“No one can buy Detroit. It’s too volatile. He has to beat the gangs to control the bootlegging.”
“That has a greater ring of fact than your expanding from New York theory for which you have no evidence.”
Yes, thought Bell. The Boss is sounding a little more like himself. He was marshaling his arguments when the Morkrum printer clattered. James Dashwood ripped a message off the paper roll and handed him the curly sheet.
“Hold the wire, Joe.”
The New York office had forwarded a long overseas cable from Germany. Bell decoded the familiar Van Dorn cipher in his head.
Pauline Grandzau had discovered that Comintern agents had chartered the twelve-thousand-ton tanker Sandra T. Congdon and loaded it with two-hundred-proof pure grain alcohol. The tanker had sailed from Bremerhaven bound for Nassau, The Bahamas.
Bell whistled in amazement.
“What?” Van Dorn growled into his phone.
“Proof,” said Bell. “A shipload of two hundred proof.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Proof that Marat Zolner is not only still operating in New York but expanding. The Comintern is gearing up to supply Rum Row on a whole new scale.”
He read Pauline’s cable aloud to Van Dorn.
They discussed its ramifications. Possession of grain alcohol was a not to be missed opportunity to dilute genuine liquor. Such a big ship could carry well over a hundred thousand barrels—five hundred railroad tank cars—easily stretched to fifty million bottles.
“Enough liquor,” said Van Dorn, “to plaster the adult population of the East Coast through the Christmas and New Year’s holidays.”
“And pour a hundred million dollars into the Comintern’s treasury.”
“That is fifty times the federal budget for enforcement of Prohibition,” said Van Dorn. “Good for Pauline. Will you send her to Nassau as she asked?”
“Absolutely.”
“Even long-distance, I can hear a gleam in your eye, Isaac. Just don’t forget that Zolner has proved himself a mastermind. And he’s got the entire Comintern on his side.”
“I’m not sure about that,” said Bell. “I have a hunch he’s a one-man show.”
“They’re making a great success of getting away with every crime in the book,” Van Dorn countered drily.
“But nothing that he’s built so far can last without him. When we stop Zolner, we stop the Comintern.”
“Nothing’s stopped him yet.”
“The way to stop him is to use against him the one thing I admire about him,” said Bell.
“Admire?” Van Dorn’s explosion of indignation spiraled into a coughing fit.
Bell listened to the wracking cough, praying for it to ease, but it knocked Joe breathless. Bell waited, gripping the phone. The doctors had warned there’d be setbacks, and he’d just set one off.
A woman spoke into the phone. “Mr. Van Dorn will telephone you back when he is able.”
“Marion?”
“Isaac!”
“Is he O.K.?”
“I don’t know. I just walked in. Here’s a nurse . . . And a doctor . . . They’ve got him . . .” She lowered her voice. “Oh, the poor man. It breaks your heart. He’s better one moment, then falls back. They’ve got him now, Isaac. Don’t worry. How are you?”