Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition (18 page)

Chapter 29

Nagy led the way through the dark tunnel, keeping the crank torch going for the rest of the journey. Emma felt the cold earth biting into her, and imagined the icy ground overhead would collapse any minute, crushing her into the floor under tons of rock. She couldn’t think of any better place to be. Not after reading that page the gypsy—. No, his name was Nagy. He was a shoemaker. He’d helped them and he had a name. And now his whole community was being rounded up like cattle and taken to some facility. The word made Emma shudder.

All she could think about were the people she’d left behind. Her family and friends. They weren’t being rounded up, losing their homes, their cars, their lives. They were sitting pretty, just like she should be doing right now. Only she’d never be sitting pretty again. Not in Chicago City anyway. Not anywhere if she couldn’t get out of this fix.

Nagy held up his hand and let the crank torch go out. Emma heard a knocking, like a hand on a door. The darkness in front of them turned to light and the tunnel flooded with the sounds of a meal in progress.

Emma followed Nagy and Eddie out of the tunnel and into a low ceilinged room. Around a rough wooden table were three women seated on benches, all eating soup from wooden bowls. They briefly glanced at Eddie, their faces showing wonder, admiration, and fear. A man held open the door to the tunnel. He ushered everyone into the room so he could close it.

Nagy and the man exchanged some words in a language that enchanted Emma with its rhythms. The men spoke and phrases danced in the air around Emma’s head, musical syllables singing to her of hard work and fierce passion. She understood at once why these people liked to hear Eddie play his horn. His notes flowed as freely and with the same strength as their speech. But the lilt and drawl in their voices told her that Eddie’s music gave them something they missed, or at least didn’t have enough of in their lives.

A woman at the table stood and came over to her, reaching to hold her by the shoulders and kissing Emma’s cheeks.

“Go with her,” Nagy said. “Go with
Ess-ti
.”

Emma followed the woman up a set of steps and into the back room of Biros’ shop. Bolts of heavy wool and tools were strewn about on thick tables. A single set of garments was draped neatly on top of a pile of fabric. They were men’s pants and a thick coat, and a heavy shirt of cotton. All appeared to be smaller than average for the men she’d seen in this neighborhood.

Emma let Eszti guide her to a chair and remove her coat. The cold air quickly pierced every opening in her clothes and Emma clasped her arms around her. Eszti draped her coat over her, but let it hang loose. She took a strip of terrycloth and wrapped this around Emma’s collar and neck, making sure no hair was trapped beneath.

Then she lifted a pair of heavy shears and lopped off a thick lock of Emma’s hair. Blond curls fell all around her as Eszti worked, cleanly and evenly removing her hair down to a neat close cropped style that matched most of the men Emma had seen since coming to the Village with Eddie. Next, Eszti took some charcoal and smudged the terrycloth with it. She used this to darken Emma’s face around her eyes, daubing lightly. Emma spotted a mirror on a far wall and went to it. Without any facial hair she couldn’t pass for a man from this neighborhood, but she might be mistaken for a youth.

Emma resisted the urge to paw at her hair, try to make it take an attractive shape. She had to keep up the charade until they were somewhere safe. Until then, she’d have to look like the common people in the city, just a laborer, someone with a job and aches and pains.

Only she and the people here would know how much of a sham it was. The aches and pains she felt were real, but they’d been caused by a lack of work, not too much of it.

“Where will we go?” she asked Eszti. The woman smiled and shook her head, seeming to say she didn’t understand Emma’s language. Eszti went into the next room and came back with a thick woolen cap, which she placed on Emma’s head. The woman stood back and smiled, nodding as if to show approval. Emma tried to smile, but found only a pout and quivering frown on her lips.

The two women waited in the back room until Nagy, Eddie, and the others came up from the cellar.

“Is time to go. Past time,” Nagy said. “Wagon is outside. Come,” he motioned to Eddie, who followed quickly but not before draping a thick coat around his head and shoulders. He crouched as they left the building through a back door. Emma stayed behind with the women while the men arranged things outside. Nagy poked his head back in and muttered something in their language. The women ushered Emma out with them and they all climbed into the wagon, taking seats on benches against the sides. Eddie was nowhere to be seen, but Emma found him when she put her feet against the bundle of fabric beneath her bench.

The street out front bustled with activity. Wagons and carts, pedestrians leading livestock, all clattered and rumbled down the roadway. Shouts and commands from a megaphone broke the chilly afternoon air and Emma cringed as the bulletin Nagy had shown her was repeated twice.

The wagon rolled out from behind the shop and merged with the line of traffic on the street. Emma cast a worried look at Nagy, who sat across from her. He patted at the air in front of him as if to say
Don’t worry
, and gave her a smile, too. But his eyes told her to stay alert and stay in character. She was a man now, a gypsy man, like him. She’d seen Eszti display the inability to speak English, so she could always do the same if pressed by a copper.

Glancing around the crowds, Emma saw a few men in uniforms. Coppers stood on the corner outside a restaurant. Mingled in with the crowds though were soldiers in jeeps and on foot, all of them carrying rifles that looked like nothing Emma’d ever seen. These men had visors covering half their face, and they moved with assurance and command, brushing past the people near them and not caring if they jostled anyone as they moved.

Emma saw one soldier threaten a young woman after he bumped into her and she fell against him to keep her balance. She carried a basket against her hip and Emma saw a small hand and foot extend from one side. The woman frantically wrapped her child against the cold once more and did her best to avoid the soldier’s shouted violence. Emma’s heart caught in her throat as the wagon trundled along.

Overhead, patrol boats sailed in a formation. Two small observation ships and a larger gunship moved in tandem across the neighborhood. The ships soared smoothly through the darkening afternoon skies. Watching them, Emma remembered the cards Madame Tibor had shown her. She would leave the city by flying. And she would help others escape, too. How could she—

The curfew bell rang out, shattering Emma’s thoughts, leaving only the broken hope of escape. At the reins, Biros pulled the horses to a stop as a soldier advanced on them through the thinning crowd. Emma hadn’t noticed before, but people were being taken off the streets and lined up against buildings where teams of coppers put them into shackles, making chains of prisoners. Possessions and livestock were left in the street like signs of a rushed evacuation, only the people those things belonged to were just a few feet away, looking at the remains of their lives standing in the street.

The soldier had reached their wagon and shouted for Biros to dismount. Another soldier came around to the back and ordered everyone out.

“Is early,” Biros protested. Nagy’s eyes flared with concern.

“Is curfew, Pops,” the first soldier said, yanking Biros from his seat. “Now get over there with the rest of your family.”

Emma flinched as the second soldier grabbed at her and yanked her off the wagon seat. The soldiers searched Biros and Nagy, then the women. Emma patted her pockets, feeling for the guns and then remembered she’d left them in her coat back in Biros’ shop. The soldier searched her next and Emma cringed, fearing he’d feel her woman’s body beneath the heavy wool clothing, but the man only dug into her pockets and checked her belt before pushing her along the street. Emma caught up with Eszti and the other women, doing her best to act like she meant to protect them. She’d seen a few men in the crowds, all of them shielding their women from the soldiers as best they could. Emma and her band drew up against a house with its door standing open. She could see furniture and clothing tossed around inside the house.

A soldier came out of the house and stared directly at Emma. His visor made it impossible to guess his reaction. Did he recognize her?

“C’mon, you,” the soldier said, pointing a finger at Emma. “Get the broads over there and stand with them. Which one’s yours? This one?” the soldier aimed his finger at Eszti now. Emma nodded, forcing herself to stare at the soldier’s visor as if to meet his gaze. She’d seen other men on the street doing the same, and she had to be a man now. For her sake, for Nagy’s and Eszti’s sake, and for Eddie’s.

The thought of Eddie nearly put her in a faint. The wagon remained where they’d left it. And Eddie was still wrapped in the wool under the bench. Emma couldn’t go to him. If she made any move to go to the wagon, the soldiers would search it to see what she was after. Emma swallowed hard, forced her tears to dry before they spilled, and stayed close to Eszti and the others.

Soldiers came by the group and put shackles around their ankles. Seven of them stood there, chained together. Biros was at the front of the line. Emma stood in the middle, behind Estzi. The other woman was behind her, and Nagy was at the end. Emma watched as other groups were herded out of the neighborhood by soldiers. One soldier to a group, no group larger than a dozen people. She wasn’t sure how she and the others would escape, but something had to happen. Somebody had to do something. A distraction? What could she do?

Nothing, and she knew it. At least not yet. Maybe if they got into a place with just the one soldier by them. Maybe she could get word to Nagy somehow and they could make a plan together.

Soldiers kept moving lines of prisoners down the street and out of the neighborhood. Emma would cough to get Nagy’s attention. That was it. She’d wait until the soldiers told them to move and would cough, turning her head to see if she could meet Nagy’s eyes. The soldier was ahead of her, nudging Biros and yelling for them to move it. Emma got ready to cough on the next shuffling step. Instead, she dropped all thoughts of escape and focused on the terror in her chest when she heard the unmistakable voice of Detective Tom Wynes.

“Go on and join the house-to-house teams, soldier. I’ll move out with your bunch.”

Chapter 30

Aiden spun around and put both hands out, feeling his way down an earthen tunnel. He could only see a few inches in front of his nose, but the menace of the voices he’d heard forced him onward. Aiden kept his palms on both sides of the tunnel and counted his steps, like he’d been taught during a cave walk one summer. The scout troop leader had all the boys line up and walk through an unlit tunnel in a cave. It turned out to be only twelve steps from entrance to exit, but Aiden remembered feeling like it took half his life to walk through that pitch dark passage.

Now, with his hands rubbing crumbs of dirt from the tunnel walls, he stepped slowly and kept his breathing quiet. Up ahead a light flickered in the darkness. After five steps, Aiden saw it was a candle. He picked up his pace until he stood below the wiggling tongue of flame that grew from a yellow stub stuck into a wad of wax drippings. Aiden thought the candle was floating in the air until he saw the stout wooden sconce jutting from the tunnel wall. The candle guttered, dripping fresh melted wax onto the ground by his feet. A small mound of accumulated drippings sat in the dirt like the leavings of some underground animal.

Aiden stretched out a hand. The candle cast enough light for Aiden to see just beyond his fingertips. He shivered and kept moving into the tunnel. He passed from the glow of the candle, leaving it behind him. His palms instinctively found the walls to either side and he pressed on, forcing each foot in turn to lift from the ground, step forward, and find safe purchase on the dirt floor. One step. Two.

Another candle lit the path father ahead. Once he saw it, Aiden made for it as fast as he could. Five more steps and he was there. He reached it just as a man’s voice broke the silence of the tunnel. Aiden waited, frozen in place with his hands against the walls. The cool earth felt oddly comforting against his palms and the silence settled in around him again. He let it be a blanket, something to hide under as he moved. One step forward. Nothing. Two steps. Three.

The man’s voice came again. Another voice followed the first, and then the clink of a bottle against a glass. Laughter. Aiden’s chest almost warmed to the cheer the sounds grew from, but his fright and tension won out as he remembered what Digs had told him about the tunnels.

Gypsies hid out down here. The kind who’d cut you up if you wandered into their territory. Aiden fought back a cry of fright and, with his lips tight and eyes open wide, he stepped through the light cast by second candle. The tunnel around him looked no different than before. So where were the voices coming from? Above him maybe?

Aiden took a careful step and passed out of the glow of candlelight. He took another step and toppled forward, his foot catching on a cable stretched across the tunnel floor. Nearby, a bell jingled, but the sound was quickly drowned out by the scraping of wood on wood and a metallic click that Aiden recognized as the hammer of a revolver being cocked.

Shivering with his palms pressed against the dirt floor of the tunnel, Aiden waited for the gunshot. When nothing came he shifted his weight to his knees and made to stand. Aiden cried out when he felt thick hands drag him to his feet and grab the front of his shirt, pressing him against the wall. Dirt crumbled from the surface and fell into Aiden’s hair and down into his eyes. He lifted an arm to brush it out but the hands on his chest shifted. One moved to his collar and the second brought a cold metal blade against Aiden’s throat.

In the weak fringes of candlelight, Aiden couldn’t see the man who held him, but he guessed enough about the fella to know he meant business. His hands were rough and calloused against the skin of Aiden’s neck, and the blade had come out of nowhere.

“You don’t move,” the man said.

A lantern flared from down the tunnel and Aiden gasped when he saw the man’s face. Bushy brows lifted over two angry eyes. Below them a sharp nose and flaring nostrils. At the bottom a quivering mouth with the lips curled back showing a fierce grin of rage.

“Still don’t move,” the man said. Aiden grunted, “Uh-uh.” No, he wouldn’t move. Not even enough to shift his head side to side to show he understood.

The hand on his collar snaked around his shoulder and neck, pressing him into the ground where he stood, then pulling him away from the wall and shoving him into the lantern light. Aiden froze when he saw a doorway set into the earthen wall to his right. Through the door was a small room with a table and two chairs. Floorboards had been spread out to cover the bare earth, but it showed through in places. A tall thickset man with a fat drooping black mustache stooped in the tunnel, his girth filling the passage and preventing Aiden from even thinking about making a run for it. The man held a bullseye lantern in one hand and a pistol in the other. Running was not in the cards. Not a bit. Turning the lantern aside, the man beckoned for Aiden to follow and stepped through the doorway.

The man with the knife nudged him gently and Aiden stepped forward, following the other man into the room.

“Sit here,” said the man with the lantern, motioning with the pistol at one of the chairs. Aiden heard the second man close the door and stand against it. The room had a higher ceiling than the tunnel, and the tall man could stand upright here. It was still dark, but the enclosed space was warmer. Aiden felt his ears and fingertips tingle as blood moved more freely under his skin.

The taller man spoke again. “You are boy. Only boy, not policeman. Right?”

Aiden nodded, and when it seemed that wasn’t enough to satisfy the man, he said “Yeah. I’m—. Mister, I’m scared,” he said and let loose the tears he’d been holding back since he saw the G-men putting his parents into a car, leaving a soldier in his family’s house armed with an electric rifle.

Aiden’s chest bucked and shuddered as he sobbed. The men blew air between their teeth. The one with the knife said something fast and the taller man barked a reply, cutting off any objections. They went back and forth, each speaking too fast for Aiden to follow, but he caught the mood of what was said. They weren’t going to kill him. At least not here. Whatever they had planned, he’d live to see it.

The one with the knife came around to where Aiden could see him, his bushy eyebrows casting shadows in the lantern light, making his eyes that much more threatening and large as he stared down his nose at Aiden.

“You come, he says. Come to house. Stand.”

The knife had been put away, but the man had no sheath on his belt that Aiden could see. His face was threat enough, so Aiden stood. The man extended a hand.

“
Lahz-low
,” he said “Other man is
Mee-hawl-yee
.”

Aiden wiped at his eyes and rubbed his fingers dry on his pants before shaking Laszlo’s hand. He turned to Mihalyi and they shook as well. Before Aiden could thank them for not killing him, Laszlo put a hand on Aiden’s chest.

“Open coat, please. Here,” he said, patting the bulge over Mr. Brand’s camera box. Aiden did as he was told, even as his mind raced with thoughts of how he could escape and protect the camera box from discovery. Laszlo lifted the strap from around Aiden’s neck and hefted the box. He passed it to Mihalyi who turned it in his hands in the light of the lantern.

Aiden opened his mouth then. “It’s my boss—”

“Is camera,” Mihalyi said, his mustache twitching over his mouth as he regarded the device and brushed his thick fingers across the screen. Aiden wanted to say
Stop touching the box
, but his lips and tongue weren’t in the mood to play ball.

“Professor’s house,” Mihalyi said, stabbing a finger at the ceiling. “We go.”

Aiden cursed himself for being weak, and then remembered where he was and feared what would come next. He followed the men out of the room and into the tunnel. They put him between them and moved deeper into the earthen shaft. Aiden kept his hands out like before, touching the walls. He heard Laszlo chuckle behind him and almost pulled his hands in. But the thought came that he should act strong. Make up for the weakness he’d shown in the little room, crying like a child. He was scared still, but he was alive to be scared and that meant he might still get out of whatever trouble was coming his way.