Chicagoland, page 1
Chicagoland
The Joe Mack Shadow Council Files #3
Gail Z. Martin
Larry N. Martin
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Afterword
About the Authors
Falstaff Books
1
I hate wendigos. They’re fast. They’ve got sharp teeth, bad breath—and they stink like roadkill.
This particular wendigo looked and smelled like he’d been sleeping in a Chicago dumpster. For all I knew, he had. Fighting one of these creatures isn’t easy under the best of circumstances. Add holding my breath so I didn’t puke while having my eyes water from the stench—which made everything blurry—and this wasn’t my best day.
“Watch out!” Federal agent Jack West yelled. I knew he wasn’t shouting to warn me. But our new buddy, Eliot Ness, had stepped a little too close to the monster’s long arms and wicked claws. Neither of us wanted the guy to survive sending Al Capone up the river only to get gutted by a shaggy-assed monster with a taste for human flesh.
Ness jumped back out of the way, and the wendigo’s claws swiped close enough to rip the buttons off his shirt.
“Hey, asshole!” I yelled in my usual, subtle way, and while I wasn’t sure the creature remembered enough about being human to understand the insult, the noise drew his attention off West and Ness and right onto me.
That would have been a dumb move—if I were still mortal. But those days were long gone. I said a silent prayer to Krukis, god of blacksmiths, and felt his power wash over me, making me stronger, faster, and nearly impossible to kill. The wendigo slashed at me with his claws and then howled in pain and fury when they splintered against my temporarily metallic skin.
While he cried over breaking a nail, I moved in for the kill, with a flare gun I’d modified just for times like this. I shot the creature nearly point-blank, and the flare set its matted, filthy pelt on fire, turning him into a crunchy critter and a pile of ash right there in the alley.
“Everyone alright?” I didn’t see blood, but that didn’t guarantee safety. The wendigo had ambushed us, and we’d danced around those claws for too long before I could get a good shot.
Ness stared at me. Then I realized that my shirt had been slashed by the wendigo’s razor-sharp claws, and my “skin” had four long gouges that looked more like creases in a piece of sheet metal than gashes in a human body.
Because I wasn’t completely human anymore either.
“What are you?” Ness asked, wide-eyed. It figured that I’d managed to spook the guy who nabbed Capone.
Then again, West mentioned Ness was still a bit wet behind the ears at the tender age of twenty-seven. West had a decade on him. I looked about the same age as West, but looks were deceiving. I just hadn’t aged since I died and called on an ancient Slavic god to make me his champion.
“Tired and grumpy,” I replied, sidestepping the question for now. “And I really want to know how that wendigo got to downtown Chicago. They’re a Canadian monster, usually from the far north woods.”
I didn’t feel like getting into the whole story of my death, although I figured Ness would pry it out of me at some point. Obviously West hadn’t spilled my secrets, which I appreciated. Besides, I didn’t want the government taking an interest in me. Been there, done that—which is how I ended up dead in the first place.
Blame it on the Pinkertons. I had been a steelworker in a small town outside of Pittsburgh, where I’d come to start a new life with my wife and son, fleeing our native Hungary. Fever took Agata and Patryk from me, leaving me alone. I stood on the riverbank beside my friends, neighbors, and co-workers in the Homestead Strike, cut down by government agents who far outgunned us. As I lay dying, I called out to the Old Gods, wanting vengeance. Krukis heard my prayer, and now I fight on his behalf for the little guys and take out supernatural monsters.
Trusting West is a stretch, but he’s made it clear he disavows the Pinkertons. He vouched for Ness. I hoped his trust wasn’t misplaced.
Ness’s eyes narrowed slightly, enough to let me know he hadn’t missed my non-answer. “Capone had plenty of Canadian ‘business’ partners. It’s not a stretch to think that Rocco Perri or one of his other rum-running pals either sent the creature as a ‘present’ or meant for it to get rid of Capone.”
West kicked at the pile of ashes, like he expected the wendigo to spring to life. “You knew a monster was loose in the city. That’s why you reached out to me and wanted me to bring in Joe. This isn’t a surprise to you.”
Ness blew out a breath like he was trying to figure out what to say. I got that he didn’t like having to ask for help. I vaguely remembered being his age, young and strong, full of myself, thinking I was always going to have luck on my side. That was a long time ago for me, and life had made a point of proving me wrong. I hoped Ness didn’t have to learn his lesson the hard way like I did.
“We think Capone was controlling the wendigo somehow, using it as a weapon,” Ness said. “That hit against the North Side Gang that the press loves to call the ‘Valentine’s Day Massacre’? We let the reporters assume they were killed with bullets, but they were clawed to shreds. Same with the murder of Ben Kerr, one of Capone’s Canadian connections who had a falling out with him in the same month. Shredded.” He looked a little green around the gills at the memory, and I figured it must have been really bad.
“And now, with Capone in jail, the pet monster got loose?” West didn’t look happy, and I agreed. It would have been nice to know some of these details going into the fight.
“That’s our working theory,” Ness admitted. “Which is why I hope you two gents can help us sweep up the mess.”
I glared at him. Ness had the good sense to look nervous. “You want our help? Then you level with us. Secrets get people killed. We’re either full partners and you share what you know—everything you know—or we get back on the train and go home.”
Personally, I kinda hoped Ness decided to be an asshole about it so we could leave before someone got hurt. We’d come up from Cleveland in Sarah McAllen Harringworth’s private Pullman car, and I’d be just fine going back home without getting bloody.
It didn’t help that Ness was a hotshot wonderboy as well as a Fed. I’d seen that sort get everyone around them killed, and while I wasn’t worried about myself, I didn’t dislike West as much as I pretended. West could be a real prick, but he was honest, smart, loyal, and a damn good shot. I could do worse for a partner on cases where I needed his government connections as much as he needed my monster know-how.
“I’m sorry.” Ness looked like the words tasted bad, but I was so surprised that he managed to say them that I let it slide. “I should have told you everything. You’re right. It’s just…I’ve had to play things close to the vest for a long time, not trusting anyone except my team…keeping secrets becomes second nature.”
West and I exchanged a look, and I saw that he was as dumbfounded by Ness’s unexpected change of attitude as I was. Maybe Ness wasn’t a complete asshole, after all.
“How about we go back to my office, and I’ll fill in the blanks,” Ness said, a peace offering. “It’s the one place in Chicago that I know for sure isn’t bugged. And since Capone’s boys want my head on a platter for sending their boss to prison, and the rest of the Mob wants to off me so I don’t come after them, it’s likely to be better for our health than standing around yakking in a back alley.”
West and I followed Ness, feeling more like bodyguards than partners. I intended to change that, fast, since I wasn’t kidding about hopping the next train to Cleveland if this didn’t shape up to be an equal investigation. I’d stopped being anyone’s lackey when I died at Homestead, and I wasn’t about to pick up where I left off.
I had no idea what to expect Ness’s office to look like, but I had a vague thought that it might be a posh place like a mansion’s drawing room, all wood-paneled walls, shelves of antique books, and leather club chairs.
Ness led us into a fairly new brick high rise, the Transportation Building. This was the headquarters for the team the press nicknamed “The Untouchables,” Ness’s hand-picked men who were immune to the Mob’s attempts at bribery and intimidation.
We rode the elevator to the third floor, and West looked as on edge as I felt. Ness might be a real hero, but I’d been disappointed in heroes before, so I reserved judgment.
The doors opened onto a floor with a small vestibule guarded by two heavily armed officers and a wall that closed off the rest of the space from easy access. A steel door made it clear that casual visitors weren’t welcome. The lobby’s gray walls and nondescript white floor tile epitomized government bureaucracy, completely devoid of decoration or personality.
The guards stepped aside, and Ness unlocked the door, ushering us on ahead, then closing and locking it behind him. I noticed the keyed deadbolt, presumably to keep Capone’s goons from getting in. I hoped Chicago managed to avoid having another epic fire because we’d never make it out in time. Fire was the one thing that could destroy me, and I didn’t want to find out whether a high rise burned as hot as a steel mill’s crucible.
Inside, standard-issue metal desks sat row on row, a dreary bullpen for Ness’s team who were part secret agent and part drudge accountant. Only three men sat at their desks, absorbed in their tasks, and they barely looked up when Ness entered.
Ness headed for an office against the wall, which showed no more hint of personality than the rest of the floor. His desk was the same gray-green steel as those in the main area. A diploma hung in a plain black frame on one wall. The functional blotter and desk surface devoid of clutter or personal objects made me suspect Ness was compulsively organized and probably equally good at compartmentalizing his emotions too.
He waved us toward two cheap wooden chairs and went around to sit behind the desk. The only touches that might indicate higher status were a high-backed swivel chair and a classy fountain pen, which I guessed might have been a long-ago graduation present.
“I used to think that catching Capone would be like grabbing the brass ring,” Ness said, with a note of weariness in his voice that was too strong to overlook. “Turns out, it’s more like slaying the hydra. Cut off one head, and more grow from the stump. Capone’s organization is tight. He’s in jail, but his lieutenants aren’t, so the machine carries on without him.”
Ness sighed, and I had the impression of a man who couldn’t abide loose ends. “My team might be incorruptible, but Eastern State is a big prison, and we all know there are guards who can be bought. Capone will find a way to remain in control of his operation from the inside. It galls me, but nothing’s a surprise anymore. I’m resigned to a long, messy mop-up. But I don’t know how to deal with the monsters he left behind.”
“The wendigo wasn’t the only problem?” West asked. He wore the “evaluating” expression normally reserved for witnesses who might or might not be hiding something.
Ness hesitated, then shook his head. “No. It’s just the one we’d gotten a good enough look at to guess what it might be. Down in the coal ash tunnels, the ones the garbage collectors use to cart waste away without clogging street traffic, there’ve been disappearances. Only one body was found, but something had ripped out its heart.”
“You think someone wanted to make it look like a monster?” West asked. “People can kill other people in monstrous ways.”
Ness shrugged. “Possible. But I don’t think so. The workers’ union pays kickbacks to Capone’s men for protection. It would be a pointless attack by the other families—high risk and low payoff.”
“Wendigos eat flesh, but hearts aren’t their thing. A werewolf, maybe,” I mused. “Or a rougarou.”
Ness gave a bitter laugh. “Werewolves belong in Chicago, along with vamps. They’ve been part of the Mob since there’s been a Mob. They don’t really count as monsters here anymore. The families keep them on a tight leash, and they have a place, a purpose. They would be stupid to risk everything to snack on a few sanitation workers.”
I’d already decided that Chicago wasn’t my kind of town, but Ness’s admission removed all doubt. Cleveland had its Mafia witches—I counted one of them as an almost-friend and sometimes ally. But the Lavecchia family was strictly human. Still monsters, but human ones.
“So you think it’s another creature Capone was using to do his dirty work?” West asked.
Ness nodded. “Yes. And I think he found a way to bend the ghosts of Death Alley to do his bidding too. There’ve been several suspicious deaths there, all people Capone was known to have a beef with.”
I’d heard of Death Alley. When the Iroquois Theater burned more than two decades ago, killing over six hundred people—many of them children—the bodies were stacked in the alley behind the building until they could be identified. Many spirits never left. It’s been one of the most haunted places in Chicago ever since.
“I knew there were ghosts. Never heard they were violent,” I said.
Ness met my gaze. “They didn’t used to be. Then all of a sudden, Capone’s enemies started turning up dead there, not a mark on them. No traces of poison. Just some strange gray goo leaking from their ears and eyes.”
Ectoplasm. Linked to high-energy hauntings, it was the slime-trail of a dangerous ghost, one that had enough juice to harm the living and interact with the material world, like poltergeists.
West looked to me. “What can power up ghosts like that?”
“Nothing good.” I could think of a few possibilities. Necromancers. Demons. Dark magic. Ness definitely hadn’t been forthright with West when he dragged us into this.
“What else?” I growled. I could afford to take my chances, but West and Sarah were all-too-human and, therefore, breakable.
Ness gave me a look, and all of a sudden, I understood. Eliot Ness wasn’t afraid of Capone or his enforcers and hitmen. He could go up against the Chicago machine—vamps, weres, and all. They were normal in his mind.
But this other stuff…scared him. Big, bad, ball-busting Eliot Ness was afraid. He didn’t know how to handle that or how to ask for help. It wasn’t all vanity. He needed the Mob to fear him in order to clean up the rot in Chicago. Ness might have a team for fighting criminals, but he sensed that they might not believe him about supernatural threats, and he couldn’t afford to undermine his authority.
It must have cost him to reach out to West, and to bring in a stranger—me—to a volatile situation and potentially jeopardize everything he’d worked for. But he did it for Chicago, and I could respect that. Maybe I could bend my own stiff neck, just a little, for a good cause.
“The only thing I’ve ever run into that could affect ghosts like that is bad magic—powerful and very dark,” I said. “Did Capone have a strega?”
“Not that we’ve ever known,” Ness replied. “But he’s been obsessed with the occult for a long time. It’s strange because these mafia guys are normally so superstitious. But Capone never shied away from using any weapon that served his purposes. He’s a very practical man.”
That was the other missing piece I needed to hear. Ness could loathe everything Capone stood for, hate his methods and his crimes, but only a fool underestimates his opponent out of disdain. Ness was nobody’s fool. He didn’t admire Capone—I’d seen lawmen seduced by the appeal of the outlaw before, and it always ended badly. But Ness also didn’t write his nemesis off in a bout of hubris, and he was willing to step way outside his comfort zone to do the right thing, to protect the city he had sworn to serve.
I could work with him.
“We might be able to get some inside information on those tunnel deaths,” I said, glancing at West, who gave me a barely-there nod to continue. “An associate of ours invited us to dinner with Jonathan Kirkpatrick.”
Ness’s eyebrows rose. “The CEO of Kirkpatrick Mining?” I could practically see the wheels turning in his brain, trying to figure out how West and I were possibly connected.
West cleared his throat. “Our associate, Mrs. Sarah Grace McAllen Harringworth, is a friend of the Kirkpatrick family. We may be able to get an unguarded reaction about the disappearances—which could be…informative.”
“Well fuck me sideways,” Ness said, rolling his eyes. “Damned if you don’t walk right into the access my team’s been trying to get for over a month. Normally I’d say that the goings-on in the tunnels were beneath the bossman’s notice, but Kirkpatrick has a reputation for immersing himself in the details. On top of that, the ash removal contract with the city puts a pretty penny in his pocket, so anything that threatens his workers threatens that revenue.”
I felt kinda bad for him if he’d been chasing that lead without success, but it wasn’t something West or I planned in advance. Sarah had insisted on joining us, and having her along never steered us wrong before. She’s good with a gun, her connections are legion, and if there are any doors her name alone won’t open, she’s fast with a lock pick.
“We’ll let you know what we hear,” West assured him. “Did you have any other questions you want us to ask if he’s in a talking mood?”
“The disappearances are the main thing,” Ness replied, mollified at being asked. “We’ve gone up the chain of command from the shift supervisor to the vice president of the company, and they either don’t know or are scared to talk about it. At first, we thought it was a gang war, but it’s gotten worse since Capone’s been locked up, and he doesn’t benefit from disrupting operations.”
