Rockefeller stopped him with a gesture. “Right there! The Sun is nonsense. Newspapers are all nonsense. The less they know is all that’s important to me.”
“She doesn’t know you’re here.”
Rockefeller stared. “All right. I will have to take your word for it.”
“It’s not only my word, Mr. Rockefeller. It is my judgment. And I guarantee you, sir, if she had told me that she knew you were here, I would inform you immediately.”
Rockefeller shook his head and whispered, “She would never tell you.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“All right! I’m sending you to Moscow.”
“Moscow?” Matters was stunned. How could he work on the Persian pipe line from Moscow? “Why?”
“We need those refinery contracts. You have done all you can with the local officials. Now you must convince Moscow that the Standard’s thoroughgoing, able administration will do much better for Russia’s oil business than these old, good-for-nothing, rusted-out refineries. And if you can’t find the right officials in Moscow, you’ll go on to St. Petersburg.”
“But what about the pipe line?”
“First the refineries.”
Isaac Bell met Aloysius Clarke on the Baku waterfront. The oily, smoky air had been cleared by a sharp wind blowing across the bay from the Caspian. Lights were visible for miles along the great crescent harbor, and Bell saw stars in the sky for the first time since he had arrived in Baku.
Bell thought his old partner looked pretty good, all things considered. He was a big, powerful man who carried his extra weight well. His face was getting fleshy from drink, his mouth had a softness associated with indulgence, and his nose had taken on the rosy hue beloved by painters portraying lushes, but his eyes were still hard and sharp. It was difficult to tell what he was thinking, or if he was thinking at all, unless you caught an unguarded glimpse of his eyes, which was not likely. Besides, Bell told himself, a private detective mistaken for a drunkard bought the extra seconds required to get his foot in a door.
Wish wrapped his tongue around the English language with a self-taught reader’s love. “Best job I can remember. Sumptuous feasts and the finest wines shared nightly with a pair of lookers. And Joe Van Dorn pays the piper… How bad’s that arm?”
“Healing fast,” said Bell. He flicked open his coat to reveal a Colt Bisley single-action revolver where he usually holstered his automatic, and Wish nodded. Since Bell could not yet rely on the strength in his hand to work the slide to load a round into his automatic’s chamber, the special target pistol version of the Colt .45 was an accurate, hard-hitting substitute.
“How’d you get your paws on a Bisley?”
“You can buy anything in Baku.”
A sudden gust buffeted the sidewalk. Wish said, “I read somewhere that ‘Baku’ is Persian for ‘windbeaten.’”
They walked until they found a saloon that catered to sea captains who could afford decent food and genuine whiskey. They ate and drank and got comfortable reminiscing. Finally, Bell asked, “What do you think of the lookers?”
Wish had been his partner on tough cases. The two detectives trusted each other as only men could who had been stabbed in each other’s company and shot in each other’s company. Having solved every crime they tackled, they trusted each other’s instincts. Each was the other’s best devil’s advocate — roles they could bat back and forth like competition tennis players.
“Edna is a very serious young lady,” said Wish. “Angrier than you would think, at first, about the way Rockefeller’s ridden roughshod over her father. Nellie’s a show-off. She’d make a great actress. Or a politician. She’ll make a heck of a splash if she can pull off her New Woman’s Flyover stunt.”
He gave Bell an inquiring glance. “Which one did you fall for?”
“Haven’t made up my mind.”
Wish chuckled. “That sounds very much like both.”
“It is confusing,” Bell admitted. “There is something about Edna… But, then, there is something about Nellie…”
“What?”
“Edna’s deep as the ocean. Nellie dazzles like a kaleidoscope.”
“I don’t see either making a wife anytime soon.”
“I’m not rushing.”
A gust of wind stronger than the others shook the building. Sand blown across the bay rattled the windowpanes like hail.
“Let’s get to the real question,” said Wish. “Who’s the assassin shooting for?”
Bell said, “You know how they call Standard Oil the octopus?”
“Aptly,” said Wish.
“I’m thinking our mastermind is more like a shark. Hanging around this monster-size octopus, thinking if he can just sink his teeth into one or two arms, he’ll have himself the meal of a lifetime. He’s shifting the blame for his crimes to the Standard. If he can pull it off, he reckons to pick up some pieces. If it really goes his way, he figures he’ll control the second-biggest trust in oil.”
Wish nodded. “I’d call that basis for a mighty strong hunch.”
“He could be inside the company or an outsider, an oil man, or a railroad man, or in coal or steel. Even a corporation lawyer.”
“A valuable man,” said Wish, “a man on his way up… Say, where are you going? Have another.”
Bell had stood up and was reaching for money. “My ‘boss,’ Mr. Rockefeller, is waiting for me to confirm that Detective Aloysius Clarke is no longer a Van Dorn but a freelance bodyguard for Nellie Matters and E. M. Hock, who are traveling together for safety. And that Detective Clarke gave no hint to me that either knows that Mr. Rockefeller is in Baku.”
“Rockefeller? Never heard of him,” grinned Wish. He glanced at the bottle they were sharing. His gaze shifted to Bell’s arm in his sling. “Hold on,” he said, “I’ll walk you back.”
“Stay there. I’m O.K.”
“In the event you get in a gunfight of such duration that you have to reload, I would never forgive myself if I didn’t give your one hand a hand.”
Outside, the sharp north wind that had cleared the sky of smoke earlier was blowing a gale. The stars had disappeared again, obscured now by the sand that the harsh gusts were sucking into the air. The harbor lights were barely visible. A caustic blast rattled pebbles against walls.
“Look there!”
A graceful three-masted, gaff-rigged schooner struggled alongside an oil berth, sails furled, decks rippling with dark figures crowding to get off. The moment it landed, gangs of Tatars armed with rifles jumped onto the pier and ran toward the city.
Wish Clarke said, “If the city blows?”
“We evacuate.”
The sand-swirled sky over the oil fields across the bay was abruptly aglow.
Within the city itself, small-arms fire crackled.
They hurried up Vokzalnaya toward the railroad station. The gunfire got louder, pistol and rifle shots punctuated all of a sudden by the heavier churning of Army machine guns. Looking back, Bell saw the sky over the bay getting redder. A glow ahead marked mansions set afire in the Armenian district.
They broke into a run toward the hotel district.
“We’ll grab the ladies at your place,” said Bell, “then Mr. R. at mine.”
“Then what? Land or sea?”
“Whichever we can get to,” said Isaac Bell.
25
Isaac Bell telephoned John D. Rockefeller from the Astoria Hotel’s lobby.
“Pack one bag and wear your warmest coat. We’re running for it.”
“Is this logical?”