Smoke (7 page)

“Morning,” he says, as if he's been expecting company. The side door slaps open and shut and Alice appears with a tall glass of milk.

“I thought that was you coming across my yard, Buster McFiddie,” she smiles. “Thought you might be thirsty too.” Buster stands to greet her. Her thick dark hair, streaked with grey, is cut straight across and pulled back behind her ears. She is wearing a short-sleeve pin-dotted dress. Nothing in her posture suggests that she is forcing her enthusiasm. She doesn't even flinch at the sight of him. He is more than grateful. “So you're up and about again?”

“Uh-huh.” Buster offers his chair.

“Thank you, no.” She waves him back down. “Hazel's on her way. Be here any minute as a matter of fact. We're quilting and trying to decide what quantities of material to order.”

Doc John pokes Buster in the ribs. “These women been planning already.”

“Planning?”

“For the sesquicentennial.”

“Yes, and we're busy, busy, busy. We Rebekahs have become quite determined to raise a goodly amount of money for new playground equipment. Buster, can you keep a secret?” Alice winks at her husband.

“Sure.”

“Hazel and I are also ordering firecrackers!” Alice's voice rises at least two notches. She rocks onto the toes of her shoes and back down again. “Not the usual sort. There's going to be a large display in all colours of the rainbow. That'll be something different won't it?”

“Fireworks,” Buster repeats.

Alice holds up her finger as if it's an exclamation point and continues enthusiastically. “I know we do them time to time, but this will be some show. We'll also have darts, animal tricks, clowns, the Miss Tobacco Queen competition of course—you name it. We're going to draw a real crowd. Hazel says it'll be exotic as all get-out. Now remember, the fireworks are to be a surprise.”

Buster forces a smile. Everyone he's ever met in attendance, and an overblown hundred-and-fifty-year-old party raises nothing but dread in the pit of his stomach. “As long as you don't skimp on your cream pies,” he says, changing the subject.

“Oh, I won't,” Alice beams. “And in the meantime don't you be a stranger around here.” She reaches for Doc John's empty cup, gives him a squeeze on one shoulder. “I hope you're not going to be filling this boy with any more of those ridiculous stories, John.” She faces Buster once more, smiles, and walks off into the house leaving the side door to creak and slap shut behind her.

“The sesquicentennial.” Buster is sour and incredulous. “It's a whole year off.”

“Well, don't let her hear you talking like that. I'm told you can never plan
too
far ahead.” Doc John chuckles but a choking sensation grips him. He coughs. His stomach begins to burn, a low hot cloud that sometimes comes over him, and he coughs harder until he can't stop. The discomfort that he's been suffering on and off for years has recently grown worse, dramatically worse an hour or so after he eats. It's impossible to ignore. He leans forward in his rocking chair, grips the chrome-and-cushion arms tightly and waits for the pain and nausea to pass. Buster offers his drink but the doctor pushes the glass away and tries to catch his breath.

“John?” Alice calls out through the kitchen window. “Everything all right?”

He waves her off and gestures for the boy to thump his back, which Buster does a couple of times, and despite its doing nothing to quell the pain Alice ducks back and disappears into the house. Inside, she uncrosses her fingers from behind her back. A simple gesture, like so many of her superstitions, to buy more time.

The doctor breathes more freely and resumes his conversation. “The first time I saw fireworks it was July fourth. I was down at the riverfront with all the other spectators.” Buster leans into his chair, takes a gulp of cold milk. “Jefferson Avenue was bumper to bumper. They had these barges in the middle of the Detroit River and thousands of people lined up along both shores to watch.” He gestures widely with his hands as if to recreate the marvel. “Never heard anything so loud in all my life. Must've gone on for half an hour, popping them into the air and watching them fall like red, white and blue bombs. Your father and I are going to rig something like it here. You gonna stick around?”

“Suppose so,” Buster says. “Where else would I go?” He thinks about Doc John's tales. Distant cities. Living incognito. “Can't even get along at school these days,” he adds, searching the old man's face for an argument.

“Why's that?”

Buster shrugs and looks at the floorboards. “Guess I'm not much for people any more.”

“I see,” says Doc John. And he does. He knows what it is to hide. Once you start there is no stopping. “Many ways to learn besides school. Don't worry; you're just out of practice. Listen, you know about the Oakland Sugar House Gang, right?”

“The who?”

“Oh, see now to understand the Purples you've got to know about the Sugar House Gang. They taught the Bernstein brothers everything.” Doc John takes a deep breath and feels the pain in his abdomen wane. With Buster healed he hasn't been telling his stories, and he realizes he misses them, misses the relief of sharing them. “Let me think … It was Joe Bernstein who came out of the Sugar House bunch. Of all the Bernsteins he was the most dangerous. Joe dabbled in businesses on the up and up too—had a barbershop once. He used his criminal career to save and bankroll a legitimate business. But it was when he was younger, at the Bishop school, that he met a bookie named Solly Levine who introduced him to Charles Leiter, head of the Sugar House Gang, and the man who would become his best teacher yet.”

“Funny names,” says Buster, pulling his chair in closer.

“Nothing funny about them. Detroit was a mixed bag. You had your Irish, your Eye-talians and your Jews like the Bernstein brothers, and they were all fighting to carve out territory. Even the boys who weren't organized added excitement. Like this blind-pig owner named Slappy so-and-so, who stood in the doorway of his establishment guarding it with a four-foot-long boa constrictor wrapped around his shoulders and a couple of hungry German shepherd dogs at his side.”

“Coolsville.”

“It was. Unless it was you caught in the crossfire. But as far as questionable opportunities presenting themselves you couldn't find a better place. Blind pigs, gambling, rum-running, opium dens.” Doc John clears his throat and lowers his voice. “Ladies of the night.”

“Is that how the Sugar House Gang made their money?”

“No, no,” the doctor wags his finger. “They used a regular business to front for the rum-running. It was all about the liquor. See, the Oakland Sugar House produced cane sugar, sold it for corn syrup. Every underworld racket specialized. The Jaworski Gang in Hamtramck were known for their high-profile bank robberies. The Legs Laman bunch made a name kidnapping other gangsters for ransom. The Westside Mob squeezed money from bookmaking operations, encouraging donations for what they called betting services.” The doctor sits back in his chair, plunks his feet up on the banister.

“Now when Joe Bernstein was introduced to Charlie Leiter it was like hitting the jackpot, only Joe didn't know it yet. The old man's fastest and most vicious days were over and in Joe he saw the possibilities of youth again. He took the boy under wing. Taught him simple things like how to improve his pickpocketing technique. Next, Charlie's lessons turned to the weapons and such. Joe learned how to cut the whiskey—pure chemistry—and how to cross on the river with the illegal cargo without getting caught. Joe learned how to get rich in a city dazzled by the almighty dollar, and he, in turn, passed all this education on to his brothers. With their old-timer connection, the Purple Gang was destined to become the most powerful in Detroit.”

“Wow!”

“And you remember Ruthless Eddie?”

“Sure. The boxer.”

“Right. He was soon as loyal to the Bernstein brothers as they were to Charlie Leiter. After the fight with Fingers Fontana, Eddie was out of work, you might say. Tainted. He had no money, few friends—no one wanted to risk an association. Some said the sweet science was ruined but I think folks exaggerate. Anyhow, Ruthless Eddie didn't want to wind up like Fingers Fontana right? Face down in a gutter with a bullet to the back of the head. So he did what any smart man would do—cozied up to the enemy.”

“I can't believe it. Not after what Raymond did to him.”

“Well he did. I know. It happened one rainy night at the bath-house on Oakland Avenue. A shvitz, the Purples called it. A local fellow who'd also gone to the Old Bishop School owned the place so the gang wasn't likely to be ambushed by a rival there. The shvitz was a dark brick brownstone where you walked down a few steps and entered through a narrow basement door. The night of Ruthless Eddie's conversion, let's say, the boys dropped their clothes in a change room on a bench and each one grabbed a towel. They filed into the hottest of all the rooms, the Russian bath. The place was teeming stone walls and floor, hotter than Hades.

“There they were half-naked, defenceless, no hardware, and totally unawares when up sat two of the three other men in the room, cousins of the River Gang boss Pete Licavoli, pulling weapons out from under their towels. Had them fastened to their thighs with electrician's tape, if you can imagine. One cousin leapt towards Joe with a hunting knife. Joe managed to spot him coming at the last instant, out of the corner of his eye. He made a fast roll down to the bench below, righted himself and grabbed the knife. After a brief struggle, he managed to stab Johnny Licavoli in the heart. His chest parted like the Red Sea. Blood everywhere. Heat. Steam. He was useless. But the second Licavoli cousin had gone after Raymond with a gun and because Raymond had both his eyes closed, something he would never do again, not even when it was time to sleep, he didn't mark the danger that was coming.
That's
when Ruthless Eddie made his move.”

The doctor lifts his shoulders and stretches his neck. “See, Eddie was the third one in the room. He'd been watching and trying to decide whether he was better off to stay or make a fast exit when the attacker went after Ray. Acting on fighter's instinct, he leapt from his place on the bench and grabbed the murderer's wrist before he had a chance to do any real damage. Eddie's physical strength was indisputable and the Licavoli chap couldn't resist. Eddie squeezed the thug's arm until his hand opened and the gun, hot as a branding iron, dropped onto the floor. Then Ruthless Eddie, taking every bit of rage he had bottled up inside him since that lousy night at the boxing ring, turned muscle into grace and gangster mayhem. He broke the fellow's arm in two parts and tossed him at Raymond Bernstein's feet. ‘He's all yours,' said Eddie, barely realizing what he'd done.”

“Why would he help Raymond?”

“He was helping himself, Buster. That's what I'm trying to tell you. Ruthless Eddie heard opportunity calling and he answered it quick. Paid off, too. Next thing he knew he was Raymond Bernstein's personal bodyguard.”

“Unreal. Are you sure?”

“Sure as a shadow.” Doc John leans back in his chair, drops his feet and casts one warm brown eye towards the kitchen window to judge if his wife might be listening.

“So what happened after that?”

“Oh, that, son, is a story for another time.”

“Aaw, you can't leave me hanging. Let's hear the rest.”

Doc John chuckles, rises from his chair, knees cracking. He stretches his arms above his head to yawn and waves Buster inside.

“C'mon. I've got something here might interest you.”

B
USTER FOLLOWS HIM
inside the large office with its high ceilings, where it smells of rubbing alcohol and lemon oil. Pushed up against one wall sits a Mission oak desk and a captain's chair. On the desk is a calendar with the date, September eighth, circled and next to it a rotary dial telephone, a stethoscope, a blood pressure belt, a jar of tongue depressors, a small pad of paper and a ballpoint pen. Standing at attention beside the desk is a hat tree. Across the room is a scale with weights, a wooden examination table, a locked cabinet with glass doors. Through them he notices amber, cobalt and clear glass bottles, tins filled with cotton batting, gauze strips and rubbing alcohol. Beside the cabinet there is a new refrigerator cooling vials marked with insulin and penicillin and two trays with sterilized instruments and syringes. The walls on either side of the entrance have built-in bookshelves holding medical texts, journal clippings, a copy of Charles Darwin's
On the Origin of Species,
a cherished Frank Merriwell book and row upon row of paperback novels. There is a small window above the desk but the room is otherwise lit by three lamps, each fixed to the wall inside a triangular sconce. All told, the old furnishings give the comforting impression that Buster is in practised hands.

Even though he is up to date on the latest medical discoveries and treatments, everyone understands that Doc John is a traditionalist. It's one reason they respect him. He is even rumoured to have declined work in Brantford, in the Big Hospital. And, as Buster knows all too well, he favours house calls.

One door inside the office leads into the living room of the home and the other, smaller, into a tiny washroom where patients disrobe in private or pass urine into jars for tests, leaving them on the counter of the vanity to be collected modestly. Doc John keeps a fresh change of clothes for himself hanging on the hook on the back of the door, and he shaves and sponge-bathes there rather than upstairs where he might disturb his wife in the early hours of the morning. Only once a week does he fill the claw-foot tub on the second floor and climb in for a full soak. Buster has been here before, many times. Just last year his mother dragged him and Hank in for mandatory polio vaccinations. No need to worry about telling their father about the expense, Isabel had said at the time; the vaccines were free from the government. Today, however, is the first time Buster has been invited inside to talk man to man, and for a split second he forgets about his appearance.