Walking a Fine Line: Day 18

Word Count: 108,033

Summary of Events:

Owing to the fact that Mr. O'Toole and Mr. O'Malley — whether those were their legal names or not — had seen Joseph just as up-close as he'd seen them, he decided that in order to get to the bottom of the matter himself, he would need to disguise himself, so he grew a beard, bought some secondhand glasses and a fedora, as well as practising up his best imitation of his Irish-born uncles' accents before making another round of the pawnshops, which he decided to stake out in hopes of seeing Mr. O'Toole or Mr. O'Malley and tailing them back to where they lived so that he could apprise the police. He was rewarded at his fifth stakeout by the appearance of Mr. O'Toole, and although he wanted to keep the jewellery from being pawned, he forced himself to stay outside and focus on following Mr. O'Toole to his real place of residence…

Excerpt of the Day:

Mr. O’Toole had come out of the pawnshop and headed in the opposite direction from whence he’d approached the shop, with Joseph slipping out of hiding to follow him once a safe distance had opened between the two of them.

Since then, however, Joseph hadn’t really had much work to do. Mr. O’Toole was walking on with completely relaxed casualness, evidently not even suspecting that the police whom he and Mr. O’Malley had escaped from might be wandering around the city looking for him — or, if he suspected it, he wasn’t the least bit concerned.

He wasn’t looking over his shoulders regularly, ducking into buildings for a few minutes here and there, or anything else that might indicate he was wary of being found or followed. Furthermore, he wasn’t taking a winding route, ducking in and out of alleys and winding around, his route was completely straightforward and out in the open.

Not only did this latter point suggest to Joseph that Mr. O’Toole was completely unafraid of being found, but he felt that it also proved that Mr. O’Toole was most definitely not a Chicagoan. He suspected that Mr. O’Toole didn’t know the streets well enough to even consider taking a route that wasn’t straightforward, and might get lost if he were to find himself concerned enough about being discovered that it might be in his best interests to deviate from a straightforward plan and trajectory.

Joseph thus walked along casually behind, lest he arouse anyone’s suspicions by looking like he was following Mr. O’Toole, as who knew when a concerned citizen would tell Mr. O’Toole that it looked like someone was following him, which would incite a chase.

Of course, as the Chicago native and expert tailer, Joseph knew that he’d have the upper hand by some margin in such a pursuit — provided there were no taxis along the route — but if he could keep from arousing Mr. O’Toole’s suspicions, he intended to, lest Mr. O’Toole even suspect that the same man who’d stolen the last piece of jewellery he’d tried to pawn was still pursuing him.

Soon they turned into a residential area that Joseph wasn’t terribly familiar with, although based on the numbers of an intersecting street and avenue that he passed as he followed Mr. O’Toole, Joseph was pretty sure that he had a relative living in the area, a second or third cousin, if he wasn’t mistaken, not that he knew Ma’s family tree well.

He knew he had a lot of relatives in Chicago on Ma’s side, but how exactly he was related to all of them — outside of Ma’s brothers and their descendants — he wasn’t fully sure of, but he knew it was one of those more distant relatives of his who lived in this area.

Joseph was a little surprised when Mr. O’Toole finally ducked into an alley, but he followed Mr. O’Toole, closing up the gap a bit now that they were in a poorer-lit area, meaning that his ability to see Mr. O’Toole was as compromised as Mr. O’Toole’s ability to see him, thus it was both a good thing and a bad thing.