The Gangster (Isaac Bell #9)(37)
Antonio Branco laughed.
“Why do you laugh?” Ghiottone demanded.
“It is beyond your understanding,” said Branco.
Fifty thousand was truly a fortune. But fifty thousand dollars was nothing compared to the golden opportunity that Ghiottone had unwittingly handed him. This was his chance to vault out of “pandemonium” into a permanent alliance with a titan—escape chaos and join a powerhouse American at the top of the heap.
“I ask you again, who brought this to you?”
Ghiottone crossed his arms. “He has my loyalty.”
Branco walked out of the room. He came back with a basket of bread and sausage.
“What is this?”
“Food. I’ll be back in a few days. I can’t let you starve.” He passed the loaf and the cured meat through the bars.
“Kind of you,” Ghiottone said sarcastically. He tore off a piece of bread and bit into the sausage. “Too salty.”
“Salt makes good sausage.”
“Wait!”
Branco was swinging the door shut. “I will see you in a few days.”
“Wait!”
“What is it?”
“I need water.”
“I’ll bring you water in a few days.”
BOOK II
Pull
17
Isaac Bell paced the New York field office bull pen, driven by a strong feeling that he had misinterpreted the Cherry Grove conversation. The words were clear; he had no doubt the brothel owner had heard most, if not all, with his ear pressed to an air vent.
What are you waiting for?
An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?
My mind is made up. The man must go.
But Bell could swear that he had missed what they meant. Though he knew his notes by heart, he read them again.
Would you please sit down?
My mind is made up. The man must go.
He paced among file cases. Then paused at a varnished wooden case that held the field office’s Commercial Graphophone—a machine for recording dictation.
A telephone rang. He reached over the duty officer’s shoulder and snatched it off the desk. “It’s Isaac, Mr. Van Dorn. How are you making out in Washington?”
“That depends entirely on how you’re making out in New York.”
Bell reported on the heroin holdup and the waterfront shoot-out. “Salata got away, Leone’s dead. The only thing we know for sure is the Black Hand is out of the counterfeiting business.”
“I am still waiting for the go-ahead to warn the President.”
“I have nothing solid yet,” said Bell.
Van Dorn hung up. Bell resumed pacing.
He stopped to regard a wall calendar, a promotional gift from the Commercial Graphophone salesman. 1906 was winding down fast, but what caught his eye was the advertisement that ballyhooed, “Tell it to the Graphophone.”
Bell wound up the spring motor and read his notes aloud into the mica diaphragm.
“What are you waiting for?
“An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?
“My mind is made up. The man must go.”
He shifted the recording cylinder to the stenographer’s transcribing machine, which had hearing tubes instead of a concert horn, and fit the tubes to his ears. His own voice reading the words sounded like a stranger in another room. Or two strangers downstairs in the library.
What are you waiting for?
An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?
My mind is made up. The man must go.
Isaac Bell heard what he had missed.
He headed to Research.
Grady Forrer started apologizing. “Sorry, Isaac. Slow going on the fixers. The tycoons use different men for different tasks. Twenty, at least, among them.”
“Forget that, I’ve narrowed it down to one-in-seven.” He slapped his list on Forrer’s desk. “The fixer who will hire the killer to murder the President is one of the men in the library.”
“Impossible. These men hold seats on the Stock Exchange and controlling interests in railroads, mines, banks, and industries. They’re as close as we’ll get to gods.”
“One of them only runs errands for the gods.”
“It’s not a conversation, not even a discussion. They’re not equal partners. The first speaker is the boss, the second an employee. I don’t care if he shouted or whispered. What are you waiting for? He is the boss. The fixer is not a tycoon, even though he’s in the tycoons’ club . . . I feel like an idiot, it took me so long.”
“O.K.” Forrer nodded. “I get it. I feel like an idiot, too. So how do we separate servants from gods?”
Bell said, “Start with where they live.”
The Social Register turned up addresses for four—Arnold, Claypool, Culp, and Nichols. Cross-checking telephone directory numbers with company records revealed New York City addresses for the other three. The newspaper society pages turned up the names and locations of the country estates for six of the men. The same six had Newport summer residences. In both cases—country homes and seaside cottages—the one exception was Brewster Claypool.
“He’s from the South,” said Bell. “Attended law school in Virginia. Maybe he’s got a plantation down there.”