Robert Walker - Shadows in the White City

“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.

At the moment, Alastair’s attention was taken off the homeless, drifting back to the singular idea of going into questionable partnership with Muldoon, making himself a kind of local attraction at the man’s tavern. The proposal coming from Muldoon, however absurd, he respected more than that offered up by Senator Chapman, Chief Kohler, and Dr. Fenger. At least with Muldoon there were no surprises; in fact, the man was, as always-transparent. He had but one bone to gnaw on, one purpose in life, to make more money each week than he did the week before. Such motive was easy to gauge, but when a man like Kohler used the same argument, that he was purely interested in the money, Alastair knew better. Somewhere in back of that fevered brain of Nathan Kohler’s, he had a plan, a plan to destroy Alastair even as he benefited from the outlawry he proposed. And make no mistake about it, Kohler, Fenger, Chapman, and Ransom would be engaging in illegal activity should they go through with this dark conspiracy to see Leather Apron turned over to the senator for his personal vengeance. It would be no less an act of outlawry as had been Alastair’s conspiring with Harry Stratemeyer and his two men to abduct and kill that weasel that had gone about the World’s Fair murdering innocent people in the vain hope of ultimately destroying Alastair Ransom.