The Gangster

“A first-rate heeler. Old-school, hard-drinking, hail-fellow-well-met. But not one to cross. Strictly backroom, and connected direct to Boss Fryer. Except you won’t find a witness in the world to testify to that.”

“Probably our direct connection to Claypool. If he weren’t dead.”

“By the way, Claypool doesn’t need our protection. The boys spotted a pack of off-duty police detectives camping at his office round the clock.”

“That cinches it. Claypool knows he’s next.”

“With his pull, he’ll have the best protection. O.K. I shook Branco’s hand. Now what?”

“Right hand?”

“Of course.”

“Notice anything about it?”

Warren thought a moment. “Yeah. He’s got a couple of weird calluses on his fingers.”

“You’re sure?”

“Yeah, I’m sure. Inside his index and middle fingers. Nearly an inch long.”

“That’s what I noticed the other night in Little Italy. Sort of recalled them the first time we shook hands. What do you suppose they’re from?”

Harry Warren shrugged. “You tell me.”

Isaac Bell took out his pocket knife. “Watch my fingers.”

“I’m watching.”

He opened the blade. “These fingers, index and middle.”

Harry’s eyes gleamed. “From opening it again and again and again.”

“Practice.”

“Cute way around the weapon laws.”

“Branco told me about them. Though he left out the practicing.”

Warren stared. “Wait a minute. Wrong hand. That’s your left hand pulling the blade. I shook his right hand.”

“He’s left-handed. I saw him catch an orange that went flying. Snapped it out of the air faster than a rattlesnake.” Bell folded his knife closed, then opened it again. “Of course, no matter how fast you whip it out, you still only have a short blade.”

“Not necessarily,” said Harry Warren. “I’ve seen Sicilian pen knives with handles so thin, you could shove it into the slit the blade makes.”

“A legal stiletto?”

“Until you stick it in somebody.”

* * *

His friends at Tammany Hall took over Tony Pastor’s vaudeville house for Brandon Finn’s wake.

Isaac Bell brought Helen Mills with him. “Keep your eyes peeled for Brewster Claypool. Question is, is he next? Assuming Finn was at the top link of a chain down to ‘Kid Kelly’ Ghiottone, did Finn get his orders from Claypool?”

Bell’s theory that doorkeepers and floor managers did not question the presence of a man with a good-looking young girl on his arm proved correct and they mingled in the crush of politicians, cops, contractors, priests, and swells, eavesdropping and asking questions carefully.

Two things were obvious: Brandon Finn had been loved. And the rumors that he may have been murdered baffled his friends. Who, Bell heard asked again and again, would want to hurt him?

As the drinking went on, tongues loosened and — as at any good wake for a loved man — tales of Finn’s exploits began to spawn heartfelt laughter that rippled and rolled around the theater. Helen, who had a gift for getting men to talk, reported twice to Bell that Finn — dubbed admiringly as the “last of the big spenders”—had been spending even more freely than usual the night before he died.

Bell himself heard the phrase “came into big money” several times.

He speculated that the money had come from outside the Tammany chain, which would pay him in patronage rather than cash. He told Helen that an outsider had tapped Finn to send a request down the line to “Kid Kelly.”

“What,” she asked, “did he want from Ghiottone?”

“Keep in mind he did not want it specifically from Ghiottone — the whole point was not to know any names — but wanted someone who could deliver like Ghiottone.”

“A murderer.”

“Only the guy who paid Finn knows for sure. But since we know what was said at the Cherry Grove, we have to presume they want a murderer.” Bell pointed. “There’s Mike Coligney. I’ll introduce you. He’ll look out for you while I pay my respects to Mr. Finn’s companion.”

“I don’t need looking out for.”

“Mourners are eyeing you cheerfully.”

* * *

Bell maneuvered close to Rose Bloom, Finn’s paramour’s stage name, and spoke loudly enough for her to hear over the roar of a thousand mourners. “Brandon Finn cuts a finer figure laid out in his coffin than the rest of us do standing up.”

“Doesn’t he?” she cried, whirling from a clutch of men vying for her ear to take in the speaker of the compliment.

Bell was not exaggerating. The dead man’s checked suit was tailored like a glove. A diamond stickpin glittered in his necktie. Three perfectly aligned cigars thrust from his breast pocket like a battleship turret, and his derby was cocked triumphantly over one eye. Even the Mayor McClellan campaign button in his lapel proclaimed a winner.

Rose Bloom had red eyes from weeping and a big brassy voice. “He was always the handsomest devil.”

“I am so sorry for your loss,” Bell said, extending his hand and bowing over hers. It was not hard to imagine what a couple they had made, a “Diamond Jim” Brady and Lillian Russell pair having a ball, with New York at their feet.

“Thank you, sir.”

“Bell. Isaac Bell. My deepest condolences.”

“Oh, Mr. Bell. The things you don’t plan for. Just gone. Suddenly gone.”