Deadly Anniversaries Read online

  Blanching, Gossett quickly put his hand over the bag and looked around. “My goodness, Annie. Hide that at once. Around here? There are ruffians and burglars and robbers everywhere. And harlots who’d slit your throat for paste jewels, let alone for treasures like those. You shouldn’t have them at any apartment or hotel around here.”

  “I’ll secure a safety deposit box in a bank tomorrow. I’ll take a chance tonight. After all, I have my lovely gun.”

  Gossett said, “I know a place where they’ll be safe for this evening. And, please, let me find you more suitable lodging. I live near north of the river, far nicer. I can make inquiries about temporary rooms there.”

  “Thank you, George, but I won’t have cash until I sell some of my mother’s pieces. It could be days.”

  Gossett waved a hand. “Nonsense. Let me take care of it.”

  “Oh, but I couldn’t allow that.”

  “You may consider it a loan. You can even wait to repay me until you find proper employment. Of course, my comments about scullery were simply to fool John—that receptionist at my club. You are quite capable of an important job. A department store clerk. Or you might even become a schoolteacher.”

  “Your generosity is quite breathtaking, George.”

  “And you’ll need to buy some new clothing. Have you been to Marshall Field’s?”

  “The famous department store? No.”

  “It’s on State Street. Not far from here. Tomorrow you can get what you need. I will stand you cash for that, too. Now I suggest we leave. This is quite the dangerous neighborhood.”

  They rose and waked north. Gossett explained that this, the Cheyenne district, had been so named because it was considered the Wild West of the city. Even the police avoided the neighborhood. It had been somewhat respectable until it was destroyed in the Great Fire, in 1871, and became home to criminals, prostitutes, and drunks. After being rebuilt haphazardly, it was then destroyed again in the Fire of 1874. After that, Cheyenne had no aspirations to improve, and it became one large gutter.

  The man rambled on about the city, with enthusiasm and affection. He referred to himself, too. His family history spoke to modest means. Gossett, though, was ambitious. He was determined to work his way to the top of the C&W railroad. He’d set his sights on becoming another Chicago millionaire magnate, like Aaron Montgomery Ward, who four years ago created a mail-order retail business. Or Cyrus McCormick, the inventor of the mechanical reaper; and Marshall Field, who had founded the department store that Gossett had mentioned earlier.

  They walked for a moment in silence and he appeared to be debating some matter. He sneaked a glance her way. “If I might be so bold...” He scoffed and shook his head. “No, forgive me.”

  “Please,” she urged.

  “I was about to ask, this evening, after we see to your jewelry and find you some accommodations, would you have any desire to dine with me tonight? But that is very forward of me.”

  “I don’t see it being forward at all. I would be honored to.”

  Gossett tried to control his pleasure, but wasn’t very successful. “There’s a hotel downtown, the Palmer House. The poshest place in the entire city. And it has a fine dining room. Oh, and the wine cellar rivals any hotel in Paris.”

  He told her that the hotel had been completed just last year—it was the new Palmer House. The original had burned to the ground in the Great Fire, just days after opening. “The new hotel is even more regal and—better yet—is constructed of stone and steel. They say it’s the world’s first fireproof hotel.”

  “Fine food...in a conflagration-free environment—a combination I cannot possibly refuse.” She offered a smile. “Especially when I’ll be accompanied by such a charming host. Though I have to confess that the wine would be lost on me. I avoid alcohol.”

  “That’s probably because you’ve had no good wine. I’m a bit of an aficionado. Promise you’ll try one sip.”

  “Perhaps I will.”

  “There we are!” Gossett said. “Now, are you comfortable with walking a few more blocks?”

  “Certainly.”

  They continued north, waiting at an intersection for a trolley to pass, then he directed her east on Madison, toward the lake. Soon they were at the back entrance of Michigan Avenue Station, a massive iron structure, which had largely survived the Great Fire. The smell of coal smoke from the locomotives was nearly overwhelming.

  Inside the echoing, cavernous place, he led her down a dim corridor of black-and-white tile to a door marked with the letters C&WRR Baggage Annex One. Fishing into his pocket, he removed a key and opened the door. Inside was an ante office, presently unoccupied. Gossett walked to the back door and opened that one, too. In the inner office was a large man in a blue guard’s uniform, sitting at a chair behind a desk, on which sat a pen and inkwell, a report of some sort and a well-thumbed newspaper. On the wall were lithographs of various locomotives, a blue Gamewell fire and police alarm box, and bulletin boards on which were pinned dozens of directives and decrees from the railroad’s management.

  Do not use the fire sand bucket to extinguish cigars and cigarettes!

  “Eugene.”

  “Mr. Gossett. I didn’t expect to see you in today. Are you working?”

  “Personal matter only, Eugene. This charming lady needs a safe place to keep her valuables for a few days. I told her I had just the place.”

  “Pleased to meet you, ma’am.”

  “You, as well.”

  The guard rose and walked to a chest-high safe. He withdrew a set of keys from his pocket. He inserted one in the lock of the safe and turned it. Gossett did the same with a key he’d produced. He spun the dial in the front and pulled the door open. “Your gems will be in the sure and secure embrace of the Chicago and Western, Annie. More so than in a Cheyenne district boarding house.”

  He turned back to see Annie take from her purse not the velvet bag, but the bone-handled pistol. She cocked it, pointing it at both men.

  Gossett laughed—a sound that faded into silence when he saw that she was serious. Perhaps he could also see the end of his career. It was all a con.

  “Gentlemen, I have on occasion shot people and I will not hesitate to shoot you, if you don’t heed my instructions. Am I clear enough for you?”

  The guard rocked back and forth. His brow was furrowed.

  “Eugene. I noticed you eyeing the Gamewell.”

  The box would send an instantaneous alert to the police via an electric telegraph.

  She said in an ominous voice, “The railroad has insurance. They will be made whole. The same cannot be said for you.” The pistol moved closer to his chest. He leaned away from the alarm system. “Now take your pistol—with your left hand—and place it on the desk. Then stand back.”

  He did so.

  While keeping the gun halfway between the men with one hand, Annie used her other to undo the ribbon encircling her hair bun. She set it on the desk and collected the guard’s pistol. “George, please bind Eugene’s hands with that. And do a good job of it. I know knots quite well and I’ll be able to see if you’ve left slack.”

  “But, but...” His voice was choked.

  “George.”

  He did as she’d asked. She put the guard’s gun in her bag. “Help Eugene down to the floor. And do be careful. He’s a big fellow and we don’t want him to hurt himself.”

  “But please, Annie... How can you do this?”

  He may have been sharp earlier, but he wasn’t particularly so now. She didn’t answer but nodded once more to the guard. Gossett helped him down to the floor.

  Eugene said, “You won’t get away with this.”

  His words needed no response, either.

  “Now, George, you come with me.”

  The miserable man preceded her to the door from the outer office into the corridor.


  “Open it.”

  He did and, to his clear astonishment, in walked Thomas, who nodded civilly to Annie. He carried a leather valise and an envelope, the latter of which he handed to her.

  George gaped at the large man’s presence.

  “No, George, he’s not my husband.”

  It was ironic, she reflected, that Gossett had painted her as a war widow to the receptionist of his club. Ironic, because that’s exactly what she was. Her beloved husband, Henry Lennox, served with distinction for the North and died at the Battle of Sutherland’s Station in April of 1865, a mere week before Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Thomas had been Henry’s dear friend and his second in command of the regiment. After the war, he and Annie became close—though not romantically—and found that the loss and carnage had changed them both fundamentally and made them realize that the old rules no longer existed. Hence, adventures like the one they were presently engaged in.

  She told Thomas, “The safe is open.”

  As they’d agreed, they would take only the cash, which would be the railroad’s. Annie and Thomas had no interest in the valuables belonging to passengers. He walked into the inner office and chuckled, perhaps at the sight of the large guard bound with fashionable gingham.

  Annie said, “George, open this and look at what’s inside.” She handed him the envelope that Thomas had given her.

  He did and gasped. Inside was a photograph that Thomas had taken an hour ago. It was of Gossett and Annie examining the pistol in Jefferson Park, with her face obscured. She had picked a bench directly opposite an abandoned building, where Thomas—no stranger to photography himself—had set up Annie’s four-by-five-inch camera. He’d developed the plate quickly and printed the image.

  “But, no...it will look like I...” His shoulders dipped. A defeated man.

  “Now, George, what you will do is fabricate a story about who I am and how you were duped by me.”

  “You’re not Annie Fowler.”

  She was Annie, but Lennox, not Fowler. She didn’t bother to respond to the obvious comment.

  “If you don’t lead the authorities away from me, that picture will be sent to every newspaper in Chicago. And for a further incentive, I should tell you that Thomas earlier today procured some lime, which he scattered over a body in a potter’s grave—some unfortunate who died six months or so ago. Before we leave, we will plant a few of the notes we are relieving you of today with the body.”

  Gossett muttered, “So that if I don’t cooperate there will be an anonymous letter sent to the police reporting that I was seen killing someone and liming the body, the implication being that I killed someone who was a witness to my theft. Annie, how can you do this to me? I’m just an innocent!”

  “An innocent? That is hardly a portrait of you I would paint, George. Oh, and let me offer my sympathies for your loss.”

  “My loss?”

  “Yes, it appears that sometime during the day, you have lost your wedding ring. It was on your hand in the first few minutes we met, and then it vanished.”

  His face glowed crimson. He began to sputter some pathetic defense; she cut him off with an abrupt wave of her hand. “Is it unreasonable of me to speculate that tonight at the Palmer House you were going to ply me with wine and suggest we repair to a room upstairs?”

  The blush grew redder, the eyes more evasive.

  “And that, after I had told you about my husband’s drinking troubles?” A wicked smile crossed her lips. “Fictional though both husband and drink might have been.”

  Thomas appeared in the doorway. He nodded. Thomas preferred less delicate means of restraints than festive ribbons. He pulled from his pocket a pair of hand irons and clamped one on Gossett’s wrist and another to a radiator.

  Gossett muttered, “This won’t work, you know. Employees will come in here soon. The alarm will be sounded. Even if I play the fool, Eugene knows what you look like. The police will spot you in minutes if you take to the streets.”

  Annie and Thomas shared a smile. In fact, they were about to do just that—take to the streets. They’d be driving a carriage to a south side station. There they would board a train to New York City, where they lived—he in the Wall Street district, she in charming Greenwich Village.

  And, yes, on any other day, they would have been easily spotted by the authorities.

  But not today. Because as they left their poor captives behind and exited onto Michigan Avenue, they were absorbed into a crowd of thousands, all parading south along the lakefront, amid the sound of marching bands and cheers of “Huzzah, huzzah!” Even the most diligent police or railroad thugs could never locate them.

  This was the reason they had chosen to rob the Chicago and Western Railroad now: today was July 4, 1876, the hundredth anniversary of the founding of the United States. Downtown Chicago was awash with celebrants, all conveniently masking their escape.

  An hour later, Annie and Thomas were sitting in the dining car of an eastbound train—not one belonging to the C&WRR, of course—perusing the menu and trying to decide what to select for their evening meal.

  * * *

  The heat did not seem so bad this morning. Touch the Sky believed that he and his fellow tribesmen could work through the day. There were still fifteen structures to erect and roof and he wanted the village to be completed by early fall, in time for harvest.

  The six-foot-four-inch chief was standing outside his teepee, inside of which his wife, Dark Hawk Woman, was teaching their three youngsters—two boys and a girl—to speak the English language.

  He nodded to fellow tribesmen and -women passing by, on their way to the stream or the field. A hunting party, after elk, rode past on ponies. Women ground corn. Children ran with the joyous abandon that only children are capable of.

  Another day was beginning.

  As he looked about the village, his gaze settled on the east, where a faint trail of dust became a solitary rider on a palomino. He was trotting along at a steady, though not urgent, pace. The man was a White and he was dressed in buckskin. Perhaps a scout. As he drew closer, Touch the Sky observed that he was bearded and in his thirties. There was a military air about him. A veteran, he supposed. Touch the Sky lifted the flap of the teepee and retrieved his pistol, which he put into his belt.

  Everyone nearby stared as the man rode into the center of the village and reined his horse to a walk. Looking about, he spotted Touch the Sky and directed the animal in his direction.

  The man was not wearing a sidearm.

  Dismounting and tying his horse to a post, he approached but stopped a respectful distance from Touch the Sky. He clasped his hands together, with the left hand facing the ground. The Lakota hand signal for “peace.”

  Touch the Sky did the same.

  The man said, “I understand you speak English.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you are Chief Touch the Sky.” There was little doubt about that, as the chief was a full foot taller than most of the tribe, the rider, too.

  “You have business here?”

  “I’ve ridden from Eastern Ridge to deliver a package to you.”

  The chief was confused. “We receive posts. A wagon comes weekly.”

  “My instructions were to give you this personally.”

  “What is it?”

  “I don’t know. It’s sealed.” The rider pulled a paperbound package from his saddlebag. He handed it to Touch the Sky. It was heavy and about the size of a large book, which is what he guessed the contents to be. A Bible, most likely. The missionaries simply would not cease their efforts. Touch the Sky found their fervor as irritating as their simplemindedness.

  “You would like food or water?” Touch the Sky asked.

  “Water for my horse. Only that. I want to get on the road before the sun gets too high. Hottest July in years.”

  The chief
pointed out the stream. The men exchanged Lakota hand signals for farewell, and the White mounted the palomino once more and rode out of the village.

  Touch the Sky squatted and withdrew his stained knife from its scabbard and sliced through the string binding the package together. He unfurled the wrapping.

  He gasped.

  The contents were not a Bible, nor a book of any kind. They were stacks and stacks of U.S. notes. Close to a thousand dollars. An unimaginable sum.

  Inside too was an envelope addressed to him. He opened it and read:

  Chief Touch the Sky:

  We have never met but I know of you. Last May I was shocked to learn of the incident in which the Chicago and Western Rail Road seized your village and relocated your tribe members to an inhospitable place, far from your ancestral land, killing several young men and a woman in the incident. I am somewhat familiar with the area, and it was clear to me that the railroad could easily have bypassed your village, but it chose to drive the railway through it, preferring, I suppose, to avoid the expense of building a trestle. For the petty act of saving money, you have suffered greatly.

  I will not burden you with the details, but suffice it to say that a friend and I, from time to time, devise to relieve certain institutions and individuals of resources we decide they do not deserve. We spent the month of June planning how to best make sure that C&WRR paid for its crime against you. We were successful and we now offer this money to you as a gift that will help in improving the lives of your tribe members in this difficult time.

  It is, of course, best that we remain anonymous. Accordingly I will simply sign this with the Lakota word for friend.

  —Kola

  * * *

  THE LAST DIVE BAR

  BY BILL PRONZINI

  Harry had a thing for dive bars.

  You know the kind of place. Old-fashioned taverns that have been in business in the same locale for many years, often family owned for generations, where locals regularly congregate and visitors are welcome as long as they respect the rules of the house. Monuments to the past that have changed little over time, each unique in ambience, history, tradition. Some exist in large city neighborhoods, but most are small town institutions—at least one in nearly every town nationwide.