Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  He had approached her once on Shakespeare’s birthday. Vera Maude said she wasn’t interested in going with anyone at the moment, which was true. She had just recently concluded her first romance and was feeling emotionally exhausted. Tom was very sweet and didn’t push himself on her. At the end of the school year he presented her with the book, asking if she would accept it as a token. Flipping through it, she realized the verses Tom had written were about her. For the first time in her life Vera Maude was speechless.

  Part of her refused to believe she could have inspired such heartfelt tributes. She didn’t want the responsibility. She told herself it all came from somewhere in Tom’s imagination. His last few sonnets trailed off unfinished.

  To say that you are always in my thoughts

  Suggests I also think of other things.

  Truth is if you entirely I forgot,

  My mind would be cleared of all its musings.

  And the final entry was a single line: My love for you is nature’s cruelest gift.

  Vera Maude had struggled with that one for a long time. Eventually she had moved on. Had Tom? There were rumours he had been shipped off to a sanitarium, where his mind was presumably cleared forever of all its musings. She couldn’t believe that was five years ago already.

  Poor Tom.

  She remembered reasoning with herself that unrequited love was not actually love at all. For it to be true love, it had to be shared by two people. Otherwise it was just madness. She placed the volume in her bag then pulled the last book off the shelf: a copy of Bulfinch’s Age of Fable her father had given her for Christmas last year. She would try to remember to read up on Aphrodite tonight before bed. The gods still had a lot of explaining to do.

  Every Sunday Vera Maude would come home for dinner and take something else away with her. This was the last of it. The room was bare now except for her mother’s needlework hanging on the wall. Her father had been trying to get Vera Maude to take a few of her mother’s things, but Vera Maude always refused. She never knew her mother, who had died shortly after she was born. Vera Maude believed these things should go to her older siblings. Her father said they wouldn’t appreciate them.

  The old man was preparing to sell the house and move in with his brother, Uncle Fred. Some of the Maguire children had hoped Vera Maude would remain to watch over their father and help keep the house in the family. She wondered which one of them thought they were going to get it in the end. The rest resented her for what they saw as a betrayal. Vera Maude was clearly the favourite, so how could she abandon him like this? None of them should have been surprised, though. Vera Maude was the black sheep of the family. She had different ideas, different ways of doing things. She even looked different than the other children.

  To answer the folks who liked to joke about her being the milkman’s daughter, her father pointed out the fact that she resembled his Irish mother, a woman of Spanish heritage. Vera Maude had chestnut hair, green-brown eyes, and in the summertime she was the first to have any colour. The rest of the family was tall and fair with red hair, like their mother. Vera Maude called herself a throwback, a remembrance of things past.

  This would be the last Sunday dinner in the old house. She knew it saddened her father, but she also knew he didn’t want to make a big deal about it. He’ll sit at the head of the table, she thought, quiz them about their week and then make sure they are caught up on current events. Her father loved debate and enjoyed playing the devil’s advocate.

  She could hear the plates clattering on the table downstairs. Over the years more chairs were added to accommodate girlfriends, boyfriends, and spouses. Soon there would be grandchildren. The very idea of being an auntie made her want to jump out the window.

  “Maudie! Dinner!”

  “Coming!”

  It had become increasingly difficult for her to behave herself at these gatherings, to hold her tongue and not rock the boat too much. But her father enjoyed seeing her in action. She held her ground and countered her brothers’ volleys.

  She could pretty much predict what the dinner conversation would be like: her father would back the idea of using martial law in Michigan to get the coal moving again. Joe won’t like that. He’d be applauding the Red influence among the rail unions.

  Bob would cut in with a comment about hydroelectricity being the wave of the future. He spent his days at McNaughton’s store selling electric toasters, vacuum cleaners, curling tongs, and gawd knows what else.

  Dorothy and her husband would try to steer the conversation towards temperance, pointing out the Mounties’ successful raid on the Meyers house in Ford City last week. They’d picked up his still, a quantity of mash, and a few jars of third rail whisky.

  Jennie’s tastes bordered on the sensational. She’d likely bring up the brutal murder of a watchman at a factory in Hamilton and ask what the world was coming to.

  Gavin was the aspiring real estate tycoon. He’d have noticed that the Labadie farm sold and that would lead to talk of planning and the Border Cities and then the amalgamation hot potato would get tossed around until the eldest, Austin, cooled things off with the latest news on the Old Boys festivities kicking off in a couple weeks.

  Vera Maude grabbed her book bag and headed down the narrow stairs. When she got to the bottom she had to wiggle around the table, which was so long it stretched from the dining room into the parlour. Vera Maude dropped her book bag in the foyer and looked for a seat.

  “Maudie, I want you sitting here next to me,” said her father as he pulled out the chair to his left.

  The older boys looked at each other but didn’t say a word. The wives and girlfriends started bringing food out of the kitchen. It was typical Essex County fare: a pork roast, sweet corn on the cob, fresh tomatoes, radishes and cucumbers, warm biscuits, and a potato salad tossed with green beans and mayonnaise. Austin said Grace.

  Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts,

  Which we are about to receive from thy bounty

  Through Christ Our Lord.

  Vera Maude mumbled her own made-up words and her father nudged her under the table.

  “Ah, men,” she concluded.

  Everyone grabbed one of the dishes and her father cut into the roast. Plates were passed around. Vera Maude’s came back with a radish on it.

  “Gee, thanks a bunch.”

  — Chapter 9 —

  THE THIRD PAGE

  RIDING WITH THE

  BORDER CITY BLUES

  THIS WEEK:

  A DULL ROAR

  Prohibition means there will always be more battles than there will be men to fight them, and the police in the Border Cities know that. Sometimes the best they can do is just keep things down to a dull roar. They do this first by picking off the low-hanging fruit.

  Last Thursday a fellow burst into the station claiming his car had been stolen. While he was giving his statement a call came in about an abandoned vehicle: a patrolman had found a car with its front bumper joined to a telephone pole. He also found a trunk full of illegal beer. The fellow tried to pin it on the alleged car thieves but after the police applied the right pressure the fellow confessed to being in the ‘transport business.’ He had jumped the curb trying to avoid a child in the street and rather than get caught with wet goods, he decided to report the car stolen. He was charged and given a court date.

  Trying to stop the flow of liquor in the Border Cities can be a bit like trying to hold back the tide with a mop and pail. There are a number of hotel bars and roadhouses that the police watch in a random rotation. Last Friday night the Dominion Tavern’s number came up. Undercover police discovered strong beer on the premises and the owner was fined $200. He put it down to the cost of doing business.

  That was an easy one. However, simple exercises like this can easily turn violent. One night last week Officer Allan Corbishdale was patrolling the alley behind the streetcar waiting room at Ferry Street when he heard an engine fire up and pull away. He suspected foul play. When they
refused to halt the officer broke into a sprint and jumped onto the running board. Corbishdale later told the Star that the driver, Clayton Pastorius, then ‘stepped on the gas.’

  Corbishdale climbed into the rear of the vehicle where he discovered the reason for the driver’s anxiety: six cases of illegal beer. When Mr. Pastorius’s accomplice, Alex Renaud, reached back and started getting rough with Corbishdale, the officer struck him over the head with his nightstick. Renaud, the officer said, then wrested the club from his hand and returned the favour. Frustrated, Corbishdale drew his revolver and fired a warning shot through the roof of the car.

  Renaud remained aggres-sive, Corbishdale said, and the officer was eventually forced to strike him over the head with the butt of his revolver, rendering him unconscious. With the vehicle approaching the Prince Edward Hotel, Corbishdale knew he had to put the brakes on this caper.

  He fired another shot that shattered the windshield and caused Pastorius to briefly lose control as he turned onto Park Street. The vehicle finally came to a stop at the front steps of St. Alphonsus School. The next day the Sisters had a few things to say about the broken glass and skid marks on the front lawn.

  There is this black and white world of thieves and smugglers and then there is the shadier world of the confidence men. This afternoon Mr. Karl Schwab of Janette Avenue reported to police that a bogus raid had been made on his home and the fraudulent officials hauled off three cases of legitimately-obtained whisky.

  Watch for this space in next Saturday’s Star to discover how it all played out.

  “Hold on to this,” Montroy said to Corbishdale as he folded the newspaper and tossed it onto the dashboard. “Your mother might want it for her scrapbook.”

  They were sitting in the new police flyer, a sleek, sprawling Studebaker Six. Corbishdale was behind the wheel and Montroy was sitting next to him, going over the events of the past thirty-six hours, bringing the rookie up to speed.

  “Yeah, and so Schwab arrived at the station with his tongue wagging like a setter’s. He collapsed in the chair by my desk, mopping his forehead with a damp handkerchief and clutching his documents. He told me two men — he noticed a third waiting in the car running outside — came knocking on his door. They said they were licensing department officials, flashed some ID, and then proceeded to frisk the place. When they found the whisky, Schwab protested. He told them it was legal.”

  “Why didn’t he just show them his papers?” asked Corbishdale.

  “Said he got flustered and forgot where he kept them. Wouldn’t have done any good anyway. A few minutes into their search he knew that they weren’t real inspectors.”

  “How?”

  “The cut of their suits and the make of the car. He was smart not to call them on it. He could have got hurt. Anyway, what he kept telling me was that he had nothing to hide. He said he shared some of his whisky with a couple of his neighbours. When he happened to mention that one of them, a man by the name of Walters, had recently moved down from Hamilton, a bell went off. I showed him a photo of a goon from up that way I been keeping tabs on. He recognized the face, said he saw the man leaving Walters’ house once or twice.”

  “So it was Walters?”

  “Wait, it gets better. Me and Bickerstaff raided Walters’ place this afternoon and turned up a case of wine, a case of beer, and a few bottles of Schwab’s whisky. We brought Walters in for questioning. He admitted the guy in the photo, the Pole, was an acquaintance of his. He said he used to lay bets on the Pole’s book in Hamilton. Walters managed to win just enough to keep him in the game but never enough to pay his debts.”

  Montroy started fanning himself with his hat before continuing with his story.

  “Things got interesting when a rival bookie started spreading rumours about the Pole’s books being fixed. Suddenly the Pole had more enemies than even he could handle, and so he blew. Walters figured he was off the hook. That was until the Pole darkened his door one day looking for money. Walters scraped together just enough to buy himself the kind of time that gets measured on a stopwatch, not a calendar. When the Pole came back for more, Walters got cocky and told the Pole to scram or he’d rat him out.

  “The Pole just laughed. He told Walters he knew he was in deep with the other bookie and that he could fix it for him. Next thing Walters knew he was reading in the papers about some low-life found floating in Hamilton Harbour. The description matched the bookie. The Pole went to Walters’ house to brag about it and tell him that he wouldn’t hesitate to pin it on him if he needed to. Walters was indebted for life now and every week the Pole came to collect.”

  Montroy noticed Corbishdale becoming a little slack-jawed in disbelief.

  “After a while Walters had had enough and quietly slipped down here. It only took the Pole a few days to track him down. He made Walters give him the lay of the land and then put him to work on Schwab. The whole thing made Walters sick. Walters said when we came knocking on his door he realized the only way to get rid of this phantom for good would be to finger him and suffer any consequences.”

  Montroy turned and set his gaze back on the building across the way. He and Corbishdale were watching the Pole’s apartment on Tuscarora from a position across the street on Marentette. Montroy’s plan was to follow the Pole to his target, watch him execute his raid, and then find out where he took his liquor. He finished his story, talking out the side of his mouth at Corbishdale.

  “This morning we brought back Schwab to corroborate Walters’ statement, and I spent the day gathering more evidence. The Pole’s a bottom feeder, son, picking up bottles wherever he can, the hard stuff mostly — whisky, bourbon, that sort of thing.”

  Corbishdale couldn’t understand the lengths people went to make, traffic, and drink liquor. Temperance had always been the theme in his home. Looking back, he remembered his family being stable and content, not to mention loyal and God-fearing. He couldn’t understand why anyone would want it any other way.

  Montroy peeled the cigarette butt off his lower lip, crushed it under his shoe, and got another one going.

  “He’s just a big ugly bohunk who’s picked the wrong town to do his business.”

  Corbishdale was unfamiliar with that term. He guessed it had something to do with the Pole being a foreigner.

  “We’ve got all the excitement we can handle here; we don’t need any outsiders upsetting the balance.”

  Corbishdale’s mind drifted back to when his father would rail against the followers of the Roman Church — mainly the Irish and Italians. The French became the focus of his anxiety when Quebec made conscription an issue. When the province refused to stay dry, it sent him right over the edge. “Freedom of the human conscience … pah.” He’d roll his eyes and shovel another helping of roast beef into his mouth. “It’s the alcohol,” he’d say, “it retards the brain.”

  Montroy slumped down in his seat. “Light’s out.”

  The apartment had gone dark. Corbishdale swallowed hard. He imagined the Pole making his way down the stairs of the building, his bulging eyes and long, mustachioed face in the dim light of the hall, his silhouette moving towards the doorway, and a flash of gun metal in his belt. He would step outside then check the shadows around the building and the adjacent street corners. Maybe he’d spot the police flyer. Maybe he was already on to them. Corbishdale adjusted his grip on the wheel.

  “Steady, son. You don’t want to jump from the Third Page to the obituaries, now do you?”

  Three figures climbed into a yellow Maxwell just on the other side of Tuscarora. The Pole was in the driver’s seat.

  “All right, let’s go,” said Montroy, “but not too close.”

  They followed it up Marentette. Montroy hadn’t told Corbishdale everything that was in the Pole’s file. He didn’t want to scare the boy shitless. At the same time he felt Corbishdale needed the experience, despite his recent adventure. The city was changing and he, along with the other young officers on the force, needed to be better prep
ared.

  The Pole had been a loose cannon on the deck of Hamilton’s biggest outfit. When he got caught in a double-cross, the gang leader made an example of him. The Pole didn’t like that, so he made some threats. After that the gang leader wanted him dead. He sent his heavies over to the Pole’s safe house to burn it to the ground. Somehow the Pole managed to escape.

  The Maxwell slowed to a stop then turned left onto Ellis. Montroy grabbed his pack of Macdonalds off the dashboard and shook one loose. He fired it up and took a long, soothing drag. The Maxwell hung a left onto Pierre and finally came to a stop in front of a house just south of Ottawa Street.

  “Pull in here,” said Montroy.

  He was pointing to some cars parked on the opposite side of the street. Montroy surveyed the block.

  “Go knock on that door — where the light’s on — see if they have a telephone. Call the station and tell Yoakum to get down here.”

  They slipped out curbside and split up. Montroy used the parked cars for cover as he moved closer to the Pole’s target. The moment the gang entered the house, Montroy did a duck-and-run across the street and took up a position below the veranda. There was some shouting inside and then the Pole’s boys came out, each carrying a case of liquor. The Pole followed presently and helped arrange the crates in the trunk of the car. As soon as they pulled away Montroy ran back and joined Corbishdale in the flyer.

  “Don’t take your eyes off them.”

  The Maxwell zigzagged through the city, cutting through neighbourhoods and skirting the downtown before finally slowing in front of a small building on the west end of Park Street. It was Windsor City Dairy.

  “Let’s go see what’s curdling their milk.”

  They found a window at the side of the garage. Montroy wiped the grease and soot from the glass with his sleeve. The Pole’s boys and a fellow from the dairy were unloading the Maxwell. When they finished the milkman disappeared and then returned with bottles of milk. The Pole’s boys cracked open the cases of liquor while the milkman arranged the bottles on a table. One of the Pole’s boys started pouring liquor into them. Montroy and Corbishdale looked at each other. The whisky wasn’t displacing the milk.