The Gangster (Isaac Bell #9)(47)

“You mean he operates off the usual tracks?”

“And covers his tracks.”

“Who does Brandon Finn report to?”

“The Boss. But only on a strictly informal basis. Why do you ask?”

“It might be smart to keep an eye on him.”

“Too late,” said Coligney. “He died.”

“Of what?”

“They don’t know yet.”

Bell composed a telegram in Van Dorn cipher.

PROTECT CLAYPOOL HOME AND OFFICE

If Brandon Finn was linked directly to Boss Fryer, then whoever was killing the Tammany men was nearing the top of the heap. If Claypool was the fixer who started the ball rolling, then he could be next.



Archie Abbott took for granted that he delighted women the way catnip fired up cats. So when an attractive brunette taking tea in the Knickerbocker Hotel lobby not only failed to notice him but looked straight through him as if he didn’t exist, Abbott took it as a radical challenge to the proper order of things.

“Good afternoon.”

She had arresting blue eyes. They roved over Abbott’s square chin, his aquiline nose, his piercing eyes, his high brow, his rich red hair, and his dazzling smile. She said, “I’m afraid we’ve not been introduced, sir,” and returned her gaze to her magazine.

“Allow me to remedy that,” said Abbott. “I am Archibald Angell Abbott IV. It would be an honor to make your acquaintance.”

She did not invite him to sit beside her. At this point, were he not known to the Knickerbocker’s house detectives as a fellow Van Dorn, two well-dressed burly men would have quietly materialized at his elbows and escorted him to the sidewalk while explaining that mashers were not permitted to molest ladies in their hotel—and don’t come back!

“My friends call me Archie.”

“What does your wife call you?”

“I hope she will call me whatever pleases her when we finally meet. May I ask your name?”

“Francesca.”

“What a beautiful name.”

“Thank you, Archibald.”

“Just Archie is fine.”

“It pleases me to call you Archibald.”

Abbott’s sharp eye had already fixed on her left hand, where a wedding ring made a slight bulge in her glove. “Are you married, Francesca?”

“I am a widow.”

“I am terribly sorry,” he lied.

“Thank you. It has been two years.”

“I notice you still wear the ring.”

“The ring keeps the wrong type from getting the wrong idea.”

“May I sit down?”

“Why?”

Abbott grinned. “To see whether I’m the wrong type.”

Francesca smiled a smile that lit her eyes like limelight. “Only the wrong type would get the wrong idea.”

“Tell me about your accent, I don’t quite recognize it. I studied accents as an actor. Before my current line of work.”

“What is your line?”

“Insurance.”

“Sit down, Archibald,” said Francesca Kennedy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”





23





The gatehouse at Raven’s Eyrie looked like it had been built to repel anarchists and labor agitators. Sturdy as an armory, the two-story granite redoubt was flanked by high walls. The gate had bars thick as railroad track, and the driveway it blocked was so steep that no vehicle could get up enough speed to batter through it. But what riveted Isaac Bell’s attention were the shooting slits in the upper story, which would allow riflemen to pick off attackers at their leisure. J. B. Culp was not taking chances with anyone who had it in for the rich.

“Please inform Mr. Culp that Isaac Bell has come to accept the invitation he offered at Seawanhaka to view his ice yacht.”

“Have you an appointment, sir?”

The gatekeeper wore an immaculate uniform. He had cropped iron-gray hair and a rugged frame. His sidearm was the old Model 1873 .45 Colt the United States Marines had brought back into service for its stopping power in the Philippine Campaign.

Bell passed his card through the bars. “Mr. Culp invited me to drop by anytime.”

Five minutes later, Culp himself tore down the driveway in a six-cylinder, air-cooled Franklin—the same six-cylinder model that had just made a coast to coast run across the continent in a record-breaking fifteen days. “Welcome, Bell! How do you happen to be up here?”

“We’re underwriting some of the aqueduct contractors’ insurers. Hartford asked me to have a look at our interests.”

“Lucky you found me at home.”

“I suspected that phones and wires cut you loose from the city,” answered Bell, who had had an operative keeping tabs on Culp’s comings and goings since eliminating the other Cherry Grove suspects.

“Hop in! I’ll show you around.”

“I came especially to see your iceboat.”

Culp swung the auto onto a branch of the driveway that descended along the inside of the estate walls all the way down to the river, where crew barracks adjoined a boathouse. Yard workers were hauling sailboats up a marine railway. Inside the boathouse, his ice racer was suspended over the water, ready to be lowered when it froze. It had the broad stance of a waterspider, a lightweight contraption consisting of a strong triangular “hull”—two crossed spars of aluminum—with skate blades at the three corners.