“Eyes said to take him for all he’s got and lend him dough to lose more.”
“Sounds like Eyes wants to have something on him.”
“Won’t be hard. Ted Whitmark is a gambling fool.”
“What do you get out of it?” Weeks asked, pouring himself another highball.
“Part of our arrangement,” Tommy answered. “Eyes has been mighty generous. If he wants Mr. Whitmark to lose his dough at poker and get in hock to lose some more, it’s a pleasure to help him.”
As Weeks poured his third drink, it occurred to him that Commodore Tommy Thompson was normally more tight-lipped. He wondered what made him so talkative all of a sudden. Jaysus! Was Tommy inviting him to share in the Gophers?
“Want to hear how I did Bell?”
Tommy shut the trapdoor and gestured for his bouncer to turn on the light. “You see that over there on the table? You see what that is?”
“It’s a telephone,” Weeks answered. It looked brand-new, all shiny, the candlestick type you saw in the best joints. “You’re getting up-to-date, Tommy. Didn’t know you had it in ya.”
Tommy Thompson grabbed Weeks by his lapels, effortlessly picked the smaller man off the floor, and threw him hard against the wall. Weeks found himself on the carpet, his head ringing, his brain squirming. “What?”
Tommy kicked him in the face. “You didn’t kill Bell!” he roared. “That telephone tells me that right now Bell is grilling everybody who works in that club.”
“What?”
“The telephone says the Van Dorn’s alive. You didn’t kill him.”
Iceman Weeks pulled the pistol that he had taken from the Cumberland Hotel house dick. Tommy’s bouncer stepped on his hand and took it away from him.
THE MANAGER OF THE YALE CLUB woke the staff and gathered them in the big kitchen on the top floor. They knew Isaac Bell as a regular who remembered their names and was generous when the club’s no-tipping rule was waived at Christmas. All of them, manager, housekeeper, barman, chambermaids, porters, and front-desk clerk, clearly wanted to be of help when Bell asked, “Where did the trunk outside my door on the third floor come from?”
No one could answer. It had not been there when the day shift ended at six. A night-shift waiter had noticed it when passing by with room service at eight. The freight-elevator operator had not seen it, but he admitted taking a long dinner between six and eight. Then Matthew, who had stayed at the front door after Bell interviewed him privately, suddenly appeared, saying, “The new laundress? Mr. Bell. I found her across the street, weeping.”
Bell turned to the housekeeper. “Mrs. Pierce, who is the laundress?”
“The new girl, Jenny Sullivan. She doesn’t live in the house yet.”
“Matthew, could you bring her in?”
Jenny Sullivan was small and dark and trembling with fear. Bell said, “Sit down, miss.”
She stood rigid by the chair. “I didn’t mean no harm.”
“Don’t be afraid, you’ve-” He reached to comfort her with a gentle hand on her arm. Jenny screamed in pain and shrank back.
“What?” Bell said. “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to hurt-Mrs. Pierce, could you look after Jenny?”
The kindly housekeeper led the girl away, speaking to her softly.
“I think everyone can go back to bed,” said Bell. “Good night. Thank you for your help.”
When Mrs. Pierce returned, she had tears in her eyes. “The girl is beaten black-and-blue from her shoulders to her knees.”
“Did she say who did it?”
“A man named Weeks.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Pierce. Get her to a hospital-not in the district where she lives but the best in the city. I will pay all expenses. Stint on nothing. Here’s money for immediate needs.” Bell pressed it in the housekeeper’s hand and hurried to his room.
Swiftly, methodically, he cleaned his Browning and replaced the spent shell. Wondering again whether a heavier gun would have stopped Weeks before he could stab Alasdair MacDonald, he took a Colt.45 automatic from his safe. He checked the loads in his derringer and put on his hat. He stuffed the Colt and spare ammunition for both guns in his coat pockets and went down the stairs three at a time.
Matthew recoiled from the expression on his face. “Are you all right, Mr. Bell?”
“Not that you would frequent the joint, Matthew, but do you know the address of Commodore Tommy’s Saloon?”
“I believe it is way far across West 39th, almost to the river. But if I ever did ‘frequent the joint,’ ” he added bluntly, “I would not go alone.”
21
ISAAC BELL CHARGED OUT OF THE YALE CLUB. MEN WHO saw him coming moved aside. He crossed Sixth Avenue and Seventh, ignoring the blare of auto horns, and turned downtown on Eighth Avenue. On the nearly deserted sidewalk Bell increased his pace and yet he could not outpace the thundering anger in his head. At West 39th Street he broke into a run.
A police officer in his path, a big man patrolling with a twenty-six-inch nightstick and revolver, looked him over and quietly crossed the street. At Ninth Avenue groups of men and a few women, mostly older, shabbily dressed, with the despairing features of the homeless, had gathered on the streetcar tracks under the El. They were staring up into the dark structure of fan-top columns that supported the overhead train tracks. Bell shouldered through them. Then he stopped short. A man in a sack suit was hanging by his neck from a rope tied to a transverse girder.
An express train on the middle track thundered overhead. As it clattered away and silence descended, someone muttered, “Looks like the Gophers wanted the Iceman should die slow.”
Bell saw what he meant. They hadn’t bound the dead man’s hands. His fingers had caught under the noose as if he were still tugging at his throat. His eyes were bulging and his mouth was locked in a terrible grimace. But even wearing the mask of death, he was beyond any doubt the man who had killed Alasdair MacDonald in Camden.
A drunk snickered, “Maybe the Iceman committed suicide.”
“Yeah,” answered his companion sarcastically. “And maybe the Pope is dropping by Commodore Tommy’s for a beer.”
They laughed. A toothless old woman turned on them. “Would you mock the dead?”
“He deserves what he got. Evil mug.”
An old man in a slouch hat growled, “No Gopher ever killed another because he was evil, ya silly bastards. They killed the Iceman because he was getting too big for his britches.”