AHMM, April 2010

by Dell Magazine Authors

  They left him. None of them looked at the hat on his head.

  He found Orr putting the strongbox in a wall safe. The gangster shut the door, twisted the knob, and covered it with a print of St. Mark's Cathedral in Venice. He jumped when he turned and saw the lieutenant. “Jeez, you fellas are light on your heels. I thought you all had Four-F flat feet."

  "Relax, Little Caesar. If we wanted to shake you down, we'd just bust holes in the walls with sledges. It occurred to me you don't trust my boys not to go running to Jersey if you gave me the time and temperature in front of them."

  "I know you since the old days,” Orr said. “You hauled me downtown with ten cases of Old Log Cabin in the back seat. I offered you half a C-note, but it was no go. I got my cargo back, you got foot patrol for a month. You're a sucker cop, but a right ghee. You could take a certain bellyacher off my neck, but what'll you tell the others when you come back with a name?"

  "I'll say I taught you the cigarette trick."

  "Jersey'd laugh ‘em clear back to Detroit if they went to them with a story like that.” Orr gave him the Gable grin. “So how do you do it without bending the butt?"

  Zagreb shook his head. “Can't risk it, Frankie. You couldn't resist showing it off if Jersey asked, and there goes your cover. I can't have your blood on my hands."

  The grin shut down. “Serves me right for trusting a cop."

  The others were sitting in the unmarked black Chrysler with the windows down to let out the reek from Canal's cigar. The lieutenant got in beside Burke at the wheel and said, “Lyle Ugar. Drops a grand a month to his bookie on a dock foreman's pay."

  "What, no whitewalls?” McReary asked.

  * * * *

  They discussed using the California Hotel, the flea hatchery where the squad conducted unofficial interrogations, but since a street thug wasn't likely to squawk to the commission, they took him to the basement at l300—Detroit Police Headquarters—still wearing his coveralls, artfully smeared with grease in case his parole officer came to call. Ugar had gin blossoms on his nose and brass knuckles in his pocket.

  "My good luck charm,” he said.

  Canal tried them out on the prisoner's abdomen. Ugar spit up on Canal's shirt. The sergeant, mildly irritated, straightened him back out with his other fist.

  "Slow down.” Zagreb yawned. “You got a train to catch?"

  "I'm stuck with this shirt for the duration. My Chinaman charges double to scrub out puke.” But the big man took pity on Ugar and shoved him gently into a kitchen chair soaked deep with sweat and worse. The impact tilted the front legs off the floor. They hung for a second, then came back down with a bang.

  McReary was sitting on a stack of bulletproof vests left over from the Dillinger days, holding a wrinkled sheet of onionskin. Generations of mice had chewed holes in the vests and pulled out steel wool to snuggle their young. “Says here in your personnel record you were a pipe fitter on your last job. Take any pipes with you when you left?"

  "That's what this is about, pilfering from the job?” Ugar hugged his stomach. A violet knot marred the line of his underslung jaw. “Christ, I'll donate ‘em to the scrap drive."

  Canal placed one of his size sixteens against the foreman's chest and pushed. A building less solid would have shaken when chair and man struck the floor.

  Zagreb lit a cigarette, watched the smoke spiral toward racks of sports equipment untouched since December 1941. “What kind of music you listen to, Lyle?"

  "Wh-what?” Ugar's lungs were still trying to reinflate.

  "I like Bing Crosby. 'Wunderbar,' I but I don't guess we'll be hearing that one for a while. How about you fellas?"

  "Polka,” said Canal. “Oom-pah-pah."

  Burke said, “Pass. I'd rather hear the fights."

  "Kay Kyser,” McReary said.

  The other three groaned. Zagreb said, “See, we're making conversation. What do you think about this skinny kid has the little girls’ bobbysox rolling up and down, Sinatra?"

  "Never heard of him.” Ugar remained sitting in the chair with his back on the floor and the soles of his Red Wings showing. “I hocked my radio when the U-boats was taking down all our ships. My kid brother was on one."

  McReary showed Zagreb the personnel sheet. “No next of kin, says here,” Zagreb said. “It's dated July 1939."

  Canal bent over Ugar. Burke touched his arm. “Take five.” When the sergeant stepped aside, the detective reached down and lifted Ugar by the front of his coveralls. From the shrieking it seemed he had a fistful of chest hair.

  Zagreb said, “Burksie's favorite cousin went down aboard the Arizona. Maybe you were mistaken about that brother. I had an imaginary friend once. Bet it was yours you were thinking of."

  The prisoner, his face close enough to Burke's to scratch himself on stubble, made a sound that was not quite human.

  "What I thought.” The lieutenant nodded. “You probably took one on the noggin when you roughed up Reuther and Frankensteen at the overpass and haven't been right since. Go easy on him, Detective. He's a veteran of the labor wars."

  Burke released his grip, letting Ugar bark his ribs on the chair as he fell. The detective wiped his palm on his shirt. “Strikebreakers got cooties."

  "I don't think there's scientific proof,” Zagreb said. “This isn't the USO, Lyle. We wouldn't lay off you if you had a brother and he flew a plane up Hitler's ass. When you're not goldbricking on the loading dock or busting heads for Harry Bennett, you're pouring antifreeze on the horse feed at the fairgrounds for Frankie Orr. He passed you over for a juke route you thought was yours, so you decided to shake Sinatra down for case dough and incidentally tick off The Conductor and the people he answers to back East. Look at me when I'm talking to you, Lyle."

  Canal and Burke moved toward the man on the floor, but halted when the lieutenant held up a palm. Ugar rolled over onto his hands and knees and pushed himself grunting to his feet. Burke set the chair upright. The foreman hesitated, then sat with his hands on his thighs and his back inches away from the back of the chair. He was pouring sweat. “I don't get you. I wouldn't know Frankie Orr if he sat down next to me on the streetcar."

  Zagreb said, “If you know his history with streetcars, you know you're better off with us. We can let him handle it, if you like. If you don't know each other, we're wasting our time."

  Ugar paled beneath the broken blood vessels. “It ain't my lay. I'm strictly heavy lifting: Somebody says go here and screw up a guy, I go there and screw up a guy. I don't ask how come. The one time I went out and did something on my own, plotted out a juke route in neutral territory, they took it away and gave it to somebody else. I was sore, sure, and I guess I wasn't quiet about it, but that's as far as it went. I never took one on the noggin so hard I'd commit suicide."

  The lieutenant blew smoke at him and crushed out the butt on a floor strewn with them like fall leaves. “This one needs more tenderizing, Sergeant. He's still too tough to chew."

  "And us fresh out of red points.” Canal, in shirtsleeves with the cuffs rolled back, dark half-moons under his armpits, squeezed his sausage fingers into the brass knuckles and flexed them. “Face or body?"

  Zagreb told him to surprise him.

  * * * *

  They dumped Ugar in third-floor holding and convened in the toilet, all booming marble with white pedestal sinks and urinals a man could stand in. Canal soaked his swollen knuckles in cold water and splashed it on his face. “I'm getting rheumatism. If this was the military they'd put me in for a Purple Heart."

  "Ugar made me mad when he sucker punched you with his nose,” Burke said. “I almost took a hand, but it was your ball."

  McReary adjusted his hat in the mirror. “I don't think he made those calls. He's too dumb to dial a phone."

  "The dumb ones and the smart ones are the hardest to crack,” said Zagreb. “He's a thousand miles from smart, but he's not dumb enough to clam up and swallow medicine he doesn't have coming. He's been on the other end of plenty of beati
ngs. He knows how many things can go wrong."

  "With him, maybe. I'm an artist.” Canal smoothed back his hair, thick as the Black Forest. He caught McReary looking at it and grinned; winked at him. The detective looked away. “He'll come around soon. Maybe he'll be smarter for the experience."

  "Spring him.” Zagreb pushed away from the wall. “Mac, stop primping and run down to the stand and pick us up some copiesof Good Housekeeping. Looks like we're babysitters after all."

  * * * *

  "He's here,” McReary said, first thing inside the squad room door. “In the lobby."

  "Who's here? Tojo?” Zagreb scratched his OK on an arrest sheet and spindled it atop a tall pile. They'd had a busy two weeks separating Polacks from hillbillies in beergardens; security in the defense plants was tight, so their basic differences boiled over after the whistle. It was beneath the Racket Squad's dignity, but it was either that or go back to spying on the Bund, and the weather was getting too nippy for beach detail.

  "Sinatra, who else? And he brought armored support."

  Minutes later, the elevator outside gushed to a pneumatic stop and the squad room door opened at the end of a long arm in a heavy-duty coatsleeve. The coat was as big as they came off the rack, but a novelty-size safety pin had been added to close it in front. The man was as big as Canal, with so much scar tissue on his face it looked like a bunch of balloons. No hat; a barber's enamel basin wouldn't have covered that head. He darted a pair of tiny, close-set eyes about the room and grunted.

  The man who came in past him was a third as wide and a head shorter, but taller than he looked in newsreels. His suit was sharply cut, with extra-wide lapels, and he wore a narrow-brimmed hat cocked just over his right eyebrow. A floppy polka-dot bow tie accentuated his slender neck. He stopped and looked around.

  "Holy moly, it looks like The Frame-Up. I thought you boys would've redecorated after the St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

  Canal said, “That's Chicago. The Purple Gang ran Capone out of Detroit on his fat ass."

  "Just kidding, Dumbo. Who runs this zoo?"

  "That'd be me,” Zagreb said, “and I caution you not to poke the elephant. We call him Canal. He's in charge of the reptile house when I'm out. The gorilla's Detective Burke. I don't know what kind of animal Detective McReary is, but he bites."

  The big man in the tight coat gathered the balloons on his face in a smirk. “When's the last time you shoveled out his cage?"

  "We lost the shovel. Your face free?"

  The balloons settled. The bodyguard lumbered forward. Canal stepped in between them. “He's out of your weight class."

  They were squaring off when the thin man in the sharp suit spun and stamped his heel on the bodyguard's instep. When he howled and bent to cradle his foot, the thin man seized his lapels and brought his face to within an inch of the big man's. “You're a guest here. Tell them you're sorry."

  A sagging lower lip twitched twice before anything came out past it. “I beg your pardon."

  The thin man let go, shoving him away in the same motion. He produced a fold of bills, removed a gold clip, and stuffed them into the bodyguard's handkerchief pocket. “You're fired, Clyde. The first string just clocked in."

  The big man went out, limping slightly. The thin man tugged down his coat and shot his cuffs. “Sorry for the scene, gents. A joke's only a joke when you're breaking the ice."

  McReary coughed, interrupting a short, embarrassed silence. Zagreb looked toward the door. In another moment he was alone with the thin man. He held out a pack of cigarettes. The other shook his head, indicating his throat. “Not before a concert."

  The lieutenant took one and used his Zippo. “Why Clyde? His name's Laverne."

  "I call everyone Clyde I don't like.” The thin face smiled warily. “On the square, Laverne? No wonder he got so big."

  "Is Frankie okay? We don't exactly dress for dinner here."

  "I prefer Frank."

  "I'm Max.” They shook hands; Sinatra's bony grip tried a little too hard. “Frank, next time you cast a play out of town, don't hire locals. Laverne's a palooka. He went into the tank so many times he grew gills."

  Sinatra flushed deeply. “Do the others know?"

  "Canal dropped two weeks’ pay on him in the Carnera fight."

  "I wanted to make an impression."

  "We don't need impressing, Frank. You're our assignment."

  "Max, you ever been to Hoboken?"

  "I never even heard of the place till you came along."

  "When you get in a jam on the street, the only way to avoid a beating is to pick the biggest, ugliest cretin in the crowd and hit him hard as you can; the rest will leave you alone. Well, I was the runt of the litter. Paying him to take a fall was cheaper than dental work."

  "He didn't always pull his punch. That's quite a scar."

  Sinatra traced it with a finger, a long vertical crease down his left cheek. “Doctor's forceps. He didn't stand on ceremony when he delivered me. I was born dead, you know."

  Zagreb searched the narrow face for humor, found none. “I didn't, but I'd like to."

  "I'll make you a deal: You square me with the rest of the squad, and I'll tell you the whole story."

  * * * *

  Burke sneered, but Canal appreciated the idea. “Stomping a tame pug so you don't get stomped yourself makes plenty of sense to me. It beats starting a fight in a beergarden so we don't have to bust up a riot later, which is what we do all the time. Next Saturday, let's draw from petty cash and pay some Four-F slacker to take the fall."

  Zagreb said, “Have another snort, Sergeant. You haven't spilled all our trade secrets yet."

  Sinatra said, “Not on my account. I just look wet behind the ears. Things aren't any different where I'm from."

  They'd left 1300, with ears built in every wall, for the relative privacy of the Lafayette Bar, whose noisy program of Greek music and dancing didn't start until after dark. Zagreb had a beer, Burke and Canal bourbon; McReary, a teetotaler, sipped Coke through a straw. When Sinatra asked for Four Roses, Canal said, “It's on us, Caruso. You don't have to drink piss just ‘cause it's cheap."

  "I'm not much for booze. It's all the same to me."

  "Well, I can't stand looking at a dog dragging a busted leg or a grown man drinking Four Roses. Jack on the rocks,” he called to the bartender.

  McReary, who wanted to be sergeant someday, got back to business. “Tell us about these threatening calls."

  "I wish my manager never found out about them. He wouldn't have if my wife hadn't answered one and got upset. There's a heckler in every audience; usually it's some bum whose girl thinks I sing pretty."

  Burke said, “That's what I said."

  "How many calls there been?” Zagreb asked.

  "Two at home. One in Atlantic City, another up in the Catskills, couple in Philly. He must collect phone books."

  "Determined-sounding bum,” said Zagreb. “Recognize the voice?"

  "If I did, we wouldn't be talking. It sounded whispery, but I don't think he was trying to disguise it. Maybe someone hit him in the throat once and that's where he got the idea."

  "Any accent?"

  Sinatra gave the lieutenant a bitter, tight-lipped smile. “You mean was he a wop?"

  "Not all of you have the gift of music."

  "Some of us are barbers."

  McReary changed the subject. “What's he say?"

  "'Gimme five G's or I'll windpipe you with a lead pipe.’”

  Zagreb said, “A poet. He say where to send the money?"

  "I hang up first.” He sipped from his glass. “Say, this stuff's not bad."

  Canal grunted. “World's full of good hooch. Life's short."

  "Next time don't hang up,” said Zagreb. “If we nab him at the drop, we won't have to pick him out of a crowd."

  "If it was that easy, I'd nab him myself."

  "No, you wouldn't,” Burke said. “He wouldn't stand still and let you step on his foot."

&nbs
p; "Clyde, you're getting on my nerves."

  "How come you ain't in uniform, by the bye? Too puny?"

  "Punctured eardrum. What's your excuse?"

  "Essential service,” Zagreb put in. “Isn't a singer with a bum ear like a dancer with a wooden leg?"

  "If I'm twice as good as what I hear, I'll go all the way."

  The lieutenant studied him, a blue-eyed, cocky-looking youngster with his hat on the back of his head and famous tousle of hair falling over his forehead. He thought he might like him more if he liked himself less. “Can you lay hands on five grand?"

  "I could have my manager wire it to me, but why should I pay this creep?"

  Zagreb asked if he'd ever heard of a guy named Joe E. Lewis.

  "Comic. He opened for me in the Catskills. He's got a voice like a cement mixer, but it's not the one I hear on the phone, if that's what you're thinking."

  "It isn't. Lewis was a singer on his way up when he got on the wrong side of some thugs in Chicago. They cut his throat and now he tells jokes for a living. You're not that funny."

  * * * *

  Sinatra was registered at the Book Cadillac Hotel. Zagreb went up with him to his suite and stationed Canal in the hallway and Burke in the lobby. McReary got the switchboard. The supervising operator, a gum chewer with rhinestone glasses, liked his looks enough not to give him any trouble about listening in on calls placed to the suite. They had four hours until the curtain went up at the Fisher.

  The call came in with thirty minutes to spare. McReary motioned for the earphones and held one up to the side of his head. He didn't want to take off his hat and disappoint the girl.

  "Hello?"

  "Frankie! How's the voice?” It was a harsh whisper. The detective had to press the phone hard to his ear to make out the words. “We can deal or you can pound rivets at Lockheed."

  "I don't think I'd be good at it.” Sinatra sounded tense.

  "Got the cash?"

  "I got it. Where you want to meet?"

  "Knew you'd come around. See you after the show."

  "You're in Detroit?"

  There was a click and a dial tone. Zagreb came on the line. “Make him?"

  "Nah, he doesn't sound like any of our squeezeboxes."