The Race by Clive Cussler (red white royal blue .txt) 📗

“Propulsion.”

Bell whirled from the map. “Of course. They both move by spurting water in the opposite direction.”

“Squid more than octopus, who tend more toward walking and oozing.”

“They jet along.”

“But what sort of motor would my fishermen be comparing them to?”

“Platov’s thermo engine. He used the word ‘jet.’” Bell thought on that. “So your fishermen overheard Di Vecchio accuse Celere of a being a gigolo because he took money from a woman to buy some sort of engine at a Paris air meet. A jet motor. Sounds like Platov’s thermo engine.”

A heavy hand knocked on the side of the hangar car, and a man stood perspiring copiously at the top of the ramp. “Chief Investigator Bell? I’m Asbury, Central Illinois contract man.”

“Yes, of course. Come on in, Asbury.” The contractor was a retired peace officer who covered the Peoria region on a part-time basis, usually for bank robbery cases. Bell offered his hand, introduced “Detective Dashwood from San Francisco,” then asked Asbury, “What have you got?”

“Well . . .” Asbury mopped his dripping face with a red handkerchief as he composed his answer. “The race has brought a slew of strangers into town. But I’ve seen none the size of Harry Frost.”

“Did any pique your interest?” Bell asked patiently. As he moved west with the race, he expected to encounter private detectives and law officers so laconic that they would judge the closemouthed Constable Hodge of North River to be recklessly loquacious.

“There’s a big-shot gambler from New York. Has a couple of toughs with him. Made me out to be the Law right off.”

“Broad-in-the-beam middle-aged fellow in a checkerboard suit? Smells like a barbershop?”

“I’ll say. Flies were swarming his perfume like bats at sunset.”

“Johnny Musto, out of Brooklyn.”

“What’s he doing all the way to Peoria?”

“I doubt he came for the waters. Thank you, Asbury. If you go to the galley car on Mr. Whiteway’s train, tell them I said to rustle up some supper for you . . . Dash, go size up Musto. Any luck, he won’t make you for a Van Dorn. You not being from New York,” Bell added, although in fact Dashwood’s best disguise was his altar boy innocence. “Give me your revolver. He’ll spot the bulge in your coat.”

Bell shoved the long-barreled Colt in his desk drawer. His hand flickered to his hat and descended holding his two-shot derringer. “Stick this in your pocket.”

“That’s O.K., Mr. Bell,” Dashwood grinned. He flexed his wrist in a jerky motion that caused a shiny new derringer to spit from his sleeve into his fingers.

Isaac Bell was impressed. “Pretty slick, Dash. Nice little gun, too.”

“Birthday present.”

“From your mother, I presume?”

“No, I met a girl who plays cards. Picked up the habit from her father. He plays cards, too.”

Bell nodded, glad the altar boy was stepping out. “Meet me back here when you’re done with Musto,” he said, and went looking for Dmitri Platov.

He found the Russian strolling down the ramp from Joe Mudd’s hangar car, wiping grease from his fingers with a gasoline-soaked rag.

“Good evening, Mr. Platov.”

“Good evening, Mr. Bell. Is hot in Peoria.”

“May I ask, sir, did you sell a thermo engine in Paris?”

Platov smiled. “May I asking why you asking?”

“I understand that an Italian flying-machine inventor named Prestogiacomo may have bought some sort of a ‘jet’ engine at the Paris air meet.”

“Not from me.”

“He might have been using a different name. He might have called himself Celere.”

“Again, not buying from me.”

“Did you ever meet Prestogiacomo?”

“No. In fact, I am never hearing of Prestogiacomo.”

“He must have made something of a splash. He sold a monoplane to the Italian Army.”

“I am not knowing Italians. Except one.”

“Marco Celere?”

“I am not knowing Celere.”

“But you know who I mean?”

“Of course, the Italian making Josephine’s machine and the big one I am working for Steve Stevens.”

Bell shifted gears deliberately. “What do you think of the Stevens machine?”

“It would not be fair for me discussing it.”

“Why not?”

“As you working for Josephine.”

“I protect Josephine. I don’t work for her. I only ask if you can tell me anything that might help me protect her.”

“I am not seeing what Stevens’s machine is doing with that.”

Bell changed tactics again, asking, “Did you ever encounter a Russian in Paris named Sikorsky?”

A huge smile separated Platov’s mutton-chop whiskers. “Countryman genius.”

“I understand vibration is a serious problem with more than one motor. Might Sikorsky want your thermo engine for his machines?”

“Maybe one day. Are excusing me, please? Duty calling.”

“Of course. Sorry to take so much of your time . . . Oh, Mr. Platov? May I ask one other question?”

“Yes?”

“Who was the one Italian you did know in Paris?”

“The professor. Di Vecchio. Great man. Not practical man, but great ideas. Couldn’t make real, but great ideas.”

“My Di Vecchio monoplane is a highflier,” said Bell, wondering why Danielle said she didn’t know of Platov. “I would call it an idea made real.”

Platov shrugged enigmatically.

“Did you know Di Vecchio well?”

“Not at all. Only listening to lecture.” Suddenly he looked around, as if confirming they were alone, and lowered his voice to a conspiratorial mutter. “About Stevens’s two-motor biplane? You are correct. Two-motor vibrations very rattling. Shaking to pieces. Excusing now, please.”

Isaac Bell watched the Russian parade across the infield, bowing to the ladies and kissing their hands. Platov, the tall detective thought, you are smoother than your thermo engine.

And he found it impossible to believe that the ladies’ man never introduced himself to Professor Di Vecchio’s beautiful daughter.

BELL CONTINUED STUDYING his topographic maps to pinpoint where Frost might attack. Dash returned, reporting he had spotted Johnny Musto, buying drinks for newspaper reporters.

“No law against that,” Bell observed. “Bookies live on information. Like detectives.”

“Yes, Mr. Bell. But I followed him back to the rail yard and saw him slipping the same reporters rolls of cash.”

“What do you make of it?”

“If he’s bribing them, what I can’t figure out is what they would do for him in return for the money.”

“I doubt he wants his name in the papers,” said