by Sikes, AJ
“What’re. . .I get paid for this job?”
“Is for passage. You are messenger now; immortal. Still may need passage in future,” she said. Brand caught a gleam in her eye as she spoke. “Coins are for that.”
“But I—” the tramp spotted Brand and skittered down the steps, dragging his heavy bicycle as he came. “Mitchell Brand, I know you.”
Brand’s eyes rounded at the tramp. It was Old Man Farnsworth. No question. Same beaky nose. Same squinty eyes and tousled thinning hair like the man had been running his fingers through it non-stop for days on end. Brand staggered away, down the steps, nearly tripping over his feet. The tramp, Farnsworth, followed until they stood a few feet apart by the curbside.
The cab waited behind Brand, the door still open. Snow flitted down around the men and they stared at each other. Brand took in the old man’s features more carefully. He’d filled in now, no longer a shell of his former self. But he looked a damn sight worse than the last time Brand had set eyes on the man. Farnsworth the Tramp stared back with a look of shock and wonderment. His eyes welled and his lip blubbered.
“It’s me, Brand. It’s Josiah Farnsworth.” The voice cracked and rattled in Brand’s ears, but it was the old man’s all right.
“What the blazes gives with this?” Brand said.
“I— I didn’t know it’d come to this, Brand. I just wanted to protect my little girl. She won’t have to worry about Nitti or the Mayor or anyone coming now. It’s all gone. I made sure of it. It’s all gone and done without her. She won’t have as much as if I’d been alive to give it to her, but she’ll be okay. You’ll tell her, won’t you? Tell her for me?”
Madame Tibor’s voice came down to them. “Messengers should not spend time talking to mortals.”
Brand flicked his eyes her way. Her face seemed to glow a burnt orange against the darkness of the wintery night and her scarves had caught the draft to form a swirling aurora around her head. Brand had a reply on his tongue when the air shook around him. Farnsworth straddled his bike again and pulled the city aside. Like outside the Brauerschift garage that morning, Brand saw the twinkling of a city skyline appear as if behind a curtain. Then Farnsworth winked out of sight and the city draped back into place. Brand staggered another step back and fell against the cab. He searched the area, glancing in every direction, landing his eyes on the steps leading into the gala. Madame Tibor and her husband had vanished.
The cabbie’s voice shook Brand from his vigil.
“You getting in, buddy? I can get another fare—”
“Yeah,” Brand cut him off and slid into the rear seat. He gave the cabbie the address to his rooms and closed the door. Outside, the snow stopped falling and the wind died down. The car sluggishly pulled away from the curb. Brand thought about what he’d seen on the steps and what he’d seen on Valentine’s morning. Something bigger than The Outfit and the Mayor combined had come to Chicago City. Maybe it had been here all along, and this was Brand’s first glimpse of it. Maybe he was finally cracking up, the shell shock catching up to him like it had so many other men. He couldn’t shake the images from his mind. The tramp in the empty lot outside the Brauerschift building. Old Man Farnsworth dressed in rags. The twinkling landscape behind a curtain of. . .of what? The city itself? Brand closed his eyes on the night and its mysteries and settled back, letting the cabbie carry him off to whatever was coming next.
Chapter 7
Emma pulled her car up outside the plant offices. She turned to her passenger and kissed him. He returned the kiss with hesitation, finally pulling away to look Emma in the eye.
“Lovebird, you took some kind of risk putting me in this car with you tonight. Front seat, too. What’s got you so crazy you’re breaking all the rules now?”
“It’s nothing, Eddie. Just dad again. He’s drunk and probably needs me to clean up after him, like always. I’ll just be a minute in there. Lay low, okay? I’ll be back and then we can get out of here and back to your place.”
Eddie’s dark skin reflected the light from a lamp hanging over the office entrance. Emma saw the worry in his eyes.
“Don’t, Eddie Boy. Don’t worry.”
“I’ll be all right. You just be quick in there like you say. Coppers don’t come around here at night, but just the same. Be easier to smile when I don’t have to worry about a hangman’s noose coming up behind me.”
Emma got out and held her coat tight as she walked to the entrance. It was after two in the morning but sure enough, the light was still on in her father’s office. Kicking snow off her shoes as she went, Emma wondered if this was the time to spill everything. She thought she’d made up her mind after talking with Brand, but standing in the snow outside the plant, her gut twisted and her tongue felt like it would do the same.
Eddie and his band were there at the gala, just like she’d asked. If the Mayor hadn’t known before, he was suspicious for sure now. And that investor who pulled her onto the floor after she spoke with Brand. The man caught on when Emma couldn’t stop looking at Eddie as they danced. After the dance, the young man snarled something about dark meat and the smell of smoke before he disappeared into the crowd, leaving Emma standing alone in front of the bandstand.
She shook off the memory and the fear it inspired as she unlocked the office door and stepped inside. Even with all the foyer lights off, Emma knew something wasn’t right.
The secretary’s desk was a mess, like she’d closed up shop and left in a rush. A waste bin dripped with water, lying on its side in front of her father’s office.
Emma could hear Eddie’s voice in her mind, warning her to watch her step. She had different ideas about what it meant to be careful though. She stepped over the waste bin and pushed the door open. Her shriek came fast like a razor through the curtain of the night.
Eddie was there in a flash, but to Emma it seemed like everything happened in slow motion. She stepped into the middle of the room, tears falling in sheets from her eyes. Her father’s right hand cradled the gun in his lap, pushing the muzzle against his belly. Eddie came in behind her. The door creaked slowly open. Eddie let his shock out in a whispered exhale. Emma stepped forward. She stepped to the desk, putting her fingertips in front of the brass nameplate that read Josiah Farnsworth, Owner. Emma stepped to one side, moving carefully to avoid brushing against the broken picture frames and scattered papers. She kept her eyes off the blood and focused on the gun instead. She gingerly lifted it from her dead father’s fingers.
“What in blazes are you doing, Emma Girl?” Eddie gasped, looking more haunted and harried than she’d ever seen him. Emma didn’t respond at first. Then time snapped back to normal for her. She took careful steps to avoid the debris around the desk, and marched for the door when she was clear of disturbing anything. Eddie followed close, ducking to hide behind her. They got back to the car and Eddie slouched in the front seat to completely hide from view.
“Lovebird, what…”
“Nitti did it. So I’m going to do Nitti.”
Eddie stayed down on the drive over to his place. Crossing the Chicago River, they could both hear the hum of the police airships overhead. Emma drove a steady course through the city, weaving a path away from her father’s plant and into the South Loop neighborhoods where Eddie lived. Airships circled the central districts and over the waterfront. Their searchlights cut through the small hours, slicing the darkness into curtains of night and shadow that threatened to peel back and release every one of their worst nightmares.
#
Brand settled himself back at his rooms. He kicked his shoes off by the door and enjoyed a few deep breaths in his favorite chair with his feet aimed at the radiator. The warm air just filled that corner and then dissipated into the surrounding cold of the room. He hunkered into the cushions, wrapping an old afghan around his shoulders and neck. As the first nods of sle
ep came on, he heard footsteps echoing in his mind as if in a half-dream, and then something heavy dropping to a wooden floor. Voices argued in Brand’s drowsy thoughts. A frantic hammering on his door startled him awake and sent him lurching up from the chair.
Foosteps, real ones, retreated down the hall. Somewhere outside, Brand heard a car engine revving against the cold. He went to the window. Outside two men in dark coats got into a long sedan. The door snapped shut and the car pulled away from the curb pretty as you please, like nothing in the world could be wrong. Brand watched it go, reminded of how Frank Nitti’s sedan had rumbled away from him in the yard outside of the Farnsworth plant. Was it Nitti’s car? He couldn’t tell for sure through the gathering snowfall.
The car slunk down the street, rounded a corner and was gone. Brand shivered as he stood by the window and moved to his chair. He’d lifted the afghan over his chest and then remembered the sound of something heavy falling to the floor. Muffled voices arguing, the pounding on his door. A body lay on the floor outside his door, wrapped in an old threadbare coat. Peeling back the blood soaked fabric, Brand saw a young face bruised so badly it was almost unrecognizable. But Brand knew it, he knew the boy it had belonged to before The Outfit took it from him and made it into a message. Brand learned to shut himself off in the trenches. Too many times he’d been forced to look into the dead faces of young men only moments after they’d told him about the girl waiting for them back home, or the baby brother or sister they hadn’t met yet. Just before they climbed over the trench wall and threw themselves into the arms of death. But they’d known what they’d signed up for. They knew the job could be deadly. Probably would be.
A newsboy’s gig wasn’t supposed to get him killed. It wasn’t supposed to end with him being taken apart by the mob just for shipping papers around the street. Brand felt the tears start quickly, in a flood, and he felt them end quickly as he stood and went to the phone. He stared at the body in the hall while the operator connected him.
“I’m sorry, Jenkins. I should have given you the mic this morning after all.”
Chapter 8
The next morning, exhausted from the night before, Brand went into the Record offices early and made straight for the elevators. He got out on the fifteenth floor and stalked down the hall to Chief’s office. The boss was running his hands through his thinning hair when Brand came in.
“Thanks for saving me the trouble of calling you up here, Mitch. Before you get started, let me tell you what you don’t know and what you aren’t going to do today. I wish it weren’t like this, Mitch. I do. But dammit, you ruffled the wrong set of feathers yesterday. As much as I hate to say it, with this suicide we’ve got a way out of the mess you made.”
Brand’s head turned around and his body followed. He went out and came back in again. “Yeah, it’s your office all right. But you lost me somewhere between the door and what you’re talking about.”
“Farnsworth. The old man. He shot himself last night. His daughter is missing, no gun found at the scene. But his secretary was there when it happened. She heard the shot, went to investigate, saw the old man’s brains on the wall behind him. She ran off then, but locked up like always. So the coppers have her held as material for now.”
Brand stood quiet for a moment. Should he say anything? Not about the ghostly tramp he’d seen on the steps outside the gala hall last night. No. Not a word about that. But if there was a connection between the old man killing himself and the Clark Street hit, and the coppers found out about it and came sniffing around the Daily Record. . .
“Meant to ask you about Farnsworth this morning, Chief. Guess I don’t have to now.”
“What about him?”
“The Outfit might have been running a patsy on the old man. Frank Nitti was out there at the plant yesterday, Emma Farnsworth, too. I ran into both of them before I went in to have a chat with ol’ Josiah. Didn’t get much, but I got enough to make it clear there’s more to find. Or maybe there was.”
“The Commissioner called, Mitch. You’re to cool it on the Clark Street thing. That’s what I meant about what you’re not doing today. Or any day. No more reports on the massacre, even if you think there’s a connection there. And you know I’m ready to believe you that there is. Just let it go away.”
Brand opened his lips to protest, but the look in Chief’s eyes took them both back to No-Man’s Land. Chief had been trying to get a wounded boy off the wall and back down into the trench. Artillery came in, just as a second line of boys was going up over the wall. Brand saw a lot of blood. Chief saw more, and too much more. His eyes now had the same look they’d had that day, and Brand got the message loud and clear. He took a deep breath and sat down in the chair beside Chief’s desk.
“Just send out a story about Farnsworth in print and do a radio bit. Keep it short, and nothing about the Outfit. Not on this story, and—not anywhere, Mitch. When your newsboys get in, I need them up here. The Commissioner’s on his way.”
“The Commissioner? What’s he want with the kids?”
“Got me. He says somebody higher up wants to personally debrief with them since they took the paper down to the streets.”
“Somebody? Somebody who?”
“I don’t know, Mitch. I’ve been on and off the horn with the Commissioner since yesterday. Way he tells it, somebody’s worried about the massacre getting the city in a panic. I’m surprised he didn’t have anything to say about the photo you grabbed, but maybe he’s just holding that one to hit me with later. If you don’t play ball, I mean. That’s from the Commissioner, Mitch. Everything I’m telling you here. It’s what he says.”
“Yeah? And what do you say?”
“Me? Hell, Mitch. You know me better than that. Now c’mon and get in line with the rest of us joes, hey? Send the kids up when they get in.”
Brand let it sink in. Sure enough, somebody wanted to scare the newsboys, and the same somebody wanted Brand to clam up, too. “You can have Digs and Conroy when they get here.”
“Jenkins, too.”
“He won’t be in today, Chief. He came by my rooms last night.”
“You telling me you got the kid sauced and left him in your rooms to sleep it off?”
“I’m telling you that he came by my place after an appointment with Capone’s boys. They delivered him. Most of him. His left arm was missing and so were his legs at the knees. I’m betting you don’t want Digs and Conroy seeing anything like that. I know I sure as hell don’t.”
Chief stared at his desk and then let his eyes flick up to meet Brand’s.
“I’m. . .I’m sorry, Mitch.”
Brand let out the breath he’d been holding and clenched his jaw tight, forcing the tears and angry words back down his throat. All he could think about was Jenkins’ bloodied face. Holding his head in his hands, Brand said “You can tell the Commissioner or whoever it is that they don’t need to worry about Jenkins talking to anybody.”
Shaking himself to pull his heart out of his shoes, Brand stood to leave. Chief told him to wait. When Brand turned to look at him, he saw Chief’s eyes flashing on that look from the trenches again.
“Something else you need to tell me, Chief?”
“Yeah,” he said, the issue of Jenkins’ murder apparently forgotten. He lifted a page of notes from his desk and handed it across to Brand. “Three more dead tramps last night.”
“Where’d it happen?” Brand asked, feeling the room begin to spin. He fought to control the floor with his feet.
“Their camp. Over by the riverside. It isn’t going to be a pretty story, not by a long shot. Keep the blood on the QT. Stick to the facts and only as many as you need to make it news.” Chief was almost done, but then he let his fingertips rest together and brought them up to his lips.
“Just in case. I’d better get that picture box from you. No
more nabbing shots from the crabs, at least not until things blow over a bit. It’s too hot right now.”
Brand felt the room settle around him. The spinning stopped. He looked Chief in the eye. “You’re not bluffing.” Brand passed the photo viewer through the stony silence. Chief tucked it into a drawer without looking at it, instead letting his gaze rest on the papers covering his desk while he chewed at the inside of his lips. Brand had seen Chief work his jaw like that plenty of times, and he knew it meant his friend had something else on his mind. Something that would stay unspoken. Brand spun on his heel and stormed out, heading straight for the lift. He needed the security of his office around him. Maybe he needed a slug from the bottle in his desk.
The lift stopped at the fourth floor and he got out, nearly running over the two newsboys he had left.
“Mr. Brand!” Conroy piped up with a grin on his mug. Brand tried to match the mood, but his face didn’t cooperate. Conroy’s grin slid off his face and Digs came up behind him, wearing the same worried look.
“What’s the story, boss?” Digs asked.
Brand told them about Jenkins, leaving out the details. Then he directed them up to Chief’s office for the debriefing with the Commissioner.
“I guess the Commissioner wants to know if any riots started when people saw the front page.”
“Well, hey,” Digs said. “That’s easy enough then, ain’t it? We can tell him like it happened. Didn’t one of us sell a single paper yesterday.”
“How’s that?” Brand demanded, rounding on the boy, who jumped back a step.
“Honest, Mr. Brand. I think Conroy here got the farthest of all of us, but, well you tell him,” Digs shoved his friend’s shoulder. Conroy gave Brand a sheepish look and then told him how it went down, how all three of them had been waylaid by teams of gangsters who picked up the whole set of papers and rolled off in their cars with them. The kid smiled when he got to the part about the guy handing him a sawbuck, but his face drooped when he mentioned Jenkins’ name a second later. Brand let him finish and ushered them into the lift for their meeting with the Commissioner. On the way back to his office he promised himself a double from the bottle. Knowing that every copy of the special edition had been nabbed by Capone’s Outfit gave Brand a sinking feeling. The mobster had it in for him on this story. Capone didn’t want word getting out about the crime scene. Brand remembered the touch of Frank Nitti’s glove on his cheek. The Outfit had no problem making more crime scenes for Brand, and if he kept it up they’d make him one special, all his own. At the door to his office Brand turned to watch the lift slowly rising away with Digs and Conroy inside. He hoped that whatever the Commissioner had to say it was short and sweet, but something told him the worst was yet to come.
