The Gangster (17 page)

John Butler Culp’s grandfather built a Hudson River estate at Storm King Mountain. Culp’s father hugely expanded it, and the mansion was currently being enlarged and modernized by the son. They called it Raven’s Eyrie, after the
Raven—
the grandfather’s first steamboat that spawned their river, railroad, mining, and financial empires. Brewster Claypool dubbed it, archly, affectionately, and extremely privately, the
Birdhouse
.

Claypool found Culp in the gymnasium sparring with Lee, one of the prizefighters he kept on the place. The gym was a physical culture temple brightly lighted by a wall of windows. The morning sun beamed on the men perspiring in the ring. The other prizefighter, a heavyweight named Barry, was exercising with full-size twenty-pound, twenty-eight-inch Indian clubs. Neither of the boxers was the broken-down pug type that some rich men kept around as bodyguards, but competitors in their prime. Nonetheless, Barry had a black eye.

Black eyes tended to happen sparring with Culp, and Claypool helped him inflict another by flourishing his gold-headed cane to reflect the sun. Momentarily distracted, Lee received a
powerful jab that knocked him into the ropes. That ought to teach him never to let down his guard around Culp.

Culp dismissed his fighters with orders to go to the kitchen and tell the cook to give them beefsteaks for their black eyes. Then he vaulted over the ropes, landed beside Claypool with a crash that shook the floor, and demanded, “What happened with Isaac Bell?”

Claypool reported in detail.

Culp snatched up his Indian clubs. But he listened intently, even as he whirled the bulbous lengths of varnished wood around his head like the Wright brothers’ propellers. He interrupted only when Claypool said, “Finally, Detective Bell asked, ‘Who hates Roosevelt enough to kill him?’”

“What did you answer?”

“I handed him the membership directory of the New York Stock Exchange.”

Culp dropped the clubs, slapped his thigh, and roared with laughter.

The master-servant indignities suffered by Claypool as “Culp’s man” were vastly mitigated by the sheer pleasure of conspiring with him.

“What’s he looking for?”

“He’s fishing.”

“Can we be connected?”

“Never.”

“Why?”

“We are separated by a long chain of people who don’t know each other, much less us.”

“Then where did Bell get his list? Manfred, Bill, Gore,
Warren, and Jeremy Pendergast were all at the club the night you and I discussed this.”

“Here, I believe, Isaac Bell made a mistake. He gave up quite a clue with that list.”

“Right he did! Now we know someone in that room told him who was there.”

“So it would seem.”

“I want to know who? And why? Who’s going to try to use this against me?”

Claypool said, “It couldn’t have been any Cherry Grovers; none heard a word that could lead to putting two and two together.”

Culp, growing agitated, asked, “The girls?”

“Of course not. Unless you indulged in uncharacteristic pillow talk.”

“That’ll be the day. What about you?”

“I left early that night,” said Claypool. “With much on my mind.”

“Then who?”

“I was as baffled as you are. Until I had time to think about it on the train. Do you recall that the Cherry Grove reopened immediately under the new name? The very weekend after Coligney’s Pink Tea?”

“Of course I recall. I was there. So were you until you hustled the twins upstairs. Tammany called in a marker; you can bet they now own a bigger slice of Nick.”

“That’s not what I’ve heard,” said Claypool.

“What do you mean?”

“Tammany did not impose its will on Captain Coligney.”

“Then how . . . Oh, I see what you mean . . . Nick.”

“Nick Sayers must have given Coligney something to be allowed to reopen.”

“But how would that weasel know?”

“That I don’t know. Perhaps it had nothing to do with us. A coincidence.”

“I’ll have the fellows sweat it out of him.”

“I don’t recommend that.”

“Who is a whorehouse owner going to complain to?”

“If Isaac Bell catches wind of Nick suffering a beating, it will put him wise and he will be on Nick like a tiger.”

“The fellows can make it impossible for Nick to be found by Bell.”

“Unnecessary complications could ensue. As things stand now, there’s no connection to whoever will do the job. No reason to stop. You can press ahead. If you still insist.”

“I still insist.”

“Then we definitely don’t want any more complications.”

“What’s Bell’s next move?”

“Don’t be surprised when he comes calling on you.”

“Why me? You said it can’t be traced.”

“It can’t be traced. Which means he has to call on every man who was in that room. Including you.”

“Especially me. He’s already called on you. It won’t take a Sherlock Holmes to connect us.”

“Point is, what you insist on doing can’t be traced to us.”

Culp pondered that a moment. “I hope he does call on me.”

“Why?”

“Because he’ll wish he hadn’t. And that will be the end of it.”

Brewster Claypool fell silent.

Culp glowered at him awhile. “O.K. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t mean to ascribe to the Van Dorns powers they don’t possess. But they have a motto and they stick to it.”

“I read it in the
Police Gazette
: ‘We never give up.’”

“‘Never’ being the operative word.”

“A dramatic slogan to raise business.”

“Even melodramatic,” said Claypool. “But . . .”

“But what?”

“The trouble is, they stick to it.”

“I stick to things, too.”

“That you do, sir. It is among your most admirable qualities.”

Suddenly, Culp’s expression darkened and he got the thundercloud on his face that made him dangerous. “Wait a minute! Even if we can’t be connected, our man’s going to have a hard time doing it when they warn Roosevelt someone’s gunning for him.”

Claypool smiled.

“What are you grinning about? The Secret Service will take precautions.”

“I am not ‘grinning,’” said Brewster Claypool, “I am smiling, because I am imagining Teddy’s reaction when they tell him he must take precautions.”

“How? What? What will he do?”

“He will suck in his belly, stick out his chest, and declare that he is not afraid.”

“So?”

“The funny thing is, he’ll be telling the truth. Teddy won’t be afraid. And he will refuse to take precautions.”

Isaac Bell went back to the Cherry Grove. The name gold-leafed above the lintel had been changed to “Grove House.” He asked Nick Sayers which of the women had worked in the library the night Sayers had overheard the plot.

Only Jenny, a raven-haired beauty. Bell took her upstairs and, when their door was closed, handed her one hundred dollars and said, “I have a simple request and whatever you answer I’ll tell no one.”

Jenny said, “Don’t worry, I always say yes. What do you want?”

“On the Saturday night before the Pink Tea shut down the house, two of the men in the Cherry Grove club left the main club room for the small library.”

Jenny looked alarmed. “How do you know about the club? Are you friends with them?”

“Not really. One of the men was Brewster Claypool. Do you remember who went with him?”

“Does Mr. Sayers know you’re asking this?”

“Would you like to ask him to confirm it?”

She looked Bell up and down and said, “Well, that explains that.”

“Explains what?”

“I was wondering why you came to a sporting house.”

Bell smiled back. “I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you. And may I say that if I ever felt the need to come to one, I’d make sure you were in it . . . Do you recall who Mr. Claypool left the room with?”

“He left alone.”

“All alone?”

“I looked in a couple of times. He was just sitting there sipping his whiskey until Mr. Culp joined him.”

Isaac Bell armed himself with solid information from Research about the members’ habits in order to put his Cherry Grove Society suspects at ease. Then he cornered them, one by one, while masquerading as a gentleman who shared their interests. Most were not the sort who would ask his line of business when meeting in a social situation. Those who did learned that Isaac Bell was an executive in the insurance business.

He ran down the first at the Grolier, a club for bibliophiles. He borrowed a police horse to catch up with another cantering in Central Park. Allowing a close-fought victory in a late-autumn race for New York “Thirties,” he and Archie Abbott accepted drinks at the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club. He lunched at the Union League, and he met with a banker at the Chase
National headquarters on Cedar Street, who declined to lend Bell money to buy a two-hundred-foot steam yacht. Of the seven, only one proved elusive, and Bell found him back where everything started, at the brothel.

All were easily maneuvered into admitting knowing Claypool. Two praised him for doing them the favor of getting them out of “sticky situations.” The Chase banker dropped, casually, “Everyone knows that ‘Brew’ Claypool is Culp’s man.” But he was the only one who made the connection. Of the bunch, two struck Bell as possible presidential assassins of the type who would hire a killer—J. B. Culp and Warren D. Nichols.

Culp made no secret of disliking Roosevelt. The affable Nichols had a wintery eye; a valuable quality in a banker, perhaps, but something about him made Bell wonder whether the wintery eye might mask a hunter’s heart.

“Thin, thin stuff,” he reported to Joseph Van Dorn. “A tycoon who hates the President and a banker with a cold eye.”

The Boss agreed. “We’ve said all along that the threats overheard could be nothing more than angry talk. Maybe that’s all it is.”

Two hours later, Bell sent to Van Dorn on the private wire.

RESEARCH LEARNED NICHOLS WILL DONATE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES PRIME TIMBER LAND ADIRONDACK FOREST PRESERVE IN THEODORE ROOSEVELT NAME.

Van Dorn wired back.

CONCENTRATE CULP.

Culp’s industries and mines and timber operations were protected by brutal strikebreakers. Culp’s stock holdings were enriched by the best manipulators on Wall Street. His Washington lobbyists had bribed legislators to change the site of the inter-ocean ship canal from Nicaragua to the Isthmus of Panama. His agents in France and Panama helped him gain control of lucrative canal stock.

Many fixers worked for Culp behind the scenes, but Bell developed the strong impression that Claypool hired the fixers. All of them. Except Claypool was not about to personally hire murderers, much less presidential assassins. He would hire an agent, who would hire another agent, and on down the line. When the job finally reached the man with the gun, Claypool and Culp would be miles away.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” said Francesca Kennedy.

Her scarf concealed her face, but the hunch of her shoulders and her fingers anxiously working her rosary and the stricken tone of her voice were a convincing image of a woman desperate to save her soul. Had life been kinder to her, thought Branco, she would have been a great actress on Broadway.

“What sin did you commit, my child?”

“I lured a man to his death.”

Branco laughed. “Relax. Tommy McBean’s as alive as you.”

“Do I still get paid?”

A woman who was good for killing was a rare and valuable
resource and should be treated as such. She loved money, so money she would have.

Branco shoved a rolled hundred-dollar bill through the grille. “Of course you get paid. You earned it. It took some doing to wake him up.”

“You know something?” she whispered. She turned to face the grille. “I think I’d rather do it with them when I know I’m the one that’s going to do them after—instead of just setting them up.”

“It takes all kinds.”

“And you know—”

“Enough confession,” Branco interrupted before she got wound up in a talking spree.

Though she had never seen his face, Branco had known of her since she was an ordinary streetwalker the night of her first murder—a customer who brutalized her. Her cool deliberation had so impressed him that he ordered Charlie Salata to rescue her from the cops. Francesca was a survivor who could turn on a nickel and give you the change. The instant he interrupted her, she went straight back to business.

“What’s my next job?”

Branco passed another fortune through the grille. “Confess here on schedule. You’ll know it soon.”

“I get antsy sitting around.”

“Put your impatience into preparation.” He pushed more money through the grid. “Buy clothes to drink tea at the Knickerbocker Hotel. A suitable outfit to get past the house dicks. You must look like you belong there.”

“That’s easy.”

“For you it is. You are an unusual woman.”

Branco returned to his store through the tunnels under the graveyard and the tenements.

He filled a pitcher with clean, cold water and brought it and a glass to the underground room where he had locked Ghiottone.