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

had no time for regrets. But for a moment he indulged in speculating what would have happened if he hadn’t shot Joseph Van Dorn. If not for that chance event—a twist of fate that the machine gunner he had shot on the Coast Guard cutter had not been an ordinary sailor—no one could have discovered his Comintern scheme until it was too late to stop him. Thanks to that twist of fate, Isaac Bell had thrown hurdles in his path, repeatedly, and showed no signs of going away.

The tall detective tipped the boat boys who tied his lines—lavishly, Zolner guessed by their bows and scrapes—then engaged the people hanging around the dock in banter. Suddenly, a girl took his arm. She was slim and blond but not his wife.

Zolner recalled that Marion Morgan Bell was taller. This girl was petite. He could not see much of her face under her hat and behind sunglasses, but she carried herself like a woman accustomed to being admired.

“What has caught your attention?” asked the woman who had summoned Zolner to the suite.

She was a Comintern courier, a forthright Italian Bolshevik who was sleeping with a man in Lenin’s inner circle and so trusted by Moscow that she could indulge in expensive hotels and speak her mind freely.

“Only a pretty girl.”

“I doubt that,” said the courier. “There is fury in your face. You look angry enough to kill.”

It seemed to Zolner that Bell and the girl were acquainted. Colleagues, he guessed by the familiar manner in which they faced each other. Maybe lovers, although he thought not. She was a colleague. Another Van Dorn detective.

“You misread my expression,” he told the courier. “I am happy enough to kill.”

“First things first, comrade. Your report.”

Couriers did not demand reports. Moscow had moved more quickly to replace Yuri Antipov than Zolner had predicted. The Italian woman with long black maiden’s hair and executioner’s eyes was his new overseer.

“One moment,” he said, snatching up her telephone without her permission. He gave the hotel operator the number of a speakeasy in a hotel on East Flagler and issued cryptic orders to the gangster who answered. Then he put down the telephone and asked Moscow’s woman, “Are you ready for my report?”

•   •   •

ISAAC BELL was very surprised to see Pauline in Miami. She must have landed in the flying boat he had run beside.

“You made quite a spectacle of yourself,” she greeted him.

He said, “I don’t expect Marat Zolner to accept a challenge to race Black Bird. But a thousand-dollar finder’s fee ought to turn up someone who’s seen where he keeps her.”

“I hope you’ll take me for a ride.”

“We should not be seen together, Pauline. Zolner’s comrades could be watching.”

“I’m sorry. I should have cabled my report. It was foolish of me . . .” Her almost negligible German accent was suddenly evident. “But I just vanted to come. Last minute. An impulse . . .”

Bell had never seen her flustered before, even as a young girl. Nor had he ever seen her so beautiful. He realized, belatedly, that she had dressed with unusual care, even for her, applying lipstick with an artist’s hand. And she had changed her hair from the boyish bob he’d seen in New York to stylish marcel waves.

“How’d you make out with Fern?”

“Fern Hawley is deeply unhappy,” said Pauline. “It seems that Zolner has somehow disappointed her.”

“That’s what Marion said. A man had disappointed her.”

“Well, good for Marion.”

“Any clue as to how?”

“No. Whenever I approach that question, she closes the iron door.”

“What are our chances of turning her against him?”

“Mine are nil. You would have a better chance.”

“How do you reckon that?”

“She likes men. She likes good-looking men. And she likes men who stand out from the crowd. In fact, she thinks such men are her due.”

“I gather you don’t like her.”

Pauline recovered her smooth demeanor. “I didn’t say that. And I don’t mean to give that impression. She is a woman who has never had to do anything in her life. If circumstances ever forced her to, she might shine. She certainly wants to.”

“Go back to Nassau,” said Bell. “I’ll get out there as soon as I can.”

“She’s on her yacht. She could leave any minute.”

“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

Having wrecked, or at least slowed, Zolner’s Detroit operation, Isaac Bell knew that the clock was running. It was vital not to give the Comintern agent time to set up in Florida as he had in New York.

“All right,” Pauline said, briskly. “I’m off.”

“How are things working out with young Somers?”

“He’s a bright boy. I was comfortable leaving him in charge of the office.”

“Glad to hear it,” said Bell. “I thought you’d like him.”

•   •   •

MARAT ZOLNER knew that Moscow would never accept the death of their new overseer so soon after Yuri’s. He could not kill her yet. He had no choice but to pretend to accept her authority. He said, “I can report that things are going swimmingly. Matters are in hand.”

“It does not look that way, to my eye. Nor to Moscow’s.”

“I will tell you what I told Yuri Antipov before he died. My scheme is the best strategy—the only strategy—to infiltrate the United States and subvert the government.”

“Moscow has come to understand that. Moscow agrees that America is a unique situation that requires a unique strategy.”

“Do they?” Zolner was amazed. “It sounds to me that certain comrades have been replaced.”

“That is not important. What is important is your failure to execute your strategy in Detroit.”

“A minor setback.”

“Minor? The loss of a liquor stockpile worth millions of dollars?”

His Canadian comrades had betrayed him.

“A regrettable loss,” Zolner admitted, “but replaceable.”

“And the drowning of your staunchest ally?”

There were no secrets.

He said, “There are plenty more where Weintraub came from. Detroit has no shortage of ambitious gangsters. He, too, is replaceable.”

Her next question came like a silken thrust of Yuri’s dagger. “And will you replace your stockbroker in New York?”

Zolner concealed his shock. He had underestimated the Comintern’s reach. It appeared that while he and Yuri had bombed Wall Street,