Flip knocked hard on the metal door with his bony, Abe Lincoln knuckles.
“We’re done!” he called to the guard. “Done in here!”
“You gonna give me that cake!” Claude screamed.
The killer stood from his stool and charged forward, seemingly forgetting his leg irons and manacles. After a few feet, the chains went taut and he slammed face first into the concrete floor. He pulled wildly against the irons. The chain itself seemed sure to hold, but the bolt in the floor looked less reliable. The killer’s wild tugging scraped the chains hard and kicked up silica dust. It hung in the air, catching the light streaming in through the barred windows.
Flip fingered his 1911. He knew the sound of a gun’s report in the cavernous room would be deafening, but stood ready to fire if the killer broke free. Something told Flip their both being Negro would at least make the aftermath go smoothly. There would be paperwork, but not too much.
Before anything could happen, a guard opened the door. It was an old man with a harelip and a single silver eyebrow.
“Y’all done then?” he asked.
“Surely,” Flip said, reaching into his coat.
The killer stopped tugging. A glimmer of hope.
“This some fine cake my wife made,” Flip said, handing it over to the old man. “Wonder if you wouldn’t accept it with my thanks. I appreciate you men arranging this.”
The guard took the red handkerchief with a smile.
Claude’s howl was like a dog’s.
“What’d you do to him?” the guard asked through a trifold grin.
The guard’s tone said that whatever it was, it was just fine.
“Damned if I know,” Flip replied. “Some people are a mystery.”
Heading back to Chicago in the Hudson, Flip regularly forgot to brace himself when the car took a bump in the road. He was too deep in thought about Claude Chalifour. How there had been so little blood. How it had been a simple thing.
Flip’s years on the force told him the mutilation of a person alreadydead arose only from one motive, one emotion. . . and that was hatred.
Anger—mere anger—faded, usually in the time it took to strangle someone, or in the sobering instant after the stark, sharp cry of a gun. Anybody could kill in anger. But you had to properly hate someone to tear off their face afterwards. To mutilate their genitals. Or, Flip assumed, to decapitate them. Maybe you hated them because they had abused you. Maybe because they had stolen your woman or man. Or because they had shamed or embarrassed you. Whatever the case, hatred was what it took.
Then Flip got to thinking about Crespo and the Black Hand.
The Black Hand never mutilated anybody’s body. To the contrary, they wanted the victims recognizable. When the Black Hand killed—by poison, a slit throat, or, as was most common, several stab wounds to the back—the victim had always stayed recognizable, because the bodies were the calling cards of the organization. If the Black Hand tapped you, you were either going to pay, or you were going to become advertising for them. Either way, they won. Either way, you were useful. You could provide something they wanted.
Flip thought about how the dead twins had been positioned. He thought carefully about each of the murders. The boy and girl in the alley. The boys beside the canal. The pair in the orphanage, with their friend pinned to the wall. The triplets at home. The killer had taken no pains to conceal them, but he had taken pains. He had mustered the effort to switch the heads—and in some cases to reattach them—and to make no mess as he did so.
This was a kind of a show, Flip thought. It was like the Black Hand in that respect. It was meant to be seen by someone. But . . .who was the audience? Who was supposed to see what the killer had accomplished? Was it the families that would discover these stomach-churning mutilations? The cops like him who would be called in afterwards? Or some entirely unknown audience, perhaps a private one?
Flip’s history was spotty, but he knew Egyptians had once mutilated their dead. He knew of mummies. Organs in jars. Skins dried with salt. Ornate tombs that took armies of slaves to build. Flip wondered if his killer could be operating on an extension of this thinking. Did he believe he was preparing his victims for an afterlife? Helping them? That was one possibility. But simple punishment seemed a possibility too. If ritual mutilation could whisk someone up to paradise, surely it could also ensure you found your way to the other place. Flip knew certain religions held that a stained body could render you irredeemable. That a tattooed man was cursed if he was a Jew. That a Mohammedan could not find paradise if he had eaten pork. That a follower of the Buddha could not reach true enlightenment if he consumed garlic.
And there—just as the road under the Hudson’s tires began to firm, and the skyline of Chicago came back into view—Flip began to wonder if he had found it. A hate for these twins that went beyond the moment of death. A hate intended to ensure they would find no peace in the afterlife. A hate that hoped to confuse god or the devil with switched heads. Who was who, and how should they be judged?
The Hudson pulled up in front of the precinct station where Flip had begun his day.
“This is good?” the driver asked. “I can drop you somewhere else. For what you paid me, that’s no problem. I can even wait and take you home after.”
“That’s not necessary,” Flip told him. “Thank you.”
The driver nodded and replaced his goggles. The man seemed to relish his job. With his eyewear and scarf, he looked as though he already fancied himself in an aeroplane, cruising high above European fields.
The way things were going, Flip wondered if he might soon get his wish.
NINE
For the rest of the day, Flip made queries and calls, checked files and logs, but his department had no arrest record of a man with a divot in his head. That trail was cold.
Flip stopped at a grocery on his way home, then found Tark and Sally Battle sitting out on his porch. He could tell from their faces that their own searches had been likewise fruitless.
“Come on in and tell me about it,” he said to them. “I’ll make us some supper.”
“I came up empty, Flip,” Sally told him. “Tark believes he found something that’s maybe related, but I think he’s seeing things that aren’t there.”
“Oh really?” Flip said as they began to climb the stair.
“Yes, really,” Sally affirmed.
“And what do you think you found,” Flip asked Tark.
“I didn’t find any articles about decapitated twins,” Tark began. “But I did find articles about decapitations—a couple of them. I was thinking that maybe our killer could have wanted to practice on one person before he moved on to two.”
Flip set down his groceries beside his stove.
“It’s possible,” Flip said. “He could have wanted to start with just one person. That’s not out of bounds to imagine.”
“But he kills twins,” insisted Sally.
“Yes, he does that now,” Flip told her. “But he’s going to want to make sure that he does it right. Does it correctly. If that means a practice run back in the day, I think he’ll do it.”
“What did you learn in Joliet?” Tark said, a bottle of gin suddenly resting on the table before him.
“That the roads are getting good,” Flip said, slicing vegetables and meat. “Better, anyway.”
“And that boxer?” Tark pressed.
Flip thought for a moment as he sliced up a carrot.
“He didn’t tell me who our man is,” Flip said. “But the conversation made me think on some things. For example, I think our killer has some knowledge of anatomy, or has worked in the stockyards like Chalifour. I think our killer knows how to drain a body—either outside, or over a sink. Two of the killings happened indoors, and there were sinks and pipes to carry the blood away. I think our killer is taking care to do these things. I think we know that much.”
Tark opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better. Flip continued to chop vegetables.<
br />
“Often, I find I am able to crack a case when I review all the small steps a criminal must take in order to complete the deed,” Flip said. “I am trying to take myself through how our man did these murders. I am trying to imagine his actions so I can imagine him. The last two killings—the orphanage girls and the triplets—were indoors and clean. I am thinking about why. Maybe the draining made the reattaching easier. I am also interested in how he has switched the heads and tried to reattach them in different ways each time. In the first crime scene, he places one where the other ought to be. Just places them there, on the ground. In the next, he uses a spike to hold them fast. Then barbed wire. Then a proper needle and thread. It is almost as though he is attempting something. . . He is experimenting. Getting closer each time.”
“You don’t think he believes he can switch heads. . . and the people keep on living?” Sally asked, putting her hand to her mouth.
“Even Claude Chalifour dismissed that idea,” Flip said. “I think everybody knows that wouldn’t work. Well. . . almost everybody.”
Flip tapped a wooden spoon hard against a pot where water boiled. Sally and Tark jumped.
“Tark, why don’t you tell me what you think you found in the Defender archives?” Flip said.
Tark quickly produced notes from his pocket and began to read.
“Wendell Wentworth, a Negro, aged 32, was found with his head separated from his body on Western Avenue, behind his cart. It is believed his neck may have become entangled in horse tacking, and his mare started unexpectedly, pulling long and hard enough to cause the fatal injury.”
Tark smiled triumphantly, took a slug of gin, and set this first note on the table. Then he held a second handwritten card up to his eyes.
“Mary Jo Hall, 15, a Negro girl, died tragically in a fall from the roof of the Masonic Temple at the corner of Randolph Street and State Street, where she was employed. The young girl died instantly from the fall, as was apparent immediately to any onlookers, the force of the impact detaching her head from her body. Her head was found several feet away in the median landscaping. Her mother said the girl had been sad and despondent.”
Flip put a lid on the pot and let his stew begin cook. Then he joined Tark and Sally back at the table.
“Neither of those are very good, Tark,” Flip said. “How far back did you get?”
“I tried to go as far back as 1912,” Tark said. “And Sally took 1912 to 1910. We divided up the work, to be more efficient.”
Sally nodded to say that this was true.
“You say you ‘tried to. . .’” pressed Flip.
“It’s hard to read every newspaper,” Tark said. “Even if you are just looking for headless twins.”
“And you found nothing at all?” Flip asked Sally.
The madam shook her head.
“I expect I found as much as Tark. Only I had the sense to ignore the horse accidents and suicides.”
“Hey!” Tark objected. “What if someone made them look like accidents? Maybe that’s what he wanted people to think.”
“It doesn’t seem likely,” Flip told him.
Flip suddenly paused and his eyes went to the open window—the one all the way across the apartment that looked down on the front stoop and street below. Tark and Sally had never seen a man’s ears prick up quite like a dog’s, but they were seeing that now. (Tark would have sworn Flip’s ears actually moved.)
“Tark, make sure my pot don’t boil over,” Flip said softly, already moving toward the window.
Flip reached the window, saw something immediately, and then raced to the staircase.
Sally and Tark looked at one another and followed after him. (Sally tarried long enough to move the stewpot off the stove.)
At the bottom of the staircase, Flip threw open the front door to his building. An envelope had been placed on his door with his name scrawled across it. On the steps leading away were two people. One was a man in trousers and wrinkled shirtsleeves, and the other a boy no more than eleven years old.
Flip smiled and cleared his throat.
Joseph Singer and his unofficial assistant turned back around.
“See, Mister Singer,” Rufus said. “I told you this was where he lived.”
Flip’s own smile fell away quickly. He plucked the sealed envelope from his door and approached the pair.
“You got my magician in there?” Singer asked. “That note really for him.”
Flip considered bluffing, or failing to answer the query. Yet this option collapsed entirely when Tark and Sally arrived at the bottom of the staircase, excited and curious.
“Mister Singer, there he be!” the youngster pointed out.
“I see him,” the ringmaster assured the child.
Tark pushed past Sally and Flip, storming up to his employer.
“My brother all right?” the magician asked. “You need to tell me.”
“I ain’t heard otherwise,” said Singer. “But it’s plain there are those who still have an eye on finding him. And you.”
“Why?” said Flip. “What’s happened?”
Singer paused a moment and nodded to himself. The expression said that he would get straight to the heart of the matter.
“Now I didn’t see it firsthand,” Singer began, “but that man came around again asking after Ike. The same man from before. Nobody seen where he come from, and nobody seen where he go. Wore a suit. Wore his homburg low.”
“I talked to him!” Rufus announced proudly, shifting from foot to foot with excitement.
Singer nodded.
“What did you talk about?” Flip asked, crouching down in front of the boy.
“Where Ike was,” Rufus replied. “I said I didn’t know, because that’s the truth. Then the man said he wanted to see the caravan of the Amazing Drextel Tark. I showed him. The man knocked on the door, but there wasn’t anybody inside. Then the man said he would come back another time. Then he went away.”
“And when did this happen?” Flip asked.
“Near to sunset yesterday,” said Rufus.
“Could he have been a friend of Ike’s?” Flip said. “An acquaintance?”
Flip already knew the answer, but wanted to gauge Singer and the boy.
“Ike didn’t—doesn’t—know anybody other than his brother,” Singer said. “Drextel can vouch for that. And I never saw this man before. Drextel has his admirers—much as I hate to admit it—but nobody ever comes around to ask for Ike.”
Tark looked anxious. He put his hands on his hips and glanced from Rufus to Singer to Flip.
“We thought you would want to know,” Singer said. “That’s all. Whoever he is—whatever you done—that man still looking for you.”
“Tark hasn’t done anything,” Flip said sternly. “And also, how did you find me? Nobody used to know where I lived. This week I seem to have become the easiest man to locate in Chicago.”
“We just asked at the station,” Singer said, not seeing what the fuss was about. “We just gave your name.”
With an eye to helping the mayor, it seemed the cops on the South Side would let anybody know where to find Joe Flippity. And Flip knew that door swung both ways. If the killer wanted to come at him, well. . .
Flip sighed in frustration.
“Is there anything more?” Flip asked, turning back to Singer. “Any details you aren’t telling me? Anything else this man did?”
Singer looked defensive and squinted.
“No. . . I . . . Damn, son. I thought you would want to know. We only tryna help. I tryna get my magician back.”
Singer’s voice fell to a whisper.
“I ain’t like to say this in front of him—because he’ll want a damn raise—but the kid is a draw. One of the best acts I got.”
Tark heard every word.
“If I’m one of the best, then how come you pay me what the horse trainers make?”
“See what I mean?” Singer said. “See? And you get paid what you get paid cause you still
a boy, Tark. Damn! Have a little patience. It’s coming. That’s coming.”
“Who else saw the man in the homburg, other than Rufus?” Flip pressed.
“I. . . uh. . . maybe a couple of my roughnecks,” Singer said. “The man didn’t really talk to them. Not like he talked to Rufus. And all he said to anyone is he’s looking for Ike and the Amazing Drextel Tark.”
Flip nodded seriously.
“Did he ever take his hat off?” Tark asked. “Did you see a hole in his head?”
Singer’s neck jerked back in surprise.
“A hole? What do you mean? Rufus, you see a hole?”
“No sir,” Rufus said. “I didn’t see any hole.”
“You’ve given us a great deal to think about, Mr. Singer,” Flip said. “I want to thank you for taking the time to come here. Tell me, how long will your circus be town?”
“We’re off for a week,” Singer said, scratching his neck. “Little more. Then we do a couple of shows here in the neighborhood. Then we go on up to Milwaukee.”
“In that case,” Flip said, “you can plan on hearing from us sooner rather than later.”
Singer and Rufus departed. Back in Flip’s modest rooms, the trio sat around the table and ate second-rate stew.
“Damn,” Tark said. “This why you so thin? There ain’t nothin’ to this. Too many carrots. Hardly any meat at all.”
Sally Battle ate silently and politely. Flip had never been taught how to cook. Books from the library had only taken him so far.
Flip looked at Sally without appearing to. This woman ran the most successful Negro brothel in the city, which meant it was nearly the most successful brothel, period. She could afford to eat at fine restaurants every night of the week—and maybe she did, for all he knew—yet she was here. In these modest, reeking policeman’s quarters, eating soup made from old vegetables and beef scraps from a tin bowl with a measuring spoon.
He thought again of the photograph of her twins.
“You’re sure that Ike is safe where you put him?” Flip asked the magician.
“As sure as I was before,” Tark said. “He’s still somewhere across the border, if that’s what you mean.”
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