The Striker ib-6

by Clive Cussler

  “Like pearls in moonlight.”

  “Send her in— No, wait! I better see her in the main office. Where is she now?”

  “Reception room.”

  Bell buttoned his coat over his shoulder holster, smoothed his mustache, and rushed into the main offices. Off-duty detectives were jostling for turns at the peephole that afforded an advance look at customers waiting in the reception room. Bell burst through the door.

  Mary Higgins turned from the window. A sunbeam slanted through her eyes.

  Diamond dust and diamond flakes, thought Isaac Bell. I’m a goner.

  Her voice was even prettier than he remembered.

  “I will not apologize for slapping you.”

  “The first slap or the second?”

  “Both,” she said. “I’m not sorry for either.”

  “My jaw’s still sore,” said Bell. “But I’m not.”

  “Why not?”

  “I deserved it. I misled you.”

  “You surely did.”

  “I apologize.”

  Mary looked him in the eye. “No. That is not necessary. You were doing the job your bosses demanded and you got stuck in it.”

  “I insist,” said Bell. “I’m sorry.”

  “I don’t want your apology. I won’t accept it.”

  “What would you accept?”

  “We could try again for tea,” she smiled.

  “How about breakfast? Which we missed last time.”

  “Breakfast would be appropriate.”

  “I hear the restaurant downstairs is a good one. Do you mind eating with capitalists?”

  “I will take it as an opportunity.”

  “For what?”

  “To observe the enemy up close,” she replied.

  “You’re smiling,” said Bell. “But I can’t tell if you’re joking.”

  “Not while miners walk the Monongahela Valley.”

  “You were there?”

  Mary nodded. “Their spirits are high. But rain is forecast.”

  The Cadillac Hotel’s breakfast room was packed with out-of-town buyers. A bribe to the headwaiter got them the last table. Mary noticed the money pass hands and said, after they were seated and she had spread her napkin on her lap, “Do I assume correctly that, in truth, your father did not lose his mansion in the Panic of ’93?”

  “He did not. Nor is it in the Back Bay. I was born in Louisburg Square.”

  Mary took a folded newspaper page from her purse, laid it beside her.

  “That would make you a Bell of the American States Bank.”

  “That is my father’s bank. How is it that you know Boston?”

  “Why do you work as a detective?”

  “Because I want to.”

  Mary returned his even gaze with a searching one of her own. Before she could ask a question, they were interrupted by a loud man at the next table, a wholesaler entertaining buyers. “The shirtwaist and skirt will be replaced next year by a full-costume combination — a single piece of garment— How do I know? Paris declares such combinations plebeian, particularly in different texture or color. New York will lead the change, and your ladies in Chicago will take the same view.”

  Mary looked down at her gray shirtwaist and blue skirt and smiled. “So I’m to be plebeian?”

  “You look lovely,” said Bell. “I mean, stylish and attractive.”

  “Do you really believe that Van Dorns are different than Pinkertons?”

  “I know they are. How is it that you know Boston?”

  “How are Van Dorns different?”

  “We believe that the innocent are sacred.”

  “Those are pretty words.”

  “Words to live by. But before we debate further, our waiter is headed this way, the restaurant is busy, and we should order before they run out. What would you like for breakfast?”

  “What are you having?”

  “Everything that can’t run away. I’ve been up all night and I am starving.”

  “I walked from the ferry. I’m starving, too. I’ll have what you’re having.”

  Bell picked up the menu. “Good morning,” he said to the waiter. “We both want coffee, buckwheat pancakes with cranberries, fried bananas, omelets with mushrooms, and calf’s liver.” Mary was nodding approvingly. Bell asked, “With onions?”

  “And bacon.”

  “You heard the lady. And may we have our coffee as soon as humanly possible?” Of Mary he asked, again, “How is it that you know Boston?”

  “I am by occupation a schoolteacher. I graduated from the Girls’ Latin School.”

  “So you were born in Boston.”

  “No. My parents moved us there so my brother and I could attend the Latin Schools. Father found work as a tugboat captain and we lived on the boat.” She smiled. “Yes, I know what you’re thinking. The saloon was another time in another city. Father was always changing jobs.”

  “A jack-of-all-trades?”

  “He could master anything. Except people. He was like Jim. It broke his heart when he couldn’t deny that evil people exist. That’s when he gave up on the tugboat.”

  “What changed his mind?”

  “Too many deckhands shanghaied by knockout drops.”

  “But tug captains must be used to freighters kidnapping able seamen. And no experienced deckhand would be surprised to wake up miles from land with a splitting headache. Spiked booze mans ships.”

  “Father was surprised.”

  The coffee arrived. Bell sought her eyes over their cups and asked, “What’s in that newspaper?”

  “The reason I’m here.”

  “I thought you came to not apologize.”

  Mary Higgins did not smile back but thrust the clipping across the table. “Read this.”

  Bell glanced at the headline and handed it back.

  “I read it last night,” he said and recited the last paragraph from memory:

  “It is understood that a great amount of evidence of the Coal Trust’s existence, and proof that the railroads are large owners in the coal mines, and that they combine to regulate the price of coal to the seaboard and in every important city not only by setting carrying charges but also by naming the price at which retailers shall put the coal on the market, is in possession of Jim Higgins, president of the Strike Committee. Higgins will probably be called upon by the attorney general in the course of the investigations to be commenced.”

  Mary was staring at him.

  Bell said, “I have a photographic memory.”

  “I thought so. I have one, too. I always wondered if my eyes move while I’m remembering. Now I know.”

  “How did your brother become president of the Strike Committee?”

  “By having the guts to stand up for it.”

  “How did he get ahold of the evidence?”

  “He carried it out the back door of a Denver union hall while the Pinkertons were breaking in the front door.”

  “How did that evidence get all the way to Denver?”

  “They moved it from Pittsburgh and Chicago to keep it safe.”

  “Well, I guess that didn’t work… Does your brother realize the danger he’s in holding that stuff?”

  “He doesn’t think about it.”

  “But you do,” said Bell, guessing what was coming next.

  Mary said, “It will get him murdered. They will kill him and burn the evidence before the attorney general gets around to calling him. Unless…”

  “Unless?”

  “Unless he is protected by a detective who claims to believe that the innocent are sacred.”

  Bell nodded eagerly. It was as he had supposed and hoped. Safeguarding Jim Higgins would be an opportunity for a closer, inside look at the unions and their top organizers. That might shed light on the identity of the provocateur if he happened to be a former labor organizer. But that meant that Bell would need more men in his squad.

  “We better go see the Boss.”

  * * *

 
; Upstairs in his office, Joseph Van Dorn listened to Mary Higgins’s request. He questioned her closely about the documents and elicited that Jim, too, had been born with a powerful memory and that even if the evidence was locked in a safe the fact that it resided complete in his mind put him at great risk of being murdered to prevent him from testifying. He asked if Mary had read the documents.

  “Jim wouldn’t let me.”

  “Of course not,” Van Dorn nodded. “Was this your sole reason for coming to New York City?”

  She hesitated only a heartbeat. “Yes.”

  Joseph Van Dorn nodded. “Of course…” He cast a shrewd eye on his young detective, noted how avidly Isaac Bell was watching Mary, and made up his mind.

  “Your request for protection for your brother comes at a propitious moment, Miss Higgins. I have just started a new division of the Van Dorn Detective Agency, which will be named Van Dorn Protective Services.”

  “You have?” asked Bell. “I hadn’t heard.”

  “Because you were concentrating on your own case. Van Dorn Protective Services will provide valuables escorts, hotel house detectives, night watchmen, and, of course, bodyguards. Protecting Jim Higgins will be right up their alley.”

  “Will Mr. Bell be one of them?” asked Mary.

  “Mr. Bell is a detective, not a bodyguard. For your brother, we will provide men especially skilled at ensuring the personal safety of our clients.”

  Mary said, “But Mr. Bell did an admirable job of protecting my brother from a lynch mob.”

  Van Dorn smiled at the beautiful young woman gracing his office. It was easy to see how Bell had fallen for her; nor was it hard to imagine how she could cloud a younger man’s judgment.

  “We expect Van Dorns to rise to every occasion. On this occasion, however, Mr. Bell is already engaged on an important case in the coalfields that requires his full attention.”

  He turned to Bell. “Thank you for bringing this situation to me, Isaac. There’s no reason for you to expend any more of your valuable time in my office while Miss Higgins and I conclude our business. Suffice it to say that I guarantee she will find her brother in excellent hands.”

  Bell stood up. “Yes, sir.” To Mary he said, “Mr. Van Dorn is a man of his word. Jim will be safe.”

  “Thank you for introducing me.”

  “It was wonderful to see you again.”

  “I look forward to seeing you, again.”

  They reached awkwardly to shake hands.

  Joseph Van Dorn cleared his throat — a noise that reminded Bell of a water-cooled, belt-fed Maxim gun that he and Wish Clarke had drawn fire from in Wyoming — and, with that, the young detective beat a retreat. His head was spinning. What a girl! What a wonderful girl!

  * * *

  “There is, of course, the matter of our fee.”

  “The Strike Committee is prepared to pay the going rate,” said Mary Higgins, “asking, however, that you take into account the small fortunes of workingmen.”

  “We are a new, struggling business,” said Van Dorn. “Nonetheless, we are not heartless and can offer a rate somewhat lower than we expect from bankers and jewelers. Where is your brother at this moment?”

  “Chicago.”

  “I have good men in Chicago. We’ll get right on it before your brother leaves for Pittsburgh.”

  “What makes you think he’s going to Pittsburgh?”

  “Union organizers are descending on Pittsburgh like…”

  “Flies, Mr. Van Dorn?”

  Van Dorn’s cheeks flushed redder than his whiskers. “I did not mean it that way. What I do mean is that I understand by reliable information that a general strike is brewing there — inspired by the Monongahela march — and any union organizer worth his salt will be heading to Pittsburgh as we speak. I have no doubt that Jim Higgins will be in the lead.”

  “He is.”

  “Let us be clear on one important issue, Miss Higgins. The Van Dorn Agency will not take sides. We will move Heaven and Earth to keep your brother from harm. But we will not help him pull down the institutions of law, order, property, and justice.”

  “There can be no order without justice, Mr. Van Dorn. No justice without equality.”

  “We are all entitled to our opinions, Miss Higgins. I would be surprised if you and I agree on much, if anything, but when the Van Dorn Agency takes the job to protect your brother we are honor-bound to keep him safe — fair enough?”

  “Fair enough.” Mary Higgins stuck out her hand, and they shook on it.

  * * *

  Instead of descending the Cadillac Hotel’s grand staircase that curved into the lobby, Mary Higgins waited by the elevator without pressing the call button. She needed time to collect her spirit for she was deeply disturbed by her encounter with the Van Dorn Agency’s chief investigator. Joseph Van Dorn’s piercing gaze had seemed to penetrate her skull and burrow into her deepest thoughts. It was as if he knew better than she how confused she was. Van Dorn could not see why, of course. Or maybe he could. Some of it. He could not know her grand plan to block the river at Pittsburgh. She had told only her brother, and Jim would never tell anyone because he hated the idea. But Van Dorn, the renowned scourge of criminals, had suspected that something was up.

  She was not a criminal. Although she had scheming in common with criminals, and the chief investigator seemed to sense that she was scheming something. That was disturbing enough — to succeed, her plan to block the river depended on secrecy and surprise — but it wasn’t all that troubled her.

  Waiting by the elevator did not help one bit. She pressed the button. When the runner bowed and guided her into the gilded car, she thought instantly, predictably, of the silly ballad they were singing everywhere:

  But she married for wealth, not for love he cried,

  Though she lives in a mansion grand.

  She’s only a bird in a gilded cage.

  Van Dorn had seen right through her. He had guessed her confusion about Isaac Bell. What if a woman had pledged her heart, her soul, and her entire life to eliminate mansions grand, and then, just as she wound up to throw a brick at a window, she saw love smiling through the glass?

  20

  “Shadow her!”

  “What?” Isaac Bell had just bent over a fresh pile of clippings when Van Dorn rushed into the research offices.

  “Find out what the devil she is up to.”

  “Mary? What do you mean?”

  “If I knew, I would not be impelled to send you after her. I have a hunch she is up to something big and I don’t like it.”

  “What about her brother?”

  “I suspect it has nothing to do with him.”

  “But will you look out for him?”

  “Of course. We gave our word. Go! Don’t let her get away. And do not let her see you.”

  * * *

  Mary Higgins burst from the gilded elevator. A hotel detective stared, suspicion aroused by the incongruous sight of such a tall, attractive woman in a drab costume and plain cloth hat that sported neither a ruffle nor a feather. What was such a poorly attired creature doing in such a fine establishment? An actress? Or something worse?

  Mary froze the detective with a stern glare, brushed past him, passed the bowing doormen, and set a fast pace down Broadway, which veered southerly and easterly across the Tenderloin District. She walked fast, block after block, oblivious to fine hotels and theaters on the wide thoroughfare, and saloons and gambling halls along the dark and narrow cross streets, her destination a settlement house in the East Side slums where she could find shelter with the girls and women who had founded the Shirtwaist Makers’ Union.

  She tried to outpace the storm in her mind. But walking didn’t help any more than stalling by the elevator. She was too confused, her brain swirling with questions about her brother and their cause of equality and justice, his vague dreams of a general strike, her sharp plan to block the river. How different Isaac Bell was than any other man she had ever met: strong, but
tender; ferocious in a fight, but able to be gentle; privileged, but not obliviously; quick to laugh, but just as quick to comfort. Had she believed in some vague way that she could use Isaac to help her grand plan? Or had she really only wished they could somehow repeat a cold night on a freight train?

  Drowning in doubt, she revisited her scheme: At Pittsburgh, the Monongahela River was lined with coal barges tied ten deep on either shore. They narrowed the channel. When the river was crowded with tows five and six wide, there was scarcely room for two to slip past each other. Plus, six bridges crossed the Mon. The piers that supported the six narrowed the waterway, dicing it into narrow channels. She envisioned drifting barges piling up against them like ice floes. If half the river was carpeted with barge fleets, how many would have to sink before they blocked traffic? Would they cause a flood? And now she could hear her brother asking, How many will be injured? How many will die? None? Guarantee it? She couldn’t. The Mon washed along the Point, the river-girded stretch of land that formed Pittsburgh’s rich Golden Triangle. Thousands lived and worked there.

  The sky turned gray and it began to drizzle. She walked. The drizzle quickened to rain. And still she walked, ignoring streetcars she could ride downtown, ignoring the Els that would whisk her there in a flash, noticing nothing ahead of her or behind her, seeing neither the young detective shadowing her nor the steamfitter in the slouch hat trailing them both.

  21

  Isaac Bell followed Mary Higgins at a distance that varied from a half to a full block, depending upon how crowded the sidewalks were. He endeavored to keep numerous pedestrians between them, and repeatedly donned and removed his dark coat and his broad-brimmed hat to change his silhouette.

  Joseph Van Dorn’s orders were ringing in his ears—Find out what the devil she is up to. If he hadn’t seen her throw the lantern that burned down the Gleasonburg courthouse, he might have protested her innocence, or at least taken the accusation with a grain of salt. But he had seen her hurl it and had seen the look of triumph on her beautiful face. So he followed, intensely curious, and pleased to be near her, even though it took him off his own case.

  She was easy to follow, taller than most people thronging the busy sidewalks, and plunging along single-mindedly, never looking back. It started to rain. She bought a red scarf from a peddler on Twenty-third Street.