City for Ransom Page 12

  “I’ve seen Tewes’s clinic, Christian. Like a carnival wagon full of bottles and potions and colored water so far as I can tell.”

  “You’ve gotta be the tightest wound man I’ve ever met,” countered Tewes. “Do you have a single friend?”

  “I want to talk to you about your bad-mouthing me to the few friends I do have, like Polly Pete.”

  “Ahhh, the young thing you’ve taken under your wing. You do her no favor. Substituted one—”

  “I do not hold her in bondage.”

  “You won her in a card game! How wonderful is that for her esteem? Do you know she’s slipped your firearm into her throat on occasion as you slept nearby, contemplating blowing her head off with you in the room?”

  “What? Never. You lying—”

  Tewes did not quake or shirk or back off, but rather leaned into the coming blow. “Go ahead, strike me like you did her! I saw her blackened eye! Go on! You don’t frighten me, Ransom. And I tell you this in strict confidence, what she’s revealed. Whether true or not only Polly or Merielle knows.”

  Ransom held the shaking fist at bay. Tewes knew both her names; how could he know this unless Merielle had confided it? What if sad Merielle had contemplated suicide with his .38 Smith & Wesson five-shot? He imagined her caressing the blue steel, center-fire hammerless automatic while he slept inches from her. Could it be?

  Fenger met Ransom’s eye. They had had long, deep conversations about Polly, and Ransom had not even told him about her dual nature or the depth of Polly’s sexual needs and masochism. Fenger had only told him that he understood what a pull love—any brand of love—could have on a man. Christian didn’t judge him on this; he only feared for Ransom’s own soul in this twisted relationship, that he could lose it as surely as Polly could slit his throat one night—actually or metaphorically. Fenger’d had a similar experience with a lady-of-the-night to whom he’d given his heart.

  “To hell with you! To hell with you both!” Ransom dropped his bull stance and rushed out, his face flushed.

  “Well…that went well,” Fenger said sarcastically.

  “I’ve come to expect very little of the man.”

  “He is an excellent investigator.”

  “He must be for Chief Kohler to put up with him. I think he is a crude barbarian.”

  “You have to get to know him to appreciate just how polished he is, given what he’s been through.”

  “You mean the limp, the burn marks at his neck? Haymarket bomb incident?”

  “He survived it…physically. Mentally, he is still warring with it…here.” He pointed to his head.

  “Does everyone who knows this man excuse his behavior?”

  “Tell me exactly what did the man do to you at the train station?”

  “It’s an involved story.”

  “Will it harden me against Ransom? I’ve long wanted a condemnation of the man so’s to excuse myself from his company.”

  Jane described that moment when Inspector Ransom lost his temper, wrenched the boy’s head from its loose moorings and shoved it into Tewes’s white suit and hands.

  Dr. Fenger laughed uproariously. When he settled, he choked out, “That is so like Alastair…so like the man. Had you known him better, you might’ve seen it coming.”

  CHAPTER 12

  Christian Fenger went in search of Alastair Ransom…knowing one, that he could not possibly understand his relationship with this lowlife Tewes, and two, knowing that Ransom’s respect was something he needed. He had also seen the look of hurt and betrayal on Ransom’s face, and he somehow sensed that Alastair had an animosity toward Tewes all out of proportion, and he wanted to get to the bottom of it. What did Alastair know of the strange little man’s background, and what, if anything, might Ransom be willing to do for Christian to end this sordid fellow’s stay in Chicago?

  He knew Alastair like a brother, a younger brother to be sure, but a brother; Ransom was one of the few genuine and sincere people Christian knew. With Alastair you knew where you stood. A man of action, he let you know what he thought by what he did. In his every action resided his inner self, and he made no excuses for living as he did, whereas Dr. Christian Fenger lived in a world of duplicity at every turn.

  Being a physician, Christian could seldom say or do anything without fear of repercussions, so staid and stodgy was the Chicago medical community. Although he got away with what other medical professionals in the city called “murder,” there was no way around the politics that’d embedded itself in every aspect of Cook County Hospital and every medical school in the city. Graft and greed proved rampant even here, in the field of healing, and when he’d told his story to Ransom’s British journalist friend—Stead—about how things were in Chicago with regard to the growing indigent problem and its effect on medicine in the city, the reporter listened transfixed at the callous disregard for human life and limb shown the homeless by city fathers and merchants. Stead had promised an exposé, which hadn’t come. No doubt finding a gutsy enough publisher for the work had proven impossible.

  Conditions the Spanish would call que horrible had continued to plague the city for as long as Christian had lived here. These thoughts filled Fenger’s mind even as he pushed through Hinky Dink’s tavern door where he felt relatively certain he’d find Alastair sipping red ale.

  He spied him in his favorite corner, the dark one at the back. Hinky waved to Christian and shouted, “Good to see you, Doctor. Your usual?”

  “Yes, thank you.” He headed straight for Ransom, and as he neared, he saw the familiar scowl.

  “What was that little fruitcake doing in your office, Christian?”

  “We were engaged in private conversation till you trampled over the man.”

  “Private is it? And you’re hoping to keep it private? What’s the creep got on you, Christian? I’ll wring his scrawny neck, and if it snaps like the twig I think it is, then he’ll bother you no more.”

  “And how much is your fee?”

  “Fee? For doing that skunk? You’ve no idea how he’s turned Mere against me.”

  Hinky hefted a huge beer glass before Dr. Fenger. “Your usual, Doctor, and how’re we tonight? You know me ailing murther-in-law’s still abed? She ain’t no help on her back, and me wife’s ’coming scruffy-looking ’n’ mean-tempered as a ’ell.”

  “I’d call Dr. Hale on Adams, Hinky,” replied Fenger. “He’s a good GP. I’m a surgeon.”

  It was a dance he and Hinky did each time Fenger entered this swamp, and for this reason, he’d stopped coming. He imagined Ransom had specifically chosen this place, believing that Christian wouldn’t follow him in.

  “Well…all the same, for a medical man such as yourself, the draft is on the house, sir.” Hinky moved off, waving a hand at the bill Dr. Fenger held out.

  “Please, take payment for the beer, my good man.”

  Hinky ignored this, returning to his work behind the bar.

  “So what would you do to this miscreant, Ransom, if I asked you to make him go away…maybe leave the city?”

  “It’s a big lake out there.”

  “I see.”

  “No, you don’t see. I’d do nothing of the kind without sound reason, and you’ve give’ me none. Why didn’t you tell me that this was going on?”

  “It’s a recent problem. I’ve wrestled with it. I’ve never had such evil thoughts as this man’s created in me…”

  “Ahhh…thoughts of the darkest order are due every man.”

  “Not me…never before now.”

  “So you’ve fantasized the man’s death?”

  “Appears we both have.”

  “Some would call this a conspiracy to commit murder, Doctor.”

  “Goddamn you, Alastair, I know that, and it turns my stomach what my mind is juggling.”

  “The little man maddens people.”

  “And how has he got your ire up with Merielle?”

  “Has to do with Polly, actually.”

  “Polly, Mer
ielle…I can’t keep her straight. But tell me more.”

  “She fell for his flier…went to see him. Sat under his hands, and soon she’s telling her life’s story, and he tells her she needs to save herself—”

  “From you, of course.”

  “He advised her to leave me!”

  “Hey, friend, I’ve advised the two of you do exactly that for how long?”

  “That’s different. You…you’re a friend.”

  They drank more.

  “It’s worse than his having insinuated himself on my investigation.”

  They ordered more drink.

  “What about you, Christian? What does this…this information pimp have on you?”

  “He had some creep with a camera get photos of me in…well, let us say that if these photos come to light, my enemies would have a field day, and my time at the university and Cook County’ll come to an abrupt end.” Christian believed Ransom would more easily believe this lie than he would the truth—that the mere accusation that he’d compromised the safety of his patients by performing surgery while under the influence was enough to end his career.

  “Blackmailing little weasel.” Ransom downed the remainder of his ale. “Certainly enough reason to plot a man’s demise.”

  “You could, I suppose, arrest me for all I’ve said.”

  “Yes, I could, but I won’t.” Stepping up his drinks, Ransom signaled Hinky for another red Irish.

  “You’re a good friend, Alastair.”

  “I need you precisely where you are, close to the Haymarket records.”

  “Damn it, Alastair, are you now blackmailing me for those damnable records?”

  “Hey, a favor for a favor.”

  “The Chicago way, yes.”

  “Hardly blackmail.”

  “Ahhh…a euphemism for it? How deep or shallow runs our friendship, Alastair, and how many men can you call your equal in this city? Do you wish to die a man apart as you’ve lived since Haymarket?”

  Ransom tapped the wall with his cane. “I still have physical problems from that day, and I’ll likely have problems with the official cover-up till the day I die.”

  “Your friends’re dead. You can’t bring ’em back, Alastair, and pursuing Haymarket can only end in your becoming an even bigger target than you already are. There are vested interests in keeping Haymarket in its grave.”

  “Like it never happened.”

  “Like it never happened.”

  They sat in gloomy silence.

  “Besides, your hands’re a bit full with this mad garroter.”

  “Damn press is calling the bastard the Phantom of the Fair.”

  “Do you have any idea how many people are attracted to the fair on the off chance of seeing some shred of this maniac’s handiwork? And then you, juggling that boy’s head at the train station? My God, man. You must do something about your public persona and that bloody temper.”

  “Not to worry about me, Doc.”

  “Who then worries for you, Ransom? Polly Pete?”

  “Leave Polly outta this.”

  Fenger threw hands up in defeat. “All right, all right…”

  A silence engulfed them, and they listened to some traveling minstrel switching from a whaling tune to a ballad of a lover who’d lost all sense of the world, lost in the arms of a woman.

  “Are you still getting the headaches?”

  “Stop with it, Doc.”

  “Then the answer is yes. You try the elixir I concocted for you? You using the brace on your neck each night?”

  “Don’t always sleep at home, and I don’t carry the damn brace with me, Christian.”

  “Of course…I see…” Fenger laughed and finished his beer. “Maybe you should go to Tewes for a phrenological examination. Find out all you can about him. I’ve checked through my contacts in Washington, New York, even Europe, and no one knows anything about him; it’s as if he simply hung his shingle out one day.”

  “Should I fall off my chair with the revelation he’s a fraud?” Ransom’s hearty laugh interfered with the balladeer’s music. Several grunts and catcalls escaped from patrons listening intently and crying in their foam.

  Christian whispered, “Hold on the matter of Tewes.”

  “What? I thought—”

  “If we can learn more, then perhaps we can trump him with his own bloody past. That way, we don’t leave this world as assassins.”

  “At least you don’t.”

  “I only believe half your boast and none of your bark, Alastair.”

  “I could tell you stories, Doctor.”

  Fenger matched Ransom’s stare, and in the man’s eye, Christian indeed saw a pair of burning coals from the hearth of Hades when a bent shadow crept across their table. A fast-moving, athletic, well-dressed man in black cape, carrying a gentleman’s cane, obviously just for show, and the cane had a glistening, metallic head—a wolf’s head like Ransom’s own but not scrimshaw. Ransom instinctively felt as if evil had passed by, and he followed the shadowy figure, leaning to glance at what sort of footwear he had. High boots. Ransom could only make out a pair of shining black heels as the door closed on the man. His mind flooded with what the homeless witness had described of the killer’s clothing and boots; this drove him to his feet, wanting to tail the man…senseless, futile act. For how many men in Chicago carried a cane and wore boots and cape? But even as he started up, he realized a new shadow split the table. Dr. Tewes now stood before them.

  “So this is where the three of us talk?” Tewes challenged.

  “How did you know we were here?”

  “I tailed Dr. Fenger.”

  “You’ve a helluva nerve, Tewes, and you disgust me,” began Ransom. “D-I-G-U-S—”

  “I know how to spell it, Inspector.”

  “What more do you want from me, Tewes?” asked Christian, his forehead creased in pain, eyes drooping. “What more could you possibly need tonight?”

  “I appreciate all your help, Doctor, but I also’d hoped that you and I, and perhaps Ransom here, could put our differences aside for the good of this case.”

  “You ask too much.”

  “You think you are such a cunning bastard, Tewes,” added Alastair, sitting again.

  “I know that you two’d as soon plot my death, gentlemen…than share a drink, and yet…” Jane for a moment came to the forefront, a tear threatening to expose her. She worked to regain her composure.

  “Take a seat, by all means, as I’ll be going,” said Alastair. “Seems I’ve got some patchwork to do with my woman, thanks to your muckraking in my personal affairs.”

  “Polly’s my patient now, one with serious mental problems, which I’ve discussed with no one but you, Inspector, as I suspect your misguided feelings for her are genuine if not—”

  “What the deuce would you know of what goes on between a man and a woman!” The place silenced at this.

  Tewes spoke through grinding teeth. “Look, Inspector, just because you’re nice to her…well, this doesn’t mean you or this city’s good for her.”

  “She’s been wanting me to take her to the fair, to ride that damned wheel in the sky and—”

  “By all means, indulge her, but in the end, her best hope is a young man her own age who’ll take her far away from here.”

  “Who gives you the authority to make her decisions?”

  “I cannot make decisions for her; I can only advise, and I advise you to come back to my office some day by appointment and allow me to help you with those headaches and what is troubling your mind, Inspector.”

  Ransom shot to his feet, towering over Tewes, wondering how long he’d been in the tavern and eavesdropping. “God, but you have balls for such a puny fellow.”

  “It’s not balls, sir…but the wisdom of knowing what makes a man strong and what makes a woman brave. Polly knows now what is at the root of her troubled mind—her father…a man about your age when he raped her. She ever tell you that, sir?”

  Ransom, li
ke an elephant shot through the eyes, dropped back into his seat.

  “That she is the victim of incest by not a stranger, not a stepfather, but by her own blood father? You, sir, are a sick stand-in for a father she is still trying to please, though he’s in the grave…to make sense of and to—”

  “Enough! Shut your mouth. Polly loves me, and I’ll be the one takes her outta the cesspool she’s made of her life! Not some fool who tells people’s fortunes by the knots on their flaming heads.”

  “—and to understand herself, independent of you and your nightmares.” Tewes settled back as if resting his case.

  Ransom gritted his teeth, shot Fenger a glaring look, exchanged a dark thought with Christian, then rushed from Hinky’s, pushing out the door so hard it creaked on its hinges, threatening to come off.

  Hinky shouted at the big cop, “Hey! Keep such brutishness outta my place, copper!”

  “I could help that man to calm down to a much needed catlike mental state of serenity if he’d let me.” She once again sat before Fenger as James Tewes. She so wanted to reveal herself to him at this point, to end the dark ties that bound them in this pretense, and the awful way that things had developed. She feared his reaction, and yet, she wanted his warmth, his renowned caring, his respect, but how?

  “I thought I’d seen the last of you tonight. What else’ve you come to milk me of?”

  “I would like to tell you something important…and it is difficult to broach, Dr. Fenger.”

  “What is it? You want my blessings? Want to address me as Christian? Want chumminess from me?” Fenger’s scowl could not be masked.

  “Damn…this is so hard. You only led me to believe you thought my idea of creating a mental picture of the killer a good one. I took you at your word when—”

  “I am a master of facetiousness. Even Ransom knows this. But now what on earth are you driving at, man?”

  She pulled away her neckerchief, revealing her throat. She needn’t say a word. Her fingers trailed a faint red glow that died along her milky white neck. No protrusion of Adam’s apple, and a makeup line gave Tewes’s face and neck a darker hue. “You’re not a man! My God, woman, who are you and why? Why this elaborate ruse?”