City of the Absent (24 page)

When they finally got to the Atgeld address of
the Rolsky brothers, it was mid-morning. The Tewes ladies held the cab at a distance for most of a half hour while uniformed police, directed by Mike O'Malley, went in and out of the residence, carrying out various items and storing these into a paddy wagon.

Jane feared they were too late, that the giant Gabby had spoken of would be arrested and hauled off to join his brother, but that was not the case. O'Malley and the others left on the police wagon with some clothing, a rug, and a box, the contents of which might be anything. She suspected the box and its contents were likely headed directly to Chief Nathan Kohler's office and lockup, pending a trial that would put Philander Rolsky away for a lifetime or until he was hung.

However, they hadn't arrested Vander Rolsky. The big man sat hunched over on his stone doorstep, head in hands, quaking, looking a bit like an abandoned child or a stone gargoyle, depending on one's attitude.

“Perhaps we should return tomorrow,” suggested Gabby.

“Whatever for?”

“I'm sure Mr. Rolsky has had enough turbulence for one day.”

“But we are hardly turbulence; besides, his soup and bread belongs to him.”

“All right, Mother, if you're sure, but I worry.”

“Worry?”

“About what O'Malley carried out of the apartment.”

“No doubt Nathan or Alastair Ransom sent him to search for anything incriminating against Vander's brother to keep him behind bars.”

“Suppose they find something truly incriminating and that poor wretched soul sitting on his stoop is left for a year or even several years without his brother to take care of him? What then?”

“You're predicting an awful future for the man. Why not a good future?”

“I fear there can be none for him. Mother, he's like a stray dog in need of…of a farm place where he can just be himself and have the run of the place and be left in peace and no one taking advantage of him.”

Their eyes met on this note. Jane had held the same fearful opinion of the big man's future. “Enough with such grim thoughts, child.”

“I tell you, Chicago eats people like Vander alive.”

“And it is equally as possible that some Chicagoans, such as ourselves, can find a place for the fellow.”

“All right, touché, but Mother, what if—”

“Come, let's keep a cheerful faith, shall we, dear?” Jane opened the slot overhead and ordered the coachman, “Carry on. Drop us across from 400 Atgeld.” She paid him well for his time, pressing a bill through the slot.

In a moment the ladies, dressed in their wide-brimmed hats and flowered, casual prints, one yellow, the other pink, climbed from the coach with the gifts they bore for Vander. “I want you to let me do the talking, Gabby.”

“Why so? Mother, what's going on inside your head?”

“The study I am doing requires no interruptions, coaching on your part, or insertions from outsiders,” she lied again. “Understood?”

“I see. I'm on hand for introductions only.”

“Exactly, to break the ice.”

The cabbie having been paid, the hansom pulled away, over the cobblestones. The ladies stood across the street from Vander's place, and they saw the last of him moving like a meandering, confused buffalo around the outside of the building.

Urn of soup and loaf of bread in hand, the ladies made haste to catch Vander before he should disappear completely. To this end, they made their way to the run-down, ram-shackle apartment house, an obvious, blatant monument to typical Chicago graft, as it screamed fire violation multiple times over. On approach, in fact, as they closed on the edifice, Jane saw the clinging wood fire escape and the stacked porches and landings rising alongside a stripped apple tree. The closer one got, the more obvious was the firetrap nature of the place.

“This place should be condemned,” said Gabby.

Jane laughed nervously. “I suspect it has been, many times over.”

“Ahhh
…and approved many times over on account of promised repairs?”

“Money talks.”

“Meanwhile lives are at risk.”

“The way of it, I'm afraid.”

They walked to the rear of the building and found it looked the same, only here was a court with a pair of trees, box elders, rising to the top of the building in search of more light.

It was a simple matter to find Vander Rolsky, as he'd returned to a kind of sitting fetal position on his back stoop. Fewer prying eyes here. Neighbors and the curious had earlier watched the police activity, but they'd all gone back to their own concerns now. The police had made Vander a public figure for fifteen minutes as they'd tagged his home as worthy of a search and seizure operation.

Vander lifted his gaze from the dirty stone steps when their combined shadows and the smell of bread and soup
caught his attention. He instantly recognized Gabby from the police station. “Oh…it's you.”

“We brought you something, Vander,” she replied.

“I'm Jane, Gabby's mother.” Jane held out the soup urn while Gabby extended the wrapped bread.

Gabby, seeing how Vander wanted the food, suggested, “Why don't we go inside where you can eat in peace?”

“And where we can talk in private,” added Jane.

Vander hesitated only a moment, his desire for the food overcoming him. He nodded and lumbered to his feet, and the three of them retired to Vander's apartment.

Deep inside the firetrap now, Vander pushed through an interior door and went directly for a small table. Here he sat like the proverbial giant of “Jack and the Beanstalk.” Wasting no time, he began slurping his soup and dipping his bread.

“Thought you might like some home cooking,” said Gabby.

His eyes registered his pleasure over the gifts they'd brought. He remained astonished. “Really good,” he muttered. “Nobody ever done such a kindness.”

“Yes, really good home cooking.” Gabby smiled across at Vander.

Jane asked, “Can I talk to you, Mr. Rolsky, about you and your brother, about how you work together, that is?”

“Philander don't let me talk to nobody. 'Specially not about work.”

“I got that impression at the station,” replied Gabby.

“Says I shouldn't talk to strangers or people—
never
.”

“Yes, but we're not strangers,” said Gabby. “You know me now. We're,
ahhh,
friends.”

“Friends?”

“Besides,” added Jane, “we can bring more gifts for you, Vander. You like gifts, don't you?”

“Yeah, I do.” He gobbled down more of the bread loaf, and a sad look passed across his features on realizing the soup had gone cold.

“All homemade, just like from mama's kitchen,” said Jane.

“I didn't hurt Mama.”

This sent a chill through Jane and Gabby—right along their spines as they exchanged a look of confusion. “What happened to your mama, Vander?” asked Jane.

“Mama and Papa was bo'f bad to us. Me and Philander.”

“Ahhh
…bad how?” asked Jane. “I mean how bad?”

“They beat on us a lot. Didn't hardly hurt me, 'cause I got thick skin and a thick head, but Philander, he got hurt bad.”

“Beaten by his father?”

“And Ma, too.”

“I want to ask you, Vander, did you and your brother ever hurt anyone else, other than your father and mother.”

“I said…I—I—I didn't hurt Ma and Pa.”

“OK…OK, I believe you, but have you and Philander ever harmed anyone
together
?”

“Mother—” began Gabby, but Jane gave her an upturned hand and a stern look, silencing her.

“Vander, I am a medical doctor,” said Jane, “and my daughter Gabby is soon going to be a doctor as well.”

“Really?”

“Really,” replied Gabby.

“And so we doctors are doing a study of families that are prone to violence, you see?”

“You're really doctors?” Vander asked Gabby, his eyes and body coming to life with curiosity. “I never known no woman doctor, and now I got two at my house?”

“We are rare, Vander, but then so are all of us,” replied Gabby, “unique and rare.”

“Philander calls me rare. A rare specimen, he says. Also calls me stupid…says I'm an idiot…an em-em-embar-embar-rass-ment.”

“Well I think your brother needs to work on his manners,” said Jane.

“And his temper,” added Gabby. “He tried to knife Inspector Ransom.”

“Twice,” said Vander.

“No, just once,” corrected Gabby.

“Philander tried to cut him the night before when—when we saw him on the wharf.”

Jane and Gabby exchanged another curious look, each wondering anew about Alastair's whereabouts the night Father Jurgen was attacked. Gabby shrugged.

Jane produced a small but distinct photograph of Calvin Dodge, then asked Vander, “Have you ever seen this man before?”

Vander shook as if cold water had been thrown on him, his skin rippling like that of a horse experiencing a chill. His strangely handsome yet disfigured face made one want to stare all the more at his unfortunate features, and the curious hunchback only added to his bizarre yet alluring look. He might have been the Cyclops if he covered one eye, or Goliath of biblical infamy. Yet his nature was little more than that of a child.

“Gabby and I saw you and your brother, Vander, outside Mr. Dodge's house the night before he disappeared.”

“There's no medical study, is there, Mother?” asked Gabby, but Jane ignored this, her eyes boring into Vander, awaiting an answer.

“Uh-huh. It was youse two in the carriage!” he gleefully realized, proud at being able to recall the incident.

“Yes, it was us. But Vander—”

“Yeah?”

“Did you and your brother harm Mr. Dodge and carry him out of his home in a rug?”

“Philander made me clean the rug. Said it'd bring us money, too.”

Gabby pulled her mother away, and beneath a naked overhanging gas lantern, she said, “God, he'd be so easy to get a confession from, but he's harmless. He couldn't've killed Dodge.”

“He and his brother work as a team. I don't know how much blood is on his hands, but I suspect his brother uses him for his strength. Dodge wouldn't have a chance against a man of this size and strength.”

“Then you suspect the brothers of having killed Nell Hartigan as well?”

“And who knows how many nameless, faceless people in the city?”

“The study for Fenger, all a ruse?” pressed Gabby.

“Yes, I'm sorry about that.”

“Forget it, but your conclusions are a big leap, and how do we prove them?” Gabby had become excited at the prospect of mother and daughter cracking this unbelievable case. But it seemed too easy, too pat.

“Imagine it…” began Jane, pacing, “you see these brothers who, on the one hand, look alike, and yet do not look alike.”

“Due to the big one's deformities, yes.”

“Imagine you're Nell Hartigan or Calvin Dodge and in the dark with this, you're seeing a circus act.”

“You do a double-take.”

“Double-take is right. And in that moment of hesitation the knife-wielding brother has your guts in his hands.”

“He snatched that knife out against Alastair like a snake attacking; it was so fast. Like a reflex.”

“It could explain a great deal.”

“As in how an experienced Pinkerton agent could be overpowered?”

“Before she could get off a shot.”

Gabby nodded at the suppositions when Vander groaned and complained that his soup had gone cold.

The simpleton sat dunking his bread and chewing. “Good…good…” he chanted, “but soup's cold.”

“I'll put it on the stove to warm,” replied Gabby, taking the urn to the stove and lighting the gas.

“Vander,” began Jane, “your brother's telling the cops that
you
are the one who murdered Nell Hartigan and Calvin Dodge.”

“What?”

“Isn't it true?”

“Philander is telling people
I
did it?”

“Yes.”

“Well…then…he must know.”

“Must know?” asked Gabby.

“Know what?” asked Jane.

“Philander, he knows
everything
.”

“I see,” piped in Jane.

“He says so himself.”

“Really?”

“Ahhh,
all the time. He says, ‘Van'…he calls me Van sometimes…he says, ‘I know all there is
you
need to know, so you don't need to know
nothing
, 'cause I know.' You see what I mean?”

“You believe him when he says you killed that woman?”

“She was s'pose to be a prostitute, and Philander says prostitutes don't deserve to be livin'.”

“He…he said that?”

Gabby began jotting notes on a pad for the day when a jury needed this to hang Philander.

“Says the world's better off with all the prostitutes dead,” continued Vander.

“He says that, and he knows all, but she wasn't a prostitute, Vander, now was she?” asked Jane calmly, her voice soothing.

Vander could not wrap his mind around this nonsensical notion that his brother was imperfect, fallible.

“And what about Mr. Dodge? Huh?” persisted Jane, in pursuit of his mind. “Is the world better off with him dead and gone?”

“Philander says so, yes. Said he was a liar, a crook, and said it was the only way to shut him up.”

“Mother, we've got to get Vander back to the police station. Get an official statement, and besides, Ransom should hear this.”

“You're right. But, Vander, first tell me, would you kill me or my daughter here if Philander asked—”

“Philander don't ask…he tells!” Vander laughed, the sound a hollow mirth.