The Gangster (38 page)

It was a tremendous plow horse, plodding in harness, and it reared in terror as Isaac Bell’s sail bore down on it. Appearing so suddenly, at sixty miles an hour, and seen from a cockpit twelve inches above the ice, it looked as big as Culp’s stuffed grizzly.

Isaac Bell yanked his tiller.

Culp had led him into the middle of an ice harvest. Men and horses were plowing grooves in the ice and cutting it into cakes to be stored for next summer. They had sawed open a wide patch of open water that gleamed black as coal.

Bell’s boat skidded violently. Centrifugal force nearly flicked him out of the cockpit. The boat was sliding sideways, out of control, and headed straight at the black water. Ten feet from it, Bell’s runners bit the ice again, his rudder responded, and he skittered the boat along the edge, dodged another horse and plow, and hurled himself back on course, his eyes locked on the tall white triangle of
Daphne
’s sail.

Another mile flashed by.

He caught the beam wind again and gained some more. When only forty yards separated the yachts, he locked a leg over the tiller, drew his automatic, braced it with both hands, and waited
until the runners were humming steadily over a smooth patch. When he opened fire, he missed, but not by much, and it had the desired effect. Antonio Branco did not even flinch, but J. B. Culp ducked from the slugs whistling past his ears. He lost control and
Daphne
spun out, whirling in circles and dropping speed. Bell’s boat passed her before he could untangle his leg and steer to a stop.

Culp recovered, caught the wind, and took off like a rocket.

Bell tore after him, closer than before.
You’re not as bold as you think you are,
thought Bell. He saw Branco hand something to Culp. The next instant, flame lanced as Culp fired the pistol Branco had given him. Lead thudded into Bell’s mast. A bullet whined close to his face.

Daphne
’s runners and rudder left the ice and she was suddenly airborne. An instant later, Bell hit what had launched her—a snowdrift ramped up by the wind and frozen solid. His boat flew, soaring high and far. It felt like she would fall backwards, but the lead weights strapped to her runner plank balanced her and she landed back on the ice, upright and racing ahead.

Before she crashed back down again, Bell glimpsed in the distance another ice harvest. They were finishing for the day. The men and horses were near shore, loading the cakes into an icehouse. All that remained where they had worked in the middle of the river was the open cut. Black water stretched the length of a football field.

Bell fired a shot to distract Culp and veered his yacht to build speed. When he had, and was racing parallel to
Daphne
, he
suddenly changed course and drove straight at her. The sight of Bell’s enormous sail suddenly flying at him unnerved J. B. Culp and he reflexively jerked his tiller to steer away before the yachts collided. The violent turn spun his in a circle.

She pinwheeled beyond his command—sliding and spinning on the slick surface—flew off the ice, and slammed into the black water. The impact of the abrupt stop from fifty miles an hour to zero snapped both legs of her double mast. Boom, yard, and sails crashed down on her runner plank, which was sinking quickly and already half submerged.

Isaac Bell skidded his yacht to a halt twenty feet from the abyss and dropped his sail. The masterminds of a national crime organization were his at last. Only drowning could save them from justice.

He ran to the brink with a rope in one hand and his gun in the other.

The sea tide had turned. Receding swiftly downstream in tandem with the Hudson’s powerful current, it seized
Daphne
’s fallen rigging. The river filled her sail, as if with a watery wind, and dashed the shattered yacht against the solid ice at the edge of the cut.

Branco and Culp battled their way out of the tangle of rigging and canvas and tried to climb off. The current forced her bowsprit under the ice. A stump of her mast caught on the edge. The wreckage hung motionless for a heartbeat, then continued sliding under as it sank.

Isaac Bell threw his rope.

J. B. Culp caught it and clambered onto the ice shelf. Antonio
Branco was right behind him, heaving himself toward safety even as the boat slid under. He planted one foot on solid ice, teetered backwards, and caught his balance by grabbing Culp’s coat.

Bell dug in his heels, fighting to keep from sliding as he took the weight of both men. The rope jerked in his hands. Through it, he could feel Culp gather his full strength. Suddenly, the magnate whirled about. His leg levered up like a placekicker’s. His boot smashed into Branco’s gut and threw him backwards into the water.

The expressions on Branco’s mobile face flickered like a nickelodeon. Disbelief. Rage. Abject terror in the split second before the river sluiced him under the ice.

Isaac Bell leveled his gun at J. B. Culp, who was still holding the line the detective had thrown to him. “John Butler Culp, you are under arrest. Get on my boat and tie that rope around your ankles.”

The tall, broad-shouldered patrician glanced disdainfully at Bell’s gun. Then he pointed at the black water that had swallowed Antonio Branco.

“Evidence of your vague allegations against me is scanter than ever now. Besides, everyone saw Branco try to kill the President. They’ll all agree that drowning was a well-deserved death for the dago gangster.”

“But now I’ve got you for murder,” said Isaac Bell. “Saw it with my own eyes. I’ll bet, ten-to-one, that the judge and jury will agree on the electric chair for the
American
gangster.”

THE CARTEL BUSTER

One week later

The Van Dorn Detective Agency, Joe Petrosino’s NYPD Italian Squad, Captain Mike Coligney’s Tenderloin Precinct plainclothesmen, and the Treasury Department’s Secret Service landed on Antonio Branco’s suddenly leaderless bombers, extortionists, gorillas, counterfeiters, and smugglers like an army rolling up enemy flanks.

Isaac Bell listed the names of the arrested on the bull pen blackboard, which had been so hastily erased in the weeklong rush that his illustration for the Raven’s Eyrie raid shone through as if it were under tracing paper. Gorillas were superimposed on Culp’s gymnasium. Smugglers covered his gatehouse. Counterfeiters grouped on the power plant.

A cheer went up when Harry Warren and Archie Abbott telephoned good news at the end of the week. Vito Rizzo, whom Bell had arrested in the confessional, had jumped bail granted by a Tammany judge. Warren and Abbott had just hauled him out of
a sewer pipe, which pretty much wrapped up the remains of Branco’s organization.

“Harry should have looked there in the first place,” said Walter Kisley.

“O.K., Helen,” said Grady Forrer. “Now’s the time. Give it to him.”

The detectives gathered around Isaac Bell. Helen Mills handed him a narrow box. It was wrapped in tissue paper and tied with a dainty ribbon. Bell shook it. It rattled. “Sounds like diamonds. Right size for a necklace, but I don’t tend to wear them.”

“Open it up, Isaac!”

“The boys at Storm King found it.”

Bell untied the ribbon, tore the tissue paper, and raised the lid. He could see that it had indeed been a necklace box. But inside, nestled in velvet, was a four-inch pocket knife.

“Branco dropped it on account of being punched hard,” said Eddie Edwards.

“Turn it over, Isaac. Read the inscription.”

They had attached a small silver plaque engraved with the words

PROPERTY OF CARTEL-BUSTER BELL

“This calls for a drink!” shouted many Van Dorns.

“Champagne!” said Helen Mills. “I’m buying in the cellar bar.”

The bull pen emptied in a flash.

Bell stayed there alone, opening and closing Antonio Branco’s knife.

“It’s time, Isaac.”

A very sad looking Marion Morgan stood in the doorway in traveling clothes.

Bell took her bag and they hurried across 42nd Street to Grand Central and found her state room on the 20th Century Limited to Chicago, the first leg on her trip back to San Francisco. “I’m going to miss you terribly,” she said.

“I don’t think you will.”

“How can you say that? Won’t you miss me?”

“Not right away.”

“Why are you grinning like a baboon?”

“I had an interesting talk with Mr. Van Dorn.”

“Oh, Isaac! Did he make you Chief Investigator?”

“Not yet. But the Boss fears that some Black Hand could still be hanging about. So he has assigned you Van Dorn protection all the way to San Francisco. This inside door connects to your personal bodyguard’s state room. If you’re ever frightened, all you have to do is knock.”

Bell stepped through the door and closed it behind him. The porter had already unpacked the bag and hung his suits he had sent ahead. A bottle of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rosé sat uncorked on a table in a sterling silver bucket.

Forty minutes later, as he was taking off his shirt, the 20th pulled into Croton-Harmon to exchange its electric city locomotive for a fast steamer. Bell heard a knock at the door. He opened it with growing anticipation. Marion had changed into the silk robe she had worn for him in her San Francisco cottage.

He wasted no time with words. He pulled Marion toward him and kissed her. Then he swept her into his arms and carried her into his
bedroom.

CLIVE CUSSLER
is the author of more than fifty books in five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA® Files,
Oregon
Files, Isaac Bell, and Fargo. His life nearly parallels that of his hero Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, Cussler and his NUMA crew of volunteers have discovered more than seventy-five lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Like Pitt, Cussler collects classic automobiles. His collection features more than eighty examples of custom coachwork. Cussler lives in Arizona and Colorado.

JUSTIN SCOTT
’s novels include
The Shipkiller
and
Normandie Triangle
; the Ben Abbott detective series; and modern sea thrillers published under the pen name Paul Garrison. He is the coauthor with Clive Cussler of seven previous Isaac Bell novels. He lives in Connecticut.