The Bootlegger

she took a wave broadside and heeled steeply to starboard, so that when he finally landed it was not on the narrow deck but on the safety railing that surrounded it. The taut wire cable broke his fall and bounced him overboard into bitter cold water. The last thing he heard was Asa Somers’s shrill, “Mr. Van Dorn!”

2
“POWWOW IN THE ALLEY. Hancock, you cover.”
Isaac Bell appeared to wander casually through the Hotel Gotham’s sumptuous lobby. Four well-dressed house detectives drifted quietly after him, a smooth exodus unnoticed by the paying guests. When all four had assembled in the dark and narrow kitchen alley out back, Bell addressed two by name.
“Clayton. Ellis.”
Tom Clayton and Ed Ellis were typical Van Dorn Protective Services house dicks—tall, broad-shouldered heavyweights, not as sharp as full-fledged detectives but handsome as the Arrow Collar Man. Tricked out in a decent suit, clean white shirt, polished shoes, and four-in-hand necktie, neither of the former Southern Pacific Railroad detectives appeared out of place in an expensive hotel. But pickpockets, sneak thieves, and confidence men recognized bruisers to steer clear of.
“What’s up, Mr. Bell?”
“You’re fired.”
“What for?” Clayton demanded.
“You sullied the name of the Van Dorn Agency.”
“‘Sullied’?” Clayton smirked at his sidekick. “‘Sullied’?”
Ellis said, “I’m with you, pal. ‘Sullied’?”
Bell stifled his impulse to floor them both. The others in their squad had resisted taking bribes. For the good of the agency, he seized the opportunity to remind the honest ones what was at stake and to give them courage to resist temptation. So he answered the mocking question, calmly.
“Mr. Van Dorn built a top-notch outfit that spans the continent. We have offices in every city linked by private telegraph and long-distance telephone. We have hundreds of crack detectives—valuable men who know their business—and thousands of Protective Services boys guarding banks and jewelry shops, escorting bullion shipments, and standing watch in the finest hotels. But the outfit isn’t worth a plugged nickel if clients can’t trust our good name. Van Dorns do not accept graft. You did. You sullied our good name. That is what ‘sullied’ means, and that is why you are fired.”
“Listen here, Mr. Bell, it’s human nature to share the wealth. The bootleggers are hauling it in.”
Ellis chimed in. “The bellhops get their cut delivering bottles to the guests and it’s only fair we get our cut for allowing the booze in the door.”
“Not every bellhop.”
Clayton and Ellis traded a cagy glance. They knew what had happened.
“The bootlegger you took bribes from tried to throw a boy off the roof last night. That boy’s employer, Hotel Gotham, pays us to protect their property, their guests, and their workers. You two let that boy down. Don’t let me see you near this hotel ever again.”
“Are you threatening us?”
“Spot on, mister. Get lost.”
Clayton and Ellis stepped closer, light on their feet for big men. The honest house dicks exchanged looks, wondering if they should come to the chief investigator’s defense. Bell stayed them with a quick gesture. A barely perceptible hunch of his shoulder telegraphed a roundhouse right to end the scrap before it started.
Clayton saw it coming. He stepped lithely to his right. The by-the-book evasive move had the unexpected effect of driving his chin straight into Bell’s left, which rose from his knee like a wrecking ball and tossed the house dick backwards.
Ellis was already piling on, swinging a quicksilver left too powerful to block. Bell slipped it over his shoulder and returned a right cross to the side of Ellis’s head, which slammed him across the alley into Clayton, who was clinging to the wall.
Containing his anger, Isaac Bell said, “If I ever see you on the streets of New York, I’ll throw you in the Hudson River.”
“Mr. Bell! Mr. Bell!”
A Van Dorn apprentice—a fresh-faced kid of eighteen—burst from the kitchen door. “Mr. Bell. Mr. Van Dorn was shot!”
“What?”
Isaac Bell turned in horror toward the piping voice, so stricken that he failed to register the boy’s eyes tracking sudden motion.
Ellis had launched a powerful right hook. Bell succeeded in rolling with part of it, but enough glancing drive landed to knock him off his feet. He sprawled on the greasy concrete. Clayton bounded at him like a placekicker, reared back for maximum power, and launched a boot at his head. Bell tried to block it with his hand, but the boot brushed it aside and came straight at his face. Bell caught Clayton’s ankle in his other hand, held tight with all his strength, and surged to his feet in a double explosion of fury and despair.
He hoisted Clayton’s leg high above his shoulder, dumped him backwards to the concrete, and whirled to meet Ellis’s next punch, a pile-driver left aimed straight at his jaw. Bell ducked under it. Ellis’s balled knuckles burned across his scalp. He ducked lower, seized Ellis, and used the heavier man’s momentum to drive him at Clayton, who was rising to his feet. The house dicks’ faces met nose to nose, mashing cartilage and cracking bone. Bell dropped Ellis in a moaning heap and gripped the apprentice’s shoulder with an iron hand.
“Where is he?”
“Bellevue.”
Bell took a deep breath and braced himself. “Hospital? Or morgue?”
“Hospital.”
“Let’s go! The rest of you, back to work. Tell Hancock he’s in charge.”
The boy had the wit to have a cab waiting.
Bell questioned him closely as it raced across Midtown. But all anyone knew so far was that sometime after Isaac Bell put Joseph Van Dorn aboard the Coast Guard cutter, the Boss had been wounded in a gun battle with rumrunners. Bell thought, fleetingly, that he was probably tying up his Loening at the 31st Street Air Service Terminal when it happened.
“How did they get him ashore so quickly?”
What Joe would call the luck of the Irish had come to his rescue. An alert shore operator had relayed the Coast Guard radio report to the New York Police Department, and the Harbor Squad had dispatched a fast launch, which was already