City of the Absent

by Robert W. Walker

  Ransom had made one stop on his way here, and that was at his friend Philo’s home, disturbing Philo from a deep slumber.

  “Do you still have possession of those farm implements that Montgomery Ward had you photographing for their new catalog?” he’d asked Philo.

  “They refused the return post, expecting me to pay for it!”

  “So you have them back?”

  “I do, but why? And what’s got you in such heats?”

  “I want those castrating scissors they use on horses. Do you have them?”

  “Rance, what in the world have you in mind? And are you sure about this?”

  “Fool, it’s not for me!”

  “A horse, then?” he asked.

  “No, not a horse.”

  “You mean to…to castrate a man? God, Rance, isn’t your reputation already beyond repair?”

  “No one’ll ever know it was me. When I’m through with this bastard priest, he won’t be talking to anyone.”

  “Priest!”

  “He’s molested Sam.”

  “Nooo! A man of the cloth, sworn to abstinence?”

  “A man of the lie more so than the cloth. Now where are those bloody pinchers?”

  “Are you sure, Alastair, that this is how you want to proceed? This gets out, it could end your career.”

  “Where’re the damn pinchers?” Ransom pushed past his friend, who stood in his nightshirt.

  “All right, all right. But they must never ever be traced back here, you understand?”

  “Not by me.”

  And now Ransom was standing in the church foyer, one hand on his cane, the other fingering the horse-neutering pliers held beneath his great coat. In fact, he cut his finger on the razor sharp edge.

  He’d never felt comfortable in the house of God, not as a child and certainly no longer. What made him think he could take out his revenge for Sam on Father Jurgen here, now, tonight, in such a place? Perhaps Philo was right; perhaps it’d be too cruel and inhumane to butcher a man this way? Not even be sure to go through with it, he thought when footfalls interrupted him.

  “Can I help you, my son?” called out an old priest who looked as if he’d torn himself from a hoary grave, his white hair wispy and lifting with the wind from the door that Ransom held open.

  The thing sitting on Ransom’s chest—like some dark incubus of nightmare—made it difficult to speak, but he croaked out his lie. “Sorry, Father O’Bannion. I just stepped in to throw off a fellow I’m tailing.”

  Ransom made the mistake of meeting the old man’s incisive, cutting glare. “Is that right now? Using the Church to further your career? It’d be a headline if it got out, Alastair.”

  Ransom instantly knew he was caught in a lie. Damn the priest.

  O’Bannion was an institution in Chicago, a priest with the reputation that made Irish priests uncomplicated and complex at once. He had been a boxer few men could defeat in the ring, and a minister no one doubted. A big and tall man in his prime, he looked to be what a child imagined God to look like, and Alastair had never known him to be without a gray beard. He had ministered to the poor in this parish for over fifty years with little or nothing to work with and even less reward.

  Despite all odds, Father O had somehow kept a soup kitchen open. He had begun a school in an adjoining building whose owners he’d convinced to donate to the church. He personally kept the books, somehow keeping it all revolving in the air like a trick cyclist with multiple plates on the end of countless thin rods.

  “Are you sure, Alastair?” probed O’Bannion.

  “Sure…sure, yes, I’m sure.”

  “I could always tell when you lied, even as a boy.”

  “All right, I came to have a talk with—ahhh…”

  “Father Jurgen, I suspect.”

  “Then you know what happened with Samuel, the boy?”

  “I’ve heard Father Jurgen’s side of it.”

  Ransom snorted, his hidden hand tightening around the pinchers. “And I’m sure it’s a fine rationalization, too.”

  “Father Jurgen was to take over here. He’s made a series of…let’s say bad choices.”

  “I’ll say he has.”

  “And his punishment is already great.”

  “Great enough that he won’t harm another child?”

  “That is my estimation.”

  “Then you didn’t fall for his rationalizing this away?”

  The priest led Alastair toward the altar and the candles. “I’ve been concerned about Father Jurgen’s, ahhh…”

  “Activities?” Ransom supplied a neutral word for it.

  “Activities, yes?” Not even the tough-talking old bird of a priest could find words for this kind of crime. No one wanted to acknowledge that such things existed in the world, in nature, in society, in the things men conceived of, and certainly not the churches or the schools. Ransom’s neutral word fed right into the faux politeness.

  The two men stood before the candles, and Father O lit one, saying, “We should pray for Father Jurgen…will you light a candle for him?”

  The old chess player had outmaneuvered Alastair. He could not light a candle without giving away what he hid beneath his coat. Ransom ignored the question, saying, “Then these activities have been going on for how long, Father O?” The old priest happily allowed people to refer to him as Father O as an endearment.

  “For…let’s say, some time, but the offense has only recently come to my attention through a series of unfortunate events.”

  “I see. Then why not turn me loose on him?”

  “I’ve already taken him to great task, Alastair.”

  “Great task? How? With words?”

  “In my younger days, I’d have made him get in the ring with me, and I’d’ve bloodied him good before he got out,” said O’Bannion.

  “That could be arranged with me opposite Jurgen.”

  “Perhaps it could.”

  “But it’d hardly be enough punishment.”

  “I certainly understand your rage and anger, Alastair. Had to find my own center of calm myself. But at my age, I fear that climbing into the ring against a younger man would only flatten me!” O’Bannion laughed at his own remark, but a glint of nervous electricity fired in his eye. “Let it go, Alastair. The Church deals with its own, dirty laundry and all. We don’t any of us want a scandal. A thing like this spread across the headlines—”

  “By God, put me in the ring with ’im!”

  O’Bannion took hold of his arm. “I can’t have ’im killed, now can I?” The old priest tried smoothing it over with a smile and a hand on Alastair’s back.

  “Just point out his room to me, then!”

  “You won’t find him here.”

  “Where, then? Don’t tell me you’ve castrated him down at the butcher shop.”

  O’Bannion laughed again. “No…no, he’s been transferred. No longer my worry, and no concern of yours, son.”

  “Transferred?”

  “Sent to another parish.”

  “Another parish? Where he can attack other small boys?”

  “Hold on!”

  “What kind of punishment is that?”

  “His new parish is in Greenland.” He said it as if the word “Greenland” meant the last word on the subject.

  “But he’s still in robes? Still dealing with children?”

  “He’s been reprimanded, and he has shown how contrite and horrified he is at his own behavior. Something you should perhaps try sometime, Alastair.”

  Ransom turned and rushed back up the aisle for the door, believing the old priest as to Jurgen’s having already vacated St. Peter’s.

  O’Bannion rushed after him, moving surprisingly fast for his age to close the distance between them, wishing the conversation to remain muffled. “I can assure you—”

  “Assure me?” interrupted the cop, turning on the priest. “The man’s obviously ballyhooed you, old man! Damn you! What about the children in that parish in Green
land?”

  “Franklin has sought out help and received counsel.”

  “What help? What counsel?” Alastair’s words dripped with contempt.

  “My counsel, and God’s counsel, Alastair! Do you think your counsel is above God’s or mine?”

  “Sure…sure, the weasel-snake-creep spouts off apologies to you and to God, but not a word to Sam or his other victims, yet Jurgen’s somehow the better for it?”

  “He’s a changed man, much better.”

  “You arranged for this transfer?”

  “I did.”

  “And this parish in Greenland? Will Jurgen be head man there?”

  “He is, yes, and that responsibility will curtail any future offenses, you see. A heavy responsibility can cure a man of such ills.”

  Ransom pulled away. “He’s molested boys here, and—and you’re sending him someplace where no one knows him or what he is capable of do—”

  “In order for him to begin anew! We must help heal Father Jurgen.”

  “Heal him! What about Sam?”

  “The boy is young, and children are capable of remarkable strength.”

  “You rewarded the guy! Gave him his own parish, a place where he is in charge. Would you put the devil in charge?”

  “Hold your tongue, man!”

  “You don’t give a drunk the keys to the liquor cabinet!”

  “I tell you the demon has been exorcised from Father Jurgen!”

  “Did you personally absolve him to this new height of redemption?”

  “Do not mock the practices and teachings of Christ and his Church.”

  “So you performed an exorcism on him?”

  “I cast out his demons. Look, the lad is like a son to me! I know his nature!”

  “Your fool’s charity and religious fervor have left you blind, Father.”

  “I am not so blind as I can’t see your shortcomings, Inspector, nor that your soul is on the precipice.”

  “Get off me, Father, and onto Jurgen. I’ve not molested innocent children!”

  “Some of those so-called innocent children are not so innocent in all this, Alastair. Get your facts straight before you—”

  “Ahhh…I see, Father Jurgen’s convinced you that he’s the victim here, that these evil urchins like Sam lured him into it. That’s classic…just typical, standard characteristic bullshit from a man who pets boys! You should’ve reported this crime against the children and had your junior arrested, Father.”

  “I chose to handle the matter as discreetly as—”

  “How many times have you seen me go past these doors, knowing a crime was being committed here?”

  Their eyes locked.

  “Just go!” O’Bannion pleaded. “Go now before I have you arrested!” Ransom knew his last remarks cut deep.

  Still on the attack, Ransom replied, “You’re being as unreasonable and totalitarian as…as the Pope in this, aren’t you?”

  “I handed him over to God!”

  “Good God!”

  “Rather than subjecting him to the humiliation and agony of men like you!”

  “Excellent, Father, ’cause you just handed this child molester license to do it again.”

  “Never!”

  “Handed him more power than ever such a fevered brain can handle!”

  “The decision’s been made, Alastair. Calling me names and casting blame on me will change nothing.”

  “I’m sorry, Father, but my estimation of you has fallen like a bag of bricks from one of those twenty-story buildings on Michigan Avenue. I’d heard that cops, firemen, lawyers, cover for one another, but I hadn’t thought it possible that priests were as prone to lies.”

  “How dare you! I’ve just told you the truth! Confided a confidence between a man and his spiritual advisor, and you have the temerity, the unmitigated gall, to stand in my church and dictate—”

  Ransom pushed through the doors and rushed down the stone steps, while O’Bannion shouted after him from the top stair, “Pray for Father Jurgen! Pray for the man and his soul!”

  Ransom heard the plea on the wind as a gust from off the lake nudged him along in his flight from St. Peter’s. He’d heard a threat in O’Bannion’s tone. He shook inside at the turn of events and having to swallow his anger when indeed a stout wind came off the lake to snatch at him, to pull him and his cane apart from one another as he muttered, “Yeah, sure, I’ll pray for him all right; I’ll praaaaaaaay Ransom fashion.”

  “And pray for yourself, Alastair!” the old man’s final parting salvo reached his ear as if O’Bannion somehow could send his voice on the wind.

  “Not in your catechism, O’Bannion!” he shouted back, certain only the alley wags, the yeggs, and the homeless digging in trash cans heard his response.

  Ransom’s fingers wrapped about the concealed “weapon” he’d kept out of O’Bannion’s sight. He could not recall a time when he’d been more furious, frustrated, and disappointed all at once.

  CHAPTER 28

  While Ransom busied himself with how best to get vengeance for Sam, Jane Francis, acting as Dr. Tewes, made the rounds so important to the nightlife of one Shanks and Gwinn. Two more deplorable people she could hardly imagine. They spent their money as fast as they received it; spent it on horse racing and other forms of gambling, spent it on liquor of every sort imaginable, and spent it on loose women of low stature and lower morals. They spent much of their time at Madame DuQuasi’s on the river in the ill-reputed Levee District where painted women and red lights abounded.

  Their other passion took them to the opium dens. Jane quickly came to the conclusion that the now somewhat respected Dr. James Phineas Tewes’s already besmirched reputation could not withstand a charge stemming from this night’s travels. Dr. Tewes simply could not be seen in or around such places as Maude DuQuasi’s on the wharf. Not to mention an outright fear of contracting some horrid disease from leaning against a wall here. She decided this after tailing the reformed resurrection men this second night—which had felt more like an entire weekend.

  Shanks and Gwinn seemed bent on living life to its fullest every moment, as if their daily working with the dead dictated such a policy. This lifestyle said they must completely immerse themselves in Sin City—the city within the city—to enjoy life in the here and now, and to go out of this world having spent every dime they’d ever earned.

  During their riotous and raucous bouts with the bottle, Shanks and Gwinn had seemed to share a kind of fright, a look of fear coming over each man. Like a pair of animals who know they are being stalked, they sometimes looked over their shoulders in tandem, as if of one mind, and as if at any moment someone or some thing would lurch from the shadows to swallow them up.

  At first Jane thought they sensed her shadowing them, but their behavior was more complicated than any concern so mundane as learning that Dr. Tewes was watching. Whatever was stalking these two, it was greater, larger, and far more threatening than a small doctor.

  Jane Francis as a man saw a side of Chicago that Ransom had only hinted at. She felt a sense of hedonism in the dark dens where she drank ale at a distance, watching Shanks and Gwinn, hoping to see them meet with the strange couple she’d seen outside Calvin Dodge’s home the night her coach almost ran them down.

  She could not help but think of the real James Tewes, Gabby’s father, who, in France, had succumbed to such places as this. Men acted like pigs at a trough in such places. The only good coming of her surveillance effort appeared that she’d not run into Alastair or anyone else she respected in these dens.

  Jane did not go into the brothel on the water. She drew the line at the wharf, and she felt extremely vulnerable here. Alone, a small person, she could easily be a target for a mugger or worse.

  She bid Shanks and Gwinn a silent good-bye and good luck in their madcap search for whatever it was they sought. She’d never witnessed men so bent on self-destruction as these two since her first love, the real Dr. James Tewes, who’d died in a Fren
ch jail.

  When James came to mind, Jane knew she’d seen enough.

  She sought out a cab and quickly made her way home, disappointed that her evening as a private eye had been a bust. Once safely in the cab, allowing herself some feeing of relief, she swore to never repeat this attempt again.

  Her lonely ride home was filled with sadness and thoughts of the slow, unsteady march of evolution, the mental disorders of men in need of perversity and of perversely harming themselves. As a medical woman, Dr. Jane Francis wondered if there were some seed or seat in the brain where all things wicked resided like a dark god, luring men and sometimes women into a kind of euphoria that held sway until they wallowed in sin, became enveloped in it, enamored to it, lapping it up like a dog at the filthy river’s edge.

  She guessed now that it was death itself; that the two men, in order to cover their fear of the dead that they’d had no respect for, the dead they had desecrated—no matter their reform—stalked them in the nature of spirits, and not spirits of the sort bottled and labeled and competing for a ribbon at the fair, but spirits looming large inside their heads.

  “Yes,” she quietly said to the sound of the cobblestone beneath the hooves outside her cab, “such men fear themselves, can’t abide themselves, hate themselves and fight being alone with themselves.” So they hid inside noise and laughter and delusion and drink and the life of the flesh and materialism, she mused. They expected at any moment to be revealed as frauds, and to have their cushy new lives as Dr. Fenger’s aides torn asunder. Little wonder that they feared and hated Alastair Ransom. He might take their new life from them, but worse still than Ransom was their own history. This past as ghouls must feed on their current lives! And their livers, and their hearts, and surely their souls that’d long ago fallen into all those open graves they’d left in their wake. In a nightmare, how many open graves did it take to create the abyss?