The Gangster (28 page)

The grappling hooks whistled, cutting the air. Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott swung their ropes in ever-growing circles, building momentum, then simultaneously let fly at the wall that loomed slightly darker than the cloud-shrouded night sky. The hooks cleared the top, twelve feet above their heads, and clanked against the back side. Bell and Abbott drew in the slack and pulled hard. The iron claws held.

“Cut the wires!”

It went like clockwork. Up the knotted ropes, over thick folds of canvas to cover the broken glass, drop the rope ladders, then down the inside and running along a mowed inspection track that paralleled the wall. There were no lights in the gymnasium, the barracks, or the boathouse. The main house was dark upstairs, but the ground floor was lit up like Christmas.

“Dinner in the dining room,” said Bell.

Bell sent two men to capture the prizefighters and another man down to the river to rendezvous with the boat. Then he and Archie Abbott led squads to the house. Bell took the back door, Archie the front.

“They’re here,” said Branco.

“This should be great fun,” said Culp. “Too bad you can’t observe in person. I’ll fill you in later.”

Branco was not convinced that it was a good idea, much less “great fun.” But they were on Culp’s home turf and it was up to Culp to call the shots. “Vamoose!” Culp told him. “While the going’s good.”

Branco opened a servants’ door hidden in the dining room paneling.

“Branco.”

“What is it?”

“I’m impressed that you came back, knowing the raid was coming. You could have disappeared and left me to it.”

“I need you,” said Branco. “No less, no more, than you need me.” He closed the door. A narrow, twisting staircase went down to the silver vault, which had been originally a slave hidey-hole. Branco unlocked it, let himself inside, and locked it again.

J. B. Culp snatched a heavy pistol from the sideboard, strode to his front door, and flung it open, shouting, “Mr. Bell, you are trespassing.”

“Detective Bell is at your back door,” said Archie Abbott. “I’m Detective Abbott. Put that gun down before you get hurt.”

J. B. Culp lowered his pistol and backed into his foyer, a large entryway flanked by twin reception rooms. “Judging by your red hair, I’d have recognized you anywhere, Detective Abbott. Even on my private property.”

Abbott said, “Judging by your ruddy complexion, blond hair, and blue eyes, you are not the fugitive Antonio Branco, but John Butler Culp, the man who is harboring him. Put your gun on the table.”

Culp said, “There are people here anxious to meet you and your”—he looked over the burly detectives crowding in behind Abbott—“gang.” Then he raised his voice.

“Sheriff!”

A big bruiser with an Orange County sheriff’s star on his coat stepped from one of the reception rooms. “You’re under arrest, Detective Abbott.”

“I am not,” said Archie Abbott.

“Boys,” the Sheriff called.

Six deputies entered from the other reception room carrying shotguns.

The Sheriff said, “You’re all under arrest.”

“For what?”

“We’ll start with trespassing.”

“We are not trespassing.”

“Drop your weapons and reach for the sky.”

“We are not trespassing,” Abbott repeated. “We are pursuing a fugitive Black Hand gangster named Antonio Branco.”

The Sheriff turned to Culp, who had a small smile playing on his face.

“Mr. Culp, sir, have you seen any fugitives on your property?”

“No.”

The Sheriff turned his attention back to Archie Abbott. “Do you have permits to carry those guns?”

“Of course. We’re Van Dorns.”

“Orange County permits?”

“Now, hold on, Sheriff.”

“You’re trespassing in Orange County. You’re carrying illegal weapons in Orange County. You are endangering public safety in Orange County. And if you are the Detective Abbott I heard Mr. Culp greet, the Orange County District Attorney has received reports about your radical tendencies.”

“Are you nuts? I’m a Princeton man.”

“Last chance: Raise your hands before we start shooting. My boys’ twelve-gauges don’t leave much for the surgeon.”

Isaac Bell walked into the foyer with his hands in the air, trailed by his squad similarly elevated. He saw Culp smirking ear to ear. Archie looked poleaxed. But the out-of-town Van Dorns
were tough customers, and Bell intervened quickly before it turned bloody.

“Guns down, gents. Hands up. We’ll settle this later.”

Archie said, “He says he’s the Sheriff.”

Bell said, “The men at the back door are New York Army National Guard officers. And there’s a fellow eating a sandwich in the kitchen who represents the Governor. We’re skunked.”

“Sheriff!” said J. B. Culp.

“Yes, sir, Mr. Culp?”

“Get these trespassers off my property.”

“Yes, sir, Mr. Culp.”

“Lock ’em up. I’ll send someone to the jailhouse to press charges in the morning.”

Nine arrested Van Dorns were crammed into a cell in the county lockup that smelled like it was reserved for drunks. The other three had escaped on the boat.

“I want to know how they knew we were coming,” said Isaac Bell.

“They knew we were coming, didn’t they?” said Archie.

“Unless by amazing coincidence the Sheriff, the Army Guard, and the Governor’s man all dropped in on the same night,” said Isaac Bell.

Bell was seething. The cost of the botched raid was almost incalculable. Culp was in the clear. Branco was still on the loose, deadly as ever and protected by Culp. Culp had demonstrated his power to bring in big guns to defend his secret alliance with the
gangster. While they had somehow managed the near impossible—catching wind ahead of time about a secret Van Dorn raid.

Archie repeated, “This is awful. They knew we were coming.”

“We will find out how,” Bell repeated.

Bell was dozing on his feet, shoulder to shoulder with the rest of his squad, when he heard Joseph Van Dorn thunder in full voice. The Boss stood outside the cell in a derby hat and a voluminous overcoat.

“Sorriest bunch of miscreants I’ve ever seen in one lockup. They’re an insult to the criminal classes. But hand them over anyway.”

The Sheriff looked abruptly awakened and very anxious. “Mr. Culp is going to be mighty angry.”

“Tell Mr. Culp to take it up with the United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, which has federal jurisdiction over Orange County. Show him that letter the U.S. Attorney gave me to give to you. Open up, man! We have a train to catch. Come along, boys. Double-time . . . Lord, that jailhouse stink! Good thing I chartered a cattle car to take you home in.”

A scathing nod in Bell’s direction instructed him to join the Boss for a private word. They stood in the vestibule when the train left the station. Van Dorn’s voice was cold, his eyes colder.

“The U.S. Attorney owed me an enormous favor. Springing your squad cleared the books, and he made it abundantly clear that next time we’re on our own. So let
me
make it abundantly
clear, Isaac: No Van Dorn detective will scale the Raven’s Eyrie wall again without my express permission.”

“Except, of course,” said Bell, “if we’re in hot pursuit of Antonio Branco.”

Van Dorn’s cheeks flared as red as his whiskers and the Boss was suddenly as angry as Bell had ever seen him. “If Antonio Branco is halfway over Culp’s wall and you are hanging by his ankles, wire me on the private telegraph and wait for my specific go-ahead.”

As the train neared the city, Archie Abbott whispered, “Isaac, I have to talk to you.”

Bell led him into the vestibule where Van Dorn had expressed his displeasure. “What’s up?”

“It was my fault, Isaac.”

“Everyone did their job. We hit, front and back, right on the nose. It’s not your fault they were waiting.”

“I’m afraid it was,” said Archie.

“What are you talking about?”

Abbott hung his head. He looked mortified, and it began to dawn on Isaac Bell that his old friend Archie Abbott was more deeply downcast than even the Raven’s Eyrie fiasco would warrant.

“What are you saying, Archie?”

“I think I was played for a sucker.”

“Who played you—the girl you’ve been seeing?”

“Francesca.”

“You told Marion you were ‘besotted.’”

“Totally.”

“What did you tell Francesca?”

“Only that I was going on a raid. I had to break a date. I said I’d be away overnight, up the river.”

“Archie . . .” Bell felt his head swimming. Culp was in the clear. Culp protected Branco.

“I just didn’t think.”

“Did you tell her we were after Culp?”

“No! . . . Well, I mean, not really.”

“What the devil does ‘not really’ mean?” Bell exploded. “You either told her it was Culp or you didn’t.”

“I said it was Culp’s house. I didn’t say we were after Culp. It could have been anyone on the estate. I was sure that was the impression I left. Until—”

“Until Culp had the Sheriff and the Army Guard ambush us . . . What the devil were you thinking, Archie? . . . Sounds like you weren’t thinking.”

“Not clearly. What do you want me to do, Isaac? Should I resign?”

Isaac Bell looked him in the face. Not only were they the closest friends but Bell felt responsible for him because he had talked Archie into joining the Van Dorns. He said, “I have to think about it. And I have to talk to Mr. Van Dorn, of course.”

“He’ll fire me in a second.”

“He’s the Boss. I have no choice.”

“I should save him the trouble and quit.”

Archie should resign, thought Bell. He knew the Boss well enough to know that Van Dorn was in no mood to forgive. But
he was getting the glimmer of an idea how he might turn the tables on Branco.

“You know, Archie, you’re still not thinking clearly.”

“What do you mean?”

“Pray this doesn’t get in the papers. Because if it does and your Francesca reads it, she will put two and two together and realize that the boss she ‘confessed’ to in that church is Branco. And she will also know that when Branco reads it, he will know that she knows. Branco went to great lengths to ensure that the criminals who carried out his orders could never implicate him, much less testify against him.”

“What are you saying?”

“How long will he let Francesca live?”

“I have to get to her first,” said Archie.

“
We
have to get to her first. She’ll know a lot about Branco’s crimes and, with any luck, what he plans next.”

“Wait a minute, Isaac. What does Branco care if Francesca exposes him? He’s exposed already.”

“When we catch him, he will stand trial, defended by the best lawyers money can buy. The prosecutor will need every break he can get. He will trade years off Francesca’s prison sentence for her testimony.”

“Prison?”

“Archie, you weren’t the first job she did for him. Just the easiest.”