Robert Walker - City for Ransom

He’d been on the scene for an hour and a half now, and his bad leg and back were conspiring with stomach pains from having not eaten. Having had to deal with Tewes atop the gruesome remains had left his nerves in disarray. The sheer cowardice of the killer infuriated him, so evilly Machiavellian down to the instrument of murder: its street name the Devil’s bow tie . In a sense, a garrote was a handheld guillotine, also created and perfected by the French—purveyors of culture and horror at once, as with all mankind, Ransom thought.

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ROBERT W. WALKER

His skin-crawling need for an opium hit kicking up, his maimed left leg aching, and dry heaves threatening, Ransom—perspiring heavily now—excused himself and walked away from Griff and the others. He bypassed the men’s room when he looked inside at the floor still polished in blood. Swallowing hard, he pushed through the doorway to the stairs leading to the clock tower. He wanted no one to see his fevered restlessness as the opium addiction withdrawal of mere hours now grapple-hooked his insides and crept along the epidermal layers of his skin.

Alone in the clock tower stairwell, Alastair struggled to regain control. He pulled forth a flask and emptied its contents—Bourbon whiskey—swallowing in rhinoceros fashion. Light filtered down from the top of the tower, which looked a thousand steps away. Ransom took the stairs, struggling against his own heft and body to wind his way up the spiraling steps like those in a lighthouse.

At the top, he stood and stared down from the window the killer may’ve gazed from; may even have watched his young victim’s approach from. What kind of internal slings and arrows and horrors beset the madman? How much did the killer hate God, mankind, society, people, Ransom’s city, and in the end himself—his own horrid soul? And how bloody similar were they, this phantom and Ransom’s own shadow self? The one that crawled up out of him during his most private moments?

From below, young Griffin Drimmer banged clumsily up the first few steps, his voice spiraling up to Alastair. “Rance?

You all right?”

“Just catching the view!” he shouted back. “Preparing for the Ferris wheel!” he joked.

“Ahhh, not a bad idea. It’d take an act of God to get me that high off the ground!” Griff’s voice grew louder with each footstep. “If God meant for us to fly, he’d’ve given us the equipment.”

“Give me time for a smoke, Griff. Wanted to see where they found the cigar butts.”

CITY FOR RANSOM

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“Yeah, sure, Rance . . . sure.”

With Griff sufficiently persuaded to leave him in peace, Inspector Ransom stared from this six-story-high vantage point at the grand new buildings of the Columbian Exposition lining the coast of the largest lake in the Midwest. Most prominent was the Ferris wheel. Everyone asked these days, ‘Have you dared ride the wheel?’ and few people had for fear of its dizzying heights. Ransom had as yet to brave it. A marvel to behold, a symbol of what mankind had accomplished, along with all the other wonders of the fair, which had given law enforcement officials special headaches, as every day people were mugged by hoodlums and pickpocketed by street children. The complaints had kept the CPD

understaffed for over a month now, and for Alastair the fair could not come to a close soon enough, but not before he rode the wheel—perhaps while under the influence of his opiate.

But he had time, as the fair was slated to run through summer’s end. Everyone in Chicago—including off-duty police—had flocked to the exposition, the crowds enormous, just as they were this morning. Food vendors, merchants, and manufacturers showing their wares could not be more content. But rumors, reports, and leaks about a “Chicago Ripper” had begun to filter through, and people at the top like the governor, the mayor, his people, the architects of the fair feared the worst. No doubt, this new killing would alarm the entire city, and everyone would hear the fanciful epithet cops’d begun to whisper: The Phantom of the Fair—who wielded a garrote like a butcher with a de-boning knife.

Alastair pulled on the tobacco blend he’d mixed with mar-ijuana. He’d given some thought to marketing it as a healing smoke known to the ancients and rediscovered—make a buck or so on the side like that Tewes fellow. Food no longer tasted as good, but winters in Chicago seemed shorter. Fact of the matter, Alastair liked Chicago cold—more human hi-bernation and less crime in the cold.

Griffin had quietly come up the stairs after all, and he 42

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called out from the landing below. “Thought . . . you gave up ta-ta”—he fought for breath, panting—“ta-bacco . . . for lent.”

“Lent? No . . . rent. I gave it up so I could pay my rent.”

“Oh, yeah.” Griffin made the final landing. He fell silent at the sunrise coming over the fair. “Weird paradox. They build this station so more people might come in for the fair, and now this.”

“We’re going to catch this son of Hades, but until we do, the bosses want us to somehow keep it out of the papers. So it won’t affect their precious fair.”

“But the reporters’re all over this.”

“The dyke will hold a bit longer, Griffin. Mayor Carter Harrison has his thumb on every publisher in the city.”

“All the English language papers’re going to go wild for sure.”

“No, they won’t. Any city editor stupid enough to print a word of it, and he’ll be handed his hat—unless they all wise up and decide to simultaneously print it in every paper at once.”

“What about Thomas Carmichael at the Herald ? He was downstairs in the crowd, Rance.”

“Carmichael, I’ll deal with Thom personally.” Ransom was beginning to like Griff’s calling him Rance.

“Whataya going to do? How can you stop his mouth?”

“The old-fashion way—”

“Politics!” They said it in unison. Then they laughed, the sound of it spiraling down the stairwell. Ransom took a long pull on the pipe.

Sniffing, Drimmer said, “Unusual odor that blend you’re smoking.”

The smoke created a halo over his head. He pointed to the fair. “At the moment, the party is all that matters. It’s the largest, most expensive blowout in history, Griff, rivaling Rome, twice the size of the Paris World’s Fair, and it will be protected at all costs.”

CITY FOR RANSOM

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“Three killings, the work of the same lunatic . . . can’t be hushed up for long.”

“You’re smart, but you’re new to Chicago politics. If the mayor and commissioner want it kept out of the papers, it’ll be kept out of the papers.”

“But the papers’re so critical of Commissioner Mc-Donoughue.”

“All for show. Keep the population believing they have a voice.”

“God, Rance, you’re cynical.”

“I’ve earned my cynicism, every poisonous drop of it.” He tapped his cane against his injured leg. “Not like I can escape it.”

“When is your injury not with you?”

“Rarely . . . rarely . . .”

“When you’re using opium or hemp, or both?”

“Ahhh, so you do know my secrets.”

“It’s no secret, my friend. Kohler has wind of it. Asked me to report on duty use.”

“He did indeed?”

“Yes, he did.”

“And will you? Report me, that is?” He indicated his pipe.

Griffin hesitated a moment. “I’ve only seen you smoke tobacco.”

“Good man.”

“A lot of people want to see you go the way of this Willard Birmingham fellow. You must take care.”

“I’m always careful, Griff, and not to worry unduly.

You’ll only get warts worrying o’er the likes of me.”