The City Beautiful

by Aden Polydoros

  “Well, I’m sick of it. I’m done.” He ran his hands through his hair and turned away from me. “I’m not going to watch as you slowly kill yourself with your good fucking intentions!”

  “Fine,” I snapped as he strode off. “I don’t need your help. I’ll find Tugarin on my own.”

  “Be my guest.” Snatching up his flask from where he’d dropped it, he glanced back with a mirthless smile. “Have fun chasing fairy tales. Maybe you’ll come across Baba Yaga while you’re at it.”

  As he stepped past the trees, a sudden realization struck me like a lightning bolt.

  A dragon. With a shudder of shock, I recalled Mr. Whitby’s companion. His slate-gray eyes and narrow face, the well-groomed mustache. The inked dragon curled around his right forearm, its tail encircling the letters КАТ branded into his skin. He had spoken to me in Russian as though he had known the language, not tentatively, but with purpose and a hint of mockery.

  You’ve already seen his face, Yakov had whispered.

  I should have known the moment I had scratched those letters into my arm with the pen nib. Not КАТ for Katz. I hadn’t written those letters in the Latin alphabet. It had been Cyrillic, the script that Russian and Ukrainian were written in.

  My breath seized in my throat. I had stood within a mere meter of Tugarin. He had looked at me, and I had looked at him. And neither of us had recognized what each other harbored under the skin—deep inside him, the scaled shadow of a dragon; inside me, two souls entwined.

  Heart pounding, I raced onto the pathway. “Frankie, wait.”

  “Leave me alone, Alter.” He kept walking even as I caught up to him. “I’m going home.”

  “I know who Tugarin is.”

  Frankie froze and turned. “Excuse me?”

  “I know who he is,” I repeated breathlessly. “The man who was with Mr. Whitby. Gregory. He called himself Gregory. He had a dragon tattoo on him.”

  “It’s a coincidence.”

  “I was so certain it was Katz, it didn’t even occur to me until now.” I rolled up my sleeve, baring the letters I had scratched into my forearm. “КАТ for КАТ, not Katz.”

  Frankie furrowed his brow. “I don’t follow.”

  “The tattoo surrounded a brand.”

  His expression darkened. “КАТ stands for katorzhnik. Hard labor convict. It’s used to mark criminals who are sent to Siberia. But if he was Russian, I’d have known. I’d have heard it in his voice.”

  “How many times have you heard a Russian speak English?” Even now, I couldn’t discern a Yiddish accent in spoken English, when the accent was my own.

  Frankie didn’t answer.

  “Have you ever heard Gregory speak Russian?”

  “No. He showed up at the Masthead a few weeks ago with Mr. Whitby. I only met him once before the Whitechapel Club, and we only exchanged a handful of words in English. He seemed a bit cold actually.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me this when we were at the Whitechapel Club?”

  “I thought Mr. Whitby had invited him there, being his business associate and all.”

  “How exactly are they business associates?”

  “Real estate, I imagine.” Frankie raked a hand through his hair, his voice rising in agitation. “How should I know? I doubt Gregory’s even his actual name. More like Grigori.”

  “It all makes sense now. He must have followed us back to Maxwell Street after the horse race. That’s how he knew where I lived.” I gave it more thought. “Mr. Whitby might know more about where we can find him. He might even be in danger.”

  “Damnit, you’re right.” Frankie swore under his breath. “We need to warn him.”

  “Should we go to the Whitechapel Club?”

  “No, I have an even better idea. We’re going to make a house call.”

  43

  Mr. Whitby lived in Kenwood, an idyllic stretch of town houses and Queen Anne–style mansions sprawled along the shoreline. Located just five kilometers from the fairgrounds, it took us only thirty minutes to reach it by cab.

  By then, the sky had darkened to the rich, honeyed depth of Baltic amber. I glanced at my pocket watch as the carriage rolled off. Six thirty.

  “Do you think he’ll be home?” I asked.

  “Probably. It’s too early to go to the clubs, and weekdays are slow for the races.”

  Even though a pleasant breeze rolled off the lake, the heat and humidity were relentless. I unbuttoned my waistcoat and the first two buttons of my shirt to provide some relief. Dressed in shabby pants, with sweat already leaching through the armpits of my white cotton shirt, I felt out of place amid the neighborhood’s neatly manicured lawns and lavish estates. A wispy cloud bank stretched low across the horizon, like wool pulled thin by a spinner’s hands.

  Mr. Whitby lived in a handsome brick house overlooking Lake Michigan’s dark waters. As the last house on its street, it was set back from the surrounding properties and shielded by a grove.

  “Are you sure this is it?” I asked, studying the home. With its rising towers, limestone columns, and jutting gables, it resembled a small fortress, as inaccessible as it was foreboding.

  “I’m positive,” Frankie said as we walked up the pavestone drive. “When I went to a dinner party here, he wouldn’t stop boasting about how that limestone was Italian.”

  The windows were dark. Frankie slammed the heavy brass knocker twice against the pane, then stepped back to wait.

  “No gaslights on,” he said, peering through one of the decorative glass panels on either side of the door. “It doesn’t smell like anyone’s been cooking dinner either. He should be home now.”

  “Does he have any servants?”

  “Not any live-in ones.” Frankie squinted. “I don’t like this. It looks like someone knocked a hole in the wall in there. There’s a broken vase on the floor. I want to take a look around.”

  I followed him along the side of the house. We went to the eastern end, where trees provided cover. When Frankie came to one of the cellar’s window wells, he climbed into the brick-lined hole.

  “Frankie, what are you—”

  He drew his penknife from his pocket and inserted the blade between the glass and the wood mullion of the pane nearest to the wall. With a smooth twist and jerk of the knife, he pried the glass from its frame and caught it in the palm of his left hand.

  “Frankie!” I exclaimed as he carefully set the glass down. “When you said a house call, I didn’t know you meant a break-in.”

  “Don’t plotz. I’ll pay him for the repairs.” He knelt down and reached through the empty pane to flip the inner lock.

  “I don’t think this is a good idea.”

  “Do you have an alternative, Alter? Do you want to wait for Mr. Whitby all night, if he’s just lying dead in there?”

  He had a point.

  The window frame groaned as Frankie lifted it outward, its hinges ungreased and neglected. He crawled feetfirst through the opening and disappeared from sight.

  I followed after him, landing two meters below on a packed dirt floor.

  It was too dark to see much more than the shapes of things. I lit a match. It flickered and died within moments, as though the air was waterlogged. The second match lasted long enough for me to gain my bearings. On a nearby shelf, I spotted a small stockpile of candles. When I lit one, the flame sputtered only once, like a newborn’s first breath, before burning steadily.

  The candle cast its glow. Brick walls, wooden bracing and support posts, shelves filled with dusty contents.

  “A bit strange not to have live-in servants, don’t you think?” I asked. “For a house of this size, I mean.”

  “He told me he liked his privacy. Now, be quiet.”

  We climbed the stairs, and I held the candle as we proceeded down the ground-floor corridor. In the foyer,
there was an overturned side table and a broken vase as Frankie had said. Grimly, he poked the toe of his shoe through the shards. My breath seized in my throat. The fragments were speckled with dry blood.

  “Frankie, that’s—”

  “Shh.” He lifted his finger to his lips and reached into his coat to access the shoulder holster snug against his left side. My stomach twisted at the sight of the gun, recalling the waste pit and how Mr. Katz had looked at the end, with blood guttering from the crevice of his throat.

  We continued deeper into the house. Kitchen, pantry, library, den, study. It staggered me how many rooms there were. It had been a while since I had stepped foot in an actual house, and the wood and whitewashed cottages back home were nothing like this.

  In the smoking room, my gaze was drawn to the top hat dangling from the brass coatrack. I realized now why Haskel had been targeted instead of me. That hat. That damn bowler cap. I had worn it both to the Whitechapel Club and the races, and when I had returned, I hung it from Haskel’s bedpost. To Gregory, it must have been like a beacon.

  “I’ll take the upstairs,” Frankie whispered as we reached the staircase. “Go back to the study. If Gregory and Mr. Whitby are business partners, there might be records in there. At the very least, letters or telegrams. Anything that might tell who he truly is and where we can find him.”

  I returned to the study. There was not a single smudge of ink on the marble desktop, and the floor was so pristine, I could have believed it had been waxed yesterday. I set the candle on the desk and yanked open drawers, rifling through the contents.

  Photographs of streets and houses, folded copies of blueprints, letters, deeds, contracts, and more. What Frankie had said about the real estate was true. Mr. Whitby owned property all throughout Chicago. He had even reached out to tenement owners on Maxwell Street.

  After scanning over a handful of documents, I rubbed my eyes. My head ached from the strain of reading English.

  The floorboards creaked behind me. I sighed. Perhaps Frankie could make some sense of this.

  I lowered the papers. “Hey, think you...”

  I heard the hard, heavy click of a revolver being cocked.

  “Hands in the air,” Whitby said, his voice as soft as the hiss of an adder. I turned, stunned to find him standing a mere meter away, his gun aimed at my head.

  I had never watched a person be shot before, but I had seen the result. Once, I had helped prepare the body of a man who had suffered a gunshot wound to the head. The family had called it an accident, but we all knew the truth. The wound had been grotesque.

  “Hands in the air,” Whitby repeated. His eyes were wide and owlish, his lips working like pale grubs. A fresh bruise marbled his cheek.

  My heart slammed against my rib cage and saliva pooled in my mouth. If I tried to rise, he’d shoot me in the back. I’d bleed out on his polished mahogany floor.

  Although every instinct screamed at me to flee, I lifted my hands in the air. I felt very distant, as though I was watching myself do it from afar.

  “This isn’t what it looks like.” My voice clicked in my throat. “The broken vase. The blood—”

  “You think you can creep in my house like this? Like a rat?” He moistened his lips. “I can shoot you.”

  With the gaslights unlit, the room was banked in shadows. Of his face, I couldn’t see much more than the boring holes of his irises, which appeared as dark and empty as his gun’s muzzle.

  “Please, you must believe me.” My voice sounded small to me. I swallowed down the buildup of saliva, but it came back in an instant, harsh with the taste of stomach acid. “We were worried about you.”

  “Stealing. Conniving. Sabotaging me.”

  “No.”

  “I can shoot you,” Mr. Whitby repeated, shaking his head in evident disgust. “Now I know that Portnoy bastard came to me for a reason. I know that one of your tribe must have sent him to the Masthead, sent him to interfere with my plans, just like they sent the other one.”

  “Other one?” I whispered, stricken.

  Could he mean Yakov?

  “The kike at the Whitechapel Club. The one who came around asking questions back in May.” Whitby’s lips peeled back in a smile, revealing small white teeth. “He’s at the bottom of Lake Michigan now.”

  No, not Yakov. My stomach dropped. Aaron Holtz.

  “So, who is it?” Mr. Whitby asked. “Who are you working for? The Rothschilds?”

  “I don’t understand. Meyn English. I speak not no English—I mean, I can’t speak good English.” I tried to say more, but then he cocked the revolver’s hammer, and my voice shriveled in my throat.

  “You’ll pay for this.”

  As he spoke, Frankie eased silently though the doorway. Mr. Whitby began to turn, only to freeze in his steps as Frankie pushed something against the back of his head.

  “I’d advise you to drop your weapon,” Frankie said crisply. “Now.”

  Whitby’s revolver clattered against the floorboards. He lifted his hands. “Wait—”

  Frankie brought down the butt of the revolver against Whitby’s skull before he could finish. His eyes rolled back in his head, and he collapsed to the ground.

  Frankie leaned down to press a hand against the man’s throat, then picked up the gun and rose. He looked almost pained. “Are you all right?”

  “I—I’m...” I swallowed hard, steadying my voice. “I’m fine.”

  He pressed Whitby’s gun into my hand. “You’d better hold on to this.”

  I didn’t know how to use it. Didn’t want to. I tried to give it back to Frankie. When he wouldn’t take it, I stuck it in my pocket.

  Sliding his gun into the holster nestled under his coat, Frankie rolled Whitby onto his side and freed the man’s silk ascot tie. With a couple swift movements, he bound Whitby’s hands.

  Whitby stirred and cracked open his eyes. He tried to sit up, but Frankie stepped on his chest and pushed him down against the floorboards.

  “Not so fast.” When Frankie spoke English, the change in his voice was striking. Gone was the musical cadence I had grown to admire; his words were all ice and tempered steel, his voice as frigid as the Baltic north he hailed from. “You’re not going anywhere.”

  “Rot in hell, kike,” Whitby hissed.

  Frankie drew in a sharp breath, as though he had been struck.

  “That’s right, I know what you are.” Whitby said it almost gleefully, like a nasty child. “Kike, kike, ki—”

  Before Mr. Whitby could let loose more crudities, Frankie abruptly jammed the toe of his boot against Whitby’s mouth.

  “Such a filthy mouth,” Frankie said, and though he kept his voice tame and cold, anger flared in his gaze. “I’d have no qualms with breaking it. Understand, bigot?”

  Whitby didn’t answer, on account of having his tongue pinned by Italian leather. When Frankie returned his foot to Whitby’s chest, the man glowered at him with petulant rage, his monocle dangling down his bruised cheek.

  “Who broke the vase?” Frankie asked. “Was it the same person who gave you that bruise?”

  “Just someone who I had a little disagreement with,” Mr. Whitby muttered.

  “Tugarin?” Frankie scoffed at Whitby’s bewildered expression. “Your business partner, Gregory. Perhaps he calls himself Grigori or Grisha? Was he the one?”

  “Enough about us,” Mr. Whitby said, leveling his chin. “Let’s talk about you. I spoke with your manager. You’re no Russian. You’re a Jew named Feivel Portnoy.”

  “Good job, you found out the same name that’s on my immigration records.”

  “I know where to find you and your family.”

  “You know the name of a boy who, in all respects, died nearly five years ago. As for my family, your ‘business associate’ has already killed two members of it, and I’m not goi
ng to let him kill a third.” Hatred shone in Frankie’s gaze. “But while we’re on that topic, do you have parents? You have people you love? Maybe you deserve to feel what it’s like to lose someone important to you!”

  I grabbed Frankie’s wrist. He looked back at me.

  “Frankie, enough,” I said, reverting to Yiddish. “Threatening him is just going to make him stop talking.”

  “No, kicking his teeth in would do that.”

  I lowered his arm so that the gun was pointing at his feet. “Let me try.”

  Frankie sighed. “Be my guest.”

  “We’re looking for your business partner,” I said to Whitby, the English awkward and unwieldy on my tongue. “Who is he?”

  “I’d expect you to be acquainted with Grigori.” He said the name the Russian way: Gree-goar-eey. “Or his work at least.”

  “You’d better start talking, shtik drek,” Frankie snarled. “I’m losing my patience. Tell us who he is now!”

  “Someone who is doing what this country should have done years ago.” He gathered enough saliva to spit at Frankie, but most of the drool ended up oozing down the side of his face instead. “Tell me, why is it that your race is driven from every country whose shores you land on? Why can you never find a place that will take you?”

  “Because of people like you,” I said flatly.

  “No, I’ll tell you why. It’s visceral, the disgust your presence evokes in ordinary people. It’s primal. Your hooked noses, your beady eyes, your nappy hair. Just looking at you two makes me so ill, I could retch. It’s like looking at a maggot. A goddamned maggot.”

  Frankie looked at me. “Do you want me to break his jaw?”

  “No, then he won’t be able to talk,” I said, although it was a rather tempting offer.

  “I have long admired the resourcefulness of the common people who must deal with the Jew. I said as much when I met Grigori for the first time. I was the one who brought him to the Whitechapel Club, who listened to his stories of grandeur. We are kindred spirits, you see. His kinsmen have been neutered and domesticated by the interests of powerful Jews, just as America has fallen under the tyrannous control of the Rothschilds and their banks. Back in Russia, he wanted to change that, and the Jews punished him for it. They branded him as a criminal and sent him to the Siberian waste, all for doing what must be done.”