City of the Absent (12 page)

“You said things was
des-des-per-ate
.”

“We had no pig-shit way to know she was a disguised Pinkerton agent, now did we?”

Philander'd begun rushing down the street at a clip, Vander hurrying to keep up when a quick-stepping horse, drawing a carriage, almost ran into him as it came around a corner. Both twins stood gaping like men who'd wet themselves when, from the window, stared a pretty-faced woman, curious why the horse and driver had started. Next second, a younger woman poked her head out.

The two ghouls lifted their hats to the passing ladies, the bigger one lumbering into a bow, unwittingly displaying a hunchback.

From the coach, Jane Francis Tewes and her
daughter, Gabrielle, could only get a fleeting glimpse of the problem at hand. Mother and daughter were within a few blocks of home and anxious to find their beds to retire for the night. Neither one paid more than a passing interest to the strange, seedy-looking pair on the sidewalk who, together, looked like bookends, only one was a sadly misshapen creature—a hunchback straight out of that popular Victor Hugo novel set in Notre Dame. The image of an elephant man or what locals called a mule man stuck in her mind.
God's mismanagement of human flesh
, Jane thought,
wondering if surgery would ever conquer such hellish torments.

Yet the other man, who had no disfigurement, somehow still looked like the misshapen one. About the eyes and facial features. But something beyond even this struck Jane as unusual about this odd couple.

“What is it, Mother?” asked Gabby, studying the quizzical fog that'd come over Jane's features.

Sitting opposite her daughter, Jane replied, “Odd looking chaps, yet, it's as if I've seen them somewhere at some time. So oddly…similar in appearance, save their size and de
meanor. Frankly, I'd say it was Jekyll and Hyde come off the page, but in two bodies rather than one.”

One had looked keenly and straight into Jane's eye, offering a strange smile, perhaps a lewd suggestion behind the gesture. The other had an animal-like snout and a calflike blank stare. “The one looked through me, while the other seemed to have no idea of what it was his eye fell upon,” Jane added.

“Or's'if he couldn't possibly decipher the mystery of a curious woman in a coach window,” said Gabby, laughing lightly as the carriage bumped along.

“Right…even if it took him the rest of his life, he'd never find an answer to this puzzle,” agreed Jane.

“Men can be thick.”

“Tell it to Ransom.”

“Yesterday you were calling him handsome Ransom, and now the two of you are quarreling again. Really, you can be so churlish with one another.”

Then Jane started, a look of pure light coming into her eyes.

“What is it? Something I said?”

“No, no!”

“Something you ate?”

“Something I recalled.”

“Ahhh
, 'bout Ransom, huh?”

“No, about those strange-looking fellows our coach near ran down.”

“What about them?”

“I saw this odd couple before once, months ago.”

“Out with the details.”

“It'd been during one of my—
ahhh,
Dr. Tewes's forays to Cook County.”

“Patients, were they? Begging outside the door, what?”

“Neither, as they were in the company of Shanks and Gwinn.”

“Those two rat-tailed ambulance men who're in dire need of a shave, a haircut, and a bath?”

“The four of them…or rather three of the four had seemed in heated discussion and debate, while the bent over one played with a mouse he'd pulled from a pocket.”

“A mouse? From his pocket?”

“Actually, it was this sight, the ungainly giant stroking the tiny mouse ears, that caught my attention. Otherwise, I'm quite sure I would not've begun to notice.”

“Notice what exactly? What did you notice?”

“The gentleness of the bigger one, and the crudeness of the thinner one, the one in heated discussion. I'd not seen the brotherly resemblance before this moment, however. One seems most assuredly the keeper of the other…”

Am I my brother's keeper?
Gabby mouthed but did not say.

The carriage driver had barked at the giant and his keeper, but he'd pushed on without stopping. They passed in an instant, and the images outside the window had changed with the moment like a wide-angled kaleidoscope. They'd almost instantly next rolled past the home of the eccentric Colonel Calvin Jamison Dodge, his lights out, no doubt resting comfortably from a long day of doing nothing. Jane gave a brief moment's thought, just about an eyelash in size, to ugly Calvin Dodge, who'd come to her for treatments to his face, insisting Tewes call him Cal. Nothing whatever in Jane's arsenal of concoctions collected as Dr. James Phineas Tewes could touch this man's condition, a condition killing him. He had the worst case of polyp cancer to the face and upper torso that she had ever witnessed. His case was so unique, so bizarre in fact, that she took him instantly to Dr. Fenger to ask if anything whatever might be done in a surgical way to relieve the poor man of such boils and pus-filled bulbs. Dr. Fenger had explained to them both that no surgical procedure could touch the problem.

Dodge confessed on the spot that his real name was Killough, and that his true family back in Ireland had for generations grown such ugly blossoms on their bodies. The old man had fallen into tears before the two “male” doctors, saying, “I've lived a lifetime under the curse and am not surprised it's finally overtaken me.”

According to his family history, the Killough clan had been cursed by a witch put to the torch at the order of a great-great ancestor acting the cunning wise man of the village at the time but whose real purpose was to eliminate his competition for
anyone seeking medicinal cures. Ever since, according to the old man, every family member had been afflicted. Calvin had believed, as a young man, that he'd escaped the curse by putting an ocean between himself and Galway, but such diseases, Jane knew, ran in families—indeed like a curse—so that no amount of distance could have saved him from a festering problem posited within his body, no doubt, at birth.

Calvin Killough “Dodge” was a pompous blowhard who'd amassed a good fortune, and a man who dropped names as others dropped coins from their pockets, all true, and yet he was to be pitied. As he was alone, completely and absolutely, save for a son—a city alderman named Jared Killough, as it happened—who seldom visited. The younger Killough knew that an Irish name in Chicago politics went a great deal further than the name of any Dodge, although the ability to dodge any question was essential for a politician's long-term survival.

Although old Calvin spoke the names of every actor, poet, author, artist, musician, and politician in Chicago from the mayor down, none of these folk ever came to his door, nor ever invited him out. This was as true of his son as it was the actor Richard Herrick and the author Oscar Wilde. Calvin claimed to know or have known every famous person who'd graced the Chicago theater or walked her financial district. Part and parcel of the disease of the mouth with Calvin, and once he engaged a person, he spoke nonstop on the issues of the day, the headlines, Washington D.C., the Senate, the House, the Oval Office, not stopping for a breath, and allowing no listener to interject the least comment. And so Jane had become fascinated on a professional level at such alacrity and ability to speak extemporaneously. She wanted to find some pressure point on the man's cranium that might stop his incessant tongue, if she could only hold out against the sea of words spewing forth.

To date, she'd failed in this experiment she'd set for Dr. Tewes's phrenological expertise. In the meantime, her own brain had become jumbled full with Dodge/Killough nonsense layered with half-facts and half-truths. Jane learned if
she allowed Dr. Tewes to engage in conversation with “Cal,” as they were fairly close neighbors, and as she'd made the crucial initial mistake of inviting him to sit for a cranial “reading,” it was the devil to extract herself from this man's tidal wave of dribble.

Furthermore, Jane found it impossible to wring from him a single useful item, and it was near impossible to pull away from this verbal grappling hook once he tossed it about you, as the man talked machinelike on all manner of nontopics, from the thinness of the day's rays to the lack of ticking in his bed to the idle wisp of cobweb he could not reach with his broom

In the end, he was a sad old duffer, alone and lonely. And despite the rambling that came forth like a hydrant, Jane sensed that the colonel seemed bent on living a life of quiet desperation inside that large, dusty house of his. How he afforded his taxes and food and drink, she had no clue, as he seemed without income or checkbook or family other than the alderman.

Jane had learned that besides questionable “banking” practices, Calvin had earned what he had been living off for years from a cocaine-laced cough drop for children that made him a household name: Dodge's Throat Lozenges. But all had fallen on hard times when someone he'd lent most of his fortune to turned out to be a crooked land developer who was selling parcels of land he did not have title to in neighboring Iowa.

Now without employment, the mystery only thickened, until one day Alastair explained that the so-called colonel's income came from political funds from the city's Parks and Recreation director, who simply loved to hear the old man talk. This city worker provided for all his needs if not his wants, and kept him, so far, in his house by declaring it a Parks and Recreation structure. In the end, she decided this was all a front for money actually funneled from his son. No one could be sure of the exact particulars.

As Jane and Gabby alighted the cab that had stopped before the sign out front of their home, Jane read the deep-cut lettering in the wooden shingle:
dr
.
james phineas tewes
.

She felt a chill that had come over her in the drafty coach
as it reached the nape of her neck again, licking animal-like at her spine.

“Are you all right, Mother?” asked Gabby as the coach rattled off from them.

“I know this feeling.”

“What feeling?”

“And I know it shouldn't be ignored.”

“You're tired, Mother.”

“Refuses to be ignored. Something feels wrong in my bones.”

“Oh, no. Here we go. It's Ransom again, isn't it?”

“Something to do with Calvin Dodge, actually.”

“What about the odd duck?”

“Oh…I'm not sure…per…perhaps I'm just being foolish.”

“Or like I said, perhaps it's the fatigue and culmination of a difficult day spent with a difficult man stuck in your head that you obviously love.”

“I tell you it has naught to do with Ransom!” They remained on the porch, staring up at the half-moon together, Gabby lacing her arm through Jane's. Silence enveloped them save for the chirping crickets when they were startled by a cat that'd suddenly leapt atop a mouse.

After the fright, they laughed at their own silliness. “See, so often we fear ruinously,” said Gabby, “fearing the wrong things, we human beings.”

“I guess I'll then chalk it up to the spat I had with Alastair.”

“And the fact he's not come 'round to apologize in all this time?” Gabby urged her mother through the door. “Get thee to a canopy bed!”

This made Jane laugh, as they'd just come from the theater and
Hamlet
, with Herrick in the lead role. Although much too old for the part, Herrick proved brilliance comes of experience.

She secretly wondered if quarreling with Alastair over Sam's circumstances had been the right thing to do.

A part of her wanted to get on the phone in the foyer to call Alastair. Another voice in her head pleaded otherwise, and she erupted with, “He made his bed, so he can just sleep in it.”

“Good Gawd, I said I was sorry. You're right.
Whatever it was that bothered you, about that, I mean, you were right, Jane,
ahhh
…dear, sweet Jane. No, I am not simply humoring you, Jane. Jane…Jane…I am trying, in my way, to say…well, to apologize.”

“Damn it, man, is't the best ya can do?” asked Philo Keane, his Canadian accent creeping through from where he sat. He'd pulled his plushest chair beside his gramophone, which was softly playing a dirge so grim it would destroy the spirit of a nightingale. From where he sat, Philo had been watching Alastair before a full length spindle mirror practicing his apology—groveling—for Jane Francis Tewes. “You're a pitiful poor man at saying sorry, Rance. Shall I demonstrate? Act as your Cyrano?”

“What is that awful noise you've put on the grammie?” Alastair asked instead.

“It's a march for a funeral, same as was played at the mayor's turnout.”

“Oh…and how did that go?”

“Your not being on hand, my friend, was duly noted by your friend Kohler and others.”

“No doubt he made spectacle of the fact to his superiors.”

“Really, Rance, you give them more ammunition each day.”

“I saw the mayor lying in state at his home. Enough good-bye for me.”

“The night he was killed, sure.”

“Kohler has, I suspect, put a Pinkerton agent on me.”

“You mean as a partner?”

“I mean as constant bird dog.”

“Are you sure?”

“I've had it from several sources now—one being Kohler himself. Fools are transparent when they open their mouths.”

“Such utter, complete, pure scorn you two have for one another.” Philo stood, went to a stack of “cuts” he'd recently made, fidgeted with them, studying each and frowning, upset with the light here, the contrast there, the perspective, bullying himself about using the wrong lens or camera. Alastair saw him more an artist than a businessman, but the poor chap was in the throes of making a business of art, no easy task for anyone.

“Contempt is all I have for Kohler,” replied Ransom. “Tell me, was William Pinkerton at the funeral?”

“He was.”

“And did he and Kohler powwow?”

“A lotta palaver, yes, now you mention it.”

“Curious.” Ransom tugged at his chin stubble.

“You're like a thick-skinned scorpion, Rance.”

“Whataya mean?”

“You get stepped on, look out.” Philo kept his eyes on his reproductions as he spoke. “Even going down, you sting back. Is'at the plan?”

Ransom watched his friend's facial expression go from mild acceptance to prune-faced and finally to poisonously sour over the shots he'd taken of a beautiful creature, his latest model. At the same time as his eyes registered disdain for something he believed an error, and his countenance flashed these little telegrams to anyone bothering to notice, he
chided Ransom further. “If only you and Nathan Kohler could harness the energy and passion of your hatred for one another.”

“What?”

“You know, mass produce it! Like everyone's doing these days.” He lifted an empty Pabst Blue Ribbon bottle to punctuate his point.

“Bottled hatred?” asked Ransom.

“Yah, and feed it to our army and navy! The U.S. would become the most powerful nation on earth—”

“It already is!”

“—and you'd be rich on the government contract for your elixir.” Keane laughed aloud at his own words as if hearing a joke from another. “Think of the energy you two foes consume and expire with the level of ferocity you feel for one another.” Philo lifted the print in his hand overhead and waved it with his words. “Why, it is an absolute fascination between you two—a…a…a…”

“Force of nature?”

“Nay, a pit the size of Hades itself.”

“The Grand Canyon perhaps, but Hades?” Ransom laughed now.

“Why, it is an unholy, satanic, ultraplanetary fixation, Rance! An otherworldly obsession that will follow the two of you to Hell and beyond, so long as—”

“Enough of it!”

Philo dropped his photographs of Daphne Deland, a young protégé of a well-known stage actor. The young thing appeared bent on becoming an actress in her own right at any costs, and apparently, from all that Philo had told Ransom of Miss Deland, she paid well. Philo's singular thick brow lifted devilishly when he used the phrase “paid well.”

“The kettle calls the pot black,” muttered Ransom.

“What's'at?”

“Apparently, you've learned nothing of controlling your own passions when it comes to
commerce
with beautiful women, despite—” Ransom stopped in mid-sentence, real
izing what he was about to say could only hurt his friend. “Why don't you put on some Wagner, something lighter, uplifting. I'm sick of that dirge.”

“Despite what?” asked Philo, not allowing him free of the subject he'd started on. “The tragic death of the woman who took my soul to the grave with her?”

“Stop that or you'll make Emily Bronte's Heathcliff blush,” joked Ransom.

“My soul match, she was.”

“All true in your head. The woman could neither hear nor speak.”

“Making her my perfect match.
Ahhh
…Miss Mandor. How awful that such beauty should die at the hands of a fiendish monster.”

Ransom held up his brandy glass. “To the end of the Phantom of the Fair.”

“Killed my fair lady.” Philo dropped his photos and slumped into his chair. The dirge now played for Miss Chesley Mandor.

If Philo slowed enough to be self-observant, Ransom knew he might acknowledge the small part he'd played in the lady's death, a horrible murder that Keane'd been falsely accused of and arrested and jailed for.

But such was, although mere months ago, ancient history to such a mind as Philo's, Ransom decided, as obviously he was up to his old tricks. Ransom loved Philo as much as one man might another, and he'd do anything for him, but he also knew how fickle and short Keane's memory and alliances with women were. His professing love and passion for this soul mate now dead was more drama at this point than anything Alastair had ever seen off the Lyceum stage. Philo changed women as he did socks.

Philo quickly changed the subject on Ransom. “What've you uncovered in the Nell Hartigan case?”

“Precious little.”

“Nothing more come of Dr. Fenger's autopsy?”

“She took a huge, nasty knife to the gut, which he's sure was the first blow. By all accounts, she was taken by sur
prise, else she knew her attacker and didn't expect or see it coming.”

“I didn't know her personally, but her reputation makes her out both sharp and tough.”

“She was both.”

“Odd that she'd be working for Pinkerton.”

“Not really. Women prove excellent spies, and basically what Pinkerton agents do is infiltrate and report. They learn the lay of the land and who the players are, as in who is heading up a proposed strike and where dynamite or nitro or the bodies are buried, or all three.”

“I see.”

“It's how countless strikes were put to bed before they began. Pinkerton, hired by the company, learned who the leaders were, and this information was handed over to police, and we made all manner of excuse, but we took them off the street.”

“Isn't that somewhat illegal? Unconstitutional even?”

Ransom rubbed the bridge of his nose and forehead. “The labor wars got us all bending rules.”

“Is that your term for the Constitution? Rules? Don't answer that, just tell me, you ever feel like a hired gun?”

Ransom dropped his gaze. “I did often, yes, back then.”

“During Haymarket, sure. Whataya got lately to fatten your dossier on Haymarket?”

“Lost…all gone…a burglary.”

“This is the first I've heard!”

“It's OK…it's my cover for where my files are kept—nowhere, Nothingville.”

“Ahhh
…I see.”
And little more than nothing in 'em
, Philo imagined.

“It's the bloody truth.”

“Sorry if I am having trouble determining what is and what is not the truth coming from your direction,” Philo said with a frown.

Alastair cleared his throat. “All of us in uniform were, in essence, working for the establishment. It's how the Chicago PD was formed—to protect the interest of big business.”

“Civic lessons I got never touched on it,” Philo said, smirking. “Hasn't changed much either, has it?”

“Some…we've had some important labor laws enacted, for instance.”

“So you've skirted my question about the dead Pinkerton lady.”

“Got damn little to go on in Nell's murder, but I have feelers out.”

“Your little army of snitches?”

“My own operatives, yes.”

“And so far? Nothing?”

“Nothing.” Ransom stood and paced, fidgeting with his cane, shining the wolf's head with a handkerchief, and next toying with his pipe while staring out the window. He next tugged on his pocket watch, the gold fob shinning, checked the time, and then let it slip back into his vest pocket.

Finally, Keane asked, “Why do you think her organs were harvested?”

“Some medical purpose, I suspect.”

“Ghouls! Do you mean to say…harvesting the living now? Not enough bodies in the cemeteries?”

“That or else someone is making a strange bisque somewhere.”

“I wonder which of the two possibilities is worse?”

“Ghouls, I think the worse by far.”

“How do you make that assessment?”

“Ghouls barter in bodies and body parts, while a cannibal at least is feeding a need.”

“A perverse joke, Alastair.”

“Doing it for money is the more perverse.”

“You've known a few cannibals and ghouls,” replied Philo. “You ought to know.”

“A few cannibals, yes.” He stopped to consider the horrid memory of having been attacked by a family of such fiends. “Shanks and Gwinn are supposedly reformed ghouls, a perfect pair to run that meat wagon of Fenger's up and down the street.”

“The ambulance chaps? Once ghouls?”

“No one's ever proven it, and somehow Dr. Fenger got them off and employed them. Part of their deal is that they answer to Dr. Fenger.”

“I see. I had no idea.”

“Few do…believe me, and perhaps they have associates still active in their old profession.”

“But will they be cooperative…with you in particular?”

“No. For some unaccountable reason, they dislike me.”

“I can't imagine why.”

The men laughed together. Each thought of the time when a wounded Alastair had kicked out the boards from the inside, locked as he was in the closed wagon they'd thrown him into, the wagon used to transport the injured and the dead to Cook County Hospital and Morgue.

“I must go see Pinkerton about those records. Thank you for the brandy, not sure about the music. You listen long enough to that dirge, Philo, and you'll become a sot.”

Philo stopped the music, stood and walked Alastair to the door, where they warmly parted. After Ransom had gone, Philo toasted the air, chanting Miss Mandor's Christian name, Chesley…Chesley. He switched the dirge back on and sat in the grim aloneness within himself.

“I can't do this,” he said aloud after long moments of reflection. He'd visited Chesley's grave every opportunity since she'd been so horribly mutilated. She was the only dead person he talked to, or ever had talked to. He got up and returned to his photographs and quickly, compulsively, forced his entire being to focus on the work and not his dead lover.