The Bootlegger

“Prince André is unable to return to his estates in Russia… at this time,” said Miss Hawley.

Storms looked sympathetic, while congratulating himself on getting the Russian’s number. Dollars to donuts, Miss Hawley had paid for those cuff links. And his suit, too. He made a mental note to have private detectives look, discreetly, into how much the prince was trying to take her for. Why otherwise intelligent, hardworking fathers allowed these foolish women unfettered access to their money was a mystery raised regularly over cocktails at his club.

Storms said, “I understand. If a loan is required, there are people with whom I can arrange introductions.”

Prince André turned to Fern Hawley and laid on the Russian accent with a trowel. “Loan? Vat is ‘loan’?”

Fern laughed. “Mr. Storms. I’m afraid you’re confused. Prince André is looking to invest. Not borrow.”

“Invest?” Storms placed both hands on his desk and sat up in his chair.

“Unable to gain access to his estates,” said Miss Hawley, “Prince André has been forced to sell other assets. Jewels, mostly, and some French properties. Some of them, at least, in hopes of starting a new life in New York. Show him, André.”

Zolner unbuckled the satchel and threw it open.

“Oh?” Storms peered inside at tightly packed banded banknotes. “Oh. How much were you considering?”

“Prince André thought he would open an account with ten thousand dollars to see how you make use of it.”

“I think we could handle that very nicely.”

Then suddenly Prince André was speaking for himself, his accent all but u

“The stock market should turn around any day now,” said Miss Hawley.

“But they have been going down for a year and a half,” said the Russian. “Since before Christmas in 1919?”

Newtown Storms hastened to take her side of the argument. “Miss Hawley, who has considerable experience in the market, is correct. They must go up.”

“Why?”

“Abnormally rapid speculative enhancement of prices for existing stocks caused them to go down. Which, frankly, many experts blame on a reckless class of people new to the discipline of investment. Fortunately, President Harding and Treasury Secretary Mellon are purging the rotte

“Unemployment remains high,” said Prince André. “People wander the streets in rags.”

“Because the extravagant cost of government saps industry with a withering hand. Don’t forget that labor is quiet, and will stay quiet. The steel strike fixed their wagon, as did the sailors’ strike in the spring. I can safely predict that wages will stay down where they should and lower the high cost of living. People will work harder and live a more moral life. Enterprising people will pick up the slack from less competent sorts. Uncertainty is bound to end, and business is about to boom. It will roar, Prince André. Now’s your chance to get in on the ground floor.”

Marat Zolner kept a straight face even though Fern was teasing him with an arched eyebrow. He said to the stockbroker, “You pose a most convincing-sounding argument.”

“And keep in mind, Your Highness, once you’ve opened an account, you can borrow against it in the event you ever need funds.”

“Why would I need funds when the market roars?”

Storms greeted such naïveté with a kindly chuckle. “I meant, to borrow against your account to buy more stocks to put into it.”

“I am convinced,” said Marat Zolner. He cast Fern Hawley a princely smile and shoved the satchel across Storms’s desk.

“You can take my word for it,” said the broker. “This is the begi

“Let us see, first, how you make out with this.”

“Never fear,” said Newtown Storms, who fully expected that President Harding and Secretary Mellon would set a great bull market in full swing before most of Wall Street realized it. “You will get rich quickly.”

“In that case,” said the prince, extending a surprisingly powerful hand. “We will see you again, quickly.”

As Storms rose to usher them out, Fern Hawley said with her knowing smirk, “Next time we stop by your office, you can offer us a drink,” and handed him from Marat Zolner’s satchel a bottle of Haig & Haig.

Isaac Bell paced the Van Dorn bull pen like a caged lion, flowing across the room in long strides, turning abruptly, flowing smoothly back, wheeling again. His gaze was active, and every detective in the room felt the chief investigator’s hard eyes aimed at him.

“It’s four days since Mr. Van Dorn was shot. Who did it?”

The squad of picked men Bell had drafted to track down the rumru

The wince dissolved into shamefaced shrugs and sidelong glances in search of someone with something useful to say. Finally, the bravest of the Boss Boys, grizzled Harry Warren, who had headed the New York Gang Squad since the heyday of the Gophers, ventured into the lion’s den.

“Sorry, Isaac. West Side, East Side, Brooklyn, none of the gangs know who these guys are. I spoke with Peg Leg Lonergan and even he doesn’t know.”

Detectives stared at Harry in amazement and admiration, wondering how he had wangled a conversation with the closemouthed Lonergan and managed to return from Brooklyn alive.

Harry acknowledged their esteem with a modest nod. “If the leader of the White Hands doesn’t know about these guys, none of the Irish know these guys.”

“What about the Italians?” asked Bell.

Harry, who had changed his name, was known and respected in Little Italy. “Same thing with the Black Handers. Masseria, Cirillo, Yale, Altieri — none of them know.”

“What about Fats Vetere?”

“Him neither.”

“What makes you think they’re telling you the truth?”

“The bootlegging business is heating up. Gangsters and criminals are pushing out the amateurs. There’s so much money to be made. So if the White Hand or the Black Hand knew about these guys, they’d be wanting to get in touch either to buy from them or hijack them. But when I fished, they never fished back. The fact they didn’t try to pump me says the guys who shot the Boss are strangers to the gangs.”

Bell kept pacing. “What about the bootleggers?”

Several men cleared their throats and answered, briefly, one after another.

“The bootleggers I know don’t know, Isaac.”

“I went around the warehouses. They swear they don’t know.”

“Same thing on the piers, Isaac.”

“And the speakeasies. They’ve got no reason to lie to us, Isaac. It’s not like we’re arresting them.”

“It’s not like anyone’s arresting them.”

Bell paced harder, boot heels ringing. “What about the black boat?”

“Yeah, well, the Coasties say they saw this black boat. No one else did.”

“Except maybe Mr. Van Dorn. Is he talking yet, Isaac?”

“Not as much as the first day,” Bell answered, adding, quietly, “In fact, not at all, for the moment.” His surgeons feared an infection had settled into his chest. Dorothy was beside herself, and even Captain Novicki was losing faith.

“Watermen,” said Bell. He turned to the barrel-chested, broad-bellied Ed Tobin. A brutal beating by the Gopher gang when Tobin was a Van Dorn apprentice had maimed his face with a crushed cheekbone and a drooping eyelid. “Ed, have none of the watermen seen it?”