There had been sightings near Collins’s known dens, several by a coal pocket that replenished locomotive tenders in the 38th Street yards, twice around an abandoned caboose at 60th Street. Picked men were watching both. And Bell had a feeling he himself had actually glimpsed Collins through a wind-spun swirl of locomotive smoke-a rail-thin figure had flitted between freight cars, and Bell had run full tilt after him only to find smoke.
Since then, the one man who might know where O’Shay disappeared to fifteen years ago hadn’t shown up at either den. On the plus side, they’d had enough reports to know he was alive, and he was unlikely to leave Hell’s Kitchen.
Eyes O’Shay’s location was another story. Everyone over the age of thirty had heard the name. No one had seen him in fifteen years. Some people had heard he was back. No one admitted to laying eyes on him. But Bell knew a man described by Tommy Thompson as “duded up like a Fifth Avenue swell” could sleep and eat anywhere he chose.
45
TAXICAB, SIR?” THE WALDORF-ASTORIA’S DOORMAN ASKED of a hotel guest stepping out in a top hat and loden green frock coat.
“I will promenade,” said Eyes O’Shay.
Wielding a jewel-headed walking stick, he strolled up Fifth Avenue, pausing like a tourist to admire mansions and peering into shopwindows. When he was reasonably sure that he wasn’t being followed, he entered St. Patrick’s Cathedral through the great Gothic arch in front. In the nave, he genuflected with the ease of a daily habit, dropped coins in the poor box, and lighted candles. Then he threw back his head and reflected upon the stained glass in the rose window, imitating the proud gaze of a parishioner who had contributed handsomely to the installation fund.
Since Isaac Bell nailed Tommy Thompson, he had to assume that every Van Dorn in New York, plus two hundred railway police, and the Devil himself knew how many paid informants, were hunting him, or soon would be. He exited the cathedral out the back, through the boardwalks and scaffolding where brick and stone masons were building the Lady Chapel, and strode onto Madison Avenue.
He headed up Madison, still watching his back, turned onto 55th, and stopped in the St. Regis Hotel. He had a drink in the bar and chatted with the bartender, whom he always tipped lavishly, while he watched the lobby. Then he tipped a bellboy to let him out the service entrance.
Moments later, he walked into the Plaza Hotel. He stopped at the Palm Court in the middle of the ground floor. The people seated around small tables for the elaborate afternoon tea were mothers with children, aunts and nieces, and here and there an older gentleman enthralled by a daughter. The maître d’ bowed low.
“Your usual table, Herr Riker?”
“Thank you.”
Herr Riker’s usual table let him watch the lobby in two directions while screening himself with a jungle of potted palms that would have given Dr. Livingstone and Henry Stanley pause.
“Will your ward be joining you, sir?”
“It is my fond hope,” he replied with a courtly smile. “Tell your waiter that we will have only sweets at our table. None of those little sandwiches. Only cakes and cream.”
“Of course, Herr Riker. As always, Herr Riker.”
Katherine was late, as usual, and he used the time to rehearse for what he knew would be a difficult discussion. He felt as ready as he could be when she stepped off the elevator. Her tea gown was a cloud of blue silk that matched her eyes and complemented her hair.
O’Shay rose as she approached his table, taking her gloved hands in his and saying, “You are the prettiest girl, Miss Dee.”
“Thank you, Herr Riker.”
Katherine Dee smiled and dimpled. But when she sat, she looked him full in the face in her direct way, and said, “You look very serious-ward-and-guardian serious. What are you up to, Brian?”
“Self-annointed ‘good warriors’ who fight ‘good wars’ accuse me with deep disdain of being a mercenary. I take it as a testament to my intelligence. Because for a mercenary the war is over when he says it is over. He retires a victor.”
“I hope you’ve ordered whiskey instead of tea,” she said. O’Shay smiled. “Yes, I know I’m bloviating. I am attempting to tell you that we are in the endgame, dearest.”
“What do you mean?”
“It is time to vanish. We will go out-and lay our future-with a bang they’ll never forget.”
“Where?”
“Where they will treat us like gold.”
“Oh, not Germany!”
“Of course Germany. What democracy would take us in?”
“We could go to Russia?”
“Russia is a powder keg waiting for a match. I am not about to take you out of the frying pan into a revolution.”
“Oh, Brian.”
“We will live like kings. And queens. We will be very rich, and we will marry you to royalty… What is it? Why are you crying?”
“I’m not crying,” she said, her blue eyes brimming.
“What is the matter?”
“I don’t want to marry a prince.”
“Would you settle for a Prussian noble with a thousand-year-old castle?”
“Stop it!”
“I have one in mind. He is handsome, remarkably bright, considering his lineage, and surprisingly gentle. His mother could prove tiresome, but there is a stable teeming with Arabian horses and a lovely summer place on the Baltic where a girl could sail to her heart’s content. Even practice for the Olympic yachting event… Why are you crying?”
Katherine Dee put both small hands on the table and spoke in a clear, even voice. “I want to marry you.”
“Dear, dear Katherine. That would be like a marrying your own brother.”
“I don’t care. Besides, you’re not my brother. You only act like one.”
“I am your guardian,” he said. “I have pledged that no one will ever hurt you.”
“What do you think you’re doing now?”
“Stop this silliness about marrying me. You know I love you. But not that way.”
Tears hovered on her lashes like diamonds.
He passed her a handkerchief. “Dry your eyes. We have work to do.”
She dabbed, lifting her tears onto the linen. “I thought we were leaving.”
“Leaving with a bang requires work.”
“What am I supposed to do?” she asked sullenly.
“I can’t let Isaac Bell get in my way this time.”
“Why don’t I kill him?”
O’Shay nodded thoughtfully. Katherine was lethal, a finely tuned machine unencumbered by remorse or regret. But every machine had its physical limits. “You would only get hurt. Bell is too much like me, a man not easily killed. No, I won’t have you risk trying to kill him. But I do want him distracted.”
“Do you want me to seduce him?” asked Katherine. She flinched from the sudden fury distorting O’Shay’s face.
“Have I ever asked you to do such a thing?”
“No.”
“Would I ever ask you?”
“No.”
“It destroys me that you could say such a thing.”
“I am sorry, Brian. I didn’t think.” She reached for his hand. He pulled away, his normally bland face red, his lips compressed in a hard line, his eyes wintery.
“Brian, I am not exactly a schoolgirl.”
“Whatever seductions you allow yourself are your business,” he said coldly. “I have ensured that you possess the means and manner to indulge yourself as only privileged women can. Society will never tell you what you can do and not do. But I want it clearly understood that I would never use you that way.”
“What way? As a seductress? Or an indulgence?”
“Young lady, you are beginning to annoy me.”
Katherine Dee ignored the very dangerous tone in his voice because she knew he was too careful to break up the furniture in the Palm Court. “Stop calling me that. You’re only ten years older than I am.”
“Twelve. And mine are old years, while I have moved heaven a
nd earth to make yours young years.”
Waiters bustled up. Ward and guardian sat in stony silence until the cakes were spread and tea poured.
“How do you want me to distract him?” When he started talking that way there was nothing to do but go along.
“The fiancée is the key.”
“She is suspicious of me.”
“How do you mean?” O’Shay asked sharply.
“At the Michigan launching, when I tried to get close, she pulled back. She senses something in me that frightens her.”
“Perhaps she is psychical,” said O’Shay, “and reads your mind.” An expression as desolate as it was wise transformed Katherine Dee’s pretty face into a lifeless mask of ancient marble. “She reads my heart.”
46
YOUR FIANCEÉE IS CALLING ON THE TELEPHONE, MR. BELL.”
The tall Van Dorn detective was standing over his desk in the Knickerbocker, impatiently sifting reports for some decent news on the whereabouts of Eyes O’Shay or the stolen torpedoes before he hit the streets hunting Billy Collins again.
“This is a nice surprise.”
“I’m across the street at Hammerstein’s Victoria Theatre,” said Marion Morgan.
“Are you all right?” She didn’t sound all right. Her voice was tight with tension.
“Could you stop by when you have a moment?”
“I’ll be right there.”
“They’ll let you in the stage door.”
Bell ran down the Knickerbocker’s grand staircase three steps at a time and set off a blast of horns, bells, and angry shouts as he ran through the moving wall of autos, streetcars, and horse carts that blocked Broadway. Sixty seconds after dropping the telephone, he pounded on the Victoria’s stage door.
“Miss Morgan is waiting for you in the house, Mr. Bell. Through there. Go in quietly, please. They’re rehearsing.”
A high-speed, rhythmic tapping echoed from the stage, and when he flung open the door he was surprised to discover that the source of all the noise was a small boy and a tall girl dancing in shoes with wooden soles. He exhaled in relief when he saw Marion sitting alone, safe and sound, in the eighth row of the partially darkened empty house. She pressed a finger to her lips. Bell glided up the aisle and sat beside her, and she took his hand, and whispered, “Oh, my darling, I’m so glad you’re here.”
“What happened.”
“I’ll tell you in a minute. They’re almost done.”
The orchestra, which had been waiting silently, burst into a crescendo, and the dance was over. The children were instantly surrounded by the director, the stage manager, costumers, and their mother.
“Aren’t they wonderful? I found them on the Orpheum Circuit in San Francisco. The top vaudeville circuit. I’ve persuaded their mother to let them appear in my new movie.”
“What happened to your movie about the bank robbers?”
“The detective’s girlfriend caught them.”
“I suspected she would. What’s wrong? You don’t sound yourself. What happened?”
“I’m not sure. I may be silly, but it seemed sensible to call you. Did you ever meet Katherine Dee?”
“She’s a friend of Dorothy Langner. I’ve seen her at a distance. I’ve not met her.”
“Lowell introduced her to me at the Michigan launching. She hinted that she would like to come out to the movie studio. It was on the tip of my tongue to invite her. She looks like she might be one of those creatures the camera is so fond of-you know, as I’ve told you, the large head, fine features, slight torso. Like that boy you just saw dancing.”
Bell glanced at the stage. “He looks like a praying mantis.”
“Yes, the narrow head, the big, luminous eyes. Wait ’til you see him smile.”
“I gather you did not invite Katherine Dee. What changed your mind?”
“She’s very strange.”
“How?”
“Call it what you will. Intuition. Instinct. Something about her does not ring true.”
“Never deny a gut feeling,” said Bell. “You can always change your mind later.”
“Thank you, darling. I do feel a little silly, and yet… when I was away in San Francisco, she came out to see me in Fort Lee. Uninvited. She just showed up. And now she just showed up again this morning.”
“What did she say?”
“I didn’t give her a chance. I was rushing to the ferry to see these children and their mother, who is also their manager and very ambitious. I just waved and kept going. She called out something about offering to give me a lift. I think she had a car waiting. I just kept moving and hopped the ferry. Isaac, I’m sure I’m being silly. I mean, Lowell Falconer knows her. He didn’t seem to think she was strange. On the other hand, I doubt anyone in a skirt would be strange to Lowell.”
“Who told you she had shown up when you were in San Francisco?”
“Mademoiselle Duvall.”
“What did she think of Katherine?”
“I think she sensed what I sensed, though not as strongly. Strange people often show up at the studio. The movies tug at them. They imagine all sorts of fantastical futures for themselves. But Katherine Dee is different. She’s obviously well-off and well-bred.”
“She’s an orphan.”
“Oh, my Lord! I didn’t realize. Maybe she does need the work.”
“Her father left her a fortune.”
“How do you know?”
“We’ve investigated everyone in the Hull 44 set.”
“So I’m probably imagining things.”
“Better safe than sorry. I’ll have Research dig deeper.”
“Come meet the children… Fred, say hello to my fiancé, Mr. Bell.”
“Hello, Mr. Bell,” Fred mumbled, staring at his shoes. He was a shy little guy, seven or eight.
“Hello, Fred. When I came in, I heard you dancing so fast I thought it was a machine gun.”
“Did you?” He looked up and studied Bell with a warm smile.
“How’s Miss Morgan treating you?”
“Oh, she’s very nice.”
“I agree.”
“And this is Adele,” said Marion. The girl was buoyant, several years older, and did not need any coaxing. “Are you really Miss Morgan’s fiancé?”
“I’m the lucky man.”
“I’ll say you are!”
“I’ll say you’re very wise. What’s the movie about?”
Adele looked surprised when little Fred answered for her. “Child dancers are captured by Indians.”
“What’s it called?”
“The Lesson. The kids teach the Indians a new dance and they let them go.”
“Sounds uplifting. I look forward to seeing it. Pleased to meet you, Fred.” He shook his little hand again. “Pleased to meet you, Adele.” He shook hers.
Marion said, “I’ll see you in the morning, children,” and called to their mother, “Eight o’clock call, Mrs. Astaire.”
They stood alone at the back of the house.
Bell said, “When you get back to Fort Lee tomorrow morning, you will see someone you know dressed like an Indian. Give him a part that will keep him near you at all times.”
“Archie Abbott?”
“He’s the only man I would trust with your life, other than Joe Van Dorn. But no one would ever believe that Mr. Van Dorn dressed up like an Indian was looking for an acting job in your movie. Whereas Archie would have been an actor if his mother had not forbidden it. Until we can be sure that Katherine Dee means no harm, Archie will watch over you at work during the day. At night, I want you to stay at the Knickerbocker.”
“An unmarried lady alone in a respectable hotel? What will the house detective say?”
“If he knows what’s good for him, he’ll say, ‘Good night, Mr. Bell. Sleep tight.’”
ISAAC BELL WENT BACK into the streets. He felt he was getting close, so close that he carried sandwiches in his coat pockets assuming that a man living as on the edge as Billy Collins wou
ld be glad of a meal. There had been two more sightings. Both were on Ninth Avenue near where it ended abruptly at 33rd Street by the huge hole in the ground they were excavating for the Pennsylvania Terminal rail yard.
He went to the construction site, shabbily dressed, and watched for the tall, thin silhouette he had seen in the coal pocket. An entire district of the city-six acres of houses, apartments, shops, and churches-had vanished. Ninth Avenue crossed the gigantic hole on stiltlike temporary shoring girders that held up two streetcar lines, the roadbed, and a trestle for pedestrians. Propped high above it, Ninth Avenue Elevated locals and expresses still ran, rumbling across the gaping hole like giant airplanes made of iron and steel.
A steam whistle blew day’s end. A thousand workmen climbed out of the pit and hurried home into the city. When they had gone, Bell climbed in, down ladders and temporary wooden stairs, past the severed ends of gas mains, cast-iron water mains, electrical conduits, and brick sewers. Twenty-four feet down, he encountered a steel viaduct partially constructed-underpinning, he had been told, for Ninth Avenue and the buildings around it. He descended through it into darkness lighted by pinpricks of electric work lamps.
Sixty feet below the surface, he found the floor of the pit. It was a field of stone rubble, dynamited granite, crisscrossed by narrow-gauge rails for the cars that hauled debris out and material in and forested with wide columns that carried the viaduct. Through its frame he could see blue electrical sparks arcing as the El trains thundered across the sky.
Bell explored for an hour, keeping an eye peeled for night watchmen. He tripped repeatedly on the uneven ground. The third time he fell, he smelled something sweet and discovered a gnawed apple core. Poking around, he found a man’s den-a crumpled blanket, more apple cores, and chicken bones. He settled down to wait, sitting on the ground, still as ice, moving only when he had to stretch his limbs to stay agile and then only when the Els clattering overhead masked his movements.
He was not alone. Rats scuttled, a dog barked, and from hundreds of feet away in the dark he heard an argument between two hobos, which ended with a heavy thump and a groan drowned out by a passing El. It got quieter as the night wore on and the El trains ran less frequently. Someone lit a bonfire on the edge of the hole at 33rd Street, which sent flickers and shadows dancing on pillars, girders, and rough-hewn stone walls.
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