Clive Cussler - The Race

“But finding her was what took me so long. Anyway, she was translating great guns until that word stopped her dead. I pleaded with them. I even offered to pray with them, and she finally whispered, ‘Gigolo.’”

“Di Vecchio accused Marco Celere of being a gigolo?”

Bell was hardly surprised, recalling that soon after Josephine and Harry Frost appeared in San Francisco the young bride had persuaded her husband to buy Celere’s biplane. “Did he mention any specifics?”

“Di Vecchio said that Celere persuaded an Italian Army general’s daughter to get him to buy his machine. From what they heard, the fisherman thought it wasn’t the first time he’d gotten women to make deals for him.”

“Did he accuse Celere of taking money from women?”

“There was some sort of engine he bought at a Paris air meet. It sounded like a woman put up the money. But in San Francisco, he was broke again. I think the Army deal fell through.”

“The machine smashed with the general on it.”

“ That’s why Di Vecchio kept yelling that Celere sold them a lousy flying machine and ruined it for other inventors.”

“Did Di Vecchio accuse Celere of trying a gigolo stunt with Danielle?”

“That’s what Di Vecchio was warning him off about. ‘Don’t touch my daughter.’”

“Sounds like your fishermen stumbled onto a heck of a shout fest.”

“They didn’t exactly stumble. They lived there, too.”

Bell watched the young detective’s face closely. “You’ve turned up a lot of information, Dash, maybe enough to make it worth the wait. Did you get a lucky break or did you know what you were looking for?”

“Well, that’s the thing, Mr. Bell. Don’t you see? They were arguing outside the hotel where Di Vecchio died. The night he died.”

ISAAC BELL FIXED HIS PROTÉGÉ with an intense gaze, his mind leaping to the possibility that an angry argument had ended in murder. “The same night?”

“The same night,” answered James Dashwood. “In the same house where Di Vecchio asphyxiated himself by blowing out a gaslight and leaving the gas on.”

“Are you certain he killed himself?”

“I looked into the possibility. That’s why I thought I should report face-to-face, to explain why I’m thinking what I’m thinking.”

“Go on,” Bell urged.

“I was already investigating the suicide, like you ordered, when I heard about the shouting match. You told me about Marco Celere’s original name being Prestogiacomo. I discovered he was staying there under that name. You always say you hate coincidences, so I reckoned there had to be a connection. I spoke with the San Francisco coroner. He admitted that they don’t do much investigating into how an Italian immigrant happens to die in San Francisco. There’s a lot of them in the city, but they keep to themselves. So I wondered, what if I pretended that the dead man wasn’t Italian but American? And pretended he wasn’t poor but earning three thousand dollars a year, and had a house and maids and a cook? What questions would I ask when that fellow got gassed in a hotel room?”

Bell concealed a proud smile, and asked sternly, “What do you conclude?”

“Gas is a heck of a way to get away with killing someone.”

“Did you turn up any clues that would support such speculation?”

“Di Vecchio had a big bump on his head, the night clerk told me, like he fell out of bed when he passed out. Could have woke up groggy, tried to get up, and fell. Or he could have been conked on the head by the same fellow who turned on the gas. Trouble is, we’ll never know.”

“Probably not,” Bell agreed.

“Could I ask you something, Mr. Bell?”

“Shoot.”

“Why did you ask me to investigate his suicide?”

“I’m driving the last flying machine Di Vecchio built. It does not operate like a machine made by a man who would kill himself. It is unusually sturdy, and it flies like a machine made by a man who loved making machines and was looking forward to making many more. But that is merely an odd feeling, not evidence.”

“But if you add your odd feeling to the odd bump on Di Vecchio’s head, together they’re sort of like a coincidence, aren’t they?”

“In an odd way,” Bell smiled.

“But like you say, Mr. Bell, we’ll never know. Di Vecchio’s dead, and so’s the fellow who might have conked him.”

“Maybe. .” said Isaac Bell, thinking hard. “Dash? This engine in the Paris air meet that Di Vecchio said Celere bought with a woman’s money. You said some sort of engine. What did you mean by ‘some sort of engine’?”

Dashwood grinned. “That confused the heck out of the poor nuns. Threw them for a loop.”

“Why?”

“The fishermen called it polpo. Polpo means ‘octopus.’”

“What kind of engine is like an octopus?” asked Bell. “Eight-cylinder Antoinette, maybe.”

“Well, they also call the octopus a devilfish. Only that doesn’t make sense when it comes to engines.”

Bell asked, “What happened when the nuns got confused?”

“The fishermen tried another word. Calamaro. ”

“What is that? Squid?”

“That’s what Maria said it meant. Maria was the pretty nun.”

“An engine like a squid or an octopus? They’re quite different, actually: squid long and narrow with tentacles in back, octopus round and squat with eight arms. Dash, I want you to go to the library. Find out what Mr. Squid and Mr. Octopus have in common.”

EUSTACE WEED, Andy Moser’s Chicago-born helper who Isaac Bell had hired so Andy could spend time investigating the mechanical causes of the racers’ smashes, asked for the evening off to say good-bye to his girl, who lived on the South Side.

“Just get back before sunrise,” Andy told him. “If the weather holds, they’ll be starting out for Peoria.”

Eustace promised he’d be back in plenty of time – a promise he knew he would keep if only because Daisy’s mother would be sitting on the other side of the parlor door. His worst fears proved true. At nine p.m., Mrs. Ramsey called from the other room, “Daisy? Say good night to Mr. Weed. It’s time for bed.”

Eustace and the beautiful red-haired Daisy locked eyes, each certain it would be a better time for bed if Mother weren’t there. But Mother was, so Eustace called, politely, “Good night, Mrs. Ramsey,” and received a firm “Good night” through the closed door. In an unexpected flash of insight, Eustace realized that Mrs. Ramsey was not as coldheartedly unromantic as he had assumed. He took Daisy in his arms for a proper good-bye kiss.

“How long before you’re back?’ she whispered when they came up for air.

“We’ll be racing three more weeks, if all goes well, maybe four. I hope I’ll be home in a month.”

“That’s so long,” Daisy groaned. Then out of nowhere she asked, “Is Josephine pretty?”

In his second wise flash of insight that evening, Eustace answered, “I didn’t notice.”

Daisy kissed him hard on the mouth and pressed her body against his until her mother called through the door, “Good night!”

Eustace Weed stumbled down the stairs, his head reeling and his heart full.

Two toughs were blocking the sidewalk, West Side boys.

It looked to Eustace like he had a fight on his hands, and one he wasn’t likely to win. Running for it seemed the better idea. He was tall and thin and could probably leave them in the dust. But before he could move, they spread out and, to his astonishment and sudden fear, flashed open flick-knives.

“The boss wants to see you,” one said. “You gonna come quiet?”

Eustace looked at the knives and nodded his head. “What’s this about?”