The Gangster

Bella Tetrazzini,

Were our need not great, we never trouble such artist. But we have no choice. Four thousand dollars must fall in our hands and so we turn to you singing for great success at Hammerstein. Please, Bella Tetrazzini, prepare the money and wait for instruction. Must have before Thursday.

With great respect,

Your friends in need

“Don’t be afraid,” said Bell, “we’ll—”

“I’m not afraid! I’m angry.”

“When did you get this?”

“Twenty minutes ago. In the afternoon mail.”

“Is this the first you’ve received?”

“Two last week. I thought it make joke.”

“Do you have them?”

“I burned them in the fire. Isaac, I need guard. I’m going to sing in San Francisco again. For the earthquake victims.”

“When do you leave?”

“Tomorrow. I think maybe I should not be alone with only my maid. I need Van Dorn guard.”

Bell thought fast. His Black Hand Squad was up and running, though with no clients, the White Hand Society having terminated their contract. The hunt for Russo, the blaster, had shifted west from St. Louis. The Van Dorn Denver field office was looking for him in the mining camps. Russo could well be heading for San Francisco, which had a large Italian colony.

He fingered the letter. Definitely the same paper.

“Helen?” he called out. “Where’s Helen Mills? There you are. This is for the Secret Service. Take it to Agent Lynch. Wait a minute. Helen?… Excuse me, Luisa, I will be right back.” He led his intern away from the desk, out of earshot. “What’s that bulge?”

“What bulge?”

Bell pointed. “That.”

In her family’s Dupont Circle mansion, Bell had seen Helen wear the latest styles of one-color, single-piece shirtwaist suits. Here, she wore the traditional young office girl’s separate shirtwaist tucked into a trumpet skirt.

“That bulge is me.”

“Not that. That pocket pistol under the pleats. Hand it over.” He opened a big hand and waited for her to put the gun in it. “You know that Van Dorn apprentices are not allowed to carry guns.”

“It’s my father’s.”

“I’ll return it to him next time I’m in Washington.”

She checked the hammer was on an empty chamber and handed Bell the pocket pistol, butt first.

“Just for the record,” said Bell, “interns are not even permitted a nail file.”

“What if I break a fingernail?”

“Rub it on a brick wall.”

“Mr. Bell?”

“What?”

“Are you going to tell me that you never hid a gun when you were an apprentice?”

“I didn’t get caught. Go! Show Lynch… And Helen?”

“What is it?”

“See if you can find out something that Lynch really wants.”

“He wants to take me to Coney Island.”

Bell grinned. “Something he wants from us. Some business Van Dorns can do for him. I have a funny feeling about this counterfeiting.”

He returned to Tetrazzini.

“I will escort you personally to San Francisco on the train. When we get to San Francisco, our field office will take good care of you. Mr. Bronson, the detective in charge, is a top-notch man and happens to be a great fan of the opera. I’m told he took to his bed when you left San Francisco.”

“Mille o tante grazie, Isaac. I’m not afraid, but who can say… Isaac? Don’t you have a fiancée in San Francisco?”

“As a matter of fact, I do.”

As soon as she left, Bell telephoned Enrico Caruso. “Would it be convenient for me to come up and see you?”

Ten minutes later, Caruso welcomed him into his suite. They had met recently in the hotel’s lower lobby bar, where residents knew to find a quiet drink in the afternoon. The tenor was only a few years older than the detective, and they had hit it off when they discovered they both had survived the earthquake uninjured.

Caruso was wearing a woolen dressing gown and had his throat wrapped in three scarves to Tetrazzini’s one. His drawing room housed an eight-foot Mason & Hamlin grand piano and a wheezing machine of tanks and nozzles that emitted clouds of steam to moisten the air. “La Voce!” he said, stroking his throat. “Do feel free to remove your coat.”

Bell did so, gratefully. Panama jungles were cooler and drier than Caruso’s suite.

The singer stubbed out his cigarette and lit a fresh one. “I missed you at my Pagliacci!”

“I was busy getting dynamited.”

“All work and no play…”

“Tetrazzini got a Black Hand letter.”

“I know. I told her to go to you.”

“How about you? Did you get a letter?”

“No,” the singer said. “Why do you ask?”

“If they are the same gang that kidnapped Maria Vella and are dynamiting businesses, they might be stepping up, trying to see how high they can make threats pay. Luisa is not as famous as you by a long shot. What if they’re experimenting with her to see how it works? Before they go after a really big fish.”