City for Ransom (21 page)

“You're so romantic, Mother.”

Evening at the Tewes residence

“It's him! Inspector Ransom,” Gabby called out to Jane. Just the other side of their sheer drapes paced the pipe-chewing Ransom.

“Now behave, young woman. Use civility but stall him.”

“You talk of civility,” Gabby replied, stealing a glance at the infamous Inspector she secretly admired, “while lying to a police official?”

He looked the size of a Montana grizzly she'd seen depicted in
Harper's Illustrated Weekly.
Ominous and threatening and alluring at once, always striking just the right pose—in tune with his reputation. Her friend Lucy had once, in passing, said of the notorious detective that he doled out his own unique brand of justice before any judge or jury got the case. Said Ransom gained full confessions more than any other inspector in the city, the county, and perhaps the country by employing horrible instruments of torture like the widow-maker, the thumb screw, the rack, the spiked cage, the firebrand, and jagged broken bottles fused to chains, while ordinary coppers used only nightsticks and saps. According to rumors repeated by Lucy—“Occurs in a secret place 'long the river, close 'nough when a prisoner expires, his body's tossed out a window into the dirty waters to float far from any
interrogation
, and no one the wiser.”

Such talk had begun with Millie Thebold saying, “No one speaks of it, but this is Ransom's city…”

“Meaning?” Gabby had asked, taking the bait.

“Meaning,” replied Lucy, “nothing happens without getting back to him in one fashion or another.”

Millie chimed in again. “Police talk! Means Chicago is Ransom's city, like Paris, France, is Vjdoc's city or was 'fore he died.” She then held up a dime novel, the title reading
The Adventures of Inspector Vjdoc.”

Gabby opened the door, smiling wide. “Welcome once again to our humble home, Inspector. You look quite dashing tonight.”

 

The sounds of the World's Columbian Exposition competed with horse hooves over the cobblestones as cabs came and went, bringing people to and from the gay lights and activity of the fair this warm summer's eve. Ransom had been feeling awkward, unsure what they might talk about, he and the lovely Miss Jane, until he finally blurted out a comment. “I
am often too serious, too involved in my work, with not enough time to relax much less visit a place like this.”

“I'd've never guessed,” she teased.

He felt comforted that she could so easily joke with him. “What about yourself?”

“What of me?” she countered.

“I never see you about. Is it
workworkwork
with you as well? When do you smile…I mean have fun…have a laugh, an afternoon in the park?”

“Me? Smile? I can smile even when screaming inside!”

“Then perhaps you ought to have been in the theater?”

“I meant only that I can sing when I wanna cry, and cry when happy.”

“Anything else I should know about you, Miss Jane?”

How much did he know? Had Dr. Fenger given her up? What else but cloddish, male curiosity prompted these questions?

“If I may ask,” he added.

“I fight for my every belief…stand against injustice when I see it.”

“You sound a
resolute
woman, Miss Jane.”

They'd arrived at the Ferris wheel, and he purchased a ticket for each of them. Climbing into the enclosed gondola, designed like a train car berth, she replied, “Resolute? Hmmm. Well, when I see a perfectly good solution going unused, yes, I can be resolute.”

“And I sense in you a caring, giving person just in seeing how you treat Dr. Tewes's daughter—almost as your own.”

“I'd go without shoes if it'd help Gabby get through medical school. I love her unconditionally, and I cry when that child excels, and I cheer when she succeeds.”

This seemed at odds to him with what Gabby had imparted of her relationship with her aunt. “Then you have no children of your own?”

“I do not, but I'm happiest on hearing of a new birth or a new marriage in the family.”

“But you are not married?”

“No…I am not, sir.”

The gondola swept upward with them in it, creating an exhilarating, whirring breeze all about. It was a feeling of flight that neither had ever experienced.

“And what else can I learn of you tonight?”

She looked deeply into his eyes. “Well, I'm just a normal woman. My heart breaks when a family member or friend dies, yet I feel strong in the face of death—as I know certainly that death is no end.”

“Must be comforting, your certainty.” Ransom thought of Merielle's awful end, still like a festering wound in his chest.

“I know of a certainty that a hug and a kiss can heal a wound,” she countered, “or a broken heart.”

“Is that so?”
She reads minds, too,
he thought.

“And I believe the heart of a woman can change this world, and is in fact what makes this world work.”

“Bully then for you, madam.”

“I know a woman can do
more
than give birth.”

“And what
more
is that, if I may play devil's advocate—the vote?”

The wheel had brought them full circle and was up and away again. Her hair lifted in the wind.

“It is long, long overdue for women to have the right to vote in this country, sir, and the suffrage movement will one day triumph. Imagine it, men systematically withholding the rights of women because of their misunderstanding us, assuming tears a weakness of the heart, assuming emotion a faintness of character, making it a crime to have feelings, and to label emotion as somehow
damaging
.”

“Please, I didn't mean to start us on the wrong foot. I'm on your side.”

“Really? A rare fellow indeed.”

“I think it a just and fair cause.”

She nodded, a smile softening her features. “All true. Did you feel the same way about the labor movement when you had to stand against the protestors and agitators and anarchists?”

“Haymarket got completely out of control. A lot of unanswered questions still.”

“The explosion, you mean?”

“That and what led up to it. What happened at command, the orders we got, the bad timing of it all. We marched down there to our fate as if…as if it had been—”

“Scripted?”

“Exactly.”

“But isn't all history from hindsight going to appear to us as having been fated or as you say, scripted? Do you really think anyone meant to set you up, I mean anyone within the ranks of the department—your own leadership?”

“How do you know my thinking on this? Who've you gotten all this from? Dr. Tewes?”

“I keep my ear to the ground. Met your snitch the other day on Dr. Tewes's back stair, sneaking around like a rat. I see why they call him Dot'n'Carry. That rattle he makes with his crooked little cane—”

“He lost good use of the leg and an entire foot in the war. Inside the man's head there is more of Chicago than anyone I know. He is fascinating to listen to if someone takes the time.”

“Or puts him on the payroll? Perhaps you're a softy, Mr.
Ahhh
Inspector Ransom.”

“Please, call me Alastair.”

There was a silence between them, the sound of barkers and the fair music rising up to where they rocked in the gondola. She then broke into his thoughts. “Black men have had the vote since just after the Civil War. Women are only asking for the same rights as any man, and in the U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, the term men in ‘all men are created equal' is genderless and refers to all mankind!”

“You'll get no argument from me.”

“Well what fun is that?”

“You're really quite the woman.”

“Really now?”

“Perhaps just the woman to bring the vote to Chicago.”

“As I said, I can do a lot more than be a…a…an incu
bator for some man's seed. I have it within me to bring joy and hope and compassion and ideals into the world. Every man and woman does.”

He straightened at her words, quietly weighing each.

She continued, nonstop. “I can bring moral support to family, friends, and colleagues.”

“Then you have a lot to say and do in this life.”

“And too little time to do it in.”

“Sounds to me like you've a lot to…to give a man…any man.”

“Nooo, no, no sir, not just any man will do for me, Inspector. Most men fail to appreciate a woman of intellect, opinions, and—”

“Again no argument from me.”

“You can be such a good listener, Alastair, when you sit long enough. This inventor, Mr. Ferris, perhaps the true purpose of his wheel is to make people stop and sit and talk.”

“To speak of things that otherwise would not get said?”

“Perhaps…to get things said and done.”

“Things like…like well…this!” Alastair surprised her with a kiss, and she surprised him by returning it, as hers was a long, hard, soft, changing kiss that meant to steal his breath away, and it did—just as the ride came to an end.

They disembarked the wheel, she laughing and stepping off ahead of him, leaving the big detective feeling awkward and unsure and a little self-conscious and guilty. All the things he'd wanted for Merielle…all the promises to ply her with attention. All of it he was doing now, so soon after Merielle's death, with another woman—a woman he hardly knew.
It's police business is all
, he kept telling himself.

He had as yet to make arrangements for Merielle's burial, but he instinctively knew that Fenger was taking good care. He worked to banish thoughts of Merielle for the time being, following after Jane instead.

She abruptly turned on him and breathlessly asked, “Can we go up again? It's the most amazing feeling…like flying. So liberating.”

Ransom only partially frowned as he patted himself down for the change to purchase additional tickets.

 

They sat atop the Ferris wheel once more, staring down at the dizzying lights of Chicagoland from the spiraling buildings of downtown along the waterfront and Michigan Avenue to the rustic old homes and the worst, lowliest hovels of the South Levee district. The multitude of lights and burning fires blinked like stars aground. It was made the more magnificent by the gas-lit street lamps.

He began pointing out the tallest downtown structures, giving each a name. “There is the Studebaker Building. Four hundred ten South Michigan. Built by Mr. Beman in eighteen eighty-five.”

“Where they make all the fine carriages?” she asked.

“That'd be it, yes, and there, see the Auditorium?”

“Yes, but what is going up beside it?”

“Across Congress Street, an annex hotel to the Auditorium.”

“Yes, yes…so amazing from up here.”

“Bit farther south is the Richelieu Hotel, also built in 'eighty-five.”

“And the trim building beyond?”

“Chicago Athletic Association—just gone up this year. Beyond that the Smith, Gaylord & Cross Building—old at 'eighty-two.”

“I suppose every inch of Michigan Avenue will have been cleared and sold and a building put up to reach to the stars.”

“So-called progress. Land speculation and real estate development.”

“You disapprove?”

“Ahhh…it's not all to the good, no.”

“Larger isn't necessarily better, you mean?”

“I know I'm in the wrong business, but the sorta money worship that's swept the city…it's just not for me.”

“Still, way up here it all looks beautiful. The lights at the Art Institute and along the boulevard.”

“I warrant it's the best way to see the city—day or night.”

“And the pavilions of our magnificent White City.”

“The city spared no expense on the fair.”

“Mind-boggling, how huge it is,” she agreed.

“A nightmare for a small police force to cover.”

Despite the wheel's having filled with people as it made its 270-foot arch above the city and lake, the couple felt alone, unable to see any other passengers from their gondola cocoon. Below, the fair crowds moved like schools of fish: coming and going, darting here, chasing there, the fairways teeming.

Alone yet every gondola occupied, and in one of them sat a killer, a killer who with eyes closed relived his murders, particularly his last two life-taking adventures. In his mind's eye he again killed Polly Pete, tightening his fists around the garrote that now dangled between his knees.

As if happening this moment, he brings the garrote to its full cutting power through
his
hands, the daydream so vivid, so real, so fulfilling—made the more so by holding tight to Polly's ring while riding the Ferris wheel he'd shared with her so recently. He smiled, eyes closed, as he calmly reminisced about
this night
…a 270-foot aboveground dream.

Just as he feels Polly's life in his hands, under his complete dominion, slipping away, just as he becomes the god who decides she dies, on that eclipse of time during which he might've allowed her sorry life continuance, or not…

Stumpf too had had a good time with Polly—he and Stumpf—as when Polly had taken her last gasp, tasted her blood spewing from both sides of her mouth, deepening that faint provocative tincture painted in her cleavage. It'd all made Stumpf and him giddy and wet.

From high atop the Ferris wheel, the killer stared down at the gathering crowd around the lagoon boat rides. Uniformed police'd converged on the Lover's Lane Canal.

Appears Stumpf's been a bad boy again,
he thought, knowing that he and Stumpf were one and the same—like two men inside one brain.

Other passengers on Mr. Ferris's wheel noticed all the to-do at the lagoon, seeing a strange fire on the water. While Stumpf appeared a gentleman alone on the wheel, he'd in fact begun the evening with two lovely companions. They'd taken two boats out on the lagoon—double the pleasure.