The Bootlegger

“I’m available.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah… You don’t believe me?”

“What happened to the German guy?” Bell shot back. Now he had to wait. Would Kemp answer, What German guy? Would he say, The German guy disappeared?

“How do you know about the German?” Kemp demanded.

Bell repeated, coldly, “What happened to the German guy?”

“I don’t know. He was hanging out, looking for a boat. I thought we had a deal. But he never showed.”

“When was this?”

“What do you care?”

Bell said, “When I learn a lot about a fellow who I’m going to trust with ten thousand bucks of my booze, I also learn what questions to ask to see if he lies to me. When did the German say he would show?”

“Sunday.”

Bell nodded. Joh

“When did he tell you Sunday?”

“Last week.”

“O.K. You’re doing pretty good so far. Next question: What’s his name?”

“He called himself Joh

“I know he called himself Joh

“What do you mean? It’s Joh

“Germans don’t call themselves Joh

“Oh yeah. Well, Joha

“You’re doing O.K., Tom. Tell me his last name and we’re in business.”

Tom Kemp wet his lips. Bell suspected that the oysterman knew Joha

“Tom, I thought we’re on the square.”

“Kozlov. Joha

“Good,” said Bell. “Very good.” Finally, a breakthrough, but he still wondered why Tom hesitated to reveal Kozlov’s name. He pulled a large roll of bills from his pocket and peeled off a hundred-dollar bill.

“Down payment,” he said. As Tom Kemp reached eagerly for the money, Bell asked, “Did you know him long?”

“Nope.”

“Then how’d you meet him?”

Tom wet his lips again.

Bell held tightly to the bill. “How did Joha

“I don’t know. He just found me.”

“Why would he trust you?”

“I got an uncle works on the ships. Stoker. He hooked up with Joha

“Joha

“The strike in the spring?” asked Bell. The International Seamen’s Union had struck every port in the nation on May 1 and lost so badly they had to accept a quarter cut in pay.

“The union kept the Wobblies out, and with no Wobblies to give ’em guts, the owners broke the strike.”

Broken so badly, Bell wondered, that a dedicated labor organizer threw up his hands and became a rumru

“Where is your uncle?”

“Bound for Singapore, last I heard.”

“What line?”

Kemp got truculent again. “What the hell does a bootlegger care what line my uncle’s stoking for?”

The tall detective shifted smoothly back to his bootlegger act. “I don’t pay a man until I know whose side he’s on,” he said coldly, and started to stuff his roll back into his pocket. “What line owns the ship your uncle is working on?”

“No line will hire him since the strike. He shipped out on a tramp.”

“Joha

“Was he a Wobbly?”

“We’ve found no evidence of an IWW co

“Could Moscow have sent Kozlov to America to deliver the order from Moscow to merge?”

“Interesting thought,” Grady mused, “if not likely.” He made a note. “I’ll look into it.”

“But you found no evidence of a direct link to the IWW? Remember, I was told he was organizing for the Wobblies in the sailors’ strike.”

Grady shrugged. “We found no evidence of involvement in the sailors’ strike. And no record of his joining the IWW. Which is not surprising, considering that he was deported.”

“Deported? When?”

“Kozlov was arrested in the Red Scare roundups — the Palmer Raids — in the first wave, at the end of 1919. The Justice Department deported him back to his native Germany.”

The government raids on alien radicals’ homes, schools, and businesses had been launched in late 1919 by Attorney General Mitchell Palmer after an Italian anarchist bombed Palmer’s Washington home. Bell said, “I’m not sure what to make of that. It’s a heck of a background for a rumru

Bell pondered the curiosity. How big a leap was it from radical to criminal? He had encountered labor radicals and he thought it a big leap indeed for those dedicated to a cause. On the other hand, how many in the bootlegging line even considered themselves criminals? They told themselves they were providing a service. Or, as Scudder Smith had put it, “having fun.” At least until the real criminals started beating them up to steal the profits.

“How many were arrested in the Palmer Raids?”

“At least ten thousand,” Grady answered.

“How many were deported?”

“Eight hundred.”

“One in twelve? That puts Herr Kozlov in select company.”

“Or just unlucky.”

“How so?”

“He got deported early, before Palmer’s fellow cabinet members accused the attorney general of seeing a Red behind every bush. Palmer was scheming to deport tens of thousands. But pretty soon the Red Scare was leaking steam.”

Bell shook his head in puzzlement. How did any of this get him closer to the rum gang that shot Joe Van Dorn?

Grady gathered his notes. “How’s the Boss doing?”

Bell brightened. “Better. Much better. The infection did not take hold. Dorothy just telephoned that he wants to see me. The docs said they’ll let me in tomorrow if he keeps improving.”

“Thank God. Give him my best. By the way, Isaac, this Genickschuss neck shot you told me about? We looked into it. Pauline was right. The Cheka perfected the technique.”

“I haven’t seen her wrong yet,” said Bell, and, with that in mind, sent another Marconigram to the Nieuw Amsterdam.

JOHNNY IS JOHANN KOZLOV.

RED SCARE DEPORTED TO GERMANY.

KOZLOV ASSOCIATES?

HOW DID KOZLOV RETURN TO THE UNITED STATES?

In the event she had landed already, he sent copies of it by transatlantic cable care of the Holland America Line to their Rotterdam pier and to the Van Dorn field office in Berlin.

“I’ve discovered one man who actually knew Joha

“Unfortunately, he’s somewhere in the middle of the Pacific Ocean on a tramp steamer that doesn’t have a radio.”

Bell often talked over his cases with his wife, whose judgment he respected mightily. Marion had a law degree from Stanford University, a razor-sharp mind, and a knack for approaching clues from an unexpected angle. She was unusually observant. She was also an optimist.