The Bootlegger

Buildings walled them in on all four sides. Only one had a door.

“What of the others?” asked A

“They’ll follow, if they have any sense,”

But before the bomb builders could escape through the cellar, an explosion shook the ground. A cloud of dust burst from the cellar door. Pauline felt the earth tremble under her feet as the entire front of the crumbling tenement collapsed. Brick and timber buried the anti-Communists and their armored car in the alley and the bomb-makers in their flat.

Isaac Bell asked Captain Novicki, “What happened to your face, Dave?”

“Just some splinters.”

“Looks like a treeful.”

“Listen, Isaac. I have a confession to make.”

“What did you do?”

“I got caught ru

Bell gave him a brisk once-over. His cheeks above his beard and his forehead were speckled with cuts, and he had one of those new Band-Aids stuck on his ear. He was lucky he hadn’t lost an eye. Otherwise, he looked his usual rugged self, a feisty old man who did not think he was old. “Caught ru

“Hijacked.”

“Where’d it happen?”

“They were waiting a half mile off Fire Island Inlet. Shot up my boat and stole the… cargo. Then chopped holes in the bottom to sink her.”

“Sounds like you’re lucky you’re alive.”

“Darned lucky. Thankfully, I don’t have to tell Joe right away. Bad enough admitting to you that I broke the law.”

“I’m not a cop,” said Bell. “And I’m not a priest.”

“You’re a Van Dorn, that’s worse. Joe sets high standards. It would be easier telling a cop or a priest. This is just embarrassing as hell. But I’m telling you for a reason.”

“What else happened?”

“I saw the black boat everyone’s talking about.”

Bell’s eyes lit up. “Describe it!”

The old sea captain, not surprisingly, was an excellent witness. He had observed closely and recalled details. He estimated that the boat was sixty or seventy feet long. “Narrow beam. She rides very low in the water, but she’ll be seakindly with that flared bow. Three Libertys in the motor box. And there was room in the box for an extra standing by in case one stopped ru

“Guns?”

“Oh yes. Sounded like the Lewis the Navy had on the subchasers. And a mammoth searchlight. Big as a destroyer’s.”

“Armor?”

Novicki shrugged his brawny shoulders. “I don’t know, I wasn’t shooting back.”

“How fast is she? Joe thought she turned fifty knots.”

“Those Libertys roared like she could.”

“It sounds very much like what Joe described. How’d you happen to survive?”

“Took my chances in the drink.”

“You swam ashore?” Bell asked, astonished. The seawater was cold and rough and Novicki had to be pushing seventy.

“No. I clambered aboard my boat, stuffed canvas in the holes they chopped, and bailed like mad until we drifted onto the beach. The Inlet Coast Guard Station lent a hand. Lucky the thieves took every last bag of booze, so I wasn’t breaking any laws.”

“Close call all around,” said Bell.

The old man hung his head. “I feel like a damned fool. I was out of a job. Broke. Fellow offered me money to make the taxi run. Sounded like easy money.”

“How many runs did you do?”

“It was my first.”

“Want some advice?”

“Yeah, I know. Don’t do it again.”

“Ru

“Based on last night,” Novicki said wryly, “I can’t argue with that.”

Bell said, “Maybe Barnacle Bill should go back to sea.”

“Isaac, I’d love to. Damned few windjammers left since the war sunk so many. No one’s going to put a man my age in charge of a steamer.”

“I’ll bet I can put you on a windjammer,” said Bell. “I talked to fellows in the Bahamas liquor business — I’m working every angle in this case — and they operate on the ‘lawful’ side, shipping Scotch and gin from Britain and rum from Hispaniola to Nassau. It’s a legal, aboveboard enterprise — at least until the rumru

“If they’d hire an old man.”

“They’ll hire any qualified master who’s still breathing. Few young captains can be trusted with a sailing ship. And seafaring geezers are in short supply, what with so many captains taking up the booze business. What do you say?”

“I’d be mighty grateful.”

Isaac Bell thrust out his hand. “Put her there. We’ll shake on it. And don’t worry, Joe won’t hear about this from me.”

“I’ll tell him myself as soon as he’s up to hearing it. I won’t lie to a friend. But, Isaac, there’s one more thing I should tell you.”

Bell smiled. “I hope you haven’t rifled the poor box.”

“Didn’t burn down any churches either,” Novicki smiled back. “I don’t know what it means. I thought I heard the hijackers shouting in Russian.”

“Russian? Are you sure?”

“The Lewis gun was going to beat the band, but I’ve sailed with Russians — right good seamen when sober — and I swear they could have been yelling Russian. Sure as heck weren’t English.”

Isaac Bell dampened his excitement at this news. He did not want to encourage Novicki to embellish beyond what he believed. “There are many foreign sailors on Rum Row. Could they have been sailors up from the Caribbean?”

“No, I’d recognize the Caribbean dialect.”

“There’s a slew of Italian gangsters in the booze line. Maybe it was a ship from Italy?”

“No, they weren’t Eye-talian. Coulda been German, but the more I think on it, I heard Russian. Or Polish, I suppose. Except Russian doesn’t make sense. I mean, I could imagine Russians anchoring on Rum Row to sell the stuff, I suppose, but not ru

“I’m glad you came to me, Dave.”

“Might this help you nail the thugs who shot Joe?”

“It could,” said Bell. Considering, he thought to himself, that a German-Russian rumru

“I hate leaving them.”

“They’ll get by. I’m here, Dorothy’s strong, and, with any luck, Joe will continue improving.”

“If he doesn’t get another infection.”

“You being here can’t stop an infection,” Bell said firmly. He reached for his wallet. “Buy a train ticket to Miami. I’ll have a wire about the ship waiting for you at the station. Depending on where the ship is, you’ll have to take a steamer either to Nassau or down to Jamaica or Hispaniola.”

“I can’t take your money.”

Bell was not surprised by Novicki’s reluctance and had prepared for it. He extended a thick wad of bills. “It’s not my money, it’s Van Dorn money. And I’m hiring you to send me a report on the Nassau-to-Miami rum-ru

Novicki set a stubborn jaw.

“It’s not charity,” Bell insisted firmly. “I’m convinced that the illegal booze business is about to become a national criminal enterprise. If I’m right, then the smuggling and bootlegging at entry points like Detroit and Florida are going to attract the same criminals who are getting rich in New York. I’ve already put a top man in Detroit. The fact that you are going to Miami means that you can help me out down there.”

“I’ll get myself down there on my own.”

Bell grabbed his hand and pressed the money into it. “I need you there right away. You’re alert and observant, Dave. I need all the help you can give me.”

He walked Captain Novicki out the door and hurried back to the bull pen, where he leveled an imperious finger at three bespectacled detectives. Dressed in vests, bow ties, and banded shirtsleeves, they looked less like private investigators than hard-eyed, humorless bookkeepers.