Shadow of the Bomb

Chapter 10

I got to the Police Headquarters press room a few minutes before 9:00 a.m. on Monday, which is early for me. But Joanie, the City News Bureau reporter, was already there; she was always the first member of the day side to be at her desk. She was young and enthusiastic, while those of us on the papers were, well... older and somewhat less enthusiastic, maybe even a trifle jaded.

She already had her Tribune open and was paging through it. She would tackle the Sun next, and would get to the early editions of the afternoon papers later. As the other reporters straggled in, she said, “Interesting, very interesting. I never heard of this guy.”

“Who’s that?” Packy Farmer asked as he finished rolling one of his pathetic little smokes and contemplated it through narrowed eyes.

“Man who used to work for City News,” she said. “Years back. The Trib obit calls him a legend.”

“Not Steel Trap Bascomb?” Anson Masters asked.

“Yeah, that’s him. It says here that he got his nickname because of his great memory. Never forgot a story, or a name.”

“I knew him a little,” Masters said. “He was never a regular here at Headquarters, but he filled in occasionally. Seemed like a decent sort, a bit on the quiet side. But my God, what a memory, just as the obit says. He could remember cases from twenty, thirty years earlier, right down to the names of the arresting officers and the detectives and the lawyers. Had the best mind for detail of anybody I ever saw in this business.”

“Never ran into him myself,” Dirk O’Farrell put in. “And he was probably around before your time, eh, Snap?”

“Actually, I did know him, mainly after his retirement,” I answered, not wanting to go into detail. Four years earlier, I had occasion to visit Lemuel “Steel Trap” Bascomb at his house in Oak Park. I was quietly digging up background information on Lloyd Martindale, a potential reform candidate for mayor of Chicago who had been murdered. Even in a state of senility, Steel Trap had lucid moments, and he remembered events from years earlier that helped explain why Martindale had been bumped off.

Indeed, Steel Trap had been part of a chapter in my checkered newspaper career. I came close to getting a scoop on the Martindale case and subsequent events — including three other deaths — but that’s another story. It’s one I had never shared with the others in the Headquarters press room, since I didn’t deal them in on my digging.

Joanie continued reading the Trib obituary. “It says this Steel Trap guy was with City News for thirty-nine years. If he was supposed to be so darn good, why didn’t he end up working for one of the dailies?”

I waited for Masters to respond, but he just shrugged. Joanie turned toward me. “Couldn’t tell you,” I said, although I knew Steel Trap had felt the dailies killed stories that reflected badly on their advertisers, and he couldn’t abide that. I had learned that from his daughter.

His daughter. I hadn’t seen Catherine Reed in more than four years, not since my last visit to Steel Trap. I had almost called her two or three times, but always held off... I can’t explain why.

I read the obituary in my own copies of The Tribune and the Sun. They both gave it nice play, and the Trib had a picture of him that must have been taken before World War I. There was to be a visitation in Oak Park that night.

After wrapping up an uneventful day at Headquarters, I hopped a northbound streetcar and grabbed a quick supper at a Harding’s in the Loop, then took the Lake Street Elevated west to Oak Park. The mortuary was just two blocks from an El stop in the town’s main business district.

I hadn’t expected a large gathering, even with the extensive obituaries in all the papers, and I was right. About a half dozen people were clustered at the front of the parlor near the casket. Catherine, wearing a simple black dress, had her back to me as she talked to an elderly couple.

I’ve never been a fan of open caskets, and here was yet another reason why. Even the undertakers couldn’t do much for poor old Steel Trap. He hadn’t been in all that good shape when I’d seen him a few years ago, but the end of his life had not been kind. His face, even after the embalmers’ efforts, had shrunk to beyond what I remembered, and his skin made him seem like a wax museum exhibit.

I stood before the casket, thinking back to my visits with Steel Trap and his struggles with questions about events from decades earlier — questions he once would have answered without a pause. I started to turn away when I felt a hand on my sleeve.

“Hello, Steve,” she said softly. “It’s very nice of you to come.” She looked as fresh-faced and appealing as she had been those years ago, and I wondered yet again why I had walked away from what seemed like a relationship with so much promise.

“I was so sorry to hear about... ” I let it hang, turning my palms up. People have called me glib, but none of them have ever seen me at a visitation or a wake. If there’s a right thing to say, I’ve never found it.

“Thank you, Steve. These last months have been particularly bad for Daddy. I finally had to move him to a nursing home.” She teared up, but took in a couple of deep breaths and composed herself.

“I’m sure that you had no choice.”

“I simply couldn’t take care of him anymore. Twice he wandered away from the house, and one time the police found him more than six blocks away, sitting on a curb and holding his head in his hands, muttering something about having to get to the Criminal Courts Building in the city to cover a case. It might be sacrilegious to call this a blessing, but Steve, I’m not saying that because of myself. I never felt that caring for him was an imposition. It’s just that his safety became an issue.”

“You made the right decision, Catherine, as hard as it had to be for you.”

She nodded. “Two weeks ago, he slipped into a coma, and the doctor told me that he’d never come out of it, which turned out to be true. He was six weeks short of his 76th birthday.”

“That’s a damn good run,” I told her. “You have a lot to be proud of. He was one hell of a guy. He deserved the play the papers gave him today.”

“Thank you, Steve. He really did have a good run. You know, he was born the year after Lincoln was shot. And one of his earliest memories — he told us this story many times at home — was of watching the Chicago Fire. His parents had a place on the Far North Side of the city, it was really almost out in the country then. From where they lived, they could see the flames and red sky to the south, and smell the smoke. It made quite an impact on a five-year-old.”

“Well, I was glad for the chance to have met him, even though he’d... slowed down a good deal by then.”

“And I know he really enjoyed your visits, too. They seemed to perk him up quite a bit. I’ll never forget that night at dinner when you swapped those crazy stories about the pickpockets who each had six fingers on one hand.”

“Crazy stories, but true. I enjoyed those visits, too. I’m only sorry I didn’t make more of them. Are you still working at the local public library?”

“You’ve got a good memory,” she said with a hint of a smile. “When Daddy’s situation got really bad, I took a leave of absence, but after he went into the nursing home, I went back to working three days a week. When the head librarian heard about Daddy’s death, she said she’d like to have me on the staff full-time. So that starts after the first of the year, and I’m very happy about it. It’s a pleasant place to work.”

“That is wonderful news,” I said, meaning it. “I think it’s worthy of a celebration. And I can think of no better way to celebrate than with a dinner. What about next weekend?”

She gave me a look that I interpreted as half puzzled and half surprised. “A sympathy meal, Steve? I appreciate the gesture, I really do, but it’s not necessary. Thank you, though.”

“Catherine, it is not a sympathy gesture,” I said, starting to raise my voice but then lowering it as another couple entered the parlor and started walking toward us. “I think it would be nice for us to get together.”

“I’m not sure... ”

I grinned. “Say yes, or I’ll cause a scene, right here, right now.” That brought a full-fledged smile, along with the hint of a blush, unless I was flattering myself.

“I’ll... all right, call me and we’ll set up a time. And Steve... thank you.” She took my hand and squeezed it, then turned to greet more arriving mourners. I took a last look at the remains of Steel Trap Bascomb and vowed that when my time to depart drew near, I would insist upon cremation.