Doing so, he feared, might literally break her heart.
SIXTEEN
Two weeks later, Flip’s fever broke and the pain in his arm retreated some. At the mayor’s urging, his lieutenant had given him a further month off. There was no urgency about anything. For the first time since he had come to Chicago, Flip had money in his pockets and time on his hands. It was still summer, but, in the evenings especially, Flip started to think he could smell fall on the breeze.
On this first morning of feeling unfevered, Flip tested his legs with a walk down to Miss Heloise’s home. His plan had been to leave the fireplace poker on her porch, but Miss Heloise was standing in front of the house when he approached, picking up toys. She watched the policeman come down the street.
“Here,” Flip said brightly. “I come to bring you this back.”
Miss Heloise looked at the poker doubtfully.
“Oh yeah?” she said.
“Yeah,” Flip answered.
“You catch the man who killed my girls?” she said, taking the metal rod from him.
“I can’t talk about it,” he told her. “But yes.”
Miss Heloise leaned on the poker like it was a cane. She was short, and the implement came up nearly to her waist.
“I ain’t hear about it,” Miss Heloise said.
Flip nodded.
“You won’t,” he told her. “Least not directly. Except from me, here, today. Defender might run something, but it won’t be the whole story. You’ll have to read between the lines.”
Miss Heloise seemed to consider this.
“You get any answers?” she said. “The man. . . He tell you why he did these awful things to my babies?”
“Those answers will come next,” Flip said. “I’m getting to that presently.”
“What does that mean?” Miss Heloise asked, turning her head to the side. “How you don’t know the answers, but you already caught him?”
But Flip was already walking away.
Later that morning, Flip stood in the stockyards, in the ruins of the garage formerly inhabited by Ed or Rotney Nash.
The structure had been demolished by sledgehammers. Its parts stood in a great pile, waiting to be hauled away. There were bricks and twists of bent metal from the garage door and assorted machine parts. Flip knew there was almost no chance he would find anything useful in this pile, and that access to the underground den beneath the garage was probably also impossible. Even so, for a while he toed the bricks with his foot, investigating.
After a few minutes, two stockyard workers approached. One was the man he had met before, who hefted the pig-killing awl. The other was less decrepit looking, and might have been junior management.
Flip expected them to ask him his business—or at least to greet him—but for several moments they merely looked on.
Then the man who used the awl said: “We done it right. We done it just like the police said. I seen to it.”
Flip looked up at the men.
“What police told you to demolish this place?” Flip asked.
“Hell, I don’t know,” the awl man said. “Italian fella. Mustache.”
Flip rubbed his chin.
“Did they take things out of the garage before you demolished it?” he asked.
The two men looked at one another.
“Could have,” said the awl man. “I didn’t watch the whole time. Nobody could’ve. They were here for days. Don’t you cops talk to each other?”
Flip did not answer.
The junior manager said: “Is it true you’re the one who shot somebody in here?”
Again, Flip did not answer.
“That means yes,” the junior manager said proudly, like a child teasing a prickly truth from an adult.
“You haven’t seen Rotney Nash around have you?” asked Flip.
“Naw,” said the awl man. “I get the feeling he’s finally gone for good.”
“Yes,” Flip said. “So do I.”
Flip toed the rubble for several minutes more, looking for something, anything. In the end he picked up a scrap of cinderblock and placed it into his pocket.
He thanked the men and went on his way. Unmoving, like a pair of dusty statues, they watched him leave.
Further out from the source of the pig-stench, Flip found the two-level house containing the insurance office of Ed Nash. The front door had been boarded across, the windows too. It appeared the Chicago Police had been here as well. Anything useful had already been taken away and burned. Someone had decided to make it hard for Flip to follow the very trail he now intended to pursue. The footprints in the sand were being covered over.
A signboard had been placed against the front of the house advising policyholders that they could follow up with another Continental Illinois agent with offices in Hyde Park.
Flip strolled around to the side of the house and took a look up at the entrance to the apartment where Janice Collins had once lived. It was boarded too. The CPD sought to take no chances.
Flip crept to a rear window, picked up a fat chip of white paint from a sill, and placed it into his pocket.
He spent the rest of the day back in bed, recovering strength and looking at the blue sky outside. Some time after darkness fell, he rose again, dressed himself, and headed out to South State. The night was warm and inviting, but a hint of autumn crept into the air. The nights would soon grow long, and the monstrous chill that could be killing would come with it. Yet tonight, South State was still alive and vibrant. Folks having a final summer hurrah before it was time to put on layers. Men walked about with jaunty steps and mischief in their gaits. Women relaxed in windows and doorways, and wore scandalously few clothes.
As Flip paced north toward the Palmerton, he got more than one “Hey Flip, where you been?”
One bold soul—whom he did not even recognize—addressed him playfully as “Killer” and made finger guns in his direction. Flip trusted Sally and Tark to have kept their mouths shut, but the lampposts had eyes and ears in this town. Word of what had happened would come out. It already had.
When the Palmerton came into sight, Flip was disappointed to find Sally absent from her perch. Three sporting girls in robes chatted and smoked to one side of the porch, but that was all. The entrance was otherwise empty.
And then she appeared
Sally was radiant in a blue Edwardian gown and pearls. She stood and watched the street, her hands on her hips. Flip cleared his throat and began to climb the Palmerton’s front steps. When Sally turned to him, the light from her smile burned more brightly than any fixture along the avenue.
For a while, the two just stared at one another.
“You get the food I sent over?” she asked. “Cause I know you don’t eat right as it is.”
“Yes,” Flip said awkwardly. “Thank you for that. And thank you also for not doing more. I wasn’t right ‘till near about today. Fever was bad.”
“I’m sure it was,” Sally said. “Did you get some opium for the pain? Use that surgeon’s note?”
Flip sucked in his lips and looked away. She knew that he had not.
“Well, even so, it does me good to see you walking around,” Sally told him.
Flip nodded. Kept looking away.
“What is it?” she asked. “You need to sit?”
“Maybe.” he told her.
“Maybe?” said Sally.
“Maybe . . . if she’s not in yet.”
Sally searched Flip’s face.
“You come around to see Ursula?”
Flip nodded.
“Don’t tell me they got you working on something new already?”
“No,” Flip said. “Same case.”
“But. . . But. . .the bad man’s dead,” Sally said. “You shot him yourself.”
Sally’s eyes flit down to a locket on her wrist where she kept a photograph of her children.
“Yes, he’s dead,” Flip told her. “You saw the body, same as me. But I ain’t heard they caught Nash
yet. Crespo’s supposed to come and tell me if that happens. He hasn’t. Have you heard anything about them catching up to him?”
Sally shook her head.
“See. . . I want to know what happened to that man,” Flip said.
“But why?” asked Sally.
Flip looked around frantically, as though his eyes chased the haphazard path of a bee.
“I don’t know,” he told her. “This is for me. I ain’t on the clock right now. I just got to know for myself.”
“Well then. . .” Sally said. “You’re welcome to come and wait in the lounge, of course, if you need to.”
Flip smiled.
Sally approached and kissed him on the forehead.
“Thank you for everything you’ve done,” she said.
“I ain’t done yet,” Flip replied, and headed for the back of the building.
Ursula was home.
A single pound on the metal door was enough to rouse her. Flip heard her say something indistinct. He did not take the time, really, to listen to what the horrible voice called in reply. Whatever she had said, the sound of it suddenly made him feel hot. Angry. He was done with pretense. Done with mystery. He forced the door open and barged inside.
The path of lanterns cut its swath through the abject darkness. At its termination, there was the familiar thin figure propped at a table. There was the ball with a shroud over it. And all around, broken furniture and machinery covered with blankets and sackcloth until it looked like a sea of deformed terra cotta soldiers, awaiting the snap of Ursula’s fingers to come alive and start marching.
Flip ducked his head and hurried forward along the illuminated trail. He had to fight the urge to kick the odd lantern as he went. With no ceremony, he sat on the empty stool beside Ursula. He reached into his pocket, producing the scrap of paint from Ed Nash’s house and the bit of cinderblock from Rotney’s garage. He placed them on the table. Then, with an exaggerated motion like a man pushing poker chips to a winner he despises, Flip slid them deliberately across to her. The cinderblock made a long, low scraping sound.
Then he took a thousand dollars out of his pocket, and placed the ten crisp bills underneath the cinderblock.
“This ought to get you going,” Flip said.
Ursula seemed to move ever-so-slightly, but also not to. Flip glanced down and saw that the irregular, head-sized glass ball had been revealed.
He said: “I need to know where to find the man with the divot in his head. Rotney Nash. Ed Nash. I don’t know which is his real name, but let’s just call him Nash. These are the bits from the houses where he used to live. He was one man, but pretended to be twins.”
“One man. . .” Ursula said.
Then the marine laughter.
It was all Flip could do to fight the urge to physically plug his ears. In the end he failed, and put his fingers in until it passed.
“You still don’t understand what is happening!” Ursula said with great amusement. “After all this, you are still no closer to grasping it. But I see now that you are possessed, and there is truly no hope left for you. What a pity. It uses him, just as the mayor used you. It wants what was taken, just as the mayor wants to please his wealthy friends.”
“I don’t need to understand what is happening,” Flip said carefully. “I need the location of the man called Nash.”
Ursula hesitated for a moment.
“You don’t want to find him,” Ursula affirmed. “It wants you to find him. That’s what you don’t see. It works through you now. You are a rodent with an insect crawled into its brain. The insect commands, and you do its bidding.”
Flip hesitated. He had found such hybrid creatures before as a child. Raccoons that had gone insane—rotting and with botflies and spindly worms crawling out from their ears.
“Do you know where Nash is or not?” Flip asked.
Ursula laughed again. This time, a mercifully brief cackle.
“Oh, I know that man, Joe Flippity,” she said, not directly answering. “But why must you find him? The mayor is happy. The city is happy. You have protected the vulnerable just as you sought to. If he now vanishes into the darkness forever—like a green flash on the edge of the sunset—what is lost to you? Nothing, Joe Flippity. Nothing is lost.”
“I want to know where he is,” Flip insisted to the witch. “I want to know why he did these-”
And suddenly Flip was directly adjacent to a whale that had just heard the funniest joke of its life. The laughter was nautical, phlegmy, and made him want to vomit to hear (and to feel—for the reverberations seemed to echo through him). This time, Flip did not hesitate to immediately stick his fingers deep into his ears. He stuck them in hard and held them fast, until the auditory horror subsided.
“You want to know why?” Ursula asked, cackling. “Why is the sky blue? Why do the stars come out at night? Why? What on earth makes you think you can know the why of it, Joe Flippity?”
He opened his mouth to say something, but she continued.
“I’ll tell you why! Because it is no longer the mayor whom you serve. You serve it. You serve the thing. Only you don’t know. You don’t yet see that you do.”
“What?” said Flip. “I don’t understand.”
“It is the old story,” the witch replied. “The tale that has been told before, and will be told again—right here, and in other places too—a thousand-thousand times. It is the tale of eld. Listen! Someone took it from the other place. From it! And now it wants the thing back. Only madness will follow. There is no reason for you to dive into that madness—like a man diving into a pool of water—but you are adamant and will not be stopped. You have no idea, Joe Flippity. You simply jump on in.”
“What other place?” asked Flip. “What are you talking about?”
“It is from beyond the land and above the sea and nowhere at all,” she said. “It is the same place a rabbit goes when it vanishes in a magician’s hat.”
“So. . . a pocket in the bottom of the hat?” said Flip.
He had seen Tark operate a rabbit trick before.
Ursula did not respond.
“Who took what from where, and why does it have anything to do with Nash?” Flip tried again.
He was becoming angrier now. Ursula often spoke abstractly—or in digressions that were almost riddles—but, as Flip thought on it, it seemed that never before had she introduced new information in this particular way. Never before had she added-on while remaining so obscure and obtuse. And never so late in the game.
“I need you to tell me plainly what is happening,” Flip said loudly and slowly. “Where can I find Nash?”
“I have told you everything that can be said,” she croaked. “You’re askin’ me why a brook flows, or why moss grows on a boulder.”
“No,” Flip shouted. “I don’t accept this. You need to say more. Because you know more.”
There was a long pause as the mummified-seeming woman considered.
“I know there is no mystery,” Ursula finally whispered. “I know this has happened before. And that it will happen again.”
The pain in Flip’s shoulder seemed to grow exponentially. He could feel his blood running hot, and it was not merely from fever. He felt like a person forced to bite his tongue a thousand times, and who is powerfully sick of doing so. Like one who has gladly suffered abuse for such a duration that it has almost become a second nature. But who, now, will suffer it no more. Flip felt a tangible heat course through his neck and head. The feeling told him this time was different. That this time, it had to be different.
Flip took something long and heavy and metallic out of his coat and slammed it hard on the table. Then he leaned forward aggressively.
“Enough,” Flip said. “Why have you always got to hide the meaning of your words? And why have you got to hide your body in shadows? Always hiding. . . Do you know what this is? It’s not a length of pipe. We got them fresh from New York City last year. It’s a tube that can shine a very bright light fr
om the end. It works without an electrical connection, and I can take it anywhere. Even into a dirty basement where lives a hoary witch who won’t be straight with me!”
For the first time in his life, Flip saw something akin to alarm on Ursula’s cracked moonscape face.
“Joe Flippity, do not do that.”
“Why?” he said. “Why this darkness, Ursula?”
“To examine something in the light is to change it. Some things can only be seen in the darkness. A great fish lies underneath the lake. Look at the lake in the noonday sun, and the fish’s scales reflect the sunlight back at you. The creature shines just like the water. You will see nothing! But come again on a moonless midnight. Train your eyes on the shadows at the water’s edge. Then and only then, you may begin to discern, in the layers of murk, the dimmest outline of the leviathan.”
“Nuts to you,” Flip said. “I think you hide in the shadows for the same reason you hide your words. You want to conjure something that isn’t there. Give the impression you know more than you do—probably, so you can charge more money. You want these shadows to hide your flim-flam. Maybe bringing you out of the shadows will bring your words out. Maybe you’ll finally be clear with me.”
“Don’t you do it!” threatened Ursula.
“Why not?” Flip said, rising to his feet.
“Because you can’t take it!” Ursula shrieked. “Because inside, deep down in the pit of your belly, you’re a weak man, Joe Flippity, and you know it. I don’t think you could bear-”
And that was all she had time to say.
Flip depressed the button on the side of the heavy tube.
A blinding, unnatural beam leapt forth instantaneously. At first, the beam was directed upwards. Flip saw now that the pitch-black ceiling of the basement did not extend up into infinity. It was just a row of planks and boards terminating a few inches above his head. And if something up there had ever twinkled at him like a midnight star, it could only have been the heads of nails gleaming momentarily in the lanternlight.
Flip brought the beam of light down on Ursula Green.
Already—through witchcraft, perhaps—she had vanished and been replaced. The rocking chair was still rocking, but now it was filled with old logs wrapped in canvass. A quilt was draped across them. What had been Ursula’s face was now an old, rotting gourd with the crudest semblance of a mouth. Small, black insects crawled across it. What had been Ursula’s feet were two stones. Her arms, two wooden sticks. Her hands, rotting mushrooms.
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