Chapter 7
7
I t took several hours and five different speakeasies before Alistair had any luck in his search.
All of them were the lowest kind of blind tiger, serving fifteen-cent glasses of God knew what. Just walking in assaulted his nose with the eye-watering reek of everything from rubbing alcohol to iodine, though the drinkers didn’t seem to care so long as the stuff did the job.
He almost gave up right away; why the hell would a kid like Bobby, who had a good job with Sullivan, go somewhere like this instead of one of the better joints like Club Grimalkin, or even The Pride? But he didn’t have any other ideas, so he kept at it until he found himself just off of North Clark Street on the edge of Towertown, not far from Sullivan’s flower shop.
The speakeasy was a tiny bit larger than the previous ones he’d visited over the course of the morning, though not even a quarter the size of The Pride. The single room sat in the back of a grocer’s, and contained a bar made from a plank of wood across some barrels and a few mismatched tables and chairs. All the clientele wore shabby clothes, and most of them drank silently, as though getting drunk as soon as possible was a mission of dire importance.
The man behind the bar eyed him. “You’re one of those cats, ain’t you? What’re you doing here? Go drink at your own place.”
“I’m not here for a drink.” Johnston had given him a photograph of Bobby, which he now placed on the bar. In it, the young man stood proudly in front of the flower shop, wearing his apron and holding a broom, a smile on his face. “Do you recognize this man?”
The bartender didn’t look down. “What’s in it for me?”
Alistair ought to send a bill to the damn prohee. “Five clams if you’re honest, five claws if you lie to me.”
“No need for that kind of talk.” The bartender held his hands up. “Let me take a look.” His brow furrowed as he inspected the picture. “Yeah, I seen him a couple of weeks ago.”
Too long ago to have a direct connection with the poisoning, but it was something. “Was he with anybody?”
“Yeah. They didn’t come in together, but the guy went right over to him, like they were meeting.” He frowned, then called, “Hey, Earl!”
One of the drinkers, presumably Earl, looked up with a squint. “What?”
“The kid in this picture—show it to him, cat—you were talking with the guy he met here, weren’t you?”
Earl took the photo with shaking hands. His breath smelled like it could start a fire if you held a match too close, but he seemed to have some of his wits left. “Oh, that guy. Was a real big talker—the other one, not the kid. Kept going on about what a big man he was over in Cicero.”
Alistair’s ears pricked up. Cicero was where the prohee claimed to be stationed. And it was outside Sullivan’s territory, controlled by…Fabiano, that was the name. She’d swept in after Ursino took out Torrio, while Ursino was still consolidating his hold on the Loop. Her familiar was a heron of some sort, and word was her syndicate was as much about running illegal hexes as it was gambling and booze.
“What was his name?”
The drinker scrunched up his face in thought. “Dan Zywarski. Said people called him Two-gun because he always carries two guns, but I think he was just trying to give himself a nickname.”
“Thanks.” Alistair passed him a dollar. “Next six rounds are on me.”
The man’s face lit up. “Thanks, buddy! You’re swell.”
Alistair paid the bartender his five dollars and left. He passed through the grocer’s, stopping only once he was out on the street. Leaning against the brick wall, he lit a cigarette to help him think.
One of Fabiano’s men had no business sniffing around Sullivan’s territory or meeting with one of Sullivan’s people. Was he scouting for his boss?
Johnston was certainly in Fabiano’s pocket if she was the one running Cicero these days. Had she used Johnston’s familial link to draw Bobby to her side, convince him to turn on Sullivan?
If so, the fucking prohee should have mentioned it. Probably didn’t want to tell anyone who owned him, but if he was really concerned that Sullivan might have poisoned Bobby, he should have mentioned the syndicate boss might have good reason to do so.
Alistair needed to talk to Wanda about this. And see if Sam had managed to come up with anything.
The usual flurry of concern rose in his belly, but he strove to push it down. If Sullivan had quietly offed Bobby, Sam was in the best position to hear any gossip about it. Once they figured things out, Sam would find some kind of acceptable excuse to quit. Sullivan would let him go; he wouldn’t have any reason to hang onto another hexman when he had plenty of them on his payroll already. Sam would find a more respectable, less dangerous, job and together they’d pay off his damned family.
Everything would be fine.
Vic led Sam out of the office area and into what had been the old brewhouse. All of the brewing equipment had been removed—probably whisked away to a more discreet location where it could be put back into use away from prying eyes. What remained behind was an enormous three-story room, connected by steel staircases that ran up and down through huge oval or circular openings in the floors. The enormous windows let in plenty of light, required by the scores of hexmen and women who sat in neat rows of desks, copying away.
“Wow,” Sam said. This represented a lot of magic. Even if most of it was used to make cocktails more fancy, the way it was at The Pride, it was still impressive.
“Mr. Sullivan knows the value of magic,” Vic said. “Booze is only one of his, shall we say, interests. We’ve got what they call mood enhancers, contraceptive hexes, abortifacients, you name it. Any magic people want that the government says they can’t have.”
Control the booze, control the magic, control Chicago? The thought was an unsettling one, but Sam couldn’t get it out of his head.
Vic led the way through a side door and into another part of the vast building. This room was much smaller, though still well-lit and spacious. Two people, a woman with honey-colored hair cut into a bob and a man with receding gray hair, stood at a wide table covered with inks, pens, and drifts of paper. A large slab of stone, which looked to have once been square but now had a large chunk broken off, sat before them.
“I don’t think it is,” the woman was saying, pointing at the stone. “See here at the very edge, there’s a bit of a squiggle?”
As they walked in, the woman stopped, and both turned to them. “Glenda Walker, Luke Gallo, this is our new hire, Sam Cunningham,” Vic said.
Glenda’s carefully shaped eyebrows popped up. “Cunningham? Are you related to Eldon?”
“His cousin,” Sam said. “You knew him?”
“He worked with us once in a while.” She gestured vaguely. “I’m sorry for your loss.”
“Thanks.”
“Sam is going to work here in the lab with us,” Vic said. “I think a set of fresh eyes is just what we need.”
“God knows we’ve stared at this damned thing long enough,” Luke said. “Maybe you’ll see something we haven’t, Sam.”
Apparently the group didn’t stand much on formality. Wiping nervous sweat off his palms, Sam said, “I’ll try. What, uh, what is it?”
“Come take a look.” Vic beckoned him over to the table. Traces of old paints still showed within the carved lines of what had clearly been some sort of a hex.
“Is this from a building?” Sam asked—not much of a guess given the size and shape.
“Indeed.” Vic looked pleased. “We think it’s a very powerful look-away hex—so strong that it hid what was behind it for centuries.”
Sam felt a flash of skepticism—surely that wasn’t possible—but swallowed it down. “Centuries?”
“Until it was damaged in the war.” Vic lightly touched the surface with a reverent hand. “A bomb from a Zeppelin hit an old building in Paris. This hex was broken, and when workers eventually went to clear the rubble, they found themselves in front of a door that they swore hadn’t been there before. Behind the door was a stairway, leading down into a hidden magical laboratory from the time of the inquisition, when hexwork was banned in much of Europe. The laboratory itself was undisturbed, with everything just as it had been left so long ago. Books, inks, equipment, all of it.”
“Whoa,” Sam breathed. “That’s amazing. But what is this doing in Chicago if it was found in Paris?”
Glenda laughed and took out a cigarette, which Luke politely lit for her. “America is where the real money is, especially after the war.”
“In other words, Mr. Sullivan bought the contents of the secret laboratory lock, stock, and barrel,” Vic said.
“Most of which our dear Victor is hiding in his private lab upstairs,” Luke put in, glancing at the ceiling.
“Because I don’t want you two to get distracted,” Vic replied with an easy smile. “So, Sam, what do you think? Are you up for a challenge?”
He wasn’t at all certain that he was. But he needed the money, and he needed to keep the prohee from shutting down The Pride. “I am.”
Sam found himself absorbed by the work more quickly than he would have guessed. While Vic retired to his private lab, he studied the stone inscription with Glenda and Luke. The problem was that half of the slab had been destroyed utterly; if they wanted to recreate the hex, they’d have to identify pieces making up the partial inscription, as well as any that might have been cut off completely.
The design was a complicated one, but to Sam’s surprise he found himself intrigued by trying to decipher it. Glenda and Luke showed him the progress they’d already made, and the three of them sat around the table in deep discussion.
The sound of the lunch bell startled him, so engrossed had he been. Luke stood up and stretched, and Glenda grinned at him. “I’d say you’re going to fit right in with us.”
Sam’s face heated, but he was secretly pleased. Glenda didn’t have any reason to praise him if it weren’t true, after all. “Thanks.”
“Let’s go to lunch,” Luke suggested. “Unless you brought something with you?”
“I didn’t think to,” Sam confessed.
“Then come with us.” Glenda retrieved her purse from a cabinet where it had been stashed. “We’ll go to Adamo’s—they make the best marinara sauce in the city.”
The restaurant was within an easy walk, tucked between a laundry and a café. The air was redolent with garlic and basil, and Sam’s stomach rumbled as they sat down at one of the small tables. When a waiter brought out glasses of ginger ale, he was puzzled as to why they were filled only half-way—until Glenda pulled out a flask and topped hers off with booze. Luke did the same, before turning to Sam.
“Would you care for some vodka?” he asked politely.
Sam shook his head. “No, I, ah, I don’t drink alcohol.”
“A teetotaler, eh?” Luke asked with a smile, tucking his flask back into his pocket. “Probably for the best in a profession like ours. They say the most successful bootleggers are all teetotalers, because they see it purely as a business.”
Their order arrived before Sam could think of a response. He and Luke had both ordered the day’s special, minestrone soup, while Glenda had spaghetti and meatballs.
Now seemed to be a good opportunity to talk to his new colleagues. Both of them were relaxed and smiling; if he could stay casual it would seem like a natural conversation. “You knew Eldon, then?” he asked as an opening gambit.
“As well as one could.” Luke took a sip of his drink. “He tended to keep to himself. He’d work with us on occasion, and he was damned good at it, but he refused to hire on with Mr. Sullivan full time.”
“Thought he was too good for us,” Glenda put in as she twirled pasta around her fork. “Sorry, Sam, I don’t mean to speak ill of the dead.”
“It’s all right.” Eldon had never acted superior around him, but that didn’t mean much. Taking a deep breath to slow his racing heart, Sam added, “At least the funeral home didn’t lose his body.”
Luke winced. “Like poor Bobby. Did you know him?”
“Only by sight.” Sam shook his head. “I was there when he died, though.”
“Nasty business,” Glenda said with a delicate shudder.
“Did you know him?” Sam asked in turn.
Luke traced a line of condensation down his glass with one finger. “We did. He’d run errands down here from Mr. Sullivan, but when he was done, he liked to hang around. Magic fascinated him, or at least that was my impression. He mentioned several times he was a witch, and I kind of got the idea he wanted to bond with Vic.”
“Vic is a familiar?” Sam asked, surprised. But of course you couldn’t always tell; the color of animal eyes and human often overlapped.
“An American badger,” Luke said. “Vic never gave a hint either way, but I don’t think he was interested in Bobby as a witch. Still, it’s a damn shame what happened to the kid.”
“What I don’t understand is why someone would take Bobby’s body.” Sam looked from Glenda to Luke. “Did someone hate him so much they’d keep him from having a funeral?”
“Who, Bobby?” Glenda snorted. “He didn’t have enough of a personality to hate.”
Luke shot her a glare. “Glenda!”
“What? You know it’s true.” She lowered her voice. “Though I disagree with Luke about why he liked to hang around the lab. I think he was trying to get a look at things he shouldn’t.”
“And I think you’re paranoid,” Luke shot back. “Mark my words, this is someone trying to make Sullivan look bad.”
“What do you mean?” Sam asked.
Luke leaned forward. “Because Mr. Sullivan would be expected to throw a big funeral for anyone in his employ who died. It would reflect well on him, understand? ‘Oh, look how kind Mr. Sullivan is, what a nice send-off he gave poor Bobby,’ that sort of thing. But make Bobby disappear, and now he’s not only not throwing a funeral, he looks weak because it happened in his own territory.”
“That’s a good point.” And one that hadn’t occurred to him before. Maybe Bobby was just the victim of circumstance, and there was no wider plot like the prohee seemed to think. If his death was just an unfortunate accident…
“I think he poisoned me,” Bobby had said, dying in his arms. Could he have just been referring to someone serving him bad liquor? Or had he indeed seen something he wasn’t supposed to?
If that was the case, Sam needed to keep his eyes and ears open. Poke around if he got the chance.
And hope he didn’t get caught doing it, so he didn’t end up like Bobby.