The Gangster (20 page)

“I notice you still wear the ring.”

“The ring keeps the wrong type from getting the wrong idea.”

“May I sit down?”

“Why?”

Abbott grinned. “To see whether I’m the wrong type.”

Francesca smiled a smile that lit her eyes like limelight. “Only the wrong type would get the wrong idea.”

“Tell me about your accent, I don’t quite recognize it. I studied accents as an actor. Before my current line of work.”

“What is your line?”

“Insurance.”

“Sit down, Archibald,” said Francesca Kennedy. “I am pleased to make your acquaintance.”

The gatehouse at Raven’s Eyrie looked like it had been built to repel anarchists and labor agitators. Sturdy as an armory, the two-story granite redoubt was flanked by high walls. The gate had bars thick as railroad track, and the driveway it blocked was so steep that no vehicle could get up enough speed to batter through it. But what riveted Isaac Bell’s attention were the shooting slits in the upper story, which would allow riflemen to pick off attackers at their leisure. J. B. Culp was not taking chances with anyone who had it in for the rich.

“Please inform Mr. Culp that Isaac Bell has come to accept the invitation he offered at Seawanhaka to view his ice yacht.”

“Have you an appointment, sir?”

The gatekeeper wore an immaculate uniform. He had cropped iron-gray hair and a rugged frame. His sidearm was the old Model 1873 .45 Colt the United States Marines had brought back into service for its stopping power in the Philippine Campaign.

Bell passed his card through the bars. “Mr. Culp invited me to drop by anytime.”

Five minutes later, Culp himself tore down the driveway in a six-cylinder, air-cooled Franklin—the same six-cylinder model
that had just made a coast to coast run across the continent in a record-breaking fifteen days. “Welcome, Bell! How do you happen to be up here?”

“We’re underwriting some of the aqueduct contractors’ insurers. Hartford asked me to have a look at our interests.”

“Lucky you found me at home.”

“I suspected that phones and wires cut you loose from the city,” answered Bell, who had had an operative keeping tabs on Culp’s comings and goings since eliminating the other Cherry Grove suspects.

“Hop in! I’ll show you around.”

“I came especially to see your iceboat.”

Culp swung the auto onto a branch of the driveway that descended along the inside of the estate walls all the way down to the river, where crew barracks adjoined a boathouse. Yard workers were hauling sailboats up a marine railway. Inside the boathouse, his ice racer was suspended over the water, ready to be lowered when it froze. It had the broad stance of a waterspider, a lightweight contraption consisting of a strong triangular “hull”—two crossed spars of aluminum—with skate blades at the three corners.

“Entirely new, modern design,” Culp boasted. “Got the idea for aluminum from my Franklin. Strong and light.” It struck Bell that Culp sounded like a typical sportsman obsessed with making his yacht, or racehorse, or auto, or ice yacht a winner.

Bell marveled at the rig hanging from the rafters. “Monster sail.”

“Lateen rig. Beats the tried and true Hudson River gaff main and clubfooted jib. I cracked ninety knots last winter.”

“Ninety? You’ll beat the 20th Century.”

“I’ll beat a hundred, this winter. Come on, I’ll show you the house.”

The house at Raven’s Eyrie was a very large mansion with striking views through sheets of glass so big they could have been department store show windows in New York. Here, too, Culp struck him as more the proud homeowner than a killer. For the interior, Culp had gone shopping in Europe. Bell exclaimed politely at regular intervals, and stopped dead in his tracks to study an enormous silver, lapis lazuli, and ivory sculpture on the dining room table. Dominating the table, where it would tower over thirty guests, it depicted Saint George, on horseback, running his lance through a dragon. Bell had just figured out that the giant bowls at the dragon’s head and tail made it a salt and pepper cellar when Mrs. Culp suddenly appeared, leading her cook and majordomo.

She looked to be a decade Culp’s junior, closer to Bell’s age. She would hardly be the first rich man’s wife whose husband spent nights in the Cherry Grove bordello, but, thought Bell, Daphne Culp was such a looker it would not seem worth the trouble leaving home.

“Bell,” Culp introduced him brusquely. “Met him racing at Seawanhaka.”

Bell praised the ice yacht and her house, and she asked, “Do I hear the faintest trace of Boston in your voice, Mr. Bell?”

“Guilty, ma’am. I thought most of it rubbed off at New Haven.”

“Butler went to Yale, too, didn’t you, dear?”

“John Butler Culp was a legendary Old Blue when I arrived,” said Bell.

“Not that old, for gosh sakes,” said Culp.

Daphne soon established she and Bell had in common distant cousins by marriage, and she asked him to stay to dinner. “Did you come up from New York? You better stay the night.”

“Let me show you the gymnasium,” said Culp.

“Your own prize ring,” said Bell.

“And my own prizefighters.”

Culp introduced Lee and Barry. They were well-knit men, with firm, elastic steps. Lee was tall and lean, Barry slightly shorter and twice as wide, and Culp would reap the benefit of training with different types.

“Did I hear somewhere you boxed for Yale?” Culp asked.

“I believe I heard the same about you.”

“Shall we go a couple?”

Bell took off his coat and shoulder holster.

Culp asked, “Do you have much occasion for artillery in the insurance business?”

“Violent swindlers are notable exceptions,” Bell answered, hanging his coat and gun on a peg. He stripped off his tie and shirt, stepped up onto the ring, ducked through the tightly strung ropes, and crossed the canvas into the far corner. Culp removed his coat, tie, and shirt and climbed in after him. “Do you need gloves?”

“Not if you don’t.”

“Put ’em up.”

Barry, who had been punching the heavy bag, and Lee, twirling the Indian clubs, watched with barely concealed smirks. Barry banged the bell with the little hammer that hung beside it. Culp and Bell advanced to the center of the ring, touched knuckles, backed up a step, and commenced sparring.

Bell saw immediately that Culp was very, very good, sporting a rare combination of bulk, speed, and agility. Though ten years Bell’s senior, he was extremely fit. Bell was not surprised. At the yacht club, Culp had bounded about the decks of his New York “Thirty” like a born athlete. What was slightly surprising was how determined the Wall Street titan was to give him a black eye. In fact, he seemed bent on it, swinging repeatedly at his head, to the point where it made him reckless. Frustrated by Bell’s footwork and impenetrable guard, he began unleashing punches that opened chinks in his own defense.

Lee rang the bell, ending the first round. They took a moment’s rest and went another.

In the third round, Culp threw caution to the wind and charged, using his bulk in an attempt to startle Bell into dropping his ground and hurling at him a mighty right. Had it connected, it would have knocked Bell through the ropes.

Culp tried the tactic again, and Bell decided to end it before things got further out of hand. He opened Culp with two swift feints of his left hand, then planted a light jab with the same left in Culp’s eye.

Unpadded by gloves, Bell’s knuckles took their toll, and Culp staggered backwards. His face darkened with anger, and he stepped through the ropes, holding his eye.

“Take over!”

The tall, lean Lee put down the Indian clubs and climbed into the ring.

Culp lumbered toward the door. “You’ll excuse me, I have to dress for dinner. Enjoy the facility,
Detective
Bell.”

“I wondered when you’d figure that out,” said Bell.

“Long before I saw your gun.”

“Thank you.”

“For what?”

“Now I know for sure what you’re up to.”

Culp laughed. “You won’t know your own name when these two get through with you. Go to it, boys.”

He whipped Bell’s holster off the peg and took it with him.

Lee put up his fists. “Shall we say fifteen rounds?”

“Or until you get tired,” said Bell.

“When he gets tired,” called Barry, “it’s my turn.”

At the end of five rounds, Lee said, “Something tells me you didn’t learn that footwork at Yale.”

“South Side,” said Bell.

Lee was breathing hard. So was Bell. Barry was watching closely, learning his moves.

“South Side of what?”

“Chicago.”

“Thought so.”

Barry rang the bell.

Lee backed slowly out of the ring after ten rounds. “Finish him.”

Barry swung through the ropes, feet light on the canvas floor, which was slick with Lee’s blood. “O.K., Chicago. Time for lessons.”

“You’ll have to do a lot better than your pal.”

“First lesson: A good big man will always beat a good little man.” Barry glided at him, fast and hard.

Isaac Bell was tired. His arms were getting heavy. His feet felt like he had traded his boots for horseshoes. His ear was ringing where he had caught a right. His cheek was swollen. No serious damage to his torso yet. Barry moved in, feeling for how tired Bell was.

Bell locked eyes with the bigger man and threw some feints to send messages that he was still strong and dangerous. At the same time, he forced himself to override the desire to move fast, which would tire him even more. Barry kept coming, jabbing, feeling him out. Suddenly, he tricked Bell’s hands up with his own feint and landed a left hand to the tall detective’s chest. The slim, long-armed Lee had thrown stinging punches. Barry hit like a pile driver. Bell forced himself to stand tall and hide the damage.

“Lee!” he called. “Come back.”

“What?”

“I’m getting bored. Why don’t you both get in the ring; we’ll make this quick.”

“Your funeral.”

Lee climbed in slowly, stiff, sore, and exhausted.

“Hey, Barry, give your pal a hand, he’s moving like an  old man.”

Barry turned to help. Bell drove between them and somersaulted over the ropes.

“He’s running for it,” yelled Barry, and both scrambled after him.

Bell turned and faced them. “I’m not running, I’m evening the odds.”

He had a twenty-pound Indian club in each hand.

“Put those down or you’ll really get hurt.”

“Teeth or knees, boys?”

He swung the clubs at their faces. They raised fast hands to block and grab them. Bell had already changed course. The clubs descended, angling down and sideways. The heavy bulging ends struck like blunt axes. Barry gasped. Lee groaned. Both dropped their guard to clutch their kneecaps. But they weren’t down. Both were fighting men and both battered through their pain to lunge at Bell.