“I DON’T BELIEVE for a moment that Commodore Tommy is the spy,” Isaac Bell told Joseph Van Dorn. “But I’m willing to bet Tommy’s got a good idea who he is.”

“He better,” said Van Dorn. “Raiding his territory is costing a carload of money for the cops and some very expensive favors to keep Tammany Hall from protesting.” The tall detective and his broadchested boss were overseeing preparations for the raid from inside a Marmon parked across from Commodore Tommy’s Saloon on West 39th Street.

“But the railroads will love us,” said Bell, and the boss conceded that several rail tycoons had already thanked him personally for cutting back the worst depredations of the Gopher Gang. “Looking at the bright side, after this the spy’s ring will be a lot smaller.”

“I’m not counting on that,” said Isaac Bell, mindful of learning about the explosion at the Newport Torpedo Factory while on the train to San Francisco.

A dozen railroad cops led the attack, battering down the saloon door, breaking up the furniture, smashing bottles, and staving in beer kegs. Shots rang within. Harry Warren’s boys, standing by with handcuffs, marched a dozen Gophers into a Police Department paddy wagon.

“Tommy’s holed up in the cellar with a bullet hole in his arm,” Harry reported to Bell and Van Dorn. “He’s all alone. He may listen to reason.”

Bell went first, down wooden steps into a damp cellar. Tommy Thompson was slumped in a chair like a mountain brought low by an earthquake. He had a pistol in his hand. He opened his eyes, looked up blearily at Bell’s weapon pointed at his head, and let his pistol fall to the earthen floor.

“I’m Isaac Bell.”

“What’s wrong with the Van Dorns?” Tommy was indignant. “It’s always been live and let live. Pay the cops, stay out of each other’s business. We got a whole system at work here, and a bunch of private dicks screw it up.”

“Is that why you put one of my boys in the hospital?” Bell asked coldly.

“That wasn’t my idea!” Tommy protested.

“Wasn’t your idea?” Bell retorted. “Who ramrods the Gophers?”

“It weren’t my idea,” Tommy repeated sullenly.

“You’re asking me to believe that the famous Commodore Tommy Thompson, who’s killed off every rival to command the toughest gang in New York, takes orders from someone else?”

Resentment boiled behind Tommy’s tough façade. Bell played on it, laughing, “Maybe you are telling the truth. Maybe you are just a saloonkeeper.”

“Goddammit!” Tommy Thompson erupted. He tried to get out of the chair. The tall detective restrained him with a warning gesture. “Commodore Tommy don’t take orders from no one.”