The Wrecker

“Are you persuadable?” asked Bell.

“Between you and me, I’m playing hard to get. But of course I would be deeply honored to run for president,” said Kincaid. “Who wouldn’t? It is the dream of every politician who serves the public.”

“Would Preston Whiteway be one of those California businessmen?”

Kincaid looked at him sharply.

“Shrewd question, Mr. Bell.”

For a moment, locked eye to eye, the two men could have been standing alone on a cliff in Oregon instead of in a crowded theater lobby on the Great White Way.

“And your answer?” asked Bell.

“I am not at liberty to say. But so much depends upon what President Roosevelt decides to do next year. I can’t see any room for me if he wants a third term. At any rate, I prefer if you would keep that under your hat.”

Bell said he would. He wondered why a United States senator would confide in a man he had only met once. “Have you confided in Mr. He

“I will confide in Osgood He

“Why wait? Wouldn’t a railroad president be helpful to your cause?”

“I would not want to raise his hopes of having a friend in the White House at this early stage only to dash them.”

The lobby lights flashed on and off, signaling an end to the intermission. They returned to their seats in the rooftop theater.

Abbott said to Bell, “What a wonderful girl.”

“What do you think of the Senator?”

“What senator?” asked Abbott, waving across the boxes to Lillian.

“Do you still think he’s a stuffed shirt?”

Abbott looked at Bell, perceived that he was not asking idly, and answered in all seriousness, “Certainly acts like one. Why do you ask, Isaac?”

“Because I have a feeling that there is more to Kincaid than meets the eye.”

“From the look he gave me when he saw me talking to her, he would kill to get his mitts on Miss Lillian and her fortune.”

“He wants to be president, too.”

“Of the railroad?” asked Archie. “Or the United States?”

“The United States. He told me he’s having a secret meeting with California businessmen who want him to run if Teddy Roosevelt doesn’t stand again next year.”

“If it’s secret, why did he tell you?” asked Archie.

“That’s what I was wondering. Only a complete fool would blab that about.”

“Do you believe him?”

“Good question, Archie. Fu

“That’s like not mentioning the elephant in the drawing room. If Roosevelt doesn’t choose to run for a third term, then Secretary of War Taft will be the good friend he designates to replace him. No wonder Kincaid wants it secret. He’ll be challenging his own party.”

“Yet another reason not to confide in me,” said Isaac Bell. “What is he up to?”

Across the boxes, Lillian He

“The Abbotts are among the oldest families in New York, except for the Dutch, and they’ve got plenty of Dutch roots under their family tree. Too bad they lost all their money in the Panic of ‘93,” Kincaid added with a big smile.

“He told me that straight off,” said Lillian. “It doesn’t seem to trouble him.”

“It would certainly trouble the father of any young woman he proposed to,” Kincaid needled her.

“And what do you think of Isaac Bell?” Lillian needled back. “Archie told me you and Isaac played cards. I noticed you two deep in conversation in the lobby.”

Kincaid kept smiling, deeply pleased by his conversation with Bell. If the detective was getting suspicious, then pretending that he was one of the many senators who dreamed of becoming president of the United States had to be a convincing demonstration that he was not a train wrecker. If Bell investigated further, he would discover that there were California businessmen, Preston Whiteway first among them, who were shopping for their own candidate for president. And Senator Charles Kincaid topped their list, having encouraged and manipulated the mercurial San Francisco newspaper magnate to believe that the Hero Engineer he had helped make a senator would serve him in the White House.

“What were you talking about?” Lillian persisted.

Kincaid’s smile turned cruel.

“Bell is engaged to be married. He told me he was buying a mansion for his intended… the lucky girl.”

Was there sadness in her face or was it merely the houselights dimming for Act Two?

“JERSEY CITY DEAD AHEAD, chink boy!” yelled the mate “Big Ben” Weitzman, whom Captain Yatkowski had put aboard Lillian I to steer after they threw the steam lighter’s crew in the river. “Shake a leg down there.”

Wong Lee kept working at his own pace, treating twenty-five tons of dynamite with the respect it deserved. Decades of pressing shirts with heavy irons had thickened his hands. His fingers were not so nimble anymore.

He had one detonator left over when he was done and he slipped it in his pocket, maintaining old habits of frugality. Then he reached for the double electric wire that he had strung from the bow of the boat into the hold where the boxes of dynamite were stacked. He had already exposed two inches of its copper core by stripping off the insulation. He co

“Weitzman! Are you up there?”

“What?”

“Check that the switch at the bow is still open.”

“It’s open. I already checked.”

“If it is not open, we will explode when I touch these wires.”

“Wait! Hold on. I’ll check again.”

Weitzman slipped a loop of rope around the wheel spoke to hold the lighter on course and hurried to the bow, cursing the cold rain. Yatkowski had given him a cylinder flashlight and in its flickering beam he saw that the jaws of the switch the Chinaman had rigged to the tip of the bow were open and would stay open until the bow crashed into the powder pier. The impact would close the jaws, completing the electric co

Weitzman hurried back to the wheel and shouted down the hatch. “It’s open. Like I told you.”

Wong took a breath and attached the positive wire to the detonator’s second leg. Nothing happened. Of course, he thought wryly, if it had gone wrong he wouldn’t know it, being suddenly dead. He scrambled up the ladder, emerged from the hatch, and told the man steering to signal the schooner. It came alongside, sails flapping wetly, and banged hard against the lighter.

“Take it easy!” yelled Weitzman. “You want to kill us?”

“Chinaman!” yelled Captain Yatkowski. “Get up here.”

Wong Lee launched his creaky middle-aged limbs up a rope ladder. He had climbed much worse in the mountains, but he had been thirty years younger.

“Weitzman!” the captain yelled. “Do you see the pier?”

“How could I miss it?”

Electric lights blazed a quarter mile ahead. The railroad cops had it lit up like the Great White Way so no one could sneak up on them from the yards, but it had never occurred to them that somebody would sneak up from the water.

“Aim her at it and get off quick.”

Weitzman turned the wheel until he had lined Lillian I’s bow with the lights on the powder pier. They were coming in from the side, and the pier was six hundred feet long, so even if she went off course a bit she would still hit close enough to the five boxcars of dynamite.

“Quick, I say!” roared the captain.

Weitzman didn’t need any urging. He scrambled onto the wooden deck of the schooner.