Gods of Chicago: Omnibus Edition

by Sikes, AJ

  A section of the wall followed the shelf. As Brand collected himself, a short man with a round face and weasel’s eyes stepped out from behind the wall holding a pistol. Brand reacted fast, putting his hands up and giving a look of surrender as best he could. They might gun him down right here, but if they had arms out and at the ready, they were probably on the run from something. Brand’s mind flicked to the sounds from outside, the horns and the megaphone. He figured he knew what it was the gypsies had behind them.

  “I’m not a copper,” he said, hoping that was enough to stop the little round-faced man from shooting him.

  “Aw, sure enough you ain’t,” the man said, grinning like a fool and laughing out loud. “Hey, get this,” he said over his shoulder. “Guess who’s in our basement again. Mitchell Brand!”

  Chapter 32

  Emma shuffled along with the others, keeping her face half-turned away from the street. She couldn’t let Wynes see her, but she had to keep an eye on him. He walked ahead of her, beside Eszti. Biros turned to regard Wynes from time to time as they moved, and each time the detective snarled for the gypsy to keep his eyes on the road.

  “Can’t have you tripping, can we, Rigo?”

  Eszti caught her breath and drew up short at the last word. Biros halted, too, and Emma heard Nagy grumble from behind her.

  “Don’t like it?” Wynes said, staring Biros down. “Rigo?”

  Emma eyed both men, worried that the standoff would end in tragedy for them all. She wanted to stop it, tell Biros to let it be. She understood Rigo had to be an insult. Her ears had caught plenty of insults in the past, and even though this was the first she’d heard that wasn’t aimed at a dark-skinned man or woman, she knew well enough how much weight the insult could carry. Biros’ face shook with anger and his mouth worked around words Emma hoped he knew better than to let out.

  A soldier approached from across the street, asking Wynes if he needed help with the line.

  “No, I’ve got them,” Wynes said. “Rigo and I were just having a chat here. Isn’t that so, Rigo?” The soldier turned away and went to join his two comrades by a jeep. Emma hardly saw Biros’ hand move, but she heard the slap of his palm across Wynes’ cheek and saw the detective spin aside only to right himself and whip a gun out of his coat. The soldier came back with the others in tow. The held their rifles on Biros and yelled for him to stay still. Wynes came close to the man and gave him a smack across the face and then another. Emma barely kept her tongue, wanting to scream murder at Wynes, holler at him to lay off and pick on someone who wasn’t chained up and held at gun point.

  A soldier slapped a pair of bracelets onto Biros’ wrists and looped a length of rope around them and the chain between his feet. If he wanted to raise his hands now, he’d have to upend himself to do it.

  “Go on,” Wynes said, poking Biros in the shoulder. “Lead the way. Rigo.”

  Eszti shouted a curse then, drawing Wynes’ attention. He stepped closer and lifted his hand like he’d slap her. Emma stepped forward as far as the chain would allow. She put a hand up to cover Eszti’s face and stared daggers at Wynes. For a moment, she forgot about being anything but a young man from the neighborhood. She bent her face into an angry glare and held her lips tight together. Wynes stared back and turned as if he’d let her have the smack instead.

  “Is her brother,” Nagy said from the back. “Hit me if you want to, but leave boy alone. Please.”

  Wynes looked to the old man and sniffed. He dropped his hand and then brought a finger back up to aim at Emma’s nose.

  “Keep a cool head and I might leave her be. Give me any trouble and a smack’ll be the last thing your sister here has to worry about.” With that, Wynes spun on his heel and addressed the soldiers. All but one went back to the jeep. The soldier went to the back of the line with Nagy and Wynes stayed up front by Biros. They moved again, shuffling along with chains dragging on the pavement, a steady cadence of rasping and grating.

  After several blocks, too many for Emma to count, they reached the edge of the neighborhood, apparently the last of the prisoners to arrive. The street behind them was empty now. A roadblock had been set up at the last intersection before they left the Village and stepped into Chicago City proper. Two jeeps crossed the roadway, preventing anything bigger than a bicycle from getting through. Soldiers stood in the jeeps holding their ominous rifles. One soldier held a megaphone and shouted commands.

  Wynes went up to this man and they exchanged a few words. The copper left then, stepping away from the jeeps and getting into the cab of a nearby police van. Lines of gypsies stood to either side of the roadblock waiting for trucks and police vans to drive them away. Line by line the neighborhood’s residents were carted off, taken to the facility, a word that still burned like an electric shock in Emma’s mind.

  Their line was next up for transportation when Emma saw the air around the jeeps shimmer and flutter. The soldiers seemed to notice it, too. The one with the megaphone paused mid-sentence. Before the soldiers could react, the air whirled and whipped aside, revealing a man straddling an old metal bicycle on the street between the jeeps.

  The man, a filthy tramp if ever Emma had seen one, laughed and bellowed at the sky. In one hand he held an empty wine bottle, which he threw at the nearest soldier, hitting the man in the face. The soldier’s visor cracked and he went down in his seat, holding his hands to his eyes and howling. The other soldiers reacted then, drawing aim on the tramp, but holding their fire. The tramp took advantage of this and flung his arms out to either side, pushing at the soldiers nearest him.

  Where the tramp found his strength, Emma had no idea, but the man knocked one soldier right out of his jeep. The other kept his balance and seemed to get his wits about him, setting his rifle aside and moving to grapple the tramp. Another soldier from the other jeep did the same. When they both had their hands on the man, the air shuddered again, like a fierce and purposeful wind had chosen just that spot to exercise its power. In an instant, tramp, bicycle, and soldiers vanished.

  In the chaos of the tramp’s appearance and vanishing act, a few lines of gypsies turned on their captors. They surrounded the soldiers tasked with keeping them in line and held them fast. Some soldiers were beaten to the ground. Emma looked to Nagy and then Biros, but neither showed any sign of wanting to fight. Biros couldn’t anyway. The soldiers in the jeeps abandoned their posts and went to help their comrades, firing warning shots from their rifles into the ground. Emma’s ears rang with the blasts as electric bolts seared the air and scorched the ground. Men and women who had overpowered the soldiers beside them quickly relented and went calm.

  Emma waited for the worst. The soldiers couldn’t let the revolt go unpunished. They were no different than the coppers who broke up speaks in Eddie’s neighborhood. Somebody had to be an example. Emma shouted with Eszti and the others in her line when she saw the soldiers select a youth for their display of dominance. The young man couldn’t have been any older than Eszti, maybe not even of age. As the rifle was raised, the youth quivered. He dropped the rage and fury from his face as tears fell down his cheeks.

  Before the soldier could fire, the air shook around him, and again the tramp and bicycle appeared out of thin air.

  “Boo!” the tramp shouted, grabbing the would-be executioner by the collar and vanishing from sight once more. The tramp flew in and out of view again, performing his trick twice more before the remaining few soldiers backed away from the roadblock and took up positions beside a waiting police van. The tramp whipped into view again, this time beside Emma. He stood with his back to her and yelled at the soldiers.

  “Go on you damn worms. You damn rodents. Crawl back home where you belong.”

  The tramp’s stink nearly made Emma retch into the street. He turned to face her and lifted a ring of keys from his pocket, stuffing them into her pocket.

&
nbsp; “Go on, girl. Go on and get yourself out of here.”

  “Dad?” Emma’s eyes swam and she felt the ground coming up to meet her. She fell into the tramp’s embrace, felt his greasy hair and threadbare clothes smearing and scratching against her face.

  “Go on, I said. Get yourself free and save what people you can.”

  The tramp whipped away from her and hollered at the soldiers again before vanishing one more time. He reappeared behind the police van and knocked two soldiers’ heads together before flickering out of sight. Emma felt her knees buckle and her hands hit the dirt, catching her weight. She slumped forward onto her arms until Eszti reached to help her up.

  “He gives you keys,” Eszti said. Emma patted her coat and felt the key ring.

  All around the roadblock was pandemonium. Lines of prisoners shuffled together, looking for hiding places and piling into nearby houses. Some headed back down the street, ignoring shouts from the soldiers. Only four remained, and of these only one had his rifle trained in the direction of the prisoners. The others darted their aim around them, looking for all the world like frightened mice watching for the cat to return. The one eyeing the prisoners jerked backwards and Emma saw the tramp holding him by the throat. Seconds later both men vanished and the final three soldiers rushed away from the neighborhood.

  Emma didn’t waste any more time. With Eszti’s help, she got their line out of sight behind a wagon. Eszti undid the shackles on Emma’s feet first, then handed over the keys. Emma released Eszti and went to Biros. The man regarded her with suspicion.

  “You know a messenger and do not tell us.”

  “A what?”

  “Messenger. The Bicycle Man.”

  Emma shook her head and went to work unlocking the man’s bonds. “I don’t know what I know anymore. That tramp? Whatever he was, I don’t know him. He couldn’t have been my father. But that’s who he sounded like and that’s who he looked like.” She stopped when the last chain fell from Biros’ wrists. “Only my father never dressed like that and sure enough he never knew any magic tricks either.”

  Emma felt her stomach rising into her throat and fought it back. Whatever she’d just witnessed it had ended with her being free. At least as free as possible in this new version of Chicago City where soldiers marched entire neighborhoods off to jail. She handed Biros the keys. “Get somewhere safe, okay? I’ve got to get back to Eddie.”

  Shouting from the direction of the police van got her attention, and Emma stepped from behind the wagon to see what was going on. The tramp was back, and so were the soldiers. One of them had the man in a choke hold and two others had their rifles trained on him.

  Emma didn’t wait to see what happened. She got away quickly, moving off the main stem on a neighborhood street and stepping fast. Two blocks along and houses stood open and empty all around her. She thought about entering the nearest one when a soldier appeared in the doorway. He faced into the house and called for his comrade to join him. Emma kept out of sight until the two men had moved down the street to the next house.

  She remembered what Wynes had said. They were searching the entire neighborhood. House by house, making sure nobody was left behind.

  How many teams were there?

  She’d have to risk finding out. The evening sky darkened above her and she slinked around the neighborhood, ducking into hiding every chance she got and watching for soldiers before moving again. Eddie may have been found already, or maybe he hadn’t. But Emma wasn’t leaving the Village until she knew for sure either way.

  Chapter 33

  Aiden and the gypsies meandered through the tunnel, taking turns, going down side passages, until Aiden was lost like a stray dog chasing a train. Even if he did get away from the two men, he’d die down here before he ever found a way out. The tall man, Mihalyi, brought them to a halt finally, beside a section of wall lined with fence slats. Aiden thought the boards may have been put in to hold the wall from collapsing until the gypsy reached a hand to a crack between two boards and wiggled his fingers. A section of the wall opened outward and Aiden heard the sounds of a radio playing in a distant room.

  Laszlo pushed him forward and Aiden stepped into the cellar of a nice home. He could tell from the quality of dry goods and wine bottles all around him. The fancy looking jars, bottles, and dried meats were like something he’d seen in a dream or the stories Digs used to tell him about Gold Coast houses and the fellas who owned them. His mom found work there sometimes, and those were the best of times for Digs.

  Digs.

  Aiden kept the tears in this time, but he couldn’t stop his lip quivering. The gypsies waved for him to follow them out of the cellar and the three of them climbed a set of carpeted stairs leading into a washroom off a kitchen. The house was arranged like Aiden’s and for a moment he let himself feel that familiar safety, stepping from the washroom into the kitchen. The interior was different in so many ways that Aiden didn’t for an instant think he’d just been through a bad dream. The gypsies led him through the kitchen and into the dining room, then out the other side and into the front parlor.

  A warm light blanketed the hardwood floor and the dark wood of nicer furniture than Aiden had ever seen much less been close enough to touch. Light cast from countless candles, flickering illumination reflected in starlight, coffee, and amber from nearly every surface. Aiden wanted to reach out and touch the sideboard to his right, then the end table and chairs in the middle of the room. He wanted to touch everything, it all glowed so beautifully. All polished wood and gleaming jewel-like glass. A man stood in the middle of the parlor regarding Aiden with gray eyes that smiled out from beneath a deeply furrowed brow. Aiden spotted the front door, across the room and behind the man. He couldn’t run for it, no chance. The guy would stop him.

  He motioned for Aiden to take the nearest chair and Aiden sat, flinching upward as he touched the fine fabric. He worried that he might have tracked dirt in from the tunnels and would smudge the chair cushions. The man tutted, motioning for Aiden to resume his seat. He then resumed his observations. Aiden felt like he was being studied and examined, not watched for suspicious moves. All the same, he didn’t like being watched this closely so he gave it right back, examining the man’s face, looking for indications of intent.

  He wore a tweed suit and dark leather shoes. Leaning against a chair opposite Aiden was a long black stick with a silver head and tip. A pair of fine leather gloves sat on the chair back beside the stick. The man’s squat, slight figure seemed to hang in the air next to the chair, as though his feet merely rested on the ground and didn’t support his full weight.

  Aiden knew how to size a man up, at least enough to know this fellow was bad business in a fight. Unless you had him on your side. The man spoke in a language Aiden recognized from Mihalyi and Laszlo’s conversations, though it wasn’t until he heard it spoken here that Aiden knew it as a language. Before, in the tunnels, he’d been so scared he’d only caught sounds and mutterings, assuming the gypsies spoke too fast or low for him to make anything out. Mihalyi set Mr. Brand’s camera box onto the end table beside Aiden, nodded to him, and patted him on the back before turning to leave. Laszlo followed him out.

  “You may stay here.”

  Aiden whipped his head around from watching the gypsies leave and focused on the man again. He’d taken a seat in the other chair. “You may, if I may amend my statement, stay for as long as I am here. I will be stepping out rather shortly I’m afraid. It seems those who would upset the balance have taken matters further than I had anticipated, and so I am forced to act without the privilege of preparation.”

  Aiden couldn’t make half sense of the man’s words. “Th—, thanks mister. I don’t know but I’m in your debt I guess. I don’t want to be a burden though, so I’ll shuffle along soon as you tell me I gotta.”

  “My good fellow, I wish nothing of th
e sort. But come, let us use this brief time we have to prepare as we may. The Governor has crossed his Rubicon, and so should we two do the same.”

  Before Aiden could muster up the know-how to respond to the part he understood, the man stood and stepped over to a bookshelf on the far side of the room. Two more of his fine upholstered chairs sat with their backs to the bookshelf, and in between them, on the shelf at about chest height, was a Marconi box. Aiden’s jaw fell open. An honest to goodness, real as you can get Marconi radio set. Inside a house.

  Inside this fine as fine can be house. In this old neighborhood.

  “Ain’t nobody this side of the river and this far from the lake got a Marconi box, mister. Nobody but. . .” Aiden thought better than to say the words he found on his tongue, but judging by the way the man’s eyes glinted in the candlelight, it seemed clear enough he knew what Aiden had in mind.

  “I am not now, nor have I ever been a member, beneficiary, or otherwise involved with the organization known as The Outfit. Please forgive my failure to introduce myself earlier; my name is Professor Timwick Argot Cather.”

  “Professor? Like in the university?”

  “Yes. Like in the university. Rather, exactly in the university. I am head of the Department of Information Sciences.”

  Aiden screwed up his face and his tongue struggled to form the right question, but the man, the professor, responded again to Aiden’s unspoken thoughts.

  “I am the librarian. The Chief Librarian, if you wish to know my official title. While it would please me no end to entertain the other questions I see behind your eyes, I am afraid time is not on our side. Please understand that nothing pains me more than to put off the idea of dialogue over Inquiry.” The man said the word like it tasted sweet to him, and he turned his face up like Aiden had seen guys do when they sipped hooch. He heard the word like a sigh of pleasure escaping the professor’s lips.