“I do not doubt,” said the old man, “that you have heard it said many times, from your city fathers, from politicians, that we ought to welcome the Negro race with open arms. Welcome them into our factories and even into our homes.”
My feet were never clever, and now they scraped along the plank floor like carcasses being dragged. Many in the room turned to stare at me, as if the one thing they couldn’t bear was rudeness. Rix rose from his chair and broke into an ugly smile as he recognized me.
“Never!” shouted the old man. “Not while I live and breathe!”
I stumbled forward to Alex’s bench and reached to gather the boy’s shirt over his chest. I pulled hard and dragged Alex from his seat, dragged him struggling toward the side wall and back toward the big doors.
“What’s this? What’s this, brother?” The old man whacked his cane down on the table twice. “Do I not speak the truth?”
At the old man’s words, the men at the back closed up the opening before the doors and surged forward to surround us. I could feel hands on me.
“Leave him go! Leave him go!” The old man whacked his cane again. “He can turn his back on us now, but he knows in his deepest heart that there is no place safe for him to call home. When he looks in the mirror, he’ll see a coward staring back at him every day of his life.”
They could have pulled me to pieces, but the old man’s voice held them from it. The crowd at the doors didn’t loosen up, so I bulled right through, still with an iron grip on Alex’s shirt. The boy held tight to my forearm to keep the shirt collar from digging into his neck and armpits, and his sneakers pattered over the floor as we went.
I broke through the gang and sucked in a chestful of cooler air, shaking. I stood Alex up and took a grip on his upper arm, which was growing harder but was still scrawny enough for my hand to wrap all the way around. We left a trail of yokels as we made for the car, and I kept my ears open for the heavy foot of Rix. Alex would not meet my glare, so I yanked the boy along with me to my car and hoped I had done the right thing.
CHAPTER 11
Thursday, June 17
I had managed to grab three hours of jaw-grinding sleep, but I felt worse than bone-tired. If I had not slept at all, I would have been dry and tired, bitter and narrow-eyed. The little bit of sleep had left my body sluggish, still clutching at slumber. There was a delay in my reaction to what I saw. My breathing was slow and deep and regular, and I felt my prick getting stiff from rubbing inside my trousers, like it might do in the middle of the night. I shouldn’t be driving, I knew, but there was no longer any choice.
I had not been ready for the scene with Alex and Eileen. Going in, I thought I was sure of myself and my position, but I could not find the words to convince Alex of any of it. Tommy could have found words, I was sure. Even if Tommy couldn’t have moved the boy on moral grounds, he would have shown somehow that the cagey move, the smart move, was to stay clear of Rix and that gang. Tommy could have made the boy see the profit in it for himself. I wondered if it was a natural gift or if it had to do with Tommy’s years in college. Was a college education a way to find the language to sway people over to your point of view? Our father seemed to think so. Fred Caudill was sure that Tommy would wind up as a mayor or senator or some kind of big shooter. I guessed that he might even have approved of Tommy’s enlistment as a way of gaining the stature necessary for that kind of public sway.
I had the bulk to move people to my way of thinking—as long as I was in the room. After an hour of shouting and silence and a mother’s crying, I had seen the softening of Alex’s face and his posture. The boy kissed his mother before he went to wash up for bed. But I knew that things had not changed. Alex was smart enough to lay back and deflect the heat till it died down. And that was the sense of it for me. More hurt would have to come before the whole issue could be laid to rest. Without the gift of real persuasion, I could not hope to make a lasting change in his view of things. So, after my night of grinding and not sleeping, I decided that my best move would be to try to fight the problem at the root instead of messing with the boy.
Since everything seemed to revolve around “the Colonel,” as Rix had introduced him, it looked like I had tipped too much of my own hand by pulling Alex out of the meeting. Rix would be looking out for me now, or maybe coming after me, and all the strange faces at the barn would be able to spot my one-eyed face anywhere. It was like I had stepped into the light. Because of the eye patch, people wanted to keep from looking right at me, and that’s usually how I played it. Now, at least as far as the dirty business went—and it seemed to go everywhere—I was front and center. I had an idea that I might be able to muscle Hardiman with the pictures, but to tell the truth, I didn’t feel smart enough or like I had a strong enough handle on it yet. What I wanted was time and peace to think things over. I wanted to be left alone. It was because I couldn’t let things alone that I was in all the mess.
Since I couldn’t think of anything else, and since, playing like a detective, I figured that all the aspects of the case might be important, I decided to check out Bobby’s little syrup racket as a way of wrapping up any leads. It was a part of the mess I could maybe clean up and put away. Though I couldn’t see how the ridiculous little syrup business might tie into it all, a hunch told me that there might be some odd connection to the Black Legion there, too. Bobby had told me that the beet sugar had come from up near Mio, and I knew well that there were any number of country places north of Detroit where groups of hateful rednecks liked to gather and stew their grievances together. My mouth had a bad taste like metal from all the talking I had done the night before, and I had a thought that a little sugar might sweeten things.
Bobby’s crazy driving had confused me about where the building was exactly. I rifled Bobby’s desk at headquarters until I found the address in some of his papers. Then I picked up Walker and Johnson and we drove westward, past the alley where Bobby was killed, south along a dirt road following the railroad tracks, and up to the address. The corner of the building that Bobby rented looked like it was unused. The windows were papered over from the inside. The door was padlocked, so I sent Johnson for the crowbar in the trunk. I was about to twist off the lock when Walker hollered from the side that the alley door had been broken in.
I went through and turned on the lights. It didn’t seem as if any of the Polack ladies had been in for some time.
“This is quite an operation,” said Johnson.
“Well,” I said, “this ain’t the high-rent district.”
The place had been tossed, but gently. Papers were scattered over a table making duty as a desk, and Johnson began to shuffle through them. Walker, his hands clasped behind him, stepped gently throughout the room. On the wall nearest the alley, several gallon tins of syrup stood stacked near the door. Along the opposite wall lay the heavy sacks of sugar, untouched except for the rat-nibbled holes along the bottom row. I moved closer to inspect them. There was no inscription or indication of their origin. It was the same with the tins of syrup, though they had handwritten labels showing their flavors. Sensibly enough, I thought. It wouldn’t do for black market sugar to holler out a howdy-do. The folks in Washington seemed to be taking the war pretty seriously. Anyway, I thought, it was clear enough where the sugar and syrup were going, to Pops Brunell and into his soda drinks. And Pops would be easy enough to find.
Johnson gathered all the papers and boxed them up, but I knew it was useless to search through them. What interested me was the source of the sugar, the supplier. I guessed that the search of the place had been made to ensure that Bobby had left no way to trace the source, and this piqued my interest. It was not surprising that black marketeers should lurk in the shadows, and it was common knowledge that Bobby had been killed. So anybody with a muddy hand in it might have come over to throw the joint. It didn’t need to be anyone mixed up in all the rest of the mess; maybe there was no connection at all. The truth of it, though, was that the whole deal smelled odd to
me. Bobby was a hustler and a hard worker, I knew, but still I wondered how Bobby could ever set up an ongoing deal to obtain rationed sugar in such quantities, and at a price—sure to be at a premium on the black market—that would allow a decent markup. Pops Brunell couldn’t very well charge an arm and a leg for his juice in the part of town he did business in. I wanted to sniff the air for some confirmation that the sugar was indeed connected to the Legion and to all the rest of it, but my senses were dull.
After Johnson filled a crate with everything that could be connected with Bobby, he and Walker carried it to the car and tossed it in the trunk. I stepped into the alley and gathered my bearings. Had I come to the time in my life when my brain was so full up that I had started emptying out what I had known? Of course I knew the area, of course I remembered now; there was a pretty good butcher on the next street over, so I walked down the alley and called him out.
“Listen,” I said, flipping up my lapel to show my shield, “there’s a pretty pile of sugar down in there, never mind where it came from. If you think you can use it, go down and take a couple sacks. Just a couple, hear me? But don’t keep them out in the open for now. I’m about to call the rationing board, have them come over for a look-see.”
The butcher was a little DP, and he looked me over with his head tilted to one side.
“I use little sugar in my trade,” he said. His English was good but he spoke with a thudding accent.
“You don’t want it?”
“It would be wrong for me to accept such a thing,” he said.
“You can’t take a sack home for your wife?” With all the problems I had, and all the worries I was trying to sort out, the little man’s attitude struck me funny. To top it, he was looking at me like he knew me, like he expected me to recognize him as well.
“You mean to tell me that you won’t take a sack home for your wife?” I said. “You don’t think that would be fine?”
“I am simply unable to accept such a thing,” he said. “I am unable.”
He was half my size. He stood with his hands clasped politely behind his back, and he had me rooted to the spot. I couldn’t very well smack him down, though the idea worked through my mind.
“Well,” I said finally. “If that’s your position.”
“Yes,” he said. He seemed gravely disappointed that I could not muster a more proper attitude.
“Go on, then,” I said. “I guess it’s all wasted.”
“I’m sorry,” he said. “Good day. Good luck to you, after all.”
He walked with a quick step back to his toil, and I watched him go with some regret. I wouldn’t have cared overmuch about the illegal sugar, even without the present mess taking up all my attention. I had offered him the sugar because I knew how it was: A leg up in tough times could make all the difference, and I knew that he worked hard for his money. It wasn’t costing me anything. But he wouldn’t play along with it. By the time the rationing boys were through, the rest of the sugar would be parceled out to a hundred cronies as presents for their wives or as bribes to other wartime agencies. Though I wasn’t altogether fussy about following rules, it made me sick to think that a solid, weighty piece of something could just disappear like smoke into the petty rot of bureaucracy. The rationing boys would come in and kick up dust to show that they were earning their pay, and nothing much would come of it. When I talked to Brunell, I would make it clear that I had no concern for the laws involved, and perhaps that would be enough to loosen his tongue.
By the time I made it back down the alley, Johnson and Walker had slipped into the car, Walker in the backseat. As I approached, I noticed Johnson’s wild look and curt gesturing. I turned my head and looked up the street. I saw a big Lloyd Cruiser full of hard guys standing half a block down. The windows were smoked. I stared at the auto, and it began to creep along the curb toward me.
“What’ll we do?” said Johnson. “Call it in?”
“Sit tight for now. You’ll know real trouble when it hits you in the back of the head.” I stepped to the front of the car and waited for the Cruiser to approach. I could see only the driver clearly in the bright light of late morning. I heard Walker sliding across the backseat, heard the door latch open quietly.
“Hey, mister, did you get your eye shot out in the war?”
I turned to the young boy at the curb, who stood pointing his stubby finger at the black patch.
“Don’t get fresh, kid.” I saw that the black car was almost upon me. “Beat it.”
“Was it Jerry or the Japs?”
I slowly pulled up the bad hand and drew back my jacket enough to give the kid a glimpse of the shoulder rig and the butt of my revolver. The kid’s eyes sharpened, and I wondered if it was the sight of the gun or the mangled hand. “I said beat it, kid.”
The boy stared blankly for a moment and then skipped away down the street. He ran a few steps, stopped to pick up a bottle cap, and turned off across an empty lot.
I turned my attention now to the Cruiser, which had stopped opposite my unmarked car. I sensed that Walker had slipped out of the car and now stood just behind the rear bumper. Because the driver of the Cruiser had let his window down, I could see the young thick-neck’s disinterested face drooping forward. The darkened rear window lowered slowly, and a haggard face came into view.
“Pete Caudill?”
I said nothing.
“I guess it couldn’t be anyone else with that kind of mug,” said the haggard man. “Frank Carter. I work for Jasper Lloyd.”
I had recognized him the instant his deep-set eyes came into view. Frank Carter, Lloyd’s head beef-handler, once chief of security for all of Lloyd Motors, and now reduced to running errands and providing personal security for the Old Man.
“Mr. Lloyd has asked me to bring you to him, if you’ll come.”
Still I said nothing, and there was a stiff silence all around.
“Will you—” Carter broke off in a fit of coughing.
I turned away and leaned in to speak in a low voice to Johnson. “You take the stuff, you stash it somewhere funny, right? And keep an eye out for anybody following you. I’ll leave word at the station for you later.” I tossed the keys to Johnson. “And call the rationing boys over here, will you, before the whole neighborhood cleans the place out.”
Johnson nodded and slid across the seat. “Is it all right?” he asked.
“Don’t get weepy, Johnson. Just do what I told you.”
I walked toward the black car, then stopped. I turned and gave Walker a little nod, then climbed into the luxurious sedan, my stomach gurgling, wondering how long it would be before I could eat a little something.
* * *
I had an idea how it was. Jasper Lloyd’s yacht was the biggest on the Detroit River—but that wouldn’t last. There had been a sort of gentlemen’s agreement about the pecking order among the auto barons, and none of the pirates had built a yacht larger than Lloyd’s. But as the Old Man was in decline, and as the company was floundering under the management of Lloyd’s young nephew, it was inevitable that soon the mantle would pass. Another monstrosity would roll down the dirty river and settle into a berth at the Belle Isle Yacht Club or the Grosse Pointe Yacht Club, and Lloyd would settle into oblivion. The Old Man, who had begun his life over eighty years ago, when much of the area was still farmland and undeveloped acreage, would go to dust like any other man.
The gateman at the Belle Isle Yacht Club began waving us through as soon as he saw the big Cruiser turn into the drive. Carter led me out onto the long pier, which had been specially built to accommodate Lloyd’s yacht. We climbed onto the yacht, and I followed Carter up the stairs to the big deck up front. A colored boy in a neatly pressed white jacket brought iced tea. Carter’s men stood and loosened their ties in the sun while I looked for a place to set my glass. I took in the skyline of Detroit across the bow and let my eye come down to the Belle Isle Bridge, far enough from the Yacht Club to separate the riffraff from the upper crust. The b
ridge was clogged with people heading onto the island, trying to escape the heat. Nothing much was doing at the rubber factory or at the naval yard at the land end of the bridge. I thought idly that it might be nice to have a place like this, a place where you could step back and take a look at the city from a little distance, separated by water like a moat.
I pulled a long draught from the tea and found that it went a long way to easing the discomfort in my belly. Carter and his men had not tried to take my revolver. If I was another kind of man, I might have been insulted that they weren’t worried about me getting rough. Not a word had been spoken since they picked me up in the street. I sat next to Carter during the trip, hoping that whatever it was the old man kept coughing up into his handkerchief wasn’t contagious.
“When I was a boy, Mr. Caudill, cows used to graze over much of what you see here.”
I turned and was surprised to find Lloyd standing next to me. The tiny man had crept up without sound.
“It seems I can remember what happened long ago more clearly than what happened yesterday. Age does that to you, I’m told.” Lloyd brushed a thumb to smooth the lower edges of his long mustaches. “As I remember it, the colors and the odors were sharper than they are now. Horse and buggy days, they were. Things were slower. For a man with a little initiative, it was easier to get ahead. And now…” He drifted off.
“Old age makes you soft,” I said.
“Soft! I should be able to afford to go soft now, after all of it.” He stared out over the rail and worked a little spit over his thin lips. “I suppose the old days are gone forever, and it wouldn’t quite be manly to mourn their passing. The good Lord knows I’ve seen my share of barbarous custom pass into disfavor. But I do regret the passing of the mannerly way. It was a mark of civility in my day to share a drink and a cigar with a business associate, to start out as men before talking about money. You couldn’t say that we were innocent. We knew well that every man in the business world tries to gain his advantage however he can. He tries to gather something for himself and his family, and a simple application of arithmetic made it clear that profit and gain for one must mean loss for another; but we always took care to nurture our measure of social grace like a kind of gift. These days, though, the rush of commerce sweeps us along. Right down to business without so much as a kind greeting to ease into things. I like to get to know a man before I really talk to him, Caudill.”
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