Shadows in the White City (24 page)

Thus far no shock had come, only an interminable bore amid a lot of filth.

“Where the hell is Bosch?” he must have repeated the question a hundred times in a hundred permutations in a hundred venues tonight.

“'Ave ya seen Bosch?” he addressed the drunks in one alley.

“Seen that gimp, Bosch, tonight?” he inquired at Muldoon's.

“Heard Dot 'n' Carry comin' or goin' tonight?” he asked at the Red Lion.

“If you fellas see or hear that peg leg, tell 'im I'm looking for him.”

No one had seen him. No one knew where he might be. He failed to appear at any of his normal haunts. It spelled only one thing:
fear.

The tune from the racetrack played in Ransom's brain:
Dance boatman dance…dance boatman dance.

Henry Bosch had gone into hiding like a frightened animal, and his brief stint at the track was a bid for much needed cash. Now that he had money, he'd become difficult to find. Normally, he showed up like a bad penny and Alastair did not have to go looking, but the game pieces on the board had changed significantly. With Jervis being shot dead by Alastair Ransom in an old-time gun battle in Hair Trigger Alley—despite a ruling of self-defense—rumors abounded. Rumors surrounding various notions having to do with Ransom's idea of vengeance; it was a vengeance that'd gone too far, spilled over the brim as it were, and next the rumors had Alastair drunk at the time (drunk with vengeance), despite his requiring a single shot to take down his man. Still, some felt that he had taken down the department with his street hooliganism. A lot of people suddenly liked Elias Jervis as next in line for sainthood. Perhaps Ransom ought be more than reprimanded; perhaps he should be made an example and stripped of his badge and placed on trial for murder.

Another rumor, this one circulating among authorities and whispered in his ear by both Behan and Logan had
County Prosecutor Kehoe working late nights to put a case against Alastair on the docket.

Should this occur, a sheared, declawed Ransom would be a prized sight for a lot of Chicagoans, and it would be a large feather in Nathan Kohler's cap. Sadly, if it should ever come, Ransom had but one witness, and a lousy one at that, Henry T. Bosch. How else might he prove a setup? How else might he cast a dark light on Nathan Kohler, should authorities above the police review board call for Ransom's head?

So far as Alastair was concerned, it'd been a conspiracy that definitely involved Nathan Kohler, a dangerous man indeed. The circumstances and his inability to turn up Bosch again since the racetrack made Ransom wonder if Bosch hadn't simply taken his winnings and made for Indianapolis or Davenport or Kankakee, if not farther from Chicago and Ransom. And it all made Ransom doubly suspicious that the wily old Civil War veteran indeed harbored damning information that Alastair could use against Nathan Kohler. Still, Bosch was correct about his sitting in a witness box. The image sent up red flags. Nonetheless, the more he stewed about it, the more Alastair meant to at least privately know everything. To this end, he meant to drag or beat the facts from Bosch. The sawed-off gimp knew what really happened the night Ransom was nearly killed by Elias Jervis.

Perhaps if he'd agreed with Kohler and Fenger, to throw in with their plan to turn over this Leather Apron killer to Senator Harold J. Chapman, then perhaps he'd not have Kohler on his back now. Kohler had to be sweating Ransom's decision to remain aloof from the money and the corruption suggested by Senator Chapman. Kohler surely saw it as yet another threat to his power base.

While Bosch failed to find Ransom, young Samuel did not, and Sam, eager to earn more money, offered to guide Ransom to a location where he suspected the Leather Apron gang might be hiding out.

“Leather Apron gang?” he asked Sam where they stood back of Muldoon's.

“Talk on the street is that there's more than one, maybe a gang of 'em.”

“Where are you hearing this, Sam, from whom?”

“Sara for one, the girl you met the other night? She said the lot of them were following us that night, that they went right past her. She counted, like, sixteen of 'em.”

“Sixteen?” Alastair was skeptical.

“Yes, sir…according to Sara.”

“All right, do we need a carriage to get to this location?”

“
Ahhh
…I don't but it's pretty far for an old man.”

“Thanks, Sam, for thinking of me. Let's go.”

They were soon approaching Michigan Avenue, and it recalled to mind that the senator's granddaughter had been abducted not far from here. Sam announced that they needed to exit the cab and go on foot from here, the corner of Michigan at Wacker, and Ransom checked his weapon, seeing that it was loaded. Then he climbed out behind Samuel.

They were soon making their way down a series of ladders taking them into underground Chicago, passageways below Michigan Avenue and Wacker, an area used primarily by delivery wagons and drams coming and going, loading and unloading on docks built at the basement level—block upon block of businesses stretching from here to State Street.

The area was dirty, the roads here unpaved, cow paths originally to move beef on the hoof from railhead to slaughterhouse to market outlets, and finally to such establishments as Delmonico's and The Palmer House. The underground network of roads here were nowadays used by any number of downtown businesses for deliveries and intakes. Workmen used the roads as a trash heap, it seemed. The wind blew through here like a monstrous force, sending up dirt devils and trash in small tornadoes. “There's nothing down here,” complained Ransom. “Sam, are you just yanking my chain?”

“You gotta go deeper, sir.”

Ransom began to hear the tune again in the back of his head:
Dance boatman dance…Is this kid playing me for a fool,
he wondered.

After going down yet another level, finding an underground cavern, Ransom heard human voices ahead of them in the darkness. “We shoulda brought a lantern,” said Ransom.

“No, a lantern would only warn the Leather Aprons, and they'd be running off like rats in every direction.”

There was no need of a lantern because fires were burned in barrels ahead of them. They moved toward the light.

Samuel's shadow crept ahead of them, and Ransom's huge shadow foretold his coming, and it did appear a horror moving along the wall toward those huddled around the fire down here. They all began shouting at once:

“It's Bloody Mary!”

“Zoroaster!”

“Satan's come!”

Samuel shouted, “No! It's Inspector Ransom! He's come to kill the Aprons!”

“Please! Help me!” shouted one of the children in the grainy darkness where Alastair and Sam had stopped.

“I know Bloody Mary got Danielle, and I know I'm next!” shouted another.

This child was joined by the others. “You've got to hide me! Hide me!”

Alastair's companion, Sam, shouted, “Don't be fooled! Some of the Aprons have pretended to be like the rest of us, but they're pimps, luring kids to Zoroaster, and then they all jump 'em and stab 'em all at once.”

“Sam's right!” shouted King Robin, who'd asserted his authority and had recently led any of his band willing to follow him from the safety of Hull House to this so-called hiding place. “But we don't know who's the traitor.”

“But this time Zoroaster is dealing with me and not some child,” countered Alastair.

“They're their own gang. There're a lot of 'em,” warned Robin.

“Where're they hiding? Where, Robin?” implored Ransom. “Tell me! Tell me now, Robin!”

“Deeper in,” he indicated the blackness of this underground passage.

Ransom was immediately suspicious, his near assassination still fresh in his mind. “Why, then, are all of you here? Why would you set up hiding so close to these Aprons?”

“We came to draw straws,” said Robin.

“Draw straws?”

“Give Zoroaster a sacrifice.”

The facts hit Ransom between the eyes like a blow from Muldoon's sap. “Are you kids crazy?”

“If our gang gives up one member,” said Robin, “then…well then Zoroaster and Bloody Mary will leave us alone.”

Pagan shit
, Ransom thought but said, “I see, and this was your idea, King Robin?”

“Actually it was Audra's idea. I just put it in motion.”

“Hmmm…and where is Audra?”

“She's a crybaby, so I sent her away.”

“Banished her? Isn't that kinda like a death sentence these days?”

“She's always moping around and crying; got on everyone's nerves.”

Ransom considered this. Any show of weakness and you were reprimanded, and if it persisted, you were cut loose by King and Court. He dropped it, asking, “So who drew the short straw?”

“I did,” said Samuel, holding it up to the light.

“What? Wait…hold on. I didn't know you belonged to this band, Sam.”

“I joined for safety. Just two days ago.”

“Hmmm…some irony, then, the newest member of the group drawing that straw.” Ransom knew the truth of it. They recruited Sam for this purpose, and Robin had seen to it that Sam got the short straw. It was about that time that Samuel had somehow bought some time and gone hunting for Alastair.

“OK, Sam, let's go meet your fate, the two of us together along with Blue.”

“Blue?” asked Sam.

Alastair displayed his blue steel weapon. “I got it from the Blue Lady,” he lied.

Alastair pushed ahead of Sam and Robin's band, telling them to hang back. As he moved from the fire, the darkness ahead of Alastair was near complete, only a small slither of light filtering from somewhere above at street level.

“Blood Mary's coming for us!” shouted one of the kids in blackness.

“You gotta hide me, copper! Else I'm dead like Danielle!” shouted Noel in tears. King Robin was also now blubbering, terrified and hanging back near the fire. He'd seen what they'd done to Danielle, so Ransom could hardly blame him for blubbering, but arranging for Sam to go in as his goat, this was indefensible. “Zoroaster is gonna do me next!” Robin shouted.

The youngest of them, his face streaked with tears, shouted out now. “Don't let Bloody Mary get us!”

The lanky, older boy named Hector added, “She's killing us one by one until there are no more children left in the world, so all humankind will die off! That's her plan.”

Alastair rushed toward the end of the tunnel where the so-called Apron gang were supposedly this moment assembled, awaiting the sacrificial lamb—Samuel. They would get Ransom instead.

Alastair half expected to be set upon by this gang awaiting him, and he pictured the poor abducted ones who'd vanished as having been attacked by a knife-wielding gang of murderous cultists. This made sense and fit with what Dr. Christian Fenger's autopsy had supported. This could well be the end of the investigation. He knew these killers, whatever age, to be dangerous and well trained in wielding cleavers and knives. He recalled the “animals” he'd seen in the park after talking to Sara.

“Hang back, Sam,” he told the boy, but Samuel now displayed a bowie knife all his own, almost the size of his leg. The thing shone like ice in the darkness here, and in a mo
ment of fright, Alastair wondered if the boy might not be one of
them
—one of the killing gang.

“I'll not go down without a fight,” Sam whispered, “and I'll not let you go it alone, Inspector.”

Ransom looked anew at the boy, studying Sam's eyes and finding truth there; a feeling of pride for the boy welled up. “If ever had I a son, Sam…I'd have wanted him to be as brave as you.”

Sam choked out, “Thank you, sir.”

They moved on, inching forward.

Knives could come flying at them at any moment from any number of directions. Ransom extended his blue burnished .38 and was about to fire on seeing a large figure of a man in a group ahead bathed in weak light. Alastair's night vision had cleared, and he recognized faces. The faces of Danielle's followers, the one's who'd gone into hiding on learning of her murder. None of them were holding knives so far as Alastair could see.

Some eleven children had followed the paths to here in their effort to locate a safe place in the city. Learning it'd been their leader—their queen—who'd been brutally murdered, they hadn't time to grieve when fear had gripped them.

He put his gun away, making a show of it, realizing the large shadow he'd seen earlier had merely been a projection of the huddled group. “I've come to find you all,” he lied. “Come to take you to a safe house.”

One of the children grabbed hold of his huge leg and held on, and Alastair could feel the shivering little body against him. Like a modern retelling of the Pied Piper, all the others, like so many mice, scampered to the Bear and hung on. Sam stood back, put his knife away, and shook his head.

Alastair began guiding them from the underworld with a mantra: “I gotcha…you're going to be all right…all right…all right.”

 

Alastair felt like Moses at having led the children and frightened young adults who wished to follow from the underground area around Wacker and Michigan. It had taken him another twenty-four hours to find places for them all. Most every shelter in the city was full to capacity. No one wanted to be on the streets with this madman on the loose, including homeless adults. So the Salvation Army and what few shelters existed bulged and were turning people away. Ransom had learned that Robin had led his followers out of Hull House, but these kids before him now had been Danielle's followers. Without a leader, they'd stay put.

Ransom wound up accommodating his more adult charges like Robin at the Des Plaines lockup, called the Bridewell, an old English term meaning that the man locked up here was well shackled to this bride. The jails were, as usual, jam-packed as well, every inch of stone floor covered in a sea of bodies where they slept, but there were the stairwells and hallways. Even City Hall was full with the indigent, the homeless, and the runaways.