Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

“You mean someone capable of taking one of these”-he held up the cleaver this time-“to a human being?”

“Yes, I believe it’s what I’m asking.”

Jack thought long and hard about this as he continued to butcher the dead horse, working off the limbs one joint at a time. “There’s old Hatch, maybe Quinn…even Sharkey, but I gotta tell you, even those fellows, bloody crazy as they are…even they’d have to be pushed to considerable limit to chop up a senator’s lass.”

Jack never stopped talking, even as Alastair started away, unable to take the stench of the yards any longer. Alastair understood Jack’s excitement. It was most assuredly the first time anyone had ever come asking questions of his profession or the men in it.

Ransom could still hear Jack talking as he closed the last gate on the last stall he must pass through to get clear of this place. It would take a carriage ride of several blocks to get clear of the odors that daily hovered over the entire area of the Southside Stock Yards. Even so, the stench in his nostrils and throat remained.

He had the cabbie pull over at a neighborhood grocery and got out. He went inside and purchased a sarsaparilla to wash down the clinging odors in his throat. The label on the drink made amazing claims, that it could settle the mind and provide a mental state for making enormous sums of money among other things. The label had three paragraphs of text touting the wonderful properties of cocaine, which made up two thirds of the drink’s marvelous ingredients, and the rest was sugar. But the label made no claim of effectiveness against horrid odors, and it did nothing for odors clinging to his clothes.

He stepped from the store, having drained half the bottle, when he saw a homeless street urchin, dirty and hungry-looking, staring up at him. The boy was missing his front teeth, and Ransom hoped this was due to natural causes. The boy appeared perhaps eight or nine-same age as some of the Vanished.

“Say, Mister, you got a penny?”

Alastair saw such children about the streets of Chicago every day; the number of homeless families and the growing population of children on the street like this boy represented a staggering problem that seemed without answer. The city fathers had begun talking about it, but no one had done anything about it.

“Mind drinking after me, son?” Alastair asked, handing him the remainder of his soft drink.

“No, sir! Thank you, sir!” The boy took hold of the bottle as if it were a lifeline, and before Ransom could ask his name, he’d scurried off with the drink as if to find a secret place to relax and enjoy its contents.

Alastair had intentionally gone to work on the Vanishings case by hitting the streets, in an effort to avoid going into the station house, to avoid another confrontation with Chief Kohler and to buy time. He’d earlier arranged to meet with his street snitch, and he did not have a long wait before Bosch-otherwise known as Dot ’n’ Carry-showed up. They got into the cab, and the driver was told to drift about the area.

“It’s the Vanishings, isn’t it?” Bosch asked. “They put you onto the case, didn’t they? I’m not surprised. Told me mates the other night they gotta put Ransom onto the case.”

“Never mind butterin’ me up, Bosch. What’ve you got?”

“Got?”

“Your ear’s always to the ground. So, what’ve you got?” Alastair repeated.

“Sometimes an ear to the ground ain’t enough.”

Ransom pulled forth a dollar bill, dangling it before Bosch’s sad eyes. “This help your ears out? What can you tell me about these disappearances?”

“I tell you true, nothing. ”

“You don’t get paid for nothings, old-timer. Tell me what you hear.”

“I tell you, the street is moot. And oh, by the way, glad to hear that the Phantom is no more. I like to think I played a small part in it.”

“Get me something, Bosch…get me something soon.”

“I’ll keep me eyes and ears open. You know that. In the meantime…you know how scarce money is for me now?”

“I’m not a charity, Bosch.”

“All right, then I got something for you on Haymarket.”

Ransom sat up straight. “Haymarket?”

“Someone who was on the other side.”

“A worker?”

“One who was there, yes.”

“I’ve interviewed every living survivor already, Bosch. This is old ground.”

“Not this survivor.”

“What’s his name.”

“ Her name. She was a seamstress, but she got all balled up in the movement.”

“What’s her name?”

“Josephine Lister.”

“Where do I find her?”

“Well…that’s the problem. She’s dead.”

“Get outta my coach, Bosch.”

“No, but you don’t understand.”

“Out!”

“Her daughter’s got a diary Josephine kept.”

“A diary?”

“And there’s a section on the riot and the bomb.”

“How do I get in touch with the daughter?”

“She wants to sell the diary to you, and I’m to broker the deal.”

“I see. And how do I know it isn’t pure fiction, Bosch?”

“Would I fabricate such a thing?”

“Yes, you would if you thought you could get away with it.”

“You hurt a man to the quick, Inspector.”

“I want to meet with the woman.”

“But that cuts me outta the deal.”

“If I find her credible, you’ll be paid handsomely.”

“Ten percent is what she agreed on.”

“Agreed.”

“Till then…what about an advance?” He snatched at the dollar bill, but Ransom was too fast, pulling it out of reach.

“Come on, man! How do you expect me to live?”

Frowning, Ransom put the bill away. As Bosch’s features fell, Alastair reached deep into a coat pocket and dragged out his reluctance in the form of two bits.

“Thanks, Inspector.” He said it sourly, but he knew better than to complain.

“Ten dollars if you bring me something I can use.”

“Ten dollars? On the Haymarket deal, you mean?”

“Haymarket, yes, but also the Vanishings.”

“Lor’ blind me! Twenty dollars. Imagine what I could do with twenty? Have not had hold of that much money in forever.”

“Now get out. My coach is beginning to take on your odor.”

“Hmmm…smells of the stockyards to me.” He sniffed the air like a rodent.

The cab had come full circle to the same corner drugstore. As the crooked, arthritic Henry Bosch climbed from the cab, Alastair saw the same little boy on the street panhandling someone else out front of the store. He called the boy over to the cab.

“Yes, sir?”

“Two dollars for you, son, if you learn anything about the Vanishings,” he told the boy, handing him a nickel. “Any news at all that might help.”

“You’re a copper, sir?”

“You’d best hone your powers of observation, son, if you’re going to work for Inspector Ransom.”

The boy’s eyes went wide. Everyone in Chicago knew the name Ransom. “Yes, sir. I will indeed, Inspector, sir.”

“And your name, son?”

“Sam…Samuel, sir. Everybody knows me as Sam.”

“All right, then, Sam. Put your ear to the ground, nose to the stone.”

“Yes, sir!”

Ransom tapped the roof of the cab with his cane and the carriage was off. “To one-twenty-nine Des Plaines,” he shouted to the driver.

As the carriage picked up the pace, he quietly said to himself, “I need a drink, and I know where I don’t have to pay for it.”

He’d go home, clean the stockyard stench from himself, send out his clothes to that Chinese place halfway down the block, and once these chores were accomplished, he’d stroll to Philo Keane’s studio home on Kingsbury Lane. Perhaps he might just enjoy the feel of warm sunshine on his face, smell the last blossoms on the wind, watch birds chase one another amid the trees of a neighborhood park, think of Jane out of her Tewes getup, and get his mind off this horrid case…at least for a time.