The Gangster

“You two help him,” Bell ordered Wally Kisley and Mack Fulton, and led Archie and Harry Warren into the building. They searched for trapped and injured. Inside the front hall, broken plaster and splintered lath littered the floor. Through swirling dust, Bell saw that the bomb had blown a hole in a wall between the building and the bank and LaCava’s apartment behind it. Two men hauling sacks of money from LaCava’s safe jumped through the hole.

Isaac Bell and Archie Abbott knocked both to the floor in a flurry of fists and blackjacks. A third thug leaped through the hole, waving a gun. Harry Warren fired his pistol first and dragged the money back through the hole, while Bell and Archie Abbott carried Mrs. LaCava and her two children out of their wrecked parlor.

Cops and plainclothes detectives arrived on the run from their Mulberry Street Station House. White horses galloped through the crowds, dragging fire engines.

“What are you doing here?” asked a detective, taking charge of the prisoner Harry Warren handed over. The others had escaped.

“Guarding the bank.”

“Made a hash of it.”

“No kidding.”

Wally Kisley hurried up to Bell with a rag collector’s sack over his shoulder. Bell asked, “Where’s Richie?”

“Doctor’s sewing his ear. Don’t look now, but the Boss is here.”

“He’s in Washington.”

“Was,” said Harry. “He looks mad enough to bite the heads off nails. Or detectives.”

“I’m afraid I know which one,” said Bell.

Sure enough, Joseph Van Dorn was shouldering a beeline for the Kips Bay Saloon. Bell caught up with him as he knelt beside Wish Clarke, who had fallen back to sleep. Van Dorn seized his shoulder in his massive hand and shook him hard.

“Wake up, Aloysius!”

Wish Clarke opened his eyes, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and smiled. “Hello, Boss.”

“You’re fired.”

Isaac Bell said, “He saved Richie Cirillo’s life.”

“I heard all about it. He’s drunk. Dumb luck he woke up in time and dumb luck he didn’t get the rest of you killed. Aloysius, you’re the best detective I know. I’ll welcome you back when you’re stone-cold sober and dry for the rest of your life. Until then, I don’t want to see your face.”

He stood up, turned, and hurried away. Then he turned back, knelt again, and awkwardly patted Wish’s shoulder. “Bejesus, man, I’ve known you almost as long as I’ve known Mack and Wally. I hope you can come back.”

“Thanks, Joe.”

Van Dorn stalked off.

Isaac Bell helped his old friend to his feet.

Wish said, “Sorry I let you down, Isaac.”

“You didn’t let me down. I’d have lost an apprentice without you. I’m only sorry the Boss doesn’t see it that way.”

Wish looked immensely sad and fumbled for his hip flask. “Don’t get on the wrong side of this, old son. The Boss is right.”

* * *

“What were you doing in the bank?” a police detective roared at the gangster the Van Dorns had turned over to him.

“Buy steamship ticket.”

“Where to?”

“Italia.”

“You’re lying, Pasquale. Your type don’t go back to Italy, they’d throw you in the hoosegow. What were you doing in the bank?”

“Big-a boom. Head hurts.”

“What is your business?”

“None.”

“Who do you run with? Salata?”

“Salata? Never heard of him.”

“Where do you live?”

“I’ve forgotten.”

The cop shouted, “You think I’m the soft mark, wiseacre? I’ll give you to Detective Petrosino. His boys’ll strip you down to your socks.”

“Won’t do no good,” Harry Warren muttered to Isaac Bell. “Sicilians don’t crack.”

Across the street, the killer whose nose Wish Clarke had broken insisted to the cops that he had been running into the Kips Bay for a beer when a drunk attacked him.

“Was that before or after you dropped your stiletto?”

“Not mine.”

“Pasquale, I got witnesses saw you stabbed a kid with it.”

“Nobody remember in trial.”

The cop winked at Harry Warren. “If they was Italians who saw you stick the kid, you’d probably be right, Pasquale. You’ve got the poor devils too scared to remember their own mothers. But my witnesses are Van Dorns. They got a saying. They never forget. Never… So let’s start over. What’s your name?”

“Pasquale.”

“What’s your name?”

“Pasquale.”

“He’s Vito Rizzo,” Harry Warren interrupted. “One of Salata’s boys, aren’t you, Vito?”

“Gimme lawyer.”

Warren said to Bell, “He’ll jump bail tomorrow.”

“We’ll press charges.”

“He’ll still be out on bail. They got pull at Tammany Hall.”

* * *

The cops and firemen restored order, and the neighborhood started to settle down. But even as they cleared the street of people gawking, a long line of depositors, clutching bankbooks, formed at the shattered front door of Banco LaCava.

Bell gave the cops on guard a look at his Van Dorn badge, and Harry Warren slipped each two dollars. They found LaCava stuffing his safe with the money he had scooped from the street and Bell’s squad had rescued.

“My business is ruined. People are running to my bank to take their money.”

“Why? You got your money back.”

“They can’t trust their money will be safe with me. They know the Black Hand will come again. I should have paid like my friend Branco told me.”