Clive Cussler - The Striker

“Thank you for that clear explanation, Isaac. And thank you, Aloysius. Always a treat to run into you. Now, here’s the deal as I understand it. I will tell you what you need to know and you let me go.”

“No,” said Isaac Bell. “You will tell us what we need to know. We will return what’s in your pockets to the lady who owns it and let you go.”

“Or,” said Wish Clarke, “you won’t tell us what we want to know. We return what’s in your pockets to the lady who owns it and give you to the cops. Take a moment to think on it.”

“I’ve reached a decision,” said Rosania. “What do you need to know?”

“Everyone you know who’s experimenting with shaped charges.”

Rosania had dark brown eyes. They opened wide. “Are you asking me to betray every thief I know who’s experimenting with shaped charges?”

“There can’t be that many,” said Wish.

“It’s rather an exclusive club,” Rosania agreed. “And the membership has been reduced drastically by experiments that went Poof! before they cleared the room. In fact, believe it or not, I’m the last man standing. Hollow charges are more complicated than anyone imagined.”

Isaac Bell’s face grew wintry. “Laurence. You are trying our patience.”

“And putting unwarranted faith in our good nature,” Wish added.

“What if I tell you what you need to know and I keep half the contents of my pockets and give you half and we go our separate ways?”

Bell tugged the thick gold chain draped across his vest and pulled out his watch. “Ten seconds.”

“If you insist, there are two safecrackers I can name who’ve not only survived but are getting quite good at it.” He named them.

Bell looked at Wish.

Wish shook his head. “Those guys are like you, Laurence, professionals happy in their work and not about to go to the trouble of wrecking coal mines.”

“Coal mines?” echoed Rosania. “What are you suggesting?”

“Everyone,” said Isaac Bell. “Not only thieves. Everyone experimenting with shaped explosives.”

For the first time since they waylaid Rosania, the jewel thief looked worried. “How would I know someone not a thief?”

“For your sake, you better.”

“You’re not going to love my answer.”

Wish nodded to Bell that it was his turn to be unpleasant, and Bell said, “In which case, you’re not going to love our reaction.”

“No, I’m serious. I can tell you something about him, but I can’t tell you his name because I don’t know his name.”

“Tell us what you know.”

“He’s a big fellow — as tall as you, Isaac, and wider than you, Wish. He is very intelligent. He is very quick on his feet and quick with his hands. He talks like he’s from Chicago, but I’ve never seen him around. So I think he’s probably a bit older than me and left town before I took up my calling. He wears a slouch hat that covers his hair, and he pulls it down low over his eyes. He’s clean-shaven. The bit of hair that shows below his hat is brown.”

So far, thought Bell, Rosania could be describing the man he had confronted in the Tombs and chased through the subway.

“What color are his eyes?”

“Hard to tell, the light was poor.”

Wish Clarke said, “Laurence, you are usually more observant than that, knowing that the alert safecracker is the free safecracker. Poor light would have prompted you to redouble your efforts to inspect his eyes.”

“You’re forgetting that I was attempting to learn the finer points of blowing holes in safes — not identify strangers.”

“Blue?”

“No, not blue. Some shade of brown.”

“Amber?”

“Amber is rare,” said Rosania. “But they could be amber.”

“How do you know he’s not a thief?” asked Wish.

“Good question. There’s something about him that’s more like a cop.”

“What about him was like a cop?”

“It’s hard to say. He had something of the authoritative air about him. Like you gentlemen. I mean, you could pretend to be police.”

“How?” asked Bell.

“I wouldn’t want you to take this the wrong way,” said Rosania, “but words like convincing, confident, cocksure, swaggering , and arrogant spring to mind.”

“I’m working hard at not taking it the wrong way,” said Wish Clarke.

Bell asked, “And you’re saying he came all the way to Chicago to study shaped explosives?”

“No, no, no. I didn’t say that. I met him in Newport.”

“Rhode Island, Virginia, or California?” asked Wish.

“Rhode Island,” said Bell. “The Naval Torpedo Station.”

“Where else? The fellow I’m talking about was standing drinks in the nearest bar and so was I. We both ended up talking to the same torpedo scientist. One of these big brains who doesn’t know anything except one thing. Of the three of us, he was the only one who didn’t know why we were asking all our questions. Good thing we weren’t foreign spies.”

“Are you sure the other fellow wasn’t a spy?”

“He was a safecracker through and through. Knew all the right questions. In fact, it went through my mind to exchange business cards. Team up for a big job.”

“But you said earlier he wasn’t a thief.”

“Did I? I suppose what I am trying to tell you is, he asked all the questions a safecracker would ask but he conducted himself more like a policeman.”

“A cop with amber eyes,” said Bell.

“Possibly amber. Very likely a cop.”

“Was he armed?” asked Bell.

“Brother, was he! Big revolver in his coat, and his wrist banged on the table like he had a cannon in his sleeve.”

“Any knives?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity.”

“He had a blade in his boot.”

“How’d you happen to see that?” asked Wish Clarke.

“He cut a cigar he gave to Wheeler.”

“Who’s Wheeler?”

“The big brain. And, by the way, his arsenal was another reason I figured he was not a thief. No self-respecting thief packs weapons. He was armed like you two.”

Isaac Bell exchanged glances with Wish Clarke, who looked like he agreed that they had gotten all they were going to. “Thank you, Mr. Rosania. You’ve been very helpful.”

“My pleasure. And with that, I will bid you gentlemen good evening.”

Rosania started for the door. He stopped abruptly at the sound of two Van Dorns cocking firearms.

“Don’t forgot to empty your pockets.”

“Like cops?” asked Wish as the detectives exited the Stambaugh mansion, having returned the lady’s necklace and been rewarded with snifters of forty-year-old brandy, memorable embraces, and an invitation to come back anytime they were in the neighborhood.

Wish drove. Bell was silent all the way into Chicago. They returned the auto to the stable where they had rented it and walked toward Black’s Social to get some late-night breakfast.

“Did you ever pretend to be a cop?” asked Bell, aware that Van Dorn regulations forbid it.

Wish shrugged. “Only when necessary.”

“What’s the trick?”

“In the words of the safecracker, act cocksure, swaggering, and arrogant.”

“Did you find it difficult?”

Wish grinned. “Would I be immodest to claim that arrogance did not come natural?”

“Otherwise you acted yourself?”

“I focused on cocksure. Any cop, good, bad, or indifferent, has to be cocksure to be taken seriously.”

“Like us,” said Bell.

“Except when we disguise ourselves as someone with a lower profile than a cop.”

“A detective,” said Bell.

“Beg pardon?”

“Ten-to-one, our provocateur is a private detective.”