The Wrecker Clive Cussler (best classic books of all time .txt) đ
- Author: Clive Cussler
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But Isaac Bell stood stock-still, staring at the telephones, which were lined up like soldiers. Something was nagging at him. Something forgotten. Something overlooked. Or a memory of something wrong.
The Jersey City powder pier leaped into his mindâs eye. He had a photographic memory, and he traced the pierâs reach from the land into the water, foot by foot, yard by yard. He saw the Vickers machine gun pointed at the gate that isolated it from the main yards. He saw the coal tenders he had ordered moved to protect the gate. He saw the string of loaded boxcars, the smoke, the tide-roiled water, the redbrick Communipaw passenger terminal with its ferry dock at the waterâs edge in the distance ...
What was missing?
A telephone rang. The duty officer snapped up the middle one, which someone had marked as foremost with an urgent slash of showgirlâs lip rouge. âYes, sir, Mr. Van Dorn! ... Yes, sir! Heâs here ... Yes, sir! Iâll tell him. Good-bye, Mr. Van Dorn.â
The duty officer, cradling the earpiece, said to Isaac Bell, âMr. Van Dorn says if you donât leave the office this minute, youâre fired.â
They fled the Knickerbocker.
Archie Abbott, ever the proud tour guide, pointed out the two-story yellow façade of Rectorâs Restaurant as they headed up Broadway. He took particular note of a huge statue out front. âSee that griffin?â
âHard to miss.â
âItâs guarding the greatest lobster palace in the whole city!â
LILLIAN HENNESSY LOVED MAKING her entrance at Rectorâs. Sweeping past the griffin on the sidewalk, ushered into an enormous green-and-yellow wonderland of crystal and gold brilliantly lit by giant chandeliers, she felt what it must be like to be a great and beloved actress. The best part was the floor-to-ceiling mirrors that let everyone in the restaurant see who was entering the revolving door.
Tonight, people had stared at her beautiful golden gown, gaped at the diamonds nestled about her breasts, and whispered about her astonishingly handsome escort. Or, to use Marion Morganâs term, her unspeakably handsome escort. Too bad it was only Senator Kincaid, still tirelessly courting her, still hoping to get his hands on her fortune. How much more exciting it would be to walk in here with a man like Isaac Bell, handsome but not pretty, strong but not brutish, rugged but not rough.
âA penny for your thoughts,â said Kincaid.
âI think we should finish our lobsters and get to the show... Oh, hear the band... Anna Heldâs coming!â
The restaurantâs band always played a Broadway actressâs new hit when she entered. The song was âI Just Canât Make My Eyes Behave.â
Lillian sang along in a sweet voice in perfect pitch,
In the northeast corner of my face,
and the northeast corner of the self-same place...
There she was, the French actress Anna Held, with her tiny waist shown off by a magnificent green gown much longer than she wore on stage, wreathed in smiles and flashing her eyes.
âOh, Charles, this is so exciting. Iâm glad we came.â
Charles Kincaid smiled at the astonishingly rich girl leaning across the tablecloth and suddenly realized how truly young and innocent she was. He would bet money that sheâd learned the tricks she played with her beautiful eyes by studying Heldâs every gesture. Very effectively too, he had to admit, as she gave him a well-practiced up-from-under blaze of pale blue.
He said, âIâm so glad you telephoned.â
âThe Follies are back,â she answered blithely. âI had to come. Who wants to go to a show alone?â
That pretty much summed up her attitude toward him. He hated that she spurned him. But when he got done with her father, the old man wouldnât have two bits to leave in his will while he would be rich enough to own Lillian, lock, stock, and barrel. In the meantime, pretending to court her gave him the excuse he needed to spend more time around her father than he would have been permitted in his role of tame senator casting votes on issues dear to the railroad corporations. Let Lillian Hennessy spurn her too old, vaguely comic, gold-digging suitor, a hopeless lover as unremarkable and unnoticed as the furniture. He would own her in the endânot as a wife but an object, like a beautiful piece of sculpture, to be enjoyed when he felt the urge.
âI had to come, too,â Kincaid answered her, silently cursing the Rawlins prizefighters whoâd failed to murder Isaac Bell.
This night of all nights, he had to be seen in public. If Bell was not growing suspicious, he would soon. By now, an early sense of something wrong must have begun percolating in the detectiveâs mind. How long before Bellâs wanted poster jogged the memory of someone who had seen him preparing destruction? The oversize ears in the sketch would not protect him forever.
What better alibis than the Follies of 1907 in Hammersteinâs Jardin de Paris?
Hundreds of people would remember Senator Charles Kincaid dining at Rectorâs with the most sought-after heiress in New York. A thousand would see the Hero Engineer arrive at the biggest show on Broadway with an unforgettable girl on his armâa full mile and half away from a âshowâ that would outshine even the Follies.
âWhat are you smiling about, Charles?â Lillian asked him.
âIâm looking forward to the entertainment.â
23
PIRACY WAS RARE ON THE HUDSON RIVER IN THE EARLY YEARS of the twentieth century. When Captain Whit Petrie saw a raked bow loom out of the rain, his only reaction was to blow Lillian Iâs whistle to warn the other boat not to get too close. The sonorous blast of steam woke McColleen, the railroad dick who was snoozing on the bench in the back of the wheelhouse as Lillian I churned north past Yonkers, fighting an ebb tide and a powerful river current.
âWhatâs that?â
âVessel under sail ... Damned fool must be deaf.â
The looming bow was still bearing down on him, close enough to reveal that the sails silhouetted against the dark sky were schooner-rigged. Whit Petrie lowered a wheelhouse window to
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