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

pick and shovel man would recognize the cave as a man-made construction of hidden mortar and uncut stone artfully laid to look like natural rubble cast off by a glacier. It had been built sixty years ago by Culp’s grandfather, a “station master” on the Underground Railroad, helping escaped slaves flee to Canada.

“Why?” Branco had asked, mystified. He had studied the family; none were known to be what Americans called do-gooders.

“He fell for a Quaker woman. She talked him into it.”

“Your grandmother?”

“Not bloody likely.”

Branco emerged outside the wall and hurried through another fir stand. The mule wagon full of barrels was waiting. The elderly Sicilian groom holding the reins obeyed Vito Rizzo’s last orders before his arrest as unquestioningly as, back at Prince Street, he had obeyed Branco’s to dump a sugar barrel in the river. The old man stared straight ahead and pretended he heard no one climb into a barrel behind him until Branco said, “Muoversi!”

Francesca Kennedy’s “confession” two weeks ago in the Prince Street church had been her last. The Boss had ordered a complete change of their routine. From then on, she reported by telephone from a public booth in Grand Central Terminal at three o’clock in the afternoon on odd-numbered days. On even days, she checked a box at the nearby post office. The letters contained instructions and money. The instructions included the number she would tell the telephone operator to give her. But for two weeks, whatever number she asked for rang and rang but was not answered.

This afternoon, three on the dot, he answered. “What sins?”

“Adultery.”

“I didn’t know he was married.”

“He’s not. But I’m supposed to be a widow, so it’s adultery until we marry, because, you see, the Church—”

“What have you learned from him?”

“You picked a good day to answer the phone. I just found out he’s going on a big raid.”

“Raid? What kind of raid?”

“A detective raid.”

“Why would he tell you that?”

“He broke a date. He had to tell me why.”

“Maybe he’s seeing someone else?”

“Not on your life,” she said flatly. “He’s mine.”

“Did he happen to say what he is raiding?”

“Some rich guy’s estate.”

“Where?”

“It’s way up the river.”

The Boss fell silent. The telephone booth had a little window in the paneling. Francesca could see hundreds of people rushing for trains. She had a funny thought. The Boss could be right next to her, right beside her, in another booth. He knew where she was, but she could only guess where he was.

“Did Detective Abbott happen to mention the rich man’s name?”

“Sure.”

“Why sure?”

“I asked him. You told me find out everything the Van Dorns are doing, remember?”

“I am puzzled that a private detective would tell you so much about a case he was working up.”

“I told you, he’s mine.”

“I find it hard to believe he would be that indiscreet, even with you.”

“Listen, he’s got no reason not to trust me. He’s the one who started us. I set it up so he thinks he made the first move at the Knickerbocker. In fact, lately I’ve been wondering—”

“What’s the rich man’s name?”

“Culp.”

Again the Boss fell silent.

“J. B. Culp, the Wall Street guy,” she added, and pressed her cheek to the glass to look down the row of booths. The angle was too shallow. She couldn’t see inside the other booths, only the operator’s stand at the head of the row and the pay clerk at his desk.

Still not a peep out of the Boss.

“It’s funny,” she said. “Everybody reads about J. B. Culp in the papers—the swell’s rich as Rockefeller. But only little old Francesca knows that a whole squad of detectives are going to bust his door like he’s operating a low-down bookie joint.”

“Did Detective Abbott tell you why the Van Dorns are raiding Culp’s estate?”

“No.”

“Did you ask?” the Boss said sharply.

“I nudged around it a little. He clammed up. I figured I better quit while I was ahead of the game.”

“When is the raid?”

Francesca laughed.

“What is funny?”

“When you read about it in the morning paper, don’t forget who told you first.”

“Tonight?”

The grappling hooks whistled, cutting the air. Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott swung their ropes in ever-growing circles, building momentum, then simultaneously let fly at the wall that loomed slightly darker than the cloud-shrouded night sky. The hooks cleared the top, twelve feet above their heads, and clanked against the back side. Bell and Abbott drew in the slack and pulled hard. The iron claws held.

“Cut the wires!”

It went like clockwork. Up the knotted ropes, over thick folds of canvas to cover the broken glass, drop the rope ladders, then down the inside and running along a mowed inspection track that paralleled the wall. There were no lights in the gymnasium, the barracks, or the boathouse. The main house was dark upstairs, but the ground floor was lit up like Christmas.

“Dinner in the dining room,” said Bell.

Bell sent two men to capture the prizefighters and another man down to the river to rendezvous with the boat. Then he and Archie Abbott led squads to the house. Bell took the back door, Archie the front.

“They’re here,” said Branco.

“This should be great fun,” said Culp. “Too bad you can’t observe in person. I’ll fill you in later.”

Branco was not convinced that it was a good idea, much less “great fun.” But they were on Culp’s home turf and it was up to Culp to call the shots. “Vamoose!” Culp told him. “While the going’s good.”

Branco opened a servants’ door hidden in the dining room paneling.

“Branco.”

“What is it?”

“I’m impressed that you came back, knowing the raid was coming. You could have disappeared and left me to it.”

“I need you,” said Branco. “No less, no more, than you need me.” He closed the door. A narrow, twisting staircase went down to the silver vault, which had been originally a slave hidey-hole. Branco unlocked it, let himself inside, and locked it again.

J. B. Culp snatched a heavy pistol from the sideboard, strode to his front door, and flung