The Gangster (Isaac Bell #9)(81)

“What about your big idea to discredit the city aqueduct? How can you do that in Canada?”

Branco spoke mildly again, but his answer made no sense. “Would you look at your watch?”

“What?”

“Tell me the time.”

“Time to make a new arrangement, like I’ve been telling you all morning.”

“What time is it?” Branco repeated coldly.

Culp tugged a thick gold chain. “Two minutes to eleven.”

Branco raised two fingers. “Wait.”

“What? Listen here, Branco—”

“Bring your field glasses.”

Branco strode into an alcove framed with tusks and out a door onto a balcony. The day was cold and overcast. Snow dusted the hills. The frozen river was speckled with ice yachts and skate sailors skimming the glassy surface. He gazed expectantly at Breakneck Mountain, three-quarters of a mile opposite his vantage on Storm King.

Culp joined him with binoculars. “What the devil—”

The Italian stilled him with an imperious gesture. “Watch the uptake shaft.”

A heavy fog of steam and coal smoke loomed over the lift machinery at the top of the shaft, the engine house, and the narrow-gauge muck train. Culp raised his field glasses and had just focused on the mouth of the siphon uptake when suddenly laborers scattered and engineers leapt from their machines.

“What’s going on?”

Branco said, “Remember who I am.”

A crimson bolt of fire pierced the smoke and steam and shot to the clouds. The sound of the explosion crossed the river seconds later and reverberated back and forth between Breakneck Mountain and Storm King.

Culp watched men running like ants, then focused on the wreckage of the elevator house. It appeared that the lift cage itself had fallen to the bottom of the thousand-foot shaft, which was gushing black smoke.

“What in blazes was that?”

“Four hundred pounds of dynamite to discredit the city.”





39





The New York newspapers arrived on the morning train.

OVERTURNED LANTERN SET OFF AQUEDUCT NITROGLYCERIN FUSE

The overturning of a lantern at the Catskill Aqueduct Hudson River Siphon at Storm King ignited a fuse that set off 400 pounds of dynamite destroying the east siphon uptake engine house and elevator.



“The papers got it wrong. As usual,” Wally Kisley told Isaac Bell. “The contractor runs an up-to-date enterprise. There weren’t any fuses to ignite. They fire the shots electrically.”

“Are you certain it was sabotage?” asked Bell.

“Sabotage with a capital S. Very slick timing device. You gotta hand it to these Eye-talians, Isaac. They are masters of dynamite.”

Kisley sat down abruptly. Bell reckoned that the long trek down to the tunnel and back up by makeshift bosun’s chairs and rickety ladders had exhausted him. But to Bell’s astonishment, the tough old bird covered his face with his hands.

“You O.K., Wally?”

Kisley took a breath. “I can’t claim I’m a stranger to carnage.”

Bell nodded. Kisley and Mack Fulton and Joe Van Dorn had worked on the Haymarket Massacre case to determine who had thrown the bomb, and, in the ensuing twenty years, scores more bombing cases. “Goes with the job,” he said softly.



“The men were hammered. The tunnel looked like a reefer car leaving the slaughterhouse.”

“The wooden framework of the engine house crumbled and beams crashed downward toward the machinery that operates the elevator. One beam struck a brake handle, releasing the heavy wooden cage, which crashed at full speed downward to the bottom of the shaft. Twisted into a mass of debris, it choked the passage and blotted out the air and light.

“The contractor assures the public that the shaft itself was not damaged.”

J. B. Culp laughed. “No one will believe that.”

“That they had to print the lie,” Branco agreed, “tells us they are in terror.”

“Asked whether the explosion confirmed speculation about Black Hand letters threatening to attack the water system, the contractor answered vehemently, ‘No. This is the Catskill Water Supply, not some poor devil’s pushcart.’

“The Mayor concurred, saying, ‘The Water Supply Board Police have investigated thoroughly and find absolutely not one shred of evidence to support such speculation. It was an accident, pure and simple, a terrible accident, and the faster it is cleaned up and order restored, the sooner the city will receive fresh water from the Catskills.’

“Asked to comment on talk of a strike by terrorized Italian laborers fearing another Black Hand attack, the contractor said, ‘They are paid well and treated well and have no intention of striking.’

“Tunnel work will continue as soon as the ruins are lifted out by means of horses and a windlass. Besides three Americans killed, there were among the dead numerous Italians and Negroes.”

“What were Negroes doing down in the tunnel?” asked Culp.

“Best rock drillers in the business. And the contractor keeps some around in case Italians get any ideas of striking for higher wages.”

“What about this strike they’re talking about? Labor striking would make the city look like they lost control of the job. Will they strike?”