Terror at the Fair

Chapter Two

“Your shoulders seem to be sagging a bit tonight, my love,” Catherine said as she embraced me in the living room on my arrival home at our two-story stucco house on Oak Park’s Scoville Avenue.

“With good reason, I’m afraid,” I told her, setting down my copy of the Daily News and taking off my suit coat. “You’re looking at a battered old war horse who has just been put out to pasture.”

“What in heaven’s name are you talking about?” she asked with surprise, backing away and frowning.

We sat side-by-side on the davenport, and I proceeded to tell her about my conversation with Maloney. When I finished giving her the gory details, she cocked an eyebrow as she does when about to make a pronouncement.

“It doesn’t sound like you’re being put out to pasture at all, darling,” she pronounced, caressing my cheek with a slender hand. “This seems like a new challenge, and it could be a lot of fun, too.”

“Fun? You call it fun hanging around a bunch of locomotives and train cars and parents with their noisy kids?”

“At the ripe old age of forty-five, you’re beginning to sound like a crusty old curmudgeon,” she admonished. “And after all, this Railroad Fair only goes for a few months, right?”

“True, but as I told you, Maloney was noncommittal about what would happen in the fall. I have got this uneasy feeling I’m being eased ever closer to the door, and the next step after the fair is a pat on the back and a not-so-gentle nudge in the direction of the bread line.”

“Why would that be, Steve? You’ve been a good and loyal employee, and you’re an excellent writer. Plus, just a few months ago, you got a bonus from Colonel McCormick himself because of the Truman business.”

“Maybe it’s the paper’s way of saying ‘What have you done for us lately?’ I don’t know, my love. Perhaps I’m being elbowed aside to make way for a younger generation of reporters.”

“But there are lots of men at the paper who are older than you. Are they being pushed out, too?”

“Not so’s I’m aware of. Maloney claims the Trib is looking at moving other veteran beat reporters to different assignments to ‘keep them fresh,’ using his words. I think this is really just a way of softening the blow to me, though.”

“Does this Maloney have it in for you?”

I shrugged. “He’s always seemed to be a fair enough Joe. Maybe he’s getting the word from on high to make changes.”

“‘On high’ would mean that Colonel of yours,” Catherine said tartly. She is a lifelong Democrat and never has had any use for the resolutely Republican politics of Robert R. McCormick and his resolutely Republican Tribune.

“Could be,” I answered. “In any case, if I want to continue getting paychecks from the aforementioned Colonel, it appears my base of operations this summer will be down along our green and well-manicured lakefront.”

“I can think of worse places to be this time of year,” Catherine remarked, kissing my cheek and easing me to my feet, then propelling me gently toward the kitchen, where dinner awaited.

The next morning, I broke my news to the boys in the Police Headquarters pressroom.

“What the hell?” spat Dirk O’Farrell. “Doesn’t that thick-headed newspaper of yours know you’re needed most right here?” He slapped a palm on his desk for emphasis.

“For once in his long and checkered life, Dirk’s right,” Packy Farmer put in, gesturing toward his colleague. “It’s a gross waste of talent stickin’ you out there at that train fair. And then givin’ us Westcott, for Christ’s sake! That guy filled in once for a couple of days a few years back when you got yourself laid up with the flu or something. We practically had to push him out the door to go and see Fahey. Hell, he even had the gall to suggest he switch beats with me.”

“Which you of course didn’t like one bit, Packy,” I said. “Anybody who ends up covering the Detective Bureau is actually going to have to put in an honest day’s work.”

Anson Masters cleared his throat. “Snap, have you informed Mr. Fahey of the impending change?” he rumbled.

“How could I, Antsy? I only walked in the door ten minutes ago, but it will be Subject Number One when I go downstairs for our morning session.”

“Speaking of which,” Masters said, “it’s time for each of us to head for our beats.”

Fahey’s secretary, Elsie Dugo Cascio, favored me with her usual wide and dimpled grin as I stepped into her closet-sized anteroom.

“Ah, you’re looking gorgeous as usual,” I told her. “You’re the single thing I will miss most about this tired old building.”

“Whoa! Stop right where you are, mister,” she ordered, standing and drawing herself up to her full height of five-feet-two—in heels. “Just what do you mean by those words?”

“I’ll tell you on the way out after I’ve seen hizzoner the chief. Will you be kind enough to announce me, my dear?”

Elsie threw a reproachful look my way and spoke my name into the intercom, getting a garbled response I long ago translated as “Send him in.”

“Well, Fergus, I have got some bad news for you,” I said, flipping a half-full pack of Lucky Strikes onto his desk blotter.

“That’s all I need in this job—more bad news,” he muttered, crumpling a sheet of paper and dropping it into his wire-mesh wastebasket. “Well, what is it? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

“Ken Westcott doesn’t smoke, as I think you may recall.”

Fahey glared at me. “What in hell does that have to do with the price of sirloin?”

“Not a blessed thing, Fergus. But since he’s going to be taking my place here, it means you won’t be getting free smokes anymore.”

The chief narrowed his eyes. “You going on a vacation?”

“A very extended vacation, Fergus. Maybe an open-ended one.”

His square Irish face registered genuine surprise. “Huh! What the hell, did you get the axe?”

“In a matter of speaking,” I said as we both lit up Luckies. I went on to tell him about my new assignment. When I finished giving him the gruesome details, I said I assumed the department would be staffing the fair.

“We’ll have a detail down there like we did last summer,” he said. “Standard procedure for big events, you know.”

“Was there much trouble last year? As in mischief of an illegal nature?”

He shook his head. “Not much. Oh, there’s the usual collection of dips of course. Any time you’ve got big crowds, you’re bound to have pickpockets lurking around the edges looking for easy marks. That’s to be expected. It’s the same at the ballparks. I can’t recall much else that went awry there, though,” he added as Elsie waltzed in with a mug of black coffee and set it in front of me on the corner of Fahey’s desk.

“Hard to believe you won’t be around here anymore,” the chief said after Elsie left. “I might even miss you.”

“I’ll try not to get all choked up by all that sentiment, Fergus. You know how I hate scenes.”

Fahey leaned back and scowled. “Seems to me, Snap, wherever you’ve gone, you’ve found trouble—or it found you. But I’m damned if I can figure out how you can get into any mischief out there along the lake with all of those choo-choos.”

I silently agreed, which goes to show how wrong two supposedly smart gents can be.