The Gangster by Clive Cussler (free novels .txt) 📕

five minutes, then walked across Prince Street and down an alley. Looking about to see that no one was watching, he knocked at the grocery’s side entrance.

Antonio Branco led him through storerooms that smelled of coffee, olive oil, good sausage, and garlic, and down a flight of stairs into a clean, dry cellar. He unlocked a door, said, “No one can hear us,” and led Ghiottone into a room that held an iron cage that looked like the Mulberry Street Police Station lockup from which Ghiottone routinely bailed out fools in exchange for their everlasting loyalty.

“What is this? A jail?”

“If a man won’t repay the cost of getting him to a job in America, he’ll be held until someone pays for him.”

“Ransom?”

“You could call it that. Or you could call it fair trade for his fare.”

“But you hold him prisoner.”

“It rarely comes to that. The sight of these bars alone focuses their mind on repaying their obligation.”

Ghiottoni’s eyes roved over the thick walls and the soundproof ceiling.

Branco said, “But if I must hold him prisoner, no one will hear him yell.”

He exploded into action and clamped Ghiottone’s arm in a grip that startled the saloon keeper with its raw power. Ghiottone cocked a fist, but it was over in a second. Outweighed and outmaneuvered, the saloon keeper was shoved into the cell with a force that slammed him against the back wall. The door clanged shut. Branco locked it and pocketed the key.

“Who asked you to hire a killer?”

Ghiottone looked at him with contempt and spoke with great dignity. “I already told you, Antonio Branco, I can never betray him, as I would never betray you.”

Branco stared.

Ghiottone gripped the bars. “It’s fifty thousand dollars. Pay some gorilla to do the job for five—more than he’ll ever see in his life—and keep the rest for yourself.”

Antonio Branco laughed.

“Why do you laugh?” Ghiottone demanded.

“It is beyond your understanding,” said Branco.

Fifty thousand was truly a fortune. But fifty thousand dollars was nothing compared to the golden opportunity that Ghiottone had unwittingly handed him. This was his chance to vault out of “pandemonium” into a permanent alliance with a titan—escape chaos and join a powerhouse American at the top of the heap.

“I ask you again, who brought this to you?”

Ghiottone crossed his arms. “He has my loyalty.”

Branco walked out of the room. He came back with a basket of bread and sausage.

“What is this?”

“Food. I’ll be back in a few days. I can’t let you starve.” He passed the loaf and the cured meat through the bars.

“Kind of you,” Ghiottone said sarcastically. He tore off a piece of bread and bit into the sausage. “Too salty.”

“Salt makes good sausage.”

“Wait!”

Branco was swinging the door shut. “I will see you in a few days.”

“Wait!”

“What is it?”

“I need water.”

“I’ll bring you water in a few days.”

BOOK II

Pull

17

Isaac Bell paced the New York field office bull pen, driven by a strong feeling that he had misinterpreted the Cherry Grove conversation. The words were clear; he had no doubt the brothel owner had heard most, if not all, with his ear pressed to an air vent.

What are you waiting for?

An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?

My mind is made up. The man must go.

But Bell could swear that he had missed what they meant. Though he knew his notes by heart, he read them again.

Would you please sit down?

My mind is made up. The man must go.

He paced among file cases. Then paused at a varnished wooden case that held the field office’s Commercial Graphophone—a machine for recording dictation.

A telephone rang. He reached over the duty officer’s shoulder and snatched it off the desk. “It’s Isaac, Mr. Van Dorn. How are you making out in Washington?”

“That depends entirely on how you’re making out in New York.”

Bell reported on the heroin holdup and the waterfront shoot-out. “Salata got away, Leone’s dead. The only thing we know for sure is the Black Hand is out of the counterfeiting business.”

“I am still waiting for the go-ahead to warn the President.”

“I have nothing solid yet,” said Bell.

Van Dorn hung up. Bell resumed pacing.

He stopped to regard a wall calendar, a promotional gift from the Commercial Graphophone salesman. 1906 was winding down fast, but what caught his eye was the advertisement that ballyhooed, “Tell it to the Graphophone.”

Bell wound up the spring motor and read his notes aloud into the mica diaphragm.

“What are you waiting for?

“An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?

“My mind is made up. The man must go.”

He shifted the recording cylinder to the stenographer’s transcribing machine, which had hearing tubes instead of a concert horn, and fit the tubes to his ears. His own voice reading the words sounded like a stranger in another room. Or two strangers downstairs in the library.

What are you waiting for?

An opportunity to talk sense. Would you please sit down?

My mind is made up. The man must go.

Isaac Bell heard what he had missed.

He headed to Research.

Grady Forrer started apologizing. “Sorry, Isaac. Slow going on the fixers. The tycoons use different men for different tasks. Twenty, at least, among them.”

“Forget that, I’ve narrowed it down to one-in-seven.” He slapped his list on Forrer’s desk. “The fixer who will hire the killer to murder the President is one of the men in the library.”

“Impossible. These men hold seats on the Stock Exchange and controlling interests in railroads, mines, banks, and industries. They’re as close as we’ll get to gods.”

“One of them only runs errands for the gods.”

“It’s not a conversation, not even a discussion. They’re not equal partners. The first speaker is the boss, the second an employee. I don’t care if he shouted or whispered. What are you waiting for? He is the boss. The fixer is not a tycoon, even though he’s in the tycoons’ club . . .