The Wrecker (Isaac Bell 2)

“What the devil-”

“Drop your derringer!” Bell commanded. “Do not go for your knife!”

Very slowly, Kincaid opened his hand. The gun fell from his fingers.

“Turn around.”

Moving as if in a trance, Kincaid slowly turned away from the grim detective.

“Clasp your hands behind your back.”

Slowly, Kincaid placed his hands behind his back. Every sinew was poised. If Bell was going to make a mistake, he would make it now. Behind him, Kincaid heard the words he was praying to hear.

“Your handcuffs, Dash.”

He heard the steel clink. He let the first cuff snap around his wrist. Only as he felt the cold metal of the second cuff brush his skin did he whirl into motion, turning to get behind the youth and clamp his arm around his throat.

A fist smashed into the bridge of his nose. Kincaid flew backward.

Knocked on his back, stunned by the punch, he looked up. Young Dashwood was still standing to one side, watching with an excited grin on his face and a shiny revolver in his hand. But it was Isaac Bell who was looming over him, triumphantly. Bell, who had knocked him down with a single punch.

“Did you really think I would let a new man within ten feet of the murderer who killed Wish Clarke, Wally Kisley, and Mack Fulton?”

“Who?”

“Three of the finest detectives I’ve had the privilege to work with. On your feet!”

Kincaid got up slowly. “Only three? Don’t you count Archie Abbott?”

The blood drained from Bell’s face, and, in that instant of total shock, the Wrecker struck.

53

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THE WRECKER MOVED WITH INHUMAN SPEED. INSTEAD OF attacking Isaac Bell, he rushed James Dashwood. He ducked under the boy’s pistol, got behind him, and slid his arm around his throat.

“Is it all right now if I reach for my boot?” the Wrecker asked mockingly.

He had already pulled his knife.

He pressed the razor-sharp blade to Dashwood’s throat and sliced a line in the skin. Blood trickled.

“Table’s turned, Bell. Drop your gun or I’ll cut his head off.”

Isaac Bell dropped his Browning on the ground.

“You too, sonny. Drop it!”

Only when Bell said, “Do what he says, Dash,” did the revolver clatter on the wet ballast.

“Unlock this handcuff.”

“Do what he says,” said Bell. Dashwood worked the key out of his pocket and fumbled it into the cuff on the wrist that was crushing his windpipe. The cuffs clattered on the ballast. There was silence, but for the huffing of a single switch engine somewhere, until Bell asked, “Where is Archie Abbott?”

“The derringer in your hat, Bell.”

Bell removed his two-shot pistol from his hat and dropped it beside his Browning.