"Sort of," Fahey said sourly, "although the Crime Commission and the other civic groups are claiming we should have got onto Taylor a lot sooner. They don't say how we should have known about him, but then, they're great at playing the old 'Monday morning quarterback' game. Sooner or later the quote 'poor police work' is bound to turn up in at least one of the papers."
Fahey had it right, as so often is the case in his predictions about the press. The exact quote, from the head of the Crime Commission, did indeed pop up in a Sun-Times story the very next morning. I was also right, not surprisingly, in my own prediction that the papers would have a picnic with the discovery of Rob Taylor's maniacal writings.
FAIR KILLER'S RAVINGS BARED! read the Trib banner, while the Sun-Times went with LETTERS REVEAL MIND OF YOUNG MADMAN! Even the normally sedate Daily News could not contain itself, opting for MURDERER WROTE DAILY TO DEAD FATHER, while Hearst's Herald-American, to be expected, topped everybody with DEPRAVED KILLER SPELLED IT ALL OUT FOR US!
Chapter Forty-Seven
After devouring all the stories in the four papers at my desk in the pressroom, I reached a long-distance operator on my telephone and gave her a California number I had kept on a neatly folded sheet of paper in my wallet.
After the second ring, a cultured female voice informed me I had reached "Mr. Walt Disney's office."
When I identified myself, she treated me like an old friend whose call had been eagerly anticipated. "Oh yes, I will put you right through, sir," she said crisply.
"Ah, Mr. Malek, it is so good to hear from you," Walt Disney said in a hearty tone. "Do you bring me some news from your grand railroad fair?"
I told him I did and proceeded to relate the saga of Rob Taylor, from his father's tragic life all the way through to the grim finale on the fairgrounds, ending my narrative with: "So, you were absolutely right, Mr. Disney. You had it all figured out correctly, and because of you, a lot of lives surely got saved."
"Well, this is a very sad story," the filmmaker said, "but I am glad you prevented what would have been a far, far worse tragedy. Also, I want to relay all of this to Ward Kimball, who as I told you in Chicago often accuses me of indulging in flights of fancy. Although I must say in these tragic circumstances, I take no pleasure in having been correct."
"Nonetheless, this particular flight of fancy of yours turned out to be an arrow that made a direct hit on the bulls-eye," I said. "The fair certainly owes you a debt of thanks, although they may never know it."
He laughed. "I would rather they didn't know it. The people at the fair owe me nothing, Mr. Malek. They gave me so much pleasure when I was there that if anything, I am in their debt, and they are most surely in your debt. Have you recovered from your injuries?"
"Yes, they were superficial at most. I appreciate your concern."
"You might be interested to know since I've been back here, I have begun thinking in earnest about my amusement park," Disney said. "I can't begin to tell you how many ideas I've gotten from the railroad fair that I plan to incorporate in the park."
"So you can call the trip a success in more ways than one?"
"Indeed I can, Mr. Malek. And if you ever find yourself out here in beautiful Southern California, I insist you look me up. I would like to give you a tour of our studio, and perhaps someday, of our new amusement park as well. I'll need to come up with a name for it, though."
"I believe it should have your name somewhere in the title," I said, as much to humor him as anything else. It still sounded like a half-baked idea to me.
Chapter Forty-Eight
Not surprisingly, the last few weeks of the Chicago Railroad Fair were more than a little anticlimactic for me. Oh, I still cranked out stories all right, some of them actually suggested by the new young P.R. man and the enthusiastic Charlene Miller, both of whom had stepped up and filled at least some of the public relations void left by Fred Metzger and Rob Taylor.
A few examples: an interview with a grizzled seventy-nine-year-old gold miner, who had panned for the stuff during the Klondike Gold Rush in the Yukon in 1897 and spun his yarns, some of them possibly true, at the "Gold Gulch" frontier town; a talk with a mid-season newcomer to the outdoor ice show, a thirteen-year-old skating sensation from suburban Glen Ellyn, who outperformed many of her older and more seasoned colleagues; and a profile of Janie Brady Jones, the octogenarian widow of locomotive engineer Casey Jones, who visited the fair almost a half century after her legendary husband's death in a storied rail collision on the Illinois Central down in Mississippi.
I looked forward to the closing of the fair in early October for a pair of reasons. First, of course, the assignment I got maneuvered into was ending; second, and far more important, being a date I had down in Missouri shortly after the fair's end.
"Glorious" best described a sunny October Saturday in the well-heeled St. Louis suburb of Clayton. In the back yard of a handsome Georgian-style house, a white canopy crowned by brightly colored streamers stood out against the backdrop of a rolling green lawn.
The blue-robed minister stepped forward and opened his book to begin the litany of the marriage ceremony for Amanda Gail Rogers and Peter Reed Malek. As we all stood on the grass under the canopy for the short service, I glanced at Catherine to my right and saw a bit of moisture in her eyes, then looked to my left at Norma and noticed the same. My former and present wives, united in their emotions.
I danced with four women on that fine afternoon: Catherine, Norma, Amanda, and Amanda's mother–more dancing than I had done in one day in probably twenty years. Amazingly, not a single toe got stepped on, which probably was more a tribute to the ladies' dancing prowess than to mine.
After a honeymoon in San Francisco, the newlyweds would begin their lives together in a spacious four-room apartment in the Lakeview neighborhood, not far from Wrigley Field, and they would commute on the Howard Elevated Line to their downtown jobs: Amanda's in the Nineteenth-Century European Art Department at the Art Institute and Peter's at the renowned architectural firm of Skidmore, Owings & Merrill.
Chapter Forty-Nine
I now had become a man without an assignment–and very possibly without employment of any sort whatever. The Monday morning following the wedding, I ventured to Tribune Tower at the request of Managing Editor J. Loy (Pat) Maloney, reasonably certain I would receive my walking papers from him.
Maloney was on the phone when I got to the paper's imposing two-story local room. He indicated with hand gestures that he would be tied up for a while. While waiting, I shot the breeze with Hal Murray and also with Eddie Williamson, the ace rewrite men to whom I had dictated so many stories from the railroad fair in recent days.
I then plopped down just outside Maloney's glassed-in office for what seemed like an hour but was probably closer to twenty minutes. He finally cradled his receiver and beckoned me in with a wave of an arm.
"Mr. Malek," he said as I parked myself in a guest chair, "sorry for the delay, but Colonel McCormick's calls take precedence, as you know. Well, you've had yourself quite a summer out there at the fair, haven't you? Not exactly what any of us had bargained for, wouldn't you say?"
"I certainly would."
"You did a fine job, though, a fine job. Mr. Murray sang your praises to me on more than one occasion. And you are of course aware he doesn't hand out kudos willy-nilly, that is not his style. So the assignment turned out to be quite a success, especially given that you were not exactly eager to take it on."
"To be honest, no sir, I wasn't, as you could probably tell when the subject first came up."
"I would expect nothing less than honesty from you, Mr. Malek. And you would expect nothing less than honesty from me, correct?"
"That's right," I said, sucking in air. Here comes the hammer, I thought. Time to learn a new trade, if that was possible at my age.
Maloney leaned back, lacing his hands behind his head, for him a characteristic pose, especially when he made a pronouncement. "Mr. Murray and I talked about y
ou earlier this morning. It is his firm belief, and I highly esteem his judgment, that you can be of the most value to the Tribune at Police Headquarters. Do I gather you concur?"
I must have let out a cubic yard of air out before answering. "You gather right, sir."
"Good, good. I'm happy to hear it. Then we are of one mind."
"What about Westcott?"
Maloney smiled. "I thought you would probably ask, as you have always been known for your interest in the welfare of your colleagues. You'll be interested to learn Mr. Westcott is going back to general assignment reporting."
"Is he okay with that?"
"He is indeed. I know you had a vacation last week. Something about a wedding, as I recall. I trust the happy occasion went well."
"Yes, it did," I replied in a raspy voice. "I now have a wonderful daughter-in-law."
"Good, I'm so glad to hear it. Would you be able to report at Police Headquarters on…oh, let's say, next Monday?"
"I will report there whenever you tell me to, Mr. Maloney."
"Then next Monday it is," he said with a disarming smile, standing and pumping my hand. "Oh, and Mr. Malek?"
"Yes sir?"
"When you are back on the job at Headquarters, please give my warmest regards to Chief Fahey. Our paths crossed many times years ago, when he was a much-decorated sergeant and I toiled as a young police reporter."
"I will, sir," I said.
One week later, I walked into the pressroom at Headquarters and received…a standing ovation!
"We heard a rumor you were coming back, Snap," Packy Farmer said, "but we weren't going to believe it until you walked through the doorway. Westcott wouldn't tell us a damned word about it, but a funny thing happened here last Wednesday, didn't it, Dirk?"
"Yeah," O'Farrell said, "except it was Thursday. I headed out to lunch, and down in the lobby I ran into Fahey's cute little secretary, Elsie. She smiled at me and said, 'Well, I guess you'll all be happy with the change in the pressroom next week, won't you?'
"When I looked puzzled, she said something like, 'Oops, I guess maybe I talked out of turn, didn't I? Please ignore what I said.'"
"Just what do you make of that, Snap?" O'Farrell asked.
"I don't know, but it sounds like I was just about the last one to know what's been going on here lately."
"Well, with you back in harness now," Anson Masters said after clearing his throat, "maybe the rest of us will have a better idea of what's going on down in the Detective Bureau. To say the least, we did not get particularly well served by your replacement, Mr. Westcott."
"So I have been led to believe."
"Well, enough of the raillery," Masters said. "It's time for all of us to get to our beats."
I walked down the one flight to Fergus Fahey's office, where I was greeted by Elsie Dugo Cascio's dazzling smile. "Welcome back–for good, I trust," she said, squeezing me. "At the risk of being seen as forward, I must tell you that you have been missed!"
"Thank you. I missed you as well. I do have a question, though."
"I'll see if I have an answer."
"By any chance, did your esteemed boss at any time in the last several days make a call to, or receive one from, Mr. J. Loy (Pat) Maloney, the esteemed managing editor of the Chicago Tribune?"
Elsie pouted. "You know very well I'm not at liberty to answer the question. You will have to ask him yourself."
"I will do just that," I said, pulling a new pack of Lucky Strikes out of my suit jacket pocket as I swung open the door to the office of Chief of Detectives Fergus Sean Fahey.
The End
Author's Notes
The preceding is a work of fiction and all of its principal characters, other than those listed below, are my own creations. Also, all of the instances in which historical characters interact with fictional ones are strictly products of my imagination.
Walter Elias ("Walt") Disney is one of the giants of U.S. cinematic history. His company's 1930s and 1940s productions, among them Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Dumbo, Pinocchio, and Fantasia, set the gold standard for film animation, and through Disney cartoon shorts and comic books, the irascible Donald Duck and the amiable Mickey Mouse became indisputable American cultural icons.
In addition to films, the Disney machine expanded into television, first with a highly rated weekly show and then with the purchase of the ABC television network. Today, the Walt Disney Company is the largest media and entertainment conglomerate in the world, with annual revenue in the billions of dollars. The company's theme parks, beginning with the opening of Disneyland in Anaheim, California, in 1955, are also in Florida, France, Japan, and China.
Walt Disney attended the Chicago Railroad Fair with Ward Kimball in 1948, although I used literary license and moved the visit to 1949, the fair's second season. In his 2006 book, Walt Disney: The Triumph of the American Imagination, Neal Gabler wrote that Disney's visit to the Railroad Fair helped inspire him to create Disneyland.
Disney, a heavy smoker, died of lung cancer in December 1966, a week after his sixty-fifth birthday.
Ward Kimball, who attended the Chicago Railroad Fair with Walt Disney, is widely recognized as one of the legendary figures in film animation. An Academy Award winner, the man whom Disney termed a "genius" created several of the animated characters in Disney films, among them Jiminy Cricket in Pinocchio, Lucifer the Cat in Cinderella, and Tweedledum and Tweedledee in Alice in Wonderland. Kimball, who worked for the Disney Studios from 1934 until the '70s, died in 2002 at the age of eighty-eight.
John C. Prendergast began his forty-three-year career with the Chicago Police Department in the first decade of the twentieth century. He served as police commissioner from 1945 until his retirement in 1950. He died in 1958 at the age of seventy-four.
J. Loy (Pat) Maloney started his Chicago Tribune career in 1917. Over the years he rose steadily through the ranks at the paper and became its managing editor in 1939 on the death of Bob Lee. He directed the Tribune's news coverage throughout World War II and into the Post-War era, retiring in 1950 for health-related reasons. He died in 1976 at the age of eighty-five.
Harold (Hal) Murray was a longtime newsman with the Tribune, joining the paper in 1934 after working at the City News Bureau of Chicago. For the Trib, his reporting beats included City Hall and the Criminal Courts. He then became an editor, and served as day city editor until his retirement in 1971. He died in 1995 at the age of eighty-eight.
Martin H. Kennelly was mayor of Chicago for two terms, from 1947 to 1955. He came into office as a "reformer" following the corrupt regime of his predecessor, Edward J. Kelly. Kennelly proved too independent to suit the Democratic bosses, however, and he got defeated in a primary by the candidate favored by the party machine–Richard J. Daley. That marked the beginning of a Daley dynasty that has continued in the form of Richard M. Daley, who, like his father, has served more than twenty years in the position. The younger Daley leaves office in 2011.
The Whiting, Indiana, Refinery Fire. Serious students of Chicago history will note that as with Walt Disney's visit to the Railroad Fair, I moved this occurrence to 1949 from its actual date. The multi-million-dollar fire and subsequent explosions took place in August of 1955 and laid waste to much of the 1,600-acre Standard Oil of Indiana refinery just south and east of Chicago along the shores of Lake Michigan. Fortunately, the inferno caused little loss of life, although hundreds suffered injuries and more than 1,000 Whiting residents got temporarily evacuated from their homes, many of which were destroyed or damaged.
I took descriptions of the event from newspaper reports, including the terrifying naphtha explosion and ensuing fireball that rocketed into the sky, as well as the auto that landed upside down on the ruins of a garage.
Train Mishaps. Three of the train wrecks referred to were historical: the 1918 Hegenbeck-Wallace Circus train disaster near Hammond, Indiana; the 1921 collision between two passenger trains in Porter, Indiana; and the 1946 tragedy in Naperville, Illinois, in wh
ich one Burlington Route passenger train rear-ended another. There was heavy loss of life in all three. The fourth mishap mentioned, in which three boys got killed by a freight train, was purely fictional.
The Chicago Railroad Fair of 1948 and 1949, celebrating the centennial of railroading in the Windy City, was sponsored by thirty-eight railroads and the Pullman Company and occupied fifty acres of land along Lake Michigan south of downtown Chicago. It became the last such exposition of its scope, and marked the final time such a vast array of vintage operating railroad equipment got brought together in a single place. Its organizers and the railroads in general considered the fair to be a success. According to the Chicago Tribune, "The Railroad Fair has been successful far beyond the expectations of the men who started it." According to reports, in its two seasons, the fair drew more than 5.5 million visitors.
Acknowledgements
As with my four previous Snap Malek novels, I relied heavily on the microfilm files of the daily newspapers, particularly the Chicago Tribune, for information on news, sports, politics, personalities, and major events of the era, including of course the Chicago Railroad Fair. As a longtime journalist, I confess to an inbred bias toward newspapers, a medium that continues to struggle. But to me it remains the best prism through which to view contemporary society and its vagaries.
Also of great help in jogging the memory of one who attended the fair several times as a ten- and eleven-year-old from the Chicago suburbs were two collectors' items: the slick 1948 and 1949 fair programs (cost: 35 cents), both of which provided valuable details on the displays, exhibits, and geography of the fair, as well as illustrations and other information on specific railroads represented.
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