City of the Absent

by Robert W. Walker

  “They fear that after their own deaths, someone will steal their bodies and sell them to a medical school. That one day they’d feel the ripping out of their own organs.” Foolish as this sounded when she spoke it aloud, to her medical mind, somehow Jane knew the truth of it. Superstition remained the coin of the day, far more so than religion with promises of penance and redemption. Oddly, the pair acted in sync, as if of one mind, and together they suffered a fear beyond reason, despite their outward appearance of happiness.

  It reminded Jane of something her father had instilled in her. He would say, “Success is getting what you want, Jane, but it’s happiness that is illusive. Happiness is wanting what your success has won. Happiness is seldom established and firm and finally within your grasp. Happiness drives men insane.”

  She gave a prayer to the now long dead, real Dr. James Tewes, a man who’d swept her up, a man whom she’d believed in need of her, and a man quite worth fixing, like Ransom now. If only there were such an animal; it never worked, going into a relationship believing you could fix another person. If he needs fixing, he’s no good for you. Run like hell, she screamed silently inside the cab. She didn’t want to be around when Alastair Ransom decided to destroy himself as James had.

  Tears filled Jane’s eyes.

  It made her think of the passion and happiness she’d found with Alastair, and how damnably illusive it had proven to be. She gave a passing thought to all the promises they’d made to one another, or rather, all her promises, as he had been far more reserved. In fact, as the coach arrived at her home, she realized that it had all been rather one-sided, that she’d made a fool of herself over him, whispering all those sweet nothings in his ear there in bed, while he had literally kept mum. Alastair had whispered nothing in return.

  Ransom found Hake the next day at Hake’s filthy apartment, sleeping amid racing forms, spoiled food, dirty sheets, and an even dirtier woman. Ransom pulled him to his feet and instantly regretted it. Hake’s scream sent horrid odors from his fetid throat into Alastair’s nostrils. “God, man, you got drunk and you passed out! You were supposed to find me last night! Three A.M., remember? Something about a file that likely doesn’t exist!”

  “I give it to yer boy!”

  “What?”

  “I got there a bit late, but I give it to the boy. Samuel, said he was yours. Nothing in the file about you having a kid.”

  “He’s a house guest, not my son! Damn you, Hake! You gave that file to Sam!” Ransom let the man slide back to his bed sheets and his woman.

  “What ’bout the payment? Twenty more, you said.”

  “The boy and the file are gone, fool! And I’ve no idea where.”

  “You mean the kid’ll sell it to the highest bidder?”

  “What’s the matter, Hake? You upset you didn’t think of it first?”

  “I got no love loss for Pinkerton.”

  Ransom frowned at the man. It was obvious he wasn’t going to his sister’s, if he had one, and that he’d long ago spent all he had on the booze and the broad.

  Ransom threw a twenty at him and said, “You find that boy, you give me a call.”

  “Sure…sure. Sorry, I took him for—”

  “And next time you assume I’m a father, let me know in advance, OK, so when we go to visit Dr. Fenger at Cook County, we can do it up right.”

  “Cook County…Fenger? Hospital?”

  “So they can get my foot out of your ass.”

  “Look here!” shouted Hake’s scar-faced woman. “Who do you think you are?” She was shit-faced drunk, too.

  “Shut up, Dorcas! That’s the man!”

  She slapped Hake hard for his disrespectful tone.

  Hake hauled off and slapped her back.

  She hit him again, and he returned the favor as Ransom rushed for the door. As Ransom turned to pull it shut behind him, he saw that the two besotted souls had fallen into one another’s arms and began renewing their passion.

  He closed the door on the “lovers” and wondered where in the city Samuel might be at that moment with the file.

  CHAPTER 29

  Scattered leaves intermingled with discarded leftovers, fish heads, and other leavings conspired to stink up the Chicago wharves where boats and ships of every size, flag, stripe, and kind took up space like so many dinosaurs afloat. Amid the rubble and beneath the half-light of a world that might well’ve been conceived by Dante Alighieri in his Divine Comedy’s Inferno, an old, wretched, bent-at-the-hip man collected bottles, rags, fish parts, often fighting off cats, seagulls, and wharf rats as he went, arguing with them in a loud brogue, arms flailing. Amid the squalor, the old man occasionally found something that delighted him, and he’d begin to hum and laugh aloud at his good fortune over a particular trinket or found coin. The old man looked up at one point to stare into a dirty, warped window at his reflection, taking it in as if his visage and appearance were that of a stranger. Then he stared into his reflected eyes and found himself—deep in the irises.

  Just as he was about to turn from his reflection, another face, grotesquely distorted by the warped window, was beside the old man, and this big fellow with a hunchback grabbed onto the old man, holding him, pinning his arms, when a second man stepped from the shadows, a man who looked peculiarly like the gargoyle seen in the reflection, but this fellow’s features were not distorted.

  “You two fools!” shouted the old man.

  “Shut up!” cried the cleaner of the two, holding up a large blade. The blade itself shone like a third mugger, it was that large.

  “Do we gotta do it?” asked the man who’d pinned the old man against the boards.

  His thin partner replied, “We’re going to take what we want from you, old man!”

  “I got nothing but me rags and bottles to sell!”

  “Oh, but you do have your rotten old flesh!”

  Ransom, in disguise as the bottle and ragman, stomped hard on the foot of the man holding him, causing a pain so severe that he was instantly set loose. He snatched his revolver, but the knife man came at him so suddenly, he fumbled the blue-burnished steel .38 as he backed off, dropping it and watching it go over the side and into the Chicago River.

  Ransom instantly brought up the large tool for castrating horses, which he’d kept hidden beneath the ratty clothes he wore. With all his might, he swung the cast iron pinchers, striking the knifer in the temple, sending him reeling back.

  “Oooh, no!” cried the bigger one, going to the thinner one, concerned for his partner’s bleeding temple.

  “You damn fools! You’re trying to mug a Chicago cop! Damn fools! I’m a CPD inspector!”

  The lean one threw his knife at Ransom. It struck Ransom’s thick coat and belt—all part of his disguise—but the blade did not penetrate. Instead, the knife fell away, chasing Ransom’s gun into the dirty river. At this point the knifer raced off, leaving his accomplice behind.

  Ransom stomped and shouted as he approached the dumb animal before him. The big man turned, grunted, and raced after his partner.

  “Bastards! SOBs!” Ransom shouted after the pair. Few people on the darkened wharf took notice or wanted to be involved in any manner.

  Ransom, as the ragman, went on his way, toward the destination he’d planned. As he did so, he again tucked the farm instrument beneath his coat.

  He had bigger fish to fry than a pair of thugs.

  Eventually Alastair got two of the three things he wanted that night. In fact, earlier in the day he’d gotten a lead on another strange doctor, a man who might be accepting body parts and whole bodies for dissection, paying ghouls at his back door. It was information he found in Nell Hartigan’s cursory notes, notes that previously hadn’t existed and were finally located and turned over via courier from William Pinkerton’s office. The man was a Dr. Kenneth Mason. A check against the list Pinkerton had originally provided showed Mason crossed off.

  Second, this night Ransom had learned that Father Franklin Jurgen was booked on a shi
p leaving from Lake Michigan to travel through the Great Lakes, up the St. Lawrence to Catskill Bay and the Atlantic, and finally on to Boston. There, Jurgen had passage on a ship crossing the Atlantic, a cushy, expensive berth on the Cunard shipping line, all paid for by the Church in its effort to relocate him and rehabilitate their man. Alastair had paid dearly for this information from Father O’Bannion’s new secretary, who seemed to have caught an inkling of his keen interest in Father Jurgen and called him for a secret meeting. The bribe cost Ransom almost his entire month’s pay, but he believed it well worth it—if the information proved true and timely.

  The third thing he’d wanted so much to have but failed to achieve had been Jane’s forgiveness. Alastair had gone to see her, but somehow bungled the whole apology. It began well enough, but she kept pouring on the guilt until he lost his calm, and it was all she needed to hear when he reminded her of her pillow talk.

  “What happened to ‘the world can call me a fool, but I’ve got to be right with you?’ and—and, ‘No matter what it is you want, I’ll never say no to you,’ and—and—”

  That’s when Jane slammed her door in his face—a loud “Ohhh!” escaping her lungs; the ultimate act of an angry woman at a loss for words.

  Tonight it was first things first; he had to meet the ship taking Father Jurgen out of Chicago, else lose any chance to confront the skulking creep and exact some modicum of justice. So he’d put his personal problems on hold, along with any thoughts of going to see the private surgeon, Dr. Kenneth Mason and his dean, Dr. Nehemmia Conklin, names Pinkerton had crossed off the list—something about their having a contract for bodies of prisoners from the Joliet Penitentiary.

  Nell’s targeted ghoul-employer. Conklin kept coming up in Nell’s notes, but Jurgen kept coming up in Ransom’s brain. One thing at a time…first things first…

  So here he lurked in disguise.

  When he wreaked vengeance on the so-called man of God, he didn’t want to be recognized. He had to act quickly without thinking, and to this end he’d been practicing all day with the heavy iron pinchers. The tool was a prong with powerful razor-sharp jaws that cut through metal cans in an instant. Flesh should be a quick zip-zip.

  He gave a momentary thought to what Jane and Gabby might think of his level of anger and what he contemplated for the child-molesting priest. He gave a moment’s thought to sleeping on it, but he knew by then the priest would be out of the city, untouchable.

  More time passed with no sign of the priest or anyone from the church.

  Ransom continued his tiresome lurking about the wharves, listening to the constant clatter of rigging against masts under a vigorous wind, which became monotonous and sleep-inducing. He had the ship under surveillance, and every passenger arriving by private or public coach. It still bothered him to know that Father O’Bannion was protecting this monster in vestments. And such thoughts kept his eyes open.

  Soon he began to wonder if his information was worthless after all.

  Ransom was not certain precisely how he would arrange for Father Franklin Jurgen’s castration, but he’d figure it out as he went. He imagined that thinking too long and too seriously on the procedure would only hamper quick action. Like a mugging, he knew it must be done swiftly and with alacrity, without a moment’s hesitation. He knew that fast action was good action, and that any bringing of this robed priest before a judge would be worse than useless, worse than slow, amounting to no action whatsoever brought against the perverse priest, this cretin.

  At the moment only he and O’Bannion, along with Samuel, knew that he meant to personally mete out justice in this case, and O’Bannion could only surmise it as a possibility. So it must be done in such a manner that neither O’Bannion nor Samuel might be targeted as witnesses against him. He certainly didn’t want Sam picked up for questioning or mixed up in any way with the disfiguring and maiming of a priest.

  To this end, Ransom had donned one of his many disguises. Few people knew of his closet full with disguises, and fewer still knew of his habit of going about the city as someone else in order to gain and gather information, a foothold in an area, or simply to protect himself or a snitch.

  “Where the hell’re those priests?” he muttered, tiring of the wait, assuming O’Bannion would be on hand to be certain his man got aboard the Lucienta Maria, the ship Jurgen was supposedly booked on.

  Again Ransom wondered at the quality of the report he’d paid so dearly for. Perhaps it’d been a ruse all along by O’Bannion; perhaps Father Jurgen was on a train for Boston—long gone. The thought made Ransom grit his teeth when he saw sailors come alive on the Lucienta Maria, making early preparations for a sunrise departure.

  “Damn!” he cursed. “I’ve been buffaloed by O’Bannion!” Instead of getting the revenge he’d paid for, he had made a donation to the church.

  Angry with himself, angry with O’Bannion and the little secretary who played her part so well, Alastair raised his large right fist to the ship when he saw a man smoking a cigar and walking the planked deck, a man in the robes of a priest—Father Franklin Jurgen.

  He’d been on board the whole time.

  Ransom knew he had but minutes to get aboard, grab the man, excise his jewels using the horse pinchers, and get off the ship, or become stranded on Lake Michigan with the man he’d attacked and a boatful of Portuguese sailors.

  Was it a sign he should forget about his rash plan? Was it the wiser to leave the man, as O’Bannion had pleaded, to God?

  Twilight would soon be overtaking the wharf. A handful of the men had come down the walkway, still loading a few crates and bundles of cargo and supplies. Without further hesitation, Ransom made his way to the gangplank before it would be removed by the crew. As he slipped past these fellows, he found himself face-to-face with a young-looking first mate who demanded, “You, old man! Get down outta here! Off the ship.”

  Alastair grunted and said, “Was mugged. Hurt.”

  “We’ve no room for the likes of you, old man! No free rides! Off, off!”

  As Ransom was contemplating knocking out the young fool standing in his way, the priest turned at the shouting and rushed to the old man’s aide, saying, “Mr. Tate, sir, even though this poor retch has no money for passage, you must treat a fellow human with the love and dignity of his Maker. Charity, my friend—charity of language and deed is ever rewarded.”

  The man named Tate rolled his eyes and replied, “This isn’t the Salvation Army, Father.”

  Father Jurgen looked long into Ransom’s bloodshot eyes and disheveled features, a patronizing smile on his face. Jurgen then said in the softest, warmest voice Ransom could imagine, “Now tell me, old sir, are you in need of bread?”

  Using his old man’s voice, Ransom replied, “I’ve gone today now three day and night sir without food, save for the discarded cabbage and raw fish heads I find an’ boil up.”

  “Cabbage ’n’ fish heads?”

  “Some meat right ’round the jawbones.”

  “Have we not time to feed this poor man, Mr. Tianetto?” asked Jurgen of another man who appeared—the captain. Jurgen’s eyes widened with his good deed. Ransom summed him up as one of those people whose “good deeds” convinced him of his “goodness” no matter his most vile actions against the innocent.

  Helping an old man to a meal straightened his halo.

  An annoyed captain replied, “I am still not comfortable with you on board, Mr. Jurgen.”

  “It’s Father Jurgen, and I was put on this ship here and now in order to help this man!” He pointed to Ransom, unaware of the horse pinchers stitched to his inner lining.

  “Ohhh, I suppose, all right,” replied Captain Tianetto, “but you must see he gets off the ship in ten minutes.”

  “Ample time for gruel and bread in the galley!” Jurgen took firm hold of Alastair and led him toward a ladder going down into the bowels of the cramped ship. It must be fate, Ransom thought, fate that had Franklin Jurgen step out on deck for a walk about, to s
tretch and to have a smoke.

  Condescending to the aged man, Jurgen guided Ransom to the ship’s galley, noticing for the first time his cane and limp. He remarked on it.

  “The one item I’ve not had to hock yet,” said Ransom in his most gravelly voice. “’Twas given me by a dear departed one.”

  They passed other men, some sleeping in hammocks, some playing at cards, some scraping toes with huge knives, battling fungi and bunions, some chewing tobacco, while others sucked on lemons. The deeper into the hull he went with the priest, the surer Ransom felt it’d be impossible to escape or find the deck after he took care of Jurgen.

  Finally, they came to a causeway, and overhead Ransom saw moonlight filtering through a hatch. A short ladder dangled here—a quick way abovedecks. A voice of experience and instinct shouted in Ransom’s head: Now!

  Alastair instantly grabbed the unsuspecting priest who meant to assuage his guilt and sin by feeding a homeless man. With one quick blow of the wrought iron grapplers given him by Philo, he opened up a gash in Jurgen’s head. Blood painted his scalp and forehead and he went down in a daze. Ransom tore at the robes, having to lift them, tore away the man’s underwear, and in the darkness of this hole, feeling like a mad incubi or gargoyle, perched over the priest, he applied the horse tool.

  All Ransom had left to do was apply the pressure of his hands at the end of the monster mechanism.

  He hesitated, swallowed hard, and realized that perspiration poured from him.

  Jurgen cried out, “What in the name of God!”

  Calling on God this way only made Ransom surer of what he’d contemplated. “In the name of the children you’ve molested!” he shouted in response.

  Several of the sailors poured into the small area, hearing the final exchange before Jurgen’s horrid, pained scream, coming with the realization of what the old man intended as the cold steel of the pinchers telegraphed the old man’s desire. “Please, please! No!”