ALSO BY CLIVE CUSSLER DIRK PITT® ADVENTURES Poseidon’s Arrow (with Dirk Cussler) Crescent Dawn (with Dirk Cussler) Arctic Drift (with Dirk Cussler) Treasure of Khan (with Dirk Cussler) Black Wind (with Dirk Cussler) Trojan Odyssey Valhalla Rising Atlantis Found Flood Tide Shock Wave Inca Gold Sahara Dragon Treasure Cyclops Deep Six Pacific Vortex! Night Probe! Vixen 03 Raise the Titanic! Iceberg The Mediterranean Caper FARGO ADVENTURES The Mayan Secrets (with Thomas Perry) The Tombs (with Thomas Perry) The Kingdom (with Grant Blackwood) Lost Empire (with Grant Blackwood) Spartan Gold (with Grant Blackwood) ISAAC BELL NOVELS The Striker (with Justin Scott) The Thief (with Justin Scott) The Race (with Justin Scott) The Spy (with Justin Scott) The Wrecker (with Justin Scott) The Chase KURT AUSTIN ADVENTURES Zero Hour (with Graham Brown) The Storm (with Graham Brown) Devil’s Gate (with Graham Brown) Medusa (with Paul Kremprecos) The Navigator (with Paul Kremprecos) Polar Shift (with Paul Kremprecos) Lost City (with Paul Kremprecos) White Death (with Paul Kremprecos) Fire Ice (with Paul Kremprecos) Blue Gold (with Paul Kremprecos) Serpent (with Paul Kremprecos) OREGON FILES ADVENTURES Mirage (with Jack Du Brul) The Jungle (with Jack Du Brul) The Silent Sea (with Jack Du Brul) Corsair (with Jack Du Brul) Plague Ship (with Jack Du Brul) Skeleton Coast (with Jack Du Brul) Dark Watch (with Jack Du Brul) Sacred Stone (with Craig Dirgo) Golden Buddha (with Craig Dirgo) NONFICTION Built for Adventure: The Classic Automobiles of Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt The Sea Hunters (with Craig Dirgo) The Sea Hunters II (with Craig Dirgo) Clive Cussler and Dirk Pitt Revealed (with Craig Dirgo) G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS Publishers Since 1838 Published by the Penguin Group Penguin Group (USA) LLC 375 Hudson Street New York, New York 10014 USA • Canada • UK • Ireland • Australia • New Zealand • India • South Africa • China penguin.com A Penguin Random House Company Copyright © 2014 by Sandecker, RLLLP Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Cussler, Clive. The bootlegger : an Isaac Bell adventure / Clive Cussler and Justin Scott. p. cm.—(An Isaac Bell Adventure ; 7) ISBN 978-0-698-14073-8 1. Bell, Isaac (Fictitious character)—Fiction. 2. Private investigators—Fiction. 3. Prohibition—Fiction. I. Scott, Justin. II. Title. PS3553.U75B66 20142013044314 813'.54—dc23 Endpapers and interior illustrations by Roland Dahlquist This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the authors’ imaginations or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. Version_1 For Janet Contents Also by Clive Cussler Title Page Copyright Dedication Book One Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 6 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14 Book Two Chapter 15 Chapter 16 Chapter 17 Chapter 18 Chapter 19 Chapter 20 Chapter 21 Chapter 22 Book Three Chapter 23 Chapter 24 Chapter 25 Chapter 26 Chapter 27 Chapter 28 Chapter 29 Chapter 30 Book Four Chapter 31 Chapter 32 Chapter 33 Chapter 34 Chapter 35 Chapter 36 Chapter 37 Chapter 38 Chapter 39 Chapter 40 Chapter 41 Chapter 42 Chapter 43 1 TWO MEN IN EXPENSIVE CLOTHES, a bootlegger and his bodyguard, dangled a bellboy upside down from the Hotel Gotham’s parapet. The bodyguard held him by his ankles, nineteen stories above 55th Street. It was night. No one saw, and the boy’s screams were drowned out by the Fifth Avenue buses, the El thundering up Sixth, and trolley bells clanging on Madison. The bootlegger shouted down at him, “Every bellhop in the hotel sells my booze! Whatsamatter with you?” Church spires and mansion turrets reached for him like teeth. “Last chance, sonny.” A tall man in a summer suit glided silently across the roof. He drew a Browning automatic from his coat and a throwing knife from his boot. He mounted the parapet and pressed the pistol to the bodyguard’s temple. “Hold tight.” The bodyguard froze. The bootlegger shrank from the blade pricking his throat. “Who the—” “Isaac Bell. Van Dorn Agency. Sling him in on the count of two.” “If you shoot, we drop him.” “You’ll have holes in your heads before he passes the eighteenth floor . . . On my count: One! Pull him up. Two! Swing him over the edge . . . Lay him on the roof— Are you O.K., son?” The bellboy had tears in his eyes. He nodded, head bobbing like a puppet. “Go downstairs,” Isaac Bell told him, sliding his knife back in his boot and shifting the automatic to his left hand. “Tell your boss Chief Investigator Bell said to give you the week off and a fifty-dollar bonus for standing up to bootleggers.” The bodyguard chose his moment well. When the tall detective reached down to help the boy stand, he swung a heavy, ring-studded fist. Skillfully thrown with the full power of a big man’s muscle behind it, it was blocked before it traveled four inches. A bone-cracking counterpunch staggered him. His knees buckled and he collapsed on the tar. The bootlegger shot empty hands into the sky. “O.K., O.K.” • • • THE VAN DORN DETECTIVE AGENCY—an operation with field offices in every city in the country and many abroad—maintained warm relations with the police. But Isaac Bell spotted trouble when he walked into the 54th Street precinct house. The desk sergeant couldn’t meet his eye. Bell reached across the high desk to shake his hand anyway. This particular sergeant’s father, retired roundsman Paddy O’Riordan, augmented his pension as a part-time night watchman for Van Dorn Protective Services. “How’s your dad?” Paddy was doing fine. “Any chance of interviewing the bootlegger we caught at the Gotham?” “The big guy’s at the hospital getting his jaw wired.” “I want the little one, the boss.” “Surety company paid his bond.” Bell was incensed. “Bail? For attempted murder?” “They expect the protection they pay for,” said Sergeant O’Riordan, poker-faced. “What I would do next time, Mr. Bell, instead of calling us, throw them in the river.” Bell watched for the cop’s reaction when he replied, “I reckoned Coasties would fish them out.” O’Riordan agreed with a world-weary “Yeah,” confirming the rumors that even some officers of the United States Coast Guard—the arm of the Treasury Department charged with enforcing Prohibition at sea—were in the bootleggers’ pockets. Starting this afternoon, thought Bell, the Van Dorns would put
