The Gangster

“Pack up our dinner in a picnic basket. And ask Mr. Rector if he would use his influence to book us a last-minute state room on the night boat to Storm King.”

Marion put on her gloves and picked up her bag. “Isn’t there a Van Dorn Detective rule against bringing friends to gunfights?”

“This infernal letter makes you a candidate for round-the-clock Van Dorn protection — I guarantee no gunfights in our state room.”

“How about fireworks?”

* * *

Drill heads battered the rock a thousand feet under the Hudson River. Boring into the circular heading, they scattered a pink powder of pulverized granite. Water seeping from minute seams in the vaulted ceiling turned the powder to a sticky grime that caked helmets, slickers, boots, and faces.

Isaac Bell, introduced by the siphon contractor as a newly hired foreman learning the ropes, was no stranger to digging underground, having masqueraded as a coal miner on the Striker case. Granite, however, was a lot harder than coal; the fourteen-foot-high pressure tunnel was of palatial dimensions compared to a mine shaft; and granite grime, unlike black coal dust, colored the hard-rock gang working the 8 p.m. to 4 a.m. shift as pink as marzipan pigs.

Bell had a Van Dorn detective operating the shaft hoist cage and picked men stationed around the shaft house. They were backed up by the contractor’s own guards, while Water Supply Board Police roamed the perimeter. Archie Abbott had sped up on a morning train to escort Marion safely back to the Knickerbocker; Helen Mills was standing by with a newly issued sidearm that Bell knew the general’s daughter was extremely capable of using; nor did he doubt that if the Black Hand tried anything, they would never run up against a more levelheaded duo in New York.

* * *

Marion Morgan and Archie Abbott’s train to New York City hugged the riverbank at West Point. Rendered pewter by an overcast sky, the Hudson looked as cold as the stone fortifications. The sky threatened snow, and ice was hardening on still water in coves and creeks. Marion was thinking she had better buy a warm winter coat when Archie suddenly spoke up.

“I met a widow.”

“How old a widow?”

“Twenty-two… She married young.”

“Do you like her?”

“I’m besotted.”

“That’s a dangerous condition, Archie.”

“Call it infatuated.”

Marion laughed. “That’s worse.”

Archie looked at her, quite seriously. “It’s never happened to me before.”

Though younger than Archie, Marion felt that he was opening up to her like a big sister and she answered bluntly, “Besotted and infatuated imply a strong dose of foolishness.”

“I know that.”

“What’s her name?”

“Francesca.”

“Beautiful name.”

“It fits her. She is intoxicatingly beautiful.”

“Besotting, infatuating, and intoxicating? Francesca better look out for the Anti-Saloon League.”

“She doesn’t drink. Won’t touch a drop. I’ve become a teetotaler around her.” He grinned. “Drunk on love, instead.”

Marion said, “Speaking from my own experience of meeting Isaac, I can only say one word: Congratulations! I look forward to meeting Francesca.”

“Oh, you’ll love her. She’s really interesting. She can talk a blue streak about anything.”

Helen Mills met them at the Jersey City Terminal. On the ferry, she explained that Mr. Van Dorn had arranged for the Knickerbocker to move Marion into a suite with two bedrooms, the second for Helen.

“I hope you don’t mind a roommate.”

“It will be like being back at school.”

Archie escorted them to the hotel and rushed off to see Francesca.

* * *

At the end of the long shift, the hard-rock gang packed their round of bore holes with dynamite. They moved the short distance to the shaft, took cover, and shot the explosives with electric detonators. With a muffled rumble, the granite they had drilled all day was blown from the face and the siphon tunnel was put through another couple of yards. They boarded the shaft hoist cage for a lift to the surface, too tired, as one man put it, “even for drinking.”

Isaac Bell stayed below to watch the mucking crew.

Before the smoke had cleared, the muckers raced with picks and shovels to the heading and started loading the dynamited rock into cars hauled by an electric locomotive. All but their hard-driving Irish foreman were Italian laborers. Any one of them could be Antonio Branco’s saboteur. Or each could be exactly what he looked like: a hardworking immigrant shoveling his guts out for a dollar seventy-five a day.

The muckers were just finishing clearing rock when water suddenly gushed into the heading. A water-bearing seam had opened, disturbed, perhaps, by the last shift’s blast.

“Il fiume!” cried a laborer.

The others laughed, and the Irishman explained to Bell. “Ignorant wop thinks the river’s busting through the roof.”

“Why are they laughing at him?”

“They’re not as dumb as him. They know there’s nine hundred feet of shale and a hundred feet of solid granite between the roof and the river. It ain’t river water. It’s just water that was in the rocks. How much you think it’s running? Hundred gallons a minute?”