Motor City Shakedown (9 page)

He just sat back and said, “Listen to this.”

The bailiff called the court to order, and we all rose for the return of the judge. He came in, sat at the bench, and said, “Mr. Higgins, you have something to say?”

Higgins tugged at his collar, stood, and said, “Yes, Your Honor. The prosecution would like to enter a motion of
nolle prosequi
.”

The judge banged his gavel and said, “This case is dismissed.” He turned to me. “Mr. Anderson, you may go. Please accept the court's apologies for the inconvenience.”

I sat stock-still, not believing what I had just heard.

Sutton stood and pounded me on the back. “Can you believe it?”

I looked up at his grinning face. “No, I can't. What's
nolle prosequi
?”

“The State dropped its case against you.”

“Why?”

He laughed. “Another man confessed.”

*   *   *

With newspapers over our heads to protect us from the steady rain, we shoved our way through two dozen reporters to Sutton's Pierce-Arrow touring car, a light blue, long-bodied giant with shining chrome fixtures. The din was incredible—shouted questions, scuffling men pushing to get a better position, the
whump
of camera flashes, rumbling thunder. I splashed down the steps and the front walk onto the street, where Sutton's chauffeur waited.

Sutton wouldn't answer my questions in the courthouse, instead telling me to wait until we got to his car. As soon as we piled in, I said, “Who confessed?”

He leaned forward in the blue leather seat and pulled the tail of his coat down behind him as the driver pulled onto the road. “A man named Giovanni Esposito. According to Detective Riordan, Esposito is about your size and looks somewhat similar. He's an illegal who's been in Detroit about two years. No fixed address, no occupation. He's from the same part of Sicily as Moretti. The police confirmed that their families have feuded for centuries. He said he saw Moretti by chance and lay in wait for him inside his apartment. When Moretti came home again Esposito cut his throat.”

“Why would they believe him when a witness identified me, and all the evidence points to me?” I shook my head.

“He brought in the knife when he confessed. His story works as well as yours, and he says he did it. I don't think Riordan is convinced, but I say don't look a gift horse up the patoot.”

I nodded and looked out the side of the car, watching the city go by. We rolled past businesses, houses, and apartment buildings I didn't remember. After three-quarters of a year in jail, the blocks were unfamiliar, foreign. I sat back and listened to the water thrum off the leather roof of the touring car, and the tires of passing automobiles whiz by on the wet cobbles.

My mouth suddenly went dry. Was the morphine still there? I remembered the soothing relief, the soaring happiness. I could almost feel the warmth, the well-being. But … I knew what I should do. I had gotten through the withdrawals, had gotten the poison out of my system. I needed to dump it the minute I got home.

Sutton's driver dropped me off at my building, and I slogged through the rain to the door and then climbed the two flights of stairs to my apartment. Margaret Preston was locking her door as I turned the corner at the top of the stairway. She glanced at me and looked away, and then her head spun back. She stared for a few seconds before remembering her manners. Bustling past me with her head down, she mumbled, “Good afternoon,” and bolted down the steps.

I unlocked my door, walked into the foyer, and shut and locked the door again. My first stop was the bedroom. I opened the doors of my wardrobe and stood there a minute, afraid to look. I was afraid it would be gone, but I was more afraid it would be there. Finally I swept aside my clothing and looked behind my shoes. A large brown bottle—exactly where I had left it—stood in the back of the wardrobe. I grabbed it, took it to the bathroom, and turned it over the sink. The bitter smell of the morphine wafted to my nose as the syrup disappeared down the drain. I found myself inhaling deeply, but I finished dumping the bottle with a grim smile on my face.

I won.

I headed into the parlor to the shelf that held Wesley's Victrola. The dartboard still hung to the right of it, surrounded by chipped plaster, though someone had removed the knife I'd left buried in the wall. The Sophie Tucker record was on the Victrola. I picked it up, blew off the dust, and put it on again.

As the music poured out from the horn, I thought about the albino and Giovanni Esposito. The albino was involved in this somehow. The way he smiled at me showed something—could it have been knowledge of Esposito's confession? Perhaps he was the one who had gotten Esposito to confess.

But it didn't really matter. Sutton was right: I was a free man.

*   *   *

I went to my parents' house for dinner. They had invited Elizabeth too, and she sat next to me. The mood was celebratory. We all acted almost manic, with unrestrained bursts of laughter, loud conversation, wild gesticulations. Anyone watching us would have assumed we were all drunk, though not a drop was served. We were four people who had been certain I would never return home and weren't entirely sure how to react to my being released.

I saw Elizabeth home on a streetcar, and we fell into a gay conversation about our mutual friends, who in reality were her friends. I walked her the last two blocks on the wet sidewalk, her arm in mine. In front of her next-door neighbors' house, I had a childish impulse. I nudged her with my hip so that she stumbled into a puddle on the walk.

She laughed and kicked water at me. I ran ahead. She chased me, finally catching up at the white gate in front of her house. We grabbed each other and spun halfway around before we stopped, finding ourselves looking into the other's eyes.

“Lizzie,” I said. “This is like a dream. No matter what happens with us, this is all I could want. Thank you for believing in me.”

She leaned in and gave me a kiss on the cheek. “It's good to have you back, Will.”

“Could I phone you?” I asked.

She smiled and nodded. I watched as she walked up the sidewalk. She climbed the steps and turned back to me with a little wave. I stood there for a few minutes, inhaling the cool clean air coming off the river, looking up at the stars peeking through the clouds.

None of this seemed real. Earlier today, there was no doubt I'd be sentenced to life in prison. Now I was free. Elizabeth had kissed me. She wanted to see me again.

I had my life back. This time I wouldn't waste it.

*   *   *

When I woke the next morning, my apartment was warm, the air stale. I opened the windows. The ground was still wet from yesterday's rain, and the grass and trees shone the brilliant green of late spring. Over a cup of coffee, I thought about what to do. I hadn't been in the position to decide much of anything for the better part of a year, and it was disconcerting. It seemed to me that another attempt at normalcy made sense. Go to work; go see Elizabeth afterwards. Perhaps this could be my new normal.

I dressed in one of my work suits, and found the trousers baggy at the waist and the coat so tight in the shoulders I could barely get it on. I dug into the back of my wardrobe and found the gray sack suit I'd worn at my college graduation. It was also snug in the shoulders but a much better fit overall.

When I walked out the front door of my building, I took a deep breath, enjoying the wonderful springtime scent. The sky was a brilliant cornflower blue; birds sang in the trees around me. I walked down the sidewalk whistling.

Two men—one a hulking six-plus feet, the other a short, slight man—both dark complexioned and wearing black suits and derbies, climbed out of a black Hupmobile roadster in front of the building. I eyed them as they walked up the sidewalk, The big man had huge hands and a large head with a heavy brow. The small man was at least two days between shaves. His big dark eyes were wide-set, and his suit was worn at the knees. They didn't look like they belonged in this part of town.

When I got inside ten feet of them, both men stopped, blocking me, and opened their coats with their left hands. Both had very large pistols stuck into shoulder holsters. The big man spoke. “You come wit' us.” He had a heavy Italian accent.

Oh, shit.
I held my hands up in front of me. “There must be some mistake.”

The big man pulled his pistol and held it at his waist, pointed at my chest. “Get in car. Now.”

“Wait just a minute.” I looked around for witnesses and saw no one. My guts clenched. “What's the meaning of this?”

He stepped closer and growled into my ear, “Get in car or I kill you.”

I had no choice. Heart hammering in my chest, I began walking to the car.

The small man moved around to the driving seat. The big one used his gun barrel to direct me into the back. He joined me, the gun leveled at my midsection.

My pulse raced. “Listen,” I said. “Adamo's got this all—”

“Shut up.”

“But you don't understand. I—”

He jammed the gun barrel into my ribs. “If you don' shut you mouth I put bullet in you.”

I shut up. Adrenaline pumped through my veins, but I couldn't move. I'd have to be alert for any chance to turn the tables. If they brought me to Adamo, I was dead.

The big man kept his eyes and the gun pointed at me, while the driver drove fast, staying on side streets. He stopped perhaps ten minutes later next to a forest just west of town. The big man used the gun barrel to push me out of the car and said, “Aroun' back.”

I figured this was it. Adamo would be showing his face any second. He'd want to see the coup de grâce. “Where is he?”

The big man stuck to his standard line. “Shut up.”

I walked to the back of the car. The big man said something in Italian to the driver and then held his gun on me while the other man searched me.

“Now, get in trunk,” the big man said. He pointed to the steamer trunk lashed to the Hupmobile's bumper.

“What? You must be kidding. I'll never fit in there.”

The big man looked at the driver and motioned toward the trunk. The driver fumbled with the latch for a moment before throwing back the lid. I saw what the problem was. His right hand had only three fingers. “Inside,” he said.

It was a reprieve from being killed, assuming I didn't suffocate in the trunk, but it seemed to be only delaying the inevitable. I folded my arms over my chest. “If you're going to kill me, do it here. There's no one around.”

The driver shoved me, slamming me against the trunk. “Get in.” He pulled a dagger with an eight-inch blade from a scabbard on his belt. It glinted into my eyes. “Or we put you in—in pieces.”

Son of a bitch.
I put one foot, and then the other, inside the trunk, and tried to fit myself in. Folding my knees against my chest, I bent my neck forward and crammed my head inside. The lid slammed on my right shoulder. One of them put his weight behind it and clasped it shut. A few seconds later, the car pulled onto the road. I could barely move. My arms were pinned to my sides, my knees crammed against my chest, and my neck bent forward as far as it would go.

I pushed against the lid with my shoulder and cracked it open just enough to let in some fresh air. Slowing my breathing, I tried to think, but I had no ideas—other than that I was probably going to disappear without a trace, unless Adamo left my body somewhere as a message to his enemies. After half an hour or so, the car stopped. The springs squeaked as the car rocked toward the passenger side and back again. The car pulled ahead slowly a few feet and then stopped. The engine shut off. Doors slammed. The trunk lid opened, and the two men loomed over me.

“Out,” the big man said. I levered myself out of the trunk like a vaudeville contortionist and clambered down to the dirt floor. We were in a small stable, lit only by thin shafts of light poking through cracks in the wood. I couldn't hear any traffic noise, or anything else for that matter.

The big man muscled me to a chair, shoved me down into it, and tied my hands behind me while the driver held a gun on me. The smaller man then hurried to a side door and disappeared outside. Before the door closed I caught a glimpse of a white clapboard house and a small fruit tree. I sat back and tried to slow my heart. I'd wait for my chance.

If they gave me one.

CHAPTER NINE

A pair of big men walked through the door, followed by the driver. I expected Vito Adamo to walk in behind them, but he didn't. The driver closed the door and stood next to it. The new men were clearly brothers, stocky and big shouldered with pudgy faces and thick black hair. They wore white shirts and dark trousers. The shorter man had a knife scabbard on his belt, the thick handle of a Buck knife rising from it.

They stopped in front of my chair. The first man crossed his arms and stared down at me under heavy eyelids. He had thick black eyebrows, a broad, flat nose, and thick, liver-colored lips. “You Will Anderson?” His accent was three-quarters Italian, one-quarter lower-class Detroit.

I stared back at him. “Who wants to know?”

With a smile he glanced at his brother. The shorter man backhanded me across the face, and I crashed to the floor along with the chair. He was incredibly powerful. I shook my head to clear it. The big kidnapper grabbed my arms and jerked me upright.

“Let's try again,” the man said. “You Will Anderson?”

I spat blood and saliva at him. It was a strange moment. I felt as if I were watching myself from the outside. I'd never done anything like this, but I wasn't going to give in to Adamo. I pictured him standing in the darkness of the stable, laughing at me.

The man wiped off his face and bent over with his hands on his knees. “You do that again, I'm gonna give ya to Sammy here.” He gestured toward the shorter man, who was horse-faced with wide-open, almost bulging eyes. “He's been wonderin' how long he could keep a man alive while he's skinnin' him.” He stayed there, his face six inches from mine, looking at me with those half-open eyes, like he was begging me to do it.