The Race

“Having killed, or tried to kill, Marco,” Bell replied evenly, “why is Frost now trying to kill Josephine?”

“He either is insane or just plain old-fashioned crazed with jealousy. The man was known for his temper.”

“Why didn’t he kill Josephine first?”

“You’re asking me to explain the order of a madman’s killings?”

“Do you know what he said to me?”

“I wasn’t there when he escaped, Isaac,” Van Dorn said pointedly.

Isaac Bell was too involved in his line of inquiry to countenance Van Dorn’s jibe. “Harry Frost said to me, ‘You don’t know what they were up to.’”

“Up to? Marco and Josephine were running off together, that’s what they were up to – or so Frost suspected.”

“No. He didn’t sound like he meant only a love affair. He indicated they were scheming. It was as if he had discovered that they had perpetuated some sort of betrayal worse than seduction.”

“What?”

“I don’t know. But I’m beginning to suspect that we are fighting something more complicated than we took on.”

“We took on protecting Josephine from getting killed,” Van Dorn retorted firmly. “So far, that’s been complicated enough for two detective agencies. If what you’re suggesting now has any bottom to it, we should call in a third.”

“Send me that Remington autoload.”

VAN DORN DISPATCHED an apprentice across on the Weehawken Ferry with the rifle and dry clothes from Bell’s room at the Yale Club. Andy Moser arrived in one of the roadsters an hour later, with tools, stay wires, and a shiny new nine-foot propeller strapped to the fenders.

“Good thing you’re rich, Mr. Bell. This baby cost a hundred bucks.”

“Let’s get to work. I want this machine flying by dawn. I already removed this broken stay.”

Andy Moser whistled. “Wow! I’ve never seen Roebling wire snap.”

“It had help from Harry Frost.”

“It’s amazing the wing didn’t fall off.”

Bell said, “The machine is resilient. These other stays, here and here, took up the slack.”

“I always say, Mr. Di Vecchio built ’em to last.”

They replaced the propeller and the broken stay and patched the holes Frost had shot in the wing fabric. Then Bell sawed twelve inches off the wooden stock of the Remington autoloading rifle, and Andy jury-rigged a swivel mount, promising to construct a more permanent installation “with a stop so you don’t shoot your own propeller” when he got back to his shop in the hangar car. Next time Harry Frost fired at him he would discover that the Eagle had grown teeth.

21

FOUR MILES DOWNRIVER, at the foot of the Statue of Liberty, Josephine was trying to fix her flying machine. Blinded by the searchlights glaring from Preston Whiteway’s steam yacht, choking on its coal smoke, and harried by reporters shouting puddingheaded questions, she and her Van Dorn detective-mechanicians, who had finally come over on a boat, addressed the mangled wing. But the damage was beyond their skills and the few tools they had with them, and the young aviatrix had begun to lose hope when help suddenly appeared in the last person she would have expected.

Dmitri Platov hopped off a Harbor Patrol launch from Manhattan Island, shook hands with the policemen who had given him a ride, and saluted her with a jaunty wave of his slide rule. Everyone said that the handsome Russian was the best mechanician in the race, but he had never come near her machine or offered his services. She was pretty sure she knew why.

“What are you doing here?” she asked.

He tipped his straw boater. “Platov come helping.”

“Isn’t Steve Stevens afraid I’ll beat him if you help me?”

“Steve Stevens eating victory meal in Yonkers,” Platov answered, flashing white teeth in his whiskers. “Platov own man.”

“I need a savior, Mr. Platov. The damage is much worse than I thought.”

“We are fixing, no fearing,” said Platov.

“I don’t know. You see, this sleeve – here, bring those lights!”

The Van Dorns hopped to obey, angling electric lights they had hooked up to the Statue of Liberty’s dynamo.

“You see? The sleeve that holds the pintle for the alettone is not strong enough. Nor is it solidly seated in the frame. It’s even worse on the other wing. Dumb luck that that one didn’t fall off, too.”

Platov felt the sleeve with his fingers, like a vet examining a calf. He turned to the nearest mechanician. “Please, you are bringing second tool bag from boat?”

The Van Dorn hurried to the dock.

Platov addressed the other detective. “Please, you bringing more lights.”

Josephine said, “I can’t believe my eyes. It’s an amateurish design. The man who built the machine didn’t seem to understand the stress on this part.”

Dmitri Platov looked Josephine full in the face and stepped very close to her.

She was taken aback. Having never stood within twenty yards of him until this moment, she had never noticed how thoroughly his dark springy hair and mutton chops covered his brow, cheeks, chin, and lips, nor how brightly his eyes burned within that curly nest. She felt herself drawn to his eyes. There was something strangely familiar about them.

“Poor design?” he asked in straightforward, unaccented English. “I take that as a personal insult.”

Josephine stared back in utter amazement.

She covered her mouth with her greasy glove, staining her cheek. Marco Celere’s voice – the voice he had used only when they were alone – the faintest Italian accent, speaking the British phrases he had learned as a teenager apprenticed to a Birmingham machinist.

“Marco,” she whispered. “Oh, my Marco, you’re alive.”

Marco Celere gave her the tiniest wink. “Shall I send our audience packing?” he murmured.

She nodded, still pressing her glove to her mouth.

Marco raised his voice and addressed the Van Dorn mechanicians in his familiar Dmitri Platov Russian accent. “Gentles-mens, de idea is dat too many cooks making cold soup. Let Platov being alone genius fixing Josephine aviatrix machine.”

Josephine saw the detective-mechanicians exchange glances.

“Josephine being helper,” Platov added.

The detectives were staring uncomfortably, Josephine thought. Did they suspect? Thank God, Isaac wasn’t here. Chief Investigator Bell would question the shock on her face. These younger, less experienced operators sensed something out of kilter. But were they clever enough to challenge the mechanician-machinist who everyone in the race knew as “the crazy Russian” Platov?

“It’s O.K.,” said Josephine. “I’ll be his helper.”

The head Van Dorn nodded his assent. After all, she was a better mechanician than any of them. They retreated to the ropes they had strung to hold the newspaper reporters at bay. “We’ll be right over here if you need us, Josephine.”

Marco said, “Are passing Platov monkeying wrench, Josephine.”

She fumbled for the tool. She could barely believe her senses. And yet she felt as if she had awakened from a nightmare that had started the week she married Harry Frost when she saw him punch and kick a man