“Youse sure youse wanna do dis?” asked the bookie, who knew a private detective when he saw one.
“I am absolutely positive,” said Isaac Bell. “In fact, now that you ask, let’s make it two thousand.”
“It’s your funeral, mister. But would it be O.K. if I ask youse a little somethin’ first?”
“What?”
“Is de fix in?”
“Fix? It’s not a horse race.”
“I know it ain’t no horse race. But it’s still a race. Is de fix in?”
“Absolutely not. There’s no fix,” said Isaac Bell. “The race is sanctioned by the American Aeronautical Society. It’s honest as the day is long.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah, only dis girl is Harry Frost’s wife.”
“She has nothing to do with Harry Frost anymore.”
“Oh yeah?”
Bell caught a mocking note in the man’s voice. A suggestion that Musto was in on a joke that Bell hadn’t heard yet. “What do you mean by that, Johnny?”
“She ain’t with Harry no more? Den why’s he hangin’ ’round?”
“What?” Bell gripped Musto’s arm so hard, the bookie winced.
“I saw dis fellow yesterday looked just like him.”
Bell loosened his grip but fixed him just as sternly with his eye. “How well do you know Frost?” All the evidence he’d gathered thus far pointed to a man who’d not been seen in public in years.
Johnny Musto puffed up proudly. “The biggest sportin’ men come to Johnny Musto. I took Mr. Frost’s bets when he used to visit Belmont Park.”
“How long ago was that?”
“I dunno. Four years, I guess.”
“You mean the year the track first opened?”
“Yeah, I guess so. Seems longer.”
“What did he look like, Johnny?”
“Big fella, shoulders like a bull. Grew himself a beard. Like’s drawn on dat poster dere.” He nodded at a Van Dorn wanted poster glued to a pillar that depicted Frost with a beard.
“He looks like that picture?”
“’Ceptin’ his grew in all gray. Makes him look a lot older than he used to.”
“A lot older? Then what makes you so sure it’s him?”
“He was mutterin’ to himself just like he used to. Shovin’ past folks like they weren’t dere. Turnin’ red in de face for no reason. Red as a beefsteak. Just like he used to before they locked him in de bughouse.”
“If you were so sure it was Frost, Johnny, why didn’t you turn him in for the reward? Five thousand dollars is a lot of money even for a bookmaker who handles the biggest sportsmen.”
The Belmont Park bookie looked at the tall detective with an expression of disbelief. “You ever go to da circus, mister?”
“Circus? What are you talking about?”
“I’m askin’, do ya go to da circus?”
Bell decided to humor him. “Often. In fact, when I was a youngster, I ran away from home to join a circus.”
“Did ya ever stick your head in de lion’s mouth?”
“Come on, Johnny. You’ve been around. You know that Van Dorns protect people who help them.”
“From Harry Frost? Don’t make me laugh.”
8
WHEN NIGHT FELL ON BELMONT PARK, the aviators and mechanicians pulled canvas shrouds over their airships to protect their fabric wings from dampness. They anchored the machines to tent pegs driven deep in the ground in case a wind sprang up. Then they trooped off to the rail yard to sleep on their support trains. Somewhere in the distance a bell clock chimed eleven.
Then all was quiet in the infield.
Two shadows materialized from beneath the grandstand.
The Jonas brothers had driven out from Brooklyn in an ice truck, arriving in daylight to get the lay of the land. Now, with the moon and stars hidden by clouds, they walked boldly in the dark, crossing the racetrack and scrambling over the inside rail into the infield. They headed for Joe Mudd’s aeroplane, choosing it because it was off to one side and easy to find. But as they approached they heard snoring. They slowed and crept closer. Two mechanicians, built like hod carriers, were sleeping under the wings. The Jonases slithered off to the far side of the infield, steering clear of Josephine Joseph’s Celere monoplane, which they had seen earlier, before night fell, was surrounded by humorless Van Dorn detectives armed with shotguns. Far across the field, they chose a different victim, not knowing it was the French-built Farman biplane owned by the Channel-crossing English baronet Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin.
They confirmed that no one was sleeping nearby, removed the canvas shroud from one double wing, which was faintly silhouetted against the dark sky, and studied its construction. They did not know a lot about flying machines, but they recognized a truss when they saw one. The only difference between this double wing and a railroad bridge was that instead of the truss being constructed of steel uprights and diagonals, the two planes of the wing were supported by wood uprights counterbraced by diagonal wire stays.
Having figured out what made the Farman’s wing strong, the Jonas brothers set about weakening it. They felt in the dark for the turnbuckle used to tighten the strong multistranded stay that angled from the top plane to the bottom plane.
“Roebling wire,” George whispered. “Good thing Frost said no hacksaw. It would take all night to cut this.”
Shielding a flashlight in their hands, they inspected the turnbuckle. A strand of safety wire had been wrapped around it to prevent it from loosening from vibration. They carefully unwound the safety wire, unscrewed the turnbuckle to slacken the Roebling wire stay until they could remove the end from its connection to the wing, and replaced the steel anchor in that connection with a fragile one made of aluminum.
They tightened the turnbuckle until the stay hummed again, carefully rewound the safety wire exactly as they’d found it, and draped the shroud back over the wing. They took care to note which aeroplane they had sabotaged – Harry Frost had made it clear he had to know – checked the color of the wing fabric with their flashlight, left the infield and the track, found their truck, and drove to a nearby farm, where they parked and fell asleep. An hour after dawn they met Harry Frost in Hempstead where he had told them to and reported which machine they had sabotaged.
“Describe it!”
“Biplane. One propeller.”
“Front or back?”
“Back.”
“What color?”
“Blue.”
Frost paid them one hundred dollars each – more than a month’s salary for a skilled mechanician even if he had a generous boss.
“Not bad for one night,” Georgie Jonas said to Peter Jonas on the long drive home to Brooklyn. But first they had to fill the ice truck as payment to their brother-in-law, who owned it. They weighed out a load at a waterfront “bridge” controlled by the American Ice Company trust. Four dollars a ton.
George asked, “How about the fifty-cent rebate?”
“Independent dealers don’t get rebates.”
Peter said, “There’s supposed to be two thousand pounds in a ton. How come the ton you charged us for only weighs eighteen hundred pounds?”
“It’s ice. It melted.”
“But you’re supposed to slip in a couple of hundred extra pounds to cover melting.”
“Not for independents,” said the trust man. “Move your truck, you’re blocking the bridge.”
“This isn’t fair.”
“What are you going to do about it?”
They rode the trolley home to their favorite saloon, laughing how they should persuade Harry Frost to reform the ice business. What a racket. Add it all up, the trust controlled ice harvesting, shipping it, storing it, distributing it, and selling it. Had to be ten million bucks a year. The Jonas boys laughed louder. Harry Frost would reform it, all right. Harry Frost would take it over.
It was a beautiful morning. With several beers and a couple of hard-boiled eggs under their belts, they decided to ride the electric train back to Belmont Park to watch the blue biplane fall out of the sky.