City of the Absent by Robert W. Walker Read Free Book Online Page A

orchestrated the riot as you say, he couldn’t’ve acted alone. There’d have to’ve been a conspiracy involving men at the highest levels.”
    â€œI’m aware of that, sir, but I think it Kohler’s idea from the start, perhaps with help from the then chief.”
    â€œWhy stop at slandering Kohler’s immediate supervisor? Look, Ransom, you’re a valuable fellow. You’ve proven it time and time, but this witch hunt you insist on must go! Too many people could be hurt, daughters, sons, grandchildren. Bury it with the dead here, now.”
    â€œHas Nathan Kohler got to you, too?”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œHas he got something on you?”
    â€œDon’t be ridiculous!”
    â€œHe’s asked you to step on me.”
    â€œAll right, Nathan’s come to me about the situation, of course, yes.”
    â€œI knew it.”
    â€œWhy, you’ve bedeviled the man. So let me warn you, Alastair, if you persist—”
    â€œBut sir—”
    â€œIf you persist, Alastair, in your secret investigation, then you’re going to feel the full weight of a huge shoe come down.”
    â€œI see.”
    â€œDon’t do that, Ransom! You see nothing, and you won’t see it coming. Not the next time.”
    â€œIs that a warning, sir, or a threat?”
    â€œIt’s a Chicago tip.”
    For no accountable reason, the familiar phrase made Ransom think of the Henry Vaughn poem, the lines that ran, “I saw eternity last night…”
    And now, alone, abandoned by his own kind, who’d thought to have a beer with him before Burt Menealaus was shot dead beside him, Ransom sat in the cab trundling off toward Muldoon’s.
    He felt a wave of loneliness wash over him like long faded, trailing clouds of glory, and wondered if anyone would remember Carter Harrison for the good he did Chicago. Then he wondered if anyone would remember Inspector Alastair Ransom for the good he did Chicago. Or would they remember only the bad decisions and actions of both men? Or worse yet, recall nothing at all of them?

CHAPTER 6
    â€œDaaa night grew dark, da sky went bluuue, an-an-and down da alley a shhh-shit-wagon flew,” twenty-eight-year-old, hunchbacked Vander Rolsky sang to himself to pass time, and to feel less lonely in the night, although his twin brother waved at him from just down the street. In his big, childish voice, Vander intoned the street rhyme he’d heard repeatedly from children playing jacks or hopscotch as he moved about Chicago’s various ethnic neighborhoods. “A scream was heard, the man was killed by a flying turd.” He laughed hyena fashion through his pushed-in nose, and a passing pair of gentlemen in cloaks, taking him for a simpleton down on his luck, each pushed pennies and one nickel into his pawlike hands.
    â€œThe wagon overturned, see?” he said, stepping after the nice men, laughing more, pocketing the coins, certain his twin brother Philander had seen the exchange and would take it all from him. For your own good, Philander would tell him. Everything is for my own good , he thought now as the two gents rushed off, their steps wider, faster, increasing the distance between him and them.
    Looking up and down the street, there was a pattern of light and dark from the well-spaced gas lamps.
    It was past ten, and all but the lewd houses and saloons were shut down and asleep below signs that designated a millinery shop here, a grocer there, a wainwright, a smithy, a bakery, and a reader of palms. The street stood alone, solitary; silent but for the onerous low growl of Chicago, the by-product of the myriad gas lamps and hum of concentrated animal and human life here, the stockyards not far off. Still, small sounds carried down the streets and alleyways, as did Vander’s voice, reaching his brother, who had Vander’s height but not his heft nor his gargoyle features. Philander didn’t have