The Gangster

Antonio Branco wedged his way toward the front of the crowd on a path surreptitiously cleared by Black Hand gorillas. They were dressed convincingly as laborers, but the legitimate pick and shovel men instinctively steered clear of them. Branco stationed himself in the second row, where the crowd was thickest, just behind the organ grinder.

The organ grinder reached inside the instrument and shifted the barrel sideways to change the tune. Then he resumed turning the crank that made the barrel move the keys and the bellows blow air in the pipes. His monkey, costumed for the occasion like a Roosevelt Rough Rider in a polka-dot bandanna and blue shirt, went back to work catching pennies in a miniature slouch hat.

The immigrants lining the road exchanged puzzled looks. Instead of the familiar romantic strains of “Celeste Aida” or a rollicking tarantella, the street organ piped out a lively American march.

Only laborers who had been in America long enough to have worked digging the New York Interborough Rapid Transit subway back in ’04, recognized a Republican campaign song bellowed by Roosevelt voters.

“Il Presidente!” they explained to later arrivals. “Il Presidente canto.”

The translator shouted the title of the song.

“‘You’re all right, Teddy!’”

43

Isaac Bell strode up and down the road leading to the siphon tunnel shaft.

They had built a reviewing stand near the shaft house and hung it with bunting that flapped cheerfully in the bitter wind. The stand was packed with contractors and city officials in overcoats and top hats. Luisa Tetrazzini and Enrico Caruso huddled there, both barely visible wrapped in woolen mufflers. Italy’s elegant white-haired Consul General for New York City sat between the opera stars, beaming like he had won the Lottery.

Wally Kisley hurried after Bell to report on the booby trap he had defused. He thought that the hard-driving young detective looked as if he were hoping he could somehow search out the intentions in every one of the thousand faces before the President arrived.

“Isaac!”

Bell cut Kisley off before he could say another word.

“Look inside that street organ. It’s big enough to hold a bomb, and the auto’s going to pass right in front of it.”

“On my way… Then I got to talk to you.”

“Take Harry Warren to talk Italian to the organ grinder. If the old guy’s scared we’re stealing his livelihood, it’ll start a riot.”

Warren engaged the organ grinder in conversation and finally persuaded him to stop cranking for a moment. Kisley looked it over, inside and out. He felt under it and leaned down to inspect the leg that propped up the heavy instrument. When he was satisfied, he nodded his O.K. and stuffed a dollar into the monkey’s hat. Then he hurried back to Bell and paced alongside him while he described the booby trap in the pressure tunnel.

“How’d you spot it?” Bell’s eyes were flickering like metronomes.

“I’d seen it before… But here’s the funny thing, Isaac. It was sloppy work.”

Bell looked at him, sharply. “What do you mean?”

“It could have gone off at any moment. Before the President even got down in the tunnel.”

“But you told me they were masters of dynamite.”

“Either these ones weren’t or they got lazy.”

“Or,” said Bell, “they’re blowing smoke to lull us. Archie found a Springfield rifle in a sniper hide.”

“Just sitting there?” asked Kisley.

“In a closet.”

“I don’t mean to take away from Archie’s investigative talents, but that sounds a little too easy.”

“Archie thought so, too. He didn’t believe the rifle. You don’t believe the booby trap. I don’t believe either. So far all we see is what Branco wants us to see.”

Walter Kisley said, “So what does he not want us to see?”

“I still say he’s going to do it in close. But I still don’t know how.”

“And here comes Teddy. “

* * *

Isaac Bell had already spotted the White Steamer creeping through the throng. The auto was wide open, its top down, with President Roosevelt clearly visible in the backseat. The chief of his Secret Service corps was driving. Joe Van Dorn was up front with him, riding shotgun.

Bell broke into a long-legged stride.

* * *

“Slow down,” ordered the President. “They’ve been standing hours in the cold waiting to see me. Let them see me.”

The chief exchanged wary glances with Van Dorn.

“Slower, I say!”

The chief shifted the speed lever to low. The White slacked to a walking pace.

Van Dorn loosened the firearm in his shoulder holster for the fourth time since they arrived at Cornwall Landing and the President ordered the top lowered. The only good news — other than knowing he had his top detectives in the case — was the height of the Steamer. The auto rode as high off the ground as a stage coach, which meant that criminals and anarchists intending to jump into the open auto had some climbing to do. Otherwise, the attacker held every advantage: surprise; a mob of people to spring from and melt back into; the automobile’s glacial pace; and the victim’s open heart.