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

Connecticut heiress recognized. Nor was Prince André. They polled second-rate hotels, and garages that rented limousines, with no results.

The society reporters wrote, repeatedly, that she had served as a volunteer war nurse in France. Bell cabled Archie Abbott to inquire about her and Prince André.

At Michigan Central Station, Bell’s detectives found no evidence of her arriving recently on any of the extra-fare limited trains like The Detroiter or The Wolverine that a wealthy woman would ride. On the other hand, thought Bell, she was uncommonly wealthy. He went personally to the private sidings. New York Central Railroad detectives, always eager to help a Van Dorn executive in hopes of future employment, had no memory of Fern Hawley arriving by private car from New York.

“What about New Haven?”

A rail dick recalled that a car from Connecticut had parked for several days on a private siding. “Left yesterday at noon.”

Only hours after the machine-gun attack on Rosenthal.

“Where did it go?”

They questioned dispatchers. The private car had been coupled to a New York Central passenger train bound for Cincinnati that connected with the Southern Railway’s “Royal Palm” to Jacksonville, Florida.

With an idea forming of where she was headed, Bell asked, “What line does the Southern connect to in Jacksonville?”

“Florida East Coast Railway.”

Isaac Bell slipped him a double sawbuck and his card. “If you need something from the Van Dorns, drop me a line.”

The tall detective returned to the main passenger terminal and found a coin telephone to call James Dashwood at Fort Van Dorn.

“She’s gone to Miami! I’m booking you a through ticket on the Royal Palm. Get down to Florida and find out what she’s up to.”

“Is Zolner with her?”

“He can’t leave Detroit until he’s installed his replacement for Rosenthal and they finish that tunnel.”

“Do you think Zolner sent her away to keep her out of danger?”

“Possibly. Or she could be fed up with him and gone south early for the winter. Except I’ve got a very strong feeling that Fern Hawley’s gone on ahead to lay the groundwork for his next move.”

Dashwood played the devil’s advocate as Bell had taught him to. “Based on what?”

“Based on Pauline’s report that the Comintern sent a shipload of grain alcohol to The Bahamas. Nassau is only a hundred eighty miles from Miami, Bimini’s even closer, and Florida is a booze funnel into the entire South. He’ll have New York in the East, Detroit in the Midwest, and Florida in the South.

“At that point, he can paste a new label on millions of bottles—‘Genuine Old Cominterm, America’s Favorite.’”

•   •   •

ISAAC BELL PACED IMPATIENTLY.

“Whisky haulers have heard about a booze tunnel under the Detroit River. Strong-arm men have heard about this tunnel. The cops have heard about this tunnel. Crooks have heard about this tunnel. Gangsters have heard about this tunnel. Wouldn’t you think that Detroit newspapermen have not only heard about this tunnel but would also have some inkling of where it is?”

“It’s a big story,” Scudder Smith agreed. He was toying with his hat and looked like a man who was reconsidering not drinking.

“You’re picking up bar tabs for every reporter in town,” Bell reminded him. “One of them must be writing the big story.”

“No editor would run it. It would get the reporter shot—which wouldn’t trouble most editors excessively—but it could get the editor himself shot, too, and that possibility would trouble him.”

Isaac Bell did not smile.

“Funny enough,” said Scudder. “You know who’s really looking for the tunnel?”

“Volstead officers,” said Bell. “The payoffs would make them rich men.”

“Or dead.”

Bell said, “Go back to the pressrooms, go back to the blind pigs where newspapermen hang out. There must be some cub reporter out there scrambling for a scoop that would make his name.”

•   •   •

SCUDDER SMITH came back much sooner than Bell had expected.

“Now what?”

Scudder grinned ear to ear. “I have redeemed myself.”

“Did you find a reporter who found the tunnel?”

“No. But I found several reporters who know who might have shot Sam Rosenthal.”

“Might have?”

“I don’t know who actually pulled the trigger, but I definitely know who replaced him. Abe Weintraub, like we guessed. Admiral Abe.”

“I thought he disappeared. I thought he was dead.”

“So did I. So did they. But then I caught a rumor that the admiral was seen gumming his supper at the Hotel Wolverine.”

“‘Gumming’?”

“Apparently someone—an amazingly formidable someone—knocked Abe’s teeth out. I checked. I found a Wolverine waiter who said he ate sweetbreads. Sweetbreads and champagne. Sweetbreads are expensive. A meal you eat when you’re celebrating. As if you became the new Purples’ boss.”

“And easy to chew,” said Bell. “Any idea who knocked his teeth out?”

“Everyone agrees that whoever did it must be dead by now.”

“Was he dining alone?”

“That’s the best part. I showed the waiter Prince André’s photograph. He thought Prince André might be the guy Abe was eating sweetbreads with.”

Bell thought that this was too much to hope for. The most that Bill Lynch and Harold Harding had conceded, when shown the out-of-focus photograph, was a dubious “maybe” that it was the bootlegger who had commissioned Black Bird.

He asked, “Why was the waiter so talkative?”

“He needed money to leave Detroit.”

“Why?”

“I persuaded him, after I suggested that Abe might be the new boss of the Purples, that any association with Admiral Abe could be dangerous for his health. Including—or especially—witnessing who he eats sweetbreads with. Rightly or wrongly, the waiter decided to start over a thousand miles away. I—or, strictly speaking, Mr. Van Dorn—provided the means.”

“But it’s not impossible that the waiter told you what he thought you wanted to hear,” said Bell.

“May I suggest,” said Scudder, “that we have a field office full of valuable men to follow up on this?”

•   •   •

JAMES DASHWOOD telegraphed on the private wire that he had traced Fern Hawley’s railcar to a Palm Beach, Florida, siding that served an oceanfront estate seventy miles north of Miami. Neither the car nor the estate was owned by her.

PALACE CAR RENTED.

ESTATE RENTED.

FERN FLOWN.

There was nothing innately suspicious about renting cars and estates. She could, indeed, be setting up early for the