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cal 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.”
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“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, “
“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 . . .
“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 Chris
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tian, 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
“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.”
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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, like 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 standin 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.”
