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

“I read it in the Police Gazette: ‘We never give up.’”

“‘Never’ being the operative word.”

“A dramatic slogan to raise business.”

“Even melodramatic,” said Claypool. “But . . .”

“But what?”

“The trouble is, they stick to it.”

“I stick to things, too.”

“That you do, sir. It is among your most admirable qualities.”

Suddenly, Culp’s expression darkened and he got the thundercloud on his face that made him dangerous. “Wait a minute! Even if we can’t be connected, our man’s going to have a hard time doing it when they warn Roosevelt someone’s gunning for him.”

Claypool smiled.

“What are you grinning about? The Secret Service will take precautions.”

“I am not ‘grinning,’” said Brewster Claypool, “I am smiling, because I am imagining Teddy’s reaction when they tell him he must take precautions.”

“How? What? What will he do?”

“He will suck in his belly, stick out his chest, and declare that he is not afraid.”

“So?”

“The funny thing is, he’ll be telling the truth. Teddy won’t be afraid. And he will refuse to take precautions.”

19

Isaac Bell went back to the Cherry Grove. The name gold-leafed above the lintel had been changed to “Grove House.” He asked Nick Sayers which of the women had worked in the library the night Sayers had overheard the plot.

Only Jenny, a raven-haired beauty. Bell took her upstairs and, when their door was closed, handed her one hundred dollars and said, “I have a simple request and whatever you answer I’ll tell no one.”

Jenny said, “Don’t worry, I always say yes. What do you want?”

“On the Saturday night before the Pink Tea shut down the house, two of the men in the Cherry Grove club left the main club room for the small library.”

Jenny looked alarmed. “How do you know about the club? Are you friends with them?”

“Not really. One of the men was Brewster Claypool. Do you remember who went with him?”

“Does Mr. Sayers know you’re asking this?”

“Would you like to ask him to confirm it?”

She looked Bell up and down and said, “Well, that explains that.”

“Explains what?”

“I was wondering why you came to a sporting house.”

Bell smiled back. “I’ll take that as a compliment, thank you. And may I say that if I ever felt the need to come to one, I’d make sure you were in it . . . Do you recall who Mr. Claypool left the room with?”

“He left alone.”

“All alone?”

“I looked in a couple of times. He was just sitting there sipping his whiskey until Mr. Culp joined him.”

Isaac Bell armed himself with solid information from Research about the members’ habits in order to put his Cherry Grove Society suspects at ease. Then he cornered them, one by one, while masquerading as a gentleman who shared their interests. Most were not the sort who would ask his line of business when meeting in a social situation. Those who did learned that Isaac Bell was an executive in the insurance business.

He ran down the first at the Grolier, a club for bibliophiles. He borrowed a police horse to catch up with another cantering in Central Park. Allowing a close-fought victory in a late-autumn race for New York “Thirties,” he and Archie Abbott accepted drinks at the Seawanhaka Corinthian Yacht Club. He lunched at the Union League, and he met with a banker at the Chase National headquarters on Cedar Street, who declined to lend Bell money to buy a two-hundred-foot steam yacht. Of the seven, only one proved elusive, and Bell found him back where everything started, at the brothel.

All were easily maneuvered into admitting knowing Claypool. Two praised him for doing them the favor of getting them out of “sticky situations.” The Chase banker dropped, casually, “Everyone knows that ‘Brew’ Claypool is Culp’s man.” But he was the only one who made the connection. Of the bunch, two struck Bell as possible presidential assassins of the type who would hire a killer—J. B. Culp and Warren D. Nichols.

Culp made no secret of disliking Roosevelt. The affable Nichols had a wintery eye; a valuable quality in a banker, perhaps, but something about him made Bell wonder whether the wintery eye might mask a hunter’s heart.

“Thin, thin stuff,” he reported to Joseph Van Dorn. “A tycoon who hates the President and a banker with a cold eye.”

The Boss agreed. “We’ve said all along that the threats overheard could be nothing more than angry talk. Maybe that’s all it is.”

Two hours later, Bell sent to Van Dorn on the private wire.

RESEARCH LEARNED NICHOLS WILL DONATE HUNDRED THOUSAND ACRES PRIME TIMBER LAND ADIRONDACK FOREST PRESERVE IN THEODORE ROOSEVELT NAME.

Van Dorn wired back.

CONCENTRATE CULP.

Culp’s industries and mines and timber operations were protected by brutal strikebreakers. Culp’s stock holdings were enriched by the best manipulators on Wall Street. His Washington lobbyists had bribed legislators to change the site of the inter-ocean ship canal from Nicaragua to the Isthmus of Panama. His agents in France and Panama helped him gain control of lucrative canal stock.

Many fixers worked for Culp behind the scenes, but Bell developed the strong impression that Claypool hired the fixers. All of them. Except Claypool was not about to personally hire murderers, much less presidential assassins. He would hire an agent, who would hire another agent, and on down the line. When the job finally reached the man with the gun, Claypool and Culp would be miles away.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned,” said Francesca Kennedy.

Her scarf concealed her face, but the hunch of her shoulders and her fingers anxiously working her rosary and the stricken tone of her voice were a convincing image of a woman desperate to save her soul. Had life been kinder to her, thought Branco, she would have been a great actress on Broadway.

“What sin did you commit, my child?”

“I lured a man to his death.”

Branco laughed. “Relax. Tommy McBean’s as alive as you.”

“Do I still get paid?”

A woman who was good for killing was a rare and valuable resource and should