NINE

For the rest of the day, Flip made queries and calls, checked files and logs, but his department had no arrest record of a man with a divot in his head. That trail was cold.

Flip stopped at a grocery on his way home, then found Tark and Sally Battle sitting out on his porch. He could tell from their faces that their own searches had been likewise fruitless.

“Come on in and tell me about it,” he said to them. “I’ll make us some supper.”

“I came up empty, Flip,” Sally told him. “Tark believes he found something that’s maybe related, but I think he’s seeing things that aren’t there.”

“Oh really?” Flip said as they began to climb the stair.

“Yes, really,” Sally affirmed.

“And what do you think you found,” Flip asked Tark.

“I didn’t find any articles about decapitated twins,” Tark began. “But I did find articles about decapitations—a couple of them. I was thinking that maybe our killer could have wanted to practice on one person before he moved on to two.”

Flip set down his groceries beside his stove.

“It’s possible,” Flip said. “He could have wanted to start with just one person. That’s not out of bounds to imagine.”

“But he kills twins,” insisted Sally.

“Yes, he does that now,” Flip told her. “But he’s going to want to make sure that he does it right. Does it correctly. If that means a practice run back in the day, I think he’ll do it.”

“What did you learn in Joliet?” Tark said, a bottle of gin suddenly resting on the table before him.

“That the roads are getting good,” Flip said, slicing vegetables and meat. “Better, anyway.”

“And that boxer?” Tark pressed.

Flip thought for a moment as he sliced up a carrot.

“He didn’t tell me who our man is,” Flip said. “But the conversation made me think on some things. For example, I think our killer has some knowledge of anatomy, or has worked in the stockyards like Chalifour. I think our killer knows how to drain a body—either outside, or over a sink. Two of the killings happened indoors, and there were sinks and pipes to carry the blood away. I think our killer is taking care to do these things. I think we know that much.”

Tark opened his mouth to say something, but then thought better. Flip continued to chop vegetables.

“Often, I find I am able to crack a case when I review all the small steps a criminal must take in order to complete the deed,” Flip said. “I am trying to take myself through how our man did these murders. I am trying to imagine his actions so I can imagine him. The last two killings—the orphanage girls and the triplets—were indoors and clean. I am thinking about why. Maybe the draining made the reattaching easier. I am also interested in how he has switched the heads and tried to reattach them in different ways each time. In the first crime scene, he places one where the other ought to be. Just places them there, on the ground. In the next, he uses a spike to hold them fast. Then barbed wire. Then a proper needle and thread. It is almost as though he is attempting something. . . He is experimenting. Getting closer each time.”

“You don’t think he believes he can switch heads. . . and the people keep on living?” Sally asked, putting her hand to her mouth.

“Even Claude Chalifour dismissed that idea,” Flip said. “I think everybody knows that wouldn’t work. Well. . . almost everybody.”

Flip tapped a wooden spoon hard against a pot where water boiled. Sally and Tark jumped.

“Tark, why don’t you tell me what you think you found in the Defender archives?” Flip said.

Tark quickly produced notes from his pocket and began to read.

“Wendell Wentworth, a Negro, aged 32, was found with his head separated from his body on Western Avenue, behind his cart. It is believed his neck may have become entangled in horse tacking, and his mare started unexpectedly, pulling long and hard enough to cause the fatal injury.”

Tark smiled triumphantly, took a slug of gin, and set this first note on the table. Then he held a second handwritten card up to his eyes.

“Mary Jo Hall, 15, a Negro girl, died tragically in a fall from the roof of the Masonic Temple at the corner of Randolph Street and State Street, where she was employed. The young girl died instantly from the fall, as was apparent immediately to any onlookers, the force of the impact detaching her head from her body. Her head was found several feet away in the median landscaping. Her mother said the girl had been sad and despondent.”

Flip put a lid on the pot and let his stew begin cook. Then he joined Tark and Sally back at the table.

“Neither of those are very good, Tark,” Flip said. “How far back did you get?”

“I tried to go as far back as 1912,” Tark said. “And Sally took 1912 to 1910. We divided up the work, to be more efficient.”

Sally nodded to say that this was true.

“You say you ‘tried to. . .’” pressed Flip.

“It’s hard to read every newspaper,” Tark said. “Even if you are just looking for headless twins.”

“And you found nothing at all?” Flip asked Sally.

The madam shook her head.

“I expect I found as much as Tark. Only I had the sense to ignore the horse accidents and suicides.”

“Hey!” Tark objected. “What if someone made them look like accidents? Maybe that’s what he wanted people to think.”

“It doesn’t seem likely,” Flip told him.

Flip suddenly paused and his eyes went to the open window—the one all the way across the apartment that looked down on the front stoop and street below. Tark and Sally had never seen a man’s ears prick up quite like a dog’s, but they were seeing that now. (Tark would have sworn Flip’s ears actually moved.)

“Tark, make sure my pot don’t boil over,” Flip said softly, already moving toward the window.

Flip reached the window, saw something immediately, and then raced to the staircase.

Sally and Tark looked at one another and followed after him. (Sally tarried long enough to move the stewpot off the stove.)

At the bottom of the staircase, Flip threw open the front door to his building. An envelope had been placed on his door with his name scrawled across it. On the steps leading away were two people. One was a man in trousers and wrinkled shirtsleeves, and the other a boy no more than eleven years old.

Flip smiled and cleared his throat.

Joseph Singer and his unofficial assistant turned back around.

“See, Mister Singer,” Rufus said. “I told you this was where he lived.”

Flip’s own smile fell away quickly. He plucked the sealed envelope from his door and approached the pair.

“You got my magician in there?” Singer asked. “That note really for him.”

Flip considered bluffing, or failing to answer the query. Yet this option collapsed entirely when Tark and Sally arrived at the bottom of the staircase, excited and curious.

“Mister Singer, there he be!” the youngster pointed out.

“I see him,” the ringmaster assured the child.

Tark pushed past Sally and Flip, storming up to his employer.

“My brother all right?” the magician asked. “You need to tell me.”

“I ain’t heard otherwise,” said Singer. “But it’s plain there are those who still have an eye on finding him. And you.”

“Why?” said Flip. “What’s happened?”

Singer paused a moment and nodded to himself. The expression said that he would get straight to the heart of the matter.

“Now I didn’t see it firsthand,” Singer began, “but that man came around again asking after Ike. The same man from before. Nobody seen where he come from, and nobody seen where he go. Wore a suit. Wore his homburg low.”

“I talked to him!” Rufus announced proudly, shifting from foot to foot with excitement.

Singer nodded.

“What did you talk about?” Flip asked, crouching down in front of the boy.

“Where Ike was,” Rufus replied. “I said I didn’t know, because that’s the truth. Then the man said he wanted to see the caravan of the Amazing Drextel Tark. I showed him. The man knocked on the door, but there wasn’t anybody inside. Then the man said he would come back another time. Then he went away.”

“And when did this happen?” Flip asked.

“Near to sunset yesterday,” said Rufus.

“Could he have been a friend of Ike’s?” Flip said. “An acquaintance?”

Flip already knew the answer, but wanted to gauge Singer and the boy.

“Ike didn’t—doesn’t—know anybody other than his brother,” Singer said. “Drextel can vouch for that. And I never saw this man before. Drextel has his admirers—much as I hate to admit it—but nobody ever comes around to ask for Ike.”

Tark looked anxious. He put his hands on his hips and glanced from Rufus to Singer to Flip.

“We thought you would want to know,” Singer said. “That’s all. Whoever he is—whatever you done—that man still looking for you.”

“Tark hasn’t done anything,” Flip said sternly. “And also, how did you find me? Nobody used to know where I lived. This week I seem to have become the easiest man to locate in Chicago.”

“We just asked at the station,” Singer said, not seeing what the fuss was about. “We just gave your name.”

With an eye to helping the mayor, it seemed the cops on the South Side would let anybody know where to find Joe Flippity. And Flip knew that door swung both ways. If the killer wanted to come at him, well. . .

Flip sighed in frustration.

“Is there anything more?” Flip asked, turning back to Singer. “Any details you aren’t telling me? Anything else this man did?”

Singer looked defensive and squinted.

“No. . . I . . . Damn, son. I thought you would want to know. We only tryna help. I tryna get my magician back.”

Singer’s voice fell to a whisper.

“I ain’t like to say this in front of him—because he’ll want a damn raise—but the kid is a draw. One of the best acts I got.”

Tark heard every word.

“If I’m one of the best, then how come you pay me what the horse trainers make?”

“See what I mean?” Singer said. “See? And you get paid what you get paid cause you still a boy, Tark. Damn! Have a little patience. It’s coming. That’s coming.”

“Who else saw the man in the homburg, other than Rufus?” Flip pressed.

“I. . . uh. . . maybe a couple of my roughnecks,” Singer said. “The man didn’t really talk to them. Not like he talked to Rufus. And all he said to anyone is he’s looking for Ike and the Amazing Drextel Tark.”

Flip nodded seriously.

“Did he ever take his hat off?” Tark asked. “Did you see a hole in his head?”

Singer’s neck jerked back in surprise.

“A hole? What do you mean? Rufus, you see a hole?”

“No sir,” Rufus said. “I didn’t see any hole.”

“You’ve given us a great deal to think about, Mr. Singer,” Flip said. “I want to thank you for taking the time to come here. Tell me, how long will your circus be town?”

“We’re off for a week,” Singer said, scratching his neck. “Little more. Then we do a couple of shows here in the neighborhood. Then we go on up to Milwaukee.”

“In that case,” Flip said, “you can plan on hearing from us sooner rather than later.”

Singer and Rufus departed. Back in Flip’s modest rooms, the trio sat around the table and ate second-rate stew.

“Damn,” Tark said. “This why you so thin? There ain’t nothin’ to this. Too many carrots. Hardly any meat at all.”

Sally Battle ate silently and politely. Flip had never been taught how to cook. Books from the library had only taken him so far.

Flip looked at Sally without appearing to. This woman ran the most successful Negro brothel in the city, which meant it was nearly the most successful brothel, period. She could afford to eat at fine restaurants every night of the week—and maybe she did, for all he knew—yet she was here. In these modest, reeking policeman’s quarters, eating soup made from old vegetables and beef scraps from a tin bowl with a measuring spoon.

He thought again of the photograph of her twins.

“You’re sure that Ike is safe where you put him?” Flip asked the magician.

“As sure as I was before,” Tark said. “He’s still somewhere across the border, if that’s what you mean.”

Tark said the word ‘border’ as though Indiana were a distant and savage land.

“He’s with people I trust,” Tark continued. “There’s no reason to think he could be found.”

“Is there any chance that Ike will return—or be returned—before tomorrow night?” Flip asked.

Tark considered this carefully, looking like a card-player wondering whether to raise, fold, or call.

“No,” he eventually answered. “You don’t need to worry about this so much, Flip.”

“In that case, I have determined what we should do next,” the policeman declared.

Sally and Tark looked on intently. Flip finished his soup silently before explaining himself.

“Tomorrow morning I will go and do some things alone,” Flip said to them. “Then I’ll have to prepare for what we’re going to do tomorrow night . . . together.”

Tark and Sally looked at one another.

“With your day, Tark, you will go out and buy an eye patch and a floppy Irish hat like your brother wears. Use the money I gave you. Then you’re gonna spend time practicing. You know how to practice. If he can be you, then you can damn-straight be him. Buy yourself a mirror to practice in front of.”

Tark cocked his head to the side.

“You intend to-”

“To use you as a lure?—as bait?—yes,” Flip said. “We’ll tell Singer what we’re going to do, and position you at the edge of his circus camp. Isolate that part of the field. Make it feel like it would be easy for our mystery man to come and find you. To prey on the one who is slower and duller. And then when he makes his move . . .”

With a glance, Flip indicated his 1911.

“I suppose I could do that,” Tark said thoughtfully.

“What I don’t fully know is . . . if our killer will want to murder just one of you,” Flip said in a tone of distant, academic conjecture.

Tark swallowed hard.

“That’s to say, does it have to be both at the same time?” Flip continued. “So far, he’s killed people who looked identical together. I don’t know if that’s important. If he can kill Ike, but not you—or you, but not Ike—will he do it? Or, if he’s in a situation where he can kill both of you—but not cut off your heads—would he act then? I. . . I’m trying to figure these parts out.”

Tark looked at Flip nervously and had a swig from his bottle.

“Now Sally, what would be helpful from you-” Flip began.

“Tomorrow is Saturday, yes?” Sally interjected.

Flip nodded.

She sighed.

“I can help in the morning if you need, but. . . I will have to spend tomorrow night at the Palmerton. There is an upcoming engagement I cannot break.”

“Fine,” said Flip. His tone, in that single word, reminded Sally that this was her choice. All of it. Sitting here, eating terrible soup in his apartment, drinking tenth-rate gin with a magician, was not something he needed her for. She could come and go as she pleased.

“What else then?” asked Tark.

“I suggest you go take a walk,” Flip replied. “Find a bed. There’s nothing else to be done. Prepare for tomorrow night. Get your mind right.”

The next morning Flip skipped up the steps of the apartment complex that housed the Chicago Defender at seven o’clock sharp, and made his way inside. The interior smelled like newsprint and tobacco and coffee. He asked the first person he saw if Robert Sengstacke Abbott was yet in his office. The receptionist—young and new—nodded yes and waited for Flip to identify himself. She became alarmed when he merely brushed past into the crowded newsroom. Only the intercession of Abbott himself—opening the door to his office, coffee cup in hand—prevented her from raising her voice.

“Bob!” Flip said brightly.

“Hey, there he is,” Abbott said, a genuine grin stretching ear to ear. “Number one lawman on the South Side.”

Robert Sengstacke Abbott, the editor and publisher of the Defender, was about forty-five years old. He wore a tidy mustache and was roundfaced. He favored felt bowlers and straw fedoras, and was seldom seen outside of a three-piece suit. He had short hair, very dark skin, and piercing eyes.

“Step into my office,” Abbott said. “My warm-up can wait.”

Flip followed Abbott back inside the converted bedroom that served as his office. Every inch of the large desk within was covered with typewritten pages, newspaper clippings, or handwritten notes. Manuscripts and copies of the Defender were stacked against the walls in piles tall as a man. Behind his desk hung a framed photograph of Booker T. Washington. On the wall opposite was a print of W.E.B. Du Bois.

The front page of the Saturday issue was laid out on Abbott’s chair. The headline screamed: PHOTO-PLAY BOUND TO AROUSE RACIAL HATRED!

“You seen this nonsense?” Abbott asked, catching Flip’s glance. “Birth of a Nation, they call it. A three-hour movie designed to make the audience feel in favor of clansmen.”

“Must’ve missed it,” Flip said. “I go to comedies mostly. Charlie Chaplin. Fatty Arbuckle good too.” “Harold Lloyd, then?” Abbott asked, always enthusiastic to talk about the cinema. “If you like those two, you must like Lloyd.”

Flip shook his head.

“Naw. Not Lloyd. Face looks too much like a ghost. Makes me uneasy.”

Abbott shrugged. Each had his tastes.

“What can I help you with, Flip?” Abbott asked, moving aside the fresh issue of the Defender and plopping down in his chair.

Flip understood Abbott was a busy man.

“Were you here in the office yesterday?” Flip asked.

“I was,” Abbott said.

“And did you notice a pair asking to root through your archives?”

Abbott smiled.

“Uncommonly good-looking woman, if I recall. . . and then—if my memory also serves—a young man I’ve seen do tricks in Singer’s circus. Though, did you hear they’ve changed their name?”

“I did hear that,” Flip told him.

“Everything is positioning in the marketplace,” Abbott declared.

“Would it surprise you to know that that woman was Sally Battle?” Flip said. “Of the Palmerton House?” Abbott nodded slowly and carefully, as if struggling to remain neutral about such a person and place.

Abbott was that most uncommon strain of man—most uncommon in Flip’s world, at any rate—who seemed genuinely to have no vice. There was no battle going on inside of Robert Sengstacke Abbott. The endless, epic war between pleasure and temperance was not being fought on his soil. In fact, he seemed numb to just about everything not to do with publishing his newspaper.

Flip did not necessarily see this as indicative of any moral merit. If you avoided vice simply because you lacked the receptors for it, did that really set you up to claim virtue? The fact that over on South State Street there was a building filled with the most beautiful Negro women in the world—and you could fuck them for money—might have registered for Abbott in the same way a cat would appreciate the architecture of a cathedral, or a dog might consider a Rembrandt.

“I came here to tell you that they were working for me,” Flip told Abbott. “With me, I should say.”

“What’s going on?” the editor asked.

“I’ll tell you,” Flip said. “But do me a kindness. Let’s skip the part where I remind you of all the favors I’ve done you over the years. All the times I gave you information you needed for your stories. When I tipped you on who your reporters could press for answers, and where to find them. Not to mention all those times you’ve used me as an anonymous source.”

“I feel such favors have been fairly repaid,” Abbott said stoically. “I don’t need to remind you of those instances, either.”

“Good,” the policeman said. “Then we both have good memories. I sent them here because I hoped they would find things quietly, and I wouldn’t have to tell you what is happening in the city. What is truly happening. . .”

There! Lo and behold!

A spark shone in Abbott’s eyes. The hunger. The want. The way other men might have looked at a woman, or a tall glass of beer, or a steak dinner—now Abbott looked at Flip.

The newspaperman did desire. He desired stories. He desired that things kept secret and safe from prying eyes should be neither. Yes, thought Flip. Robert Sengstacke Abbott now would come truly alive.

“I’m surprised,” Abbott said thoughtfully, trying to conceal his evident interest. “I’d have thought I’d have earned that. We are fair and honest in our representations of law enforcement. We portray the Chicago Police in a sympathetic light whenever it is warranted. We have been careful to outline the unfairness endured by Negro officers, for example. You know what we do here, Joe Flippity. We’re not a mystery.” “No, you’re not,” Flip said. “But you didn’t let me finish. I said I hoped I wouldn’t have to tell you . . . Not that I’m not going to.”

As Abbott sat back in his chair, like a king in a paper-filled throne room, Flip described carefully the case before him. He included his personal meeting with the mayor, and even the budget he had been given. He discussed his conversation at the settlement charity, and the search for the man with the divot in his head. The lone detail omitted—as ever—was his consultation with Ursula Green.

“You want it bad, don’t you Bob?” Flip said as he concluded. “I see it in your eyes.”

“These are remarkable goings-on,” Abbott admitted, drumming his fingers very rapidly on his desk. “A Negro officer placed in charge of a case of this magnitude . . . with the potential to impact all Negro policing in the future. And. . . at the same time. . . Mutilation! Murder! An emergency in our community. An immediate risk to the welfare of citizens. Something that would be immoral to keep away from the public. . .”

There he went.

Flip sighed and shook his head.

“Bob, first of all, he only kills identical twins. Second of all, if you run a story, it will make it more difficult for me to catch him. He’ll understand he is being pursued. That would be the immoral thing to do.”

“Then. . . why have you come here?” Abbott asked, seeming genuinely puzzled.

“Because you know better than anyone what is happening on the South Side of this city,” Flip said. “You have information nobody else does. You got more feelers than the Chicago Police for damn sure. There have been four killings of Negro twins, Bob. Four that I know of. I want to make certain there haven’t been others. To catch this beast, I have to know as much about him as I can.”

Abbott rubbed his chin with fingers that were almost entirely covered with pen and printing ink.

“Off the top of my head?” Abbott said. “No. Nothing. I can think of no story we’ve ever done about twins being mutilated, and my memory is what they call photographic. I can recall with great clarity from the present back to, oh, 1910 or thereabouts. Before that, if it’s not photographic, it’s still very good. And I tell you, I surely would have remembered something like this.”

“What about twins, generally,” the policeman pressed.

Abbott considered it.

“Yes,” he finally pronounced, “I do seem to recall something involving twins and murder once upon a time. It does not meet the exact profile you are looking for, but. . .”

“Good,” said Flip. “That’s something, anyhow. I’m going to need that information. Whatever you have.”

A rapid and frantic knocking erupted at Abbott’s door. It was summarily thrown open before an answer could come. A young man stood on the other side. He had a pencil behind his ear and excitement seemed to pulsate out from him.

“Mr. Abbott!” the young man cried. “The mayor’s forged an agreement with the rail workers. There will be no strike!”

“He did what?” Abbott said, rising to his feet. “That strike was a sure thing.”

“They met in secret—all night at the Congress Plaza,” the reporter said. “My source tells me the mayor didn’t let them leave until they’d hammered it out. Kept them there like prisoners ‘till morning.”

“Very good,” said Abbott, as though praising a star pupil. “This is tomorrow’s front page. I want you to get in touch with Oscar De Priest and get a quote about what this will mean for folks on the South Side who take trains in to work.”

No sooner did the reporter begin a retreat from Abbott’s office, than a middle-aged woman stuck her head into the doorway to replace him. She held up a newspaper.

“Bob? The Tribune’s done it. In today’s edition.”

“Done what, Cheryl?” Abbott asked.

“Called the mayor ‘Kaiser Bill’,” she said. “You told us we had to wait for the Tribune to do it first, if we wanted to do it. Well they have. And I do.”

The publisher rolled his eyes and shifted in his chair.

“The mayor loves him some Germans,” Abbott said to Flip. “Won’t rightly say which side he supports in this war, leastways.”

“We could do our own variation,” Cheryl suggested. “What about ‘Wilhelm Thompson’? Something like that.”

“I’ll think about it,” Abbott said. “But try to come up with something better than that, eh?”

“Fine, but you should read this,” Cheryl said, and tossed the Trib with practiced motion onto the mountain of paper on his desk.

Abbott turned to Flip.

“I should really attend to things,” Abbott said. “It’s like this all day. And once it gets going, it doesn’t stop ‘till the sun goes down.”

“That’s fine,” Flip said. “We may have a line on this man—this killer—tonight. I have a plan. If it works, you’ll hear from me. You’ll get the full scoop. But in case it doesn’t, can you have somebody write up what you know about other twins? Have it delivered here.”

Flip took out his notepad and jotted.

“Surely, surely,” Abbott said, placing the note in the pocket of his vest.

Flip thanked the publisher and turned to leave. Outside, other members of the newsroom had their eyes on Abbott’s door, waiting for a chance to pounce.

“Should I leave it open?” Flip asked.

“Might as well,” said Abbott. “And Flip?”

The policeman bent an ear.

“You will owe me. For not printing this now? Something this big? This wipes out all the other favor-accounts we ever had. We start over, with you in debt to me big. You got it?”

“Fine,” said Flip. “Just send over what you have. And let me know if that ‘photographic’ mind of yours remembers anything more.”

Flip left the offices of the Defender and headed down the block to a store called Percival’s Dry Goods. The sun rose above him. The morning, yet again, was unfolding stultifyingly clear and hot. As he walked, Flip allowed himself to consider the benefits of a position like Abbott’s. Namely, all of the thrill, and none of the risk. It was a safe job. Newspaper publishers had been shot in the Wild West, but never in Chicago. Never east of the Mississippi. If Abbott were to be assassinated for something he exposed, it would be a citywide scandal. If a policeman like Flip were to be shot, it would be nothing.

Nothing at all.

Flip reached Percival’s Dry Goods as it was opening and went inside. It was the worst, most disreputable store of its kind that Flip knew. Almost everything it carried was both dirty and stolen. (If you had stolen something in good shape, you didn’t take it to Percival.)

The moment the proprietor behind the counter saw the lawman, he began to protest in a thousand different, simpering ways of his innocence.

Flip waved a hand.

“Ain’t here for that,” Flip said, not even bothering to look at the man. “You show me your dirtiest dungarees. Worst ones you got. If I look too tall for ’em, don’t you pay that any mind.”

The proprietor moved cautiously, still searching for the trick or trap.

He walked around his counter to help Flip find the clothes he needed. There were some thin choices on a crooked shelf in the back.

Flip selected what he wanted, paid, and left the store.

That evening, Flip and Tark arrived together at the fallow lot that held the Singling Brothers circus. Singer himself was waiting to receive them, Rufus by his side.

“Holy cats!” the youngster said. “I thought you really was Ike when I seen you comin’. You got the eye patch, the crazy-eye, and even the walk!”

“It is a fine counterfeit,” Singer offered, looking the young man up and down.

“Wasn’t that hard to figure,” Tark said. “I been watching my brother all my life.”

“And what are you supposed to be?” Singer asked, turning to Flip.

Flip wore a pair of soiled blue jeans with the pockets straight in the front like a cowboy. He had ancient work boots that looked ready to sit up and start talking on their own; they were covered in mud and blood, and had almost certainly been worn in the stockyards. Flip’s workshirt was nineteenth-century, like something an Amish person would wear. It was also covered in mud.

“I’m supposed to be precisely nothin’,” Flip told Singer, as if this should be obvious.

“You early,” Rufus said. “He ain’t come ‘till past sunset.”

“He could be watchin’ us now,” Flip cautioned. “I don’t think he is, but you never know.”

Rufus looked around nervously. Flip smiled.

“Show me where you saw him yesterday,” Flip commanded. “The very spot.”

Rufus did, walking them to the side of the circus grounds.

“Came out of those bushes and trees over there,” Rufus explained. “Then he walked directly up to me.”

“All right,” said Flip, rubbing his jaw, guessing at the trajectory of it. “He must have approached through the empty lots past the trees. What we’re gonna do . . . Tark? There you are. What we’re gonna do is position ‘Ike’ by the edge of the bushes. Give him a stool to sit on. Maybe have him close his eyes—his eye—and look like he’s asleep. If the man comes again, he’ll see he doesn’t need to interact with the rest of the circus. If his goal is to get to Ike, he can do that without taking but a few steps out into the field.”

Tark cocked his head to the side.

“I’m waiting for the part where you say you’re gonna stop him before he kills me.”

“I’ll be right over there, by the edge of the caravans,” Flip said.

“What you gonna do if he makes a sudden move on me?” Tark asked emphatically. “What if he tries to cut my head off? Can you shoot him from there with your gun?”

Flip looked from the edge of the field over to the circus caravans.

“Probably not,” he said. “Liable to hit you just as soon as him.”

Tark crossed his arms to show this was not satisfying.

“But here’s the thing . . .” Flip continued. “I don’t think he’s going to attack you. From what I’ve seen, that’s not how he works. What I think he’ll do is try to talk to you. I think he’ll ask if he can come back later in the evening, when Drextel Tark is also around. Or maybe he’ll ask if you and your magician brother will go meet with him somewhere. He might even offer you money to do it.”

“So he can cut off our heads,” Tark said.

Flip looked left and right in a way that said this should be obvious.

“How long until sunset?” Tark asked.

“A while still,” said Flip. “Couple hours at least.”

“Can I drink gin while I wait?” asked Tark.

“Does your brother drink gin?” Flip asked.

“My brother drinks everything,” Tark said.

Flip indicated it would be acceptable.

Tark produced a clear glass bottle from his brother’s clothes and took his first sip of the evening.

They waited for hours. Tark found a small circular podium—like a lion might sit on in an animal act—and placed it near the edge of the field. He took a seat upon it, partook heavily of his juniper beverage, and appeared to fall into an authentic doze. Heavy, crepuscular rays cut between buildings and lit up the brownfields orange and red. The sun moved low and large in the sky.

Flip sat in the shade of a broken wagon wheel. It was the furthest from Tark that he could sit and still trust his eyes on the trees and scrub. He would not, at this distance, be able to rescue Tark from an assailant with any surety, yet he felt unconcerned for the magician’s safety. His killer was a man who planned carefully and who struck only when the stars were right. And these stars were decidedly wrong.

If the killer approached from the wooded place as he had before, he would hesitate at the treeline upon encountering Tark (so unexpectedly close and vulnerable). It would be startling. Then, probably, he would sense that something was off and back away. (He was smart. Flip knew this if he knew anything.) But by then it would be too late, and Flip would move on him easily. The sleeping magician, though? No, he was safe. Hundreds of people in Chicago were at risk of being assaulted or worse this night. Flip did not think Drextel Tark was one of them.

Flip watched the treeline carefully. He looked hard and unerringly, but saw not so much as a city rat. Certainly, Flip glimpsed no man with a fine suit and a divot in his head peeking through the trees.

As the sun dipped lower, Flip sensed footsteps approaching from behind. The circus workers had been warned to stay away, but had not been told precisely why. Flip glanced back and saw Singer approaching. The ringmaster held a thermos.

“Thought you might like some soup,” Singer said.

Flip accepted the metal container.

“We takin’ bets on what gon’ happen,” the circus proprietor informed him.

Flip raised an eyebrow as he sucked down hot broth.

“Two to one is he falls over,” Singer explained. “But Tark falls over all the time when he’s in his cups. That’s easy money. Three to one is somebody shows up—anybody. Five to one, the man from yesterday shows. Ten to one, there’s some kind of rumpus—a fistfight, like. And twenty to one is . . .you shoot somebody.”

Flip lowered the soup.

“Only twenty to one?” he asked.

Singer nodded and smiled.

“I didn’t say shoot him dead,” Singer clarified, looking out across the darkening field to where the magician dozed. “Just that you shoot him. Truth is—between the animals and the men—violence tends to go down on this here corner. And it’s been quiet for a while. Too quiet. We due.”

Flip handed the thermos back to Singer.

“’Course, the other half of it is—a lot of my people would like to see some violence on Tark. Not too much, now. . . Just a little. He don’t do no heavy lifting, and he gets his own caravan. Lot of folks jealous of that. I don’t know that I’m exempt.”

“I thought you liked Tark,” Flip said.

“He’s a draw. Good at magic, and only gonna get better. But. . . Damn. I don’t know. Something about somebody that good that young. . . It just make you want to see them get knocked around. Nothing fatal. But if Tark could end the night with a black eye, there’d be lots of smiles around here tomorrow, I tell you that.”

“I don’t think anyone is going to visit us tonight,” Flip said, repositioning himself beneath the wagon wheel. “I think the only way your boy gets a black eye is if he falls off that animal stand.”

“So you’re saying it could happen?” Singer said with a grin.

Flip smiled back.

“I’d give it even money.”

Tark did not fall, and neither did a strange man appear. The closest Flip got to excitement was when a cluster of seagulls from the lake swooped down and buzzed Tark. Yet the magician was in too great a stupor even to notice.

When the sun had set completely and the stars began to come out, Flip resigned himself fully to the operation’s failure. He stood from under the wheel and stretched his legs. His right knee gave an audible crack, as it sometimes did when the weather changed. He stalked over to where the magician sat.

Tark looked dead asleep, but opened a careful eye when Flip drew near.

“Nothing?” Tark asked.

“Nothing,” Flip answered.

Tark relaxed and let his legs dangle off of the stand.

“I ain’t sure he’s real.”

“What’s that?” Flip replied.

Tark stood up and began to do his own stretching and bending. He winced several times, probably just from the gin.

“I don’t know for certain,” the magician said to the policeman. “I just get this feeling, now, that maybe he’s not real.”

“You’re not making sense,” Flip told him. “People saw him. He talked to Rufus.”

Tark waved this detail away as if it were inconsequential.

“I had a dream just now,” Tark said. “Scary one. I was sitting right here in the dream—just like I done—and you were right over there underneath the wagon wheel.”

“Are you sure it was a dream?” Flip asked, giving the line of trees one last, hopeful scan. “Because if the next part is a bunch of birds flew in your face, then it wasn’t.”

“I’m sure it was a dream,” the magician insisted. “There was a thing in it, like a monster. It looked like bugs you see crawling through the grass—the little critters—only it was a hundred feet high. Two hundred. Real tall, Flip. Standing over me. It was coming in from the lake, walking on land.”

“That’s a big critter,” Flip said.

“Yes,” agreed Tark. “With its head like a triangle pointed down. And triangle eyes, too. And it was doing what you were, Flip. It was looking at me. Watching over me. And it was hoping the man with the divot in his head would show up.”

“It was hoping?” Flip said. “You could tell that?”

Tark nodded.

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink so much,” Flip told him.

“Why that got to be the first thing people say whenever I have a dream? Or my back hurts? Or my tooth aches? Shows what people know. A drink will make a dream like that go away, not the other way around.”

From the corner of his eye, Flip noticed Singer sauntering out onto the field. The circus owner sensed that the evening’s affair was at an end.

“No bites?” he asked as he drew near the pair. “Didn’t catch your fish? My magician’s kind of puny. Maybe you need bigger bait.”

Tark sneered.

“No, we didn’t see him,” Flip conceded. “I don’t know how you wagered, but I hope you won.”

“You kidding?” Singer said with a toothy grin. “The house always wins. Just a matter of how much.”

Tark paced about like a long-legged bird, getting the blood back in his extremities. Flip surveyed the horizon intently. Singer shook his head, as if this were all very strange.

Then, suddenly, Singer grew still. His eyes locked onto something.

Without warning, the circus owner raced to the edge of the treeline.

The spot to where Singer galloped looked dark and filthy—but, most importantly, empty. Flip wondered if the man would be bitten by rats.

“Now what’s this?” Singer called.

Flip and Tark jogged over.

There were no rats, but there was, lost in the high grass, a halfcrushed hat. A homburg. The crown looked trampled by a single footfall. Singer bent down to pick it up.

“Let me,” said Flip.

“There could be rats underneath,” Singer warned. “These trees are full of them.”

“I know that,” said Flip, carefully grasping the hat.

The policeman examined the homburg in the small light there was left. No maker’s mark. It was fine but old. Well-worn. Plenty of dried sweat on the band inside.

“That’s him,” Singer said. “That belongs to the man who came by yesterday.”

“You sure about that?” asked Flip.

Singer nodded enthusiastically. He went for Rufus, and a moment later returned with the boy. Rufus was keen to make the identification.

“That’s the man’s hat!” Rufus adjudged. “Sure as I know anything!”

“Thank you,” Flip said.

Flip tucked the hat under his arm for safe keeping.

“I bet he was watching from the trees tonight, and a rat came up and scared him,” Rufus opined. “His hat fell off and he couldn’t find it again.”

Flip tried to gauge the position of the hat in relation to the wagon wheel. A blind spot, perhaps, where Flip could not have seen a visitor? He could not be sure. Had the killer come after all?

“What if the hat fell off earlier?” Flip wondered. “Remind me, where did he leave—the strange man—when he went away yesterday?”

“Right though here,” Rufus said. “Right where we’re standing now.”

“Man could have left his hat before,” Flip said. “Or tonight.”

Singer looked around.

“Hmm,” Singer said. “Let’s keep this between us then, yeah? I ain’t sure how it affects the betting pool.”

They began to head back toward the circus tents.

“You think I’m gonna get my magician back anytime soon?” Singer asked.

“Too early to tell,” Flip answered. “Way too early to tell.”