The Spy (40 page)

THE KID DROPPED HIM on a street of tailors’ shops that catered to Navy officers.

“How much to replace my suit of clothes?”

“Those are mighty fine duds, mister. Fifty dollars if you want it fast.”

“A hundred,” said Bell, “if every man in your shop drops everything and it’s done for me in two hours.”

“Done! And we’ll get your hat cleaned free of charge.”

“I would like to use your washroom. And then I believe I would like to sit in a chair where I can close my eyes.”

In the mirror over the sink he saw a slight dilation of his pupils that told him he might have suffered a minor concussion. If that was all. “Thank you, Mr. Sheep.”

He washed his face, sat in a chair, and slept. An hour later he awakened to the rumbling of a seemingly endless line of wagons and trucks heading for Mare Island Pier. Every fourth truck had T. WHITMARK stenciled on the side. Ted was doing well feeding the sailors.

The tailor was as good as his word. Two hours after arriving in Vallejo, Isaac Bell stepped off the ferry
Pinafore
onto the Mare Island Naval Shipyard. U.S. Marines snapped to attention at the gate. Bell showed the pass Joseph Van Dorn had procured from the Navy Secretary.

“Take me to the commandant.”

The commandant had a message for Bell from the Napa Junction railroad station.

“MY HOSTS USUALLY HOLD the reception after I preach,” said the visiting English clergyman, Reverend J. L. Skelton.

“We do things differently on Mare Island,” said the commandant. “This way, sir, to your receiving line.”

Gripping the clergyman’s elbow, the commandant marched him through a chapel lit by brilliant Tiffany stained-glass windows and flung open the door to the Navy chaplain’s office. Behind a sturdy desk, Isaac Bell rose to his full height, immaculate in white.

Skelton turned pale. “Now, wait, everyone, gentlemen, this is not what you imagine.”

“You were a fake writer on the train,” said Bell. “Now you’re a fake preacher.”

“No, I am truly of the clergy. Well, was . . . Defrocked, you know. Misunderstanding, church funds . . . a young lady . . . Well, you can imagine.”

“Why did you impersonate Arnold Bennett?”

“It presented an opportunity I could not afford to pass up.”

“Opportunity?”

Skelton nodded eagerly. “I was at the end of my rope. Parties in England had caught up with me in New York. I had to get out of town. The job was tailor-made.”

“Who,” asked Bell, “gave you the job?”

“Why, Louis Loh, of course. And poor Harold, who I gather is no longer among us.”

“Where is Louis Loh?”

“I’m not entirely sure.”

“You’d better be sure,” roared the commandant. “Or I’ll have it beaten out of you.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Bell said. “I’m sure—”

“Pipe down, sir,” roared the commandant, cutting him off as they had agreed ahead of time. “This is my shipyard. I’ll treat criminals any way I want. Now, where is this Chinaman? Quickly, before I call a bosun.”

“Mr. Bell is right. That won’t be necessary. This is all a huge misunderstanding, and—”

“Where is the Chinaman?”

“When I last saw him, he was dressed like a Japanese fruit picker.”

“Fruit picker? What do you mean?”

“Like the fruit pickers we saw from the train at Vaca. You saw them, Bell. There’s vast communities of Japanese employed picking fruit. Berries and all . . .”

Bell glanced at the commandant, who nodded that it was true.

“What was he wearing?” Bell asked.

“Straw hat, checkered shirt, dungarees.”

“Were the dungarees overalls? With a bib?”

“Yes. Exactly like a Jap fruit picker.”

Bell exchanged glances with the commandant. “Do you have fruit trees on Mare Island?”

“Of course not. It’s a shipyard. Now, see here, you, you’d better come clean or—”

Bell interrupted. “Reverend, you have one opportunity not to spend the rest of your life in prison. Answer me very carefully. Where did you see Louis Loh dressed like a fruit picker?”

“On the queue.”

“What queue?”

“The carts queued up for the freight ferry.”

“Was he on a cart?”

“He was driving one, don’t you see?”

Bell headed for the door. “He is disguised as a Japanese farmer delivering fruit?”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

“What kind of fruit?”

“Strawberries.”

“PASS! YOU LOUSY MONGOLIAN,” shouted the Marine guarding the entrance to the short road that crossed Mare Island from the ferry dock to the piers, where sailors were streaming up and down gangways carrying provisions into the ships. “Show your pass!”

“Here, sir,” said Louis Loh, eyes cast downward as he handed over the paper. “I showed it at the ferry.”

“Show it again here. And if I had my way, Japs wouldn’t set foot on Mare Island, pass or no pass.”

“Yes, sir.”

The Marine glowered at the paper, muttering, “Asiatics driving trucks. Farmers must be getting hard up.” He commenced a slow, deliberate circle around the wagon. He snatched a strawberry from one of the crates and popped it in his mouth. A sergeant marched up. “What the hell is the delay?”

“Just checking this Jap, sir.”

“You got a hundred wagons lined up. Get it moving.”

“You heard him, you stupid Mongolian. Get out of here.” He slammed a big hand down on the mule and it jumped ahead, nearly throwing Louis Loh off the wagon. The road, paved with cobblestones, cut in and out of storehouses and machine shops and crossed a railroad track. Where it forked, Louis Loh jerked the reins. The mule, which had been plodding after the other wagons, reluctantly turned.

Loh’s heart started pounding. The map he had been given indicated that the magazine was at the end of this road at the water’s edge. He rounded a factory building, and there it was, a stone structure a quarter mile ahead, with small barred windows and terra-cotta tile roof. The terra-cotta roof and the splash of blue of San Pablo Bay reminded him of his native city of Canton on the South China coast. Scared as he was, he was suddenly assailed with a powerful dose of homesickness that tore at his resolve. There were so many beautiful things he would never see again.

Wagons were streaming out of the magazine onto a long finger pier, at the end of which lay the gleaming white
Connecticut,
the flagship of the Great White Fleet. He was close. Ahead, he saw the final guard post manned by Marines. He reached under the wagon seat and tugged a string. He imagined he could hear the alarm clock ticking under the strawberries, but in fact it was completely muffled by the barrels of explosives under the fruit. He was close. The only question was, how much closer could he get before they stopped him?

He heard the grinding of a heavy motor and chain drive behind him. It was a stake truck piled high with red-and-white Coca-Cola syrup barrels. Had it followed him by mistake out of the provisioning line? Whatever the reason, its presence made his lone wagon less conspicuous. The truck blared its horn and roared ahead of him. A second later it stopped short, hard rubber tires screeching on the cobblestones. It slid sideways, blocking the road, which had a ditch on either side. There was no way around it, and Loh had already started the timing device that would detonate the explosives.

Louis called, “Sir, could you please move your truck? I am making delivery.”

Isaac Bell jumped down from the cab, grabbed the mule’s bit collar, and said, “Hello, Louis.”

Louis Loh’s fear and homesickness dissolved like windswept fog. Icy clarity replaced it. He reached under the wagon seat and tugged a second cord. This one led forward along the wagon tongue and under the mule’s traces. It detonated a strip of firecrackers that went off in a string of rapid explosions. The terrified mule reared violently, throwing Bell to the ground. It plunged blindly into the ditch, dragging the wagon, which overturned, spilling the strawberries and the explosives. The maddened animal broke free and ran, but not before Louis Loh, seeing that all was lost, jumped on its back. Bucking and kicking, it tried to throw Louis Loh, but the agile young Chinese clung tightly, urging it toward the water.

Isaac Bell took off after them, running full tilt over a field that led back toward the narrow strait that separated Mare Island from Vallejo. He saw the mule stop suddenly. Louis Loh was catapulted over its neck. The Chinese rolled across on the grass, flipped to his feet, and ran. Bell followed. Suddenly a massive explosion shook the ground. He looked back. Coca-Cola barrels were flying through the air. The wagon had disappeared and the truck was burning. The Marines at the guard post and the men on the munitions pier ran toward the fire. The
Connecticut
and the stone magazine were both unscathed.

Bell took off after Louis Lou, who was running toward a pier. A launch was tied alongside. A sailor scrambled out of it and tried to stop the Chinese. Louis Loh straight-armed him and dove into the water. When Bell got to the pier, he was swimming toward Vallejo.

Bell ran to the launch. “Steam up?”

The sailor was still on the pier, dazed. “Yes, sir.”

Bell cast the fore and aft lines off the bollards.

“Hey, what are you doing, mister?” The sailor scrambled onto the launch and reached for Bell. “Stop!”

“Can you swim?”

“Sure.”

“Good-bye.”

Bell took his hand and threw him overboard. The tide was pulling the boat from the dock. Bell engaged the propeller and steered around the sailor, who sputtered indignantly, “What did you do that for? Let me help you.”

The last thing Bell wanted was the Navy’s help. The Navy would arrest Louis and hold him in the brig. “My prisoner,” he said. “My case.”

The tide swept Louis downstream. Bell followed closely in the launch, ready to rescue him from drowning. But he was a strong swimmer, cutting through the water with a modern front crawl.

In the last hundred yards, Bell drove the launch ashore at a pier and was waiting on the bank, dangling handcuffs, when Louis staggered out of water. The Chinese stood, breathing hard, staring in disbelief at the tall detective, who said, “Stick out your hands.”

Louis pulled a knife and lunged with surprising speed for a soaking-wet man who had just swum across a racing tide. Bell parried with the cuffs and punched him hard. Louis went down, sufficiently stunned for Bell to cuff his hands behind his back. Bell hauled him to his feet, surprised by how slight he was. Louis couldn’t weigh more than one-twenty.

Bell marched him toward the pier where he had tied the launch. It was only four or five miles down the Carquinez Strait from Vallejo to Benicia Point, where, with any luck, he could board a train before the Navy got wise.

But before he could reach the pier, a Mare Island Ferry pulled in and disgorged a mob of ship workers.

“There he is!”

“Get him!”

The workmen had heard the explosion and seen the barrels flying and put two and two together. As they ran toward Bell and Louis Loh, a second group who’d been repairing a trolley siding came running with sledgehammers and iron bars and joined the first. They became a solid mass, blocking the Van Dorn detective and his prisoner from the launch.

The track gang lit an oxyacetylene torch. “Burn the Jap. To hell with a trial.”

Isaac Bell told the lynch mob, “You can’t burn him, boys.” “Yeah, why not?”

“He’s not a Jap. He’s Chinese.”

“They’re all Mongolians—Asiatic coolies—they’re all in it together.”

“You still can’t burn him. He belongs to me.”

“You?” the mob erupted in angry chorus.

“Who the hell are you?”

“There’s one of you and a hundred of us!”

“A hundred?” Bell snapped his derringer from his hat and his Browning from his coat and swept the crowd with the muzzles. “Two shots in my left hand. Seven in my right. You don’t have a hundred. You have ninety-one.”