Clive Cussler: The Striker

The Marmon 32 Speedster parked on wall street in a shadow between two lampposts.

Roundsman O’Riordan took notice. It was the dead of night. Orders said let no one bother the bigwig politicians and officeholders who were horse-trading upstairs in the Congdon Building. And the auto had a clear shot at the limousines waiting for them at the curb.

Its side curtains were fogged by the damp rolling off the harbor. O’Riordan had to get close to see inside. The driver was a pleasant surprise, a beautiful lady with straw-blond hair, and the cop relaxed a little. But all he could see of the gent beside her were steely contours. Still, you couldn’t rap your stick on a Marmon 32 and tell the swells to move along like they were bums on the sidewalk, so with his right hand by his pistol, he tapped the side curtain lightly, like touching his glass to the mahogany to signal the bartender of a classy joint he was ready for another but didn’t mean to be rushing him.

A big hand with long, nimble fingers slid the curtain open. O’Riordan glimpsed a snow-white cuff, diamond links, and the black sleeve of a dress coat. The hand seized his in a strong grip.

“Paddy O’Riordan. Fancy meeting you here.”

Raked by searching blue eyes, the roundsman recognized the gold mane, the thick flaxen mustache, and the no-nonsense expression that could only belong to Isaac Bell — chief investigator of the Van Dorn Detective Agency.

He touched his stick to his helmet. “Good evening, Mr. Bell. I didn’t recognize you in the shadows.”

“What are you doing out so late?” Bell asked.

O’Riordan started to answer before Bell’s grin told him it was a joke. Policemen were supposed to be out late.

The detective nodded at the limousines. “Big doings.”

“Judge Congdon’s got a special waiting at Grand Central. Tracks cleared to Chicago. And I’m sorry to tell you I have me orders to clear the street. Straight from the captain.”

Bell did not seem to hear. “Paddy, I want you to meet my wife— Marion, may I present Roundsman O’Riordan, former scourge of Staten Island pirates back when he was in the Harbor Squad. There wasn’t a wharf rat in New York who didn’t buy drinks for the house the night Paddy came ashore.”

She reached across her husband with an ungloved hand that seemed to glow like ivory. O’Riordan took it carefully in his enormous fist and bowed low.

“A privilege to meet you, marm. I’ve known your good husband many years in the line of duty. And may I say, marm, that Mrs. O’Riordan and I have greatly enjoyed your moving picture shows.”

She thanked him in a musical voice that would sing in his mind for days.

Chief Inspector Bell said, “Well, we better not keep you from your rounds.”

O’Riordan touched his stick to his helmet again. If a crack private detective chose to canoodle with his own wife in a dark auto on Wall Street in the middle of the night — orders be damned.

“I’ll tell the boys not to disturb you.”

But Bell motioned him closer and whispered, “I wouldn’t mind if they kept an eye out if I have to leave her alone a moment.”

“They’ll be drawin’ straws for the privilege.”

Backslapping politicians burst from the building and converged on the smaller of the limousines, a seven-passenger Rambler Knickerbocker.

Isaac Bell opened the curtain to hear them.

“Driver! Straight to Grand Central.”

“Don’t love handing the vice presidency to a louse like Congdon, but that’s politics.”

“Money talks.”

The Rambler Knickerbocker drove off. Senior men emerged next. Moving more slowly, they climbed into the second limousine, an enormous Cunningham Model J, hand-built at great expense to Judge James Congdon’s own design. To Bell’s ear they sounded less reconciled than resigned.

“Congdon has most of the delegates he needs, and those he doesn’t, he’ll buy.”

“If only our candidate hadn’t died.”

“Always the wrong man.”

Isaac Bell waited for the Cunningham to turn the corner. A police motorcycle escort stationed on Broadway clattered after it. “If James Congdon captures vice president,” Bell said, “the president’s life won’t be worth a plugged nickel.”

He kissed Marion’s lips. “Thank you for making me look harmless to the cops. Are you sure you won’t go home?”

“Not this time,” she said firmly, and Bell knew there was no dissuading her. This time was different.

Although he was dressed for the theater, he left his silk topper on the backseat and donned a broad-brimmed hat with a low crown instead.

Marion straightened his tie.

Bell said, “I’ve always wondered why you never ask me to be careful.”

“I wouldn’t want to slow you down.”

Bell winked. “Not likely.”

He left his wife with a smile. But as he crossed Wall Street, his expression hardened, and the warmth seeped from his eyes.

Joseph Van Dorn, the large, bearded founder of the agency, was waiting, deep in shadow and still as ice. He stood watch as Bell picked open the lock on the outside door, and followed him in, where Bell picked another lock on a steel door marked Mechanical Room . Inside it was warm and damp. An orderly maze of thick pipes passed through rows of steam-conditioning valves. Van Dorn compared the control wheels to an engineer’s sketch he unfolded from his inside pocket.

Isaac Bell climbed back up to the street and went around to the front of the building. His evening clothes elicited a respectful nod from the doorman. As the politicians said, Money talked.

“Top floor,” he told the yawning elevator runner.

“I thought they were all done up there.”

“Not quite.”

He was a fresh-faced youth with golden hair. But something about him looked suspicious. A coal cop watching the miners troop down the rails into the mouth of Gleason Mine No. 1 pointed him out to his boss, a Pinkerton detective.

The young miner towered over the foreigners the company imported from Italy and Slovenia, and was even taller than the homegrown West Virginia boys. But it was not his height that looked out of place. Nor was his whipcord frame unusual. The work was hard, and it cost plenty to ship food to remote coalfields. There was no free lunch in the saloons that lined the muddy Main Street.

A miner clomping along on a wooden peg tripped on a crosstie and stumbled into another miner on crutches. The golden-haired youth glided to steady both, moving so effortlessly he seemed to float. Many were maimed digging coal. He stood straight on both legs and still possessed all his fingers.

“Don’t look like no poor worker to me,” the coal cop ventured with a contemptuous smirk.

“Watching like a cat, anything that moves,” said the Pinkerton, who wore a bowler hat, a six-gun in his coat, and a blackjack strapped to his wrist.