The Six Messiahs - Mark Frost [120]
The Zohar ruse had worked, said Doyle; the man had the false book, but he also had his suspicions. If the information on his card was correct, Mr. Schwarzkirk's office lay within walking distance of the Palmer House. That would be their next stop, one consequence of which did not occur to them, as it seemed to offer no significance at the time:
Traveling there by the more direct route would take them directly past the Water Tower on Chicago Avenue.
All day the Voices in his head told Dante Scruggs this would be the night his luck would turn. The Indian bitch had spent nearly a week staked out in front of the damn Water Tower, dawn to dusk, hightailing it back to her boarding house before dark. Hadn't looked for any work; hadn't even stopped in a single store, and that just wasn't natural in a woman. All she did at the Tower was stand and stare at people as they walked past, drifting every hour from one side of the building to the other, always staying with the crowds, never leaving him a single opening to make his move. There were times when Dante began to wonder if she sensed that he was tracking her: Indians were crafty that way, like animals.
Frustration began to boil up inside him like steam in a locomotive; had he picked himself out some sort of wrong-headed freak? If the bitch was crazy, that cut the edge off his interest; she wasn't prime. Maybe the time had come to reconsider his original investment. But the Voices that morning sounded so confident; something was in the wind and he couldn't ever remember a time when the Voices steered him wrong.
Sure enough: Night came on and when the lamplighters made their rounds, she stayed put in front of the Tower. He had no way of knowing the Indian heard voices she depended on, too—voices of her ancestors—and tonight they had advised her to wait this one time until after dark. As the streets and sidewalks emptied, she planted herself under a gaslight near the Tower entrance. Seven-thirty came and went, then eight. Getting on toward Green River Time: Dante Scruggs watched from across the street, out of her sight, his anticipation and excitement slowly mounting, hands deep in the pockets of his pants; one on his Johnson, the other on his knife.
And once again, intent as he was on his prey, Dante remained unaware that he in turn was being observed: a tall, blond man this time, wearing an expensive suit, sat in a carriage on the far side of the street, eyes trained on Dante Scruggs.
Nine o'clock rang out on the city's choir of church bells. As the last peal faded, the woman seemed to have reached some kind of limit; her shoulders drooped with disappointment and she started slowly walking away. Dante perked up: This might be it. Just one more sign ...
A man walking across the street dropped a newspaper. There it was; the Voices had spoken.
Dante unscrewed the cap on the bottle of chloroform in his pocket and shook some out into his handkerchief, put the cap back on the bottle, shoved the handkerchief and his hand down into the outside pocket of his coat, and stepped out to cross the street. If she followed her usual path back to the boarding house, the first left turn would take her down an empty side street lined with warehouses where the gaslights were few and far between, and one of them hadn't worked in the three days since Dante pinched off its supply line. The mouth of a dark alley intersected the street a few steps away. That was the spot he'd picked out to take her: under the dead lamp.
Yes; she made the turn. He picked up speed, twenty yards back, his soft-soled shoes making no sound, closing slowly at a pace that would put him on her at the exact moment she entered the dark circle; no last-second rush to warn her off. Her head down, feet scuffling along, paying no mind. Perfect. Electricity zinged through the bones and wires of Dante's hands, fists clenching in his pockets, warming to the task. Ten yards now. These were the