The Gangster

by Clive Cussler

  “Have another.”

  He took the glass and poured it full again. “Tell me,” he said, still holding the glass, “how would the killer be told the target?”

  Ghiottone, thoroughly beaten, could not meet his eye. He tried to speak and found he could whisper. “When you give me the killer’s name, I pass it up to—”

  “To Adam Quiller.”

  Ghiottone nodded.

  Branco frowned. “Then the target is passed all the way back down the chain? That sounds slow, cumbersome, and not private enough. I don’t believe you are telling me all the truth.”

  “I am, padrone. They didn’t say how, but it would not come down the chain. They have some other way of telling him the target.”

  “And the money? The fifty thousand? How does that come?”

  Ghiottone straightened up. “Through me. They will send me the money when the job is done. My job is to give it to you.”

  Branco handed him the glass, saying, “That makes you a very valuable man.”

  Ghiottone lifted it in both hands and threw back his head. This time, most of the water entered his mouth. He swallowed, reveling in the coldness of it, and tipped the glass to finish it.

  Branco stuffed the body in a sugar barrel and nailed it shut and went to his stable, where he woke up an old Sicilian groom and ordered him to hitch up a garbage cart and dump the barrel in the river. Then he went hunting for Adam Quiller.

  21

  Late in the afternoon, when the Van Dorn detective bull pen filled with operatives preparing for the night by perusing the day’s newspapers and exchanging information, Isaac Bell sat alone, opening and closing a pocket knife, reviewing notes in the memo book open beside him, and listening.

  “Tribune says the Harbor Squad found “Kid Kelly” Ghiottone floating in the river.”

  “Looks like the Wallopers got some back.”

  “Why would the Wallopers do Ghiottone? He didn’t run with Salata.”

  “He was Italian, thereby permitting the Wallopers to demonstrate they, one, are enraged about their dope being lifted, and, two, have the guts to snatch him out of Little Italy. His body was a mess, according to the paper; looked like he was beat with hatchets.”

  “That is not what happened,” said Isaac Bell.

  “Thought you were napping, Isaac. What do you mean?”

  “Ghiottone wasn’t beat up. At least not when he was alive.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Barrel staves were floating around the body.”

  Every detective in the bull pen lowered his newspaper and stared at Isaac Bell.

  “Meaning, they dumped the body in a barrel,” said Mack Fulton.

  “And a ship hit the barrel,” said Wally Kisley.

  “The steel-hulled, five-mast nitrate bark James P. Richards,” said Bell. “Outbound for Chile. According to the Harbor Squad.”

  Bell continued practicing with the pocket knife. Mack Fulton voiced a question. “Can I ask you something, Isaac?”

  “Shoot.”

  “Your criminal cartel theory is driving you around the bend, and the Boss is all over you about the President.”

  “I’m aware I’m busy,” said Bell. “Which is why I depend on you boys’ invaluable assistance. What do you want to know?”

  “Being so engaged, what made you query Roundsman O’Riordan about an Eye-talian saloon keeper floating in the river?”

  “What do you think?”

  “Because,” Kisley answered for Fulton, “Isaac thinks Ghiottone is Black Hand.”

  Bell shook his head. “That’s not what I got from Research, and they got their info straight from Captain Coligney, who used to ramrod the Mulberry Street Precinct. Ghiottone was a Tammany man—so what strikes me is, somebody’s got it in for Tammany Hall. Adam Quiller was tortured and murdered last Saturday; Harry Warren says he was Alderman King’s heeler. And this guy Lehane, Alderman Henry’s heeler, was also tortured.”

  “Those reformers are getting meaner every day,” said Walter Kisley.

  Bell joined the laughter. Then he said, “Both heelers were finally killed with a stiletto.”

  “I didn’t see that in the paper.”

  “You’ll see it tomorrow. Eddie Edwards just spoke with the coroner. The papers will go wild when they see all three victims connected by a stiletto.”

  “How about connected by a Tammany boss under investigation who’s killing off witnesses?” asked Kisley.

  “Not likely. Bribing witnesses and jurors is more a boss’s strategy. But here’s the thing that strikes me. Look at the order of when they were killed—each stiletto victim stood a rung higher on the ladder of political power—Ghiottone, at the bottom; then Quiller, a heeler and block captain, one step up; then Lehane, the district election leader’s heeler. Makes me wonder who’s next.”

  “District leader?”

  “More likely his heeler.”

  Helen Mills rushed into the bull pen. Detectives straightened neckties, smoothed hair, and brushed crumbs from their vests. She spotted Bell and handed him a small envelope.

  “What’s this?”

  “Claypool.”

  Bell slit it open with his knife. Out fell a photograph, so recently developed it smelled of fixer. The picture was slightly blurred, as Claypool was turning his face, but it was him for sure, and anyone who knew the camera-shy lawyer would recognize him.

  “Where’d you get this?”

  “I snapped it. Some girls from school came into town. We pretended we were tourists, and I snapped him while snapping them, when he left his office for lunch.”

  Bell slipped it into his memo book. “Nicely done, Helen. Take the girls to Rector’s Lobster Palace. Tell Charlie it’s on me and I said to give you the best table in the house.”

  Detectives watched her leave.

  Fulton said, “Quiller four days ago. Then Sullivan, Lehane’s heeler, yesterday.”

  “Working their way up to a full-fledged alderman,” said Kisley.

  Isaac Bell put down the knife and picked up his fountain pen. “Which of them are under investigation?”

  “Which ain’t?” asked Kisley, holding up the Times with a front page column headline that read

  TWO ALDERMEN HELD IN BRIBERY SCANDAL

  “Of the forty crooks on the Board of Aldermen, James Martin’s in deepest at the moment. Alderman Martin was always looking for patronage. Ten years if convicted, and sure to be convicted. Word is, he won’t make bail.”

  “Why can’t an alderman make bail? The whole point of serving on the Boodle Board is to get rich.”

  “Broke,” called Scudder Smith, who was nursing a flask in the corner. “Lost it all to a gal and poker.”

  Bell said, “Are you sure about that, Scudder?”

  Scudder Smith, a crackersjack New York reporter before Joseph Van Dorn persuaded him to become a detective, said, “You can take it to the bank.”

  “Hey, where you going, Isaac?” asked Kisley.

  The tall detective was already on his feet, pocketing the knife and his memo book, clapping on his hat, and striding out the door. “Criminal Courts Building. See if the gal and the gamblers left Alderman Martin anything to trade for bail.”

  Midway through the door, he paused.

  “Harry?”

  “What’s up?” asked Harry Warren.

  “Would you go downtown and find a way to shake hands with Antonio Branco?”

  Harry Warren exchanged mystified glances with Mack Fulton and Wally Kisley. “Sure thing, Isaac. Care to tell me why I’m going to shake hands with Antonio Branco?”

  “Do it and I’ll tell you why,” said Isaac Bell. “Just make sure he’s not wearing gloves.”

  Alderman James Martin shielded his face from the newspaper artists with a hand clutching a half-s
moked cigar while an assistant district attorney told the magistrate that he should be jailed in the West 54th Street Police Court Prison unless he put up a bond of $15,000. The DA’s sleuth who had arrested him on the Queensboro Bridge after he left the Long Island City stone mason’s yard, where he had received the money, stood smirking in the doorway. Thankfully, thought Martin, the DA had set the bribe trap in a stone yard, where he had legitimate reason to be. He was a building contractor, after all, wasn’t he, like many a New York City alderman. He prayed the magistrate would buy that defense at least enough to reduce his bail to an amount low enough to borrow.

  “Twelve five-hundred-dollar bills,” the assistant DA raved on. “One for each of his fellow aldermen he would pay off to shift their votes on an issue critical to the health and well-being of every man, woman, and child in New York.”

  Alderman Martin’s lawyer asked that his client be admitted to a more reasonable bail. Martin waited to hear his fate. Home for supper or weeks in jail.

  The magistrate fixed bond at $10,000. The DA’s assistant protested that it was too low, that Martin would run away, but it was, in fact, far more than he could raise, and the alderman pleaded with the magistrate, with little hope.

  “Your Honor, I’m not able to furnish a bond of ten thousand.”

  “The charge constitutes a felony. If convicted, your sentence could be ten years and a five-thousand-dollar fine. Ten thousand dollars bail is reasonable. I can reduce it no further.”

  “I don’t have ten thousand—I had six thousand, but the DA sleuths took it.”

  The magistrate’s eyes flashed. “The District Attorney’s detectives did not ‘take’ the money. They confiscated evidence, which happened to be in bills marked ahead of time to ascertain whether you would accept a bribe.”

  “That money was given to me in connection with a business deal.”

  “The nature of that business deal led to your arraignment.”

  “I’m a contractor. It was an ordinary business consideration involving the supply of stone. I am not in the bribe line of business.”

  “You will have opportunity to assert that at your trial. Bail is fixed at ten thousand dollars.”

  There was a sudden commotion at the back of the small courtroom and the alderman turned hopefully toward it. He had been telephoning friends all afternoon, begging for bail money. Maybe one of them had had a change of heart.

  A message was passed to Martin’s attorney, who addressed the magistrate. “Your Honor, I have a bondsman present. He will offer properties at 31 and 32 Mulberry Street as security for Alderman Martin’s ten-thousand-dollar bail.”

  Isaac Bell bounded up the stairs to the bond room in the Criminal Courts Building and told the clerk, “I presume the court will accept my check on the American States Bank as bond for Alderman Martin.”

  “We’ll accept an American States Bank check. But Alderman Martin is already free on bond.”

  “Where’d he go?”

  The clerk shrugged. “Somebody sprung ’im.”

  Bell palmed a ten-dollar bill and slipped it to the clerk. “I was informed that Alderman Martin was running out of the kind of friends who would put up ten thousand.”

  “You were informed correctly,” said the clerk.

  “Any idea who paid the bond?”

  “Fellow put up a couple of houses on Mulberry Street.”

  “Mulberry? That’s in the Italian colony, isn’t it?”

  “It is.”

  “Isn’t Martin’s district in Queens?”

  “Until they lock him up in Sing Sing.”

  “He’s really on the ropes, isn’t he?”

  “Word is he’s in hock to his eyeballs and run out of favors. The man’s got nothing left.”

  Bell palmed another ten. “You must see a lot of strange goings on.”

  “Oh yes.”

  “Who would risk two houses betting that Martin wouldn’t jump bail?”

  “Somebody with more money than sense.”

  “What do you suppose they’d get out of it?”

  “Something the Alderman still has.”

  Bell felt someone watching him. He looked around. “Is that fellow leaning on the door jamb a DA’s detective?” he asked the clerk.

  “Detective Rosenwald. He nailed Martin.”

  Bell walked up to Rosenwald. “Let me save you some trouble. I’m Isaac Bell, Van Dorn Agency. And I was asking that court clerk what I’m about to ask you.”

  Rosenwald said, “I’ll save you some trouble by telling you don’t try to grease my palm.”

  “Wouldn’t dream of it,” said Bell. “But I would like to buy you a drink.”

  “Out of the frying pan,” thought Alderman Martin, with an awful feeling he was headed for the fire. At first, it all went smooth as silk. Court officers, who were grinning like some swell had stuffed enormous tips in their pockets, let him out of the building by a side entrance. Instead of having to duck his head from a pack of howling newspapermen, he was greeted by a silent escort who whisked him inside a town car before the reporters got wise. But now that his rescuers, whoever they were, had him in the closed and curtained auto, they were not treating him with the respect, much less the deference, expected by a member of the New York City Board of Aldermen, who had jobs, contracts, favors, and introductions to dispense.

  They would not tell him where they were taking him. In fact, they never spoke a word. Relieved to dodge the reporters, he hadn’t taken notice of the fact that his broad-shouldered protectors were swarthy Italians. Kidnapped, he thought, with a sudden stab of terror. Snatched by the Black Hand. Abducted for ransom by Italians too stupid to realize that he was in so much trouble already that no one would pay to get him back.

  He tried to climb out when the car stopped in traffic. They gripped his arms from either side and sat him back down forcefully. He demanded an explanation. They told him to shut up.

  He filled his lungs to bellow for help.

  They stuffed a handkerchief into his mouth.

  When the auto stopped at last and they opened the door, it was parked inside a storehouse. He could smell the river, or a sewer. They marched him down stone stairs into a cellar lit by a single bulb, glaring from the ceiling. He saw a table in a corner with something spread on it under a sheet. In the shadows of another corner, a man was standing still as stone. There was a heavy, straight-backed chair under the bulb. They pushed him into it and shackled him to the arms with handcuffs and yanked the handkerchief from his mouth.

  The escorts left. The man in the shadows spoke. Alderman Martin could not see his face. He had an Italian accent.

  “Alderman Martin, your heeler confess-a you order him to hire assassin.”

  His heart nearly stopped beating. He had been right about the fire. This was no kidnapping for ransom. Suddenly, he was thinking clearly and knew that the entire terrible day, starting with the bribe trap, was unimportant. This was a situation he shouldn’t have gotten involved in—would not have gotten into if Brandon Finn’s people hadn’t known he was desperate—and it had gone terribly wrong. He had no hope but to bluster his way out of it.

  “He would never say such a thing.”

  “He didn’t want to.”

  The man lifted the sheet.

  James Martin would have given ten years of his life to be sitting in a cell at West 54th Street. The heeler was dead. His face was bloody as a beefsteak. The eye they had left in his head regarded Martin with a dumbfounded stare.

  “What did you do to him?” Martin asked when he could draw enough breath to speak.

  “We asked him a question. We asked, ‘Who told you hire assassin?’ We now ask you that same question, Alderman Martin. Who told you hire assassin?”

  “You know the ‘Chamber of Horrors’?” Captain Coligney asked Isaac Bell on the telephone.

&n
bsp; “The one at Union Square?”

  “Meet me there.”

  22

  Isaac Bell climbed the subway steps at the Union Square Station three at a time. At 16th Street, a leather-lunged barker manned a megaphone:

  “Do you want better schools and subways? Do you want green parks and breezy beaches? Want to find out why you don’t have them? Then step right up to the Committee of One Hundred Citizens’ Exhibit against Tammany Hall to see how Tammany gets away with its bunco game.”

  The barker seemed superfluous. The line to get in snaked the length and breadth of Union Square and disappeared down side streets. The extras newsboys were hawking claimed that twenty-two thousand people had visited the exhibition in only three days.

  In the show window, a papier-mâché cow represented Tammany milking the city. “Don’t cry over spilt milk,” read the placards. “Get a new set of milkmaids.”

  A competing Tammany Hall exhibit several doors down boasted a live elephant—representing Republicans eating the city—but it looked to Bell like the anti-Tammany show was outdrawing the pachyderm four-to-one.

  Coligney had stationed a cop to escort Bell inside, where he followed signs pointing to the Chamber of Horrors. On the way, he passed “The Municipal Joyride to the Catskill Mountains,” a huge cartoon of “Honest Jim” Fryer running over a small taxpayer in a town car, a depiction of the “Story and Shame of the Queensboro Bridge” that accused Tammany Hall Democrats of wasting $8,000,000 to build “nothing but an automobile highway” that should have been spent on preventing tuberculosis.

  Down the basement stairs was the chief attraction, the Chamber of Tammany Horrors, and it was stronger stuff. Silhouettes of men, women, and children encircled the room like the rings of Hell, dramatizing the price of graft: the thirteen thousand New Yorkers who had died this year of preventable diseases; the children condemned to the streets by the shortage of schools.

  Captain Coligney was waiting next to an exhibit illustrated by a floor-to-ceiling billboard: “How Tammany Hands Catskill Aqueduct Plums to its Favored Contractors.”