The Assassin

It was at the new and unabashedly lavish Willard Hotel, two blocks from the White House, and Isaac Bell noted that it had grown by several more rooms since his last visit. He credited the Boss’s warming friendship with President Roosevelt, his industrious courting of the powers who ruled the Justice Department and the U.S. Navy, his honest name, his colorful reputation, broadcast in Sunday supplement features, and his Irish charm.

Van Dorn’s private office was a sumptuous walnut-paneled i

The Boss was a large, solid man in his forties with a friendly smile that could turn cold in a flash. He was bald, his skull a shiny, high dome, his cheeks and chin thick with red whiskers. Bristly brows, red as his beard and sideburns, shaded his eyes. Only when he opened them wide to stare a man full in the face did he reveal enormous intelligence and colossal determination. He could be mistaken for a well-off business man. Criminals who made that mistake, and they were legion, were marched off in handcuffs.

Van Dorn glanced up at Isaac Bell with genuine affection.

He was leaning over the mouthpiece of one of the three candlestick telephones on his desk, with one meaty fist pressing the earpiece to his ear. The other gripped a voice tube into which he issued a terse request. He replaced the voice tube stopper, roared orders into the telephone, banged the earpiece back on its hook, snatched up another telephone and purred, “Senator Stevens, I ca

A secretary, in vest, bow tie, and shoulder-holstered, double-action Colt, hurried in, placed a typewritten letter on the desk, exchanged cylinders in the DeVeau Dictaphone, and hurried out with the full one.

“. . . Thank you, Senator. I hope you can join me for lunch at the Cosmos Club . . . Oh, yes, I belong. I can assure you that no one was more surprised than I when they tapped me to join. Who knows what the membership committee was thinking . . . I look forward to seeing you next week.”

He returned the earpiece to its hook and signed the letter on his desk.

“Good to see you, Isaac.”

“Good morning, sir. You’re looking prosperous.”

“Busy as a one-armed paperhanger. What brings you back from Kansas?”

“What may sound, at first, like a strange request.”

“I’ll judge what is strange. What do you want?”

“I want you to inveigle John D. Rockefeller into hiring the agency to arrest the marksman who murdered Spike Hopewell.”

Van Dorn sat back and regarded the tall detective speculatively.

“That is strange . . . even by your standards. Why would Rockefeller do that? He knows we’re investigating him for the Corporations Commission.”

“I brought you the latest newspapers from Topeka and Kansas City.”

Bell spread the Kansas Watchman, the Kansas City Journal, and the Kansas City Star on Van Dorn’s desk and showed him the headlines about the murder of Spike Hopewell. Then he opened them to the editorials.

Van Dorn read quickly. “They’re howling for Rockefeller’s hide. They’re practically claiming that Rockefeller pulled the trigger. Do they know something about the president of Standard Oil that we don’t?”

“Rockefeller did not shoot anyone, of course. But the killing is making him look even worse than the people of Kansas thought he was. And since Standard Oil locked up their pipe lines and their tank cars—and they were already mad as hornets about crude dropping to seventy cents a barrel and kerosene jumping to seventeen cents a gallon—they equate him with the devil.”

Van Dorn looked dubious. “You’re suggesting that if we catch the killer at Rockefeller’s behest, it will improve his reputation.”

“According to E. M. Hock, he has a slew of publicists on his payroll to improve his reputation. Being blamed for murder can’t be making their job any easier.”

“It’s a thought,” Van Dorn said cautiously. “I’ll mull it over.”

Bell knew from experience that Van Dorn’s mulling could take a long time. He immediately said, “We, too, would come out smelling like roses.”

“How so?”

“Mr. Rockefeller’s fellow magnates and tycoons watch his every move like hungry wolves. They will note the good work the Van Dorns do for him and remember us the next time they need a detective agency. As will your friends at the Justice Department. And the Navy. Even the Treasury Department—if I recall correctly, Senator Stevens chairs the Committee on Finance.”

“True,” Van Dorn nodded. “All true. I’ll see what I can do. I’ll have to think on which wires to try and pull.”

“I have an idea for a different approach,” Bell said.

Van Dorn’s high brow beetled. “I’m belatedly gaining the impression that you came here loaded for bear.”

“Rockefeller pays so-called correspondents to spy for him. You can bet he’s got plenty in Congress, and probably even some deep inside the Corporations Commission. In addition, he is able to ‘listen in’ on telegrams carried on his pipe lines’ private wires.”

“I am aware that Rockefeller understands the power of information more than any other business man in the country. The War Department and the Secret Service could take lessons from his book. What’s your ‘different approach’?”

“What if we were to cause the word to drift back to him that people are convinced the assassin works for Standard Oil?”

“How?”

“We could have people pass rumors to his correspondents. We could even insert false messages on the private lines.”

“All that to give Rockefeller the impression that the public believes that Standard Oil hired an assassin?”

“At which point we ask for the job of catching the assassin. And while we’re hunting him, we will also be in a position to collect evidence for the commission from inside the Standard.”

“Like a Trojan horse?” asked the Boss.

Isaac Bell smiled. “I could not put it better myself.”

—

Big Pete Straub was not easily impressed. His sheer size awed most men. They crossed the street when they saw him crowd a sidewalk, backed up when he entered a room, ran when he reached for a pick handle. He was accustomed to their fear and it made him scornful. What set him apart from saloon brawlers, and raised him high above their ranks, was his ability to distinguish those few men of unusual power or ability that he should not frighten. He knew how to say yes, sir, to a man who could help him and sound like he meant it.

The little guy with the rifle was one of those. He seemed rich. Or rich enough. He paid generously, ten times what Pete earned from the Standard’s industrial service firm. In gold, the minute the job was done. He spoke rarely and never loudly—one whispered word instead of two—and never if a gesture would do. He was as alert as a wolf, intensely aware of what was going on around him. He was patient; he could sit all day waiting for a shot. And when things flew apart, he never lost his nerve.

But what made the assassin so special to the hulking Standard Oil thug was that he was something to watch. In his hands, the sleek, hammerless Savage 99 looked deadly as a rattlesnake. There were times, Big Pete thought, you could not tell where his fingers stopped and the blue steel began. He wore gloves, black gloves, tight as a second skin, with a tiny patch cut out where his finger touched the trigger. He wore a hat with a slightly abbreviated brim, which Straub was sure he had had specially made so it would shade the eyepiece of the telescope but not get in his way. He wore a dark scarf, like a cowboy banda