Detective James Dashwood descended from the upper deck. He looked paler than ever, Bell thought. His skin was dead white, and he was thin to the point of gaunt. His suit hung loosely on his frame.
“Of course,” said the range captain. “I should have guessed. Gentlemen, meet former lieutenant James Dashwood.”
The name drew respectful murmurs from the marksmen and sharpshooters. His service as an American Expeditionary Forces sniper in the trenches was legend.
“James,” the captain asked with a knowing smile. “Would you please show them your ‘rifle.’”
Dashwood gave a diffident shrug. He had a boyish voice. “That’s O.K., Captain.”
“Please, James. Your ‘rifle.’”
Dashwood looked around, clearly unhappy to be the center of attention. He saw Bell watching from the back. A pleased grin lit his face. Bell gave his former apprentice a proud thumbs-up.
Dashwood drew a pistol from his coat, held it up for all to see, and ducked his head shyly at the cheers.
When they were alone, walking down Park Avenue, Bell asked, “How are you feeling?”
“I’m O.K.”
“I asked for a reason,” said Bell. “How is your health?” Dashwood had been caught in a German gas attack and the chlorine had played havoc with his lungs.
“I have good days and bad. At the moment I’m doing O.K.”
“When’s the last time the coughing laid you low?”
“Last month. I got over it. What’s up, Mr. Bell?”
“I think you should start calling me Isaac.”
“O.K., Isaac,” Dashwood answered slowly, working his way around the unaccustomed way of conversing with the boss who had been his teacher, sage, and adviser all in one. “Why do you ask about my condition?”
“I promised Mr. Van Dorn to look after the agency until he recovers. I need a right hand. And a troubleshooter I can send around the continent.”
“Why not Archie Abbott?”
“Archie’s stuck in France.”
“Isn’t there anyone else?”
“None I’d prefer.” Bell stopped walking, looked Dashwood in the eye, and thrust out his hand. “Can we shake on it?”
“Telephone, Mr. Bell. Dr. Nuland at the morgue.”
“Hello, Shep. Thanks again for reporting on that powder.”
“Would you happen to be looking for a Russian?”
Bell felt a surge of excitement. “It’s likely that neck shot was by a Russian. Why?”
“I looked a little deeper when I got your note. About your hunch? Turns out in 1914, 1915, and 1916 the Aetna Explosives Company filled huge contracts to supply the Russian government with smokeless powder.”
After Bell put down the phone, he called someone he knew in the New York Police Department laboratory. He was a bullet expert who was paid well and regularly to do private work for the Van Dorn Detective Agency. “I’m calling about that shell casing they found at Roosevelt where a shooting victim was murdered. The one with the expansion ring from a Mann pistol. Any idea where it was manufactured?… What’s that?”
It sounded to Bell as if the expert was whispering into a mouthpiece muffled by his hand.
“Like I already told you, Mr. Bell, they got egg on their face, and it’ll cost me my job to speak a word. I’m really sorry, Mr. Bell. But they’ll sack me if I get caught.”
“No hard feelings,” said Bell and hung up. He was not surprised, but it had been worth a try. He had run into similar resistance with the Coast Guard. Every time he tried to interview the crew of CG-9, he was told she was out of reach, far at sea, or her radio was broken. The truth was, the Coast Guard brass were just as embarrassed about Van Dorn’s shooting as the cop brass were about the bungled police protection at the hospital.
He had managed to wrangle a glimpse of the report on the slug that Shepherd Nuland fished out of Johnny’s skull. But it had offered no clue to its source of manufacture. Which made the possible Russian source of the smokeless powder the only information as close to a fact that he could get his hands on.
He composed a Marconigram in Van Dorn cipher. The Radio Corporation of America would transmit it from the former Marconi Wireless Station in New Jersey to the liner Nieuw Amsterdam:
NECK SHOT POWDER POSSIBLY RUSSIAN.
It wasn’t much to go on. But it would give Pauline Grandzau something to think about on the boat. And when Pauline put her mind to something, something interesting often came of it.
11
Hooks Newdell’s new bosses, Matt and Jake, thought big, bigger than anyone Hooks had ever met up with — bigger than the Gophers, bigger than the White Hand Gang, even bigger than the Italians who were taking over the docks. Just looking at the huge government building they were going to break into made him nervous.
Matt and Jake were in the backseat of a Marmon parked on Greenwich Street under the Ninth Avenue El in Greenwich Village two blocks from the piers. Hooks was in front at the wheel. High above the El loomed the government building, a stone-and-brick monster rising ten stories in the night and filling the entire block bordered by Christopher, Greenwich, Barrow, and Washington streets. Hooks had always called it the Customs Building, but it was also known as the Appraisers’ Stores and the Samples Office, a huge storehouse where U.S. Customs took samples of imported goods to appraise how much they could tax the foreign shipments. Built like a fortress, it was also where the government stashed confiscated liquor and smuggled jewels and antiques and anything else valuable they got their paws on, like last week when customs agents intercepted a bunch of submachine guns being shipped to Ireland for the Sinn Féin. It was the kind of place that guys dreamed about busting into.
Matt and Jake were actually going to do it. A liquor deal to end all liquor deals.
Matt had bribed a Prohibition agent. The agent had told him when a big booze raid was planned and where the goods that the Dry agents seized would be stored — ground floor, right inside the Christopher Street entrance. This made things easy, Matt had explained. The building had acres of storerooms. There were ten elevators and three miles of hallways. Seven hundred clerks worked in it during the day. Near the front door made it easy, quick and easy in and out. Late at night even better. So Matt said.
But it made Hooks nervous and he couldn’t stop talking. As they waited for the signal from Matt’s man inside, he tried again to break the silence that they wrapped around themselves like armor.
“The guys in the car were saying that you mighta shot a detective, Matt.”
Matt did not answer.
“Did ya?”
Marat Zolner was assessing whether Hooks Newdell had potential. He needed an American to represent him when he didn’t want his face or accent noticed. But he was beginning to doubt that Hooks was the man. “Did ya what?”
“What the guys say. That you shot a private dick.”
“Hooks, did it ever occur to you that whoever said that stands a good chance of getting shot himself?”
Hooks Newdell backpedaled madly. “They didn’t mean nothin’. They was just guessing. It’s just that we—they—were wondering, are you the guys who shot Joseph Van Dorn?”
Zolner remained silent, and the nervous Hooks sealed his doom. The fool simply did not know when to shut his mouth.
“Did you guys go bonkers?” he blurted. “You shot Joe Van Dorn? Do you know who that is?”
“Only a detective.”
“It’s bad enough shooting any Van Dorn. Even a house dick. But you guys shot their boss.”
“It’s not like a cop.”
“The Van Dorns got a saying: ‘We never give up! Never!’”
“Words.”