Shadows in the White City (13 page)

“I confess,” began Fenger, “it has crossed our collective minds, yes. Haven't ruled anything out at this point.”

“Then we are no closer to knowing the truth about Leather Apron or his possible followers, are we?”

Fenger looked tired, his emotion on his face. “What I earlier suggested, some sort of religious cult sacrificing these lambs; perhaps it's a collective mind at work here?”

“Like a very, very dark mob or lynching party?” asked Alastair, helping secure Tewes's mustache back into place. “Only this mob likes the blades and cleavers.”

“It is as old as mankind, ritual sacrifice,” said Jane, shivering, “and if it is symbolism you're out for…well, there you have it. Trust me, the phrase Blood of the Lamb predates Christ.”

“These lambs—our Chicago lambs—are silent witnesses, if that is the case,” replied Ransom. “But do you really think there's some ancient cult operating here in Chicago, drinking the blood and eating the flesh of these disappearing children?”

Jane fielded the question. “Some pagan cult, something out of Romania or Eastern Europe, Druids perhaps?”

Alastair breathed deeply of the night air. Lights had gone on all across the city and they stood beneath a gaslight at the bridge. The fire boat that'd taken Denton out to the depths
tugged by beneath them. He stared back at the little weed patch far below at river's edge where Dr. Fenger's attendants finished up, readying to cart the pitiful remains to County Morgue. “I have people in the city working to find out and find out quickly. If there is a sick religious cult at work here, I'll soon know it, and we'll hang them all in a public square.”

Even as he said it, he wondered how Kohler, Fenger, and he would deliver an entire religious sect to the senator's farm to be boiled in oil and skinned alive in the manner of butchering swine. The senator certainly had the equipment out there on that big farm of his, the cauldron, the oil, the tools, and the know-how.

But it had been Alastair's experience with religious cults that there were more than just men and women involved but whole families, children. He tried to imagine a cultist ritual involving drinking human blood and feeding human organs and chunks of flesh to children—items torn from other children.

He prayed they were all wrong.

He imagined Christian and Jane must also have problems wrapping their minds around the notion, but apparently, they had discussed it at length sometime earlier.

This new victim had not looked in any better shape than had the Chapman girl, but this one had not been in the water as long and more of her clothing had survived. It seemed someone had made a feeble attempt to dress her before laying her into her watery grave.

Dr. Fenger, his sad eyes downcast, grumbled, “I have to leave you two. Must give Shanks and Gwinn strict orders regarding transportation of the body.”

“Do they take directions well, Christian?” Ransom held back a snicker.

“I'm sick to death of seeing attendant bruises and especially broken necks postmortem.” Fenger rushed off on this odious duty. Ransom glanced at Shanks and Gwinn where they stood sharing a stogie.

“Well, Jane…Dr. Tewes,” said Ransom, “have you eaten lately?”

“Don't think I could swallow a thing save some ale.”

“Then you've taken a liking to red ale, have you?” He recalled the night he'd gotten her drunk on ale while investigating her alias, Dr. Tewes. How he'd had to carry her home to Gabby. The same night as he had become attached to Gabby, who was so fiercely protective of her “father,” Dr. Tewes.

“Well, I think a pint would not hurt.”

“I know a nearby place. Shall we?”

 

After the single pint, Dr. Tewes wanted a refill, but Jane held him to one. Instead she and Ransom enjoyed a horse-drawn cab ride through Lincoln Park and down tree-lined Clark Street. While passing the scenery, he dared ask, “Jane, I thought you finished with this Tewes act. I thought we agreed—
made a pact
—on the train back from Mackinaw City…remember Mackinac Island? Our getaway?”

“You agreed with yourself, Alastair. Look, first and foremost, I have Gabby to think of, and Tewes is beginning to rake in too much cash right now for me to simply drop the act.”

“And besides, you like it, don't you? Playing police-adviser.”

“I'm no longer on Nathan's payroll, if that's what you mean. I'm being paid by Christian through his Cook County budget.”

“But Christian draws partial payment from the Chicago Police Department. So he actually still works for Nathan, and so then does Dr. J. P. Tewes.”

She laughed lightly at this, her femininity showing through. “And who do you answer to directly at the end of the day?”

Alastair frowned and changed the subject in rapid fashion, asking, “You know what it will sound like among the men at the station house if it gets out I am having moonlight
rides through the park with James Phineas Tewes?”

“Oh…please. It may soften your reputation a bit.”

“Will you ever learn? I don't want some things softened…ever, and my reputation ranks high on that list.”

“Kiss me, Alastair, and shut up.”

He considered following her order but stopped short. “I can't do it with that mustache on your face. You look too much like my Uncle Fred.”

“You are incorrigible. Take me home.”

“If it is your wish, Doctor.”

They traveled along in silence for a time save for the hooves on bricks outside and the occasional row at a corner tavern. Ransom peeked from behind the window sash and mentally began counting the number of children he saw wandering about so late. Where were the parents. Didn't they read? Didn't they have ears? How could they not know of the danger afoot in the city now, the danger lurking for their children. He saw a smaller boy than the one he'd put on his payroll panhandling at one pub. When he had gotten a coin, he shuffled off to a black recessed doorway and handed his beggings to a man, someone who then set him on his mission for another coin, possibly his father or stepfather, reasoned Ransom. Poor bloke was likely down on his luck and had to use his kid to beg a pittance.

It had become brutally competitive to find the least job in the city nowadays. Whole families had wandered in from the various states all around, many from the Illinois prairie land in a bad crop year. There had been destructive weather all round the city and serious flooding in areas along the Mississippi and the Ohio rivers, as well as the Kankakee.

It all conspired to swell the streets of the city with an out-of-control transient population beyond the municipality's capacity to cope. Chicago, the Gem of the Prairie, was like a beacon to all comers. Stories of land speculation and endless work and new construction and a better life according to advertisements in national magazines had brought about a deluge until the population numbers outstripped any hope
of a newcomer making a living here. Many a family went straight to the few churches and shelters about, and many slept on the floor of City Hall, and many wound up in lockups all across Chicago. Meanwhile, the number of police remained woefully inadequate, and many on the force secretly worked for private companies—moonlighting—despite new laws enacted against this.

“Has Christian promised you any,
ahhh
…unusual bonus…or special remuneration for working on the Vanishings case with him?” Ransom finally asked the question burning inside.

“No…no more than normal.”

“
Ahhh
…I see.”

“See what?”

“I just mean that…
ahhh
…” Ransom did not want to tell her about Christian's meeting with Kohler and Chapman, and if Fenger hadn't offered to cut her in on the scheme, he certainly did not wish to spill it to her this way. “It's going to take some time, perhaps a lot of time, away from your—from Tewes's—practice, so a bit additional seems not out of line, you see.”

“Perhaps I'll push him on it…next time.”

They arrived at Jane's door, the sign still proclaiming it to be the clinic and residence of Dr. James Phineas Tewes. She climbed down, and he walked her to the door where, with a glance back at the bored cabbie who was digging out a pipe and feeding an apple to his horse, Alastair kissed her, mustache or no and said, “There…good afternoon and a pleasant good night, then, Doctor.”

“You really know how to charm a girl,” said Jane.

“Get some rest, and we'll put our heads together on this case tomorrow.”

“Pray there's not another abducted child by then.”

“Trust me, in some back rooms, Chicago oddsmakers are banking on it. And we both know the Vanishings won't stop until we put the mad dog down.”

Another good-bye kiss, and Alastair returned to the cab
bie, who'd given up on his pipe and had opted for chewing tobacco instead, remaining so intent on his tin that he remained completely oblivious to two kissing men on Tewes's porch, unlike Gabby at the window.

“Horrible thing, Inspector,” said the cabbie when Alastair began to reboard.

Alastair did a double take, thinking that the man had witnessed him kissing Dr. Tewes after all, and Ransom's face flushed as red as a Santa Claus advertisement. “Horrible?” he repeated the single word.

“This Vanishing business,” replied the cabbie, scratching his pockmarked face.

“Yes…yes it is horrendous indeed. Look here, you see a lot going about, hear a lot.”

“I do…and am sure this is worse even than the Phantom, I say. I mean this madman's victims are mere lil' knickers.”

Ransom pulled forth a five-dollar bill and held it up to the man.

“What's this?”

“Beyond your charge, Joseph is it?”

“Yes, 'tis my name, but what's the large tip for?”

“It's no tip.”

“Then what be it?”

“You'll have more if you bring me any information you hear on the street regarding these murders.”

“
Ahhh
…I see, and sure it's a deal. Where are you off to now?”

“Moose Muldoon's, just down the—”

“Aye, I know Muldoon's, Inspector.”

“You've learned my habits. Watch the habits of others for me.” Ransom climbed in for the short ride to Muldoon's, where he intended to drink until midnight to blot out the sight of Alice Cadin's body so that he might find sleep somewhere in the labyrinth of a horrible struggle going on inside his mind.

Ransom had not been inside Moose Muldoon's
since the night he had cracked its proprietor—Muldoon—in the head with his wolf's-head cane. Through the grapevine that snaked about Chicago's streets, Alastair had gotten word that Muldoon had forgiven him and all was square between them now that Alastair was a hero again, now that the Phantom had as mysteriously disappeared as he'd come on the scene. In fact, it was rumored that Muldoon had created an Inspector Ransom drink and had cordoned off a table now designated as the Inspector's, at which no other man could sit unless invited by Alastair himself.

It was too much to ignore.

Ransom felt moved to learn how much was true and how much embellishment. Among the riffraff that hung about Muldoon's, Ransom had spotted all levels of criminal and down-and-out, and he was grudgingly acknowledged as their best adversary. Where they called Muldoon the Moose, Ransom was the Bear to such fellows, and to this day they talked of the confrontation between Moose and Bear, their last exchange going to Ransom. Alastair knew the clientele wanted to see a return engagement, and he would not put it
past the cursed bunch to have put out these lies just to entice him back into Muldoon's lair.

All the same, he was drawn to it—moth to flame. The place was, after all, a hotbed of information about what was afoot in the city. He rationalized a visit on these grounds alone. Besides, it was another diversion from taking a straight course into #13 Des Plaines to face off with Kohler.

As the cab stopped before Muldoon's tavern, the sign swaying in a breeze coming in off the lake, he admitted, “I'd rather face Moose than Nathan right now.”

The idea of dispatching the Phantom to Lake Michigan without compunction was one fine notion and well accomplished, but this matter with the senator's bargain that Fenger and Kohler had gone into and wanted him to administer, this was an entirely different matter. In the case of the Phantom, no money had changed hands; no one paid him to kill Waldo Denton. It was just a thing needing to be done, no less true than Jack Houston must kill that horse before skinning and dismembering the carcass, as a matter of survival for himself and his family. Chicago was Ransom's only family, his job, all he knew. The Phantom had repeatedly harmed his family, and he'd threatened Ransom's life. The same could be said of the monster or monsters behind the Vanishings, except for the idea of special payment. Had it come in the legitimate way of a bonus, a raise, he would not balk, but this secret, closed-door deal smacked of its own kind of evil and left a stench no less than the yards in his craw. Perhaps if the senator had come to him alone, and they had really secretly worked out a deal, then perhaps he'd be more inclined to take it. However, a conspiracy of this size, involving three other men, all of whom were far more prominent and less expendable than he, simply was not the way Alastair cared to operate.

He could not definitively say why, but a good deal had to do with climbing into bed with the man he most hated in the city—Chief Nathan Kohler. A man who had worked tirelessly to get dirt on Ransom in an effort to discredit him, to
see him off the force, and now a man bowing and scraping to a senator. Even in the way Nathan'd handed the senator's hat to him, dusting it off first, spoke volumes. Money motivated people in strange ways. Take the respectable Dr. Christian Fenger, he thought now. How he could climb into such a morass with Kohler was beyond Ransom's comprehension. Fenger was the most ethical and moralistic man Alastair had ever known…and now this. It felt like a betrayal, a blow to the chest, despite Christian's excuses of debt and desperation.

Music spilled out onto the street from inside Muldoon's when Alastair opened the door, a minstrel fellow strumming a banjo and singing about an Ohio steamboat called the
Glenn E. Burke
running down to New Orleans—“
When the
Glendie Burke
comes down again…bound to leave this town now…take my duds and throw 'em on my back…when the
Glendie Burke
come down again.
Banjo and harp made the bluesy lyrics as lively as a cockfight, and Ransom caught his toe tapping to the melody.

The music man playing both instruments at once did not slow for Ransom, as new to the city, he'd no idea who Alastair was. Muldoon's this time of night was, for the most part, just another den of losers and down-and-outs, most at the bar, on their feet, smoking and drinking and talking and thinking and planning and plotting—most with minds always in a state of disarray, confusion, and a mix of anger and fear. Anger at the world for having lost the race, fear at the world that it'd become too late to ever score big. The confusion came in the wonderment of how life had so quickly beaten them down. Some were no older than late twenties, early thirties. Yet they held longing, clinging memories for what might have been. To a man they were gamblers of one sort or another.

Those familiar to Muldoon's fell silent when they realized who'd walked in. Alastair represented a diversion from their sore, sordid lives, and to some he represented another hope. After all, hope dies hard, and hope has a place in a
dreamer's heart, even a man who simply dreamed of betting for once on the right horse out at the racetrack.

The races proved a second home for most of these men, and each Sunday they went out to the course and laid their money on a horse in much better prime than the one Alastair had seen Jack Houston working over.

Alastair was given to a horse race himself on occasion, but it had not become the driving force in his life. Such a life is what Alastair Ransom feared, an end that left him daily standing before some bar and talking of past adventures to people he didn't like.

He momentarily thought of what Philo, his only true friend, would think of this new turn of events—him being enthroned at Muldoon's, if talk on the street were to be believed.

Due to his reputation and the rumors now abounding, he had indeed become a topic of interest in every bar in the growing prairie city. Stepping in from the light and finding himself striding toward the bar in the semi-darkness of this seedy place, Ransom realized that he was indeed an object of fascination for the regulars. Some had been on hand the night he'd smashed his cane into Muldoon's temple, knocking the owner senseless. How strange the turn of events now.

So when it became clear around the room that Inspector Ransom was indeed in their midst, the buzz went about the room, and all eyes turned on him.

Some few lifted their glasses, a salute to his having rid the city of the Phantom. When Moose Muldoon, busy behind the bar, realized that Ransom had come through the door, he set up a free beer—something Muldoon was not known for, giving beer away, waiving the usual five cents. “Look here, boys!” Muldoon shouted, his voice silencing the banjo man and every conversation remaining. “By God, it's our own Inspector Ransom it is, in Muldoon's, boys! I told you he and I were thick as brothers—hey, Inspector?”

“Muldoon…how've you been?” Alastair asked. “You're head clear these days on the drinking laws?”

“Aye, Inspector—Alastair—Rance, old friend. I've a special on for the whiskey-sarsaparillas concoction you like. Calling the drink a Whiskey Ransom. The boys here've taken to it, chasing it with ale and beer.”

“So I hear on the street.”

“And look there in the corner back booth,” said Muldoon, pointing to a cordoned-off table. “Reserved for you alone, Inspector, so's you can conduct your own special business outta Muldoon's whenever you're moved to it.”

“That's extremely generous of you, Pat—may I call you, Pat?”

“It's fine. Call me Paddy if you like.”

“Then if it's OK with you, Paddy, I'll just take advantage now.”

Ransom took his free beer to his special seat, wondering what was in it for Muldoon, sure he would soon learn. No doubt the man wanted a favor. Possibly protection from some heavies moving in on his action, demanding a cut for, what else, protection from other heavies wanting to move in on his action.

Ransom did not have to wait long to learn of Muldoon's purpose. In fact, the banjo player and songster was only halfway through his next song—a riotous tune about his mother's red cabbage and griddle cakes, the refrain being,
“Boil them cabbage down, my friend, boil them cabbage down!”
—and Alastair had only downed half his “free” beer when Muldoon joined him at the table. The two huge figures in the back booth seemed a pair of giants staring across at one another. “What's what, Paddy? Why're you being so lovely toward me?”

“It's not what you're thinking.”

“Oh, and what am I thinking?”

“That I want some favor down at City Hall or with the aldermen, or that I want you to run someone off from seeing my sister.”

“And you're saying it's none of those things?”

“Not in the least.”

Alastair raised his glass in toast. “Then tell me why're we burying the ol' hatchet?”

“It's the business you did with the Phantom, and what I suspect you'll do with this bastard they're calling Leather Apron, the one causing the Vanishings. Awful…just awful…doing such to our poor innocent children, like so many defenseless chicks.”

“Get to the point, Muldoon. I've business elsewhere.”

“I only want you to
use
the place, this table, as
your
home away from home, so to speak.”

“So to speak of what? Your point, Paddy?”

“Alastair, truly, as I've come to respect you so.”

“I see.”

“Then you'll accept my hospitality?”

“A free beer whenever I call for it?”

“
Ahhh
…one per day.”

“One per visit?” dickered Ransom.

“
Ahhh
…all right, then.”

“And the use of the table for long periods?”

“That's me gift to you for doing so much to keep Chicagoans safe, yes.”

“I had a reputation
before
the Phantom's end, so why
now
Muldoon?”

“
Ahhh
…it's ever since we had that run-in, you and me. You have no idea how many people come here to see where you was standing when your cane come down across me head, and they want me to retell the story over and over, and then they bring in their friends and associates to hear it over again.”

“And you're tired of telling it? Sounds as if business is good.”

“Well…there attaches
some
embarrassment to the story in the first telling alone.”

“I see, but there is more to this than our run-in.”

“Like I'm telling you, people come through that door expecting to see you, some wanting to talk to you. I've spoke till I'm blue in the face that your headquarters are at number
13 Des Plaines, but they're normally not the type to go seeking out a policeman in a station house.”

“I see.” And finally it had come clear for Ransom. “You pay me off in free beer and my favorite table, and I become a sideshow freak for your bloody customers is it?”

“Now, don't get riled, Inspector,” countered Muldoon. “It's not a bad bargain for either of us once word gets round that you've returned to your favorite old haunt, and that you and I've become
pals
again.”

“Yes, the money motive. What drives Chicago.”

“What is your answer. No…no, don't tell me now, Inspector. Give it time to sink in. Sleep on it. We'll talk again when you come back for your next one on me.”

“And the Whiskey Ransom? Does it stay on the menu either way?”

“It does. Give you me word and me hand on it.” Muldoon extended his huge paw.

“You're right. I'll need some time to think this proposition over.”

“Any losers at cards, I can send your way, Alastair. There'll be easy pickings every day. You've no idea how many men hereabouts wanna say they played cards and lost to Inspector Ransom.”

“Really now…you will sweeten the pot too much.”

“I take a cut of course on each win.”

“I would expect nothing less.”

“Nothing less than ten percent.”

“Like I said, Paddy, I'll have to give it serious thought.”

“It could help you out after you retire from the force, Alastair. Think hard on it. Think of your future, man.”

“I can see you now shouting it to the ceiling, Muldoon: Last man standing from the Haymarket Riot, infamous Inspector Alastair Ransom, come one, come all to hear the Phantom Slayer regale you with story 'pon story of his exploits!”

“And why not? I also know a publisher who'd pay handsome for your life story if we could, between us, write.”

“Will you be setting me up with a tent over my table here, too?”

“I thought of a banner across the sign outside.”

Ransom glared at Muldoon, gulped down the last of his beer, stood and walked out to the music of “Callie Rose” being played by the banjo man. “You're turning this place into a regular den of entertainment, Muldoon.”

“I'll hold the table for you, old man!” Muldoon shouted over the banjo.

Standing in the thin gaslight, seeing clouds rolling in from over the lake, slowly turning the sky into a familiar black ash, Ransom could smell rain imminent. It was soon September, and August in Chicago always proved a bumpy ride where the weather was concerned. He glanced back at Muldoon's and asked, “Why're all mine enemies wanting to go into business with me all of a sudden?”

With cane in hand, not expecting an answer, he sauntered down the sidewalk back toward Des Plaines and the station house, at considerable distance, but he felt the need for air and time and exercise of his legs. He often walked the city streets too in order to feel in tune with his surroundings, but lately, at every street corner, he'd come upon another homeless person, male, female, adult, child. Chicago, always filled with scurrying rats, was now a breeding ground it seemed for the homeless. It had been coming on for a long time and nothing whatever had been done about it. The occasional politician shouted over the complacency of the merchants and aldermen and city fathers that something must be done about the problem, but as ever, nothing was done save in the private sector. Jane Addams's Hull House and a few churches offered space to sleep and a soup kitchen, and they worked diligently to find jobs, but there simply were none unless you belonged to a union gang and the Democratic party.