Puzzles and Games

Two o'clock in the morning is not a pretty hour. The city streets are littered with garbage. Strangers stumbling down the street resemble asylum escapees more than fine upstanding citizens of Chicago. Even here in this well-lit diner - perhaps too well-lit - grease shines on the counter and cockroaches peer impatiently from the corners.

And then there's O'Malley. Bags under his eyes, a dark patch of stubble on his right cheek, hunched over and staring at his cup of coffee like it just insulted his mother. Maybe the job's getting to him. Then you think about how you probably look, and how you don't even have that excuse - you haven't had a paying client in two weeks.

"So I got the scoop on Kahn," says O'Malley. "Don't know what good it'll do."

"Let me hear it," you reply, just as hopeful.

O'Malley pulls out a crumpled piece of paper with handwritten notes. "Francis Kahn, also known as Frankie the Fish, also known as Genghis. One brother Alexander, a.k.a. Lexi, a.k.a. 'Dragon' Kahn, in Joliet for manslaughter. One sister Farrah Kahn, now Farrah Mohen, wife and business partner of bootlegger Wayland Mohen."

O'Malley winces as he takes a sip of his coffee. "Mud tastes better. Anyway, the Kahns originally came from money. The paternal great-grandmother was Honor Endo Baye, of the San Francisco Bayes who hit it big in the Gold Rush. Made all the society papers when she married Kahn's great-grandfather, Arch D. Kahn. So the family was doing well until Genghis' mother died, and his father, Frank Jr., started drinking. Drinking led to bad gambling, and pretty soon the family fortune was gone. Genghis had to drop out of college - he was a triple major, history, English literature and philosophy, if you can believe that - and he and Dragon and Farrah all turned to crime."

Interesting story, but O'Malley's right. How is knowing Genghis' great-grandmother's name going to help you crack the code?

"So what's he been up to lately?" you ask.

O'Malley sighs. "No clue. But we've been tailing Naso the Nose since he got out of the pen. This message fell out of his pocket." He shows it to you.

Great. Zeb again. Fourth time his name has come up, and you still don't know who he is.

Can you decipher the note?