The Race (Isaac Bell 4)

PROLOGUE

"the moon is on fire"

Chicago

1899

A TALL DRUNK DANCED ALONE IN THE GUTTER, singing a Stephen Foster song loved by the Anti-Saloon League. The melody was mournful, reminiscent of Scottish pipes, the tempo a slow waltz. His voice, a warm baritone, rang with heartfelt regret for promises broken.

“Oh! comrades, fill no glass for me

“To drown my soul in liquid flame. .”

He had a golden head of hair, and a fine, strong profile. His extreme youth – he could not have been more than twenty – made his condition even sadder. His clothes looked slept in, matted with straw, and short in the arms and legs, like handouts from a church basement or lifted from a clothesline. His linen collar was askew, his shirt was missing a cuff, and he had no hat despite the cold. Of gentleman’s treasures to sell for drink, made-to-order calfskin boots were all he had left.

He bumped into a lamppost and lost the thread of the lyric. Still humming the poignant tune, still trying to waltz, he dodged a potter’s field morgue wagon pulling up at the curb. The driver tied his horses and bounded through the swinging doors of the nearest of the many saloons spilling yellow light on the cobblestones.

The drunken youth reeled against the somber black wagon and held on tight.

He studied the saloon. Was it one where he would be welcomed? Or had he already been thrown out? He patted empty pockets. He shrugged sadly. His eyes roved the storefronts: five-cent lodging houses, brothels, pawnbrokers. He considered his boots. Then he lifted his gaze to the newspaper dealer’s depot on the corner, where press wagons were delivering Chicago’s early editions.

Could he beg a few pennies’ work unloading the bundled newspapers? He squared his shoulders and commenced a slow waltz toward the depot.

“When I was young I felt the tide

“Of aspiration undefiled.

“But manhood’s years have wronged the pride

“My parents centered in their child.”

The newsboys lining up to buy their papers were street-toughened twelve-year-olds. They made fun of the drunk as he approached until one of them locked gazes with his strangely soft violet-blue eyes. “Leave him alone!” he told his friends, and the tall young man whispered, “Thanks, shonny. Whuss yer name?”

“Wally Laughlin.”

“You’ve a kind soul, Wally Laughlin. Don’t end up like me.”

“I TOLD YOU TO GET RID OF THE DRUNK,” said Harry Frost, a giant of a man with a heavy jaw and merciless eyes. He straddled a crate of Vulcan dynamite inside the morgue wagon. Two ex-prizefighters from his West Side gang crouched at his feet. They were watching the newspaper depot through peepholes drilled in the side, waiting for the owner to return from his supper.

“I chased him off. He came back.”

“Run him in that alley. I don’t want to see him again, except carried on a shutter.”

“He’s just a drunk, Mr. Frost.”

“Yeah? What if that newspaper dealer hired detectives to protect his depot?”