Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  No kidding.

  He had no patience for people like this, people with vehicles who once they stepped inside felt they were invincible and impervious to any kind of disaster.

  “Stop accelerating,” shouted Campbell.

  There was a margin of moraine on either side of the car; Campbell could see where the driver had backed in, but evidently he had no exit strategy.

  What was he thinking?

  It occurred to Campbell that he spent a great deal of time wondering what it was people could have been thinking, as in, What were you thinking when you jumped out that window? He would return to that later.

  “All right, slow gear. I’ll push from behind. Let’s try a rocking motion and see if that gets you over. Do not, I say do not throw it into reverse. Understand?”

  The driver, thankful for any assistance, nodded. “Yes.”

  Campbell stepped back to the rear of the vehicle and positioned himself behind the right fender. The driver began with the slow acceleration and Campbell, with his heels dug into the mound of snow, sand, dirt, and sludge behind him, pushed and paused, pushed and paused, until he had a pulse. Weak at first, and then he could feel the wheels were taking over. He gave it one long, hard push and the car took to the gritty moraine and sped off. Not a wave from the driver.

  You’re welcome.

  After Park Street, it was all private dwellings, some with businesses incorporated into them — mainly professionals: optometrists, chiropractors, lawyers. The professionals tended to clear their walks, not so much the residents. The last two addresses before Maiden Lane were a real estate agent and a dentist. Campbell paused at the corner before turning onto the little lane. He wanted to contemplate the scene in the daylight. It was his first impulse, to look up at the attic window. It had already been boarded up from the inside. After trying to re-imagine the trajectory, the physics behind it, which still seemed impossible, he started walking slowly toward the building and halted once he was facing it.

  He pulled out his notebook. 1 Maiden Ln. Only house on block. Occup: Mort Boyd, Prud Ins agnt; Marg Bethune, slsldy; Jn Lawley, clrk; Cath McGregor, bkpr; Mme Zahra Ostrovskaya. None of this spoke to him.

  Stranger in a strange land, thought Campbell.

  Before entering, he thought he would go to the corner at the end of the block, to where he almost saw Kaufman fly out the window. He made fresh prints in the snowdrifts along the north side. The block was interrupted about halfway by an alley that looked as if it hadn’t been trodden upon in a day or two.

  Standing at the very spot where he saw Kaufman hit the pavement, he partially recreated the moment by lighting up. He looked up at the window again, then down the block toward the Avenue and further down, where Maiden Lane continued after a bit of a jog, and he saw wagons that were coming out of Cadwell’s stables. Old and new worlds.

  Which is Madame Zahra’s world? Campbell wondered.

  The smoke from his cigar did a tight spiral straight up into the chill air. He retraced his steps diagonally across Maiden Lane to where Kaufman’s body hit the pavement. Campbell kneeled down and brushed the fresh snow off the cobblestone. There was still some glass and fragments of windowpane. He turned and looked once more up at the top floor. He had a thought, but it made little sense so he filed it away for now. He dabbed the end of his cigar gently in some fresh snow then tucked it into his hip pocket. He made his way up the steps and into the vestibule.

  He checked the door to the right and found it still locked. Before going up the stairs he walked down the hallway to the back door this time. He turned the deadbolt. When he opened the door, a drift of snow six inches higher than the bottom of the doorframe retained its shape. It had settled in. He looked down. The only indication that there were actually steps leading down into what he presumed was some sort of garden was the little wooden handrail that poked up through the snowdrift and then angled toward the house. The snow in the garden had none of those dimples that one sees when a fresh layer of snow covers older footprints, and the snow around the gate looked undisturbed. He closed the door, made his way back down the hall, and up the stairs. He knocked at the door at the second-floor landing. Still no answer. He removed his boots and proceeded up into the attic apartment. Madame Zahra was standing in the middle of the room, looking every bit the gypsy queen. She must have heard him coming.

  “Welcome, Detective Campbell.”

  It was warm, a warmth that came maybe from the inside out. Was that possible? It was like being in chapel — physically speaking. He said nothing but instead did a lap around the room. It looked the same but different, the way rooms do in natural light, the little that there was, mainly coming from the small window in the kitchen filtering through the beaded curtain. Amber-coloured bloodshot beads. There was another small window in the gable in the middle of the long wall. A few fat candles provided the rest of the light in the room.

  “Who’s your carpenter?” said Campbell, facing the repair job.

  “Yarmolovich has friends who build houses,” said Zahra. “He says they can make window in two days. Sit.”

  Just to the right of the gable, in the same long wall, were two chairs, between which was a contraption that was a combination reading lamp and ashtray, with bizarre-looking serpents and other creatures climbing up the wooden pedestal.

  “Do you mind if I smoke?” asked Campbell.

  “If it pleases you.”

  Campbell pulled his cigar back out of his hip pocket and re-introduced it to his Ronson. While he was busy with that, Zahra brought over a small table with a round marble top, just large enough to hold a tea service. She then returned to the samovar in the kitchen and came back with two steaming cups.

  “A special blend,” she said.

  Campbell blew a smoke ring at the pointed ceiling and noticed an egg-shaped crystal hanging from the apex. Another prop? He rested his cigar on the beastly ashtray.

  “Thanks,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind my stopping by, but I woke up with more questions than I left with last night.”

  “Of course.”

  Campbell lifted his cup from its saucer. “Do I drink this black?”

  “I do. But I know you English like your cream and sugar. Sorry — I only have milk. It comes from horse.”

  Campbell blinked. “What?”

  “A horse pulls a man with milk. Is that wrong?”

  “Not exactly. No matter, I usually take my coffee black, so I’ll give it a try. And by the way, my father was Scottish.”

  “There is difference?”

  Campbell let that one go but used it as his lead in. “May I ask where you are from, Madame Zahra Ostro …?”

  “Ostrovskaya. I’m from small village outside of Minsk.”

  “So, Russia. When did you leave?”

  “After the war there was another war, and then another. And then those of us who were lucky, we got out. That was few years ago. We scattered when we landed, going deeper into America and Canada. I stopped here.”

  “Don’t take this the wrong way, Madame, but the costume, the séances, the …” Campbell was waving his hand around the room, “… stuff. Was this you back in Minsk, or is this new?”

  She smiled. “I know what you are asking, Detective Campbell. I am not trickster, and I am not gypsy like you see at the circus or at the movie show. I believe in what I do, it is real as anything in this world, or your world of facts and science and evidences.”

  “So last night Kaufman really was speaking with his wife?”

  “Yes, I called upon her, opened door for her; no, I became door for her to re-enter this world. She was here; I felt her presence.”

  Campbell thought he would roll with that for now and see where it took him. “What could they have been discussing that would make Kaufman want to throw himself out the window?”

  “I do not know. Like I told you, while they were communicating —”

  “I know, you were in a trance. Would you care to speculate, guess what it was t
hey might have been talking about?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  She smiled. “That isn’t facts.”

  “Right.” Campbell continued. “Mr. Kaufman had no family here and he lived alone, over in Ford City. I checked. His identification says that he was also born in Russia. His papers said Minsk. Did you know him in Minsk? Was he one of the party that escaped the city the same time you did?”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Do I need to ask the Yarmoloviches if they were also from that part of Russia?”

  “No, you do not have to ask. We all escaped Minsk together. We knew each other there.”

  “And Rose Kaufman?”

  “She did not survive.”

  Campbell looked up from his notepad. “It must have been terrible for you.”

  “Is this what you wanted to ask me about, detective? How we had to leave our homeland while foreigners fought over it?”

  “It helps me to understand.”

  “Kaufman and his wife were separated, in the street, while there was fighting. She and few others we travelled with were trapped in a building. We waited for them in a farmhouse outside of city, near where my people camped. I was working at a café, but I went back sometimes. We waited until we could wait no longer. A boy caught up with us as we were going to Lithuanian border. He told us what had happened. He was the only one from that building who survived. He watched Rose Kaufman die. Kaufman’s heart was broken. Ever since then he has wanted to speak to her, to say his farewell.”

  “Thank you for your time, and for the tea, Madame Zahra.”

  “I hope it was of help.”

  “If I have any other questions, I’ll contact you.”

  Campbell descended through the floor and pulled on his galoshes on the landing below. He knew one thing: he needed to brush up on his knowledge of the occult. He also needed to talk to the Yarmoloviches. And find an atlas.

  — Chapter 10 —

  BE CAREFUL WHO YOU TALK TO

  Shorty decided they should take a new approach and broaden their search. But in order to do that, they might have to tip their hand, talk to some people. It was a difficult decision and not all of the gang members were in agreement. Where they were in agreement was that they had to be careful. Say the wrong thing to the wrong person and it could be followed by any variety of trouble. They might get beaten to the prize, get brought down by the law — or even worse, this mythical Guard might find them out. The Guard were still the unknown variable, and the more talk there was about them, the tenser the situation became.

  According to the new plan, their first stop was going to be the pool hall formerly owned by the late Lieutenant Green, McCloskey’s old boss. The boys had an in: one of the partners in the revamped establishment happened to be Lapointe’s brother-in-law, Sephore “Seph” Reaume. The Reaume family had lived on the south shore of the Detroit River for almost two centuries. Their history was the Border Cities’ history. Farmers when they settled, they’d been contractors for the last couple of generations, helping turn some of those tired fields into factories and warehouses. Seph was the entrepreneur — local parlance for “bootlegger.” He also dabbled in a bit of smuggling, mostly out-going.

  Lapointe met Seph at the café in the Herendeen Hotel on the corner of Pitt and Goyeau, just a few doors from the pool hall. Seph was sitting in a stool at the counter, but when Lapointe arrived he suggested they take a booth, away from the rest of the patrons.

  “How’s this?” asked Seph, pointing to an unoccupied piece of real estate.

  “No, not in the window.”

  “All right.”

  They found a booth in a dark corner. As soon as the waitress touched down, Seph ordered them both the fryer’s latest triumph, a pork chop–stuffed French toast sandwich. He might only be working at a café, but the man had aspirations. He had discovered the dish on a recent trip to Chicago and thought it would suit the tastes of Border Citizens. It was becoming a minor rage. While they waited, Lapointe started trying to explain to Seph what it was he and his gang were up to, but he danced around a bit too much and his brother-in-law was swiftly growing impatient. Lapointe was at least able to pick up on that and arbitrarily threw in a few details.

  “Ah,” said Seph, connecting the dots, “I know what you’re talking about.”

  “You do?”

  Their plates arrived and they resumed talking once the waitress was a safe distance away.

  “Yeah, of course. That money and whatever else it was that belonged to that Richard Davies.”

  “Wha — how long have you known about it?”

  “I don’t know,” shrugged Seph, “since last summer, I guess,” and then he cut into his sandwich. He closed his eyes and took it in as if it was a fine French wine.

  Lapointe was a little taken aback. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  “We thought it got found, and whoever found it just kept quiet about it.” Seph gestured toward the door with his coffee mug. “Your boys think it’s still out there somewhere?”

  “We think we never heard anything because it never got found.” Lapointe shook his head and cut into his sandwich. “I still can’t believe you didn’t mention anything to me about it.”

  “It’s been months,” said Seph. “The trail’s cold.” He took another sip of his coffee. “Forget about it.”

  Lapointe looked over his shoulder and then leaned across the table until his chin was almost touching his brother-in-law’s plate. “We found something.” He was about to go off-script, and he knew it.

  Seph paused, mid-chew. “What?”

  “A key,” whispered Lapointe. “We found it on this guy — Jigsaw.”

  Seph swallowed what was in his mouth and almost choked. “He’s alive?”

  “No, no — dead, really dead. It’s a long story, but we pulled him out of the river.”

  Seph lowered his knife and fork. “You pulled him out of the river? Where?” He wiped his mouth with his napkin. “What the hell did you do that for?”

  Lapointe put his finger to his lips and made a “shh” sound. “Like I said, it’s a long story. I’ll save it for later.”

  Seph squinted at the chicken farmer. “You sure he’s dead?”

  Lapointe sat up. “Why do people keep saying that?” Now he had the sudden urge to drive back to where they dumped the body — or what was left of it — though he knew he could never find the place. It was somewhere near the intersection of Turkey Creek and Malden Road. “Of course he’s dead … I mean, you should have seen him.” Lapointe was shuddering at just the thought of Jigsaw’s gruesome remains.

  “All right,” said Seph, “a key. For what?”

  “That’s the thing — no one knows. All we know is that his fortune might still be out there, and this key is probably tied to it.”

  Seph was trying to make the leap. “How do you figure?”

  “It was hidden on Jigsaw — sewn right into his coat. It has to be something important, you know? So it has to be connected to Davies’s lost fortune. It could unlock a vault, or a chest, or —”

  “So who has it? McCloskey?”

  “No, one of the boys. I had to swear not to tell. We’re passing it between us.”

  “All right. So what is it you want from me?”

  “Maybe it’s for a lock somewhere in the pool hall.”

  “My pool hall?”

  “We’re going over every space, room, locale that Jigsaw had contact with.”

  Seph shook his head. “We renovated when we bought it last September. I saw it when it was stripped down to the studs. Trust me, there’s nothing in that place that will take any key you’ve got.”

  “And the tables?” Lapointe surprised even himself with that one.

  “They were stripped down, refitted, and refinished.”

  Lapointe sank in his seat and let his face get real long.

  It was Seph’s turn to ask the questions. “Where else have you looked?”

&
nbsp; “Well,” said Lapointe, slumped in his booth, playing with the crusts of his French toast, “Davies’s suite at the Prince Edward and his house in Riverside.”

  “So people know you’re poking around.”

  Lapointe perked up. “No, no, only you, Seph.”

  “Trust me, people know you’re poking around. You’re leaving tracks everywhere, and I’m not just talking about in the snow.” Seph pushed his empty plate aside. “Did the other boys ever tell you about the Guard?”

  Lapointe swallowed hard, and it didn’t go unnoticed.

  “So they did,” said Seph. “You can bet they’re already on to you and your boys.”

  “You mean they’re real?”

  “Would you want to wait until you were dead to find out if the Devil was real?” It was Seph’s turn to lean across the table. “I knew a guy who saw them right after Davies got killed. This guy was in a roadhouse, Chappell I think it was, enjoying a cold beer when these four guys came in, all in black, dark as shadows in the middle of a bright summer day. The room fell quiet and they just moved about, silently, like they were looking for someone. They found him all right, sitting alone in a corner, trying real hard not to get noticed. One of the Guard picked him up and then they all surrounded him and dragged him out. My buddy tried to stop them. One of the Guard turned to my buddy. All he saw was a glimmer in this Guard’s eye. It sent a chill through him and he froze. The Guard regrouped and hauled off their captive. But it was like they swallowed him up. My buddy and the other patrons gathered their courage and went to follow the Guard out the door, but they had to pause to let someone else come in. The man asked what was the matter and they told him, and do you know what he said?”

  “No, what?”