if already disarmed of his Colt, his sleeve gun, and his pocket pistol. Moving in slow motion, he experimented, devising a series of steps to get the gun out of the hat and cocked to fire.
The special rocketed across New Jersey, stopped in Philadelphia briefly, and sped into Pennsylvania. Bell worked at the draw with an athlete’s hands and eyes and let his mind chew on the few facts he knew about the amber-eyed man who had gotten the drop on him and had taken away his weapons.
It was strange how they had almost identical throwing knives. And strange how he knew that Bell’s was in his boot. Some men hid it behind their coat collar. Some in the small of their back.
He also knew where Bell hid his derringer, knew it was in his sleeve instead of his belt or his boot. And he had spotted the tiny one-shot in his coat pocket, which no one ever noticed.
He no longer doubted that his memory of being slugged unconscious in the coal mine was real and not a hallucination conjured by the damps. Nor did he doubt that the coalfield provocateur who shot him in Gleasonburg was the same man who had taken his weapons and run circles around him in New York. But other than that, he had more questions than answers. Why did he follow me all the way to New York? How did he find me outside the Tombs? Had he followed me down Broadway while I was shadowing Mary?
The train was two hours west of Philadelphia, climbing the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, when the tall young detective felt he had choreographed a series of movements to draw the gun swiftly using both hands, one for the hat, one for the gun. Now he had to master the sequence. That meant practice, drilling over and over and over again, until the steps were automatic. Hour after hour. Day after day. Starting now.
They stopped in Altoona to change engines and pick up a dining car. Bell jumped down to the ballast and walked briskly back and forth the length of the train to work out the kinks in his arms and legs. The cold air felt good, but it was beginning to rain. By the time the yard crew had the old Atlantic off and a fresh 4-4-2 coupled on, rainwater was streaming down the sides of the train.
Bell swung aboard as the special resumed rolling, asked the porter for a sandwich and coffee, and returned to his stateroom to practice, barely aware that the rain was lashing the window.
Eight hours after leaving Jersey City, the Pennsylvania Special slowed to a sedate forty miles an hour, and the conductors began announcing Pittsburgh. Bell sat on his berth and tore hungrily into the sandwich he had yet to eat and washed it down with cold coffee. Night and cloud had closed in. Through the window he noticed dots of red fire. He turned out the lights to see better in the dark beyond the rails.
Bonfires were burning in the rain, lighting the haggard faces of men and women huddled around them. The porter came for the tray. “Strikers,” he said.
“Hard night to be outdoors,” said Bell, and the porter felt free to say, “Poor devils. They got nothing and nowhere to go. Militia won’t let ’em into Pittsburgh.”
“Where are their tents?”
“Folks say the police impounded them. Took ’em off a train and stuck ’em in a warehouse.”
The bonfires vanished at the city limits, and the special glided into Union Station.
25
Isaac bell saw Wish Clarke waiting for him on the platform at Chicago’s Union Depot. His face was red, his eyes bright blue pinpricks nearly buried in puffy flesh.
Bell jumped off before the train stopped rolling. “Do we have Laurence Rosania?”
“Chicagos leading fencer of stolen property reports that the son of a gun is so sure of himself, he’s negotiating terms for jewels he hasn’t even stolen yet.”
“How’d you learn that?” asked Bell, deeply impressed. Wish stank like a distillery this morning, but how many detectives could pry such gold out of a fence?
“He owes me a favor,” Wish answered.
“Big one.”
“It was. I didn’t shoot him when I have every right to and he knows it. Also, he was irritated that a jewel thief had the nerve to compare prices with his chief competitor. I reminded him that Mr. Rosania is in a class by himself, but he was not in a charitable mood.”
“Did he tell you what Rosania is planning to steal?”
“A necklace comprised of a fifteen-carat, heart-shaped pink diamond on a string of two-carat gems.”
“That should narrow it down to the very rich.”
“No one ever called Rosania a piker. At any rate, we’ll watch the fence, and his competitor, and when our safecracker shows up with the loot we’ll grab him.”
“When?”
“Soon, was my man’s impression.”
“No,” said Bell. “We don’t have time to sit around waiting for him.”
“A few days.”
“But what if Rosania decides to lay low — do the smart thing, let the dust settle before he shops them? It could take weeks. We don’t have weeks.”
“I’m open to better ideas,” said Wish Clarke. “Got any?”
“Wire Grady Forrer in the New York field office.”
“Who’s that?”
“The new fellow I told you about who Mr. Van Dorn made chief of the research division.”
“Research
“About a month ago,” said Bell. Wish looked perplexed, and Bell recalled Van Dorn saying,
“What modernity will he dream up next?” Wish pretended to marvel. “O.K. So what do I wire this Furrier?”
“
“They’re not going to print in the paper that Mrs. Thickneck bought a pink diamond necklace.”
“We can read between the lines. Particularly in the Society sections. Match Chicago buyers in New York to upcoming balls in Chicago and get a jump on Mr. Rosania’s shopping plans.”
“Interrupt him in the middle of the job?”
“I’d rather grab him as he comes out.”
“Fine plan, Isaac — two birds with one stone.”
“Put him in a mood to talk.”
“And a mighty modern idea about Mr. Forrer keeping up to date on the Society page. Old-fashioned I, meantime, will visit Black’s Social and Little’s Exchange.”
“For what purpose?” Bell asked warily. Ed Black’s Social and Wes Little’s Exchange were both saloons.
“There’s Little’s,” said Wish, nodding as they stepped out of Union Depot at a brightly lighted bar on the corner. “Black’s is a similar stone’s throw from the LaSalle Street Station where the Twentieth Century comes in.”
“So?”
“When their trains arrive from New York and it’s ‘quittin’ time,’ Pennsylvania Special express messengers hightail it around the corner to Little’s. And Twentieth Century Limited boys hoist a glass at Black’s. Don’t you reckon those heavily armed agents protecting valuables might recall which passengers coming home from New York stashed jewelry in their express car safes?”
Isaac Bell conceded that Wish’s was the more savvy tactic.
“Don’t waste time berating yourself, old son. You thought of catching the thief in the act. I just came up with a quainter way of anticipating it.”
