Chapter 10.

In an alley, on the south side of St. Clair Avenue, a tall lithe form stirred in the darkness.

It peered out of the mouth of the alleyway, the light from the flickering gas lamps sending sporadic tendrils deep into the darkness.

The light revealed the watcher to be a young man, perhaps twenty-five,

with a stern focus to his eyes and determined set to his jaw. He was wearing a lightweight brown

jacket and plain shirt, a tweed cap pulled low over his shock of blonde hair. He looked like any one

of a thousand men of his age might. A casual observer would be hard-pressed to remember anything about him.

A keener eye would have recognized him in an instant as a man trying to appear nondescript,

a moot point to the man in the alley as he was certain that he was completely unobserved.

The man in the alley was mistaken.

His eyes remained fixed straight ahead on a small grocery store in which a light still burned.

There were few customers left at this hour, and the owner of the shop was already busying

himself bringing in the stock.

The man in the alley peered up the avenue.

He saw a face he recognized, a hard face with a cruel smile, sauntering

along with a determined look in his eyes. Satchel Braun, once a small-timer with A's Riders mob,

the watcher in the alley turned back to the grocery store. It seemed Braun's most likely destination.

The man stepped forward, steeled himself with an intake of breath,

and stepped out to cross the broad street. He thought back to the conversation a week earlier that

had sent him down this path when he had unexpectedly found himself called into the office of his

division captain, and to his astonishment found himself face to face with the chief of police.

Oh, I'm sorry, Chief O'Malley. He had said I didn't mean to step in, Constable Parker, the chief had replied.

...