The Striker

“Let him loose.”

“Mister, if we let him loose, he’ll start up again.”

“Count on it,” Van Dorn bellowed.

Bell fired, dropping a man who pulled a revolver from his belt. The others let go. Van Dorn slugged two, as he barreled across the wrecked office, and kicked a fallen man who was starting to rise with a knife. Shoulder to shoulder with Isaac Bell, Van Dorn drew a heavy automatic pistol from his coat.

“Louses started swinging the second I came in the door.”

“Where’s our man?”

“Not with these street scum. All right, boyos. You were waiting for me, weren’t you?”

No one answered.

“Where is he?” Van Dorn shouted. “Where is that son of a bitch?”

A weaselly little man with a swollen eye and no teeth whined, “Mister, we’re just doing a job. We didn’t mean no harm.”

“Eleven men ganging one?” Isaac Bell asked incredulously. “No harm?”

“We was just supposed to beat him up.”

“Shut up, Marvyn.”

A gangster, a little older than the rest and clearly the boss, stepped forward and said, “If you know what’s good for you, you two, you’ll just turn around and leave like nothing happened.”

“Cover them.” Van Dorn passed Bell his automatic. Bell leveled both guns at the gangsters, Van Dorn picked up a telephone off the floor.

“Central? Get me the police.”

“Hey, what are you doing?”

“Pressing charges.”

“That’s not how it’s done.”

“I’ll promise you this,” Van Dorn retorted coldly. “Next time you try to beat up a Van Dorn, we won’t press charges. We’ll throw you in the river.”

“But—”

“Answer this! Where did Clay go?”

“I don’t know. He doesn’t tell me where he goes.”

“Where’s the people who worked in his office?”

“Ran for it when this rumpus started.”

“How long have you worked for Clay?”

“Years.”

Joseph Van Dorn was still holding the telephone and still breathing hard. “How long were you waiting for me?”

“Two days— Mister, you ain’t go

Van Dorn said, “You’ll owe?”

“Sure.”

“Make no mistake. If you give me your marker, I’ll collect.”

“I ain’t a welsher.”

“O.K. I’ll take you at your word. You pick up your boys and leave quietly. Got a man who does bullet wounds?”

“Sure.”

“All right. You owe me.”

“Me, too,” growled Isaac Bell.

“Hear that?” Van Dorn pointed at Bell. “Him, too. Whenever we come to you with a question, you’ll give us a straight answer. Square?”

“Square,” said the gangster. “Want to shake on it?”

“Get out of here!”

The Hudson dusters carried their fallen down the back stairs.

Joseph Van Dorn gave Isaac Bell a tight grin. “Heck of a scrap. Thanks, Isaac. Saved my bacon.”

“Who is Clay?”

“Henry Clay. A private detective.” Van Dorn pointed at a brass wall plaque that was smeared with the blood of a gangster Bell had shot. “Henry Clay Investigations Agency.”

“What is he to you?”

“My first apprentice,” said Van Dorn.

Bell glanced around the demolished office. “Turned out to be a disappointment?”

“In spades.”

“How did he know you were coming?”

“Henry Clay is about the most intelligent man I have ever met. I am not surprised he knew I was coming. He has an unca

“A psychic?”

“Not in any mystical way. But he is so alert — sees much more clearly than ordinary men in the present — that it gives him a leg up on the future. Darned-near clairvoyant.”

Van Dorn looked over the wreckage of what had been a first-class office and shook his head in what seemed to Isaac Bell to be sadness. “So gifted,” he mused. “So intelligent. Henry Clay could have been the best detective in America.”

“I’m not sure how intelligent,” said Bell. “He disguised nothing about his past. He practically handed it to me on a silver platter.”

Van Dorn nodded. “Almost like he wanted to be caught.”

“Or noticed.”

“Yes, that was always his flaw. He was so hungry for applause— But Isaac?” Van Dorn gripped Bell’s arm for emphasis. “Never, ever underestimate him.”

Bell wove through an obstacle course of broken furniture and tried a door marked Private. It was locked. He knelt in front of the knob and applied his picks, then stepped aside abruptly.

“What’s the matter?”

“Too easy.”

Van Dorn handed him a broken table leg. They stood on either side of the door, and Bell shoved it with the leg. The door flew inward. A twelve-gauge shotgun thundered, and buckshot screeched where he would have been standing as he pushed it open.

Bell glanced inside. Blue smoke swirled around a wood-paneled office. The shotgun was clamped to a desk, aimed at the doorway. Rope, pulleys, and a deadweight had triggered the weapon.

“Heck of a parting shot.”

“Told you not to underestimate him.”

“That was on my mind.”

They went through Clay’s desk and inspected his files carefully.

Not a word or a piece of paper applied to current cases.

“I’ve never seen so many telephone and telegraph lines in one office,” said Bell. “It’s a virtual central exchange station.”

Closer inspection showed every wire had been cut.

“He did not run in haste.”

“No, sir. He took his own sweet time. I doubt he’s out of commission.”

Van Dorn said, “I ca

Bell put his eye to a handsome brass telescope that was mounted on a tripod in the window. It angled upward and focused on a penthouse office atop the tallest building on the block. A storklike figure was pacing back and forth, dictating, apparently to a secretary seated below the sight line. As the man turned, his face filled the glass, and Isaac Bell recognized the financier Judge James Congdon from scores of newspaper sketches.

“Clay spied on his neighbors.”

Van Dorn took a look. “Who’s that?”

“Congdon.”

“Oh yes, of course.” Van Dorn pivoted the telescope, sweeping it side to side. “I’ll be. You can see into twenty offices. You know, Clay’s a heck of a lip-reader. Probably how he paid for these digs. A man could make a pretty pe

“You know him, sir. What will he do next?”

“I told you, I don’t see him throwing in the towel.”

“Is he the sort of man who would take pleasure in provoking bloodshed?”

“Only for profit.”

“Profit or acclaim?”

“Smart question, Isaac. Acclaim.” Van Dorn swung the telescope at the Wall Street buildings. “He wants to be one of them.”

“Which of them do you suppose he’s working for?”

“A man wise enough to take account of Henry Clay’s talents and greedy enough to employ them.”

BOOK THREE

STEAM

32

Isaac Bell rejoined his squad in Pittsburgh. After he had filled in Wally Kisley, Mack Fulton, and Archie Abbott on events in New York, Archie parroted a favorite Weber and Fields saying:

“A poke in the snoot means you’re getting close.”

“If we were close,” said Bell, “we would know what Henry Clay is going to do next. But we don’t have a clue. Nor do we know who gives him his orders. All we know is, we have a bloody-minded provocateur serving a ruthless boss.”

Dressed like a wealthy Southern banker, in a white suit, a straw planter’s hat, and rose-tinted glasses, Henry Clay pretended to admire the launchways of the bankrupt Held & Court Shipyard of Cinci