Eight hours after leaving Jersey City, the Pennsylvania Special slowed to a sedate forty miles an hour, and the conductors began announcing Pittsburgh. Bell sat on his berth and tore hungrily into the sandwich he had yet to eat and washed it down with cold coffee. Night and cloud had closed in. Through the window he noticed dots of red fire. He turned out the lights to see better in the dark beyond the rails.

Bonfires were burning in the rain, lighting the haggard faces of men and women huddled around them. The porter came for the tray. “Strikers,” he said.

“Hard night to be outdoors,” said Bell, and the porter felt free to say, “Poor devils. They got nothing and nowhere to go. Militia won’t let ’em into Pittsburgh.”

“Where are their tents?”

“Folks say the police impounded them. Took ’em off a train and stuck ’em in a warehouse.”

The bonfires vanished at the city limits, and the special glided into Union Station.

He knew me, thought Bell. My provocateur knows me.

Chapter 25

25

ISAAC BELL SAW WISH CLARKE WAITING FOR HIM ON THE platform at Chicago’s Union Depot. His face was red, his eyes bright blue pinpricks nearly buried in puffy flesh.

Bell jumped off before the train stopped rolling. “Do we have Laurence Rosania?”

“Chicagos leading fencer of stolen property reports that the son of a gun is so sure of himself, he’s negotiating terms for jewels he hasn’t even stolen yet.”

“How’d you learn that?” asked Bell, deeply impressed. Wish stank like a distillery this morning, but how many detectives could pry such gold out of a fence?

“He owes me a favor,” Wish answered.

“Big one.”

“It was. I didn’t shoot him when I have every right to and he knows it. Also, he was irritated that a jewel thief had the nerve to compare prices with his chief competitor. I reminded him that Mr. Rosania is in a class by himself, but he was not in a charitable mood.”

“Did he tell you what Rosania is planning to steal?”

“A necklace comprised of a fifteen-carat, heart-shaped pink diamond on a string of two-carat gems.”

“That should narrow it down to the very rich.”

“No one ever called Rosania a piker. At any rate, we’ll watch the fence, and his competitor, and when our safecracker shows up with the loot we’ll grab him.”

“When?”

“Soon, was my man’s impression.”

“No,” said Bell. “We don’t have time to sit around waiting for him.”

“A few days.”

“But what if Rosania decides to lay low—do the smart thing, let the dust settle before he shops them? It could take weeks. We don’t have weeks.”

“I’m open to better ideas,” said Wish Clarke. “Got any?”

“Wire Grady Forrer in the New York field office.”

“Who’s that?”

“The new fellow I told you about who Mr. Van Dorn made chief of the research division.”