Motor City Shakedown (28 page)

Not exactly a hotshot lineup.

*   *   *

I phoned my father when I got home, telling him about Riordan's request for security men and our three o'clock appointment with Pinsky. He asked me to drive to the meeting, given that my car could go about three times the speed of his, and who knew if we would need a quick getaway. I'd pick him up at two forty-five, since his office was only a mile from Pinsky's house.

I didn't sleep well, and I stayed home the next morning, fretting about the meeting. Finally at one thirty I dressed and prepared to pick up my car. I was on my way to the door at two o'clock when my phone rang.

It was Waldman. “There is a change in plans,” he said. “Mr. Pinsky will meet you at 4300 Dubois Street in Hamtramck. Three o'clock sharp.”

“Why?”

He hung up. I threw on my duster and touring cap, and hurried out of the apartment to pick up Elizabeth. We were going to need some extra time. I was locking the door when I heard footsteps coming up the front stairway. Thinking nothing of it, I headed down the hall toward the steps.

I was almost at the stairway when a pair of rough-looking men in straw boaters turned the corner. I didn't recognize one of them, but the other was the big brute who had been driving the car that followed Elizabeth and me from Ford City. They gave a start when they saw me. I spun and bolted away from them, down the hall toward the back steps.

“Anderson!” one of them barked. “Stop!” Their footsteps pounded down the hall after me.

I hurtled down the back stairs, the men right on my heels, and ran for the door. I hadn't even twisted the knob when one of them ran headlong into me, smashing me into the wooden door. I bounced off and fell to the floor, dazed, a stabbing pain in my hand. The men grabbed my gun, cuffed my hands behind my back, and dragged me out to the blue Hudson. After throwing me in back, one of the men sat beside me. I twisted to the side, trying to take the pressure off my burning hand. The other man climbed in the front, pushed a button, and stepped on the clutch. The car started up.

I leaned against the door and struggled to sit up. “Who are you?” I could hear the pain in my voice.

“We're cops,” the man next to me said. “Now shut up.”

“Cops? What did I do now?”

“Why don't
you
tell
us
why you was running.”

“Because I didn't know who you were.”

He laughed. “You always run away when you see strangers?”

“Strangers who have been following me around? Yes, I suppose I do. Now you tell me—what is this about? I haven't done anything.”

“Sergeant Rogers needs to talk to you.”

“Listen, I've got somewhere I have to be. I'll come in and talk to Rogers later, I promise.”

He ignored me.

“Listen to me. I'm serious. This is life and death. If I don't get to a meeting, my family's lives will be in danger. You've got to let me go.”

He gave me a warning glance. “Shut your mouth.”

“You've got to listen. I can't—”

He threw an elbow into my gut, doubling me over. “I said, shut up.”

I stayed quiet, trying to think.

I had to get Rogers to listen to me.

CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

I slammed my fist against the door of the interrogation room for the thousandth time. “Let me out of here! God damn it!” I pounded on the door with the flat of my hand, looking at my bloody knuckles. Sweat poured down my face. I grabbed the knob and shook it with all my might.

Neither Elizabeth nor my father knew the meeting location. It was almost six o'clock.

Slamming my fist on the door, I screamed, “Rogers! Rogers! Open this door!” My voice was a raw croak.

A key rattled in the lock, and the door swung inward. Sergeant Rogers stood silhouetted in the doorway—ramrod straight, big shoulders, derby pulled down low over his eyes. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “You son of a—”

He threw me over the table in the middle of the room. I tried to brace my landing with my hands, but one of the chairs went down with me, and I landed on it, ribs against the front of the seat, right hand pinned underneath. I howled and rolled off the chair, sharp pains cutting into my side, waves of searing agony shooting up from my hand. I cradled the hand in my left and rolled on the floor, trying to stifle the groans that forced themselves from my lips.

When I could, I got to my feet, wincing, and stalked back toward Rogers, who stood where he had, watching me with a scowl on that stupid face. “God damn you!” I shouted. “You've killed my parents!”

He held up one big forefinger. “Stop.”

I stopped a foot away and stared coldly into his eyes. “You son of a bitch. You don't even know what you've done. Let me out of here.”

“Sit.” He pointed at the table.

“You've got to let me leave,” I pleaded. “They're going to kill my parents.”

He pushed me toward the chair I'd knocked over. “I said, sit down.” I stared at him a moment longer before stalking around the table, picking up the chair, and dropping into the seat. Rogers took off his derby and ran a hand through his wiry brown hair. “The Gianollas?”

“Yes.”

He fit the derby back onto his head and leaned over the table. “Tell me about it.”

The pain in my hand made it hard to concentrate. I tried to focus. “They want to get the Teamsters into Detroit Electric, and if we don't do it, they're going to kill my parents and Elizabeth Hume.” I used my handkerchief to wipe the sweat from my face and neck. “Look, I'll come back and tell you everything. But you've got to let me out of here.”

“You're not going anywhere until you answer some questions. And I better like the answers.”

The pain in my hand had me rocking back and forth on the chair. I didn't have time for this. But I wasn't going anywhere until he was satisfied. “All right. A man named Ethan Pinsky is negotiating for the Teamsters. We were supposed to meet with him this afternoon and would have if not for your gorillas. Pinsky moved the meeting location, and I'm the only one who knew it.”

“Pinsky, huh?” He patted his pockets until he found a pad and a pencil. “How do you spell that?”

I spelled it for him.

“Where's he live?”

“He's on Gladstone. Can I go now? I'll come back tomorrow and tell you everything.”

One corner of his mouth twisted up in what apparently, for Sergeant Rogers, passed as a grin. “Why would I let you go now that you're finally answering my questions?”

I just gave him the dead-eye look.

“Tell me everything.”

I hurried through the story of the Gianollas' threats, the Teamsters, and Pinsky. I left out everything else, including Detective Riordan's involvement.

He took notes, and when I finished, he sat back and gave me another of those twisted grins. “There now. That wasn't so hard, was it?”

“Can I go?”

Nodding toward the door, he said, “Get lost.”

*   *   *

I stopped only long enough to retrieve my gun from the desk sergeant before running out of the station and down Bethune to Brush Street. It would take forever waiting on a trolley, so instead I ran, thankful for all the exercising I'd done. Even so, I was exhausted when I finally turned onto Rowena.

The feeling of dread I'd had since Rogers's men grabbed me intensified when I caught the first glimpse of my parents' three-story shingle-style Victorian. I ran up the sidewalk and took the steps two at a time.

At the top of the stairway I froze. A cold slug dropped in my stomach. The front door was open a few inches. I pulled the gun from my belt and approached the house cautiously. Using my fingertips, I pushed the door open the rest of the way and sneaked in, sliding to the right, listening for voices, movement.

The house was still. I moved on, walking heel to toe, trying to be silent. I stuck my head into the parlor. Nothing. Down the hall to the kitchen.
Oh, shit.
A pile of dirty dishes sat beside the sink. My mother would never leave the house without washing the dishes. But nothing else. I tiptoed around the rest of the first floor, seeing no sign of anyone or clues as to where they might be.

I climbed the steps, afraid of what I would find in my parents' bedroom. It was empty, as was the rest of the floor. All that was left was the basement. I took a deep breath as I crept down the steps. My senses were sharp. The musty odor seemed more powerful than usual. I inched across the floor, seeing the shadowy shapes of the boiler, stacks of crates, my father's golf clubs.

Nothing.

I climbed the stairs and hurried to my father's den, thinking to call the factory. But it was after hours. No one would be there.

Wilkinson.
He would know. I phoned him at home, but he didn't answer. I cursed and walked out of the house, using my key to lock the door behind me. My parents weren't here. That could be good. It was, at least, better than finding them here, victims of the Gianollas. Now, for the Humes' house.

Running again, I made it to the Humes' yellow and white Queen Anne in about fifteen minutes. Their door was closed and locked. I rang the bell several times, but no one stirred inside.

I talked to servants at the houses on either side of theirs. No one had seen or heard anything. A Jefferson Line streetcar rolled past, heading toward downtown. I sprinted out to it and jumped up on the step, riding all the way to Woodward, where I started running again, this time to the Detroit Electric garage. I picked up the Torpedo and raced out to Hamtramck, to the house at which we were supposed to meet Pinsky. It was dark, empty.

I sped to Gladstone, nearly causing a pair of accidents before I stopped in front of Pinsky's house. Seeing no lights on in the front, I crept around to the back. No lights, no sounds, nothing. No one was home.

“Son of a bitch!” I shouted, slamming my hand against the kitchen door.

My parents, Elizabeth, and her mother were all missing, and the only man who could tell me where they were had disappeared like a wisp of smoke.

*   *   *

I drove home and started phoning the area hospitals. No one matching my parents' or the Humes' descriptions had been admitted. I took a deep breath and called the city morgue. Again, no matches. I tried Riordan's home number.

“Hello?” a woman answered.

“Is Detective Riordan in?”

“Who's calling?” She had a British accent, which surprised me.

“Will Anderson.”

“Oh, Will. He's talked about you. I'm afraid he's not here at the moment. I haven't heard from him since he left for work this morning.”

I thanked her and asked her to have him phone me when he came home. She said she would. I sat back in my chair and racked my mind for ideas. Where could everyone be? Could my parents and the Humes have left of their own volition? Unlikely. More likely was what I didn't want to acknowledge—that the Gianollas had done exactly what they said they would.

Which would mean they were dead.

Elizabeth.

My mother.

My father.

Because of me. Because I didn't deliver.

I was dizzy. I couldn't catch my breath. My thoughts were fractured, broken. Images raced through my mind, horrific images of Elizabeth, my parents. My hand tortured me.

I had to get control. I had to be able to think.

The little bottle.
It was still in the nightstand.

I hurried into my bedroom, pulled open the drawer, and rooted around for the morphine. When I felt the bottle, I pulled it out and unscrewed the cap.

Just a capful.

I tipped enough morphine into the cap to fill it and drank it down. Then I lay back on the bed and wished it to happen. And it did. The numbing warmth in the throat … the ripples of peace lapping against my mind … the waves of contentment …

I smiled. I could think again. I would find them. And the Gianollas would pay.

*   *   *

I decided to go back to my parents' house. Perhaps all this was a mistake. I couldn't just assume the worst. I didn't know if it was the morphine giving me hope, but I also didn't want to examine it too closely.

I took four hundred dollars from the nightstand and tucked it in my wallet. The bottle of morphine went into my trouser pocket. I drove to my parents' house and wandered around, looking for clues. All signs pointed to them leaving the house quickly, but there were no signs of violence, so I was hoping they'd gotten out when I didn't make it to the meeting.

I broke into my father's gun cabinet and took a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun. After loading it and filling my pockets with shells, I locked up the house again and cruised slowly around Little Italy. It was senseless, I know. The odds of finding my parents and the Humes were one in a million, but I couldn't sit home and do nothing. I considered driving out to Ford City, but it made no more sense than what I was already doing. I had no idea where the Gianollas would hole up.

I smacked the steering wheel. Rogers had ruined everything. My parents, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Hume could already be dead. Or worse, considering what Sam Gianolla did to the man who betrayed them.

After a few hours of useless trolling, I drove back to my parents' house and phoned the Humes. No answer. I tried Mrs. Riordan again. She still hadn't heard from her husband. I gave her my parents' number and asked her to have him phone me as soon as he got home.

Returning to the foyer, I flipped on a single light and sat on the stairway, the twelve-gauge lying across my thighs. I had a clear view of the front door, but someone there would have to look hard to see me. If my parents or the Gianollas came back, I'd know it.

I sat forward, my elbows on my thighs, and fingered the shotgun. I had to do something, but what was there to do? Of one thing I was certain: Regardless of whether my parents and the Humes were safe, I was going to have to kill the Gianollas.