Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition (13 page)

Chapter 21

Emma felt like she’d driven down every street in Eddie’s neighborhood twice and still hadn’t found a safe place to hide. The neighborhood felt like a maze now, and every corner promised a dead end in handcuffs or a hail of gunfire from above. The only comfort Emma could find was the lack of airships. Then, realizing that was unusual, she felt her guts twist up even worse. The coppers were just laying low, waiting her out. As soon as she left the neighborhood they’d be on her. And Eddie.

“Where do we go, Eddie?”

Eddie took a moment to reply. His face had gone slack and gray with anger or fear, maybe both. “Get us out to the village.”

“What? Which village? Where is—”

“Ukranian Village!”

Emma recoiled from his outburst, shrinking against her side of the car. Eddie’s face said he was sorry. Then he opened his mouth and made good on the promise in his eyes.

“I’m sorry, Lovebird. This ain’t how I want to go out, running from the coppers. It’s how I always worried it’d be for us, and I’m mad about that.”

“I’m sorry, too, Eddie. Mostly I’m scared.” Emma let a pause fill the close space inside the car and they drove in silence for a while. “We’ll have to cross the river somewhere,” she finally said, cruising along a quiet street at the edge of Eddie’s neighborhood.

“Try up by the rail yard on the wharf road,” Eddie said. “Always quiet there this time of morning.”

At the riverside rail yards, Emma pulled into an empty stall beside a grain silo on the neighborhood side of the wharf road. All up and down the road, deserted wharves extended like dead fingers into the waterway. Low sheds and stalls waited on every wharf, open to the cold morning air and hungry for purpose. Some stalls were fitted with racks to take clothing. Others held coils of rope and netting. Emma stared at the wharves as if seeing them for the first time. This musty, cold, gray environment was the first stop for products from the fish and garment industries of the Eastern Seaboard. Products that used to end up on her plate and in her closets.

Between the nearest wharf  roads, a narrow bridge stretched across the river and into Little Italy. Greektown and then the Ukrainian Village were next, with plenty of routes through both. Emma put the car in gear and crept from the covered stall. At the opposite end of the bridge, a truck turned onto the narrow track and came across the river at them. They’d have to wait for it to clear the bridge before they could cross.

The truck crossed and pulled up down the road, by another silo. Emma hesitated, wondering if the driver had seen her car and hoping he hadn’t. Two men got out of the cab and went into a yard shack beside the silo. The driver got out and eyed Emma’s car. The other men came out of the shack with a third and they all gathered around the truck. They held steaming mugs of coffee and blew smoke at each other. The one who’d stayed out motioned with a thumb and the group turned as one to look at Emma and Eddie sitting together in a car.

“Shit!” Eddie said, dropping to the floorboards. Emma gunned the engine and raced the car across the bridge, leaving shouts and curses in the air behind them. Whatever head start they’d had was gone now. It wouldn’t take long for news to spread of a white woman and a negro driving out of the poorest neighborhood in town in the early morning hours. Following a switchback route, Emma took them through Little Italy, dodging around horses and bicycles with carts, slowing for crowds of pedestrians making their way to the wharves. As Emma guided them on to the village, following Eddie’s directions, a siren whined and faded somewhere far behind them. Emma stomped the accelerator and nearly crashed into the back end of a wagon loaded with coal.

“Just keep even on, Lovebird,” Eddie said from the floorboards. He guided her by asking for landmarks. She said they were two blocks from where Ogden crossed Ashland. He told her to keep going and to turn at Lincoln Park, heading west into the village. She followed his directions and a few minutes later the sights and sounds of the village filled her windscreen. Emma was amazed they’d survived the morning. Overhead, an empty sky hung above empty washing lines stretched between apartment windows. Emma drove at a crawl, marveling at the neighborhood she’d often heard about but had never seen. They moved past doorways that spilled children and bundles of bread, followed by worn down mothers and stooped over crones. Men strode through the streets leading livestock. Some hefted beams of wood between them. The long posts rested on the mens’ shoulders. In their hands, the men carried wooden pails or boxes bristling with tools. Nobody looked at the foreign white woman in her foreign vehicle, but Emma knew they all had their eyes on her.

“This is gypsy town, Eddie. Who’s going to help us here? I haven’t got any real money on me. What I do have, they’ll take and the car too. We’ll be stranded. Or—”

Eddie shushed her and waved away her concerns. “Up a ways now, Emma. Go on until you see the railroad.” They kept on like that, with Eddie asking for landmarks and calling out turns. At last, Emma pulled up in an alley beside a cobbler’s shop.

“It’s a speak, downstairs,” Eddie said. He sat up in the seat. “Boys and me played here Saturday night, and twice the month before. Gypsies got a taste for jazz, Lovebird. We get lucky, and I think we will, they’ll let us hide out here for a bit. We get real lucky, they’ll play some of their music for us. C’mon.”

Emma reluctantly left the car, sliding over to leave through Eddie’s door so she’d be standing next to him when she got outside. She followed Eddie around the bonnet to the cobbler’s shop. Inside an old man crouched over a sheet of leather that he stretched and cut and stretched and cut again. Emma stayed so she could see out the window. She kept an eye on the car, worried that if she looked away, the next time she turned to look the car would be gone. Eddie put a hand on her shoulder and smiled, raising a finger to his lips for silence. Beside them, the cobbler punched holes in the leather for laces. He seated grommets in the holes. These he clamped down with a tool he gripped in both hands, closing the rough metal jaws over the eyeholes. When he finally put his work aside, Eddie greeted the man and introduced Emma.

“This is my Lovebird, Mr.
Naw-djee
. We need a place to stay, just for a short time. Just until tonight. I was hoping you might help us in exchange for some of my horn playing.”

The old man’s eyes twinkled and he laughed loud and booming in the close space of the low ceilinged shop. After he laughed, a look of concern draped over the man’s face. “Why does Eddie Collins bring trouble to Nagy? Eh? Eddie Collins is always paid so well for making his jazz in Nagy’s room. Making so the young people come and are buying Nagy’s Zwack and beer, even the Ouzo from the Greeks that Nagy sells the young people for twice what he pays. Eddie Collins makes Nagy’s life easy. But now he makes it hard.”

“I’m real sorry, Mr. Nagy. I’m in love with this girl and she’s in love with me. You can see plain as anybody that’s not a good thing for us here in Chicago City. That’s why we’re going to New Orleans. First thing we can. But we just need a place to get our legs under us. We won’t make no trouble. I promise. If you want, I’d be happy to play my horn for them young people and make things easy for you.”

The old man blinked a few times, wiped at his eyes with a rag he pulled from his shirt pocket and tucked back in before speaking. “Eddie Collins is a crazy man. Is okay. Nagy was crazy man once, too. Nagy loved the wrong girl. That is how Nagy lost his tooth. See?” The old man lifted his cheek aside and showed a gaping space in his jaw. “Girl’s father did not like Nagy’s family, so he showed Nagy better way to live. Without girl. Also without tooth. But Nagy has other teeth. Can still chew meat,” he said, and nodded at a picture of a woman hanging on the wall by the door.

“Eddie Collins has plan to go to New Orleans. That is good. Also foolish. But foolish and crazy make bed together, so Nagy is not surprised. Bring car to back.” The old man finished speaking and stood, waving with two crooked fingers in the air. He left through a rear door while Emma and Eddie went out to move her car around.

Emma had watched the whole exchange in the shop with wonder in her eyes and a mix of fear and guilt in her heart. The old man’s clumsy English and his twinkling eyes reminded her of her own father when she’d been a little girl. When her mother was still in the house. Back then, Emma’s father knew how to laugh and he knew how to make other people laugh, too. He liked to play at being a gypsy, dancing like a buffoon and aping speech like the old shoemaker’s. Emma had laughed at her father’s antics. She’d laughed at how the silly gypsies talked. Coming face to face with the reality of these people, she wanted to apologize. For her father, but more for her memories of laughing at people she’d never known except through the pantomiming of a silly drunken old man.

Eddie showed her where to drive the car. A garage stood behind the cobbler’s shop. Emma pulled in on a pad of concrete. Off to the side of the space, a set of stout wooden stairs led down to a well-lit cellar. The cobbler held open a trap door and ushered them down the steps. Eddie thanked the man called Nagy. Emma couldn’t look the man in the face, but she nodded as she passed him and mumbled a quiet “Thank you,” before following Eddie into the cellar.

Candles and gas lamps illuminated the room, reflecting off of wood panels that lined the space. A small bar stood in one corner. The glow of light bouncing back from assembled glasses and bottles warmed the chamber, and Emma couldn’t resist the temptation to sit at the bar, despite the early hour. Eddie had brought his horn down and opened the case on a table at the side of the room. While he busied himself cleaning the instrument, Emma took in the space, pretending not to be searching for exits other than the stairs. A low stage sat at one end, framed by a circle of what Emma knew to be handmade chairs. Everything in the place had the look and feel of the handmade. Emma ran a hand along the bar and felt the tiny ripples in the wooden surface where a chisel had knocked aside or sliced off uneven layers of wood. She glanced up from the bar surface to the bottles arranged beyond. A woman’s voice, full of authority and compassion, shook Emma from her tempting thoughts.

“Miss Farnsworth. Cards did say we would meet again. Did they not?”

Chapter 22

Inside the building, Brand made a fast dash for the stairs. Suttleby asked why he didn’t want to take the lift, and he couldn’t resist the chance to dig at the plump little ball of a G-man.

“Figured a guy your size’d be up on the latest fitness techniques. Climbing stairs does more for you than standing in a box on a rope.”

Suttleby grimaced as he stepped into the lift. Brand raced up the stairs but didn’t make it to the fourth floor before his new colleague. Just his luck, Brand thought, that the fat little runt would get a look at his office before he could go in there and splash some ink around. Brand still had to make good on the story he gave Wynes the night before. And he was certain Crane would come storming in any minute, shouting about Brand’s act of sabotage in the print room.

But the Minister of Hokum Peddling didn’t show his face all day, and Suttleby had gone straight for his own office. Right next to the lift. Brand had plenty of time to toss a few bottles of ink on the walls and floor, making sure to keep his hands and shirtsleeves clean in the process. A few droplets splashed onto his pants, but they were dark anyway.

At a little before nine o’clock, Aiden Conroy and Digs Gordon came up to Brand’s door, sheepish and scared.

“Mr. Brand, sir?” Conroy said. “You got. . .you got a minute?”

“Yeah, Conroy. What do you need? Shouldn’t you two be on your beats with the morning run by now?”

“No, sir,” Digs piped up. “Minister Crane says we’re sacked and to let you know. He says we got work today, but after today that’s it. No dice and no pay. We’re supposed to head down to some scrap yard with Mutton.”

“Scrap yard?” Brand said. “Unless Crane wants to get into the junk business, why send Mutton to a place like that? You know that old wrench and bolts fella loves collecting left overs. You too, Conroy, isn’t that right?”

The kid nodded. Brand immediately felt guilty when he saw a half smile die on the kid’s face. “Hey, Conroy, chin up, yeah? You and Digs here, you’ve always done good work. I’ll put in a word. Maybe Crane’ll listen to me and we’ll have you back on the payroll lickety-split.”

“Is it true, Mr. Brand?” Conroy asked. “About Chief, I mean. We heard he quit and that’s why Minister Crane is running the show now.”

Brand barely kept his temper. For the boys’ sakes, he had to find some way out of the black mood that had settled over his brow. He watched Conroy and Digs fidget some more and worked up the courage to respond. He had to choke down his sorrow first though. “About Chief, yeah. He quit, and that’s all you need to know about it for now. But don’t worry. I’ll square it with Crane about you two working here. You’d better be getting on. Go on down to the maintenance rooms and check in with Mutton on the gearboxes. They’re probably the first thing headed to the scrap pile.”

Digs cut in ahead of Conroy, “I don’t follow you, Mr. Brand. If the gearboxes aren’t going to—”

“Mutton likes to have the machinery working right no matter what it’s called up for, even if that’s being laid to rest in a heap. I figure the old boy could use a hand keeping the metal men tip top until Crane gives the order to haul them out of here.”

Conroy’s eyes brightened up right away. The kid gave a quick nod and then one of the rusty salutes the newsboys had always kept ready for their boss. Digs shook his head but followed suit. Brand snapped his hand to his brow in return and ushered the kids out.

“Carry on, gentlemen.”

After the two boys left, Brand set to clearing out his desk, fuming and muttering to himself the whole time. Talking to Crane on the way in, he’d seen the end of his job as Chicago City’s top newshawk. And with what he’d just learned from Digs and Conroy. . .a gnawing in Brand’s gut said be ready to skip out and not leave any trails if he could help it. Stacks of old notes went down the waste chute where they were shredded up and dropped on a belt headed for the incinerator. Brand tossed out anything that Crane and his toady might be able to use as they set about pulling the rug that much further up over Chicago City’s eyes.

Brand spent the day in his office wondering when Crane would show, but the G-man never did come down from his lofty perch in Chief’s old office. Twice, Brand thought about going up there and collecting what he could of his old friend’s mementos and keepsakes. Hell, even his pen set would have been nice to have. But each time the thought came, it was replaced by the memory of his conversation with Chief the night before. That just sent Brand fumbling in his brain for something that smacked of reality. Everyone around him seemed fine enough with what was happening. Change coming to Chicago City. Big change. Real change.

Around the noon hour that day, Suttleby came by with a document titled the
Dictates for Journalistic Etiquette
, which Brand accepted, glanced at, and tossed down the waste chute once Suttleby had waddled his porcine bulk down the hall. By half past four, Brand had a full pot of coffee souring in his guts and a mood to match. With Crane still a no-show, Brand locked up his office, skipped the lift and took the stairs back the way he’d come. In the corner of his mind where things still made sense, he half hoped that he’d emerge from the stairwell and find his old boss and friend waiting for him like he used to when Brand tried to leave early. He waited at the stairwell door. Took a breath and then another before pushing it open. The foyer stood empty except for the receptionist at her desk. Down the room from her position, the main doors waited for Brand like a pair of guillotines turned on their sides.

The girl at the desk nodded smartly at Brand, like she always had. He put a finger to his hat and mumbled something about a story on his way to the doors. She looked back down at her desk and paid him no mind. Brand pushed a hand against the door and crashed into it when his momentum got away from him. The door didn’t budge. Brand turned to the receptionist. She’d lifted her eyes from her desk and smiled at him from behind a mask of curiosity and fear.

“They’ll be unlocked at 1700 hours, Mr. Brand. Orders from Minister Crane.”

Brand stepped over to a waiting bench and plopped down on it, too tired to get really angry and too angry to think straight enough to find another way out of the building. True to her word, half an hour later the receptionist removed a key ring from her desk and marched to the doors. Brand stared in disbelief while she undid the locks.

“Any chance of the employees getting a set of those keys, miss? In case of a fire, I mean.”

“Minister Crane has entrusted me with a set, Mr. Brand. The soldiers outside have a set, too, and so does the minister.”

Brand blew it off with a shake of his head. He blew the whole day off going down the front steps and kept it up as he crossed the street. At least four people stopped to listen to the blue streak he let out all the way back to his rooms. When he saw the empty bottle from last night waiting for him, Brand cursed some more and then threw a few things around the apartment before collapsing into his chair. Outside, night fell on Chicago City, drifting down like gossamer but landing like a lead weight when the curfew bells rang out. Brand stirred from a shallow sleep just long enough to curse the night and the patrol boats he could see outside. Searchlights stabbed down here and there, piercing the city’s belly and making her curl into a ball. Brand followed suit and wrapped up in his chair. He slipped into a fitful sleep, dreaming of a knife he felt twisting in his guts. In the dream, Brand wished the knife would finish the job before morning, and at the same time he knew it would only cut him enough to leave a lasting scar.