The Wrecker ib-2 Read online

  “Do you want to go over and say hello?”

  “Not when I have only minutes left to spend with you.”

  Marion returned a pleased grin. “I am flattered. She is young, unspeakably beautiful, and presumably very rich.”

  “You are unspeakably beautiful, and when you marry me you will be very rich, too.”

  “But I’m not an heiress.”

  “I’ve known my fill of heiresses, thank you very much, since we were taught the Boston Waltz in dancing school,” he said, grinning back. “It’s a slow waltz with a long glide. We can dance it at our wedding, if you like.”

  “Oh, Isaac, are you sure you want to marry me?”

  “I am sure.”

  “Most people would call me an old maid. And they would say that a man your age should marry a girl her age.”

  “I’ve never done what I ‘should’ do. Why should I start now when I’ve finally met the girl of my dreams? And made a friend for life?”

  “But what will your family think of me? I have no money. They’ll think I’m a gold digger.”

  “They will think I am the luckiest man in America.” Isaac smiled. But then he added, soberly, “Any who don’t can go straight to hell. Shall we set a date?”

  “Isaac . . . I have to talk to you.”

  “What is it? Is something the matter?”

  “I am deeply in love with you. I hope you know that.”

  “You show me in every way.”

  “And I want ever so much to marry you. But I wonder if we could wait a little while.”

  “Why?”

  “I’ve been offered an exciting job, and it is something I would like to try very much.”

  “What sort of job?”

  “Well . . . you know who Preston Whiteway is, of course?”

  “Of course. Preston Whiteway is a yellow journalist who inherited three of California’s leading newspapers, including the San Francisco Inquirer.” He gave her a curious smile. “The newspaper you happen to work for … He’s said to be quite handsome and a celebrated ‘man-about-town,’ and he flaunts his wealth, which he earns publishing sensationalist headlines. He’s also sunk his hooks into national politics by using the power of his newspapers to get his friends appointed to the United States Senate-first among them Osgood Hennessy’s lapdog legislator, Senator Charles Kincaid. In fact, I believe that it was your Mr. Whiteway who gave Kincaid the moniker ‘Hero Engineer.”’

  “He’s not my Mr. Whiteway, but-Oh, Isaac, he has a wonderful new idea. He came up with it while the paper was reporting on the earthquake-a moving-picture newsreel. He’s calling it Picture World. They’ll take moving pictures of actual events and play them in theaters and nickelodeons. And, Isaac!”-she gripped his arm in her excitement-“Preston asked me to help get it started.”

  “For how long?”

  “I’m not sure. Six months or a year. Isaac, I know I can do this. And this man will give me a chance to try. You know that I took my degree in law in Stanford’s first graduating class, but a woman can’t get a job in law, which is why I’ve worked nine years in banking. I’ve learned so much. It’s not that I want to work my whole life. But I want to make something, and this is my chance to make something.”

  Bell was not surprised by Marion’s desire to work at an exciting job. Nor did he doubt their love. They were both too well aware of their great good fortune at having discovered each other to ever let someone come between them. Some sort of a compromise was in order. And he could not deny that he had his own hands full trying to stop the Wrecker.

  “What if we were to promise that in six months we would set a date to marry? When things have settled down? You can still work and be married.”

  “Oh, Isaac, that would be wonderful. I so much want to be in at the beginning of Picture World.”

  The bells of the Magneta Clock began to strike four o‘clock.

  “I wish we had more time,” she said sadly.

  It seemed to Bell like only minutes since they had sat down. “I’ll drive you to your office.”

  He noticed that Lillian Hennessy was looking pointedly the other way as they left the lobby. But Mrs. Comden parted her lips in a discreet smile as their eyes met. He returned a polite nod, struck again, forcibly, by the woman’s sensuality, and gripped Marion’s arm a little tighter.

  A fire-engine-red, gasoline-powered Locomobile racer was parked directly in front of the St. Francis. It was modified for street traffic with fenders and searchlight headlamps. The hotel doormen were guarding the car from gawking small boys, threatening dire punishment to the first who dared lay dirty fingers on the gleaming brass eagle atop its radiator, much less breathe near its red leather seats.

  “You got your race car back! It’s beautiful,” said Marion, showing her delight.

  Bell’s beloved Locomobile had been beaten half to death by a five-hundred-mile race against a locomotive from San Francisco to San Diego, with the locomotive steaming on smooth rails and the Locomobile pounding over California’s rock-strewn dirt roads. A race, Bell remembered with a grim smile, that he had won. His trophy had been the arrest of the Butcher Bandit at gunpoint.

  “As soon as the factory rebuilt it, I had it shipped out here from Bridgeport, Connecticut. Hop in.”

  Bell leaned past the big steering wheel to turn the ignition switch on the wooden dashboard. He set the throttle and spark levers. Then he pumped the pressure tank. The doorman offered to crank the motor. Still warm from the drive from the freight depot where Bell had taken delivery, the four-cylinder engine thundered to life on the first heave. Bell advanced the spark and eased the throttle. As he reached to release the brake, he beckoned the smallest of the boys who were watching big-eyed.

  “Can you give me a hand? She can’t roll without blowing her horn!”

  The boy squeezed the big rubber horn bulb with both hands. The Locomobile bellowed like a Rocky Mountain bighorn. Boys scattered. The car lurched ahead. Marion laughed and leaned across the gas tank to hold Bell’s arm. Soon they were racing toward Market Street, weaving around straining horse carts and streetcars and thundering past slower automobiles.

  As they pulled up in front of the twelve-story, steel-frame building that housed the San Francisco Inquirer, Bell spotted the last parking space left by the curb. A fair-haired gent in an open Rolls-Royce veered toward it, blowing his horn.

  “Oh, there’s Preston! You can meet him.”

  “Can’t wait,” said Bell, stomping his accelerator and brake in quick succession to skid the big Locomobile into the last spot, a half second ahead of Preston Whiteway’s Rolls.

  “Hey! That’s my spot.”

  Bell noticed that Whiteway was as handsome as rumored, a bluff, broad-shouldered, clean-shaven man with extravagant waves of blond hair. As tall as Bell, though considerably bulkier in the middle, he looked like he had played football in college and could not recall the last time he had not had his way.

  “I got here first,” said Bell.

  “I own this building!”

  “You can have it back after I say good-bye to my girl.”

  Now Preston Whiteway craned his neck to look past Bell, and bawled, “Marion? Is that you?”

  “Yes! This is Isaac. I want you to meet him.”

  “Pleased to meet you!” said Preston Whiteway, looking anything but. “Marion, we better get upstairs. We’ve got work to do.”

  “You go ahead,” she said coolly. “I want to say good-bye to Isaac.”

  Whiteway leaped from his car, bellowing for the doorman to park it. As he charged past, he asked Bell, “How fast is your Locomobile?”

  “Faster than that,” said Bell, nodding at the Rolls-Royce.

  Marion covered her mouth to keep from laughing, and when Whiteway had moved out of earshot she said to Bell, “You two sounded like boys in a school yard. How could you be jealous of Preston? He’s really very nice. You’ll like him when you get to know him.”

  “I’m sure,” said Bell. He took her
beautiful face gently in his hands and kissed her lips. “Now, you take care of yourself.”

  “Me? You take care of yourself. Please, take care of yourself.” She forced a smile. “Maybe you should bone up on your sword fighting.”

  “I intend to.”

  “Oh, Isaac, I wish we had more time.”

  “I’ll get back as soon as I can.”

  “I love you, my darling.”

  HIGH ABOVE THE CASCADES Cutoff construction yard, a single gondola car had been left behind on a siding. It sat a short distance above the switch that, when closed, would connect the siding to the steep grade of a supply spur that connected the railroad’s newly built lumber mill in the forest miles up the mountain to the construction yard below. The car was heavily laden, heaped higher than its sides with a crown of freshly sawn mountain hemlock crossties bound for the cutoff’s creosoting plant to be impregnated with coal tar preservative.

  The Wrecker saw an opportunity to strike again, sooner than he had planned, killing two birds with one stone. This attack would rattle not only the Southern Pacific Railroad. If he could pull it off, it would announce how immune he was from the protective efforts of the Van Dorn Detective Agency.

  He was a coldly methodical man. He had planned the tunnel attack meticulously, allotting time to every stage, from recruiting an accomplice with the ideal mix of zeal and naivete to pinpoint ing the geologically propitious location for the dynamite to planning his escape route. The Coast Line Limited attack had taken similar efforts, including using a hook to make it obvious that the destruction was sabotage, not a mere accident. He had similar schemes for wreckage lined up, in various stages of readiness, although some of them had to be scrapped now that the Van Dorn detectives were guarding key rail yards and maintenance shops.

  But not every sabotage job had to be planned. The railroad system that crisscrossed the nation was immensely complex. Opportunities for destruction abounded, so long as he employed his superior knowledge to be ever alert to mistakes and negligence.

  So long as he moved quickly and did the unexpected.

  The gondola would remain only briefly on the siding. With twenty-seven hundred ties required per mile of track, it could not be more than a day or two before a hard-pressed materials superintendent down in the yard roared “Where the hell are the rest of my ties?” and terrified clerks began desperately combing through invoices and dispatches for the missing car.

  The nearest hobo jungle big enough that he would not be noticed, in the crush of men cooking meals, hunting a space to sleep, and coming and going on their endless quest for work, was outside the rail yards in Dunsmuir, California. But Dunsmuir was a hundred fifty miles down the line. That left no time to recruit a believer. He would have to do the gondola job himself. There was risk in attacking alone and risk in attacking quickly. But the destruction he could wreak with that single car was almost incalculable.

  8

  WITH MARION’S GOOD-BYE KISS STILL SWEET ON HIS LIPS, Isaac Bell settled into his seat on the flyer to Sacramento and waited for the train to pull out of Oakland Terminal. She knew him well, better than he knew himself. On the other hand, there were things she might never know. How could you be jealous of Preston? Let me count the ways, thought Bell. Starting with, Whiteway is there with you and I’m not, because I’m falling behind in my race to stop the Wrecker.

  He closed his eyes. He hadn’t slept in a bed for days, but sleep eluded him. His mind was racing. From the state capital, he would take a series of trains north toward distant Oregon. He needed a fresh look at the Cascades Cutoff tunnel collapse, with an eye toward reckoning whether the Wrecker intended another attack at the front end of the tunnel. On the way, he would meet with Archie Abbott, who’d wired him that he might be hitting pay dirt with the hobo jungle outside Dunsmuir.

  “Mr. Bell?”

  The conductor interrupted Isaac’s thoughts. The man touched a knuckle to his polished visor in a respectful salute, and said with a sly wink, “Mr. Bell, there’s a lady asking if you would be more comfortable sitting with her.”

  Suspecting he would find the enterprising young Miss Hennessy in the next Pullman, Bell followed the conductor up the aisle. The conductor led him off the train and directed him across the platform toward a private car coupled to a baggage car hauled by a sleek Atlantic 4-4-2 so shiny it looked like it had just come from the shop.

  Bell stepped aboard the car and through a door into a plush red parlor that would not have looked out of place in Anne Pound’s brothel. Lillian Hennessy, who had changed out of the pale blue that matched her eyes into a scarlet tea gown that matched the parlor, greeted him with a glass of champagne and a triumphant smile. “You’re not the only one who can charter a special.”

  Bell replied coolly, “It is inappropriate for us to be traveling alone.”

  “We’re not alone. Unfortunately.”

  As Bell was saying “Besides, may I remind you that I am committed to Marion Morgan,” a jazz band struck up in a room at the rear of the car. Bell peered through the door. Six black musicians playing clarinet, bass fiddle, guitar, trombone, and cornet were gathered around an upright piano improvising on Adaline Shepherd’s brisk hit rag, “Pickles and Peppers.”

  Lillian Hennessy pressed close to look past Bell’s shoulder. She was tucked into a swan-bill underbust corset, and Bell felt her breasts soft against his back. He had to raise his voice to be heard over the music. “I’ve never met a jazz musician qualified to act as a chaperone.”

  “Not them.” She made a face. “Her: Father caught wind of my scheme to ambush you in San Francisco. She sent her to keep an eye on me.”

  The cornet player wheeled his horn in the air, as if to spear the ceiling. In the gap he opened in the circle of musicians, Bell saw that the piano player arched over the keys, with fingers flying, eyes bright, and full lips parted in a gleeful smile, was none other than Mrs. Comden.

  Lillian said, “I don’t know how he found out. But thanks to Father and Mrs. Comden, your honor will be safe, Mr. Bell. Please stay. All I ask is that we become friends. We’ll have a fast ride. We’re cleared straight through to the Cascades Cutoff.”

  Bell was tempted. The line north of Sacramento was congested with materials and work trains heading to and from the cutoff. He had been considering ordering up one of Hennessy’s specials. Lillian’s was ready to roll. Steaming northward on cleared tracks, the railroad president’s daughter’s special would save him a day of travel time.

  Lillian said, “There’s a telegraph in the baggage car, if you need to send messages.”

  That tipped it. “Thank you,” Bell said with a smile. “I accept your ‘ambush,’ though I may have to hop off at Dunsmuir.”

  “Have a glass of champagne, and tell me all about your Miss Morgan.”

  The train lurched into motion as she handed him the glass. She licked a spilled drop from an exquisitely delicate knuckle and flashed her eyes in French-actress mode. “She was very pretty.”

  “Marion thought you were, too.”

  She made another face. “‘Pretty’ is rosy cheeks and gingham dresses. I am usually called more than pretty.”

  “Actually, she said you were unspeakably beautiful.”

  “Is that why you didn’t introduce me?”

  “I preferred to remind her that she is unspeakably beautiful, too.”

  Lillian’s pale blue eyes flashed. “You don’t pull your punches, do you?”

  Bell returned a disarming smile. “Never in love, young lady-a habit I recommend you cultivate when you grow up. Now, tell me about your father’s troubles with his bankers.”

  “He has no trouble with his bankers,” Lillian shot back. She answered so quickly and so vehemently, Bell knew what to say next.

  “He said he would by winter.”

  “Only if you don’t catch the Wrecker,” she said pointedly.

  “But what of this Panic brewing in New York? It started last March. It doesn’t appear to be going away.”<
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  Lillian answered with sober deliberateness. “The Panic, if it remains one much longer, will bring boom times in the railroad business to a crashing halt. We’re in the midst of wonderful expansion, but even Father admits it can’t go on forever.”

  Bell was again reminded that Lillian Hennessy was more complicated than a coddled heiress.

  “Does the Panic threaten your father’s control of his lines?”

  “No,” she said quickly. Then she explained to Bell, “My father learned early on that the way to pay for his second railroad was to manage his first so well that it was solvent and creditworthy and then borrow against it. The bankers would dance to his tune. No railroad man in the country would fare better. If the others collapsed, he’d snap up the pieces and come out of it smelling like a rose.”

  Bell touched his glass to hers. “To roses.” He smiled. But he was not sure whether the young woman was boasting truthfully or whistling past the graveyard. And he was even less sure of why the Wrecker was so determined to uproot the tangled garden of railroads.

  “Ask any banker in the country,” she said, proudly. “He will tell you that Osgood Hennessy is impregnable.”

  “Let me send a wire telling people where to find me.”

  Lillian grabbed the champagne bottle and walked him to the baggage car, where the conductor, who doubled as the train’s telegrapher, sent Bell’s message reporting his whereabouts to Van Dorn. As they were starting to head back to the parlor car, the telegraph key started clattering. Lillian listened for a few seconds, then rolled her eyes and called over her shoulder to the conductor, “Do not answer that.”

  Bell asked, “Who is that transmitting, your father?”

  “No. The Senator.”

  “Which Senator?”

  “Kincaid. Charles Kincaid. He’s courting me.”

  “Do I gather that you are not interested?”

  “Senator Charles Kincaid is too poor, too old, and too annoying.”

  “But very handsome,” called Mrs. Comden, with a smile for Bell.