The Gangster

“Did J. B. Culp instruct you to disperse this picket line?” asked the Morning Times.

The progressive Evening Sun’s reporter was beside himself with excitement. Ordinarily, the biggest news he covered in the Hudson Valley was the state of the winter ice harvest. He had already wired that the intense cold meant harvesting would start so early that the greedy Ice Trust would not be able to jack up prices when the city sweltered next August.

Now, outside the Wall Street tycoon’s gates, he put the screws to privilege: “Sheriff, has J. B. Culp instructed you to permit or deny these American citizens to exercise their constitutional right to free assembly?”

* * *

“There’s an inch of ice on the river, Isaac. They’ve hauled all their boats out of the water at Raven’s Eyrie, and I just saw that the signboard at the passenger pier says the steamers are stopping service for the winter.”

“I sent Archie to Poughkeepsie to buy an ice yacht.”

“I’m amazed that Joe Van Dorn authorized such an expense.”

“This one’s on me,” said Bell. “I want a special design. Fortunately, my kindly grandfather left me the means to pay for it.”

* * *

Isaac Bell found New York Police Department Detective Sergeant Petrosino’s Italian Squad in a small, dimly lit room over a saloon on Centre Street. Exhausted plainclothes operatives were slumped in chairs and sleeping on tables. Joe Petrosino, a tough, middle-aged cop built short and wide as a mooring bollard, was writing furiously at a makeshift desk.

“I’ve heard of you, Bell. Welcome to the highlife.”

“Do you have time to talk?” said Bell with a glance at those detectives who were awake and watching curiously.

“My men and I have no secrets.”

“Nor do I and mine,” said Bell. “But I am sitting on dynamite and I’m obliged to keep it private.”

“When a high class private investigator offers me dynamite, I have to ask why.”

“Because Harry Warren thinks the world of you. So does Mike Coligney.”

“Mike and I have Commissioner Bingham in common. He’s been… helpful to us both.”

Bell answered carefully. “I do not believe that Captain Coligney reckons that this particular dynamite is up the Commissioner’s alley.”

Petrosino clapped a derby to his head and led Bell downstairs.

They walked the narrow old streets of downtown. Bell laid out the threat.

“Have you informed the President?”

“Mr. Van Dorn and I went down to Washington and told him face-to-face.”

“What did he say?”

“He refused to believe it.”

Petrosino shook his head with a bitter chuckle. “Do you remember when King Umberto was assassinated by Gaetano Bresci?”

“Summer of 1900,” said Bell. “Bresci was an anarchist.”

“Since he had lived in New Jersey, the Secret Service asked me to infiltrate Italian anarchist cells to investigate whether they were plotting against President McKinley. It was soon clear to me they were. I warned McKinley they would shoot him first chance they got. McKinley wouldn’t listen. He took no precautions — ignored Secret Service advice and let crowds of strangers close enough to shake his hand. Can you explain such nonsense to me?”

“They think they’re bulletproof.”

“After McKinley died, they said to me, ‘You were wrong, Lieutenant Petrosino. The anarchist wasn’t Italian. He was Polish.’”

“I know what you mean,” Bell commiserated. “I’m pretty much in the same boat you were.”

“How do these fools get elected?”

“People seem to want them.”

Petrosino gave another weary chuckle. “That’s cop work in a nutshell: Protect fools in spite of themselves.”

Isaac Bell asked, “Who do you think Antonio Branco will hire to kill the President?”

“If he doesn’t do the job himself?”

“He may well,” said Bell. “But for the sake of covering all bases, who would he hire?”

“He’s got a choice of Black Hand gorillas or radical Italian anarchists,” said Petrosino. “Pray it’s gorillas.”

“Why’s that?”

“Criminals trip themselves up worrying about getting away. The crazy anarchists don’t mind dying in the act. They don’t even think about getting away, which makes them so dangerous.”

“Do you have a line on Italian anarchists?” Bell asked.

“Most of them.”

“Could you take them out of commission when the President goes to Storm King?”

“The lawyers will howl. The newspapers will howl. The Progressives will howl.”

“How loudly?”

Petrosino grinned. “I been a cop so long, so many gunfights, my ears are deaf.”

“Thank you,” said Bell. “I hope the Van Dorn Agency can return the favor one day. What about the gorillas?”

“Too many. I’ll never find them all. But like I say, they’re not as dangerous as anarchists.”

* * *

“Well done on the anarchists!” Joseph Van Dorn said when Bell reported. “But the assurance that ‘gorillas’ are not as dangerous as radicals doesn’t exactly make me rest easy. Particularly as the President has decided to make your ‘one speech only’ open to all. He wired me this morning that he’s going to lead the workmen in a parade.”