Jitterbug

by Loren D. Estleman

  “What you going to study?”

  He started. “What?”

  When she smiled with her lips closed she looked just like Lena Horne. “You said you was putting money aside to go to school. What kind of classes?”

  “Mechanics.”

  “I thought you didn’t want to work with your hands.”

  “Not forever. I want to own my own garage, pay other people to work with their hands for me. But that don’t figure to happen right away. Even Henry Ford didn’t start out in a white shirt.”

  “No, He just started out white.”

  He looked at her.

  “I don’t mean to shoot you down,” she said. “It’s just all anyone in this town ever talks about is Henry Ford, Henry Ford, Henry Ford, like he’s God. All he done was build himself up from flat ground. When you’re colored, you start in a hole.”

  He thought about that. “At least I ain’t digging it any deeper since I come up here. That’s a step in the right direction.”

  “I love you, Dwight.” She laid her head on his shoulder. “You’re the best brother.”

  When they got back to the table, Earl had ordered another round. His glass was already half-empty.

  “Let’s go to the Casanova,” he said. “This spick music’s giving me the Tijuana trots.” His speech was slurring.

  Dwight said, “I’m hitting the head. Then I think we better go home.”

  “Whassamatter, you don’t wanna miss Lum and Abner?”

  Dwight went down the corridor. His bladder was close to bursting.

  There was a short wait for a urinal. When one opened up he stepped toward it. The man standing next to it turned away, zipped up, and put a hand against Dwight s chest. “That one’s busted, boy.”

  He looked up into the man’s beefy, flushed face. He wore his hair long and greasy to his collar and he had an old triangular scar on his left cheek that might have been made by someone’s ring. He smelled as if he’d been soaking in a tubful of beer.

  Dwight said, “It ain’t busted. I just seen somebody using it.”

  “You like looking at white men’s peckers?”

  Dwight backed away from the man’s hand and walked around him. When a hand grabbed his shoulder and started to turn him he turned into it and swung his right fist up from the floor. He felt the jolt all the way to his shoulder when he connected with flesh and bone. Something struck him from behind then, a sharp blow to a kidney, and his bladder let go. When he turned that direction, a black light burst in his head. He tried to stay on his feet, but someone pushed him and someone else tripped him and he felt himself going down, with things striking him from all sides. He tried to get up, but a blow to the back of his neck flattened him. He was being kicked now. He curled himself into a tight ball. The harsh lemony disinfectant on the floor and the stench of his own urine burned his nostrils. His ears roared. Kicking and kicking, grunts behind the kicking. Something gave way with a snap and more kicking. The door swung open, drifted shut slowly against a percussive wave of frantic Latin music from the stage, clacking castanets and brumping brass, maracas rattling like shattered bones. He was wading in black water, he kept losing the bottom and ducking under. The burning in his nostrils increased, as if they were filling with water, but he knew it was blood. For a while he tried to stay above the surface. Then he gave up and let himself go. No one could hit you when you were underwater.

  He awoke in the ambulance, the siren screaming in his ears, but the shock of the pain and the rhythm of movement made him dip back under. The pain woke him again when they were rolling him up a ramp, and again when he was being washed. He was aware of being bumped through a pair of swinging doors, of a sharp wave sweeping the length of his body as he was lifted from gurney to bed, details that afterward he wasn’t sure he hadn’t dreamt. He came to full consciousness aching all over and hearing Earl’s voice, close but muffled behind a gauze curtain hung from rings on the portable rail surrounding the bed: “I don’t see why we can’t take him home, if nothings busted.”

  “Listen to the doctor, hon.” This was Elizabeth.

  “He has two cracked ribs and a concussion.” This was a new voice: male, white, tired. “Closed head injuries are tricky. I’ve seen men sustain beatings far less severe, go to bed with nothing more than a slight headache, sometimes not even that, and in the morning they’re dead. We need to hold him overnight.”

  “Sure you ain’t just trying to up the ante? Ford don’t cover this.”

  “Earl! I’m sorry, Doctor. He’s drunk.”

  “This is Detroit General. We don’t have to fill beds on a Saturday night. Your brother’s the eleventh brawl victim brought in here since I came on at eight. I’m told that’s some kind of a record since they repealed Prohibition. All but two of them were colored.”

  “What’s going on?” Elizabeth asked.

  “I don’t know. The other night I heard Edward R. Murrow saying the London Home Guard has Airedales that whimper when they hear enemy bombers approaching—gives them an extra second or two to activate the air-raid sirens. After a few months in the emergency room you get to be like one of those dogs. All the time I was getting ready for my shift I had a feeling this was going to be a long weekend.”

  chapter thirty

  MAX ZAGREB WAS FEELING more like the youngest lieutenant in the Detroit Police Department than he had for some time.

  The sea of uniforms that greeted him when he entered the briefing room represented the largest assembly of street patrolmen gathered at 1300 since war was declared. The median age was forty-five. The youngest reserve on hand was almost forty, and there was at least one sixty-year-old in attendance who had been called out of retirement to free a desk cop to fill a vacancy left on foot patrol by an officer currently serving with Halsey. The sheer number of gray heads made Zagreb feel positively adolescent. It both amused and alarmed him to think that there were men present who had walked the beat in the domed helmets and handlebar moustaches of the Edwardian era.

  “Looks like a D.A.R. meeting,” McReary said.

  Burke said, “You’ll get there soon enough, Jackie Cooper.”

  Zagreb told them to shut up. He drummed his fingers on the cardboard file he held.

  The four detectives stood at the bottom of the basement stairwell, waiting for Obolensky, the turnout sergeant, to finish his opening remarks to the officers fidgeting on their creaky folding chairs. The subterranean room smelled strongly of mildew and chicory coffee, heavily adulterated with the harsh root because of rationing. It was 6:10 A.M. Sunday, June 20; ten minutes earlier, a hand grenade dropped in the vicinity of the huge medieval-looking electric coffee urn on the yellow pine table at the back of the room would have wiped out the department’s uniform division. A blue fog of cigarette smoke clung to the exposed pipes and bundles of electric wire between the ceiling joists.

  Obolensky confined himself in his parade-ground yell to the dates and major details of the murders committed by Kilroy between the final week of May 1943, when it was believed Ernest Sullivan was slain and his body pushed into the river, and last Tuesday, when Florence Kitchen, sixty-four, of Dearborn, and Edgar Goss, forty-nine, a security guard employed ten years at J. L. Hudson’s, were killed in the department store in the presence of approximately forty shoppers and employees. Then he introduced Zagreb, who came forward and spread open his file folder atop the podium.

  “Kilroy has been identified,” he said. “Teletype received from the FBI yesterday afternoon matched prints found on the briefcase and bayonet scabbard he left behind at Hudson’s to Ladislaus Ziska, born 4-20-1918 in Ypsilanti. Don’t bother trying to spell the name, it’s on the sheet Sergeant Canal is handing out.” The big plainclothesman was making his way down one side of the room with a stack of mimeographed pages. “Father Wenceslaus Ziska, Bohemian, naturalized citizen, served in the AEF during the First World War, present whereabouts unknown. Divorce decree issued in absentia by Washtenaw County on grounds of desertion 12-7-31. Mother deceas
ed 8-30-39 of trauma to the trachea caused by strangulation, possibly at the hands of a fellow patient, although her son was questioned by the Ypsilanti police and released for lack of evidence. Case remains open.

  “On 12-8-41, Ziska attempted to join the army, but was rejected for mental instability. At that time he was living in a furnished room on Mount Elliott. He left it a month later without leaving a forwarding address.” Zagreb had apologized to the young woman who was living there now, a ball-bearing inspector at the Hudson naval gun factory in Centerline, for knocking her down when she opened the door to clear the field of fire in case Ziska tried to go out a window. “He has a 1937 Nash sedan registered in his name at the old address. Medium gray, Michigan license John Thomas six eight two nine.”

  All this was on the sheet, but Zagreb was pleased to see most of the officers recording the information in pocket notebooks. Mimeos got lost all the time, while piles of shabby spiral pads, scribbled all over with doodles on the covers, were always turning up among their personal effects when they died or were killed in the line of duty. They never threw them away. He was one brass hat who placed a knowledge of shorthand ahead of marksmanship in his evaluation of the rank and file.

  “From age eleven to fourteen, Ziska was raised in a succession of foster homes, in only one of which his residency exceeded six months. In 1932 he was convicted of arson after his sixth and final foster home burned to the ground, injuring both his legal guardians, Rudolf and Esther Muenster. Mrs. Muenster died of complications following a sixteenth skin graft one year and one day after the fire; twenty-four hours earlier and a charge of murder would have been brought against Ziska. Upon his release from the Monroe County juvenile facility in 1936, he petitioned for the return of a U.S. Army bayonet, serial number nine three seven six one four Edward, dated 1916, which he claimed had belonged to his father. His petition was granted. We believe this is the weapon used by Ziska in five murders.” He turned the page.

  “Ladislaus Ziska is twenty-five years old, brown hair and eyes, five-ten-and-a-half, a hundred and sixty, no scars or other distinguishing marks. One female eyewitness in Hudson’s has remarked upon his resemblance to the actor Robert Taylor.”

  This brought the first laugh of the morning. “No photos are available, since the juvenile authorities don’t take mug shots. We have a police sketch of the suspect based on the eyewitness’s description, copies of which Sergeant Obolensky will hand out at the end of this briefing.” He held it up.

  “Psychiatric report filed at the time of Ziska’s rejection for military service reads as follows: ‘paranoid schizophrenia with persecutory patterns and delusions of grandeur.’ In layman’s terms, a nut.” More laughter. “Not a joke, gentlemen. It means he doesn’t scare. Up until Hudson’s his victims were all elderly and frail, not the type to put up much of a fight. They now include an armed professional security guard in his forties and healthy. The very fact that he would extend his activities to a busy downtown department store in broad daylight indicates he has no fear of being captured or killed. Ziska likes to dress up as a soldier. Soldiers are trained to be prepared to die for their oath. Just like police officers.”

  He was no longer reading from his prepared statement. He paused to let the last comment sink in, then pronounced the three words that no lieutenant of the Detroit Police Department had used since the demise of the Purple Gang:

  “Shoot to kill.”

  The press conference was set up in the ornate mosaic lobby of the City Hall, and briefly attended by Commissioner Witherspoon, who stayed long enough to have his picture taken with the officials involved, then breezed on out before the first question was hurled. Inspector Brandon, still glistening from a visit to his barber, put on glasses to read off many of the same remarks Zagreb had delivered at 1300, then introduced the lieutenant with a little push from behind. Only the temporary podium kept Zagreb from falling among the agitated reporters. His first impression was of a herd of drop-front Speed-Graphic cameras wearing hats.

  “Lieutenant, any chance this guy’s really a serviceman?”

  “No, we checked with all the branches. There’s no record he applied with any of them after the army rejected him.”

  “Think he’s working for the enemy?”

  “We’re operating on the assumption he’s a loner.”

  “Where’s he selling the stamps?”

  “Ration stamps are traceable. So far no stamps issued to any of Ziska’s stamps victims have shown up in circulation.”

  “Isn’t Ziska a Kraut name? Sure he isn’t fifth column?”

  “It’s Czechoslovakian.”

  “What’s his motive?”

  “It’s just a theory. We think he’s a superpatriot, or considers himself to be one. He thinks he’s helping the war effort by targeting hoarders.”

  “Any chance he’s right?”

  “No, those are tactics more worthy of the enemy. Ziska’s no, hero.”

  “How many cops you got on this case?”

  “Commissioner Witherspoon has committed the entire department to bring Ladislaus Ziska to justice.”

  “How will that affect what’s going on in Paradise Valley?”

  Zagreb shielded his eyes. The jinking flashbulbs had blue bubbles swirling between him and the reporters. “Who said that?”

  “Ray Girardin, Times.”

  The voice belonged to a man standing on the edge of the crowd. His suit was less rumpled than the general lot although no more expensive. He had a tired face, all loose skin, as if the skull beneath had begun to recoil from the things its owner had witnessed. Only his eyes remained prominent: large, luminous, not quite as protuberant as Sergeant Canal’s, but hardly less unnerving.

  “Hello, Ray. Where’ve you been keeping yourself?”

  “Here in City Hall. Mr. Hearst thinks I’m too dignified to go on chasing kidnappers and bank robbers the way I did in the old days.”

  “What’s this about Paradise Valley?”

  “Well, not just the Valley. We’ve got unconfirmed reports of clashes between whites and Negroes throughout the city since early yesterday evening. Shouldn’t the department be keeping some officers in reserve in case of a full-scale disturbance?”

  “Clashes are nothing new. We’ve got a lot of people up from the Jim Crow South working side by side with colored employees in the plants. We’ve been handling the brawls pretty well so far.”

  “Two weeks ago the KKK launched a full-scale strike at the Packard plant because three Negroes were promoted. The army had to be brought in to investigate. It doesn’t sound like the police handled that one at all.”

  “The police aren’t going anywhere, Ray. We’ll be right here in town if the Civil War breaks out all over again. Meanwhile we’ve got a psycho killer to put behind bars.”

  “Version I heard was you gave orders to shoot to kill.”

  “You said that, I. didn’t.”

  Zagreb took a question from Rolf Owen of the News. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Girardin flip shut his pocket notebook and walk away.

  The police sketch of Kilroy, with captions identifying him as Ladislaus Ziska, ran on the front pages of special editions of the city’s three major dailies and those tabloids that had survived the Depression and the wartime paper shortage. Within an hour the switchboard at 1300 was jammed with calls reporting Ziska had been sighted, as close as Greektown and as far away as Ann Arbor. Officers were dispatched to interview those callers who had not immediately been tabbed as crackpots. Zagreb and the Racket Squad heard about every call and stayed put in the squad room.

  “I still say we should of went back and hung Frankie out his office window by his ankles.” Canal tossed a quarter into the Town Club crate next to the coffee urn, a smaller cousin of the giant in the basement, made change from the nickels and dimes already there, and poured himself a fresh cup; fresh being a benevolent description of the stuff that issued from the spout. The container hadn’t been dumped out and recharged since early that m
orning.

  “It wouldn’t help,” Zagreb said. “Vice and Burglary both picked up characters with the Kilroy sketch stuffed in their pockets. He got them out on the streets okay.”

  “I meant just for fun.”

  McReary’s telephone jangled. He rewrapped his tongue sandwich from the Grecian Gardens in wax paper, dumped it in his wastebasket, took his feet off his typewriter leaf, and answered it.

  Burke said, “What brand is Girardin drinking these days? Think he believes that riot crap?”

  “Times is holding on by its teeth. An old-fashioned berserk murderer isn’t enough to boost circulation anymore.” The lieutenant fired up a Chesterfield. He’d found his Zippo in the lining of his raincoat.

  “He was on police beat too long. He wants to be commissioner.”

  Canal gulped scalding coffee. Zagreb, who had been waiting ten minutes for his to cool, decided the sergeant’s mouth and throat were lined with asbestos. “I expected to feel swell when we had a name for Kilroy. I’m thinking we lost him for good the minute we found it out.”

  “That’s what I like about you, Starvo Always see the dark cloud around the silver lining.”

  Canal made a farting noise in Burke’s direction.

  McReary cupped a hand over his mouthpiece. “Zag, you might want to take this.”

  “Who is it?”

  “Ziska’s landlady.”

  chapter thirty-one

  COMFORTABLE?” ELIZABETH ASKED.

  “I’m fine,” Dwight said.

  He was sore all over, and his cramped position on the passenger’s side of the Model A didn’t help. His body was laced with painkillers, but his swollen face burned and the lump of bandage on the side of his head where they’d shaved it to stitch up a scalp laceration caused by the steel toe of a work boot made him feel lopsided. The tape around his abdomen was so tight he couldn’t fill his lungs, which he guessed was the idea; the two fractured ribs were pinching him enough as it was. His arms and legs were a rainbow of bruises. When he thought about it, the insides of his knees and elbows were the only parts of him that didn’t hurt. Babies in the womb had the right idea. It was only when you came out of the curl that you got in trouble.