Dan Simmons - The Fifth Heart

He had no real search plans and, of course, had not brought any weapon—the idea of searching night-time Chicago for Moriarty felt strangely thrilling. What reassured James was that the chance of him crossing Moriarty’s path again by sheer accident was so small as to be something that could only occur in a poorly written popular novel.

Chicago’s transit system of elevated trains—called the “L” even then—had only come into service the year before, in 1892. The first cars were wooden coaches open to the elements on either side, but now—as James rode through the night on the Lake Street Elevated Railroad—the carriages were enclosed. James had picked up a transit-system map at the first station he’d found and it clearly showed that, except for the Chicago and South Side Rapid Transit Railroad, which now extended south all the way to 63rd Street and Stony Island Avenue, the Transportation Building entrance to the Columbian Exposition, all the other terminals were, most inconveniently, James thought, at the periphery of Chicago’s actual downtown.

On their first day in the city, Holmes had told him that this quirk was due to a state law requiring approval from the businesses and building owners along any downtown street before tracks could be built over that avenue.

James knew that he was headed south on this spur, but he had no intention of going all the way back to the Jackson Park stops at the World’s Fair. Holmes and all of Cameron’s other guests might still be there. Of course, so might Moriarty. But James chose to stay in Chicago proper—the Black City as he now thought of it—for his late-night search for the professor.

He stepped off the “L” train some blocks before the 63rd Street Station that would have brought him back to the Fair and began walking almost at random.

He’d gone several blocks in the poorly lighted section of the city before he realized three things: first, that there were no street lights in this part of town but many people on the sidewalks; second, that there seemed to be an ungodly number of bars and dance halls pounding the night with raucous music; and third, that his was the only white face present in the five- or six-block distance he’d walked from the “L” station.

Realizing (with some small flutter of alarm) that he’d mistakenly got off the elevated train in the south side Negro section of town—he’d heard Holmes refer to it once as “Ebonyville”—James whirled to walk briskly back to the elevated’s platform and realized he’d taken several turns and not paid attention to which way he’d walked. No elevated tracks were visible down any of the cross-streets he was now coming to in a stride so urgent that it almost qualified as running.

Suddenly a Negro man in a rather showy pinstripe suit, amazingly bright tie, and quality straw hat came up to him and blocked his flight.

“Are you lost, sir?” asked the Negro. “Can I be of some help?”

James took three steps back but managed to say, “Would you be so kind as to tell me how to reach the ‘L’ platform that would put me back on the Lake Side train?”

The Negro smiled—perfectly white teeth against the darkest skin James had ever seen—and said, “Certainly, sir.” He pointed the way from which James had just come. “Back three blocks along this street, then left at 48th Street, and it’s just a block and a half to the ‘L’ station there.”

“Thank you,” said James, almost bowing in his relief. But as he headed back the way he had just come—the sidewalks and streets full of colored people who appeared to be celebrating something—he could not resist glancing back over his shoulder to see if his benefactor was following him for some dark reason.

The man in the straw hat was standing exactly where he’d spoken to James, half a block away now, and at James’s glance, the tall Negro again showed that white grin and raised his hat in a friendly wave.

Had that wave been an act of insolence? wondered James. Immediately he was ashamed of himself.

But the truth was that although Henry James now considered himself to be one of the most cosmopolitan of men (especially of Americans), equally at home in the streets of London, Paris, Florence, Venice, Rome, Zurich, Lucerne, or Berlin, he simply hadn’t had much contact with Negroes in anything but their occasional service capacities in American hotels.

But then he was on the “L” platform again, an enclosed-carriage train arrived within minutes, and he was riding north again.

For the next ninety minutes or so, James took the elevated lines as far as he could but then had to take the late-running trolley cars to areas such as Douglas Park, Garfield Park, Humboldt Park, and Logan Square (although the small print on his “L”-system map bragged of opening the West Side Elevated line within another year or two).

James didn’t mind the transitions. The trolleys were more comfortable at any rate.

And in the few sections that had adequate street lighting—and white people on the sidewalks and in the carriages—James would stretch his legs for several blocks, always on the alert for Moriarty’s gleaming bald dome and terrible gaze.

In one of these western, working-class sections of town, James realized that he’d not eaten anything since an early and light lunch that day. It was late enough now that some of the cafés were shutting down for the night, but others were open and several were crowded. Still, it was a working-man’s clientele complete with cloth caps—kept in place even while dining—corduroy or moleskin trousers, and huge boots. There were a few women in these places but judging from the excess of rouge and other make-up, combined with their calculated dishabille, James supposed them to be women of the night.

He decided to eat when he finally returned to the yacht. For now he turned back to find the next trolley stop going west again.

James soon realized that there was a mystery to these trains and trolleys that had nothing to do with Sherlock Holmes or Lucan Adler or his prey for the night, Professor Moriarty. After sitting in more than two dozen mostly empty train carriages and trolleys, he had seen at least a dozen different men reading the same book.

All the men were dressed in poorly fitted wool suits and old but well-shined shoes and a few wore straw hats (but none as clean or well-blocked as that of his Negro interlocutor hours earlier) and each man held the book up close to his face as if he were near-sighted. But few of the men wore glasses. And, compounding the mystery for James, he would stay on for several stops and none of the reading men ever turned a page.

They simply seemed to be holding the book open in front of their bored (and sometimes closed) eyes. What bothered James most was that it was the same book in each case .

The title was MAGGIE: A Girl of the Streets , the volumes looked crude enough—to James’s professional gaze—to be self-published, and the author’s name was Johnston Smith.

Finally, near the southwestern end of the line on the trolley James was then on, he dared to sit in the empty seat in front of the “reading man”, turned toward him, and cleared his throat loudly. The man did not lower the book.

“I beg your pardon,” James said at last and the man started—he’d obviously been dozing—and lowered the book.

“I’ve noticed quite a few gentlemen on public transportation this evening reading precisely the volume you are,” James said, “and I hope you don’t think me impertinent if I ask why it’s so popular in Chicago.”

The man smiled broadly, showing nicotine-stained or missing teeth which suggested that the thick and uncomfortable-looking suit he had on was his only suit. “I’ve been waitin’ for someone to ask,” said the man. “Truth is, I haven’t read a word of this idiotic book. A fellow pays me—and some twenty or so other lads—to just ride around on the trains and trolleys from seven a.m. ’til the transits close down at one a.m. I think the fellow thinks that if other folks see us readin’ this book, they’ll rush out an’ buy one for their own selves. Problem is, the only other people I’ve seen readin’ this here book are other coves like me who’ve been paid to do so. Or to pretend we are.”