The Striker

“I’d like another of these, please. But a lighter one, if you’ve got it.”

“I’ve got a real beaut I made myself. Weighs half that. Fires a .22 long. But it won’t pack quite the punch.”

“Some punch beats no punch,” said Bell. “I’ll take it.”

The gunsmith brought out a miniature two-shot over-under derringer. “Always happy to make a sale,” he said. “But you’re ru

“Can you recommend a good hatmaker?”

The hatmaker was working late and eager to please the gunsmith, who was a source of clients who paid top dollar for custom-made. At midnight, Bell hurried back to the Cadillac Hotel to check for wires that had come in on the Van Dorn private telegraph.

Grady Forrer, who never seemed to sleep, said, “Excellent chapeau!”

Bell touched the wide brim in salute and looked for telegrams in his box.

Weber and Fields had not reported in, and he could only guess whether they were keeping tabs on the strikers heading for Pittsburgh or holed up in a saloon; he made a mental note to instruct Archie to report to him independently. But two wires had just come in from Chicago, both sent in the money-saving shorthand that the parsimonious Joseph Van Dorn demanded.

Wish Clarke reported,

R LAMING

LIKELY JOB.

In other words, Wish could not find Laurence Rosania in any of his usual haunts to question him about fellow experimenters with shaped explosives, but the detective had caught wind of rumors in the Chicago underworld that a wealthy dowager or an industrialist’s girlfriend was about to be separated from jewelry locked in her safe.

Bell sat up straight when he read the second wire. It was from Claiborne Hancock, who Joseph Van Dorn had coaxed out of early retirement to manage Protective Services.

CLIENT’S SISTER HERE

A LOOKER.

GLAD TO PROTECT TOO.

A looker and glad to equaled four excess words, but Hancock had done Van Dorn a favor and could take liberties.

Bell wired back.

UNTIL I ARRIVE.

24

You’re looking mighty full of yourself,” said James Congdon.

Henry Clay took dead aim at The Kiss and sailed his hat across Congdon’s office. “I have every right to,” he exulted. “Our coalfields’ war is exploding.”

“From what I read in the newspapers, it would be exploding regardless of your expensive efforts to shove a chunk under the corner.”

Clay was not to be denied his victory. His grand joust with Isaac Bell had been deeply satisfying. He had duped, disarmed, and humbled Joseph Van Dorn’s new young champion. Better yet, the fact that Bell had been shadowing Mary Higgins proved that Clay had chosen Mary brilliantly. Bell — or, more likely, Van Dorn — suspected what Clay had already learned from his spies in the union about her derailing a train in Denver. Mary Higgins was a dangerous radical because she was imaginative and supremely capable. That Joe Van Dorn sensed her powers made Clay’s plans for the unionist even more gratifying.

“Don’t believe anything in the newspapers.”

“You promised me we’ll win this war in the newspapers,” Congdon shot back.

“We will win, I promise. The newspapers will destroy the unions when they convince their readers that only the owners can stop murderous agitators.”

“When, dammit? Winter’s coming, and the miners have struck. What are you waiting for?”

“An earthshaking event.”

“Earthshaking requires an earthquake.”

“I have recruited an earthquake.”

“What the hell are you talking about? Stop playing games with me, Clay. What kind of earthquake?”

Henry Clay smiled, supremely confident of Judge James Congdon’s approval. “A lovely earthquake. In fact,” he boasted, “an earthshakingly beautiful earthquake.”

“A woman?”

“A lovely woman with a big idea. And who happens to be smarter, braver, and tougher than any unionist in the country. Her only weakness is that she’s so dedicated to ‘the good fight’ that she can’t see straight.”

“I want to meet her,” said Congdon.

“I told you at the start,” Clay objected coldly, “the details are mine.”

“Tactics are yours. Strategy is mine. An earthquake falls in the category of strategy. I will meet her.”

Isaac Bell paid extra for the biggest private stateroom on the Pe

There was a mirror on the door to his private bath. He faced his reflection. He raised his hands in the air as if already disarmed of his Colt, his sleeve gun, and his pocket pistol. Moving in slow motion, he experimented, devising a series of steps to get the gun out of the hat and cocked to fire.

The special rocketed across New Jersey, stopped in Philadelphia briefly, and sped into Pe

It was strange how they had almost identical throwing knives. And strange how he knew that Bell’s was in his boot. Some men hid it behind their coat collar. Some in the small of their back.

He also knew where Bell hid his derringer, knew it was in his sleeve instead of his belt or his boot. And he had spotted the tiny one-shot in his coat pocket, which no one ever noticed.

What else do I know about him? thought Bell.

He no longer doubted that his memory of being slugged unconscious in the coal mine was real and not a hallucination conjured by the damps. Nor did he doubt that the coalfield provocateur who shot him in Gleasonburg was the same man who had taken his weapons and run circles around him in New York. But other than that, he had more questions than answers. Why did he follow me all the way to New York? How did he find me outside the Tombs? Had he followed me down Broadway while I was shadowing Mary?

The train was two hours west of Philadelphia, climbing the foothills of the Allegheny Mountains, when the tall young detective felt he had choreographed a series of movements to draw the gun swiftly using both hands, one for the hat, one for the gun. Now he had to master the sequence. That meant practice, drilling over and over and over again, until the steps were automatic. Hour after hour. Day after day. Starting now.

They stopped in Altoona to change engines and pick up a dining car. Bell jumped down to the ballast and walked briskly back and forth the length of the train to work out the kinks in his arms and legs. The cold air felt good, but it was begi

Bell swung aboard as the special resumed rolling, asked the porter for a sandwich and coffee, and returned to his stateroom to practice, barely aware that the rain was lashing the window.

Eight hours after leaving Jersey City, the Pe

Bonfires were burning in the rain, lighting the haggard faces of men and women huddled around them. The porter came for the tray. “Strikers,” he said.