They clinked glasses of seltzer lemonade with the fond respect of friends at the top of their games—men who ran cities had not the luxury to drink like elected officials—and traded gossip that others would pay fortunes to hear. Eventually, Fryer, who had a reception room full of cops, contractors, priests, and franchise grabbers waiting to see him, asked Claypool, with only the merest hint of time’s pressure, “To what do I owe the pleasure of your presence?”
“I would like to meet a fellow who can help arrange something unusual.”
The word “unusual” caused Fryer’s eyes to narrow fractionally.
“Brandon Finn’s your man. Tell him I sent you.”
“It could be too unusual for Finn,” Claypool answered carefully.
Boss Fryer stood up. “Brandon will know who to send you to,” he replied, and both men knew the Boss had washed his hands of work best left to henchmen and heelers.
“Run-a! Run-a, Pasquale!”
They were after him again, and Sante Russo ran for his life, wondering why tramps, who were growing thin as food ran out and the first waves of winter cold oozed down the Wasatch Mountains, would waste their strength tormenting a single soul as poor as themselves.
He wanted to turn around and say, I won’t eat much. Just leave me alone.
“Run, you dago!”
The out-of-work miner leading the mob had a pick handle. If they caught him, he would die. An awful voice inside said it might hurt less than running. But he ran anyway, praying he didn’t trip and fall on the rough ground, fleeing the hobo camp, fleeing the hobos and the woods and swamps where they hid from the police.
Russo veered toward a distant creek, hoping the bed was dry enough to cross. But it was deep, the water running hard. They had him trapped. He turned hopelessly to his fate. As if things couldn’t get worse, an enormous automobile suddenly careened out of the gloom, headlights and searchlight blazing. Now it was a race. Who would get to him first? The miner with the pick handle? The second mob, scooping up rocks to throw at him? Or the auto, belching blue smoke as the driver accelerated to run him over? Russo, who had dreamed of someday earning enough money to buy an auto, recognized a fifty-horsepower Thomas Flyer. It was heaped with spare tires, outfitted for crossing rough country. Would they use its tow rope to lynch him from a tree?
Russo was turning to jump in the creek when the driver shouted, “Sante Russo!”
Russo gaped. How did he know his name?
The auto skidded alongside in a cloud of dust. “Get in! On the jump!”
The driver grabbed Russo’s hand and yanked him into the seat beside him. A rock whizzed between them, just missing their heads.
A tall man stepped from the mob with another rock in his hand. He wound up like a professional baseball pitcher, slowly coiling strength in his arm, and began to throw. The driver pulled a pistol from his coat. The gun roared. The pitcher fell backwards.
“Mister?” asked Russo. “Who are you?”
“Bell. Van Dorn Agency . . . Hang on!”
Isaac Bell depressed the Flyer’s clutch, shifted the speed-changing lever, and stomped the accelerator pedal. Drive chains clattered, and the rear tires churned sand, fighting for a grip. The Flyer lurched into motion, and Bell zigzagged around brush, rocks, and yawning gullies. The bunch he had shot at was backing off. But the main mob, egged on by the guy with a pick handle, was blocking their escape. Bell raised his voice. “I’ll shoot the first man who throws another rock.”
“There’s twenty of us,” the leader bawled. “Gonna shoot us all?”
“Most. Fun’s over. Go home!”
For a moment, Bell thought he had them cowed. Instead, both mobs edged closer. Rocks flew. One grazed his hat. Another bounced off the hood. A third hit the center-mounted searchlight, which exploded, scattering glass. Bell fired inches over their heads, spraying bullets as fast as he could pull the trigger.
Some ran. Others surged forward. He saw a flicker of motion and fired in that direction. A rusty pistol went flying. He sent two more quick shots whistling close to their ears, and his hammer clicked on an empty shell. The mobs were closer, twenty feet away. With no time to reload, Bell shouted for Russo to hold tight and shifted up to third gear.
Two and a half thousand pounds of Thomas Flyer thundered at the mob. All but one man ran. He threw himself at the auto and grabbed at the steering wheel. Isaac Bell flattened him with his gun barrel.
He pressed the accelerator, speeding over rough ground for a quarter mile, and turned onto a dirt track that led toward Ogden. Russo sagged with relief. But when the town hove into view, the Italian asked, “What you want from me?”
“Help with my investigation,” Bell answered and said nothing more until he pulled up in front of a hotel on 25th Street that had a haberdashery on the ground floor. The fact was, he had no idea whether Russo had run from New York because the overcharge that blew up the water mains was an accident, or was sabotage by the Black Hand, or had been laid by Russo himself for the Black Hand.
He led him into the hotel.
The front desk clerk said, “We don’t rent rooms to dagos.”
Bell put a ten-dollar gold piece on the counter and laid his Colt next to it. The gun reeked of burnt gunpowder. “This gentleman is not a dago. He is Mr. Sante Russo, a friend of the Van Dorn Detective Agency. Mister Russo will occupy a room with a bath. And you will send that haberdasher up with a suit of clothes, hose, drawers, and a shirt and necktie.”
“I’m calling the house detective.”
Winter stole into the tall detective’s eyes. The violet shade that sometimes accompanied a smile or a pleasant thought had vanished, and the blue that remained was as dark and unforgiving as a mountain blizzard.
“Don’t if you don’t want him hurt.”
The clerk pocketed the gold piece, the better part of a week’s pay, and extended the register. Bell signed it.
MR. SANTE RUSSO C/O VAN DORN DETECTIVE AGENCY
KNICKERBOCKER HOTEL, NEW YORK CITY
“Tell the haberdasher not to forget to bring a belt. And some shoes. And a handkerchief.”
Bell sat in an armchair while Russo bathed. It had been a long day and night since he left Marion in San Francisco. His wounded neck ached, as did his knees, elbows, shoulder, and hands, from the fight under the train. A knock at the door awakened him. The haberdasher had brought a tailor and a stock boy. They had Russo decked out in an hour.
The blaster marveled at the mirror.
“I am thank-a you very much, Signore Bell. I never look such.”
“You can thank me by taking a close look at this.”
Bell tossed the hollow red tube. Russo caught it on the fly, took one glance, and sat down hard on the bed. “Where you find this?”
“You tell me.”
“Not atta church. Not possible. Nothing left.”
“What do you mean?”
“Big-a bang. Big-a bang ever.”
“Are you saying that this stick could not possibly have been blown clear of that explosion?”
“Not possible.”
Which led Bell to the bigger question. “The sticks you disconnected . . . were they like this one?”
“Same stick. Where you get?”
“What do you mean the same? You just said it wasn’t possible.”
“Not same, same. Same-a . . . marca. Marca!” He pointed at the Stevens name printed on the tube. “Where you get?”
“Same brand?”
“Uhhh?”
“Label?”
Russo shrugged.
“Mark?”
“Si. Marca. Where you get?”
“Mano Nero,” said Isaac Bell.
“Same. Yes. Si. Mano Nero make-a overcharge. Like I say.”
On his way to the Ogden train depot Isaac Bell stopped at Van Dorn’s field offic
e. A wire had come in for him on the private telegraph line, Helen Mills reporting triumphantly, in Van Dorn cipher,
ALMOST PROMOTABLE
LYNCH ARRESTS PENNSYLVANIA GREEN GOODSER
SAME PAPER
Bell wired Mack Fulton and Wally Kisley,
FIND WHO BOUGHT PAPER AND INK
PRINTER’S ROW BRING HELEN
STAY OUT OF AGENT LYNCH WAY
and ran for his train.
He had three days to New York to ponder how the Black Hand case had grown both larger and oddly interconnected. Sante Russo identifying the same dynamite and the Black Handers’ penchant for the same stationery had pretty much confirmed that four separate crimes—kidnapping little Maria Vella, the dynamite overcharge that wrecked her father’s business, bombing Banco LaCava, and the Black Hand attack on Luisa Tetrazzini were engineered by the same gang. And now counterfeiting? A gang of all-rounders? he wondered.
Except that all-rounders did not exist. Criminals were inclined to repeat themselves. Like most people, they stuck with what they knew best and trusted that what had worked before would work again. Strong-arm men intimidated, confidence men tricked, safecrackers blew vaults, thieves stole, kidnappers snatched, bank robbers robbed banks.
Changing trains in Chicago, Bell found a wire from Harry Warren waiting for him on the 20th Century Limited. Harry, too, found all-rounders unusual and said as much in the telegram.
PENNSYLVANIA GREEN GOODSER SALATA THUG
ODD
I’LL MEET YOUR TRAIN
“Ernesto!” said Charlie Salata. “Where you running off to?”
Ernesto Leone’s heart sank. Salata had two gorillas with him and they blocked any hope of escape.
“I’m not running. I’m going home. You know I got a room in this house.”
“Invite me in.”
The four men climbed a flight of stairs. The counterfeiter unlocked his door. The gorillas stayed in the hall. Leone lighted a sputtering gas jet. The broad-shouldered Salata filled the room. Last time he was here, he stole some expensive paper. This time, it seemed to Leone, that he was sucking out the air.
“Listen, Charlie. I told the Boss the money wasn’t ready. He wouldn’t listen.”
“Don’t blame the Boss.”
“I’m not blaming him. I’m just saying . . . Oh, come on, Charlie. We knew each other since we was kids. You go your way, I go mine, but we’re not enemies.”
Salata slid his fingers inside a terrible set of brass knuckles. A blade jutted from the metal rings. Leone stared at the weapon. Maimed or stabbed? How would Salata do him up?
Salata raised his fist very slowly and pressed the knuckles to Leone’s cheek. Leone could see the blade in the corner of his eye. Salata said, “I got a man in jail. Thousand dollars bail.”
“I’ll get the bail.” Where? He could only wonder.
“What else?”
“What do you mean?”
“What else you going to do to make it up?”
“I’ll do what I can. What do you want? I’m getting better paper. You want part of the new stuff?”
“That was the last time I ever pass false money.”
“Then what?”
“Me and Ferri got something started.”
“Ferri?” echoed Leone. Roberto Ferri was a smuggler. “Since when do you hang with Ferri?”
“Since the Boss said to . . . You come on this business, make it up to us.”
“What can I do for your business?”
“My guy took a fall. I want you to take a fall.”
“For what? I’m just a counterfeiter.”
“You’re a lousy counterfeiter. But you’re still prominente. Guys know you’re not cafon. If this thing goes wrong, you’ll take the blame.”
“The cops won’t buy that. They know I’m only a counterfeiter.”
Salata pivoted his hand. The knuckles turned away from Leone’s cheek. The blade lined up with his eye. “Not for cops.”
“Van Dorns?”
Salata laughed. “You’ll wish it was Van Dorns.”
Harry Warren was waiting for Isaac Bell on the platform at Grand Central with news of another Secret Service arrest.
“Agent Lynch is having a banner week. Secret Service just pinched a guy passing the same queer upstate.”
“Salata’s?”
“Nope. A Ferri guy.”
“Who’s Ferri?”
“Runs a bunch of smugglers.”
Bell led the way out of the chaotic terminal, dodging work gangs and skirting gaping holes in the concourse floor. “Why’s a smuggler taking chances passing the queer?”
“Odd keeps piling up,” said Warren. “Like I said about Charlie Salata’s boy pinched in Pennsylvania.”
“Same paper?”
“Same queer, same paper.”
“What are the odds that Salata’s turned counterfeiter?”
“Same odds as a grizzly bear hosting a church supper. Anyhow, Agent Lynch told Helen the stuff was lame. The paper. No surprise they got caught. But the engraving was top-notch. Lynch thinks it was done by a guy named Ernesto Leone. Learned his trade in Italy and has trained a bunch of apprentices here.”
“Helen got a lot out of Lynch.”
“She’d given Lynch a description of Leone shopping on Printer’s Row, so I guess Lynch figured he owed her.”
“Did Lynch happen to tell Helen what the prisoners admit to?”
“That smitten he ain’t. Helen asked. He sent her packing.”
“Permanently?”
“’Fraid so. I don’t think we’ll get any more out of the Secret Service.”
The long-legged Bell set a fast pace across town to the office. Harry Warren trotted to keep up.
“You ever hear of this Ferri teaming with Salata?” Bell asked.
“Nope.”
Bell said, “I never heard of an outfit of all-rounders. Birds of a feather is more the rule, but these guys are combining extortion, bombing, counterfeiting, smuggling, kidnapping. Crimes of brute force and crimes of quick wit. Is it an alliance of gangs—a ‘cartel’ of criminals? Or is a single mastermind forcing a variety of gangsters to do his bidding?”
“Damned-near impossible to whip any bunch of crooks into line,” said Warren. “Not to mention different kinds.”
“Cartel or mastermind, they’d be bigger, tougher, and better organized than the small-timers who call themselves Black Hand to scare folks. Makes me wonder what they’ll turn their hands to next.”
“Anything that pays,” said Harry Warren.
Bell said, “Or what they’ll stop at.”
12
You are hereby invited to Pink Tea
With Captain Michael Coligney
19th Precinct Station House
West 30th Street
3 p.m.
Sharp
A New York Police Department officer wearing a blue coat with shiny brass buttons and a tall helmet strolled the Tenderloin, twirling a nightstick and knocking on brothel doors with printed invitations for the proprietors.
Nick Sayers, proud owner of the Cherry Grove bordello, showed up early at the station house, ahead of his competitors. They trooped in soon after, looking anxious. Sayers waited with a small smile on his face. Captain Coligney’s Pink Teas routinely culminated in orders to “resort keepers” to shut down their “disorderly houses” within twenty-four hours. But unlike his competitors, Nick Sayers had an ace in the hole, information to sell that even “Honest Mike” would buy.
Someone had tipped off the newspapers, of course, and police reporters crammed into Coligney’s office, which was already packed with his invited guests, who were dressed to the nines.
“Will this change anything, Captain Coligney?” demanded the man from the Sun. “Won’t new owners switch names and open up again?”<
br />
The broad-shouldered, handsome Coligney was resplendent in dress uniform and amply prepared to deal with the press. “Shutting down the resorts is better and fairer than hauling poor, unfortunate women into the station house, holding them for the night in jail, and dragging them into court before they’re turned loose.”
Having quelled the press, he turned to his guests.
“Gentlemen, and ladies”—he nodded gallantly to several wealthy proprietresses—“we have tea, sandwiches, and cakes, but before we partake, please be aware that you are hereby enjoined to shut down your disorderly houses in twenty-four hours. I don’t want to see an open door or a light in the window after three o’clock tomorrow afternoon.”
Tea was downed, splashed liberally from flasks, sandwiches and sweets consumed, and soon everyone left except the owner of the Cherry Grove.
“Nick,” said Captain Coligney. “Shouldn’t you be off packing your bags?”
“Well, Captain, you would think so, wouldn’t you?”
A note of supreme confidence in Nick’s voice brought the captain up short. “Apparently, you don’t agree, Nick. Care to tell me about it?”
“I would prefer to keep my house open.”
“I would prefer to spend my summers in Newport, but I don’t see it in the cards.”
“I see it in my cards,” said Nick. “And I’m going to play them right.”
“An ace in the hole?” Coligney asked with a dangerous glint in his eye. The bejeweled and cologned Nick was a former “fancy man” who had developed a flair for business that turned a string of streetwalkers into the Ritz of the Tenderloin, and Mike Coligney had heard just about enough.
But Nick stood his ground. “Four aces.”
Coligney formed a fist. “I’m warning you, boy-o, you’re about to run into a straight flush.”
“Captain Coligney, I’m offering you priceless information in return for being allowed to stay open.”
“Priceless?”
“And vital.”
Coligney pointed at the clock on the wall. “Thirty seconds.”
“A secret club meets in my house. Wall Street men. So secret that even you didn’t know about it.”
The Gangster Page 9