Motor City Shakedown (3 page)

“And you're going to let me know when you hear something?”

“Did you kill the wop?”

“Of course not.”

“Too bad. Information's more expensive for murderers.” He laughed. “I'll keep me ears open, so long's you keep me in pin money.”

I leaned forward and slipped a twenty-dollar bill into one of his chest pockets. “Good,” I said. “Keep your eyes open too. I want Adamo.”

I sat back and looked out the window for the rest of the trip, thinking about my conversation with Detective Riordan. He'd given me some fatherly advice that, a year ago, would have made perfect sense to me—
Go back to your world
.

But it wasn't my world anymore. There was no going back.

*   *   *

Murphy dropped me off in front of the Detroit Opera House, and I began my short trek east. I studied all the women, thinking about the auburn-haired prostitute. The odds of finding her lounging around on the street were minuscule, but my mind was attuned to the search. An alarming number of women had auburn hair. When Elizabeth and I started seeing each other, her hair color was unusual. I couldn't believe I hadn't noticed this before, though, to be fair, I hadn't noticed much of anything for the past three years.

I put my head down and continued on my journey. Only a few blocks from Woodward, gaping holes pocked the street, the loose cobbles stolen for other uses. An odor of rot joined the oily stink of coal smoke. As I walked, the buildings became more and more squat, down to the single-story clapboard shop that was my destination—the Empire Pharmacy. It had taken me a number of months to find a pharmacy to my liking, that is, a pharmacy that would sell me morphine over an extended period of time without making an issue of it. Practically the only one I hadn't tried was Adamo's pharmacy next to the Bucket. I wasn't going there.

A bell tinkled when I opened the door. The pharmacist, an old, stooped man I knew only as Mick, nodded when he saw me. “How many today, sir?”

“I'd like a sixteen-ounce bottle.”

“Well,” he said, a glint in his eye. “I'm not supposed to sell those except to doctors, sir.”

“What's the difference, Mick? You don't want to fill all those little bottles anyway, do you?”

“I don't know.” He rubbed the back of his neck and made a point of looking around furtively. “You'd have to make it worth my while. I could get in a lot of trouble.”

He normally charged me two dollars per one-ounce bottle, twice the amount charged by a respectable pharmacy. But a respectable pharmacy wouldn't sell morphine to the likes of me. At least, not without a prescription. “I'll give you forty bucks.”

Shaking his head, he looked down at the floor. “Sir, I don't think I can do this.”

“Fifty.” It was at least two weeks' pay for him.

His eyes cut to mine. “I could do that.”

I pulled my wallet from inside my coat, took out a brand new fifty-dollar bill, and placed it on the counter.

He grabbed the bill and stuck it into his trouser pocket. “Right away.” While he rooted around behind the counter, I wiped my nose.

He put the bottle in a paper bag and handed it to me. I turned to leave. As I did, I glanced up at his face and saw an expression that made me turn away even faster. His eyes were narrowed and his mouth set into a tight frown. It was a look you might give to a man who'd stolen money from his children.

Disgust.

CHAPTER THREE

A top my walnut bar, Sophie Tucker's voice warbled out of the horn of Wesley's Victrola—
Some of these days you're gonna miss me, honey / Some of these days, you're gonna be so lonely.
…

I cherished this Victrola and its records far more than the two thousand dollars Wesley had left me. Music was what his life had been about—writing, playing, singing. I missed him almost as much as I missed Elizabeth. The only postcard she'd sent me, with a picture of Alexandre-Gustave Eiffel's tower on the front, had arrived three months earlier. It was still on the end table next to the sofa. I sat down and flipped it over, reading her message for the hundredth time:

Dearest Will,

I hope this note finds you well. I am feeling better since my last letter, though I must admit the thought of returning home someday still fills me with dread. Of small comfort is the fact that we won't be doing so any time soon. My mother is nearly as overcome with melancholia as when we arrived in Europe. I'll write again soon. I miss you.

Yours,

Elizabeth

I'd had no word from her since.

I noticed again that I was rubbing my hand. I tugged off the black kid glove a quarter-inch at a time. First to appear was the scar from the gouge on the inside of my wrist that I'd dug trying to cut the rope tied around it. Next, on my palm, a knotted mass of scar tissue, then the collection of mottled scars on all sides of my forefinger and middle finger, and the gnarled stumps of my fourth and fifth fingers, all burgundy, all disfigured—all courtesy of sulfuric acid. I didn't bother to look at the back of the hand; it was simply more of the same. I tugged the glove on again, until my fourth and fifth fingers reached the cotton I'd stuffed inside to hide their deformity.

Since it was only six o'clock, I thought I'd kill a little time before I began the hunt for the prostitute. Riordan's question about gun and knife skills had got me thinking. I'd been shooting fairly regularly with Edsel Ford on Sunday afternoons, but I hadn't even thought about knives. I was again going to have to drag the city's cesspool, and I had to be prepared.

I hung my dartboard on the parlor wall and stepped back behind the sofa. Holding my switchblade in my left hand, I took careful aim and hurled it at the wall. The knife bounced off the plaster a foot to the left of the board and clattered to the floor. Walking over to pick it up, I shook my head to clear it. I wasn't sure I could have hit the board even if my right hand was still functional.

I'd never taken an opiate for an extended period. All that came to mind was a couple of days of morphine for a broken wrist when I was twelve. The emotion associated with that memory was fear, though I didn't remember why. Perhaps I was afraid I wouldn't change back, regain my mental equilibrium. These days, it was a wish rather than a fear.

Alcohol had been a poor substitute. It left me depressed, volatile, and sick, and served only to dull my pain, rather than assuage it. Morphine had its own set of side effects, but it brought me the peace I'd always craved.

I walked behind the sofa to throw the knife again but stopped and closed my eyes, just listening to Sophie's voice. Music had become a welcome accompaniment to the relaxed feeling morphine gave me. I'd found I could sit for hours with my eyes closed and just enjoy music.

Earlier in my life, music had seemed somehow trivial in comparison to the serious considerations of commerce and manly endeavor. Now it seemed so much more valuable. Millions of men in this country hurried through their lives, believing the lessons hammered into them. From the tiny classroom of the most humble one-room schoolhouse to the ivy-covered walls of Detroit University School, we take to heart the most important lesson they can teach us—fit in, do what you're told, don't make waves. The nonconformist is vilified, singled out, and shunned. The rest of us learn well and perpetuate the lesson.

I'd learned as well as anyone. But something in me had changed. The men with whom I'd been so impressed were nothing but puffed-up roosters strutting down the sidewalk pretending to be important—trying to fool themselves more than anyone else. Those breast-beaters were just as unhappy as the rest of us.

Manly endeavor. Teddy Roosevelt's “strenuous life.” Prove you're a man by killing things, by besting others, by cutting a wide swath through life, regardless of whom you hurt.

These are the things in which I used to believe.

I spun and threw the knife again. This time it stuck, quivering, in the wall—over the Victrola. A shower of plaster fell onto the record, and the needle bounced back and forth. I walked to the bar, wiped off the record, and replaced the needle at the beginning before wrenching the knife out of the wall and returning to the sofa.

How would these things I'd found important help me live my life? The “successful” men seemed to have found the trick to living. Was it as simple as staying so busy you don't realize how miserable you are?

I took another drink from the little brown bottle, closed my eyes, and let Sophie's deep voice wash over me.

*   *   *

The doorbell rang twice before I realized what it was. Scott Joplin's “Maple Leaf Rag” had ended—half an hour ago? Clicks and pops came from the Victrola as the needle bounced back and forth at the end of the record. It wasn't dark out yet, but everything seemed gray, out of focus. I looked at my watch—eight o'clock.

The bell rang again. I pocketed the bottle and hurried to the foyer, wobbling as I did. I flipped on the light and opened the door. Elizabeth Hume stood before me with a grin on her face. My breath caught in my throat. She was magnificent—high cheekbones, plump lips, those alluring green eyes. With her auburn hair piled under a sky blue narrow-brimmed hat and a matching silk dress with lace at the throat and sleeves, she was the first day of spring, Christmas morning, a cool breeze on a hot summer day.

“My God, Elizabeth, you're back. You're … stunning.” I was mortified to hear a slur in my words.

“Hello, Will. It's so nice to see you.”

“Please, Elizabeth. Come in.” Trying to look alert, I opened my eyes wide and stepped to the side of the door, my right hand behind my back.

Her head tilted a bit, and she studied me for a second. Her face froze. “Mother and I got home yesterday. I thought we could catch up tonight, but I see this is not a good time.” Her voice trembled. I met her eyes and was surprised to see them welling with tears. She turned to leave.

I laid my good hand on her arm. “No. Please, Elizabeth, stay.”

She stopped and looked at my hand until I removed it. “I thought you had quit drinking, that you were trying to make something of yourself, but you're obviously drunk out of your mind. Damn you!” A tear slipped down her cheek. “I thought you were past this, that we—” She shook her head and, without another word, strode down the hall.

It took a moment for my brain to kick into gear. I ran into the hallway and saw the back of her dress as she disappeared down the steps. “Elizabeth! Wait!” I caught up with her just before the first-floor landing. “Please, come back.” She kept walking. “Let me explain.” Even as I said it, I wasn't sure how I could.
No, I'm not drunk. I'm just high on morphine.
Really? Would that really be my defense?

She spun around. I was only just able to stop without running her over. I took a quick step back and tripped over the landing, falling onto my backside.

Looking away, she said, “Please, Will.” Her voice was quiet. “Stay away from me.” She opened the door and hurried out, leaving me behind.

*   *   *

I awoke on the couch with the sun already high in the sky. I sat up and put my head in my hands, ignoring the pain in the right one. I'd taken another swig of morphine after Elizabeth left and had never gotten out of my apartment, never made it out to look for the prostitute.

I shook my head and took a deep breath. Is this what I've come to? I can't even mount a search for the one woman who could keep me out of the state prison?

An odd thought struck me. Elizabeth was back. She was tall and slender and had auburn hair. She had even more motive to kill Moretti than I did. Moretti had done a lot of Vito Adamo's dirty work, and there was certainly a good possibility that Moretti had assisted in Judge Hume's murder.

She said she'd just gotten back from Paris, but how did I know that was true? Could she have pretended to be a prostitute to lure Moretti to his death? I considered the idea for half a second before rejecting it out of hand. It was stupid. Elizabeth was no killer. I put the thought out of my mind.

After two cups of coffee to pry my eyes open and a capful of morphine to take the edge off the pain, I dressed and took a trolley to the factory. I detoured to my father's office in the administration building. His secretary, Mr. Wilkinson, a neat, fastidious man with a thick brown beard that hung to the perfect knot of his cravat, told me I could go right in.

My father stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back, peering through the blinds at the men striding down the cobblestone road toward the factory. He turned and waved me in. “Will, my boy, how are you this morning?” He wore a warm smile on his fleshy face. He'd become much more demonstrative with his affection since my stay in the hospital, and I knew he was very concerned about my state of mind. I'd politely refused his entreaties to see Dr. Miller and tried to act happy when I was in his presence.

“I'm fine, Father. And you?”

“I'm fine.” He appraised me for a moment. “What can I do for you this morning?”

“I'm going to need to take some time off—perhaps a few weeks.”

His eyes searched my face for some hidden meaning. “Why?”

“Just a little vacation.”

“This seems rather sudden.” He walked around his desk and stopped a foot away from me. “You've just been getting settled in engineering.”

I maintained eye contact. “I just need a week or two.”

“Dr. Miller said you need normalcy, a regimen.”

“I know.”

He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Keep working. In fact, come back and live with your mother and me. Just for a while, until you feel better.”

“Thank you, Father, no. We've been over this.” I stepped back, and his hand slipped off my shoulder. “I appreciate your concern. I do. But I have to do this.”