The Striker by Clive Cussler (ebook reader web TXT) 📕

you learn that?” asked Bell, deeply impressed. Wish stank like a distillery this morning, but how many detectives could pry such gold out of a fence?

“He owes me a favor,” Wish answered.

“Big one.”

“It was. I didn’t shoot him when I have every right to and he knows it. Also, he was irritated that a jewel thief had the nerve to compare prices with his chief competitor. I reminded him that Mr. Rosania is in a class by himself, but he was not in a charitable mood.”

“Did he tell you what Rosania is planning to steal?”

“A necklace comprised of a fifteen-carat, heart-shaped pink diamond on a string of two-carat gems.”

“That should narrow it down to the very rich.”

“No one ever called Rosania a piker. At any rate, we’ll watch the fence, and his competitor, and when our safecracker shows up with the loot we’ll grab him.”

“When?”

“Soon, was my man’s impression.”

“No,” said Bell. “We don’t have time to sit around waiting for him.”

“A few days.”

“But what if Rosania decides to lay low—do the smart thing, let the dust settle before he shops them? It could take weeks. We don’t have weeks.”

“I’m open to better ideas,” said Wish Clarke. “Got any?”

“Wire Grady Forrer in the New York field office.”

“Who’s that?”

“The new fellow I told you about who Mr. Van Dorn made chief of the research division.”

“Research division? When did that happen?”

“About a month ago,” said Bell. Wish looked perplexed, and Bell recalled Van Dorn saying, God knows where Wish Clarke is. “The Boss is moving quickly,” he explained, “adding on all sorts of things.”

“What modernity will he dream up next?” Wish pretended to marvel. “O.K. So what do I wire this Furrier?”

“Forrer. Grady Forrer. He’s a sharp one. See what he’s got in his newspaper files on prominent Chicagoans shopping for jewels in New York.”

“They’re not going to print in the paper that Mrs. Thickneck bought a pink diamond necklace.”

“We can read between the lines. Particularly in the Society sections. Match Chicago buyers in New York to upcoming balls in Chicago and get a jump on Mr. Rosania’s shopping plans.”

“Interrupt him in the middle of the job?”

“I’d rather grab him as he comes out.”

“Fine plan, Isaac—two birds with one stone.”

“Put him in a mood to talk.”

“And a mighty modern idea about Mr. Forrer keeping up to date on the Society page. Old-fashioned I, meantime, will visit Black’s Social and Little’s Exchange.”

“For what purpose?” Bell asked warily. Ed Black’s Social and Wes Little’s Exchange were both saloons.

“There’s Little’s,” said Wish, nodding as they stepped out of Union Depot at a brightly lighted bar on the corner. “Black’s is a similar stone’s throw from the LaSalle Street Station where the Twentieth Century comes in.”

“So?”

“When their trains arrive from New York and it’s ‘quittin’ time,’ Pennsylvania Special express messengers hightail it around the corner to Little’s. And Twentieth Century Limited boys hoist a glass at Black’s. Don’t you reckon those heavily armed agents protecting valuables might recall which passengers coming home from New York stashed jewelry in their express car safes?”

Isaac Bell conceded that Wish’s was the more savvy tactic.

“Don’t waste time berating yourself, old son. You thought of catching the thief in the act. I just came up with a quainter way of anticipating it.”

Bell grinned at his old partner. “I keep telling Mr. Van Dorn you’re the sharpest operator in his outfit.”

“How delighted he must be to hear it.”

•   •   •

“HOLD IT RIGHT THERE, MISTER!”

Two big men blocked Isaac Bell’s path into the Mine Workers’ union hall, which was on a street of saloons in the First Ward. Ragtime music clattered from player pianos on either side. The miners had installed steel shutters on their windows and a rifleman on the roof.

“Hello, Mike. Terry. How are you?”

The Van Dorn Protective Services agents looked more closely. “Isaac! Haven’t seen you since you apprenticed.”

Mike Flannery and Terry Fein were a pair of handsome bruisers who made excellent hotel dicks at the Palmer House but laid no claim to the mental machinery required of an investigator.

“Your mustache threw me off,” said Mike.

“Mighty becoming,” said Terry. “The ladies’ll love it.”

“Let’s hope you’re right. Is Mary Higgins in there with her brother?”

“Showed up yesterday,” said Terry, adding a broad wink as he escorted Bell into the front room. “Amazing how many unionists suddenly have pressing business with her brother since she hit this town.”

“Is Mary all right?”

“Of course I’m all right!” Mary said, striding into the front room.

She was buttoning a coat over her shirtwaist and trumpet skirt. A plain red hat, with neither ribbons nor feathers, was pinned to the portion of her hair swept up to the top of her head. The rest tumbled, glossy black, to her shoulders. Her eyes were as gray and unfathomable as a winter sky.

“Why wouldn’t I be?”

Isaac Bell could not say, Because you vanished in the middle of a riot while I was shadowing you—orders of Mr. Van Dorn, who thinks you’re up to something. Nor could he blurt out in front of her brother and the Protective Services boys, You are even more beautiful than I remembered.

“I’m glad to see you, again,” he said. “You, too, Jim.”

Jim Higgins took his hand. “Welcome to Chicago,” he said warmly.

Mary did not offer her hand, and her smile was as remote as a nod to a casual acquaintance seen across a busy train station. “Brother, I’m going out. Nice to see you, Isaac.”

“I hope to see you again.”

“Are you in Chicago long?”

“Hard to tell.”

“Same here.”

She swept out the door and was gone.

“Who’s watching out for her?” Bell asked Mike and Terry.

“No one.”

“What? Why not?”

“She won’t let us.”

“But if Jim’s in danger, surely his sister is, too.”

“We’ve already had the argument,” said Jim Higgins.

“And lost,” chorused the Protective Services agents.

“Don’t worry, Isaac,” said Jim, “I’m taking her to Pittsburgh. The boys are watching me, and we’ll all stick close.”

•   •   •

HENRY CLAY made absolutely sure that none of the Van Dorns had shadowed her before he followed Mary Higgins inside a nickelodeon in a long, narrow converted storefront