Waldo Denton-Campaneua-took the bait, wide-eyed and curious at the wondrous fire tug sitting at the end of the pier. He stepped aboard behind Stratemeyer, who waved at a couple of his lads already aboard. “I’ve another to take the tour, boys!” he proclaimed.
This was met with boredom from the two men aboard, both in suspenders and boots, a heat wave having descended over the city.
Waldo was well into the tour, being conducted about the fire-fighting tug and his head half in the barrel of the water cannon when Harry said, “And just to your left is Inspector Ransom.”
Ransom and the two other firemen grabbed Denton, who was quickly overpowered and hog-tied. “Into the ice chest, now!” shouted Ransom even as Harry lifted the lid to the huge onboard ice chest, a leftover from a time when the fire tug had been a fishing trawler. It held nearly a ton of ice and Waldo Denton, tied and gagged, was dropped inside.
In a matter of a half hour, the fire boat was out over Lake Michigan, its crew, Harry and Ransom enjoying a Pabst-the beer that “Only Yesterday” won the blue ribbon at the World’s Fair. Harry remained skeptical of the new beer, but said he wanted to give it a try. They toasted to a job well done.
Alastair added, “To my lovely Polly Pete, my Merielle. May she find the peace in death she sought in life.”
“Here, here!” cheered the firemen, all of whom had been on hand the day Polly’s blackened body and separated head had been discovered amid the ruins of a fire, the source of which had been her apartment. She’d been one of Denton’s first victims.
“And to Griffin Drimmer,” added Harry.
Alastair raised his bottle of Pabst and clinked it against the others. “A better-hearted young detective, and so dedicated, never lived.”
“Nor died,” agreed Harry as he and Ransom began feeling the effects of their third beer now. By now they’d taken the boat several nautical miles out over Lake Michigan.
All four men stared at the ice box, imagining its contents, now silent after much kicking and thrashing.
“You think he’s froze to death, Alastair?” asked Harry as he gulped down his Pabst.
“We need to get back to the river and soon,” said one of the fireboat men.
“Don’t want anyone missing us,” agreed the second boatman.
As if on cue, Denton kicked out at his ice coffin again. “Frankly, I want the bastard alive for the next shock to his system,” replied Alastair. “Boys,” he addressed the two younger firemen, “appears we are alone with the elements and the waves here, so let’s get the bastard outta deep freeze for phase two.”
The two younger men stared at one another.
Harry erupted, shouting, “Do as Inspector Ransom says, boys!”
Ransom explained, “So he’s conscious of his fate. I want him to know he’s to be cold beneath the lake for eternity.”
They opened the chest to find Denton turned blue and near solid save for the shivering. “Took some doing packing all that ice into the old chest for you, Inspector,” said Harry, “but there’s not a one of us who didn’t like Griff.”
The younger men hauled Denton from the ice. They laid him on the deck and attached his hog-tied body to a wench and hauled him up over the deck, just high enough so Alastair could look him in the eye. Alastair pulled away the gag and said, “I’d suggest you say your prayers, but then…what sort of prayer does a hound of Hell send up?”
“Yeah,” agreed Harry in back of Alastair, “pray to your dark savior in the underworld?”
“Tell me why? Why bloody hell did you do it? Did you like it?” Ransom struck him so hard blood spewed from his mouth despite his temperature.
He made an animal cry, unable to form words, his teeth chattering, blood dripping onto the deck.
“I’ll have an answer! Why kill so many innocent people who had naught to do with your father, Campaneua? Answer me, you bastard!”
Denton attempted to spit on Alastair, but he could not manage it as his chattering teeth and thick tongue were in the way along with the blood he was swallowing. But he didn’t deny the truth-the conclusion Alastair had come to understand.
“OK, then! Pray now to the bloody father who spawned you!” Alastair cried out, wrapping Denton’s garrote about his own neck.
“You b-bastard, you-you killed my father!” he choked out.
“Know this, you gutless, heartless bastard, and take it to your grave: It wasn’t my doing-your father’s burning to death. Yes, I was there! But the torching was the work of your friend Nathan Kohler, you fool.”
Denton, while thawing, remained too chilled to respond, but he made another feeble attempt to bring up phlegm to spit on Ransom, failing but obviously also failing to believe a word Alastair had imparted. He could not; it would obliterate a worldview, a customary mindset, a way of rationalizing all his actions.
“I say ice followed by fire,” said Harry. “We are, after all, firemen, and this bastard was spawned in flame.”
“Just drop him, now!” shouted Ransom.
And the block and tackle lifted him higher and the boom sent him out over the lake, dangling like a limp, gangly bird, legs flailing. For a moment, Alastair saw a human being inside this cretin, a child that never was, struggling to the surface. Denton began begging for his life. “Please, please! For God’s sake! You have the wrong man!”
“End it! End it now!” Ransom ordered.
“Say your good-bye to this world, you son of a bitch!” shouted Stratemeyer at the moment the hook was released and Denton, still bound and gagged, was sent to the depths of the Great Lake like a parcel of trash.
“Finally…it’s over,” Alastair muttered as if to himself.
“An end to the Phantom of the Fair,” added Harry.
“Fish food now,” muttered one of the younger men.
“We can all sleep better tonight,” added the other. “Knowing the mad garroter is gone at last.”
“Take us home, boys!” ordered Harry. “And let’s raise another cold Pabst.”
“I know old man Pabst,” said Alastair, “and I know he’d be thrilled to know to what purpose his beer was put today.” This made his firemen friends laugh uproariously as they got back to work, guiding the boat back toward Ransom’s city.
Alastair looked at Chicago’s growing, sprawling skyline in the distance. It all looked so different from here-no shadows, no crime, no poverty, no grime, he mentally quipped…only peace. How could the same place have so many different faces? This one face, he must one day show to Jane. Take her on an outing here on the lake to view the sprawling row of skyscrapers. He sipped at his beer, and he tried to imagine how it might look in five years, in ten, in twenty, in the next century.
He’d felt not a single qualm about disposing of Denton in the manner he had, and every man aboard the fire tug named the DuSable had reason to keep their combined secret. Each had been touched by the horror brought to their city by this madman; each had known one or more of the victims. Each wanted payback, and Ransom must admit, it did feel not only like justice and vengeance but right in its every aspect save for one.
“I should’ve cut his bleeding head off with that garrote before we committed him to the deep,” he complained as Harry handed him another beer.
“You shoulda made him walk the plank, sure, suffer more, but it’s done now, and Chicago is again yours, Ransom.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Means that everyone will eventually know that you took care of this mess when Kohler and Kehoe and all others failed.”
“That you took action,” said another.