Assassin of Shadows by Lawrence Goldstone

Author:Lawrence Goldstone
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pegasus Books
Published: 2019-04-30T04:00:00+00:00

20

Where you been?” Walter had left Harry word that he would meet him at their office on La Salle, but had not given any other information.

“I was checking something out.” Walter stood just inside the door of the tiny private office Harry rated as head of the bureau. The other six members of the squad shared the slightly larger office out front. Since Wilkie came in, only the head office in Washington spent more than six bits a year on accoutrements.

Harry leaned his chair back, balancing perfectly on the back legs. He tapped the fingers of his right hand on his thigh. “‘Checking something out?’ Kind of vague, isn’t it, Walter?”

“I don’t want to talk about it yet. Give me a day or two.”

“I don’t want to pull rank on you, Walter, but last time I looked, you worked for me.”

“Don’t crowd me, Harry. I’ll tell you when I’m able.”

“All right, Walter. But you’d better be able soon.” Harry stood and grabbed his skimmer from the hat rack. “Now come with me.”

“Where are we going?”

“To where we don’t belong.”

A landau was waiting at the curb when Walter and Harry emerged, gleaming black with gold trim, much the same as Mark Hanna’s coach in Buffalo. The driver didn’t budge from his perch, but Harry gestured for them to get in.

“You have a good a night at poker?” Walter asked.

“It isn’t mine.”

“Thanks, Harry. I would never have figured that out. Whose is it?’

“Our host’s.”

“And our host is meeting us where?”

“You’ll see when we get there. Didn’t you just tell me not to crowd you?”

The coach turned on 16th Street toward the lake and suddenly Walter knew their destination. “Prairie Avenue?”

“Yeah. We’ve been summoned.”

Prairie Avenue was the wealthiest street in Chicago, rivaling New York’s Fifth Avenue for sheer ostentation. After the Great Fire had devoured many of the city’s stateliest homes, many of Chicago’s Brahmins had moved to the near South Side to rebuild, settling near the lakefront. A six-block stretch of the avenue south of 16th Street was now Chicago’s millionaire’s row.

As soon as they turned toward the lake from Wabash, Harry played tour guide. “See that one. That’s Amour, the meat packer. And there’s Marshall Field’s. That one across the street is Pullman.”

Walter kept his mouth shut and let Harry have his fun, although he had been down this street before. One Sunday about three years ago, he had rented a hansom just to see where Chicago’s richest had dropped their roots. Amour, Pullman, Field, Kimball. The next day, Walter had gone to the library and looked them up. Each had been in his late twenties when the Civil War broke out, but not one of them had served a day in the army. They stayed home and amassed millions from war commerce while other, less enlightened Americans went off to places like Antietam and Chancellorsville and did the dying. Now Marshall Field lived in a mansion as big as his store and Phillip Pullman in one as long as one of his trains.

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