Chapter 6
6
O rdinarily, Alistair wouldn’t have been caught dead awake before noon.
But he dragged himself out of bed to see Sam off, barely suppressing the desire to walk him to the flower shop. Because if he did that, then he’d be tempted to either go inside himself, or drag Sam bodily away.
He just needed to trust Sam. He did trust Sam.
It was Sullivan and the fucking prohee he didn’t trust.
Now that he was awake at the ungodly hour of ten a.m., he might as well get to work trying to find something that would satisfy Johnston. Alistair sat on the front stoop, smoking a cigarette and thinking.
He could go to the funeral home, but what would he learn there? There might be some clue as to who had taken the body, but if Johnston was right and Sullivan had made it disappear to keep it from any family members who might ask uncomfortable questions, he’d only succeed in tipping off Sullivan. Which wouldn’t be good for his health.
And he wasn’t about to die for a damned prohee. Hopefully Sam wouldn’t, either.
He shut down that line of thought fast. Damn it, he hadn’t been this nervous since his first night on the front lines, with shells lighting up the sky like Fourth of July fireworks, surrounded by the detritus of the previous years of war. The sea of broken bayonets, rusting helmets, and bleached bones, all embedded in bloody earth, had sent a clear message about the fate that awaited so many of them.
At least Forrest had been at his side, where they could keep an eye on each other. Not that it had done much good in the end.
He let out a long stream of smoke and stubbed out his cigarette. Sitting here and getting maudlin wouldn’t help anyone.
Since Sam was poking around Sullivan’s gang, it made sense for Alistair to start with the assumption that Sullivan didn’t have anything to do with it. If Bobby had just gotten hold of some bad booze, he must have bought it somewhere. As for why someone would have stolen his body…maybe there was something about it that could be traced back to whoever had served him the hooch, assuming that was what happened?
That was a bit of a reach, but it was at least as plausible as Johnston’s theory, so fuck it.
The biggest problem was where to start. He might try one of the larger joints, like Club Grimalkin over on Dearborn Street; you never knew where you might run into bad hooch. But Club Grimalkin had a pretty good reputation, as far as it went, so it wasn’t the logical place to look first.
Would a young man like Bobby seek out the thrill of some of the rougher places? God knew there were plenty of those. A room and two bottles was enough to make a speakeasy, and tiny places like that were anywhere and everywhere in the city.
He made a mental map of Towertown, trying to figure out the places closest to The Pride. When Bobby realized he was in trouble, he’d made for The Pride and not a joint of Sullivan’s, which meant it had hit him fast.
Which didn’t narrow it down by much. Towertown was packed to the brim with illicit saloons, restaurants that served alcohol under the table, cabarets, and bordellos. At least the trolleys hadn’t been running that late, so he would have been on foot.
Alistair rose to his feet and stretched, joints popping like an old man’s. Nothing for it but to start walking and hope he had a spot of good luck.
Sam nervously knocked on the door of a shuttered brewery just north of where the Chicago River met Lake Michigan. It stood between a garage and a plumbing supply store, its brick walls and large windows perfectly innocent from the outside. A fading sign proclaimed it to have been Weiner Brewery, and grass sprouted from the cracks in the pavement out front, giving it an air of decay.
The metal door swung open, and a man in shirtsleeves and a flat cap peered suspiciously down at him. His eyes were a brown-yellow, too pale to belong to a human. A familiar, then. Likely some sort of guard dog to keep anyone off the premises who didn’t belong there.
“Yeah?” he barked.
Sam swallowed. “I’m, uh, Sam Cunningham. Mr. Sullivan sent me?”
“Oh, right.” The man’s expression eased. “Mr. Nagorski’s expecting you. Come on in.”
Another man sat at a card table near the door. He watched them pass with cold eyes, as the first man led Sam further into the building.
The door opened onto a hallway of what looked to be offices. At the end, the guard knocked on the door and called, “Cunningham’s here, Mr. N.”
“Come on in.”
The guard departed back to the front of the building. Trying to quell the nerves in his belly, Sam opened the door.
The office was smaller than he expected, its walls lined with books on hexwork. A large desk, covered with papers and inks, took up much of the space. Sitting behind it was the man who must be Victor Nagorski.
Black eyes regarded Sam from beneath a mop of equally black hair. His face had a sharp quality to it, but when he rose to his feet, hand extended, he revealed a broad, burly body. “Mr. Cunningham, a pleasure,” he said with a bright smile.
Sam never felt easy meeting new people, even more so when he didn’t know what they expected of him. “Mr. Nagorski,” he said. Though there was strength in the man’s hand, he didn’t use it to squeeze too tightly, for which Sam was grateful.
“Please, call me Vic,” Nagorski said, smile unwavering.
“Oh! Uh, call me Sam. Please.” Did he sound like an idiot? He sounded like an idiot.
As long as he didn’t sound like a spy.
Vic sat down, gesturing for Sam to take the rickety chair across from him. “I apologize for the chair—I don’t spend much time in here. I mostly work in the laboratory, piecing together old hexes and trying to make new ones.”
“The way Eldon did?”
Vic wiggled his hand from side to side. “Sort of, sort of not. As an independent contractor, Eldon wasn’t privy to all the resources we have here.”
And yet he’d still managed to create a hex that two gang leaders wanted badly enough to kill for. Though Sam couldn’t be sure it would have worked, having destroyed the only copy without testing it.
“If you don’t mind, I’d like to give you a little test, just to know where we can best use you.” Vic’s black eyes were still fixed on Sam, though Sam wasn’t sure why. “Is that all right?”
Sam’s palms instantly started to sweat. What if he couldn’t pass it? What if he didn’t even get far enough in to start asking questions about Bobby?
What if all that money Sullivan had promised went up in a puff of smoke?
“Uh, yes? I mean, yes.”
“Excellent.” Vic sat back. “Then let’s begin.”
Over the next hour, Vic quizzed Sam and had him recreate some hexes, then draw them from memory. When he was done, he sat back with a smile. “I’m not going to beat around the bush. You’ve got a real knack for hexwork, Sam. If you keep at it, I think you’ll be better than Eldon before long.”
Sam felt his face heat up, and cursed his fair skin that showed blushes so easily. “Th-thanks.”
“One last question, though.” Vic pulled a quarter from his pocket and began to idly play with it. “Why do you want this job?”
Sam’s mind raced—was this a test? A trick? What was the right answer? “I, uh, I enjoy hexwork,” he said uncertainly. “I think I’m pretty good at it. And, well…my family could use the money, and I need this job to pay them off and maybe buy the house I’m living in, and…”
He stopped himself, before he rambled any farther and let more slip than would be safe.
Vic nodded slowly as he spoke. “It’s a hard world to make a living in,” he said when it was clear Sam was finished talking. “You’ve got the Rockefellers and their pals on top like a bunch of bloated spiders, while the little man breaks his back in the stockyards for barely enough to feed his family. Then the feds practically hand ordinary folks the opportunity to make a better living, just by making or selling booze and illegal hexes—then act shocked when we take them up on it.”
Vic put away his quarter, took out two cigars, and offered one to Sam. When he demurred, Vic tucked it back in the case and cut the tip off the one he’d kept for himself. “Mr. Sullivan had a good feeling about you. I told him I’d give you a chance, but since it’s my lab, I get to decide where to put you.”
“And he was all right with that?” Sam asked, surprised. Alistair had made it sound as though any pushback against Sullivan wouldn’t be taken kindly.
“Mr. Sullivan pays me to run this place, and he’s smart enough to know it would be a waste of money if he interfered. He’s good at what he does, but he’s not a hexman and never will be. I get final say within these walls.” Vic lit his cigar, then gestured expansively with it, trailing smoke through the air. “And what I say is you’d be wasted in the scriptorium.”
So he had the job, it sounded like. A job, anyway. “The scriptorium?”
“That’s what we call the area where the draftsmen copy hexes for distribution to the rest of the organization. It used to be the brewhouse—big space, plenty of light. But you.” He leaned forward again, pointing his cigar in emphasis. “I want you in the lab with the rest of my hand-picked people.”
Sam’s jaw fell open. “Y-you do?”
“You understand the underlying principles of hexes, which is something too many don’t,” Vic said. “Now, this won’t be a cushy job—you’ve got to put in the work.”
“I can work!” Sam said quickly.
“Good.” Vic stood up and shook Sam’s hand again. “Welcome to the team.”