Chicago Prime, 1931-v2

The Delaware Crater, 2:47 AM

  1.  Cratering

Three floors above a gin joint that pretended to sell soda water, past a door marked “Authorized personnel only” with a note hanging off it that still promised its occupant would return from lunch later, through a room that smelled of cheap booze and stale cigarettes, a phone rang in the silence of my office. I answered halfway through the third ring.

“Jones.” At this time of night, the Mississippi in my accent came out stronger than normal. A fresh pot of coffee brewed on the counter next to a pack of cigarette papers.

“We got a body in The Crater.” The voice belonged to Lieutenant Zachariah Delaney, Chicago Prime Police Department. “Female. gruesome scene. Looks like someone wanted her to be found.”

My pen stopped mid-stroke across the crossword I’d been toying with. “Oh yeah? Was there a big neon sign above her saying ‘Dead woman’?”

Delaney’s exhale crackled through the line. “She’s laid out like an art piece. Middle of Ashland and 87th, right under the only working streetlight in ten blocks. This wasn’t random.”

This was new. No wonder Delaney was calling me.

“Who called it in? How do you know it’s legit?”

The Crater was a no-go zone for the cops. Traps and ambushes got set up all the time there, so they just stopped responding to calls.

“There’s still people who trust the police, Jones. Not everywhere can be a paradise like Yazoo, Mississippi. We got an informant in The Crater. He keeps an eye out for things in case someone important ends up there.”

Yazoo was my home town. After we won The War Between The States, the export of cotton prices skyrocketed. My family used to own the largest cotton farm in Mississippi up in Yazoo.

“Possible ID?”

A pause. Paper rustling. “Jessica Callahan.”

I snorted, “I guess it was coming to her sooner or later the way she went after Don Gabridone. Can’t say I blame her. Tough broad. I’ll go check it out.” Politician’s wives can be the most verbal.

I got up, poured myself a steaming cup of Joe, and reached for my coat. “When’d the call come in?”

“Call came in forty minutes ago. I’m sending you the location. Mercury—” Delaney’s voice dropped. “Don’t be a hero. Not every thread’s worth chasing.”

The line went dead.

I checked both 1911’s in my shoulder holsters and the knife in my boot. The crossword sat unfinished on my desk: seven across, “Roman mailman deity.” I’d left it blank.

“A 15-minute walk from here. Nice night for a stroll.”

2. Streetlight

The Delaware Crater earned its name honestly. Twenty years ago, a tower with the same name full of unstable chemicals had mysteriously exploded. It looked like downtown was giving birth to a small sun, leaving a half-mile radius of scorched earth and crumbling buildings. The city had condemned it. The people who lived there were either too poor to leave or too dangerous to evict. Now anyone who can afford to, avoids that place like the plague.

My shoes tapped the sidewalk as I made my way towards the scene. Darkness blanketed the streets with burned and smashed out streetlights leaning like an opium addict mid-bender. Each building was either boarded up or falling apart, save the occasional watering hole for the local fauna to stop by and satisfy whichever craving came calling that night. Trash and pieces of building littered the streets, rendering them nearly undriveable. Not that anyone who lived here had a car.

The streetlight Delaney mentioned stood like a lighthouse in the pitch of fog. Beneath it, a shape that used to be human.

I drew Delilah—-the .45 caliber pistol I kept in my left holster—-fifty feet out, approaching the victim slowly, head swiveling looking for glint, ears straining listening for movement. The Crater Kids only respected two things: money and guns. Money bought you info, and guns—-well, guns made sure you didn’t lose more than you needed.

Jessica Callahan lay on her back in the center of the intersection, arms and legs spread out like a ballerina mid-pirouette. Her hair was still perfectly shaped like she was planning on going out tonight. Ruby red lips coated in some kind of expensive lipstick, and a dress on her that would make the First Lady of the Confederacy look downright abject.

I crouched, not touching. My eyes and nose worked the scene like a machine.

No blood on the ground meant she’d been killed elsewhere, unless she was poisoned. No defensive wounds, no signs she’d fought. Her fingernails were clean. Lips blue-purple, suggesting strangulation, which the ligature marks confirmed. Time of death maybe two, three hours ago based on rigor.

“Jasmine and ginger,” my nose reported.

I examined the ligature marks closely. “These marks were made postmortem. Why would someone strangle a dead woman? Perhaps a distraction? Bloodlust? Revenge?” Too many questions too soon.

The wind whistled across my hat, blowing my coat open a tad as I continued examining her body.

I pulled a pair of gloves from my coat and donned them,  examining her arms and legs more closely, but there was nothing telling any stories. “Pantihose and high heels. Checks out for someone wanting to go out. Even her nails are painted.”

I stood up and posted myself in front of her. Nothing to note except some postmortem ligature marks and evidence that she had no plans on being visited tonight.

She looked asleep, like someone had carried her perfectly from her bed to here without waking her.

The body was telling me something, but it was a language I wasn’t yet familiar with. Maybe it wasn’t something on her body. Maybe it was the whole picture.

I stepped back further, out of the spillage of the streetlights glow.

There it was. Plain as day. And all of a sudden rancid smelling.

A shoe scuffed on the concrete behind me.

I whipped around, Delilah already leveling at the sound.

“Howdy.” I said conversationally. “ Whoever you are, you smell like an outhouse, you’re breathing heavily, and you’re standing in a place that might just make you holier—-if you catch my drift.”

“Easy, Jones.” A kid stepped into the light. Seventeen, maybe eighteen. His voice sounded younger, fourteen, maybe fifteen. Thin as a rail, wearing clothes that had belonged to someone bigger—-or healthier. “I ain’t carrying. Just came to see who was stupid enough to stand under the Ashland spotlight.”

I lowered my gun to low-ready. “Then you’re also stupid.” I said. I lowered my gun the whole way. I grew up knowing when someone was carrying and when they weren’t. The kid was too skinny to hide a pencil, let alone a weapon. I pressed him, “You any idea who could’ve done this?”

“I don't know nothin’. Stand here at the wrong time and you become target practice for whoever’s hiding in the shadows.” The kid’s eyes flicked to the body and away. “She the political lady?”

“I reckon she was.”

“Heard she called out The Don. Tough broad. Said things on the radio that made my ma turn it off.” The kid shoved his hands in his pockets. “Guess the Don didn’t like that.”

“You see anything tonight? Hear anything?”

The kid’s hand rubbed his jaw. “Maybe. What’s it worth?”

I pulled a silver confederate coin from my pocket. The kid’s eyes went wide—a week’s wages for most Crater families. 

“Talk.”

“Hey, now, you go pulling something like that out, people gonna start looking to make friends with you.”

“Fine.” I slid the coin back in my pocket.

“Woah, woah, woah! Mr. Jones, let’s not be so hasty.”

“Talk. Last chance.”

The kid spoke quickly.

“Black car. Fancy, like the ones that roll through Old Illinois sometimes on their way to shake down the gin joints. Came through around midnight. Four men got out, carried something wrapped in canvas, put it here. Spent a couple minutes working. Then they left.”

“The car?”

He pointed, “Headed that way. Toward Atlantis.”

“Thanks, partner. You got a name?” I always kept names locked away for future reference. Plus, he knew mine. Might as well even the playing field.

“Marty. Marty Stoneville.” He said it like stone-vul.

I flipped him the coin. “You didn’t see me, Marty. I wasn’t here.”

“Don’t worry. I got a talent for forgetting.” The kid pocketed the money, lit a disposed of half-cigarette he picked up off the ground, and melted back into the dark.

3. Every Waking Moment

I never write anything down or take pictures. Paper work is my idea of hell. The good Lord did, however, bless me with hyperthymesia. Which also meant sleeping was as foreign to me as liking curry. I remember every waking moment of my life starting from the time I was about 5 onward. It’s useful for what I do, which is one reason I do it. But memory isn’t something I experience vaguely. It’s not a suggestion of past events, or a speedy summary of things I’ve experienced. I relive them in my brain as if they’re happening in real-time all over again. Even the bad things.

Jessica Callahan was a main opponent to the Gabridone crime family. It easily could’ve been them, but big fish require a big fishing rod. Her impassioned speeches would’ve given any Gabridone sympathizer motive, the lawlessness in Chicago Prime is all the means they would need, and nighttime presents all the opportunity in the world. 

Before I left I gave Jessica one more look over. I turned her body over to look at her back and found a plastic rat taped to her right shoulder. I stowed it in my pocket for later. When I had stepped back and looked at her from the shadows, I had seen it clear as day. She was a ballerina. The only thing missing were the point shoes. 

That’s it.

I walked over and took off her shoes. Out fell a note. “Love, The Rat King.”

“A classy killer. Someone who likes the fine arts.”

There was nothing left to do. I had all the info they wanted me to have.

I walked back to my office as questions began to populate my mind. Why a ballerina? Is this a serial killer or someone playing a sick joke? A serial killer needs more than one victim. A sick joke is less clean. Certainly professional. I needed more information, and I had no idea how much time I had. 

I needed to try to sleep. I got back to my office and laid down. I put on some Delta Blues to help my mind clear itself from the movie of memories. I sipped some old Kentucky Bourbon to ease my mind further into sleep as the background formed the questions I would invariably wake up to in a few hours. First thing I needed to do in the morning was tell Delaney what I found, and he needed to tell Mr. Callahan about his wife. 

As I sat and looked at the cross-word, I realized one thing: right or wrong, Jessica Callahan had been a tough but foolish woman. 

“Roman mailman deity. Seven across.”

My pen wrote the letters across the paper I’d written probably a million times in my life: “Mercury.”