City of the Absent

by Robert W. Walker

  Or was Kohler himself being used in this unholy affair? Fate, in a sense, was being doled out to all of them from some unknown source. How much did Pinkerton know? How much did Nathan Kohler know? But at the moment, Ransom’s fear was for Jane and Gabby. Yet fate had a human hand and face in this city, and possibly in this instance. If Kohler could side with O’Bannion and Jurgen on the matter of sexual deviance against children, then siding with ghouls and their degreed patrons was child’s play for the manipulative chief.

  Ben Shorendorf began deploying his men. Ransom hustled to stay with him. He shouted in his ear, “Tell me the truth! It’s Kohler, isn’t it?”

  “I told you the order to shoot came from him, yes!”

  “No, it’s more than just a shoot to kill order.”

  Ben turned on him. “What’re you talking about?”

  “Kohler…Kohler is somehow behind the whole bleak, bloody business,” he replied as he and Ben picked their way through a causeway in search of any local residents or rats who might speak English. The neighborhood was largely a mix of Polish and Italian immigrants, most of whom only knew the rudiments of English and got by largely through Pidgin English and hand gestures. Most such immigrants avoided uniformed men of any kind, and today was no exception, but Shorendorf spoke German and enough Polish to get by.

  “According to neighbors, the brothers are inside. No one knows anything about women inside.”

  Each moment of the process drove a deeper stake into Ransom’s heart as he contemplated life without Jane and Gabby. He hated his mind for even suggesting his fear: They might well already be dead and on dissecting tables in some remote medical facility.

  He struggled mightily against the horrid idea.

  CHAPTER 37

  At the same time that Alastair and Captain Shorendorf were jockeying for who was in command, and discussing how to disperse the men, Jane came to, woozy and dazed from Rolsky’s having struck her, but her initial concern was for Gabby. She screamed out at the men who hovered over Gabrielle as if determining how best to transport her body, and Jane screamed anew at the thought that Gabby was dead.

  Her screams filled the small, dank apartment and filtered out through the cracks at the windows and the single door that led out into the hallway and two stairwells, one leading to the front of the building, another to the courtyard.

  “Shut up, woman!” shouted Philander, coming at her with a raised knife, a knife he’d been holding over Gabby moments before but Jane hadn’t seen till now. Gabby had told her in the coach coming over that the man was in custody, his knife confiscated. Gabby had in fact sent the knife to Dr. Fenger to compare against Nell Hartigan’s wounds, as Nell’s body had remained on ice. Apparently, the man’s first thoughts were to arm himself with this kitchen knife that now hovered huge over Jane.

  I’m going to die like Nell Hartigan and Gabby before me, she thought. This butcher’s going to sell our bodies to the highest bidder.

  Then she heard Gabby coughing.

  With Gabby alive, Jane knew she must free herself and her daughter from these men and this place.

  “Vander!” stormed his brother. “Do like I damn well tol’ ya, you idiot! Kill the little bitch before she starts screaming, too! Now, dummy!”

  Jane took the moment’s hesitation on Philander’s part as he chastised Vander to grab what remained of the hot soup now boiling on the stove. She snatched it up and hurled it into Philander’s face, and when he cried out and cringed, she slammed the cast iron urn into his temple, sending him reeling but still holding tight to his knife as if it were a lifeline. Temporarily blinded, Philander called his brother to stop the woman. “Kill them! Kill ’em both, now!”

  Vander’s eyes remained on Gabrielle, however, and he did not look as if he could harm her. “It ain’t right, Philander…they come to help me is all. Ain’t right!”

  “Kill ’em, damn you! Damn you to cursed hell!”

  Vander stood, stepping away from the still prone Gabby. She had tried to pull herself up, but Vander kept his weight on her, pinning her. But now she pulled herself to her elbows.

  “You’ve got to get out of here, Gabby. Hurry!” Jane shouted across to her daughter, but Gabby, unsteady and groggy, only climbed to her knees, choking, yet gasping for air. “Come on, baby!”

  “Stop her, Van!”

  “I don’t wanna hurt no more women, Philander.”

  “They’re police! They can hang us, you freak!”

  “No, Gabby and Jane wouldn’t do that.”

  “You imbecile! You ant-brained moron!”

  “Stop calling me names, Philander!”

  “Then do what the hell I tell ya!”

  “No!”

  Philander’s blind rage sent the knife up and deep into Vander’s gut, the big man instantly going into trauma, the shakes taking hold of him. He appeared in a near epileptic seizure, and when Jane got Gabby through the door, she looked back to see that Vander’s powerful right hand had seized on Philander’s throat.

  “I—I never wanna hear you call me bad names ever ’gain, Phil-an-der. You understand me?”

  Jane only heard the choked inaudible reply, as Vander had already broken his brother’s neck, quite by accident. While Philander remained alive, he lay paralyzed, unable to speak or to move, both of which disturbed Vander greatly, agitating the big man. Vander began sputtering, slavering, pleading with his brother, asking, “What do I do now, Philander? Philander? What’ll I do now? Tell me what to do!”

  “He…he can’t answer you, Vander,” Jane near whispered, and Vander’s eyes widened at the voiced fact.

  “He’s gotta be fixed! You said you were a doctor! Fix him! Fix him!”

  “His injury is not fixable, Vander, and he’s dying.”

  “Dying? No…he can’t do that. He can’t leave me.”

  Philander’s head lolled to one side, his tongue wagging like that of a lapdog in confused anxiety.

  Jane instructed Gabby, “Take Vander out into the courtyard and keep him calm.”

  “What’re you going to do?” Gabby asked.

  “Put this wretch out of his misery.”

  “Perhaps you should at least wait, Mother, until we can get hold of Ransom. He may want to make that decision.”

  “It’s a medical decision that’s needed here.”

  “That monster didn’t show any mercy to his victims,” Gabby countered. “So why should we show him any special consideration?”

  “The consideration you’d give an animal in pain is all I am doing.”

  “Even so, why should we?”

  “Because we are better human beings than he is? Because we are medically trained? Because we took an oath?”

  Gabby offered Vander her left hand as she took charge of the knife with her right hand. Vander allowed her to guide him like the child he was. At the door, Gabby wondered aloud, “What about Vander? What kind of consideration do you think a Chicago judge and a jury will show him?”

  “The laws against executing the insane and the infirm of mind will safeguard Vander.”

  “Will they, you think?”

  “Yes, if upheld.”

  “If…yes, if they’re upheld. But many will want to see him hang.”

  Vander stood stolid, a child without comprehension and still in shock over his brother’s condition and the fear of being alone while ignoring his own wound and pain. It was difficult to say which fear won out over the other as Gabby finally led him from the apartment.

  Jane located what she expected to find in the cupboard—morphine and heroine-laced pills sold at any apothecary in the city. She quickly mixed the contents of the capsules she found with water and returned to Philander. The drugs would end his suffering fairly quickly, although they might kill him in the bargain, as the dosage was largely guesswork.

  She lifted Philander’s head to the cup, about to pour the barbiturates down his throat when suddenly the injured Philander grabbed her wrist and forced her to drop the cup and its co
ntents. With her free hand, Jane rummaged about for anything she might use against this attack, as the moment he made her drop the cup, his one movable, griddle-sized hand wrapped about her throat and he squeezed hard, sending a shooting pain throughout Jane’s body. She tried to scream out for Gabby, for help, but her air was completely choked off in a matter of seconds. His grip was a powerful vise, and Jane could feel the bruising as it was happening, and she imagined in a moment her vocal cords would be permanently damaged and her hyoid bone crushed, as she meanwhile brought up the butcher knife that Gabby had thrown to the floor. Using the knife, she tore at the ghoul’s hand.

  The knife cut deep and repeatedly across the hand locked on her throat, and a couple of swipes came dangerously close to her own skin and jugular vein, nicking her. Jane’s blood mingled with the killer’s own, spilling over his hand and onto his cold inert eyes, until finally Gabby brought down a heavy chair pulled from a corner atop the dying man, smashing his face in.

  Jane fell back, gasping for air, her throat painted in blood smears so messily that Gabby thought her bleeding profusely. Jane had to quell Gabby’s bawling cries, gasping out, “I’m all right…uncut really. Just need catch my…ahhh…breath…”

  Gabby grabbed her arms, the ladies holding firm to one another on the filthy floor when Alastair Ransom, followed by several policemen, rushed in and took charge.

  “Damn it to high heaven, Jane!” Alastair shouted. “You might’ve been killed! Whatever possessed the two of you to come into this lair?”

  “It’s a long story, Alastair,” she managed between gasps.

  “Where’s the other one?” he asked, staring down at the inert body of Philander Rolsky.

  “He’s outside, sitting on the stairwell near the elder trees. Left him only a moment ago,” said Gabby.

  “Get on it, men!” shouted Shorendorf. “The big dumb one’s escaped!”

  “Vander is the only reason we’re alive!” Gabby stood now toe-to-toe with Ransom. “You mustn’t hurt him!”

  “He’s half of a murder team!” shouted Shorendorf.

  “He’s got the mind of a child,” countered Jane, who, with Ransom’s help, opened a window for air.

  “Mind of a child or not, he’s a killer,” continued Shorendorf.

  “A woman killer at that,” said William Pinkerton, now at the door alongside Chief Nathan Kohler. Obviously, Ransom’s call for help had indeed been intercepted.

  “We suspect Vander only followed orders,” said Ransom firmly, searching out the back window for any sign of the hunchbacked giant.

  “He’s still a murderer for having followed murderous orders,” shouted Kohler.

  “No, he could not harm us,” said Jane. “Said he would not do to us what Philander did to the other woman, Nell. They also spoke of Colonel Dodge.”

  “Damn it all, we still don’t know who was purchasing bodies from this pair of ghouls,” said Ransom. “Do we, Mr. Pinkerton, Nathan?” Ransom’s question to the two men was pointed, as if there were some hidden agenda between these men.

  “I hope you’re not suggesting that either Nathan or I have all along known the name of doctors who’ve a covenant with such men as these crazed brothers.”

  “Imagine it,” said Gabby, “bartering in body parts.”

  “We need that big boy alive to lead us to the doctor or doctors benefiting from their murderous activities,” Ransom continued. “You get the word out, Captain Shorendorf. We need Vander Rolsky alive, and he shouldn’t be hard to spot—the size and mentality of a rhinoceros.”

  “Understood, Inspector. I’ll order my men to take him alive, but he could be dangerous, and I won’t order my men to lay down for him.”

  “Do your best, Captain,” said Kohler. “That’s all anyone can ask of you. I’m going to personally join this manhunt. I’ll call out every man jack of the force. There isn’t a hole big enough for this fellow to crawl into.”

  “It’d be like hunting down a five-year-old, I tell you!” shouted Jane. But none of the men were having any of it. No one was about to mollycoddle Vander Rolsky.

  “Damn it, Inspector!” shouted Gabby as the men filed out. “He’s like a frightened animal! When you find him, let us talk to him before something just awful happens.” She said it as if she knew something horrible was inevitable.

  “You need him!” shouted Jane. “You need that boy alive, so he can lead you to the truly guilty in all this, Ransom! Ransom!”

  But the small army that had failed to rescue Jane and Gabby had disappeared in search of the monster. Jane was reminded of the cliché of the typical villagers taking up pitchforks and torches and trailing off into the black forest to slay the dragon.

  CHAPTER 38

  Ransom heard the echoing pleas of the two women he most loved and respected in the world, but he knew he had to stay close to Pinkerton and Kohler. He suspected the two of them in some sort of collusion, and in order to keep his eyes on them, he must keep up. Still, it looked like he and all the men were of one mind: Locate and execute Vander on the spot.

  Gabby had said the giant was left sitting on the back stairwell below a pair of trees in the courtyard; she’d hinted at his being distraught. Had he simply wandered off? Or had he made a dash for freedom?

  The nearby train yards might well be a place a man like Vander would gravitate to, and knowing the area well, Ransom allowed the others to go ahead of him over back fences, searching the Atgeld neighborhood.

  Ransom instead made a beeline for the train yard, cutting through alleyways and between buildings, soon emerging at the spot he’d contemplated.

  Jane and Gabby followed Ransom. He heard them behind, shouting for him to wait up. He slowed, as he wanted an explanation from Jane as to what she had been doing in Rolsky’s place.

  “What the deuce were you two thinking?”

  “It’s a long story but—”

  “A fool’s tale is what it is! You could’ve been killed, and you place your daughter in danger?”

  “Hold on,” said Gabby, “I went with mother of my own free will.”

  “You, young lady…I’d’ve thought you smarter than—”

  “We had every reason to believe Philander locked away in a cell!” Gabby said, ending the discussion.

  “There he is! It’s Vander!” Jane pointed to the huge, hulking figure in the distance. A Chicago gray sky now, threatening rain, painted the entire area in a grim and uncaring hue here in the train yard. Vander moved through this landscape like a creature out of time.

  Gabby and Jane began shouting his name in unison, asking him to stop and to come with them.

  Then Ransom saw the small figure holding onto Vander’s hand. It was the boy, Samuel. How Sam had gotten in the middle of this, Ransom hadn’t a clue, but he imagined the boy had led Vander off, hoping to get him out of harm’s way.

  Ransom bellowed for Samuel, saying, “Trust me, Sam! Vander’s best off giving himself up to me!”

  Sam and Vander seemed in discussion, but they were too far away for the others to hear, when it became apparent that they had made up their minds. The boy and the giant, hand in hand, turned and took steps toward Ransom and the ladies.

  Moments later, the cry of a bullet from a sniper’s rifle exploded through the air. Vander dropped to his knees and, still alive, covered Samuel, blocking any harm coming to him. To Jane’s and Gabby’s screams, Vander then keeled over, dead.

  Gabby raced for Vander, hoping against hope that he was not fatally wounded. Jane rushed after her. Ransom followed. In the distance, from across the train yard, Captain Ben Shorendorf and his men appeared, all of them having fanned out in their search for the fugitive from justice, now lying on the railroad tracks and bleeding from a gunshot wound.

  Ransom, his own weapon drawn now, could not ascertain the source of the gunfire, and as he attempted to do so, Kohler and Pinkerton came from a third direction.

  Suddenly, Sam buried his tearstained face into Ransom’s coat, and he quaked with sob
s for Vander.

  When all parties arrived to stand over the dead man, Jane Francis condemned them all. “You men! All you know is to maim, kill, and destroy! Bastards, all of you!”

  “Who fired that shot?” Ransom demanded of the assembled men. “Rolsky was unarmed and giving himself up to my protection! Who ordered him shot, Nathan?”

  “I thought he was about to harm the boy,” said Benjamin Shorendorf, eyes downcast. “I felt it necessary.”

  “Ben? You fired that shot?”

  “I did, and I stand by my actions.”

  “Who gave the order, Ben?”

  “No one. I took it upon myself.”

  “You disappoint me, Ben.” Ransom’s angry eyes moved from Shorendorf to Pinkerton and then to Kohler. “You all disappoint me.”

  It was raining now, as people from the surrounding houses converged on the train yard and the body despite the downpour, the sky as dark as night. At the same time, busy trains lumbered slowly about them like animals disinterested in human concerns. In the distance, the tall buildings of downtown Chicago looked on, lighted windows like blinking eyes. The lamps that lit Chicago streets by night came on in answer to the darkness. The train yards were lit up, casting long shadows of those standing around the slumped-over body of the giant, Vander.

  Captain Shorendorf, a rifle at his side, said to Ransom, “When I saw the big man’s hand go up over that wee lad’s head, it appeared he had murder in mind.”

  “A righteous shooting, I’d say,” added Nathan.

  “What move did he make?” demanded Gabby.

  “I saw no threatening movement either!” shouted Jane.

  “Don’t you get it, Jane?” asked Ransom. “These fellows had to shut Vander down at any cost.”

  “Hold on, Inspector!” Kohler warned. “There’ll be no wild allegations or speculations, and I’ll not stand here and be defamed by you, Inspector.”