Central City
Westside“They say another girl got cut up.” said a man, leaning to his neighbor at the bar. The sounds of rowdy banter and the out-of-tune chorus of drunken singing filled the bawdy east-side tavern. The waning light outside was filtered dimly through windows covered so thick in soot they were nearer to being as opaque as the cold brick walls around them. The tall cavernous hall of the tavern provided sumptuous space, but did little to dull the echo of the rowdy chatter of a fresh wave of factory and stockyard workers come off of their shifts.
“I heard, some one said she got her gut pulled clean open like some sorta pig.” the man's partner shouted, “Friend of a friend said his cousin found her stuffed in some alley down in saloon city one morning before the cats found her. A whole bloody mess.”
“Saloon City, at the time? Your friend-of-a-friend has some fucking sand.”
“That's what I say.” cackled the other, and he rose a dirty pint of frothy larger and chugged. His friend did like-wise. And with belated laughs they gave a late cheer to the skewered whores of Saloon City.
Sitting close enough to have heard the exchange, a thin sprightly young man sat at the bar with his hands wrapped around his glass. He looked down into his thick amber beer as he listened into the conversation. He bit contemplatively at his lower lip, the bristles of his beard brushing against his lips as he mulled over this piece of information.
“I don't suppose this is being investigated?” he asked with feigned ignorance. In the harsh orange light cast from candles, and the lime-green from oil lanterns his blue eyes shone a pale faded color. He had to raise an otherwise soft and subdued voice over the loud racket as if he were nearly yelling himself. He fought to restrain his accent, but the soft Germanic inflection that was so natural to him none the less came off his tongue at full tilt.
The closer of the two gentlemen turned to him and laughed, rolling his eyes. “Fuck no.” he bemoaned, “They're not going to investigate a shitty whore's death on that side of town.” the man's tone of voice suggested he believed the man at the bar some bum who had come in from the east on the trains. But the young man simply nodded and pulled out a note-pad from his pocket as the other turned back to his own conversation partner.
With a narrow piece of hard charcoal he wrote onto his pad, “Saloon City, whore murdered in alley.”
With an indignant grumble, he lifted his glass and downed the remainder of his glass. Slapping down onto the rough wooden counter, carved away with idle knives he placed a few single dollar notes and put the glass down on top of them. Pushing them away he put his notebook into his pocket and stepped away, leaving the glass and dollar bills for the bartender - tab and tip – and headed for the door.
Outside, the evening streets were much quieter. Though the shouts and sounds of the stockyards were an ever present background noise, they were not a cacophonous storm. The streets too were thick with men as shifts changed with the announcement of distant steam whistles. After slaving their days away in the hot and sweaty factories, tired fathers and sons would be on their way home or to the sorts of bars that the young man had just left.
The air outside, although cold was acrid with the choking smell of burning coal and wood and hot steam. A thousand smells of butchered meat and rendered flesh poured from the stockyards were discarded cuttings lay in open heeps in unclosed train cars to be disposed of or tossed into the river, or sent to be burned. The smell was putrid, but he knew it the unfortunate smells of the future to come.
“Edward!” a voice shouted from the alleys between warehouses. Stopping, Edward Mayer looked up and turned. Jogging out from the shadows a small scrawny man came out into the street light. “You're thinking.” he said as he joined Edward Mayer down the street.
“I am, Seamus.” he said. Seamus was a young immigrant from Scotland or thereabout, he thought he had said from Galloway but that was some time ago. All the same, he was a short and scrawny man with a wild head of fiery red hair he kept under a gray knit cap.
“Well, what'cha thinkin'?” he asked him.
“That another person from the south end can be murdered and it's unlikely it'll ever be resolved.” Mayer grumbled.
“Oh, you thinkin' 'bout the whore job.” Seamus said with a smile, “Bound to happen that, none ya do about it.”
Edward gave a dismissive grunt. Seamus continued: “Well if it's the line of work you get into then there's risks, ya' know. The sorts that come with husbands who get in a pissy mood ifin' they can't get their cocks up. I had a cousin like that once, got mad at his wife his pecker wasn't rising to full mast and one day beat his wife in frustration, broken her till she were half dead.”
“And?” Edward asked.
“Well they're still together and I imagine he's still that pissed.”
Edward scoffed, “And how do you know this?”
“Shit, heard me sisters talkin' 'bout it when we were still in the old country. Actually, on the boat over too. I guess they got inspired when they saw some man lookin' there way. Had to do what was right and socked that man in the face till his jaw was broke fer it.”
“And why you do that?”
“Man's got his honor, yah? Part o' that is stickin' up for your women kin so they don't get too fucked.”
“So, what if that girl murdered in the alley was your sister?”asked Edward, stopping briefly at a corner.
“Fuck that supposed to mean?” Seamus asked, stunned, “'Caus she ain't 'cuz my sisters are in Cincinnati married to a dentist and a barber respectively.”
“No, I'm asking what if it were.”
“I don't see the point in asking still, cuz she wasn't. I think you're over-thinking the whore bit. I know you're going through on of your phases so let's just stop it before it goes over. Maybe you can pick up on planning a riot again.”
“Maybe.” sighed Edward.
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