a gang of fellows with a moving-picture camera.”

“What?” Bell glanced through the door. “Marion!”

Bell pushed through the door, picked her up in his arms, and kissed her on the mouth. His fiancee was wearing a hat anchored with a scarf that covered the side of her face, and Bell noticed that she had combed her straw-blond hair, which she ordinarily wore piled high upon her head, so that it draped one cheek.

“What are you doing here?”

“Attempting to take pictures of the hero, if you’ll put me down. Come outside in the light.”

“Hero? I’m the hero of the glassmakers’ union.” He pressed his lips to her ear, and added in a whisper, “And the only place I’m putting you down is on a bed.”

“Not before we take pictures of the famous detective who saved New York.”