Shadows in the White City

by Robert W. Walker

  Music spilled out onto the street from inside Muldoon’s when Alastair opened the door, a minstrel fellow strumming a banjo and singing about an Ohio steamboat called the Glenn E. Burke running down to New Orleans—“When the Glendie Burke comes down again…bound to leave this town now…take my duds and throw ’em on my back…when the Glendie Burke come down again. Banjo and harp made the bluesy lyrics as lively as a cockfight, and Ransom caught his toe tapping to the melody.

  The music man playing both instruments at once did not slow for Ransom, as new to the city, he’d no idea who Alastair was. Muldoon’s this time of night was, for the most part, just another den of losers and down-and-outs, most at the bar, on their feet, smoking and drinking and talking and thinking and planning and plotting—most with minds always in a state of disarray, confusion, and a mix of anger and fear. Anger at the world for having lost the race, fear at the world that it’d become too late to ever score big. The confusion came in the wonderment of how life had so quickly beaten them down. Some were no older than late twenties, early thirties. Yet they held longing, clinging memories for what might have been. To a man they were gamblers of one sort or another.

  Those familiar to Muldoon’s fell silent when they realized who’d walked in. Alastair represented a diversion from their sore, sordid lives, and to some he represented another hope. After all, hope dies hard, and hope has a place in a dreamer’s heart, even a man who simply dreamed of betting for once on the right horse out at the racetrack.

  The races proved a second home for most of these men, and each Sunday they went out to the course and laid their money on a horse in much better prime than the one Alastair had seen Jack Houston working over.

  Alastair was given to a horse race himself on occasion, but it had not become the driving force in his life. Such a life is what Alastair Ransom feared, an end that left him daily standing before some bar and talking of past adventures to people he didn’t like.

  He momentarily thought of what Philo, his only true friend, would think of this new turn of events—him being enthroned at Muldoon’s, if talk on the street were to be believed.

  Due to his reputation and the rumors now abounding, he had indeed become a topic of interest in every bar in the growing prairie city. Stepping in from the light and finding himself striding toward the bar in the semi-darkness of this seedy place, Ransom realized that he was indeed an object of fascination for the regulars. Some had been on hand the night he’d smashed his cane into Muldoon’s temple, knocking the owner senseless. How strange the turn of events now.

  So when it became clear around the room that Inspector Ransom was indeed in their midst, the buzz went about the room, and all eyes turned on him.

  Some few lifted their glasses, a salute to his having rid the city of the Phantom. When Moose Muldoon, busy behind the bar, realized that Ransom had come through the door, he set up a free beer—something Muldoon was not known for, giving beer away, waiving the usual five cents. “Look here, boys!” Muldoon shouted, his voice silencing the banjo man and every conversation remaining. “By God, it’s our own Inspector Ransom it is, in Muldoon’s, boys! I told you he and I were thick as brothers—hey, Inspector?”

  “Muldoon…how’ve you been?” Alastair asked. “You’re head clear these days on the drinking laws?”

  “Aye, Inspector—Alastair—Rance, old friend. I’ve a special on for the whiskey-sarsaparillas concoction you like. Calling the drink a Whiskey Ransom. The boys here’ve taken to it, chasing it with ale and beer.”

  “So I hear on the street.”

  “And look there in the corner back booth,” said Muldoon, pointing to a cordoned-off table. “Reserved for you alone, Inspector, so’s you can conduct your own special business outta Muldoon’s whenever you’re moved to it.”

  “That’s extremely generous of you, Pat—may I call you, Pat?”

  “It’s fine. Call me Paddy if you like.”

  “Then if it’s OK with you, Paddy, I’ll just take advantage now.”

  Ransom took his free beer to his special seat, wondering what was in it for Muldoon, sure he would soon learn. No doubt the man wanted a favor. Possibly protection from some heavies moving in on his action, demanding a cut for, what else, protection from other heavies wanting to move in on his action.

  Ransom did not have to wait long to learn of Muldoon’s purpose. In fact, the banjo player and songster was only halfway through his next song—a riotous tune about his mother’s red cabbage and griddle cakes, the refrain being, “Boil them cabbage down, my friend, boil them cabbage down!”—and Alastair had only downed half his “free” beer when Muldoon joined him at the table. The two huge figures in the back booth seemed a pair of giants staring across at one another. “What’s what, Paddy? Why’re you being so lovely toward me?”

  “It’s not what you’re thinking.”

  “Oh, and what am I thinking?”

  “That I want some favor down at City Hall or with the aldermen, or that I want you to run someone off from seeing my sister.”

  “And you’re saying it’s none of those things?”

  “Not in the least.”

  Alastair raised his glass in toast. “Then tell me why’re we burying the ol’ hatchet?”

  “It’s the business you did with the Phantom, and what I suspect you’ll do with this bastard they’re calling Leather Apron, the one causing the Vanishings. Awful…just awful…doing such to our poor innocent children, like so many defenseless chicks.”

  “Get to the point, Muldoon. I’ve business elsewhere.”

  “I only want you to use the place, this table, as your home away from home, so to speak.”

  “So to speak of what? Your point, Paddy?”

  “Alastair, truly, as I’ve come to respect you so.”

  “I see.”

  “Then you’ll accept my hospitality?”

  “A free beer whenever I call for it?”

  “Ahhh…one per day.”

  “One per visit?” dickered Ransom.

  “Ahhh…all right, then.”

  “And the use of the table for long periods?”

  “That’s me gift to you for doing so much to keep Chicagoans safe, yes.”

  “I had a reputation before the Phantom’s end, so why now Muldoon?”

  “Ahhh…it’s ever since we had that run-in, you and me. You have no idea how many people come here to see where you was standing when your cane come down across me head, and they want me to retell the story over and over, and then they bring in their friends and associates to hear it over again.”

  “And you’re tired of telling it? Sounds as if business is good.”

  “Well…there attaches some embarrassment to the story in the first telling alone.”

  “I see, but there is more to this than our run-in.”

  “Like I’m telling you, people come through that door expecting to see you, some wanting to talk to you. I’ve spoke till I’m blue in the face that your headquarters are at number 13 Des Plaines, but they’re normally not the type to go seeking out a policeman in a station house.”

  “I see.” And finally it had come clear for Ransom. “You pay me off in free beer and my favorite table, and I become a sideshow freak for your bloody customers is it?”

  “Now, don’t get riled, Inspector,” countered Muldoon. “It’s not a bad bargain for either of us once word gets round that you’ve returned to your favorite old haunt, and that you and I’ve become pals again.”

  “Yes, the money motive. What drives Chicago.”

  “What is your answer. No…no, don’t tell me now, Inspector. Give it time to sink in. Sleep on it. We’ll talk again when you come back for your next one on me.”

  “And the Whiskey Ransom? Does it stay on the menu either way?”

  “It does. Give you me word and me hand on it.” Muldoon extended his huge paw.

  “You’re right. I’ll need some time to think this proposition over.”

  “Any losers at cards, I can
send your way, Alastair. There’ll be easy pickings every day. You’ve no idea how many men hereabouts wanna say they played cards and lost to Inspector Ransom.”

  “Really now…you will sweeten the pot too much.”

  “I take a cut of course on each win.”

  “I would expect nothing less.”

  “Nothing less than ten percent.”

  “Like I said, Paddy, I’ll have to give it serious thought.”

  “It could help you out after you retire from the force, Alastair. Think hard on it. Think of your future, man.”

  “I can see you now shouting it to the ceiling, Muldoon: Last man standing from the Haymarket Riot, infamous Inspector Alastair Ransom, come one, come all to hear the Phantom Slayer regale you with story ’pon story of his exploits!”

  “And why not? I also know a publisher who’d pay handsome for your life story if we could, between us, write.”

  “Will you be setting me up with a tent over my table here, too?”

  “I thought of a banner across the sign outside.”

  Ransom glared at Muldoon, gulped down the last of his beer, stood and walked out to the music of “Callie Rose” being played by the banjo man. “You’re turning this place into a regular den of entertainment, Muldoon.”

  “I’ll hold the table for you, old man!” Muldoon shouted over the banjo.

  Standing in the thin gaslight, seeing clouds rolling in from over the lake, slowly turning the sky into a familiar black ash, Ransom could smell rain imminent. It was soon September, and August in Chicago always proved a bumpy ride where the weather was concerned. He glanced back at Muldoon’s and asked, “Why’re all mine enemies wanting to go into business with me all of a sudden?”

  With cane in hand, not expecting an answer, he sauntered down the sidewalk back toward Des Plaines and the station house, at considerable distance, but he felt the need for air and time and exercise of his legs. He often walked the city streets too in order to feel in tune with his surroundings, but lately, at every street corner, he’d come upon another homeless person, male, female, adult, child. Chicago, always filled with scurrying rats, was now a breeding ground it seemed for the homeless. It had been coming on for a long time and nothing whatever had been done about it. The occasional politician shouted over the complacency of the merchants and aldermen and city fathers that something must be done about the problem, but as ever, nothing was done save in the private sector. Jane Addams’s Hull House and a few churches offered space to sleep and a soup kitchen, and they worked diligently to find jobs, but there simply were none unless you belonged to a union gang and the Democratic party.

  At the moment, Alastair’s attention was taken off the homeless, drifting back to the singular idea of going into questionable partnership with Muldoon, making himself a kind of local attraction at the man’s tavern. The proposal coming from Muldoon, however absurd, he respected more than that offered up by Senator Chapman, Chief Kohler, and Dr. Fenger. At least with Muldoon there were no surprises; in fact, the man was, as always—transparent. He had but one bone to gnaw on, one purpose in life, to make more money each week than he did the week before. Such motive was easy to gauge, but when a man like Kohler used the same argument, that he was purely interested in the money, Alastair knew better. Somewhere in back of that fevered brain of Nathan Kohler’s, he had a plan, a plan to destroy Alastair even as he benefited from the outlawry he proposed. And make no mistake about it, Kohler, Fenger, Chapman, and Ransom would be engaging in illegal activity should they go through with this dark conspiracy to see Leather Apron turned over to the senator for his personal vengeance. It would be no less an act of outlawry as had been Alastair’s conspiring with Harry Stratemeyer and his two men to abduct and kill that weasel that had gone about the World’s Fair murdering innocent people in the vain hope of ultimately destroying Alastair Ransom.

  No doubt remained in Alastair’s mind now; Kohler, in some Machiavellian manner, meant to enter into this agreement only to nab Alastair at the precise moment of ultimate vulnerability—and most likely to bring down Dr. Fenger in the bargain as well—in order to install new people around him in both the department and at County Morgue. Why Christian could not see this was beyond Alastair, but the doctor must be made to see. It dawned on Ransom that he must thank Muldoon some time for helping him clarify his feelings and instincts on this matter, but of course neither Muldoon—nor anyone—could know about the Chapman proposal or Christian Fenger’s part in it. Alastair wondered how he could counter whatever plot Kohler had in mind with his own and still keep Christian’s name out of it.

  Life and chaos in Chicago had not changed noticeably since his return.

  “Remember Haymarket, Nathan?” Ransom dropped into the seat the other side of Kohler’s desk. “If I am to agree to this deal you’ve struck with Chapman and Fenger, I want full access to all files on the riot at Haymarket turned over for my examination. Full disclosure.”

  “That’s impossible, Alastair, and you know it.”

  “Then we have no deal.” He stood to go, nothing to lose. At the door, he felt Kohler breathing down his neck and holding the door pinned against him.

  “Wait.”

  “We have nothing further to discuss. I have thought this over thoroughly, and it is all that will calm my mind about either situation.”

  “Look…you are talking about sealed documents, locked away in places I have no access to. What in bloody hell do you expect to learn from digging up the dead past?”

  “I won’t know that until I see it, now will I?”

  “Are you sure, Ransom, there is nothing else I…we can offer you?”

  “Nothing whatever.”

  “Bastard.”

  Ransom pulled the door open, readying to leave. “Give it some thought; sleep on it as I did. Perhaps tomorrow, you may see it differently. Have a talk with your newfound friend, the senator. Hell, Prosecutor Kehoe. He is in a position to get his hands on those files.”

  “Hiram would lose his job as a result, along with all of us.”

  “Does the corruption go that high up?”

  “Damn it, man, leave it in the grave!”

  “My scars are not yet in the grave.”

  “They can be, Alastair,” Kohler said with a curled smile. “There’s an old proverb goes something like ‘the scars of his past will determine his future,’ but in your case, they may determine you have no future.”

  This stopped Ransom, whose stern eyes met Kohler’s in a cold duel. “Is that a threat, Nathan?”

  “Call it what you will. Chicago remains a dangerous place, and everyone knows you have more enemies than friends.”

  “Send my request on, Nathan. Send it on, and we’ll talk about the future on the other side.”

  Kohler’s tough features scrunched in consternation, attempting to mine the depths of Ransom’s words. But Inspector Ransom walked away from his dumbfounded chief and closed the door behind him.

  Kohler gnashed his teeth and muttered to his empty office, “Stubborn bastard’s like a g’damn Jack Bull with his teeth sunk deep.”

  CHAPTER 10

  Alastair found himself at his old wooden swivel desk chair and dropped into it with a heaviness that raised a resounding squeal. He sat for a moment, feeling extremely tired and as if every year of his life weighed heavy. He sat staring at the empty desk pushed against his own, Griffin’s desk. While others in the department pretended busy work, he sensed them watching him now. No one could miss the subdued anger spilling out of Chief Kohler’s office when Alastair had come down those steps.

  Feeling like a bug here, Alastair located a pot of coffee kept on brew for Chicago’s finest on skeleton crew. The grand World’s Fair had siphoned off many a cop. Faithfuls were being asked to work double shifts, and why else hire on the first woman civilian in the department—Gabrielle Tewes?

  Alastair was not about to give up his search for the truth surrounding what really happened that day at Haymarket, not for any avowed
reason. The issue remained burning in his gut and in his heart; he couldn’t let got so easily as others. He had lost six fellow officers and friends that day to a bomb no one had taken credit for. Historians already called it a defining moment in Illinois and U.S. labor-relations history, but it was also a defining moment in exactly who Alastair Ransom was. Perhaps he was chasing ghosts, phantom information that did not exist, but by the same token, he could not let any chance to get at the records on the subject go by. Too many good men had died for this, one having pulled Ransom to safety before keeling over with a severed femoral artery.

  The riot was a benchmark for the establishment of new laws governing the conduct of police officials, a turning point in public opinion regarding unionist workers and unions, plus it forged the first labor laws with teeth. As a result, Illinois led the rest of the nation in this politically charged arena. The cost in human life was too great to ignore and a statue in a hidden cove outside a small police district was not enough for Ransom.

  When he’d returned to his desk, coffee in hand, Ransom began cleaning away flyers and papers and files, only to discover an anonymous note printed in large letters, reading,

  REMEMBER HAYMARKET

  He took in the room. It could have been the sergeant who looked up at him, or Logan, or Behan, or any number of others. In a sense, Ransom’s crusade to keep the memory of that day alive and fresh in every foot soldier’s mind was perhaps sinking in with some of the lads. Still the prevailing winds kept saying, let the dead bury the dead.

  Just then, coming through a doorway that led into the archives of dead cases and documents, came Gabrielle Tewes, Jane’s daughter, her eyes wide, coming straight for Alastair. “I’m so glad I found you on duty and what a shock!”

  “That I’m on duty?”

  “Well, no…I’m referring to what I’ve uncovered.”