City for Ransom (25 page)

“All the lost opportunity. But never again will I hide.”

“Hide?”

“Within myself yes…Sadly, it's taken all these years to come to an accounting of just how bloody distorted my self-perceptions have been.”

“Mother! You never curse!”

“Forget about the cursing and concentrate, child, on what I'm saying. It's so important that you understand early. You mustn't waste your most precious commodity—
time
.”

“Per-perhaps this is what we're here for; to find ourselves, and maybe shake things up…change things a little!”

“Yes…that's exactly what I'm feeling, but look closer, more deeply.”

“Sounds like…an epiphany.”

“A threshold…yes, a portal of mind that—”

A rapping noise like a gunshot came at the door. Through the sash, they made out Ransom's silhouette with cane. Gabby said, “Here is your favorite Martian now.”

Jane erupted in laughter. “That man! Why doesn't he ring the bell?”

“I rather think he uses that cane for everything.”

“So right, including interrogations.”

“Are you going to tell him?”

“I'd like to but…”

“Surely he suspects by now. After all, he's a detective!”

“It would throw him a good shock!”

Gabby's evil smile shadowed Jane's. “Serve him right after what he did at the train station.”

“You've heard?”

“It's all over.”

Again Ransom rapped at the door.

“God,” Jane wondered aloud, “what do you do with a bear at the door?”

“The truth, now!”

“But it could destroy any chance I might have of—”

“You're attracted to him?”

“Yes!”

“Oh, dear.”

Jane secretly feared doing any harm to Alastair's sense of self-worth and professional acumen. She grabbed ascot and mustache. “Gabby, stall him!”

“What? No!” As Jane rushed for mirror and glue, Gabby yelled through her locked door. “But you're finished with masquerades!”

“Not like this…it's too sudden. Go, do as I say. Answer
the door. I shall pop out the back and come around the front door as though Dr. Tewes is home from an appointment.”

“But what of that wonderful speech?”

“Just do it!”

“But your true sentiment?”

“It'll happen when it happens, not before.”

By now Jane sat at her secret mirror, applying makeup, planning to exit through a nearby window. She'd stopped short of telling her daughter of her father's ignoble end; perhaps the tale of his dying a brave soldier could stand, at least for now.

So here she was, Tewes again. This time climbing out a back window. She'd given Polly advice to get clear of Ransom, and here she was concerned about the man's sensibilities?
Whatever is wrong with me?

 

Despite Gabby's disappointment in Jane's latest decision, she followed her mother's orders, inviting the unsuspecting Inspector into the parlor for tea. As she poured the tea and stalled for time, her mother preened as Dr. Tewes in a back room. Meanwhile, Gabby must field more questions about her “auntie”—Jane Francis Ayers—although Ransom
said
he was here to see Dr. Tewes.

“Auntie's abed by this hour every night. An early riser, that one.”

“And what of you?” he asked between sips, favoring a headache that threatened to blind him. “Shouldn't you be asleep?”

They both glanced at the clock. It was nearing midnight.

“Me? Oh…my studies keep me up.”

An awkward silence followed until, noticing the pain he was in, she asked, “Are you all right? I heard about the horrible fire in which your…the lady you were seeing…that is Father told me how difficult it's been for you.”

“Your father bailed me out of jail. I mean to make good on
it.” He pulled forth a twenty-five-dollar note from the Harris Bank and laid it on the table.

“You must speak to Father about your headaches.”

“Aye…it's why I came—and to repay the note. But it's rather late for—”

“Nonsense, you must take care of it right away.”

“But the lateness of the hour.”

“I assure you, for his fee, my father won't turn you away.”

“Then the good doctor, he has not—”

“Retired? Wish it were so. I'm afraid, he doesn't take care of himself half so well as his patients.”

“He works hard.”

Dr. Tewes came through the front door and into the parlor, saying, “So, you've finally come, Inspector, for a complete examination? At such an hour?”

“I do my best work after hours, when others sleep.” He stood and filled Tewes's hand with the note to repay the bailout.

“What is this?” Tewes was in the midst of asking when Ransom suddenly became dizzy and wobbly on his legs, almost falling before they got him back onto the settee where he'd been moments before.

Even dazed, Ransom saw that Gabby and Jane showed genuine concern, the caring written in their eyes. Tewes was barking orders and young Gabby, flitting about after cold water and a compress. So unconditional was this response to his near fall.
What would these two be like should I keel over completely?

“It's his head, Father. He's been favoring it since he arrived.”

“Delayed reaction. You must take my cure, now, Alastair,” Tewes said. “Can you walk to my clinic? In the chair, under the strap, so your head'll be stabilized as I conduct my examination.”

“I am quite all right. No need for a fuss. Don't wanna be a bother or a—”

“Burden? Inspector, trust me. You've long ago surpassed—”

“Why don't you
tell him
?” asked Gabby.

“Tell me what?”

Jane gave her daughter a withering look, warning her not to say another word, but Gabby replied, “To get his blooming arse in that chair! Now!”

The two women each took an arm and helped him from parlor to clinic, guiding him into the doctor's waiting chair. From a haze, he smelled multiple chemicals and concoctions, saw shelves lined with books, and countertops strewn with gleaming instruments and probes.

Alastair felt instantly ill at ease even though the chair he found himself in was as comfortable as sin; in fact, doing as told, he closed his eyes and felt he could easily fall asleep here, finding himself awakened in the morning to the chime of Gabby's voice calling him to consciousness, asking if he wanted one or two eggs with his bacon.

To further relax him, Dr. Tewes's magical fingers began massaging Ransom's neck, moving on to ridges behind each ear. Tewes's thumb at each point, rhythmically rotated. Ransom realized this motion could put a man down fast. He thought what a tool of control is this. He'd never before been induced to such peace, but a sliver of suspicion kept fighting his desire to relax as Tewes repeatedly suggested—as the small, firm hands soothingly continued, careful to apply no pressure to the still throbbing sore point left by Muldoon's blackjack.

Tewes's hands pressed on, precision in each fingertip. Then all thumb action behind the ears ended for the full cranial massage, the talented fingers working to and from each temple, further easing his tension. He wanted to tell the doctor how wonderful this felt, but he felt perturbed, too, ashamed to be feeling so good at the touch of another man. In fact, the idea began to invade his mind—an inky stain fighting Tewes's mantra: “Heal thyself, Alastair…heal, heal, heal…”

“Tewes, I'm…I mean to say…I've never…”

“Quiet…heal, heal…”

“I find Jane intriguing. Being a man, I…”

She did not tell him to shut up.

“…that is to say, I like women as you know…” Jane realized what he was so clumsily trying to tell Mister Tewes. “…and have naught interest in men in that regard…if you take my mean—”

“My God, Ransom. Each time I think there's hope for you, a bit of progress.”

“I only want it clear that—”

“Please shut the noise out, especially the sound of your own voice! Not another word.”

Ransom took the doctor's advice.

“Heal…heal thyself…heal…”

From somewhere nearby, Gabby's sweet laughter erupted. Tewes shushed her.

“Heal…heal…heal…”

Then Tewes's fingers lightly hovered over the huge lump that still throbbed and caused so much pain. He sensed the doctor, using those large magnets he'd seen on the tray near the chair, now performed his patented magnetism treatment.

While Ransom's eyes remained closed, Tewes softly whispered in his ear, “The body is filled with an electromagnetic energy that has the power to heal. I want you to picture this powerful energy inside your body, your head, your will, Alastair. You have it within to will this pain away…along with
all
your problems.”

But Alastair no longer heard anyone.

“Mother,” said Gabby, looking deeply into his features where he'd slid low in the chair.

“Don't interrupt, Gabby.”

“But, Mother, he's asleep, otherwise I'd not call you mother.”

“Asleep?” She came around and stared. “He must've needed it badly. Tough guy. Doesn't listen to his own body
screaming for mercy. Poor man carries a great deal on those big shoulders.”

“But why'd he come here to break down?”

“Had to stove in somewhere, so why not my chair?”

“But what's to happen tomorrow when he wakes? Are you going to sleep in that getup?”

“Let tomorrow take care of itself. For now, we leave Ransom to whatever dreams he may find.”

“Fine…but are you going to stick to your resolution?”

“In time, yes.”

“Please, Mother, he's falling for you!”

“Whatever do you mean?”

“He came here to see Jane again, not Tewes.”

“You think so?”

“It's time he knows Dr. Jane Francis. Time he knows who he's got eyes for.”

Awaking in Dr. Tewes's chair, half on, half off and
below a huge metal pyramid of brass, Ransom thought this reality yet another disturbing dream. But this was real. Tewes had put him under, but how? What'd the doctor use? Some sort of gas? An injection? He recalled nothing. Blinking, he realized the distinct absence of a headache, and in the inner coils of his ear, he heard Tewes's voice saying the single word—
heal
—over and over, only the voice coalesced into a woman's soothing voice, a voice that sounded vaguely like Gabrielle's but not quite…a voice that came with a visual image of a woman deep in a darkened mental portal—a doorway—and she'd waved him toward her, asking, “Why don't you ask for more?”

He straightened and stood, trying to brush away the wrinkles of the suit he'd worn for Jane. No doubt she knew of his being here, succumbing to her brother's touch. Only the sweet, tangy odor of frying bacon dislodged the terror of being under Tewes's absolute control.
Jane's out there preparing the doctor's breakfast. The perfect opportunity to slip away before anyone should see
.

Carefully, quietly he made his escape from the clinic, the pungent odors of Tewes's various cures filling his nostrils.
Someone'd loosed his shirt and tie and had taken his shoes off. He prayed Jane hadn't seen him so vulnerable. Another thought struck him:
Tewes's hands should be registered as a lethal weapon.

Whatever else might be said of Tewes's methods, Ransom could not argue with results. His head, even the nasty lump, no longer plagued him, plus he'd gotten through an entire night without interruption or medication—so far as he knew.

He picked up his shoes and tiptoed down the hallway, toward the outer foyer running alongside the parlor. Here he had some vague memory of nearly collapsing as much from fatigue, he realized, as from the steady headache.

He eased the door open. One part of his mind said stay, say hello to Jane, and thank Gabby and her father for not throwing him out the night before, while another part of his mind played tug-o-war with embarrassment at having caved in under this man's touch, even if it were called therapy of a kind, because there was an undeniable attraction to have those hands on him again, and this disturbed Ransom.
An attraction for another man's touch
. He imagined what his friends around the poker barrel, at the tavern, at the station house and the firehouse would say if they should ever hear of it.

Yet he wanted to make successive visits to Tewes's unusual chair, to again take the cure—to be
healed
…even if temporarily. But mostly, he wanted to feel the man's hands again against his temples, over the crown, behind the ear.

One foot in, one out the door, hip-deep in indecision, Ransom felt like an unlikely, over-the-hill, misplaced Hamlet unable to decide. Meanwhile, a flood of sunlight raced into the foyer and down the hall, which must announce him. He quickly closed the door and realized some movement in the nearby bushes. “Who is it? Who's there?”

“It's me…Bosch!” came the whisper.

“Bosch? Why the deuce're you hiding in Tewes's shrubbery?”

“Your orders—get what I can on the doctor.”

Bosch was his best snitch, known on the street as Dot'n'-Carry for the noise resulting from the point-counterpoint between a wooden foot and cane. A decorated veteran of two wars, one of them being the War of the Rebellion, Bosch had previously traveled abroad and had signed up in the British Army and had fought in the Crimean War until he'd had a bellyful of death, and so had deserted, swearing never again. Then came the Civil War, and being destitute, a suit of clothes, hardtack and beans, and a government-issue Sharps rifle ended all horror of war.

“I enlisted for all the reasons that scuttle a man,” Bosch told anyone stopping at his tin cup. He sold stories for meager coin. He slavered and spewed forth through missing teeth the entire war and all the reasons for it save the glory of it. Down to how he'd gotten out when his left foot had been amputated in a field hospital while some man with a camera took photos to send off to Washington. He would joke that Old Abe Lincoln, in order never to forget the atrocities of the war, hung Bosch's severed foot in his White House bedroom to contemplate each night, and how this was the chief cause of Mary Lincoln's having gone mad.

Bosch had a lot of stories in his head, many told so often people no longer listened. He had many yet to be told, and many that would never be told, but Ransom knew one thing certain about Bosch, and that was his birthright, his gift, which was the theater and storytelling. His ability with words had never been adequately put to proper use. He ought to've been on the Lyceum circuit, on stage beside the humorists like Twain and Brett Harte and the fellow who told Uncle Remus tales—Joel Chandler Harris. Most certainly, Bosch proved a man in need of a much larger audience, but failing all his life, he now made a scant living at a game requiring a lively imagination along with forked tongue—working for Ransom on the one hand, outlaws on the other. It gave Bosch his only stage, and with his quick wit, he'd managed to survive for a long time on Chicago streets where—should he tell the wrong story to the wrong man at the wrong time—it could be his last.

On the whole, Ransom liked the little ferret-faced mole, and was probably the only one left alive who called him Bosch and not Dot'n'Carry for the sport of it.

Ransom slipped his shoes on and followed the weasel into the bush, and together they found a cow path that took them a safe distance. Below a livery stable sign reading Phillips & Son they talked.

“So what can you tell me of Tewes?”

“He's no kind of man.”

“I'm aware he's effeminate. What else?”

“The doctor is a woman.”

“Tewes? A woman? What're you saying?”

“I've only me word, but I saw him—-errr…her dressing down, and I tell you Dr. Tewes has breasts, nice ones in fact.”

“Damn you for a fool, Bosch! You saw Miss Ayers! His sister!” Alastair raised his cane for effect. “Get 'way from me now or I'll bash your head.”

“I tell you what I see, and this is me reward? Where's me two dollars?”

“I don't pay for nonsense or fiction, Bosch!”

“All right, all right, have it your way, the doctor's a man and keep it that way, but you'll want to know about your friend Kohler and what he's about.”

“What is your addled brain spewing forth now?”

“You wanted to know what your Dr. Tewes has on Kohler, so I kicked around, and I tell you, dirt falls away from your chief. If he has secrets, you can't pry it loose on the street, but there is something.”

“So what have you, damn it?”

“Confound it, Ransom, you got it backward from the start!” He lifted his own cane, jabbing it at Alastair.

Using his cane sword-fashion, Ransom batted Bosch's off. From Jane Francis's window, they looked like two schoolboys playing pirate, crossing swords.

“So go on, say it, man! Must you be so damnably irritating, Bosch?”

With dramatic flourish, Bosch said, “Kohler ain't the one being blackmailed.”

“What?”

“Kohler has something on Tewes, and I done told you what it is!”

“Mark me, if this turns out to be one of your silly fabrications,” began Ransom, fuming even as he thrust two silver dollars at the man, the coins falling to the dirt, “I'll find you and skin you alive.”

“I'd expect so from a man of your repute, Inspector.”

“Now be gone and no more peeking into any bloody windows.”

“But 'twas on your say-so! How else to see a lady in Tewes's bedroom?”

“Scat as fast as that stump and cane will allow. Go!”

He made off with his coins, an habitual look back over his gnarled shoulder—a ratlike habit he'd picked up over years on the streets after his medical discharge from the Union Army.

“Damn fool…damn old fool,” Ransom muttered as he turned and started back toward the busier Belmont Street out front of Tewes's home where he might more readily hail a carriage. He wanted to get home, bathe, shave, get spruced up, look in on Philo, and see Jane again.

He dismissed Bosch's contention that Jane and Dr. Tewes were one and the same as ridiculous. No way he wouldn't've known. He'd spent time with both, hadn't he? He had downed beer with Tewes, drank him under the table, which had been no surprise, and then he'd carried him home. So light he was, yes. And then when measuring the man, he came out even slighter in all lengths than Ransom would have guessed, and the man's ankle had been so thin and fragile, and his waist nonexistent, and on occasion his voice cracked like a youth.

What if Bosch had not seen Jane Francis Ayers disrobing but had watched Tewes disrobe instead? Was he a woman posing as a man, or a man posing as a woman? Jesus! The
thought electrified him. Bosch's second contention, that Tewes was being blackmailed by Nathan Kohler seemed unimportant to the first mystery.

It boggled the mind…boggled the imagination. If any of it were true, then who had shared a kiss in the gondola on the Ferris wheel with Alastair Ransom? Dr. Tewes or Jane or both?

And then he thought anew of the touch of Tewes's hands, how he'd reacted to that touch, and how his every instinct had recoiled at the thought of a man capable of creating such feelings in him. But suppose…it made better sense that…
possibly
…but then how could he have been so damnably blind if it were so?

He stood on the street down from Tewes's shingle, recently repaired and rehung, as it'd been hit by a clean bolt of lightning during a storm, he'd been told. Someone stood on Tewes's porch, trying to gain his attention. It was Jane, waving him to return. He had so liked her, but now his head had begun to swim with the sharks of doubt and suspicion. If Jane were Tewes, and Tewes were Jane, what possibly could he do with this information? How to react?

He must respond to Jane now. Must return to the home and see the doctor and his sister side-by-side, something he'd not seen in all their association. And as he moved back toward the home, he looked for the third bedroom. He could make out the windows of only one bedroom this side of the house, and Gabrielle's room he'd surmised was on the other side of the house. So where did Jane keep? Which window had Bosch been staring through when he saw a woman disrobing? And could it simply have been Gabby that the little pervert had seen?

“Jane!” he called out.

“I was preparing a breakfast for you, and next I know, you're gone!” she said, all smiles. “Besides, I must talk to you this morning.”

“Actually, I really need to speak to your brother. Is he having breakfast with us?”

“I…I can arrange it, yes, if…”

“If he's not slipped from the house?”

“F-for Cook County.”

“Ahhh…to view the bodies of the two unfortunates found in the park last night?”

“Unless he's still in.”

“Shall we find out if the doctor is in? Does he have any appointments today?”

“I think not in clinic; perhaps a house call or two.”

“His work for Chief Kohler has been a help, no doubt. I'm sure the chief can be a generous man.”

“Not with Dr. Tewes, I fear.”

“I see.”

“Shall we go inside?” A horse-drawn trolley went by, a man shouting about rags and bottles to buy and sell—the noise of Chicago awakening. Ransom followed her to the kitchen, where Jane sat him before a sumptuous breakfast.

“Eat,” she commanded. “Dr. Tewes says you work too hard, you're not getting enough sleep, and that your eating habits are abominable.”

“Once again, your brother's right.” He ate while Jane watched, pleased, her smiling eyes not at all like Tewes, yet similar. “You and James, Jane…you weren't…I mean, were you born twins? Your features, particularly the eyes are so strikingly similar.”

“Born a year apart.”

“Really, a year apart. Seems it'll be a year before I see the two of you
not
apart.”

“You mean together, don't you? He acts my guardian, and it is stifling at times, 'though he has my best interests at heart.”

“So now, where is your
older
brother, is it?”

“I think you're being coy with me, Alastair, and I don't appreciate it. Either say what is on your mind regarding myself and the doctor, or get off the subject.”

“Where is this coming from?” he asked, dropping his fork.

“I saw you with that ratty little man who's been on our
back stair, not to beg food but to peek through windows. You hired him to spy on us, didn't you?”

“I did not authorize him to come to your home and beat about your windows, no!”

“Oh, wonderful, nice consolation, but he came, and he saw, and he told you what you wanted to learn, that I am Dr. Tewes!”

“I did not…that is…I failed to believe Bosch.”

“But you're here to corroborate—” she began, affecting Tewes's mannerisms now. “Well perhaps it is all for the better that you know.”

“I wanted to believe in…in you, in some future we might have, but this…this…”

“Changes things, I know. You should go now, Alastair.”

“Go? Go? I have this boulder drop on me, and all you can say is go? Ha!” He near whispered, “What'll the lads make of it? Chicago's greatest detective, Inspector Ransom, could not decipher a woman in drag!”

“The sum total of your concern? What other cops'll think?”

“If the press got wind of—”

“Kohler'd have a good day.”

“—and what hooks has Kohler in you, anyway? What goes on between you two? He
knows,
right? God, he must be having a laugh. Is this
all
that he has on you?”

“It is enough…along with the story of how Gabby's father died, but last night, I told Gabby everything, so I'm done with lies,” she lied, “finished, and I intend, sir, to end all ties with Nathan, this case, and most of all you, sir.”