The music man playing both instruments at once did not slow for Ransom, as new to the city, he’d no idea who Alastair was. Muldoon’s this time of night was, for the most part, just another den of losers and down-and-outs, most at the bar, on their feet, smoking and drinking and talking and thinking and planning and plotting-most with minds always in a state of disarray, confusion, and a mix of anger and fear. Anger at the world for having lost the race, fear at the world that it’d become too late to ever score big. The confusion came in the wonderment of how life had so quickly beaten them down. Some were no older than late twenties, early thirties. Yet they held longing, clinging memories for what might have been. To a man they were gamblers of one sort or another.
Those familiar to Muldoon’s fell silent when they realized who’d walked in. Alastair represented a diversion from their sore, sordid lives, and to some he represented another hope. After all, hope dies hard, and hope has a place in a dreamer’s heart, even a man who simply dreamed of betting for once on the right horse out at the racetrack.
The races proved a second home for most of these men, and each Sunday they went out to the course and laid their money on a horse in much better prime than the one Alastair had seen Jack Houston working over.
Alastair was given to a horse race himself on occasion, but it had not become the driving force in his life. Such a life is what Alastair Ransom feared, an end that left him daily standing before some bar and talking of past adventures to people he didn’t like.
He momentarily thought of what Philo, his only true friend, would think of this new turn of events-him being enthroned at Muldoon’s, if talk on the street were to be believed.
Due to his reputation and the rumors now abounding, he had indeed become a topic of interest in every bar in the growing prairie city. Stepping in from the light and finding himself striding toward the bar in the semi-darkness of this seedy place, Ransom realized that he was indeed an object of fascination for the regulars. Some had been on hand the night he’d smashed his cane into Muldoon’s temple, knocking the owner senseless. How strange the turn of events now.
So when it became clear around the room that Inspector Ransom was indeed in their midst, the buzz went about the room, and all eyes turned on him.
Some few lifted their glasses, a salute to his having rid the city of the Phantom. When Moose Muldoon, busy behind the bar, realized that Ransom had come through the door, he set up a free beer-something Muldoon was not known for, giving beer away, waiving the usual five cents. “Look here, boys!” Muldoon shouted, his voice silencing the banjo man and every conversation remaining. “By God, it’s our own Inspector Ransom it is, in Muldoon’s, boys! I told you he and I were thick as brothers-hey, Inspector?”
“Muldoon…how’ve you been?” Alastair asked. “You’re head clear these days on the drinking laws?”
“Aye, Inspector-Alastair-Rance, old friend. I’ve a special on for the whiskey-sarsaparillas concoction you like. Calling the drink a Whiskey Ransom. The boys here’ve taken to it, chasing it with ale and beer.”
“So I hear on the street.”
“And look there in the corner back booth,” said Muldoon, pointing to a cordoned-off table. “Reserved for you alone, Inspector, so’s you can conduct your own special business outta Muldoon’s whenever you’re moved to it.”
“That’s extremely generous of you, Pat-may I call you, Pat?”
“It’s fine. Call me Paddy if you like.”
“Then if it’s OK with you, Paddy, I’ll just take advantage now.”
Ransom took his free beer to his special seat, wondering what was in it for Muldoon, sure he would soon learn. No doubt the man wanted a favor. Possibly protection from some heavies moving in on his action, demanding a cut for, what else, protection from other heavies wanting to move in on his action.
Ransom did not have to wait long to learn of Muldoon’s purpose. In fact, the banjo player and songster was only halfway through his next song-a riotous tune about his mother’s red cabbage and griddle cakes, the refrain being, “Boil them cabbage down, my friend, boil them cabbage down!”-and Alastair had only downed half his “free” beer when Muldoon joined him at the table. The two huge figures in the back booth seemed a pair of giants staring across at one another. “What’s what, Paddy? Why’re you being so lovely toward me?”
“It’s not what you’re thinking.”
“Oh, and what am I thinking?”
“That I want some favor down at City Hall or with the aldermen, or that I want you to run someone off from seeing my sister.”
“And you’re saying it’s none of those things?”
“Not in the least.”
Alastair raised his glass in toast. “Then tell me why’re we burying the ol’ hatchet?”
“It’s the business you did with the Phantom, and what I suspect you’ll do with this bastard they’re calling Leather Apron, the one causing the Vanishings. Awful…just awful…doing such to our poor innocent children, like so many defenseless chicks.”
“Get to the point, Muldoon. I’ve business elsewhere.”
“I only want you to use the place, this table, as your home away from home, so to speak.”
“So to speak of what? Your point, Paddy?”
“Alastair, truly, as I’ve come to respect you so.”
“I see.”
“Then you’ll accept my hospitality?”
“A free beer whenever I call for it?”
“Ahhh…one per day.”
“One per visit?” dickered Ransom.
“Ahhh…all right, then.”
“And the use of the table for long periods?”
“That’s me gift to you for doing so much to keep Chicagoans safe, yes.”
“I had a reputation before the Phantom’s end, so why now Muldoon?”
“Ahhh…it’s ever since we had that run-in, you and me. You have no idea how many people come here to see where you was standing when your cane come down across me head, and they want me to retell the story over and over, and then they bring in their friends and associates to hear it over again.”
“And you’re tired of telling it? Sounds as if business is good.”
“Well…there attaches some embarrassment to the story in the first telling alone.”
“I see, but there is more to this than our run-in.”
“Like I’m telling you, people come through that door expecting to see you, some wanting to talk to you. I’ve spoke till I’m blue in the face that your headquarters are at number 13 Des Plaines, but they’re normally not the type to go seeking out a policeman in a station house.”
“I see.” And finally it had come clear for Ransom. “You pay me off in free beer and my favorite table, and I become a sideshow freak for your bloody customers is it?”
“Now, don’t get riled, Inspector,” countered Muldoon. “It’s not a bad bargain for either of us once word gets round that you’ve returned to your favorite old haunt, and that you and I’ve become pals again.”
“Yes, the money motive. What drives Chicago.”
“What is your answer. No…no, don’t tell me now, Inspector. Give it time to sink in. Sleep on it. We’ll talk again when you come back for your next one on me.”
“And the Whiskey Ransom? Does it stay on the menu either way?”
“It does. Give you me word and me hand on it.” Muldoon extended his huge paw.
“You’re right. I’ll need some time to think this proposition over.”
“Any losers at cards, I can send your way, Alastair. There’ll be easy pickings every day. You’ve no idea how many men hereabouts wanna say they played cards and lost to Inspector Ransom.”