Clive Cussler - The Chase

There was no terrible scream or horrible gurgling sound. Kelly exhaled an audible gasp from his throat and rolled over on the carpet like some great beast in its death throes crumpling to the earth.

Bell sat up on the floor and massaged his throat, panting from the exertion. He turned his head and stared at the doorway as men came rushing into the suite. They stopped in stunned shock at the sight of the sea of blood and the great hump of a man whose face was unrecognizable because of the bloody, congealing mask. The face looked particularly grotesque due to the gold teeth showing through the open lips that slowly became coated red.

Kelly had died hard, and for what? Money? A debt? A vendetta? Not the latter. Bell had never launched an investigation against the Barbary Coast giant. Someone must have paid him to kill and paid him extremely well.

Bell wondered if he would ever know the answer.

THE NEXT MORNING, Bell stepped out of the big porcelain bathtub, toweled off the water that dripped down his body, and gazed in the mirror. His throat didn’t look pretty. It was swollen, with purple bruises so obvious that he could see the shape of Red Kelly’s fingers where they had dug into his flesh. He put on a clean white shirt and was pleased to see that the high, starched collar, though it chafed his tender skin, covered the bruises.

They weren’t the only purplish green marks on his aching body. He had several from falling over the chair, and from being thrown across the room and into the wall by Kelly’s brute strength. They were tender to the touch and would not fade anytime soon.

After dressing in his trademark linen suit, Bell left the hotel and stopped off at the Western Union office and sent a telegram to Joseph Van Dorn that told of the attempt on his life. When he came slowly through the door of the office, Agnes Murphy openly stared at him. She stood up with a look of motherly concern in her eyes. “Oh, Mr. Bell. I heard about your unfortunate incident. I do hope you’re all right.”

“A few bruises, Agnes, nothing more.”

Curtis and Irvine heard his voice and came from the conference room, followed by Alexander from his office. Both agents vigorously shook his hand—a bit too vigorously, Bell thought, wincing at the discomfort that traveled over his aching body. Alexander merely stood back, as if he was a spectator in an audience.

“Glad to see you alive and kicking,” said Curtis. “We heard it was quite a fight.”

“It was as close as I ever came to buying the farm,” said Bell.

“After talking to you over the phone,” said Curtis, “I wired your identification of Red Kelly to our San Francisco office. They’re going to check out Kelly and any of his clients who might have wanted you eliminated.”

“A terrible thing,” Alexander said without emotion. “Unthinkable, that someone would attempt to assassinate a Van Dorn agent.”

Bell gave Alexander a long hard look. “I can only wonder how Kelly knew where I was staying.”

“Kelly was a well-known crime boss on the Barbary Coast in San Francisco,” said Irvine. “Could any of your former friends who you put in jail or friends and families of those who were executed because you arrested them be from San Francisco?”

“None that I can name,” answered Bell. “If I had to make a guess, I’d have to say the Butcher Bandit was behind it.”

“Knowing you were on the case,” said Irvine, “he’d certainly have a motive.”

Alexander said, “We won’t rest until we get to the bottom of this.” To Bell, his words rang hollow. “I can’t tell you how glad I am that you are alive and well.” Then he turned and walked back to his office.

As soon as he was out of earshot, Bell said, “Another nail in the coffin, gentlemen. The key to the bandit’s whereabouts is San Francisco.”

WHEN BELL, IRVINE, AND CURTIS STEPPED OFF THE ferry from Oakland and entered the huge Ferry Building, they found themselves in a three-story-tall hall with repeating arches and skylights overhead. They exited onto the Embarcadero, at the foot of Market Street. While Irvine and Curtis went to hail a motor cab, Bell turned and looked up at the two-hundred-forty-foot clock tower, modeled after the twelfth-century Giralda bell tower in Seville, Spain. The long hands on the expansive dial read eleven minutes past four.

Bell checked the time on his watch and duly noted that the ferry building clock was one minute fast.

Because of the huge crowds in the terminal after pouring off four ferryboats at the same time, the agents were unable to find a free motor cab. Bell stopped a horse-drawn carriage, haggled a price with the driver, and commandeered it to carry them to the Palace Hotel on Montgomery Street. As they settled in the carriage, Curtis spoke to Bell.

“How do you plan to handle the Van Dorn San Francisco office?”

“We’re having dinner with the district director. His name is Horace Bronson. I once worked with him in New Orleans. He’s a fine fellow and very efficient. When I sent him a telegram, he wired back and offered every cooperation in his power. He promised to send his agents out to obtain the names of people from gun dealers who might have purchased a thirty-eight-caliber Colt automatic.”

Irvine rolled an unlit cigar around in his fingers. “On my end, I’ll start with the Cromwell and Crocker banks and see if they can help trace any of the stolen currency serial numbers.”

Bell said to Irvine, “You might check out the other major banks, too, such as Wells Fargo and the Bank of Italy, in case any stolen bills might be in their possession. If the bandit is from San Francisco, it stands to reason he’d have passed them around town.”

“We have our work cut out for us,” said Curtis. “I’ll see if I can’t track down the O’Brian Furniture car.”

Bell stretched out his feet in the carriage and said, “After we meet with Bronson, I’ll write out news releases about the fake currency shipment to the San Miguel Valley Bank in Telluride and prevail upon the editors of the city’s major newspapers to run the story.”

The carriage reached the magnificent Palace Hotel and turned into the Garden Court, the hotel’s elegant carriage entrance that was commanded by seven stories of gleaming white marble balconies with over a hundred ornamented columns. Light from above filtered through a huge stained-glass-domed skylight.

Bell paid off the coachman as porters took the luggage inside. The three Van Dorn detectives walked into a vast, majestic lobby. After registering, they went up to their rooms in a redwood-paneled hydraulic elevator. Bell arranged for the rooms to be joined together to create a large suite.

“Tell you what,” said Bell to Irvine and Curtis. “It’s almost five o’clock, so nothing can be accomplished today. Let’s get cleaned up. Then we’ll go out, have a good meal, get a good night’s sleep, and start beating the bushes first thing in the morning.”

“Sounds good to me,” Irvine said, his stomach growling, since they had eaten nothing in the last eight hours.

“What have you got in mind for a restaurant?” asked Curtis.

“Bronson is a member of the Bohemian Club. He’s arranged for us to eat with him in their dining room.”

“Sounds exclusive.”

Bell smiled. “You don’t know how exclusive.”

AT EIGHT O’CLOCK, the men exited a motor cab at the Taylor Street entrance of the powerful and elite Bohemian Club. Founded in 1872 as a gathering place for newspaper journalists and men of the arts and literature, its members included Mark Twain, Bret Harte, Ambrose Bierce, and Jack London. Over the years, powerful and influential men who made up the business elite of the city joined and soon became the dominant group. No women were allowed, and wives and unmarried guests of the members had to enter through a back door.