Robert Walker - City for Ransom

Much time as he spends prowling the streets; seeing so much of the gutter trash, living among the rats of this city . . . the man sees shit every day until . . . until all he sees is to kill, kill, kill! What’s to say he ain’t the Phantom?” Meanwhile, Philo Keane shouted over his one-time apprentice at Griffin, “It all makes sense now! This creepy little sot here under our noses the whole bloody time! He’s the one set me up, isn’t it true, Drimmer? Didn’t he put the notion of my being the Phantom in your ear? And now he’s shifting it to Alastair! Don’t you see? Don’t you?” “I know the little rat came at me with this wire in front of witnesses, in front of his little sugar, that daughter of Tewes.”

“Then you have him dead to rights! Congratulations! Now release me the bloody hell out of here!”

“Ransom’s the one figured it out; he’s the mastermind behind the arrest.”

“And Rance, is he shot like Denton said?”

“Wounded ’bout here and here.” He indicated entry and exit wounds on his own body.

“But he’s been spared his life?”

“So far.”

“Thank God! Where is he?”

“Cook County Hospital. It’d be the morgue but for his cane—or so said the midwife who patched him up.”

“Midwife?”

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ROBERT W. WALKER

“Tewes’s sister Jane.”

“Sister? Look, how so, his cane?”

“I found the cane splintered by the bullet from a Sharps

.44, I’m afraid. Could’ve done a hell of a lot more damage had the bullet not been deflected by the bone handle of Ransom’s cane.”

“The wolf’s-head cane. I give it to him years ago. Carries it everywhere . . .” mused Philo. “That is a wonder indeed.”

“Surgeon Fenger is working on Rance as we speak, and from accounts I got over the phone, well . . . only time’ll tell if eternity wants the big man or no.”

“I gotta get over there. You’ve got my word, Drimmer.

Release me just until I can be sure Rance is all right, and I promise I’ll return.”

Drimmer’s mind raced with what Kohler might do to him in the event he should honor such a deal without either authority or formal paperwork.

“Com’on, man! What’s there to think about?” pressed Philo.

“This isn’t a Sunday school we’re running here. You think for one moment Kohler’d just let you step outta that cell on a promise you’ll come waltzing back?”

Philo raised both hands to the bars. “Despite all the evil that’s passed through these hands, I am a man of my word.”

“Bedrock honest, heh?” Griffin half joked. He then stared into Philo’s eyes. “One bloody hour, and you’re back, do you understand? No one’s to detain you.”

“ Deal and thank you, Griff.”

Griffin signaled the bored turnkey to let the prisoner out.

The Bridewell cage door swung wide and Philo made a dramatic exit, sucking in the air of freedom on the other side of the bars.

“Find a phone and call me here at the station every fifteen minutes. I want to know your whereabouts at all times, Keane.”

“Bullshit, you want to know how Alastair is faring under the knife.”

CITY FOR RANSOM

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“Dr. Fenger’s the best in the city.”

“The state.”

“Perhaps the country.”

“Touché!”

“Leave out the basement rear, this way. And call in like I said.”

“You’ve my word, and again, thank you.”

“Just don’t make a mess of it, Philo. Don’t make me come searching for you at Muldoon’s or—”

“I’ve not had a drink in forty-eight hours.”

“Then bloody come back here, and I’ll see to it you have your drink, but you cannot go running about the city.”

“As Oscar Wilde says, ‘I can resist everything save temptation.’ ”

“God, I know I’m going to regret this! Don’t be a sot, man! You could be the best photographer in Chicago, the top of your chosen profession—”

“Art, my friend. It is art.”

“I know nothing about that, but if you applied yourself a sober man set on a goal, what with your talent, and your contracts with Montgomery Ward and all—”

“What contracts? We never had nothing in writing, Trelaine and I.”

“Ohhh . . . mistake.”

“Besides, they’re not likely to hire a former ‘felon’ even if innocent, not since the papers carried on how I murdered all those women, and their own account executive!”

“Well look, for the moment, we’ve . . . we’ve got Ransom near dead, so think of someone other than your bloody self, heh?”

“Aye . . . you’re cut of good cloth after all, Griff. I’ll ne’er forget this kindness.”

Griffin pushed him out the basement door. “Just go and try to be inconspicuous.”

“Yes, yes, of course!” Philo was off, a bounce in his step that Griffin had never seen before, like a man who’d just been satisfied by a woman, but this had to do with freedom.

324

ROBERT W. WALKER

Given a taste of it, would the man be capable of honoring his bargain? Griff doubted it, and in the back of his mind began to plot where he’d have to hide when Kohler learned of this

“early release program” instituted by a second-rank inspector. Then it dawned on him how to handle it no matter what.

Claim it by order of Inspector Alastair Ransom, his last order before passing out, and quite possibly a man’s dying wish. Pass the bloody buck to a man near death.

The wound sustained by Ransom proved a nasty one. The entry point the size of a silver dollar, and the exit wound a gaping fist-sized explosion of flesh and tissue. If Dr. Christian Fenger couldn’t keep Ransom alive, no one could; if Fenger could save him, it’d be a testament to genius and skill.

Either way, it remained the will of their unknowable God.

How was one to know, Jane wondered as she watched, fascinated, at Fenger’s side in the operating theater, dressed as Dr. James Francis Tewes. What was most excruciating was the interminable waiting—filling Jane with grief and pain.

Jane realized how much she’d learned from Alastair, and just how much he meant to her after all.

Perhaps and hopefully, the Almighty had yet to finish with Ransom , Jane thought while watching the surgeon’s scalpel flit over his flesh. But then again, perhaps God was absolutely done molding this man.

Surgeon Fenger’s work was that of an artist. Jane became mesmerized, focusing on the surgery. A voice in her head kept repeating the prayer: Save him, save him for me, Christian .

Another voice in her head answered: Ransom’s fate lies in the hands of his Maker, not Christian. Still, it seemed a tug-o-war between God and surgeon.

In which case, Jane Francis feared that Ransom’s life ended here.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

A novel like City for Ransom does not get written in a vac-uum so much as a mineshaft. Thanks to an array of authors ahead of me, authors whose fascination with Chicago created a rich vein for a storyteller like myself to mine, City for Ransom , and its Dickensian ala Conan Doyle characterizations, came into being. My first novel, penned while I was a sophomore and junior in high school in Chicago, required research if I were to convey the inner workings of the famous Underground Railroad through the eyes of a fourteen-year-old Missouri boy ( Daniel & The Wrongway Railway , 1982). Since then, all forty-two novels I’ve seen through to publication have conveyed research, whether police proce-durals, suspense, young adult, even horror titles. To create City for Ransom and its sequels ( Vengeance for Ransom, Innocence for Ransom , and hopefully more) the author was led to the “Mother Lode” by Mr. Kenan Heise, author, historian, Tribune reporter, and owner of the sadly closed bookstore, the Chicago Book Exchange. Mr. Heise, who gave assistance to my hero, John Jakes, when Jakes needed to dig into Chicago history, told me where to sink my pickaxe for the best titles on Chicago during the years I wished to write about—Detective Alastair Ransom’s gaslight Chicago. The following $300 worth of books are by authors I must ac-326