“I know a way,” she said, “to knock them flat.”
Isaac Bell searched for Mary Higgins at the Tombs, the damp and gloomy city prison, still under construction, where the police had booked nearly a hundred women. He had last seen her half a block away in a crush of cops and boycotters, but before he fought his way to the spot she had vanished. A telephone call to the Cadillac Hotel had produced a messenger with a letter of introduction signed by Joseph Van Dorn. The Boss had already made enough friends in New York to get special treatment — as did Mary’s Irish name. But it didn’t help. The Halls of Justice had no record of a Mary Higgins being arrested.
“You might check the Emergency Hospital for Women on East Twenty-sixth,” said a sympathetic sergeant. “God forbid Miss Higgins may have fallen in the melee. Those Hebrew women are ferocious.”
“No hospitals closer?”
“Brooklyn?”
It was raining hard when he stepped out, and he stood sheltered under the portico while he looked for a horse cab or a streetcar. He spotted a cab and ran for it. A workman in a loose-fitting coat and slouch hat got to it first. A dirty bandage masked his nose and cheeks, and folds of a red neckerchief muffled his chin.
“Take it,” said Bell. Blood had soaked the bandage, and he guessed the poor devil had been caught in the riot.
“No, you take it,” the man said and turned away.
Bell had glimpsed the eyes under the brim of the hat, and his dream in the coal mine was suddenly as real as the rain pelting down. The man glanced back and headed around the corner. Bell hurried after him.
“Wait!”
The man walked faster.
“Wait. You, sir!”
Bell broke into a run.
The man he was following darted to the demolition site where the thick granite walls of the old Tombs were being leveled and slipped between two remaining columns. Maybe he had been injured working on the demolition, thought Bell.
“Hold on, there!”
The man looked back again. When he saw Bell still following, he ran down an exposed flight of stairs. Bell followed him, deep down, into an enormous cellar that reeked of decay. The little light there came from holes in the ceiling.
The man stopped suddenly.
“Are you following me?”
“Yes,” said Bell. “Didn’t you hear me shouting?” He peered at features obscured by bandage and neckerchief and shadowed by the hat. “Have we met, sir?”
“Not that I recall,” he answered through the folds of his neckerchief. “Where are you from?”
“West Virginia,” said Bell.
“Nope. Never been there.”
“Where are you from?”
“Mister, you’ve got cop written all over you, and I ain’t done nothing that gives no cop call to ask questions.”
“Shrewd eye,” said Bell, thinking that fear of cops could explain him running. “But not entirely accurate. I’m not a cop. I’m a private detective.”
“Dicks, cops, bulls, strikebreakers, you’re all the same to me. Back away, mister.”
“I’m asking you civilly,” said Bell. “Where are you from?”
“Don’t try and stop me.”
“I met you somewhere. I want to know where.”
The man moved fast, feinting like a heavyweight, with his left hand to jab and set Bell up for a knockout right. Isaac Bell was equally quick. His left flew to block the right, and his right cocked to counterpunch. But instead of swinging his fist, the amber-eyed man plunged his right hand into his coat and whipped out a revolver. The cold click of a hammer thumbed back to fire told the young detective he had been duped by a master.
“You look surprised.”
Bell peered past the gun into his eyes. Grady Forrer was right. In this dim light, they were gold. Equally odd was a tone of pride in the voice. Almost as if he expected Bell to express admiration for getting the drop on him. But what in blazes was going on? They had not ended up in this cellar by accident. The man had laid a trap, and Bell had obligingly walked right into it. He felt like a fool. But at least this proved that his dream in the mine had been no dream.
“Remove your pistol from your shoulder holster. Thumb and forefinger on the butt. If I don’t see your other three fingers, you’re dead.”
Bell reached slowly, opening his coat, gripping the butt of his single-action Colt Army with his thumb and forefinger and slowly pulling the revolver from his holster. The man reached for it. Bell placed it in his palm and he slipped it into his shoulder holster.
“Now your sleeve gun.”
Bell shook his two-shot derringer from his sleeve and handed it over.
“And your other one.”
“I don’t have another sleeve gun.”
“It’s in your coat pocket.” He snapped his fingers.
Bell pulled a single-shot derringer from his coat pocket. It was small and unusually lightweight — a “graduation” gift from Joe Van Dorn — and he had thought after repeated inspections that it did not bulge the pocket or tug the cloth.
“Sharp eyes,” he said.
“I’ve seen it before, sonny.”
Bell heard the pride he had hoped to elicit. Not a world-weary I’ve seen it before but a boast. Again the man seemed to be expecting applause. Bell was impressed. The man knew his business. But he was not about to clap. Not yet. Instead he said, “Seen it before? Or tracking me? Who are you?”
“The knife in your boot.”
He pointed the derringer he had taken from Bell in Bell’s face and swiveled his revolver down at Bell’s feet. It looked like a Colt, thought Bell, but the hammer was unusually wide, the frame’s top strap was flat, and the front sight had been removed, undoubtedly to smooth his fast draw.
“Which boot?”
“I can shoot a hole in one of them. Or you can show me — slowly!”
Bell pulled a throwing knife from his right boot. “Your hands are full. Where do you want it?”
“Stick it in that doorjamb, if you think you can hit it.”
The doorjamb, all that remained of the cellar woodwork not yet demolished, was twenty feet away. Bell raised his arm. The gun stayed pointed at his head. His blade flew across the cellar and stuck in the narrow strip of wood a quarter inch off dead center.
The man with amber eyes shrugged dismissively. “Your overhand throw wastes time.”
He dropped the derringer in his pocket, reached down under his trouser leg, and pulled out a flat sliver of steel identical to Bell’s.
“Here’s a better way.”
His hand flipped outward, with an underhand twist of his wrist. The knife hissed through the air and thudded beside Bell’s, dead center, in the jamb.
Bell was betting the man would repeat that self-congratulatory lapse of attention, and it happened. He gazed proudly, as if inviting Bell to express awe. It lasted only a fraction of a second but long enough to kick, Bell sinking the point of his boot into the man’s wrist.
His hand convulsed, his fingers splayed open.
Bell was already reaching to catch the gun when it dropped.
Too late. Moving with speed Bell would not have believed if he didn’t see it, the man caught the falling gun in his left hand, sidestepped Bell’s rush, and swung hard, raking Bell’s temple with the barrel. The young detective saw stars, pinwheeled across the cellar, and slammed into a wall.
He sprang to his feet and was trying to shake sense into his head and launch a counterattack when a trio of workmen thundered down the stairs to resume demolition of the cellar.
“What in hell—”
The man in the long coat brushed past them and bounded up the steps with his gun and all three of Bell’s.
Bell, scattering the trio with a bellowed “Gangway!” yanked both throwing knives from the doorjamb and tore after him.