Chapter 7
In the late afternoon, Alistair left The Pride and made his way down Chicago Avenue in the direction of the water tower that gave Towertown its name.
To the south, the newest skyscraper, the Tribune Tower, loomed over the shorter buildings.
Still under construction, the steel girders that would underpin a neo-gothic crown clawed at the clouds like skeletal fingers.
His earlier conversation with Wanda had left him unsettled, so he dealt with the emotion by going out to hunt down the bootlegging gang that was rumored to drink at the Three Arms speakeasy.
The Three Arms was named after either the Three Arts Club, which was meant to save virtuous young women from the sin of Towertown, or the fact you’d see three arms and five legs after you drank their liquor, the story changing with the teller.
The door was down an alley, in back of a building near a loading dock. The place didn’t look like much from the outside—but that was the point. As with The Pride, it gave the police a ready-made excuse as to why they hadn’t shut it down, even though some of them probably drank there.
He knocked on the door and waited. He was betting the Three Arms opened early, since a lot of its clientele, namely rumrunners, spent their nights working.
He was right; the door cracked open, letting out the distant murmur of voices. A suspicious eye glared at him through the gap between door and frame. “Can I help you, bub?” a man growled.
There was no point in pretense, not if he wanted to go inside. “Alistair Gatti. I’m looking to do a little business.”
The man grunted, stepped back, and swung open the door. He was tall and built like an ox—hell, he might be an ox, it was hard to tell since their eyes were dark brown like a human’s. “Mind your manners, cat,” he said, shutting the door behind them.
“Sure thing,” Alistair said, tipping his hat with one hand and the doorman with the other. Generosity to the staff never hurt.
That seemed to put the fellow in a better mood, because he said, “End of the hall, Mr. Gatti, you can’t miss it.”
He wasn’t wrong about that; the hall led straight into what looked like a repurposed storage room, with no turns or other doors off it.
The big rumrunners drank in fancier surroundings; the people seated around the card tables, sucking down unhexed cocktails served from a bar made of wooden planks, were strictly small fry.
Eyes followed him as he sauntered to the bar. A hard-bitten woman with a patch over her left eye stood behind it. “What’ll it be?”
“Give me a gimlet.”
Once he had his drink and she had her money, he turned back to the rest of the room. Most of the other customers had returned to their drinking, but a few were still watching him curiously.
“You’re one of those cats over on State Street,” a big man said. He kicked out a chair beside him. “Come on, have a seat.”
Alistair did so. “Alistair Gatti,” he said, putting out his hand.
“Ross Brown.” Brown’s enormous hand engulfed his as they shook. Brown had hair the color of his surname, and eyes so dark they bordered on black. He smelled faintly of fish and lake water—an aquatic familiar, then, maybe a seal. “Good to meet you.”
“Cheers.” Alistair clinked his glass with Brown’s, then took a cautious sip. He’d hoped a speakeasy for rumrunners would have the good stuff behind the bar, but given the look of the place he wasn’t going to bet on a lack of embalming fluid in the drinks.
It didn’t taste too bad, at least, though he had no intention of drinking more than one in any case. He just had to figure out how to broach the subject he was interested in with his new companion.
Fortunately, Brown did it for him. “I can guess why you’re here. You were one of Charlie O’Keefe’s clients, weren’t you?”
“Didn’t have time to be—he died before we could pick up anything from him.
” Which was true in the strictest sense of the word, and Alistair had no intention of telling Brown they’d stolen their share of O’Keefe’s booze.
“Now Camille Falke is gone, and Danny Queen, too. It’s getting hard for an honest man to make a living. ”
Brown shook his big head sadly. “Too true, too true. I’m not worried, though—my boys and I are careful.”
A young woman at an adjacent table snorted loudly.
Brown swiveled around to glare at her. “We’re having a private conversation over here.”
She took a deliberate gulp from her drink—neat whiskey, by the look of it—then said, “What you’re doing is lying to yourself and lying to the cat, too.”
“You’re just sore because Camille got herself bumped off,” Brown shot back.
Alistair’s ears perked. “You knew Camille?”
“My sister.” She finished her whiskey and wiggled the glass in his direction. Taking the hint, he signaled the barwoman to bring her another.
“Thanks,” she said, when the glass was in front of her. “You can call me Lucy.”
“My sympathies for your loss, Lucy,” Alistair said. Wanda would be proud to hear him actually being polite. “What happened?”
“Camille got careless,” Brown said dismissively.
That earned him a glare from the sister. “Fuck you, seal. There was no one in that apartment when we got home, I’d stake my life on it.”
“Well, that didn’t work out too well for Camille’s life, did it?”
Lucy looked as though she might come over and start punching Brown, so Alistair said, “I’d like to hear what she has to say.”
Brown shook his head, as if to suggest Alistair was wasting his time, and finished off his drink.
While he trundled over to the bar, Lucy leaned closer, though she didn’t leave her own table.
“We were coming back from the movies—Yolanda, with Marion Davies.” She wiped the back of her hand roughly over her eyes.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to see another of her pictures now.
I went into the apartment first, and Camille followed me in.
There was no one else there—no one,” she repeated as Brown returned.
“I got a glass of water from the tap, we talked for a couple of minutes about the movie, and then I went into the bedroom. I was only there for a second before I heard the shot.”
“It must’ve been longer than you thought,” Brown argued. “The mind plays tricks on you when something bad happens, everybody knows that.”
“I hadn’t even had time to take off my pearls,” Lucy said through clenched teeth. “I ran out, and the front door was open. And no, there wasn’t a knock. There wasn’t time for one, and Camille wasn’t anywhere near the door when I came out and saw her…saw her…”
Lucy’s face turned white, and she looked hastily away. Alistair winced. He knew what it was like to see things you’d never forget, no matter how badly you might want to. “I’m sorry.”
She wiped her eyes. “Just don’t get over-confident, Ross. Unless you want to be next.”
Brown deliberately moved his chair so his back was to her. “Listen, Gatti, you’re looking for a new supplier, am I right? My crew operates real close to your place. Just say the word, and we can make a deal.”
So Brown was bringing booze in via Towertown. Was he swimming it in from the lake somehow? The municipal pier was awfully close, but maybe he’d paid off the right people and it wasn’t as much of a risk as it sounded.
Alistair didn’t ask for details—the less he knew the better. “The real McCoy?”
“Straight from Canada.”
A group of seals or other strong underwater swimmers could probably haul booze from Canada, across Lake Huron, and through the Straits of Mackinac and into Lake Michigan.
The prohees might have their own familiars on the lookout, but the lakes were big and seals could dive deep or swim under ice.
It made sense they’d bring the pure stuff in, then cut it once back on land.
“I tell you what,” he said. “Come by The Pride, have a cocktail on our dime, and talk to Wanda about it. If she likes your price, then we’re in business.”
Brown lifted his glass. “I’ll drink to that.”
* * *
Sam had seldom been so grateful to see his own front door as he was at the end of that day.
Luke had continued in a bad mood, arguing that it was a waste of his talents to do something so mundane as copy out the symbols on the hex and decipher the ones they could, while Glenda and Sam took photos.
It was easier to give in and let Luke position the disc while Glenda snapped photos, though Glenda was forced to correct him every few minutes because his thumb ended up blocking some of the symbols, or he’d tilted it in such a way the lighting was too bad to make anything out.
It had been a relief to lock the disc back up in the safe and turn out the lights. He wanted to get inside the house, draw a bath, and relax in hot water up to his neck to relieve some of the stress. If Alistair was home already, so much the better.
He wasn’t, judging by the fact the mail was still in the box on the porch. Sam tucked the letters under his arm while he let himself into the quiet house. After taking off his coat and hat, he started to sort the mail on the small table by the door.
Bill, bill, flyer for a new club, and a letter addressed to him.
In his sister’s handwriting.
An electrical shock seemed to run through him, rooting him to the ground. He stared at the letter as though it had ambushed him.
He’d never expected to hear from his family again, after he failed to save Mom. “Once a failure, always a failure,” had been the last words he thought he’d ever hear from Dad, from any of them.
Was Dad dead, too?
Hands shaking, he tore open the envelope and unfolded the letter.
My dear brother Sammy,
You need to come home. Things haven’t been the same since Mom passed away.
Aunt Flora and Uncle Gabe moved in with us. They said it was to help out, but they don’t actually do anything. Well, they did buy a new car, and a fur coat, and Aunt Flora has a new dress every Sunday for church.
I’m working my fingers to the bone. I need help. If you have any love in your heart for your poor sister, you’ll come back to us.
Your loving sister,
Opal
A hollow void replaced Sam’s chest. His sister had never spoken to him with such affection. And he did love her, of course he did, she was his only surviving sibling…
Was he a bad person if he stayed in Chicago?
He went into the kitchen, poured himself a glass of water, and sat at his desk. The letter went into one of the drawers, he didn’t even bother to care which, just so long as it was out of his sight.
It didn’t help. What if Opal really did need him? Did Dad know she’d written? If he went to see her, would he even be allowed in the house?
As for Aunt Flora and Uncle Gabe, it seemed likely they were spending the money they’d gotten for this very house.
That was fine; it wasn’t up to him what they did with it.
And he’d been sending money back to Dad every month, even though he knew it would never make up for his failure. It was the least he could do.
Opal sounded in distress, but if he went back, it would only make things worse. He was certain of it, for no other reason than that he’d always made things worse for his family. Why would this time be any different?
Still, maybe he could do something for her. Ignoring the voice that told him he wasn’t doing enough, that he was failing yet again, he wrote out a check addressed to her, then a letter of explanation.
Dear Opal,
I’m sorry to hear things are difficult. I need to stay in Chicago for my job, but you deserve all the help I can give you.
I’ve included a check so you can hire a housekeeper and not have to work so hard.
There should be enough left over for you to buy yourself a nice dress, or whatever you want most. If it isn’t enough, just let me know, and I’ll send more.
He hesitated, pen poised. Should he include anything about his life here in Chicago? Assure her that he was doing well?
But no—there wasn’t much he could say that didn’t include Alistair, hexes, or speakeasies, all of which were anathema to the rest of his family.
Magic came from the devil, or so they’d been told every Sunday.
Sam didn’t believe that, of course, but he didn’t want to upset Opal any more than she already was.
In the end, he simply signed Love, Sam at the bottom, sealed the letter and check in an envelope, and stamped and addressed it. Even stamps had hexes worked in them now, to prevent counterfeiting; his family must gnash their teeth every time they had to mail something.
He dropped his letter in the box and stood in front of it, hand resting on the cold metal. With a sinking sensation, he realized that if he never heard from Opal or anyone related to him ever again, he’d be fine with that.
He’d never been much of a son or brother—surely this was one more way in which he was defective.
At least this time he was only failing them in his heart.