The Gangster

“Can you imagine what Culp would pay?”

“Branco could imagine,” Mack Fulton said to general laughter. Bell wondered, though. Would it be enough for Branco to risk his entire setup or did he have his eye on something more?

* * *

Ghiottone’s saloon had been taken over by the dead man’s cousins and was doing a roaring business again. Across the street, Branco’s Grocery was dark and shuttered.

“Hang on,” shouted Bell.

He wrenched the steering wheel. The REO jumped the curb. He drove onto the sidewalk and blasted through Antonio Branco’s front door ten feet into the store. The Van Dorns leaped out, guns drawn. They fanned out into the maze of stock shelves, Bell in the lead.

“Find lights… Wait! I smell gas.”

“Maybe Branco stuck his head in an oven.”

“Stove in here is fine,” Mack Fulton called. “No leak.”

“Don’t turn on the light. Get out. Get out now!”

The odor was suddenly so strong, it smelled as if a torrent of gas was gushing into the store straight from a city main. Bell felt light-headed. “Get out, boys! Get out before it blows.”

The Van Dorn Black Hand Squad bolted for the door they had smashed.

“Leave the auto.”

Bell was counting heads, vaguely aware that he was having trouble keeping track, when he heard Harry Warren shout. He could barely make out what he was saying. Warren sounded blocks away.

“Come on, Isaac! We’re all out.”

Bell turned slowly to the door.

He saw a flash. The REO reared in the air like a spooked horse. Cans flew from the walls. Jars shattered and barrels split open, but the tall detective had the strangest impression of total silence. It was like watching a moving picture of a volcano.

Then the floor collapsed under his feet and the ceiling tumbled down on his head.

BOOK III Storm King

26

The streets were crawling with cops and Van Dorns.

Antonio Branco stepped from a tenement doorway, hurried twenty feet to Banco LaCava, and tapped his signet ring on the glass. David LaCava looked up from the gold he was stacking in his show window. Branco watched his expression and got ready to run. LaCava saw Branco. He gaped, shocked. Then relief spread across his face and he ran to unlock the door.

“You’re alive!”

Branco pushed through and closed it behind him.

“They said you were missing in the explosion.”

Branco made a joke to lull the banker. “Almost as bad. I was upstate in the Catskills.” Then he turned fittingly grave. “I came back on the night boat. I only heard of the explosion this morning when we docked.”

“How bad is it?”

“I couldn’t see. The cops and firemen and sewer and building departments are squabbling over who commands the recovery. Fortunately, none of my people were in my building. But they say some poor souls are trapped in the tenements.”

“There’s a rumor Isaac Bell was in the building.”

“I heard that, too — God knows what he was doing there. Here! Take these.” He thrust a wad of paper into LaCava’s hands.

“What is this?”

“Receipts and bills of lading for a pier house full of wine I stored on West 21st Street. You can see my situation. All my store stock is lost. I need to borrow cash to fill orders for the aqueduct.”

“Is Prince Street insured?”

“It will take time to get the money and I need to buy new stock now. Total these up; you’ll see the wine’s worth fifty thousand. Can you advance me thirty?”

“I wish I could, my friend. I don’t have that much on hand. My depositors are only trickling back.”

“Whatever you can lend me right now… Immediately.”

* * *

Ten minutes after the grocer left with a satchel of cash, grim-faced detectives from the Van Dorn Black Hand Squad burst into the bank.

“Have you seen Antonio Branco?”

David LaCava said, “You just missed him. May I ask, is there any word on Mr. Bell?”

“No. Where did Branco go?”

“To buy stock. He has orders he must fill for the aqueduct.”

Harry Warren and Eddie Edwards stared at the banker.

“Aqueduct?” Warren echoed.

“What are you talking about, Mr. LaCava? Branco’s not filling orders; he’s on the run.”

“What do you mean?” asked LaCava.

“The thieving murderer blew up his own store,” said Warren.

“We hoped he was buried in it,” growled Eddie Edwards. “But someone saw him on the street headed this way.”

LaCava turned paper white as the blood drained from his face. “Basta!”

Harry Warren gripped the banker’s shoulder. “What’s wrong?”

“I didn’t know. Everybody said it was an accident.”

“‘Everybody’ was wrong. He blew it up, along with three buildings next door and half the graveyard.”

“I just lent him twenty thousand dollars… But I have these! Don’t you see? Collateral. You are mistaken. He is Antonio Branco. He has the Catskill Aqueduct contract.”

“Honest as the Lottery?”

“But these bills of lading—”

The Van Dorn snatched them out of his hand.

* * *