“Take me to the commandant.”
The commandant had a message for Bell from the Napa Junction railroad station.
“MY HOSTS USUALLY HOLD the reception after I preach,” said the visiting English clergyman, Reverend J. L. Skelton.
“We do things differently on Mare Island,” said the commandant. “This way, sir, to your receiving line.”
Gripping the clergyman’s elbow, the commandant marched him through a chapel lit by brilliant Tiffany stained-glass windows and flung open the door to the Navy chaplain’s office. Behind a sturdy desk, Isaac Bell rose to his full height, immaculate in white.
Skelton turned pale. “Now, wait, everyone, gentlemen, this is not what you imagine.”
“You were a fake writer on the train,” said Bell. “Now you’re a fake preacher.”
“No, I am truly of the clergy. Well, was . . . Defrocked, you know. Misunderstanding, church funds . . . a young lady . . . Well, you can imagine.”
“Why did you impersonate Arnold Bennett?”
“It presented an opportunity I could not afford to pass up.”
“Opportunity?”
Skelton nodded eagerly. “I was at the end of my rope. Parties in England had caught up with me in New York. I had to get out of town. The job was tailor-made.”
“Who,” asked Bell, “gave you the job?”
“Why, Louis Loh, of course. And poor Harold, who I gather is no longer among us.”
“Where is Louis Loh?”
“I’m not entirely sure.”
“You’d better be sure,” roared the commandant. “Or I’ll have it beaten out of you.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Bell said. “I’m sure—”
“Pipe down, sir,” roared the commandant, cutting him off as they had agreed ahead of time. “This is my shipyard. I’ll treat criminals any way I want. Now, where is this Chinaman? Quickly, before I call a bosun.”
“Mr. Bell is right. That won’t be necessary. This is all a huge misunderstanding, and—”
“Where is the Chinaman?”
“When I last saw him, he was dressed like a Japanese fruit picker.”
“Fruit picker? What do you mean?”
“Like the fruit pickers we saw from the train at Vaca. You saw them, Bell. There’s vast communities of Japanese employed picking fruit. Berries and all . . .”
Bell glanced at the commandant, who nodded that it was true.
“What was he wearing?” Bell asked.
“Straw hat, checkered shirt, dungarees.”
“Were the dungarees overalls? With a bib?”
“Yes. Exactly like a Jap fruit picker.”
Bell exchanged glances with the commandant. “Do you have fruit trees on Mare Island?”
“Of course not. It’s a shipyard. Now, see here, you, you’d better come clean or—”
Bell interrupted. “Reverend, you have one opportunity not to spend the rest of your life in prison. Answer me very carefully. Where did you see Louis Loh dressed like a fruit picker?”
“On the queue.”
“What queue?”
“The carts queued up for the freight ferry.”
“Was he on a cart?”
“He was driving one, don’t you see?”
Bell headed for the door. “He is disguised as a Japanese farmer delivering fruit?”
“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
“What kind of fruit?”
“Strawberries.”
“PASS! YOU LOUSY MONGOLIAN,” shouted the Marine guarding the entrance to the short road that crossed Mare Island from the ferry dock to the piers, where sailors were streaming up and down gangways carrying provisions into the ships. “Show your pass!”
“Here, sir,” said Louis Loh, eyes cast downward as he handed over the paper. “I showed it at the ferry.”
“Show it again here. And if I had my way, Japs wouldn’t set foot on Mare Island, pass or no pass.”
“Yes, sir.”
The Marine glowered at the paper, muttering, “Asiatics driving trucks. Farmers must be getting hard up.” He commenced a slow, deliberate circle around the wagon. He snatched a strawberry from one of the crates and popped it in his mouth. A sergeant marched up. “What the hell is the delay?”
“Just checking this Jap, sir.”
“You got a hundred wagons lined up. Get it moving.”
“You heard him, you stupid Mongolian. Get out of here.” He slammed a big hand down on the mule and it jumped ahead, nearly throwing Louis Loh off the wagon. The road, paved with cobblestones, cut in and out of storehouses and machine shops and crossed a railroad track. Where it forked, Louis Loh jerked the reins. The mule, which had been plodding after the other wagons, reluctantly turned.
Loh’s heart started pounding. The map he had been given indicated that the magazine was at the end of this road at the water’s edge. He rounded a factory building, and there it was, a stone structure a quarter mile ahead, with small barred windows and terra-cotta tile roof. The terra-cotta roof and the splash of blue of San Pablo Bay reminded him of his native city of Canton on the South China coast. Scared as he was, he was suddenly assailed with a powerful dose of homesickness that tore at his resolve. There were so many beautiful things he would never see again.
Wagons were streaming out of the magazine onto a long finger pier, at the end of which lay the gleaming white Connecticut, the flagship of the Great White Fleet. He was close. Ahead, he saw the final guard post manned by Marines. He reached under the wagon seat and tugged a string. He imagined he could hear the alarm clock ticking under the strawberries, but in fact it was completely muffled by the barrels of explosives under the fruit. He was close. The only question was, how much closer could he get before they stopped him?
He heard the grinding of a heavy motor and chain drive behind him. It was a stake truck piled high with red-and-white Coca-Cola syrup barrels. Had it followed him by mistake out of the provisioning line? Whatever the reason, its presence made his lone wagon less conspicuous. The truck blared its horn and roared ahead of him. A second later it stopped short, hard rubber tires screeching on the cobblestones. It slid sideways, blocking the road, which had a ditch on either side. There was no way around it, and Loh had already started the timing device that would detonate the explosives.
Louis called, “Sir, could you please move your truck? I am making delivery.”
Isaac Bell jumped down from the cab, grabbed the mule’s bit collar, and said, “Hello, Louis.”
Louis Loh’s fear and homesickness dissolved like windswept fog. Icy clarity replaced it. He reached under the wagon seat and tugged a second cord. This one led forward along the wagon tongue and under the mule’s traces. It detonated a strip of firecrackers that went off in a string of rapid explosions. The terrified mule reared violently, throwing Bell to the ground. It plunged blindly into the ditch, dragging the wagon, which overturned, spilling the strawberries and the explosives. The maddened animal broke free and ran, but not before Louis Loh, seeing that all was lost, jumped on its back. Bucking and kicking, it tried to throw Louis Loh, but the agile young Chinese clung tightly, urging it toward the water.
Isaac Bell took off after them, running full tilt over a field that led back toward the narrow strait that separated Mare Island from Vallejo. He saw the mule stop suddenly. Louis Loh was catapulted over its neck. The Chinese rolled across on the grass, flipped to his feet, and ran. Bell followed. Suddenly a massive explosion shook the ground. He looked back. Coca-Cola barrels were flying through the air. The wagon had disappeared and the truck was burning. The Marines at the guard post and the men on the munitions pier ran toward the fire. The Connecticut and the stone magazine were both unscathed.
Bell took off after Louis Lou, who was running toward a pier. A launch was tied alongside. A sailor scrambled out of it and tried to stop the Chinese. Louis Loh straight-armed him and dove into the water. When Bell got to the pier, he was swimming toward Vallejo.
Bell ran to the launch. “Steam up?”
The sailor was still on the pier, dazed. “Yes, sir.”
Bell cast the fore and aft lines off the bollards.
“Hey, what are you doing, mister?” The sailor scrambled onto the launch and reached for Bell. “Stop!”
“Can you swim?”
“Sure.”
“Good-bye.”
Bell took his hand and threw him overboard. The tide was pulling the boat from the dock. Bell engaged the propeller and steered around the sailor, who sputtered indignantly, “What did you do that for? Let me help you.”
The last thing Bell wanted was the Navy’s help. The Navy would arrest Louis and hold him in the brig. “My prisoner,” he said. “My case.”
The tide swept Louis downstream. Bell followed closely in the launch, ready to rescue him from drowning. But he was a strong swimmer, cutting through the water with a modern front crawl.
In the last hundred yards, Bell drove the launch ashore at a pier and was waiting on the bank, dangling handcuffs, when Louis staggered out of water. The Chinese stood, breathing hard, staring in disbelief at the tall detective, who said, “Stick out your hands.”
Louis pulled a knife and lunged with surprising speed for a soaking-wet man who had just swum across a racing tide. Bell parried with the cuffs and punched him hard. Louis went down, sufficiently stunned for Bell to cuff his hands behind his back. Bell hauled him to his feet, surprised by how slight he was. Louis couldn’t weigh more than one-twenty.
Bell marched him toward the pier where he had tied the launch. It was only four or five miles down the Carquinez Strait from Vallejo to Benicia Point, where, with any luck, he could board a train before the Navy got wise.
But before he could reach the pier, a Mare Island Ferry pulled in and disgorged a mob of ship workers.
“There he is!”
“Get him!”
The workmen had heard the explosion and seen the barrels flying and put two and two together. As they ran toward Bell and Louis Loh, a second group who’d been repairing a trolley siding came running with sledgehammers and iron bars and joined the first. They became a solid mass, blocking the Van Dorn detective and his prisoner from the launch.
The track gang lit an oxyacetylene torch. “Burn the Jap. To hell with a trial.”
Isaac Bell told the lynch mob, “You can’t burn him, boys.” “Yeah, why not?”
“He’s not a Jap. He’s Chinese.”
“They’re all Mongolians—Asiatic coolies—they’re all in it together.”
“You still can’t burn him. He belongs to me.”
“You?” the mob erupted in angry chorus.
“Who the hell are you?”
“There’s one of you and a hundred of us!”
“A hundred?” Bell snapped his derringer from his hat and his Browning from his coat and swept the crowd with the muzzles. “Two shots in my left hand. Seven in my right. You don’t have a hundred. You have ninety-one.”
Some in front backed up, slipping between the men behind them, but others replaced them. The new front row edged closer, exchanging glances, seeking a leader. Face unyielding as granite, eyes cold, Bell looked from man to man, watching their eyes.
It would only take one to get brave.
“Who’s first? How about you fellows in front?”
“Get him!” yelled a tall man in the second row.
Bell fired the Browning. The man screamed and fell to his knees, clapping both hands to a bloody ear.
41
NINETY-NINE,” SAID ISAAC BELL.
The mob backed away, mumbling sullenly.
A trolley glided up, clanging its bell to chase men off the tracks. Bell dragged Louis Loh onto it.
“You can’t get on here,” the operator protested. “That Jap’s all wet!”
Bell shoved the wide mouth of the double-barreled derringer in the trolley driver’s face. “No stops. Straight through to Benicia Terminal.”
Speeding past waiting passengers at the many stops along the way, they pulled up to the Southern Pacific Ferry Slip in ten minutes. Across the mile-wide strait at Port Costa, Bell saw the Solano, the largest railway ferryboat in the world, loading a locomotive and a consist of eastbound Overland Limited Pullmans. He dragged Loh to the stationmaster’s office, identified himself, purchased stateroom tickets to cross the continent, and sent telegrams. The ferry crossed in nine minutes, tied up, and locked to the tracks. The locomotive pulled the front half of the train onto the apron. A switch engine pushed the rear four cars off the boat. In ten minutes the train was whole again and steaming out of Benicia Terminal.
Bell found his stateroom and handcuffed Louis to the plumbing. As the transcontinental train sped up the Sacramento River Valley, Louis Loh finally spoke. “Where are you taking me?”
“Louis, to which tong do you belong?”
“I am not tong.”
“Why were you trying to make it look like the Japanese blew up the magazine?”
“I will not talk to you.”
“Of course you will. You will tell me everything I want to know about what you were trying to do, why, and who gave you your orders.”
“You do not understand a man like me. I will not talk. Even if you torture me.”
“ ‘That ain’t my style,’ ” Bell quoted from a popular poem.
“ ‘ “Strike One,” the umpire said,’ ” Louis Loh shot back smugly, “I read your ‘Casey at the Bat.’ ”
“You’ve told me something already,” Bell replied. “You just don’t know it.”
“What?”
The tall detective fell silent. In fact, Louis Loh had confirmed his suspicion that he was more complicated than a run-of-the-mill tong gangster. He did not believe that the Chinese was the spy himself, but there was more to Loh than today’s attempt at Mare Island had revealed.
“You give me a great advantage,” said Loh.
“How is that?”
“By admitting you are not man enough to torture me.”
“Is that the Hip Sing definition of a man?”
“What is Hip Sing?”
“You will tell me.”
“When the tables are turned,” said Louis Loh, “when you are my prisoner, I will torture you.”
Bell stretched out on the bed and closed his eyes. His head hurt, and sheep were still turning somersaults.
“I will use a chopper, at first,” Loh began. “A cleaver. Razor-sharp. I will start with your nose . . .” Louis Loh continued to recite lurid descriptions of the horrors he would inflict on Bell until Bell began to snore.
The detective opened his eyes when the train stopped in Sacramento. There was a knock at the stateroom door. Bell admitted two burly Protection Services agents from the Sacramento office. “Take him to the baggage car, manacle him hand and foot. One of you stays with him at all times. The other sleeps. I’ve got a Pullman berth for you. You will never let him out of your sight. You will not distract yourself talking to the train crew. If there is a cut or a bruise on him, you will answer to me. I will look in on you regularly. We will be particularly vigilant whenever the train stops.”
“All the way to New York?”
“We have to change trains at Chicago.”
“Do you think his friends will try to bust him out?”
Bell watched Loh for a reaction and saw none. “Did you bring shotguns?”
“Autoloads, like you said. And one for you, too.”
“Let them try. All right, Louis. Off you go. Hope you enjoy being luggage for the next five days.”
“You will never make me talk.”
“We’ll find a way,” Bell promised.
LUXURY TRAIN TICKETS, a suit of “wealthy English writer” tweed, a gold pocket watch, expensive luggage, and a hundred dollars were all it had cost the spy to hire the defrocked J. L. Skelton to masquerade as Arnold Bennett. So reported Horace Bronson, the head of the San Francisco office, in a wire waiting for Isaac Bell in Ogden. But although thr
eats of a long prison term had frightened him into talking freely, Skelton had no idea why he had been hired to pretend to escort so-called missionary students.
“He swore on a stack of Bibles,” Bronson noted wryly, “that he did not know why he was then paid another hundred dollars to revert to clergy status and hold a service in the Mare Island chapel. And he denied any knowledge of why Harold Wing and Louis Loh tried to make it look like the Japanese blew up the Mare Island magazine to cripple ships of the Great White Fleet.” Horace Bronson believed him. So did Isaac Bell. The spy was an expert at making others do his dirty work. Like Arthur Langner’s big guns, he stayed miles away from the explosion.
The source of the pass that Loh had used to get his wagon aboard the ferry into the navy yard would have been a clue. But the paper itself had burned up in the explosion, along with the wagon and the truck. Even the mule was no help. It had been stolen in Vaca the day before. The guards, who had admitted hundreds of trucks and wagons, could not pinpoint any helpful information about the passes or the wagon load of strawberries they had allowed on the island.
Two days later, when the train was highballing across Illinois, Bell brought Louis Loh a newspaper from Chicago. The tong gangster lay on a fold-down cot in the dark, windowless baggage car with a wrist and ankle handcuffed to the metal frame. The PS operative guarding him was dozing on a stool. “Get yourself some coffee,” Bell ordered, and when they were alone he showed Louis the newspaper. “Hot off the press. News from Tokyo.”
“What do I care about Tokyo?”
“The Emperor of Japan has invited America’s Great White Fleet to make an official visit when it crosses the Pacific.”
The bland mask that Louis Loh habitually wore on his face slipped a hair. Bell detected a minute slumping of his shoulders that broadcast an inner collapse of hope that his failed attack had still somehow provoked a clash between Japan and the United States.
Bell was puzzled. Why did Louis care so? He had already been caught. He was facing prison, if not the hangman, and had lost the money he would have been paid for success. What did he care? Unless he had done it for reasons other than money.