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“Word’s come from Texas that C. C. Gustafson did not die.”
“I’m not surprised. He was quick as lightning. I struck him twice, but neither shot felt right.”
?
?What happened?”
“Fate intervened,” the assassin said blithely, but, unable to abide a deep sense of failure, added in a voice suddenly dark, “I am mortified . . . I promise you that such a failure will never again occur. Never.”
“Don’t worry about Gustafson. The effect of the attack is the same as if he had died. They’ll blame Standard Oil.”
The assassin’s spirits continued to fall. “I have promised myself on my mother’s grave that I will never miss again. Never.”
Matters said, “I need something new from you. Something quite different.”
The assassin leaned closer, intrigued. “How different?”
“Some old ones must die.”
“Comstock?”
“Yes. He’s bringing my pipe line scheme to Rockefeller. After he does, I need him out of my way.”
“And old Lapham?”
“No, not Lapham.”
“God knows what Clyde Lapham remembers,” the assassin warned darkly. “But whatever he does remember will be too much.”
“Not yet! I need Lapham.”
“O.K. Only Comstock. For the moment. What is different?”
“His death must appear to be natural. No sniping. No suspicion of murder.”
“Miles ahead of you,” the assassin crowed—spirits soaring as suddenly high as a skyrocket—and whipped out of a vest pocket a red vial.
—
From Humble, Texas, Walt Hatfield wired Isaac Bell at the Washington field office.
C. C. GUSTAFSON VEXED STANDARD
WINGED NOT DEAD YET
SHERIFF’S SUSPECT DEAD
Isaac Bell raced to Central Station. The Washington & Southwestern Limited was fully booked, but a pass given him by a prep school classmate’s railroad president father got Bell into a seat reserved for friends of the company. Everyone, the conductor told him, seemed to be going to Texas.
In the smoker, he drank a Manhattan cocktail that was exactly the color of Edna Matters’ fine, wispy hair. And from what he had glimpsed of Nellie, hers too. He ordered another and raised the glass to salute Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, which the train passed by in the dying daylight. He ate a grilled rockfish in the dining car, and slept in a Pullman Palace sleeper that the Limited picked up in Danville, Virginia.
Twenty-seven hours later, a Van Dorn apprentice from the New Orleans field office ran into Union Terminal with another wire from Texas Walt.
SHERIFF’S DEAD SUSPECT CLEARED
C. C. GUSTAFSON AWAKE
Isaac Bell swung aboard the westbound Sunset Express.
