The Race

  Bell was already heading for Josephine. She had climbed onto a crosspiece that connected the landing wheels to lean into her motor and was adjusting the carburetor with a screwdriver.

  Bell said, “Those hinged appendages on the back of your wings appear to give you extraordinary control.”

  She looked down at him with lively eyes. Hazel, Bell noticed, a warm green color in the sunlight, edging toward a cooler gray. “They’re called alettoni. That’s Italian. It means ‘little wings.’”

  “Did they slow your airship’s descent by enlarging the wing’s surface?”

  Returning her attention to the carburetor, she answered, “They deflect more air.”

  “Do alettoni work better than warping?”

  “I’m not sure yet,” she said. “They don’t always do what I want them to. Sometimes they act as a brake and slow me down instead of keeping me level.”

  “Can they be adjusted?”

  “The man who invented them is dead. So now we have to figure it out without his help.” She made a final adjustment, sheathed her screwdriver in a back pocket, jumped to the ground, and offered her gloved hand. “I’m Josephine, by the way. Who are you?”

  “Sorry, I should have introduced myself. I’m Isaac Bell. I’m Van Dorn’s chief investigator.”

  “My brave protectors,” she said with a frank and open smile.

  She was tiny, Bell thought. Barely an inch over five feet tall, with a pretty upturned nose. Her direct gaze was older than her years, though she had a young woman’s voice, thin and girlish. “I’m pleased to meet you, Mr. Bell. I hope ‘chief investigator’ doesn’t mean Archie’s been fired?”

  “Not at all. Archie is in charge of your personal safety. My job is to intercept your husband before he gets close enough to harm you.”

  Her eyes darkened, and she looked fearful. “You’ll never catch him, you know.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s too sly. He thinks like a wild animal.”

  Bell smiled to put her at ease, for he saw that she was really afraid of Frost. “We’ll do what we have to to deal with him. I wonder whether you might give me any clues to his behavior. Anything that would help me run him to ground.”

  “I can only tell you things about him that won’t help. I’m afraid I don’t know anything that will.”

  “Then tell me what won’t help.”

  “Harry is completely unpredictable. I never knew what to expect. He’ll change his mind in a flash.” As she spoke her eyes glinted toward the field where Joe Mudd’s red tractor biplane was taking to the air again, and Bell realized that she was assessing the competition as coolly as he would an outlaw in a knife fight.

  “Can you tell me about friends he would call on?”

  “I never saw him with a friend. I don’t know if he ever had any. He kept to himself. Completely to himself.”

  “I encountered some Chicago men at your camp yesterday. I had the impression they were living there.”

  “They’re just bodyguards. Harry kept them around for protection, but he never had anything to do with them.”

  “Protection from what?”

  She made a face. “His ‘enemies.’”

  “Who were they?”

  “I asked him. Once. He started screaming and hollering. I thought he would kill me. I never asked again. They’re in his head, I think. I mean, he was in the nuthouse once.”

  Bell gently changed the subject. “Did he ever take friends when he went big-game hunting? Did he shoot with a party?”

  “He hired guides and bearers. But otherwise he was alone.”

  “Did you go with him?”

  “I was busy flying.”

  “Did that disappoint him?”

  “No. He knew I was flying before we married.” Her eyes tracked a Blériot swooping past at sixty miles an hour.

  “Before? May I ask how you got started in flying?”

  A high-spirited grin lighted her open face. “I ran away from home—stuffed my hair under a cap and pretended to be a boy.” It wouldn’t be hard, thought Bell. She didn’t look like she weighed over a hundred pounds.

  “I found a job in a bicycle factory in Schenectady. The owner was building flying machines on the weekend, and I helped him with the motors. I knew all about them from fixing my dad’s farm machinery. One Monday, instead of going to work, I snuck out to the field and flew the machine.”

  “Without lessons?”

  “Who was there to teach me? There weren’t any schools back then. Most of us learned on our own.”

  “How old were you?”

  “Seventeen.”

  “And you just climbed on the machine and flew it?”

  “Why not? I could see how it worked. I mean, all it is, really, is the aeroplane goes up by pushing the air down.”

  “So with no formal training,” Bell smiled, “you proved both Bernoulli’s theorem and the existence of the Venturi effect.”

  “What?”

  “I only mean that you taught yourself how to shape the wings to create the vacuum over the wing which makes it rise.”

  “No,” she laughed. “No, Mr. Bell. Venturi and all that is too complicated. My friend Marco Celere was always rattling on about Bernoulli. But the fact of the matter is, the flying machine goes up by pushing the air down. Warping the wings is just a way to deflect the air away from where you want to go—up, down, around. Air is wonderful, Mr. Bell. Air is strong, much stronger than you think. A good flying machine like this one—” She laid an affectionate hand on its fabric flank. “Marco’s best—makes the air hold you up.”

  Bell absorbed this with a certain amount of amazement. He liked young people and routinely took apprentice detectives under his wing, but he could not recall speaking with any twenty-year-old who sounded more clear and more certain than did this dairy farmer’s daughter from the wilds of the North Country.

  “I’ve never heard it put so simply.”

  But she had shed no light so far on her husband’s habits. When he queried her further, he developed the impression that she had known little about Harry Frost before she married him, and all she had learned since was to fear him. He noticed that her eyes kept darting to the other airships rolling about the infield and climbing into the sky. Whatever confusion or youthful ignorance had led Josephine into marriage with a man like Harry Frost, the vulnerable, naive girl on the ground became a confident woman in the air.

  “Having taught yourself, did you then learn a lot more from your friend Marco?”

  Josephine sighed. “I could not understand his Italian, and he spoke very little English and was always working on the machines.” She brightened. “But he did teach me one thing. It took me quite a while to understand what he was trying to say in English. But I finally pried it out of him. He said, ‘A good flying machine has to fly—it wants to fly.’ Isn’t that wonderful?”

  “Is it true?” asked Isaac Bell.

  “Absolutely.” She laid a firm hand on the machine again. “So if you will excuse me, Mr. Bell, if you have no more questions, I hope that this one wants to fly. But it is going to take a while to find out for sure.”

  “Do you miss Marco Celere?”

  Her eyes did not fill, as Archie had reported, but Josephine did admit that she missed the inventor very much. “He was kind and gentle. Not at all like my husband. I miss him very much.”

  “Then it must be a comfort to be flying his latest machine.”

  “Thanks to Mr. Whiteway’s kindness and generosity. He bought it from Marco’s creditors, you know.” She glanced sidelong at Bell. “It puts me deep in his debt.”

  “I imagine you’ll more than pay it back by making a strong pull for the Whiteway Cup.”

  “I have to make more than a strong pull. I have to win the Whiteway Cup. I have no money of my own. I was completely dependent on Harry, and now I’m dependent on Mr. Whiteway.”

  “I’m sure he will be grateful if you win the race.”

  “Not i
f, Mr. Bell.” Her gaze fixed on the sky where a parchment-colored Blériot was rising, and when she looked back at Bell her eyes had turned opaque. “I will win, Mr. Bell. But not to make him grateful. I will win because I will do my best, and because Marco built the best flying machine in the race.”

  Later, when Isaac spoke with Archie, he told his friend, “If I were a betting man, I’d lay money on her.”

  “You are a betting man!” Archie reminded him.

  “So I am.”

  “Belmont Park is swarming with unemployed gamblers who would be delighted to relieve you of your money. The New York reformers just passed a law banning horse-race betting. The Atlantic–Pacific race is the bookies’ godsend.”

  “What odds are they offering on Josephine?”

  “Twenty-to-one.”

  “Twenty? You’re joking. There’s a fortune to be won.”

  “The bookies reckon she’s up against the top birdmen in America. And they’re betting we’ll get our pants beat off by the Europeans, who hold all the records in cross-country flying.”

  Isaac Bell went looking for a bookmaker who could handle a thousand-dollar bet on Josephine. Only one accepted bets that large, he was told, and was directed to Johnny Musto, a short, wide middle-aged fellow in a checkerboard suit who reeked of an expensive cologne Bell had last smelled in the Plaza Hotel barbershop. The old betting ring under the stands had been replaced, since the Legislature banned horse gambling, with an exhibit hall, showing motors and accessories for aircraft, race cars, and motorboats. Musto was lurking just outside it in the forest of steel pillars that supported the grandstand. He had as thick a Brooklyn accent as Bell had ever heard outside a vaudeville theater.

  “Youse sure youse wanna do dis?” asked the bookie, who knew a private detective when he saw one.

  “I am absolutely positive,” said Isaac Bell. “In fact, now that you ask, let’s make it two thousand.”

  “It’s your funeral, mister. But would it be O.K. if I ask youse a little somethin’ first?”

  “What?”

  “Is de fix in?”

  “Fix? It’s not a horse race.”

  “I know it ain’t no horse race. But it’s still a race. Is de fix in?”

  “Absolutely not. There’s no fix,” said Isaac Bell. “The race is sanctioned by the American Aeronautical Society. It’s honest as the day is long.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah, only dis girl is Harry Frost’s wife.”

  “She has nothing to do with Harry Frost anymore.”

  “Oh yeah?”

  Bell caught a mocking note in the man’s voice. A suggestion that Musto was in on a joke that Bell hadn’t heard yet. “What do you mean by that, Johnny?”

  “She ain’t with Harry no more? Den why’s he hangin’ ’round?”

  “What?” Bell gripped Musto’s arm so hard, the bookie winced.

  “I saw dis fellow yesterday looked just like him.”

  Bell loosened his grip but fixed him just as sternly with his eye. “How well do you know Frost?” All the evidence he’d gathered thus far pointed to a man who’d not been seen in public in years.

  Johnny Musto puffed up proudly. “The biggest sportin’ men come to Johnny Musto. I took Mr. Frost’s bets when he used to visit Belmont Park.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “I dunno. Four years, I guess.”

  “You mean the year the track first opened?”

  “Yeah, I guess so. Seems longer.”

  “What did he look like, Johnny?”

  “Big fella, shoulders like a bull. Grew himself a beard. Like’s drawn on dat poster dere.” He nodded at a Van Dorn wanted poster glued to a pillar that depicted Frost with a beard.

  “He looks like that picture?”

  “’Ceptin’ his grew in all gray. Makes him look a lot older than he used to.”

  “A lot older? Then what makes you so sure it’s him?”

  “He was mutterin’ to himself just like he used to. Shovin’ past folks like they weren’t dere. Turnin’ red in de face for no reason. Red as a beefsteak. Just like he used to before they locked him in de bughouse.”

  “If you were so sure it was Frost, Johnny, why didn’t you turn him in for the reward? Five thousand dollars is a lot of money even for a bookmaker who handles the biggest sportsmen.”

  The Belmont Park bookie looked at the tall detective with an expression of disbelief. “You ever go to da circus, mister?”

  “Circus? What are you talking about?”

  “I’m askin’, do ya go to da circus?”

  Bell decided to humor him. “Often. In fact, when I was a youngster, I ran away from home to join a circus.”

  “Did ya ever stick your head in de lion’s mouth?”

  “Come on, Johnny. You’ve been around. You know that Van Dorns protect people who help them.”

  “From Harry Frost? Don’t make me laugh.”

  8

  WHEN NIGHT FELL ON BELMONT PARK, the aviators and mechanicians pulled canvas shrouds over their airships to protect their fabric wings from dampness. They anchored the machines to tent pegs driven deep in the ground in case a wind sprang up. Then they trooped off to the rail yard to sleep on their support trains. Somewhere in the distance a bell clock chimed eleven.

  Then all was quiet in the infield.

  Two shadows materialized from beneath the grandstand.

  The Jonas brothers had driven out from Brooklyn in an ice truck, arriving in daylight to get the lay of the land. Now, with the moon and stars hidden by clouds, they walked boldly in the dark, crossing the racetrack and scrambling over the inside rail into the infield. They headed for Joe Mudd’s aeroplane, choosing it because it was off to one side and easy to find. But as they approached they heard snoring. They slowed and crept closer. Two mechanicians, built like hod carriers, were sleeping under the wings. The Jonases slithered off to the far side of the infield, steering clear of Josephine Joseph’s Celere monoplane, which they had seen earlier, before night fell, was surrounded by humorless Van Dorn detectives armed with shotguns. Far across the field, they chose a different victim, not knowing it was the French-built Farman biplane owned by the Channel-crossing English baronet Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin.

  They confirmed that no one was sleeping nearby, removed the canvas shroud from one double wing, which was faintly silhouetted against the dark sky, and studied its construction. They did not know a lot about flying machines, but they recognized a truss when they saw one. The only difference between this double wing and a railroad bridge was that instead of the truss being constructed of steel uprights and diagonals, the two planes of the wing were supported by wood uprights counterbraced by diagonal wire stays.

  Having figured out what made the Farman’s wing strong, the Jonas brothers set about weakening it. They felt in the dark for the turnbuckle used to tighten the strong multistranded stay that angled from the top plane to the bottom plane.

  “Roebling wire,” George whispered. “Good thing Frost said no hacksaw. It would take all night to cut this.”

  Shielding a flashlight in their hands, they inspected the turnbuckle. A strand of safety wire had been wrapped around it to prevent it from loosening from vibration. They carefully unwound the safety wire, unscrewed the turnbuckle to slacken the Roebling wire stay until they could remove the end from its connection to the wing, and replaced the steel anchor in that connection with a fragile one made of aluminum.

  They tightened the turnbuckle until the stay hummed again, carefully rewound the safety wire exactly as they’d found it, and draped the shroud back over the wing. They took care to note which aeroplane they had sabotaged—Harry Frost had made it clear he had to know—checked the color of the wing fabric with their flashlight, left the infield and the track, found their truck, and drove to a nearby farm, where they parked and fell asleep. An hour after dawn they met Harry Frost in Hempstead where he had told them to and reported which machine they had sabotaged.

  “Describe it!”
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  “Biplane. One propeller.”

  “Front or back?”

  “Back.”

  “What color?”

  “Blue.”

  Frost paid them one hundred dollars each—more than a month’s salary for a skilled mechanician even if he had a generous boss.

  “Not bad for one night,” Georgie Jonas said to Peter Jonas on the long drive home to Brooklyn. But first they had to fill the ice truck as payment to their brother-in-law, who owned it. They weighed out a load at a waterfront “bridge” controlled by the American Ice Company trust. Four dollars a ton.

  George asked, “How about the fifty-cent rebate?”

  “Independent dealers don’t get rebates.”

  Peter said, “There’s supposed to be two thousand pounds in a ton. How come the ton you charged us for only weighs eighteen hundred pounds?”

  “It’s ice. It melted.”

  “But you’re supposed to slip in a couple of hundred extra pounds to cover melting.”

  “Not for independents,” said the trust man. “Move your truck, you’re blocking the bridge.”

  “This isn’t fair.”

  “What are you going to do about it?”

  They rode the trolley home to their favorite saloon, laughing how they should persuade Harry Frost to reform the ice business. What a racket. Add it all up, the trust controlled ice harvesting, shipping it, storing it, distributing it, and selling it. Had to be ten million bucks a year. The Jonas boys laughed louder. Harry Frost would reform it, all right. Harry Frost would take it over.

  It was a beautiful morning. With several beers and a couple of hard-boiled eggs under their belts, they decided to ride the electric train back to Belmont Park to watch the blue biplane fall out of the sky.

  9

  ISAAC BELL EYED A MOB OF REPORTERS. They were descending on the English contender Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin as he waited for his mechanicians to pour oil and gasoline into his Farman. The fact that the journalists moved about the infield as a group made him extra alert. It would be so easy for a killer to hide among them.

  Archie was nearby, keeping a close eye on Josephine, who for once had not vanished into the blue sky but was waiting her turn in the exhibition speed race. The infield was unusually crowded with visitors—it seemed everyone and his brother had procured a pass somewhere, so Archie had doubled the guard. At the moment, ten Van Dorns, four disguised as mechanicians, were within easy reach of Josephine.