The Gangster

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.

Bell had already swept the clubs up and back to a horizontal position at head height. Gathering his strength in one last effort, he carried them forward simultaneously.

* * *

Isaac Bell strolled into the Raven’s Eyrie dining room dressed for dinner in a midnight blue tuxedo. John Butler Culp was seated at the head of the table, Daphne Culp at some distance to his right, and a place setting across from her to Culp’s left. The Saint George, his horse, and dragon cellar had been moved close to curtain off the rest of the long, long mahogany table, creating a cozy space for their small party.

“Good evening, Mrs. Culp,” he said to the beautiful Daphne. “I’m so sorry I’m late. Evening, J.B. Say, where’d you get the black eye?”

Culp glowered.

Mrs. Culp said, “Jenkins, don’t just stand there. Bring Mr. Bell a plate… Mr. Bell, are you quite all right? Your face is bruised. Butler, did you do that to Mr. Bell?”

Bell leapt to defend his host. “Of course he didn’t. He wouldn’t, even if he could… Oh, I almost forgot, J.B. The gentlemen who work for you in the gymnasium asked would it be possible for the cook to send soup or broth to their room. Something they can eat through a straw.”

“O.K.,” said Culp. “You won this round.”

“I have indeed,” said Bell. But he knew, and so did Culp, that he had won a hollow victory. One look at the tycoon, angry as he was, showed a man still absolutely secure in his belief that regardless of Bell’s suspicions, John Butler Culp was still insulated from the dirty work, still set so high above the law that he could plot the death of the President. The crime would proceed.

That thought chilled Bell to the marrow: wheels were in motion, gathering speed like a locomotive fresh from the roundhouse, oiled, coaled, and watered, switched to the main line, tracks cleared, and nothing could stop it, not even Culp himself… Not quite no one, he thought on reflection. The one aspect that even Culp couldn’t control was that Bell knew. He couldn’t prove it yet. But he knew and he could stop it or die trying.

“Detective Bell,” Culp said, “you’re smiling as if very pleased with yourself.”

Bell put down his knife and fork and leveled his gaze at the statue of Saint George, his horse, and the dragon. “Please pass the salt.”

Mrs. Culp laughed out loud. “Mr. Bell, you’re the first guest who’s had the nerve to say that to him — Butler, at least smile, for gosh sakes.”

“I’m smiling,” said Culp.

“It doesn’t look that way.”

“It will.”

24

“You look like you’ve been pounding rivets with your face,” Harry Warren greeted Isaac Bell at the office.

“Slipped in the bathtub… I read Finn’s obituary on the train; hard to tell, between the lines, who he really was.”