Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition

by Sikes, AJ

  Mutton had dug into a few piles before the yard boys came around and hollered at him to clear off. Then he drove down to the other end of the long yard by the lakeside and waited. Aiden and Digs had been stuck in the back of the delivery van they’d taken over from the Record. Aiden still thought of it as the Record, even with the new signs hanging up everywhere. He even called it the Record when Mutton drove them back to return the van and collect his old steam car. The sun had long since set when they finally tootled out of the garage beneath the Record’s building.

  “Hey, Diggsy. Hold up a tick,” Aiden said. They’d turned down yet another alley that Digs said he knew was a safe route, away from main roads and places the coppers were probably watching during the curfew. Digs knew the streets, Aiden had to give him that.

  “We can’t stick here for long, Conroy my lad,” Digs said, pulling an impersonation of Mutton that included slumping over a bit and dropping one eye lid.

  “Aw, go on, Diggsy,” Aiden said and waved a hand at his friend. “We’re in the soup because of that old fella. He’s the reason we’re so late and running from the coppers.”

  “Yeah, but he gave you Mr. Brand’s camera box, didn’t he? Guy can’t be all that bad he hands you a parting gift like that.”

  Aiden hefted the small box in its leather case. The strap went around his neck and the camera dangled in front of him like the weight on a case clock. Mutton had handed it over after he’d dug it from a scrap pile when the yard boys weren’t looking. It was a heck of a thing to hand a fella, Aiden had to admit. He also had to admit that he’d thought twice about trading it for safe passage home. Of course, the coppers probably wouldn’t have much use for it and would be just as likely to haul him and Digs in for stealing it.

  “Hey, Aiden. What’s with the long face? It’ll be jake. Don’t you worry. Ol’ Diggsy Gordon’s in the lead. Now are you rested up enough or should I ask the next copper that comes by if he’s got a pillow handy?”

  Aiden swiped at Digs and then the boys were running again. Up fire escapes and into windows of abandoned flats or empty storerooms above shops. Digs knew plenty of routes to and from everywhere a guy’d need to go. They even passed right behind their favorite soda shop. At the edge of Aiden’s neighborhood, the boys pulled up behind a stack of waste barrels and crates outside of a butcher’s. The stink of meat and blood cloaked their hiding place and a swarm of flies buzzed lazily in the cold night air above the boys’ heads.

  “Just up here and we’re good as gold,” Digs said. He motioned for Aiden to follow and piloted them along an alley that ran down one side of the butcher’s. It opened to a wider street at the far end and branched in the middle to follow a narrow trail between the butcher’s and a grocer’s building.

  “What’s up here?” Aiden asked, worried by the narrow length of alley they had entered. A patrol ship sailed overhead somewhere. Its motor rumbled in the clouds, low and threatening. If a searchlight came down on them in this thin alley, they’d be sunk but good. Digs pulled up by a cellar window in the grocer’s building. He prized it open with a length of wood that he’d slid from a hiding spot beside the window.

  “Down here. We drop into McCoy’s cellar, sneak an apple or two if you’re hungry, and then it’s two blocks to home.”

  “How you figure, Digs? You want us to detour into the cellar first? I don’t follow you.”

  “No, you dunce. The cellar lets out into Old Chicago. Underneath, right? It all burned down fifty some years ago and they just went and built up on top of it. But a few spots like this one let you in. There’s tunnels all around that get you everywhere in the city. You just got to watch out for them gypsies. They’ll gut you and serve you up as breakfast if they find you in their clubhouse.”

  Now Aiden understood how his friend was familiar with so many places in town that Aiden had never been and figured a guy couldn’t get without knowing the right people. The tunnels also explained how Digs managed to cop the sneak so easy after lifting food or clothing from a storefront. Aiden felt Digs nudge his shoulder and he returned the gesture, remembering his friend’s last words and imagining nothing but evil grins and sharp knives waiting for them in the cellar.

  “You know the way, Diggsy. Go on.” Digs bent his head and shoulders into the cellar window just as a car engine rumbled from one or two streets over and came closer. Shouting echoed through the alleyway and was followed by a gunshot. A scream and a second shot followed. Then silence except for the rumble of the patrol boat somewhere above. No searchlights came down, so the boat’s position was a mystery.

  “C’mon,” Digs said. “That was the next street over. Let’s go see what’s what.”

  Aiden balked, but his friend was intent and had already squeezed past him down the narrow alley to the wider branch alongside the butcher’s. Aiden followed and caught up with Digs at the alley mouth. They hung back, behind the crates and waste barrels, peering into the street they’d been on earlier.

  “I don’t see nothing, Digs. Let’s go on.”

  “You heard the shots same as me, hey? Bet there’s some kinda mess out there. Let’s go get a picture with Mr. Brand’s camera.” Before Aiden could stop him, Digs had the camera off his neck and was on the sidewalk. Aiden came up behind Digs and they duckwalked their way down to the middle of the block. Digs brought Mr. Brand’s camera up and fiddled with it. Aiden snatched it away and worked the dials the way he’d seen Mr. Brand do a few times in the print rooms. The little view window began to glow with a dull snowy light. Aiden thought he could make out an image on the screen and kept fiddling with the dials. His heart skipped a beat when a car roared to life at the far end of the block. It came tearing around a corner and speared the butcher’s window with its headlights as it made the turn. The car drove past their hiding place and down the next street. Aiden clamped Mr. Brand’s camera to his chest.

  “We’re sunk if we stay out any longer, Digs. Let’s get hid.”

  Aiden moved to go back down the street when the thrumming of an airship filtered down from overhead. The boys shuffled along the sidewalk, trying to find a hiding place. Aiden tucked into a doorway and called for Digs to join him, but Digs lit out for the alley, staying low and galloping. Aiden’s eyes rounded in terror when a searchlight stabbed down from the clouds and picked Digs out on the sidewalk.

  Digs bolted for the alley and disappeared around the corner. Aiden heard shouts. He waited for gunshots but none came. Then Aiden heard a sound that sent his heart straight into his throat. It began as a low throaty rumbling and grew to a rasping hiss. The scream that followed had to be Digs. Aiden heard his own name in the middle of the storm of sounds, roaring and hissing and howling. Then silence. The hum of an airship motor faded as the craft moved away, trailing its searchlight like a knife through the night.

  Aiden nearly shrieked when he heard a clicking sound from the street around him. A trio of crabs had emerged and made their way to the alley. Aiden didn’t want to go down there. He didn’t know what he’d see, but his imagination kept trying to fill in the blank spot. And he kept trying to will the blankness to remain so he wouldn’t have to think about Digs in any way except as he last was: running for his life, but still alive.

  The crabs made the alley and turned. Aiden stayed on their trail, hanging back. His terror kept his eyes narrowed against the feeble light, and he had to put a hand out to steady himself around the corner. The smell of the butcher’s waste barrels nearly emptied Aiden’s stomach. He swallowed once. Twice. The crabs continued along the alley, so Aiden followed. His eyes were still half-closed, and he knocked his knees trying to move around the crates. When he heard the crabs stop moving, he staggered and ended up slipping in a patch of slick soil. His knee came down hard onto a stone and he bit his lip to keep from crying out. The crabs clicked a few more times and then went still. They were in the narrow alley Digs had led Aiden into. One by
one the crabs came out. When the first one got close to Aiden’s feet it stopped and rocked back to aim its lens at his face. Without realizing he was doing it, Aiden held a hand up to block the crab’s eye from focusing on him. He heard the machine’s shutter click and figured it must have taken a picture of him anyway. Mr. Brand’s camera box hummed. Aiden looked at the view window as the picture came into focus.

  The image was dark, but it was shot through in places with streaks of light from the searchlight. The picture showed the narrow alleyway just by the cellar window where Digs and Aiden almost escaped a few minutes earlier. Now most of Digs was in a pile by the window. Aiden’s stomach heaved and he spluttered a mouthful of bile onto the crab at his feet. The machine sparked and smoked and went still. The other two came up beside it. One at a time they aimed their eyes at Aiden’s face. As they did, the view window on Mr. Brand’s camera changed. A new image replaced the first, and this time Aiden felt his heart go stone cold when he looked into his friend’s bloodied face. Digs’ eyes were closed at least. The final picture showed a hulking dark figure standing over Digs. Something dripped from the figure’s long fingers. A grunt and moan came from down the narrow alley. Aiden finally screamed. And he ran.

  His feet carried him down the wide alley around the corner. Back down the street and over to the next block. The rumbling motors of patrol boats swarmed like hornets above his head and he ducked as he ran, holding his cap on with one hand and clutching Mr. Brand’s camera to his chest with the other. After dashing along streets and down alleys, Aiden came up short against the fence behind his family’s home. His parents would eat him alive for coming in after curfew. He’d have to ditch Mr. Brand’s camera box, too. If they caught him with it, they’d see the pictures on it, and then they’d know about Digs. Aiden couldn’t tell them about Digs, but he’d have to tell them something. He stashed Mr. Brand’s camera box under the back steps and crept to the kitchen door.

  When Aiden opened the door, his parents flew into the kitchen from the dining room. What was he thinking? Why had he been out after curfew? Was he crazy? Did the men find him and bring him home? What men? The men that came by just as the curfew bell rang.

  Men were looking for him?

  Aiden focused on the only thing that made sense about his day. He told his folks how him and Digs were put off the job, but first they got sent to the scrap yard with Mutton, and the old man kept them too late because he wanted to dig through the piles. Aiden got dropped off a few blocks from home.

  He hadn’t wanted to mention Digs because his parents didn’t like him hanging around a guy who doesn’t keep a regular address. Sure enough, Aiden’s dad went to work on him.

  Figures he’d come home late after hanging around the Gordon boy. And what about Digs? Where’d he end up? He’s not out there begging food from the neighbors, is he?

  Digs went home, Aiden told them, feeling his bottom lip quiver. He heard the sounds from the alley echoing in his memory and did his best to see a picture of Digs still alive. Aiden imagined Digs standing next to his mother in whatever house they’d been living in lately. Aiden never knew where Digs lived from week to week. Digs didn’t either.

  He went home, Aiden’s father said in a huff. Where’s he at this week?

  Aiden’s mind called up the sounds from the alley, and the smell of the butcher’s shop. His stomach turned and Aiden felt like he’d need a pail if his folks kept grilling him.

  He’s living over by some butcher’s. Aiden’s dad nodded and crossed his arms. Digs went home, Aiden said again. His father grumbled something about looking guilty and told Aiden to go to bed. Digs went home, Aiden thought to himself as he went upstairs to his room, fighting against the images that kept coming back to him. Images of Digs lying dead in the narrow alley, all tumbled together in a heap by the cellar window. All except for the parts Aiden hadn’t seen because they weren’t there anymore.

  Chapter 25

  Tuesday morning, Brand struggled to leave his rooms. The door opened just fine. The hallway was where he’d left it the night before, and the only fog in his head was from too much sleep instead of too much booze. Even his feet felt better this morning. But his heart sank and his insides twisted when he thought about where he was headed. The ache in his gut grew worse with every step down the sidewalk to the Record offices.

  He still refused to think of the building as anything but the Daily Record. Brand told himself the minute he called it the ministry of anything that would be the last time he breathed Chicago City air. Until then, he’d go on sucking it in and blowing it out with the rest of the saps under the thumb of the Governor’s new leadership. But that didn’t mean he had to follow the rules like a schoolboy. Like he had yesterday, and owing to a stop for a new pouch of tobacco, Brand got to the building a little later than expected.

  Crane was going in when Brand reached the corner, so he hung back until the G-man was well inside. It wouldn’t help having another ass chewing for breakfast, and especially when it would be his ass on the platter. Brand shot a quick glance at the mooring deck on the side of the building. The Vigilance was still gone and her absence made his guts sink even lower and twist even harder together. The newsboys’ airbikes hung off the trapeze, but Crane would probably have them towed out to scrap soon enough.

  Brand went up the steps to the building and flashed his press badge at the soldier by the door. The other soldier dropped the barrel of his rifle across Brand’s path and demanded a photo identification card. Brand dug it out of his wallet and held it up by his face. The soldiers nodded at Brand and stepped aside for him to enter. He went straight up the stairs to his office and plunked himself at his desk, wondering how long he had before Crane stepped in and gave him both barrels before telling him to beat it.

  It was nearly eleven o’clock before the Minister of Hokum Peddling poked his head in. Brand’s sour gut hadn’t improved, and before he could think twice, he felt himself giving Crane a bent eye. “Yeah?” The G-man’s face went dark, and Brand came up out of his shoes. “I mean, hello, Minister Crane. What can I do for you?” He stood and rested his fingertips on the edge of his desk.

  “Briefing, Brand. I’m only coming to tell you special because we haven’t outfitted your office with a receiving unit yet.”

  “What’s wrong with the intercom I’ve got?” Brand asked, nodding to the box on the wall next to his desk. He wondered if this briefing wouldn’t turn out to be his dismissal.

  “Old equipment,” the G-man said, waving a hand at the intercom. “Come up to the newsroom now. We’ve received some disturbing information to process and distribute.”

  So maybe he wasn’t being put off the job today. But process and distribute? Not exactly words Brand associated with the news. Of course, he didn’t think of the news as information either. You had truth and lies, facts and embellishments. If you called something information, you might as well call it hooey. It certainly wouldn’t get people tuning into Brand’s radio broadcasts if he started off saying he had information to share.

  All of these thoughts danced and argued in Brand’s head as he followed Crane up the hall to the lift. They rode in silence to the sixth floor newsroom and when they emerged Brand almost threw up at the sight. On every wall a poster had been hung proclaiming The Dictates of Journalistic Etiquette. Suttleby came up to greet his boss as Brand and Crane stepped off the lift. “I just finished getting the posters up, Minister Crane.”

  While Crane and Suttleby flapped their jaws, Brand took in the first few lines of text on the poster Suttleby clutched with his sausage fingers. Brand hadn’t paid much attention to the page Suttleby’d handed him yesterday, but he’d seen enough to know that journalism, as Brand knew it, wasn’t a concern of the new Minister for Public Information. What he read on the poster now confirmed that thought and then some.

  All information is of prime importance.

&nbs
p; The Ministry for Public Information is charged with filtering that information which can be detrimental to the public good.

  The Ministry for Public Information is likewise charged with ensuring the efficient and accurate communication of that information which can be most beneficial to the public good.

  Brand stopped reading at that point. He’d seen and heard enough. But what could he do about it? Crane called to the gathered newsies, many of whom were new faces for Brand. They all had the same crew cut and dark grey suits, making Brand think they must have been sent special by the Governor’s office.

  “All right, everyone,” Crane said, calling the briefing to order. Brand noticed every face but his had already turned in Crane’s direction. “Brand, that means you, too,” Crane added.

  “Oh, yes, Minister. Just acquainting myself with the new faces around here. I see I’m in good company, just not company I’m familiar with.”

  “Yes,” Crane said, “and there’ll be time for introductions after the briefing. Now,” he continued, turning to address the room. “We have two reports that need distribution, and I want them handled by Brand here and. . .” Crane paused, scanning the room. “Franks. Let’s have you take this one. Some tramps found dead by the riverside. Seems they froze to death last night,” Crane finished flicking a quick glance in Brand’s direction. Brand kept his face stony and focused his eyes on a poster above a desk against the far wall. He swallowed the bile that rose when he remembered it had been his first desk as a cub reporter at the Record.

  Crane held out a sheet of paper with the now ubiquitous symbol of authority stamped at the top of it. One of the nondescript newsies strode up with a marching purposeful step, accepted the page, and returned to where he’d been standing.