The Bootlegger

If the fancy Cadillac, the pistol bulge in his suit coat, and the Borsalino dragged over his eyes left any doubt Isaac Bell was a bootlegger, the sight of his bodyguards erased it. Scar-faced Ed Tobin rode shotgun, broken-nosed Clayton and Ellis glowered in the backseat. In the unlikely event they were recognized as Prohibition agents, they would not be the first bureau officials to accept freelance employment from a bootlegger who needed protection while prospecting for new opportunities or stalking rivals.

Bell turned onto a street that paralleled the river. The air reeked of mud, beer, and whisky. To his right, every building had a bar on the ground floor. The bars to his left occupied the backs of boathouses that extended from the Ecorse riverbank out over deep water. The tall detective and his men stalked into several. Each had a bar selling every known brand of whisky and gin, each had a free lunch like the old pre-Prohibition saloons, and each had plenty of scantily dressed women livening the atmosphere.

Bell spotted a bar on the waterside that was a bit darker than the others. Drawing closer, he noticed that the people lurching about the sidewalk were giving it a wide berth to avoid the broad-shouldered doormen who were blocking the entrance.

Bell said, “Let’s see what makes them unfriendly,” and led the way.

The doormen appraised the four men coming at them and reached inside their coats. Bell and Tobin seized their arms before they could pull guns and passed them back to Clayton and Ellis, who subdued them quickly. Bell pushed through the doors.

It was quiet inside, the bar empty. The bartender reached under it, then raised his hands over his head and gaped down the barrel of the Browning that materialized in Bell’s hand. The man looked both frightened and resigned, as if he expected something like this would be happening soon.

“What do you want?”

“Show us your cellar,” said Bell.

“Cellar? What cellar? It’s a boathouse.”

“We’d like to see it anyway.”

“Buddy, I’m telling you the truth.”

“I want to see why this is the only bar on the street that has no customers. Open that trapdoor.”

The bartender pulled open the trapdoor. There was no cellar, only a short ladder that descended to the mud, and no shaft to a tu

They walked through the barroom toward the river and stepped out on a landing. Hidden in the shadows, Bell saw similar landings to the left and right. Suddenly, a man stepped to the end of the dock next door and swung a lantern like a brakeman signaling a locomotive engineer. Then a lightbulb flashed on and off in the second-floor windows. They were signaling the coast was clear of cops and Prohibition officers, Bell realized, as a motorboat towed a barge in from the dark river and tied up at the dock. Two boatmen unloaded quickly. Two came out from their boathouse and ran the cases inside, and the boat towed the empty barge away. A bigger operation commenced on the other side, where a door opened in a boathouse, a deep-laden speedboat slipped in, and the door shut.

Tobin muttered to Bell, “Legitimate whisky haulers, no tu

Bell went in and took the bartender aside. “Take it easy. We have no more business here.”

“Glad to hear it.”

Bell reached into his pocket and pulled out a fat roll of hundred-dollar bills. “But I have a question. I’m curious about something. If you could help me out, I would greatly appreciate it.”

“Maybe I can help,” the bartender said cautiously. “Depends. What do you want to know?”

“Business is booming up and down the street. Why does this one joint have those hard-boiled boys keeping out the customers?”

“The boss got shot. We don’t know what’s going on.”

“Shot over what?”

“Purple Gang cut the price of Canadian Club in half. Knocked my boss right out of the market. He and his boys caught up with them on Michigan Grand. Before you know it, there’s gunplay. You ever hear of a submachine gun?”

“It rings a bell.”

“The Purples had one.”

29

The Van Dorns piled back in the Phaeton and kept hunting. They burst into two more unusually quiet bars. One was deserted. The other had a woman waiting anxiously for a husband who had yet to return from a whisky run. In neither did they find a shaft to a tu

The first red streaks of dawn gleamed across the river. Bell called it a night.

“Begi

Clayton and Ellis looked crestfallen. “Hope we didn’t give you a bum steer, Mr. Bell.”

“Grab some sleep, boys. We’ll try again tomorrow night.”

Clayton and Ellis went back to their hotel.

Bell and Tobin returned to Fort Van Dorn. Tobin climbed the stairs to the dormitory where Bell had ordered his detectives to sleep so he didn’t have to worry about them being ambushed in hotels. Bell checked the teleprinter. He found a wire from Grady Forrer.

POKING AROUND.

TELEPHONE SOONEST.

Bell boiled water and ground coffee beans while the operators put through the long-distance line. Submachine guns most likely meant Comintern. But why would the Comintern cut the price of booze?

The operator called back. “Ringing, sir.”

Grady answered with a wide-awake, “Isaac, you will love this.”

“What’s up?”

“But first, some background to put it in perspective. Before I walk you through ancient railroad history.”

Isaac Bell stifled a yawn and a groan. The night owl Grady was in one of his talkative moods. But the Van Dorn Research Department was arguably the detective agency’s greatest asset.

“Go right ahead. Take your time.”

“Thirty years ago, American railroads had pretty much overcome the insurmountable engineering challenges that used to impede construction. Advances in grading, bridge building, tu

“No crystal was ever clearer, Grady.”

“You remember your old friend Osgood He

“Railroad tycoon,” said Bell, “who happens to be our mutual friend Archie Abbott’s father-in-law. Go on, please.”

“Thirty years ago, way back in 1891, Osgood He

“Like a combination Brahma bull and Consolidated locomotive.”

“So He

“Last time I looked at a map,” said Bell, “Detroit was east of Chicago.”

“Bear with me, Isaac. Stranger railroads were built in the ’90s; all sorts of monkey tricks to sell stock. But this was a real one, if roundabout. He

“What would the New York Central get out of that arrangement? The Vanderbilts hated He

“They would get access to the tu

“What tu

“The tu

“There’s only one rail tu

“He