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Bell leveled a stern gaze at the railroad heir. “Not at liberty? You sound like a cautious lawyer instead of the pal who ran off to the circus with me.”
“That almost got us killed.”
“Did you have a good time?”
“Yes.”
“Which banks?”
Kenny Bloom grinned. He looked, Bell thought, drunk, embarrassed, and a little scared. “Let me answer your nosy question this way — in a question back at you. Do you believe that the formation of the U.S. Steel Corporation is an end or a beginning?”
“End or beginning of what?”
“We’re dodo birds out here, Isaac. The self-determined Pittsburgh operator is going extinct. So’s the independent railroad that hauls coal. Wall Street is killing us off. Black Jack Gleason was a dodo. So’s every man at this table. Some of them just don’t know it yet.”
“Not you. You’re young. You’re like me. It’s 1902. We’re just starting out.”
Kenny Bloom stuck out his hand. “Shake hands with the son of a dodo.”
Bell formed a grin as lopsided as Kenny’s and shook his hand.
Kenny said, “If you’re so fired up to know which banks, look in the newspapers who made Carnegie and Frick into U.S. Steel.”
Bell’s father was a banker, a Boston banker. Boston was a long way from New York, and the two cities banked differently. But some things were the same. And if there was one thing Isaac Bell had learned from his father, and his grandfather, about banks, it was those who called the tune lay low.
He said, “It won’t be in the newspapers. Those who ran the show stayed backstage.”
Kenny pulled an embossed card from his pocket and pressed it into Bell’s hand. “Here’s a rail pass, good anywhere in the country. Go to Boston. Ask your father which banks.”
“We are not on speaking terms,” said Bell.
“Because you’re a detective?”
“He wants me in the bank.”
&nbs
p; “What are you going to do?”
“Be a detective.”
“That is too bad. He is a good fellow.”
“I know,” said Bell. “He is the best.” He held up the pass. “O.K. if I keep this?”
“Your grandfather left you plenty. You can afford to buy a ticket.”
“I would like to keep it,” said Bell. “Money talks. But a railroad pass from the son of a dodo shouts.”
The servants removed the oyster shells and the soup bowls and brought caviar, herring, and pâté. Bell switched from champagne to a sauterne. Kenny stayed with his whiskey.
“Are you going to buy Gleason’s mines?” Bell asked him.
“Somebody beat us to it. Snapped up the entire Gleason Consolidated Coal & Coke Company, lock, stock, and barrel.”
“Who?”
“I haven’t the vaguest idea.”
