The Race by Clive Cussler (best book reader txt) 📕

left his rifle where he had dropped it and was holding a hand to his eye. Bell fired twice. One shot shattered glass in the structure that housed the elevator machinery. The other nicked the heel of Frost’s boot. The impact of the powerful centerfire .35 caliber slug knocked the big man off his feet.

Bell wrenched the Eagle around again, ignoring the protesting shriek of wind in the stays and an ominous grinding sound that vibrated through the controls, and raced back at the red brick building to finish him off. Across the roof, the door of the stair house flew open. Soldiers with long, clumsy rifles tumbled through it and fanned out, forcing Bell to hold his fire to avoid hitting them. Frost ducked behind the elevator house. As Bell roared past, he saw the killer open a door and slip inside.

He looked down at the avenue in front of the building, saw that Josephine had alighted and that there was space for him. Down he went, blipping his motor. He hit the cobblestones hard, spun half around, recovered, and, when the tail skid had slowed him nearly to a stop, jumped down and ran up the front steps of the armory, drawing his pistol.

An honor guard of soldiers in dress uniforms holding rifles at port arms blocked his way.

“Van Dorn!” Bell addressed their sergeant, a decorated man of action whose chestful of battle ribbons included the blue-and-yellow Spanish-American War Marine Corps Spanish Campaign Service Medal. “There’s a murderer in the elevator house. Follow me!”

The old veteran sprang into action, running after the tall detective and calling upon his men. The inside of the armory was an enormous cathedral-like drill space as wide as the building and half as deep. The coffered ceiling rose as high as the roof. Bell raced to the elevator and stair shafts. The elevator doors were closed, and the brass arrow that indicated its location showed that the car was at the top of the shaft.

“Two men here!” he ordered. “Don’t let him out if the car descends. The rest, follow me.”

He bounded up four flights of stairs, with the soldiers clattering behind, reached the roof, and stepped outside just as Joe Mudd’s red Liberator roared around the building, yards ahead of Sir Eddison-Sydney-Martin’s blue Curtiss Pusher.

Bell ran to the elevator house. The door was locked.

“Shoot it open.”

The soldiers looked to their sergeant.

“Do it!” he ordered. Six men pumped three rounds of rifle fire into the door, bursting it open. Bell bounded in first, pistol in hand. The machine room was empty. He looked through the steel grate floor. He could see into the open, unroofed car, which was still at the top of the shaft immediately under him. It, too, was empty. Harry Frost had disappeared.

“Where is he?” shouted the sergeant. “I don’t see anyone. Are you sure you saw him in here?”

Isaac Bell pointed at an open trapdoor in the floor of the car.

“He lowered himself down the traction rope.”

“Impossible. There’s no way a man could hold on to that greasy cable.”

Bell dropped into the elevator car and looked down through the trap. His sharp eyes spotted twin grooves in the grease that thickly coated the braided steel wire that formed the traction rope. He showed the sergeant.

“Where the heck did he get a cable brake?”

“He came prepared,” said Bell, climbing up the side of the car to run for the stairs.

“Any idea who he was?”

“Harry Frost.”

Fear flickered across the old soldier’s face. “We were chasing Harry Frost?”

“Don’t worry. He won’t get far.”

“Chicago’s his town, mister.”

“It’s our town, too, and Van Dorns never give up.”

26

THAT EVENING, Isaac Bell parked a big Packard Model 30 within pistol shot of the three-story mansion on Dearborn Street that housed the Everleigh Club, the most luxurious bordello in Chicago. He kept the bill of a chauffeur’s cap low over his eyes and watched two heavyset Van Dorns climb the front steps. Out-of-town men who would not be recognized by the doorman and floor managers, they were dressed in evening clothes to appear to be customers wealthy enough to patronize the establishment. They rang the bell. The massive oak door swung open, the detectives were ushered in, and it swung shut behind them.

Bell watched the sidewalks for cops and gangsters.

Stealthy movement beside a pool of streetlamp light caught his attention. A slight figure, a young man in a wrinkled sack suit and bowler hat, eased past the light, then veered across the sidewalk on a route that took him close enough to the Packard for Bell to recognize him.

“Dash!”

“Hello, Mr. Bell.”

“Where the devil did you come from?”

“Mr. Bronson gave me permission to report in person. Got me a free ride guarding the Overland Limited’s express car.”

“You’re just in time. Do you have your revolver?”

James Dashwood drew from a shoulder holster a long-barreled Colt that had been smithed to a fare-thee-well. “Right here, Mr. Bell.”

“Do you see those French doors on the third-floor balcony?”

“Third floor.”

“Those stairs lead up from the balcony to the roof. I’d prefer not to engage in a public gun battle with anyone trying to escape from that room through those doors. Do you see the knob?”

Dashwood’s keen eyes penetrated the shadows to focus on the barely visible two-inch bronze knob. “Got it.”

“If it moves, shoot it.”

Bell tugged his gold watch from its pocket and traced the second hand. “In twenty seconds, our boys will knock on the hall door.”

Twenty-three seconds later, the knob turned. Dashwood, who had been trained by his mother—a former shootist with Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show—fired once. The knob flew from the door.

“Hop in,” said Bell. “Let’s hear what this fellow has to tell us.”

Moments later, the heavyset Van Dorns exited the front of the bordello, balancing a man between them like friends helping a drunk. Bell eased the Packard along the curb, and they bundled the man into the backseat.

“Do you realize who I am?” he blustered.

“You are Alderman William T. Foley, formerly known as ‘Brothel Bill,’