them.
Lillian jumped up and hugged her. “Is this too much rouge?”
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“You’re heading toward a bridal suite, not a bordello.”
Lillian’s school friends convulsed with laughter, and she told them, “Go away.”
They sat alone a moment. Marion said, “You look so happy.”
“I am. But I’m a little nervous about … you know, tonight … after.”
Marion took her hand. “Archie is one of those rare men who truly love women. He will be everything you could desire.”
“Are you sure?”
“I know the type.”
BELL FOUND ARCHIE ABBOTT in a gilded reception room with his mother, a handsome woman with an erect carriage and a noble bearing whom Bell had known since college. She kissed his cheek and inquired after his father. When she glided off, stately as an ocean liner, to greet a relative, Bell remarked that she seemed pleased with his choice of bride.
“I thank the Old Man for that. Hennessy charmed the dickens out of her. She thinks this mansion is extravagant, of course, but she said to me, ‘Mr. Hennessy is so marvelously rough-hewn. Like an old chestnut beam.’ And that was
“In that case, may I offer double congratulations.”
“Triple, while you’re at it. Every banker in New York sent a wedding gift … Good Lord, look who came in from the great outdoors.”
Texas Walt Hatfield, longhorn lean and windburned as cactus, swaggered across the room, flicking city men from his path like cigarette ash. He took in the gilded ceiling, the oil paintings on the walls, and the carpet beneath his boots. “Congratulations, Archie. You struck pay dirt. Howdy, Isaac. You’re still looking mighty peaked.”
“Best-man nerves.”
Hatfield glanced around at the elite of New York society. “I swear, Hennessy’s butler looked at me like a rattlesnake at a picnic.”
“What did you do to him?”
“Said I’d scalp him if he didn’t head me toward you. We gotta talk, Isaac.”
Bell stepped close and lowered his voice. “Did you find the body?”
Texas Walt shook his head. “Searched high and low. Found a shoulder holster that was probably his. And a boot with a knife sheath. But no body. The boys think coyotes et it.”
“I don’t believe that,” said Bell.
“Neither do I. Critters always leave something, if only an arm or a foot. But our hound dogs turned up nothing … It’s been three months …”
Bell did not reply. When a smile warmed his face, it was because he saw Marion across the room.
“Everything’s deep in snow …” Texas Walt continued.
Bell remained silent.
“… I promised the boys I’d ask. When do we stop hunting?”
Bell laid one big hand on Texas Walt’s shoulder and the other on Archie‘s, looked each man in the eye, and said what they expected to hear. “Never.”
UNFINISHED BUSINESS
DECEMBER 12, 1934
GARMISCH-PARTENKIRCHEN
ISAAC BELL FASTENED HIS CLIMBING SKINS TO HIS SKIS ONE LAST time and dragged his sled up a steep slope that was raked by windblown snow and slick with ice. At the top stood Kincaid’s castle. Before he reached it, he stopped to peer at a halo of electric light several hundred yards away that marked the checkpoint of armored vehicles where German soldiers guarded the road that led to the main gate.
He saw no sign that they weren’t huddling from the storm and resumed his climb, veering toward the back of the castle. The looming structure was a testament to Kincaid’s resourcefulness. Even in defeat, he had managed to salvage enough to live in comfort. Towers flanked the ends of a great hall. Lights where the guards and servants lived shone at the bottom of the far tower. A single window lit in the near tower marked Kincaid’s private quarters.
Bell stopped in the drifts beside the ancient walls and caught his breath.
He took a grappling hook from the sled, twirled out a length of knotted rope, and threw it high. The iron grapnel was wrapped in rubber and bit quietly onto the stone. Using the knots for handholds, he pulled himself up to the edge. It was littered with broken glass. He cleared an area with his sleeve, pulling the glass toward him so it fell silently outside the wall. Then he pulled himself over the top, retrieved the knotted rope, lowered it inside the wall, and climbed down into the courtyard. The lighted window was on the second floor of the five-story tower.
He worked his way to the thick outer door and unbolted it, leaving one bolt engaged so the door wouldn’t swing in the wind. Then he crossed the courtyard to a small door in the bottom of the tower. Its lock was modern, but Van Dorn’s spies had ascertained the maker, allowing Bell to practice picking it until he could do it blindfolded.
He had no illusions about an easy arrest. They had almost caught Charles Kincaid eighteen years ago, but he had slipped loose in the chaos that wracked Europe at the end of the World War. They had come close, again, during the Russian civil war, but not close enough. Kincaid had made friends on both sides.
As recently as 1929, Bell thought he had Kincaid cornered in Shanghai, until he escaped by coming as close as any criminal had yet to killing Texas Walt. He had no reason to believe that the Wrecker was any less resourceful five years later, or any less deadly, despite the fact that he was now in his late sixties. Evil men, Joe Van Dorn had warned with the grimmest of smiles, don’t age because they never worry about others.
The lock tumbled open. Bell pushed the door on oiled hinges. Silent as a tomb. He slipped inside, closed it. A dim paraffin lamp illuminated a curving stairway that led to cellars and a dungeon below and the Wrecker’s apartments above. A thick rope hung down the center as a handhold to climb the steep and narrow steps. Bell did not touch it. Stretching from the roof to the dungeon, any movement would make it slap the stone noisily.
He drew his pistol and started up.
Light shone under the door that led to the Wrecker’s apartment. Suddenly, he smelled soap, and he whirled toward motion that he sensed behind him. A heavyset man in servant’s garb and a pistol in a flap holster at his waist had materialized from the dark. Bell struck with lightning swiftness, burying the barrel of his pistol in the German’s throat, stifling his cry, and knocking him senseless with a fist to the head. Quickly, he dragged the man down the hall, tried a door, found it open, dragged him inside. He slashed drapery cords with his knife, tied the man hand and foot, and used a knotted cord as a gag.
He had to hurry. The guard would be missed.
He checked the hall outside Kincaid’s door and found it empty and silent. The door was heavy, the knob large. Bell had learned that Kincaid did not lock it, trusting to the walls, the outer door, his guards, and the German solders who blocked the road.
Bell pressed his ear to the door. He heard music, faintly. A Beethoven sonata. Likely on the phonograph, as it was doubtful the radio penetrated these mountains. All the better to muffle the sound of opening the door. He turned the knob. It was not locked. He pushed the door open and stepped inside a room that was warm and softly lit.
A fire flickered and candles and oil lamps cast light on bookcases, carpets, and a handsome coffered ceiling. A
