The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler (novels in english TXT) 📗

O’Neal rounded the corner, half a block ahead of Isaac Bell and Ed Tobin. They followed, turning into a dark street that was suddenly ablaze with muzzle flashes.

•   •   •

A STACCATO ROAR echoed off the buildings like a thunderstorm of chain lightning. A line of bullets stitched holes in a row of parked cars. Tobin slammed on the brakes.

Isaac Bell threw open the passenger door, collared Tobin with his free hand, and dragged him out with him. As they rolled across the cobbles the butcher van resonated like a tin drum, its sides and windshield punctured repeatedly.

“Thompson .45 submachine gun.” Bell rolled to a crouched position behind a bullet-riddled Model T and whipped his Browning from his coat.

“What are they shooting at us for?” Tobin shouted over the roar, which continued at the same deadly pitch.

“They’re not.”

“Could have fooled me.”

“They’re shooting at the guys shooting back.”

A scattering of pistol fire confirmed that the Van Dorns had driven into the middle of someone else’s gunfight. Tobin drew a short-barreled belly gun, which would be of even less use against the Thompson than Bell’s automatic.

Another storm of bullets raked the street. This time no one shot back. When it stopped, Bell raised his head to look for O’Neal. He saw the Dodge with its tires flattened and its driver’s door open, but no sign of the gangster. A Locomobile burst from a warehouse, careened past the Dodge, and raced around the corner on squealing tires.

And suddenly it was quiet.

Bell knew he had the briefest of moments to find whether Trucks O’Neal had survived before the cops came and took charge. Trailed closely by Tobin, who watched their backs, the tall detective approached the Dodge. It had been riddled, like the Van Dorn van and most of the vehicles in sight. It reeked of spilled alcohol from hundreds of broken bottles. There was no one inside.

Bell heard a groan. They followed the sound into the warehouse from where the automobile had just raced. Cases of whisky were stacked around the walls.

“Glen Urquhart Genuine,” said Tobin. “Same stuff Trucks had at Murray Street. Looks like he got hijacked.”

“But where is Trucks?”

Deeper into the warehouse they found a flashy-looking man in a gaudy suit who had been creased in the shoulder by a bullet. He was struggling to sit up and reach for a pistol that had fallen beside him.

Bell kicked the gun away and knelt by him.

“Who shot you?”

“Who shot me? What are you, a cop?”

“Van Dorn.”

“Same thing.”

“Who shot you?” Isaac Bell repeated coldly.

“No one.”

“What happened here?”

“Beats me.”

“Where’s Trucks O’Neal?”

The gangster surprised Bell. He laughed. “Trucks? Trucks went for a ride.”

“Where?”

“I don’t talk to cops.”

“You’ll wish we were cops,” Tobin growled over Bell’s shoulder. To Bell he said, “This guy I recognize is Johnny Quinn, who sells hooch for Lonergan. Isn’t that right, Johnny?”

Quinn nodded. “I need a doctor.”

“You’ll need an undertaker if you don’t give us O’Neal,” said Tobin, and then he spoke to Bell as if the gangster was not sprawled on concrete between them. “The way I read it, Trucks is selling the stuff to this guy. Hijacker with the Thompson tries to take the stuff. Mr. Quinn and his friends hold them off. Quinn’s shot, friends run for it. Hijackers get some but not all of O’Neal’s product.”

“No,” said Bell. “I see no truck to take it in. And they shot up the Dodge. They didn’t hijack the booze. If they hijacked anything, they hijacked O’Neal.”

Bell turned his attention back to the gangster. “Where did they take him?”

“Nowhere.”

An electric police siren howled nearby. Bell’s hand flickered toward his boot. He held his throwing knife in front of the gangster’s face, then threw a headlock around his neck and slipped the knifepoint inside his ear. “I asked, where did they take him?”

“You’re not a cop?”

“We already established that. Which way?”

The gangster wet his lips. “Listen, this is between Trucks and them.”

“You know who grabbed him, don’t you?”

“Yeah, and I ain’t telling you because whatever you do to me they’ll do worse.”

“You want to bet?” asked Bell.

The gangster twisted his head to look imploringly at Ed Tobin. “Listen, buddy. You know who I’m talking about? The guys taking over the docks. Pushing out Lonergan and the rest.”

“Black Hand,” said Tobin.

“The Black Hand set Trucks up. They was waiting for him.”

Isaac Bell and Ed Tobin exchanged a glance. That the Italians, who were shoving the Irish out of the lucrative control of longshore labor, were gunning for Trucks O’Neal was a wrinkle unconnected to the Comintern and Marat Zolner.

Or was it unconnected? Bell wondered. What if Zolner was teaming up with partners? What if he had teamed up New York’s new top dogs? If he had formed a working alliance, then it was very possible that those new partners were doing Zolner a service eliminating a witness who knew enough to threaten their joint schemes.

“Where did the Black Hand take Trucks?” Bell asked.

Tobin leaned closer to whisper. “You better tell us. I have no control over what this guy does to you.”

Bell emphasized Tobin’s warning by sliding his blade deeper into the gangster’s ear. The point grazed his eardrum. Quinn went limp. Bell said, “You already told us they took Trucks for a ‘ride.’ Where?”

“I don’t know for sure. They usually take guys to Brooklyn.”

“Brooklyn’s a big place.”

“Fulton Street.”

“Fulton Street’s a big street.”

“Come on, mister, you’re going to get me in all kinds of trouble.”

“You’re in all kinds of trouble.”

Ed Tobin interceded again, in a manner now less kindly than fatalistic. “Think of this guy as your priest. God’s the only one he’ll tell your confession to and God probably doesn’t care. Where on Fulton?”

“Down by the ferry. Under the bridge.”

•   •   •

IT WAS LESS THAN A MILE across Lower Manhattan to the Brooklyn Bridge, even skirting the barricades in the Wall Street area where the police were still investigating the explosion. On the bridge, with the sky turning pink and the wind whistling through the bullet holes in the butcher van’s windshield, Ed Tobin asked, “Comintern and