Clive Cussler - The Spy

“Isaac Bell. Van Dorn operative.”

“Nice shooting in there, Mr. Bell.”

“Did you recognize the dead men?”

“Never saw ’em before.”

“Out-of-town? Philadelphia?”

“They had New York train tickets in their pockets. Care to tell me how you got mixed up in this?”

“I’ll tell you everything I can-which isn’t much-as soon as I get this fellow to the hospital.”

“I’ll be waiting for you at headquarters. Tell the desk sergeant you want to see Barney George.”

A motor ambulance mounted on the new Model T chassis pulled up in front of the dance hall. As Bell laid MacDonald inside, the boxer clutched his hand again. Bell climbed in with him, beside the doctor, and rode to the hospital. While a surgeon worked on the Scot in the operating room, Bell telephoned New York with orders to warn John Scully, who was watching hull designer Farley Kent, and to dispatch operatives to the Naval Torpedo Station at Newport to guard the life of Ron Wheeler.

Three men central to the American dreadnaught program had died, and a fourth was at death’s door. But if he had not witnessed the attack on Alasdair MacDonald, it would have been reported as a likely event in a saloon brawler’s life instead of attempted murder. There was already a possibility that Langner had been murdered. What if the Bethlehem foundry explosion MacDonald had told him about wasn’t an accident? Was the Westchester climbing accident murder, too?

Bell sat by the man’s bed all night and into the morning. Suddenly, at noon, Alasdair MacDonald filled his mighty chest with a shuddering breath and let it slowly sigh away. Bell shouted for the doctor. But he knew it was hopeless. Saddened, and deeply angry, Bell went to the Camden Police headquarters and reported to Detective George his part in failing to stop the attack.

“Did you retrieve any of their knives?” Bell asked when he had finished.

“All three.” George showed them to Bell. Alasdair MacDonald’s blood had dried on the blade that killed him. “Strange-looking things, aren’t they?”

Bell picked up one of the two others not stained and examined it. “It’s a Butterflymesser.”

“A who?”

“A German folding knife, modeled on a Balisong butterfly knife. Quite rare outside the Philippine Islands.”

“I’ll say. I’ve never seen one. German, you say?”

Bell showed him the maker’s mark incised on the tang of the blade. “Bontgen and Sabin of Solingen. Question is, where did they get them…?” He looked the Camden detective full in the face. “How much money did you find in the dead men’s pockets?”

Detective George looked aside. Then he made a show of flipping through the pages of his handwritten case notes. “Oh, yeah, here it is-less than ten bucks each.”

Eyes cold, voice grim, Bell said, “I am not interested in recouping what might have gone astray before it was recorded as evidence. But the correct number-the actual amount of cash in their pockets-will indicate whether they were paid to do the killing. That amount, spoken privately between you and me, will be an important clue for my investigation.”

The Camden cop pretended to read his notes again. “One had eight dollars and two bits. The others had seven bucks, a dime, and a nickel.”

Isaac Bell’s bleak gaze dropped to the Butterflymesser he was holding. With a peculiar flick of his wrist, he caused the blade to fly open. It glinted like ice. He appeared to study it, as if wondering what use to put it to. Detective George, though deep in the confines of his own precinct, nervously wet his lips.

Bell said, “A workingman earns about five hundred dollars a year. A year’s pay to kill a man might seem the right amount to an evil person who would commit such an act for money. Therefore, it would help me to know whether those two killers who did not escape were carrying such a large sum.”

Detective George breathed a sigh of relief. “I guarantee you, neither packed such a roll.”

Bell stared at him. Detective George looked happy he had not lied. Finally Bell asked, “Mind if I keep one of these knives?”

“I’ll have to ask you to sign for it-but not the one they killed him with. We’ll need that for the trial if we ever catch the son of a bitch-which ain’t likely if he don’t come back to Camden.”

“He’s coming back,” Isaac Bell vowed. “In chains.”

‘GUTS’ DAVE KELLY-THE ONE YOU PUT A HOLE IN HIS head-and ‘Blood Bucket’ Dick Butler took their orders from a brain named Irv Weeks-the ‘Iceman,’ on account of he’s got cold blue eyes like ice, heart and soul to match. Being that Weeks is smarter than Kelly and Butler was by a long shot, and seeing how you described him hanging back waiting for his chance, I’ll lay money it was Weeks who got away.”

“With my bullet in his shoulder.”

“The Iceman is a tough customer. If it didn’t kill him, you can bet he’s hopped a freight train back to New York and paid a midwife to dig it out.”

Harry Warren, Van Dorn’s New York gang specialist, had come down on the train in response to Bell’s telephone call and gone straight to the Camden city morgue, where he identified the murderers Bell had shot as members of the Hell’s Kitchen Gopher Gang. Warren caught up with Bell at the police station. The two Van Dorns conferred in a corner of the detectives’ bull pen.

“Harry, who would send these Bowery Boy hellions all the way to Camden?”

“Tommy Thompson, the ‘Commodore,’ bosses the Gophers.”

“Does he traffic in hired killings?”

“You name it, Tommy does it. But there was nothing to stop these guys from hiring out on their own-so long as they paid Tommy his cut. Did the Camden cops find big money on the bodies? Or should I ask, did they admit to finding big money on the bodies?”

“They claim they didn’t,” Bell replied. “I made it clear that we are after bigger fish than thieving cops, and from the answer I got back I am reasonably certain that the amounts were small. Perhaps they would be paid afterward. Perhaps their boss kept the bulk of it.”

“Both,” said Harry Warren. He thought hard. “But it’s strange, Isaac. These gang boys usually stick close to home. Like I say, Tommy would do anything for dough, but Gophers and the like tend not to venture out of their own neighborhoods. Half of them couldn’t find Brooklyn, much less cross state lines.”

“Find out why they did this time.”

“I’ll try and brace Weeks soon as I learn where he’s recuperating and-”

“Don’t brace him. Send for me.”

“O.K., Isaac. But don’t count on much. No one’s keeping books on a deal like this. For all we know, it could have been personal. Maybe MacDonald poked one too many guys in the snoot.”

“Have you ever heard of a New York gangster using a Butterflymesser?”

“You mean the Philippine flip-open knife?”

Bell showed him the Butterflymesser.

“Yeah, there was a Duster who joined the Army to get away from the cops, ended up fighting in the Filipino insurrection. He brought one back and killed a gambler with it who owed him money. At least, that’s what they said, but I bet it was the cocaine. You know how ‘dust’ makes ’em paranoiac.”

“In other words, the Butterflymesser is not common in New York.”

“That Duster’s was the only one I ever heard of.”

BELL RACED TO NEW YORK.

He hired a driver and mechanic to drive his Locomobile back while he took the train. A police launch, provided by Detective George, who was delighted to help him leave Camden, ran him across the Delaware River to Philadelphia, where he caught a Pennsylvania Railroad express. When he arrived at the Knickerbocker Hotel, light in the afternoon sky still glowed on the green copper roof, but nearer the street the red brick, French renaissance façade was growing dim.