Francesca held the walking stick in both her hands and swung it like a baseball bat. It connected with a loud thud, and she dropped the stick and ran into the hall. Antonio Branco’s eyes opened wide in disbelief as Archie Abbott sagged to the floor.
Branco snatched up the stick. Isaac Bell was back on his feet. Branco aimed for his head, but Bell was too fast for him and ducked the blow. Branco swung again, but, as he did, the half-conscious Archie Abbott kicked him. Thrown off balance, Branco missed Bell’s head but caught him instead in the back of his knee. Bell’s leg flew out from under him, and Branco was out the door.
He saw Francesca racing down the hall.
“Come with me,” he called.
“You’ll kill me.”
She darted into a service stair. Branco ran past it to the end of the hall where, before going to her room, he had confirmed an escape route down a stair to the hotel kitchens.
Isaac Bell tore after them.
The hall was empty. He ran full tilt, spotted a service stair, and wrenched open its door, which emitted a scent of fresh linen. Then he saw blood farther along on the hall carpet. He ran to it, spotted another stain, and kept going until he found a second service stair.
It was dimly lit and smelled of cooking grease.
He cocked his ear to the sound of running feet and plunged after it. Three flights down, he passed a waiter, who was slumped, stunned, against the wall. Three more flights and he reached the kitchen at the bottom of the steps. Men were shouting. A woman screamed. Bell saw cooks in toques helping a white-jacketed sous-chef to his feet. They saw him coming and scattered.
“Where’d he go?” Bell shouted.
“Into the alley.”
They pointed at the door. Bell shoved through it. The alley was empty but for a set of footprints in the snow. At the end of it, crowds were hurrying along 33rd. Bell ran to the street. The sidewalks were packed and he couldn’t see farther than fifty feet in the snow. Branco could have run either way. He hurried back into the kitchen.
“Did you see a woman with him?”
“No.”
He asked directions to the laundry. A cook’s boy took him there and he began to search for Francesca Kennedy. Frightened laundresses pointed mutely at a laundry cart. Bell seized it with both hands and turned it over.
Isaac Bell borrowed manacles from a house detective and marched Francesca Kennedy back to the wrecked hotel room. Angry Waldorf detectives paced in the hall, steering curious guests past the open door. Archie was slumped on the armchair, holding his head, attended by the hotel doctor.
“Why did you hit me?” he asked Francesca. “Why didn’t you hit Branco? He was going to kill you.”
Francesca asked matter-of-factly, “What’s the difference? You were going to arrest me, and it’ll kill me when they hang me.”
Bell eased his grip on her arm and said quietly, “Why don’t we discuss ways we can arrange things so they don’t hang you?”
She raised her blue eyes to smile up at him and Bell forgave Archie for most of his stupidity. As he had told Marion, Francesca Kennedy was intoxicating—and then some.
“Shall we talk?” Bell prompted.
“I like talking,” said Francesca.
“So I’ve heard.”
She said, “Could we, by any chance, talk over dinner? I’m starving.”
“Good idea,” said Bell. “We’ll have dinner at Captain Mike’s.”
“I don’t know it.”
“It’s on West 30th in the Tenderloin.”
Captain “Honest Mike” Coligney of the 19th Precinct Station House posted a police matron outside the room he had provided for Isaac Bell to interrogate his prisoner.
“I hope you know what you’re doing, Isaac,” said Coligney. “That woman is poison.”
“I don’t know any one more familiar with Antonio Branco than she.”
“Even though they never met face-to-face.”
“He gave orders. She carried them out.”
Bell stepped inside the room and closed the door.
“What would you like for dinner?” was his first question.
“Could I have a steak?”
“Of course.”
“Could we possibly have a glass of wine?”
“I don’t see why not.” He stepped out of the room and handed Mike Coligney twenty bucks. “Best restaurant in the neighborhood—steaks, the fixings, a couple of glasses of wine, and plenty of dessert.”
“You’re wasting your dough,” Coligney said. “What makes you think she’ll turn on him? When she had a choice of braining Branco or Detective Abbott, she chose the detective.”
“The lady likes to talk and the deck is stacked against her.”
“As it damned well should be.”
“She knows that. From what she told me on the way over, she would be the last to claim angelhood.”
Bell went back inside. Francesca had remained where he had left her, seated at a small, rough wooden table that was bolted, like both chairs, to the concrete floor.
“You know, Isaac . . . It’s O.K. if I call you Isaac, isn’t it? I feel I’ve known you forever the way Archie talked about you . . . I’ve been thinking. I always knew it had to happen some time.”
“What had to happen?”
“Getting nailed.”
“Happens to the best,” said Bell.
“And the worst,” Francesca fired back. “You know something? Archie was my favorite job the Boss ever gave me.”
“I’m not surprised,” said Bell. “Archie is excellent company.”
“I had to buy wonderful clothes to be with him. Archie’s used to the best girls. I could spend like a drunken sailor and the Boss never complained.”
“Do you remember the first job you did for Branco?”
“I didn’t know it was Branco.”
“Of course not. You got it from the ‘priest,’ so to speak. Do you remember it?”
“Sure. There was this guy who owned a bunch of groceries in Little Italy. The Boss said he had to go. But it had to look natural.”
“How did you learn to make a murder look like natural causes?”
“Not that kind of natural. Natural! The grocery guy had a taste to do certain stuff to girls and he’d pay a lot for it. But everybody knows if a guy goes around houses doing that, one of these days some girl’s going to get mad enough to stab him. So when he got stabbed, he got stabbed, naturally.”
“Why did the Boss want him killed?”
“I never knew until now it was to get the guy’s business. It’s how Branco got to the big time, owning a string of shops. Big step on his way to the aqueduct job, right? Now he’s on top . . . Or was.”
“Could you tell me about the next job?”
Isaac Bell coaxed her along, story to story, and Antonio Branco emerged as a criminal as ruthless as Bell had expected. But the gangster was unerring in his ability to couple effective methods to precise goals.
Captain Coligney interrupted briefly when dinner arrived.
Francesca ate daintily and kept talking.
Bell asked, “How did you happen to meet the Boss?”
“I don’t really know. I got in trouble once—big trouble—and out of nowhere some gorillas come to my rescue, paid off the cops. One second I think I’m going up the river, next I’m scot-free. Then I get my first message to go to confession.” She cut another bite of porterhouse, chewed slowly, washed it down with a sip of wine, and reflected, “Sometimes things really work out great, don’t they?”
“Did you help him get the aqueduct job?”
“I sure did! I mean, I didn’t know then. But now . . . There was this guy, celebrating a big, big deal. Practically takes over a whorehouse for a weekend. Champagne, girls, the whole deck of cards. I went to confession. Next thing you kno
w, the guy is dead. Before he died, he told me he won this huge city contract to provision the aqueduct. Guess who got the contract after he died?”
“Branco.”
“You got it, Isaac.”
“What was the last job you did for him?”
“Archie.”
“Were you supposed to kill him?”
Francesca Kennedy looked across the table at Bell and cocked an eyebrow. “Is Archie dead?”
Bell gave her the laugh she expected and said, “O.K. So what did Branco tell you to do with Archie?”
“Listen.”
“For anything in particular?”
“Anything to do with your Black Hand Squad.”
“What did you hear?”
“Not one damned thing.”
“But you learned about the raid?”
“Nothing until then. That was the first thing Archie spilled. And the last, I guess,” she added, glancing about the windowless room.
Bell asked her how she had informed Branco, now that he wasn’t a priest anymore, and she explained a system of mailboxes and public telephones.
“How about before Archie?”
“I did a double. A couple of cousins. You know what the Wallopers are?”
“Hunt and McBean?”
“Oh, of course you know. This was a strange one. Wait ’til you hear this, Isaac . . . Could I have a little more wine?”
“Take mine.” Bell tipped his glass into hers, and cleared the plates and flatware and stacked them in the corner. “How was it strange?”
“I picked up Ed Hunt at a party the Boss sent me to and took him to the hotel where the Boss had booked me a room. What I didn’t know was the Boss hid in the closet. All of a sudden, when Hunt fell asleep, he stepped out of the closet. I almost jumped out of my skin.”
“You saw his face?”
“No. It was dark. I never saw his face until this afternoon. Anyhow, he shooed me out—sent me to the next job—and next I hear, Hunt had a heart attack. Well, I have to tell you, Isaac, if he was going to have a heart attack, it would have been while I was still there.”
Bell said, “As I understand it, a stiletto played a role in the heart attack.”
“Big surprise,” said Francesca.
“You said you went on to the next job. What was that?”
“Hunt’s cousin, McBean. The Boss gave me strict orders. Don’t hurt him. Just put him to sleep and go home. Which I did. Just like with Hunt. Then I learned at confession that McBean’s alive and kicking, not like Hunt. So I’m thinking they made a deal. You hear anything about that?”
“I heard heroin changed hands,” said Bell.
“Which reminds me of a job I don’t think I told you about yet . . .”
Bell listened. One story blended into another, which reminded her of another. Suddenly, he asked, “What did you say?”
“I was telling you how he confessed to me.”
“Would you repeat that, please. What do you mean ‘confessed’? Branco confessed to you?”
“I mean, one night he confessed to me. In the church. I was trying to figure out how to do this guy he wanted dead. All of a sudden, it was like I was the priest, and he started telling me about the first man he ever killed—when he was eight years old, if you think I’m bad. You know what he said? It was ‘satisfying.’ Isn’t that a strange word to talk about murder. Satisfying? And when he was only eight?”
“I wouldn’t know,” said Bell. “What do you think?”
“I wouldn’t call it satisfying. I’d call it, like, finishing. Completing. Like, ‘That’s over,’ if you know what I mean. Anyway, then he told me how he killed a padrone who robbed him.”
“How does he kill?”
“He plans and he hides.”
“What do you mean?”
“He gets close to kill. To get close, you have to plan. Study the situation. Learn it cold. Then make a plan.”
“He told you that?”
“He taught me: Plan what to pretend. Pretend you’re reading a newspaper. Pretend you’re busy working. Or pretend you need help. To throw ’em off. You know what I mean, Isaac? He makes an art of it.”
“Of killing.”
“Yes, if you want to call it that.”
“So Branco was your teacher?”
“He taught me how to do it and not get killed. I owe him a lot, you could say. But what’s the difference now?”
“What else did he tell you?”
“You’re not listening, Isaac. He didn’t tell me that; he taught me.”
“Get so close that they can’t be afraid?”
“Plan to get so close that they let their guard down.”
“Thanks for the advice,” said Bell.
“What advice?”
Bell whipped the automatic from his shoulder holster and pressed the muzzle to her forehead.
“What are doing?”
“Francesca, reach into your blouse with two fingers.”
“What are you talking about, Isaac?”
“Lift out of your corset the steak knife you palmed at dinner.”
“What if I don’t?”
“I will blow your brains out,” said Bell.
“You’d be doing me a favor. Quicker than hanging. And a lot quicker than being locked in the bug house.”
Bell slid the muzzle down her nose and chin and neck and touched it to her shoulder. “This won’t kill you, but wherever you end up—bug house, prison, even escape—you’ll never use this arm again.”
The knife rang on the concrete.
“You look like a wreck,” said Archie Abbott when Isaac Bell finally stumbled into the Van Dorn field office.
Bell shook sleet off his coat and hat and warmed his hands over a radiator. “I feel like I’ve been up a week with that woman. She would not shut up.”
“Did she tell you anything useful?”
“How Branco will attempt to kill TR.”
“How does she know?”
“She was his apprentice. She knows how he operates. It won’t be a sniper or a bomb. It will be up close.”
38
They reported to the White House early in the morning. The President was exercising on a rowing machine. Van Dorn did the talking. When he had laid out the threat in succinct detail, he concluded, “For your own safety, Mr. President, and the good of the nation, I recommend curtailing your public appearances. And avoid al together any in the vicinity of the Catskill Aqueduct.”
“The aqueduct is the great enterprise of our age,” said President Roosevelt, “and I worked like a nailer to start it up when I was Governor. The very least I can do as President is lend my name and presence to the good men who took over the job. They’ll be at it for years, so celebrating the Storm King Siphon Tunnel is vital for morale.”
“Would you have the history books forever link the Catskill Aqueduct to your assassination?”
“Better than the history books saying, ‘TR turned tail and ran.’”
“I seem to have failed,” said Van Dorn, “in my effort to explain the danger.”
President Roosevelt hopped off his machine. “I grant you that J. B. Culp’s tendencies toward evil are indisputable. Culp is the greatest practitioner of rampant greed in the nation. His underhanded deals rend a terrible gulf between the wealthy few and the millions who struggle to put a meal on the table. Unchecked, his abuses will drive labor to revolution. He is as dangerous as the beast in the jungle and as sly as the serpent. But you have not a shred of evidence that he would attempt to assassinate me.”
“Nor do I have any doubt,” said Van Dorn.
“You have hearsay. The man is not a killer.”
“Culp won’t pull the trigger himself,” said Isaac Bell.
The President glanced at Van Dorn, who conf
irmed it with a grave nod.
“Of course,” said Roosevelt. “A hired hand. If any of this were true.”
“Antonio Branco is no hired hand,” said Bell. “He is personally committed to killing you. He’ll call in a huge marker that Culp will be happy to pay.”
“Poppycock!”
Van Dorn started to answer. Isaac Bell interrupted again.
“We would not be taking up your valuable time this morning if the threat were ‘poppycock,’ Mr. President. You say you worry about revolution? If the atmosphere is so volatile, couldn’t a second presidential assassination, so soon after the last, trigger that revolution?”
“I repeat,” Roosevelt barked. “Poppycock! I’m going to the Catskill Mountains. If your lurid fancies have any basis in truth, I’ll be safe as can be on the Navy’s newest battleship.”
“May I ask, Mr. President, how do you happen to be traveling to the Catskill Mountains by battleship?”
“Up the Hudson River to Kingston, where we’ll board an Ulster & Delaware special to inspect the reservoir, eventually take the special down to the siphon.” He laughed and said to Van Dorn, “Shall I order the railroad to lay on an armored train?”
“I’ll see to it,” said Van Dorn.
“I’ll bet you will and slap the government with a mighty bill.”
Van Dorn’s expression could have been a smile.
Isaac Bell said, “Sir, will you please agree to obey closely instructions your Secret Service corps issue for your protection?”
“Of course,” the President answered with a sly grin. “So long as I can make my speech . . . Listen here, young fellow, you run down those supposed criminals. I’ll speechify the greatest aqueduct ever dug and”—he plunged a hand into his pocket and he pulled out a crumpled bill—“five bucks says my battleship and I finish first.”
Isaac Bell slapped down a gold coin. “Double it.”
“You’re mighty sure of yourself.”
“You’ll have to trade your battleship for ice skates, Mr. President. Last time I looked, the Hudson River was freezing solid.”
“Connecticut’s eleven-inch armor belt will smash ice.”