“Good-bye.” Edna started after her sister, then turned back and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you, Isaac.”
“What for?”
“Engineering my job on the Sun.”
“They weren’t supposed to tell you.”
“No one had to tell me. I figured it out on my own. Very flattering.”
“The Sun was lucky to send you to Baku.”
“I meant flattering that you wanted me to come along.”
—
“Last stop,” said Isaac Bell.
Tugboats jetting clouds of coal smoke were working the Kaiser Wilhelm against North German Lloyd’s Hoboken pier.
“Not precisely,” said John D. Rockefeller. “We still have the train to Cleveland.”
“My last stop,” said Bell. He took a letter from his traveling suit and handed it to Rockefeller. “Here is my resignation.”
“Resignation? I am dismayed. Why are you quitting?”
“Standards.”
“Standards? What standards?”
“You had no need to rob Bill Matters. I will not condone his crimes, but you mistreated him badly and for no purpose other than beating him.”
Rockefeller’s lips tightened in a flat line. He looked away, gazing at the harbor, then he looked Bell in the eye. “When I was a boy, my father sharped us to make us strong. He taught us how to trade by taking us again and again. Every time I was soft, he took advantage and beat me in every deal until I learned how to win. It made me sharp.”
“It made you a bully.”
“It’s a habit,” said Rockefeller. “A habit that served me well.”
Bell appeared to change the subject. “I understand your father is still alive.”
A look of genuine affection warmed Rockefeller’s cold face. “Ninety and going strong.”
“Men live long in your family.”
“The lord has blessed us with many years.”
“Many years to break bad habits.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You’ve been allotted more years than most to break habits you should break,” said Isaac Bell.
Rockefeller bridled. “I am using my years for philanthropy—for all the good it’s done me. They still think I’m a monster.”
“They think you’re a bully. And they’re right. But if you ask me, you’ve made a good start with philanthropy. I’d keep at it.”
“Would you, now? You are not familiar with business affairs, Mr. Bell. You’re like certain writers, theorists, socialists, and anarchists—so ready to determine how best they can appropriate the possessions of others.”
“Good-bye, Mr. Rockefeller.”
“You can’t leave me defenseless. You took a job and signed a contract to protect me. What if Matters surfaces and tries to kill me?”
“I’ve assigned Wish Clarke to escort you home to Cleveland. There, your bodyguards will be provided by Van Dorn Protective Services.”
“Van Dorn? Are you going back to Van Dorn?”
“I never left.”
“What? You never left Van Dorn’s employ?”
“Never.”
“You’re still working up the Corporations Commission case! You tricked me.”
The trace of a smile moderated Bell’s stern features. “You are not familiar with detective affairs, Mr. Rockefeller. It’s my job to trick suspects. In fact . . . you could call it a habit.”
Rockefeller’s eyes flickered as if he were trying to recall how much information he had given away. But when he spoke, all he said was, “How long will these guards protect me?”
“Until you feel safe.”
“How will I ever feel safe from that murderer?”
“You will feel safe when he is hanged.”
“What makes you so sure he will be?”
“Another Van Dorn habit. We never give up.”
True to form, John D. Rockefeller did the unexpected. He laughed. “That’s a good one.” He thrust out his hand. “I prefer friendships founded on business. I’m glad we’ve done business, Mr. Bell.”
—
The grim atmosphere in the Van Dorn Detective Agency’s New York field office reminded Isaac Bell of the night riots broke out in Baku. “Himself” was back in town, Joseph Van Dorn, hulking like a bad-tempered sphinx in the back of the bull pen where Bell, who had just raced from the ferry pier, had summoned his assassin squad to bring him up to date.
Archie Abbott looked miserable and was sporting a black eye. The anxious glances he kept shooting at Van Dorn told Bell that Archie had learned nothing about the Army deserter who won the President’s Medal.
Grady Forrer, directing head of the gunsmith hunt, was watching Van Dorn as if the Boss were a rotund cobra.
Wally and Mack typically were not intimidated; the old guys had known Van Dorn too long and the self-satisfied Weber & Fields grins on their gnarly faces gave Bell hope. They looked more confident than their grasping-at-straws cable report about Spike Hopewell’s so-called tricks up his sleeve. Maybe good news.
Bell glanced at Van Dorn and stepped out the door. The Boss lumbered after him.
“What’s up?”
“You’re spooking my boys.”
“Your boys aren’t delivering.”
“Why don’t you let me buy you a drink at the Normandie after I straighten them out?”
Bell returned to the bull pen alone.
“When I left for Baku, you were pursuing various leads on the Army sharpshooter, the gunsmith who improved the assassin’s Savage 99, the exhumation of Averell Comstock’s body, and the tricks that Spike Hopewell claimed to have up his sleeve. That no news awaited me in Constantinople or Berlin or Bremerhaven on my way home suggests unfruitful pursuits. Did the situation improve while I steamed across the Atlantic?”
Wally and Mack grinned. The rest were silent.
“Archie. How’d you make out with the general’s daughter?”
“No dice.”
“Who gave you the shiner?”
“She took a swing at me.”
“Why?”
Wally Kisley laughed. “The young lady took insult, misled that Princeton, here, was romancing her. Just when the spooning should commence, Princeton says he has business with her father.”
Archie hung his head. “I misinterpreted her motive for inviting me to visit when he was out of the house.”
“Boom!” said Wally. “Smack in the eye.”
“When I went back to try again, the butler said she was ‘not at home.’ So what I’m thinking, Isaac, is maybe it’s time for me to get back to work in Chicago. Rosania is—”
Bell said, “Write down her name and address for me.”
He turned to the head of Van Dorn Research. “Grady. How did you do with Dave McCoart?”
“We’ve eliminated every gunsmith in the country except for two in Hartford and one in Bridgeport. But none of those fellows have panned out yet.”
“None of them ever worked on a 99?”
“None that admit it. I’m fairly convinced that the Hartford gunsmiths are in the clear. Fairly convinced. But the detective I sent to Bridgeport—a pretty good contract man we’ve used in Connecticut—was suspicious. But he could not shake the guy’s story, and he was smart enough to back off before he tipped his hand. It will be worth sending a regular man.”
“I’ll go,” said Bell. “How did we do with the New York coroner?”
“He won’t exhume Mr. Comstock without a court order. The court refused on legalistic grounds that essentially came down to the judge’s belief that an eighty-three-year-old should have been dead anyway.”
“But what about Mrs. McCloud in the fire and her son in the river?”
“The judge expressed no faith in the likeliness of connections joining the Five Point
s Gang, the West Side Gophers, and the Standard Oil Trust.”
“Sounds like we need another judge.”
“The next judge concurred with the former’s incredulity.”
Bell turned to Weber & Fields. “Wally and Mack, you look pleased with yourselves.”
“Always, Isaac, always,” said Wally.
“It’s hard not to be,” said Mack, and the two broke into Weber & Fields mode. “A very pretty girl who was promised by refiner Reed Riggs that he . . .”
“. . . and therefore she . . .”
“. . . by extension . . .”
Bell said, “Gents, I’m losing patience with your antics. What did you find?”
“. . . would be rich soon.”
“Riggs was an independent oil man,” said Bell. “They all think they’ll be rich soon.”
“Not like this. He told the girl that a certain party highly placed at Standard Oil was going to, quote, ‘Pungle up big.’ Not only would he get a bunch of money, his refinery would be bought with Standard Oil stock.”
“What certain party?” Bell asked.
“She wouldn’t say.”
“Wouldn’t or couldn’t?”
“Wouldn’t.”
“Why would this party shell out big money?”
“Blackmail. The girl said Riggs had something big on him.”
“Why would he tell a girl? Who was this girl? Where did they meet?”
“Miss Dee’s on North Wichita Street, Wichita, Kansas,” said Mack.
“Arguably the finest ‘female boardinghouse’ in the state,” said Wally.
“Which is saying a lot for a state that’s home to Topeka and Kansas City,” said Mack.
“Not the sort of ‘ten-dollar parlor house’ the likes of me and Mack could afford without Mr. Van Dorn covering our expenses,” said Wally. “But you of the silver spoon could be familiar with it.”
Grady Forrer rumbled deep and dangerously in his barrel chest, “You are reporting that Riggs got drunk and bragged to a pretty girl in a brothel? A girl whose income depends on keeping you two happy?”
Mack Fulton returned a look of ice. “Listen closely, young fellow, and one day you’ll grow up to be a detective, too.” He turned back to Bell. “The lady didn’t think Riggs was bragging. She thought he felt guilty. Like blackmail wasn’t something Riggs would do if he weren’t pressed to the wall. He was having second thoughts when he fell under the train.”
“Are you sure about her?”
“Positive. She did not want to talk.”
“She was kind of sweet on Riggs,” said Mack.
“How’d you get her to talk?”
“We had to spend a full week at Miss Dee’s,” said Mack.
“Never gave up,” said Wally.
Archie Abbott rolled his eyes. Grady Forrer furrowed his brow. Isaac Bell said, “But after a week she still wouldn’t tell you the name at Standard Oil?”
“That would be a job for younger men than we are,” said Mack.
“Archie,” said Bell. “Go to Wichita.”
“Wichita? Sure you don’t want to go, Isaac?”
“Get on the fastest mail train. Wire me the second you know whether Reed Riggs was blackmailing Bill Matters . . . Wally and Mack! Go find Matters’ private railcar.”
“That’ll take forever.”
“Before Matters makes it back from Europe.”
Bell put on his hat, pulled the brim low over his eyes, and headed out the door. “Anyone needs me, I’ll be at the Normandie.” It was time to tap the deep well of the Boss’s experience with criminals and their crimes.
—
The Normandie Hotel’s ground-floor bar at Broadway and 38th catered to out-of-town salesmen and the wholesalers whose warehouse lofts occupied the West 30s side streets off the hotel district. Joseph Van Dorn’s corner table commanded the room, the long bar, and the steadily swinging saloon doors. On the table stood a bottle of whiskey and two glasses. Operating in affable-businessman mode, peering about benignly, the founder of the detective agency could be mistaken for a top salesman, a “commission man” who paid his own expenses.
“If Riggs was blackmailing Matters, and if Spike’s so-called trick up his sleeve was to blackmail Matters, does throwing John D. Rockefeller off the Orient Express make him our assassin?” he asked Bell.
“Matters was sitting in the same auto, three feet away, when the assassin shot me in Baku.”
“He could have staged it. Paid a rifleman to shoot, pretending he was the assassin.”
“That could explain why he missed an easy shot,” Bell said. “But no, they’re not the same man. Matters is the mastermind, not the assassin.”
“If I were you,” said Van Dorn, “I would worry less about Matters than the assassin.”
“Bill Matters was gripped by a killing rage,” said Isaac Bell. “I guarantee he will make his way home from Europe and attack again.”
Van Dorn shook his head. “Matters is a business man on the run, not exactly his strength. The assassin is operating in a world he’s chosen.” He splashed Bushmills in both their glasses. “Don’t you find it curious we haven’t caught him?”
“Yet,” said Bell.
“This killer has taken every chance in the book,” said Van Dorn. “Shooting his victims in broad daylight. Shooting in public places. Staging elaborate scenarios—the Washington Monument monkeyshine was positively byzantine.”
“Clyde Lapham.”
“But hardly a singular event if you consider his shooting-duck trick and the killings of Reed Riggs and the poor fellow who fell in the oil vat.”
“Albert Hill.”
“Not to mention that woman who burned to death.”
“Mary McCloud.”
“And still we haven’t caught him. Either he is the luckiest devil alive or we are the sorriest detectives alive.”
“There’s another possibility,” said Bell.
“What’s that?”
“He’s not afraid of getting caught.”
“If he believes that,” said Van Dorn, “he is crack-brained and we should have hanged him long ago. There is no ‘perfect crime.’ And certainly no string of perfect crimes. No matter how craftily they plan, things go wrong and criminals get caught.”
“This killer is not afraid. He’s like the drunk who falls down but doesn’t get hurt; never tightens up, just lands soft in a heap.”
“Maybe he’s not afraid because he’s nuts.”
Bell said, “If he’s nuts, he’s a very slick nuts. Nothing fazes him. He never panics. Just changes course and slides away like mercury.”
“He would not be the first murderer without a conscience. Could it simply be that he’s not afraid because he doesn’t feel guilty?”
“Or can’t imagine getting caught.”
“Delusions of grandeur?”
“It’s almost as if he’s enjoying himself.”
Van Dorn’s eyes narrowed at the sight of a well-dressed gentleman who pushed through the swinging doors. He shot a glance across the busy barroom at the floor manager. The floor manager followed Van Dorn’s warning nod, belatedly recognized the new arrival for the type of grifter who preyed on out-of-town customers, and guided him out to the sidewalk.
Van Dorn said, “I want to know why the assassin takes such chances. Among others, he left his rifle—a unique weapon. Any progress tracing it?”
“I’m about to interview a gunsmith the boys found in Bridgeport.”
“Took them long enough.”
Bell leaped to his people’s defense. “They investigated eighty-four gunsmiths across the continent.”
“I was not aware there were so many. I’ve been stuck in Washington.”
Bell said, “If the assassin is not afraid, maybe he wants to get caught.”
/> Van Dorn snorted like a walrus. “Subconsciously? You’ve been reading that Viennese blather . . . You know,” he added after a moment of reflection, “there is such a thing as luck. Luck is real. For a while. So far, he’s been lucky.”
“He’s pushed his luck every kill.”
“You’ve been lucky. This man who had hit a dime at seven hundred yards has missed you three times. Why does he miss you?”
Isaac Bell grinned. “Maybe he likes me.”
Van Dorn did not laugh but answered soberly, “He won’t miss if you ever manage to put his back to the wall.”
“When I do, I won’t miss either.”
The underage probationary apprentice Eddie Tobin slipped quietly through the saloon doors. Van Dorn gave a brisk nod and the boy approached. “Message from Mr. Warren for Mr. Bell.”
Bell slit open the sealed envelope and read quickly.
“Tell Mr. Warren I said good work and thank you.”
Tobin left as unobtrusively as he had arrived.
Bell said to Van Dorn, “Bill Matters made it back to New York.”
“What? How’d he get here as fast as you did?”
“The Kaiser Wilhelm holds the Blue Riband.”
“He was on your ship?”
“According to Harry Warren,” Bell answered, face grim.
“You never saw him? Where was he hiding? Steerage?”
“I had Rockefeller persuade the purser to show me the manifests. I walked the ship night and day. I checked every man in First Class, Second, and double-checked Steerage.”
“Did he stow away?”
“He did better than that, according to Harry Warren. He wrangled a job on the black gang. Sneaked across the ocean shoveling coal in the ship’s boilers five decks under my nose.”
“Resourceful.”
Suspicion caromed through Bell’s mind. Had Edna and Nellie brought him decent food or visited him or let him rest in their cabin? Not likely on a strictly run German liner. They allowed no mingling of the classes, much less passengers and crew.
“I gather from your expression,” said Van Dorn, “that Harry Warren didn’t arrest Mr. Matters.”
“Matters brained a customs guard who spotted him sneaking off the ship. Harry Warren caught wind of it, traced him to the black gang, where he got a description from the engineers, and put two and two together.”