plagued you all your life. If these bumblers come after you with all that firepower, you'll have more holes than a harmonica. Ask yourself, darlin': What's the smart card to play?
Frank knew his only sure ticket to stay on this side of a prison wall was a dead Chinaman, and if that Chinaman was in Skull Canyon and already winged and dangerous he stood a hundred percent better chance of taking the man out by going in after him alone than as part of this traveling freak show. One clean shot was all he'd need. And if he turned out to be the wrong Chinaman, there'd be a lot fewer questions asked if he came back with a body instead of a suspect. Nobody'd be the wiser.
Once Frank made up his mind about something, he wasn't one for square dancing around. He could make that ride tonight in his sleep. Sky was clear, there'd be a moon later; he might even reach their camp before those actors cleared out of Skull Canyon in the morning.
Before riding off, he nailed a note to the stable wall:
GONE AHEAD TO SCOUT.
MEET ME AT SKULL CANYON TOMORROW.
WILL WIRE ANY CHANGE IN PLAN.
YOURS TRULY,
BUCKSKIN FRANK
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Major Pepperman insisted on driving Doyle and Innes all over Chicago after they disembarked at Union Station. The Major had been born and raised in the city; he swelled up with a native son's pride as soon he set foot in his hometown, and by God if he couldn't get a rise out of these diffident tea bags by showing off the highlights of his metropolis, then he had lost his touch as one of America's preeminent impresarios.
His emphasis, once again, tended to dwell predominantly on size. There was Marshall Field's Department Store:
As they had arranged on the train, Sparks, Stern, and Presto took rooms at a smaller hotel around the corner from Doyle's and secured the Gerona Zohar in the hotel safe. In the moments they spent alone before parting at the station, no reference was made by either Sparks or Doyle to their conversation the night before; Doyle experienced gnawing discomfort about both the damning content of Jack's confession and what he felt to be the inadequacy of his own coldhearted response. What could he do to break this impasse? Sparks, still shamed, barely met his eye.
During the day, while the Doyles executed the responsibilities of Arthur's tour, the other three men paid a visit to the temple of Rabbi Isaac Abraham Brachman, the results of which they relayed to the brothers that evening in front of the fire in Arthur's suite at the Palmer House. Lionel and Presto did the talking; Jack sat apart, silent, unresponsive.
Rabbi Brachman had received no further word from Jacob Stern. Nor could he draw any clues from Jacob's behavior during his visit that threw light on his subsequent whereabouts. He had seemed very much himself: cheerful, a trifle distracted, more attuned to the abstract than the physical. Terribly concerned, as all the scholars were, over the theft of the Tikkunei Zohar, about which Brachman could offer no encouraging news, either. The matter had been referred to the police, who were at best dutiful, if not indifferent, to the loss of such a rarefied item: If it had been a draft horse or a vintage cuckoo clock, it might have stirred them to action, but the value of an obscure religious manuscript, and a non-Christian one at that, seemed to elude their grasp.
Facts were spare: The Tikkunei Zohar had simply disappeared; there one night, studied by Brachman, locked in a cabinet in the temple library; the next morning gone. No physical clues; no breaking and entering; the lock picked cleanly.
Thoroughly professional job. They chose not to burden Rabbi Brachman, a frail, wispy man of seventy-five, with any information about the possible involvement of the Hanseatic League or the other missing holy books. And Brachman took great comfort in hearing that the Gerona Zohar still rested safely in their possession.
More disappointment: The Rabbi could not recall a tall, raggedy evangelist preacher who had attended the Parliament of Religions. Over four hundred clergy from around the world had taken part and a year had passed; nearly impossible for a man of his age and failing memory to pick one face out of the crowd. He would be more than willing to comb through his records to see what he could find; that would take a day or so.
Not until Presto asked Brachman if he had received any unusual visitors in the days leading up to the robbery did any startling information emerge. No one before the robbery, he told them, but strange you should mention it: A collector of rare religious manuscripts had been to see him that very morning. A German businessman, Gentile, blond, tall, good-looking: come to express his sympathy about the theft of the Tikkunei Zohar. After some related idle conversation, the man mentioned he had recently purchased a rare religious book in New York; if he brought it to him, would the Rabbi be able to authenticate that the manuscript was indeed genuine?
Although the man seemed the soul of unobtrusive friendliness, solid instinct advised Rabbi Brachman to hold his tongue. How had this fellow heard about the theft of the Tikkunei Zohar? Only a few people outside of their temple had been told; it had not even been publicized.
No, he was sorry but his eyesight was failing, said Brachman. To be of any help in a matter requiring such rigorous examination would be quite impossible. He had a friend who might be of assistance but the man was away on a trip at the moment. They spoke awhile longer, quite innocently, before the man departed, leaving his card with Brachman; if the friend returned soon, would the Rabbi be good enough to let him know?
Presto magically produced an identical copy of the business card he had shown to them in New York: Frederick Schwarz-kirk, the same Chicago-based collector whose path had crossed Presto's before.
The Zohar ruse had worked, said Doyle; the man had the false book, but he also had his suspicions. If the information on his card was correct, Mr. Schwarzkirk's office lay within walking distance of the Palmer House. That would be their next stop, one consequence of which did not occur to them, as it seemed to offer no significance at the time:
Traveling there by the more direct route would take them directly past the Water Tower on Chicago Avenue.
All day the Voices in his head told Dante Scruggs this would be the night his luck would turn. The Indian bitch had spent nearly a week staked out in front of the damn Water Tower, dawn to dusk, hightailing it back to her boarding house before dark. Hadn't looked for any work; hadn't even stopped in a single store, and that just wasn't natural in a woman. All she did at the Tower was stand and stare at people as they walked past, drifting every hour from one side of the building to the other, always staying with the crowds, never leaving him a single opening to make his move. There were times when Dante began to wonder if she sensed that he was tracking her: Indians were crafty that way, like animals.
Frustration began to boil up inside him like steam in a locomotive; had he picked himself out some sort of wrong-headed freak? If the bitch was crazy, that cut the edge off his interest; she wasn't prime. Maybe the time had come to reconsider his original investment. But the Voices that morning sounded so confident; something was in the wind and he couldn't ever remember a time when the Voices steered him wrong.
