Dead Birmingham

by Timothy C. Phillips

  I came to a door where a thin, middle-aged woman sat typing at a computer. I knocked lightly, and the woman looked up.

  “Yes?”

  “Uhm, I have kind of a weird, academic type of question.”

  She smiled disarmingly. “Well, as long as it’s a weird, academic type question about history. Weird questions not pertaining to history should be taken to the Psychology department, across the street.”

  “Fair enough. I was wondering if there was someone around who would know about the Medici family.”

  “Well, well, do tell.” She spoke with a Midwestern drawl. “Have a seat. Luckily, you’re in the right place. So, are you a student of history, Mister . . . ?”

  “Longville, Roland Longville. Call me Roland, please.”

  “Okay, Roland. I’m Dr. Boswell. Miranda Boswell. Call me Miranda. Now . . . ?”

  I smiled. “Well, I’ve always enjoyed learning about history, but this is more of a business matter. I have a couple of questions about something potentially valuable that might have belonged to the Medici.”

  “An art object?”

  “Well, yes, I suppose. How did you guess that?”

  “The Medici were bankers and powerbrokers, Roland, but they were also fantastic patrons of the Fine Arts. They were patrons of artists as diverse as Machiavelli and Michelangelo, among many others. Which d’ Medici were you interested in, exactly?”

  “Lorenzo.”

  “Hmm. Lorenzo the Magnificent.” Her eyes narrowed, and she seemed to be lost in thought for a moment. “Tell me, what is this objet d’art?”

  “Well, it’s a box. A very ornate box. It supposedly has the crest of the Medici family upon its lid.”

  “What does it contain, or did it contain?”

  “I am told, the Medici jewels, but they have since been lost.”

  She raised an eyebrow. “Well, I can assure you that whatever this box did contain, that story’s not true.”

  “You don’t say.”

  “No. Look here.” Miranda Boswell stood, searched briefly, and took down a book from the shelf above her desk, then opened it to a page her hands knew by heart. “Even in the aftermath of World War Two, these jewels remained in Florence. As you will see on the overleaf, there is a separate collection from a later branch of the family, housed in Flanders. The Medici collection represents far too many items to be housed in one small box, at any rate. They possessed a collection that spanned centuries; it is quite extensive, and rather large.”

  I looked over the illustrations of ornate costume jewelry from the distant past. All that stuff must be worth millions, even billions, I supposed. I paused for a second to take it all in.

  “Maybe the box was made to hold one special piece of jewelry . . . maybe for a proposal of marriage, or something of the kind?” I ventured. It would take dozens of such boxes to hold all of the jewels pictured in the book. Maybe even hundreds.

  “From the description, that sounds very likely. See, you didn’t need me, after all.” She smiled.

  “Well, maybe I do at that, Doctor. What do you suppose something like that would be worth?”

  “Just the box? Nothing inside? Well, depends on who wants it and how badly they want it.”

  “But would it be priceless?”

  “Some collectors might think so. After all, the Medici aren’t around to commission any more. In that sense it’s priceless. But would it be worth as much as a sculpture by Michelangelo, or a Stradivarius violin? No. Probably not a fraction of what those things are worth, I would guess. But some seemingly mundane items have fetched handsome prices at auction.”

  “Well, thanks for your time.” I got up to go.

  “No problem. Oh, Roland?”

  “Yes?”

  “One thing about the Medici. The art they commissioned.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Well, I’m not attempting to dramatize the matter, but a couple of years ago, a great collection of Medici art toured the world. It caused quite a sensation, because those items have always been safeguarded in Florence. Very few items produced or commissioned by them are privately owned.”

  “Meaning?”

  “I take it that you aren’t an art enthusiast, Roland. You seem more like a linebacker. Or a policeman.”

  I smiled. I had been both of those things, in former times.

  “Miranda, maybe you should have been a detective.”

  “Well . . . Roland. There are complications, I suspect. What I mean is, whatever this item is, it is most likely a forgery. Or, much more likely, considering its nature . . . stolen.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me. I think the latter is most likely the case. That happens more often than not in my line of work. I can’t thank you enough for your help, Miranda.”

  “Nothing like a bit of real intrigue to dust off the cobwebs around here. Frankly, I’m pretty curious about your mysterious art object, myself. Let me know if I can be of further assistance.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  * * *

  I left the history building with a peculiar feeling. Strange speculations crossed my mind. Had the old man stolen something precious in post-war Italy? No, that made no sense; he would have been a lad of twelve or so in 1945. But the Italian pedigree of both man and artifact seemed more than coincidental.

  But let that go for a second. Perhaps it was, in fact, coincidental. Dr. Boswell’s remarks seemed to indicate that there was more to the Malvagio’s story than he was telling me. That was nothing new, because people usually gave me some creative version of the truth when they hired me. I disliked it, but I had come to accept it. Someone would tell me that his or her daughter had been abducted, when in fact she had simply run away. People hid behind white lies because the truth was frequently too unpleasant for them to face.

  In this case, however, there was a note of deliberate self-delusion. I felt the envelope in my pocket, with the thirty crisp hundreds inside. Part of me wanted to take that money and toss it into the old man’s face. Moral indignation aside, however, another part of me, a bigger part, was intrigued by this strange quest that he had set me on.

  I had to admit that I was hooked. I knew that I had to find the truth behind the old man’s story, whatever it was. It was as if the strange chest held some answer to a question that lay within me, within everyone, and once I raised the lid all that was hidden would be revealed.

  Well, maybe not, but I would find those kids. And I would uncover the secrets that the little chest protected.

  Chapter 7

  Excerpt from Scott Anthony LaRue’s unpublished manuscript, Shoplifting in the 21st Century: Boosting for Fun and Profit:

  There are many ways to take down a place. There is the grab and run, but this is for rank amateurs. Mere survival is not the goal of the professional, the Booster. The expert picks the right time, the right place, and does his homework. He looks at security. He analyzes the risk. He wears the right clothes. He engages accomplices to misdirect the management. Pretty girls come in especially handy, though there are other, more insidious ruses, as we shall see. Skill in acting is also a plus.

  But in my experience, there is one important factor many Boosters ignore. This is the Three Store Rule. There are, in the main, three basic types of stores, and they require the Booster to shift his tactics, according to which type he engages . . .

  * * *

  It was summer, and summer had its own rules for the art of stealing. Each season had its own dictates, for that matter. Fall and Spring allowed one to wear light jackets without attracting undue suspicion. In winter, heavy clothes and large bags did not look out of place. But in summer, boosting required some of the finesse of a magic trick—misdirection and false passes, all without the ultimate payoff to the bedazzled, why, here’s the disappeared rabbit. When the rabbit disappeared, you damn well better make sure he stayed disappeared, until you are safely out of the store.

  Because it was summer, Scott LaRue had decided on a differen
t approach when robbing Malvagio’s store. They had used the “shotgun.” There had been no attempt to hide the thefts that they were carrying out. They all found something they liked in the store, nodded to each other, and swiped the items, all at the same time. They had purposefully let the old man see them stealing. Then, shotgun. Everyone ran out the door and in different directions. The exasperated old man had given chase, but only for a block or so. Your summertime, strictly by-the-book, (Scott’s own book, of course) mom-and-pop store take down. With that one important difference, or course.

  Because while the others led the old man on a goose chase away from his store, giggling gleefully as they ran through the tourists in Five Points, stolen goods in hand, Scott LaRue had made a snap decision. He had done something that he had absolutely forbidden the others to do; he had broken his own Rule Number One, and since then, he had told no one. He had not told his best friend, Bone; he had not told his girlfriend and lover, Angel. For reasons he did not understand, he had stolen something and not told the others. Now, his secret haunted him, because one of their number had disappeared, and a tiny voice deep inside him whispered that his secret was somehow responsible.

  And he was right.

  Chapter 8

  Birmingham had gotten too big for its britches, Lester Broom had decided. Less than thirty years before, the land surrounding her had been mostly rural. The intervening years had worked mighty changes, but still there was plenty of green everywhere. The color was deceptive; only people who had lived there for several years would have noticed the steady and inexorable spread of the suburbs, the ever-quickening proliferation of malls, the expansion of housing, of roads, of development in every quarter.

  Part of the city still belonged to another time, when words like “serial murderer” and “suicide bomber” were not part of everyday speech. Part of her also still bore the scars of a deeply divided racist past. Broom’s drive uptown took him past the Civil Rights Museum that spread over several blocks on the north side of downtown. There was still strife here, and separation, but in a city that had once been Ground Zero of the Civil Rights movement, Roland, a black man, had seen that once-so-wide gulf, begin to narrow.

  If Martin Luther King’s dream could come true anywhere, he thought, surely it would be here—and he still believed it could. Not that Birmingham hadn’t fallen victim to other ills, in the meantime. And these were ills all cities shared, in the modern USA. This part of the city had simply been hit hardest by those creeping social changes.

  A third and fast growing part of Birmingham, and the South in general, was looking to the future that the world was racing toward, and it was keeping pace. Software development companies had moved in during the 1990s, and many were still left. They squatted out on Hwy. 280, and dense concentrations of high-priced apartments and housing developments had sprung up for the young professionals that came to work in them.

  Birmingham, Lester Broom had also long ago decided, mixing his metaphors without regard, was a schizophrenic lady, still possessed of great beauty and charm, but one who harbored many deadly secrets, any one of which might prompt her to kill you, no matter how much she liked you. It was just the way she was.

  Jeez, Broom, listen to yourself. Maybe you’ve been shot at too much.

  Suddenly, Broom remembered waking up in the middle of the night. He could not recall which night it had been, but he had dreamed that he was alone in a cell, the only inmate in a prison full of guards. The guards were men with no faces, or faces that were hidden in darkness. He had awoken in the morning when the sky was still dark, and sat looking out over the city that he shared such a strange relationship with.

  I protect you, and I fight you every day, he had thought.

  He had been unable to return to sleep, after that.

  Broom turned onto Swain Avenue, where Mueller’s home address indicated his parents lived. There were two cars in the yard. As Broom pulled in, a black and white cruised up from the other direction. He flashed his lights at them and pulled up alongside.

  He showed them his badge. “You fellas got a minute?”

  “Sure, Detective.”

  “Got to break some bad news to these folks here. I might need someone who can think straight to call some friends or relatives over to sit with them.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  * * *

  Mr. Mueller looked pale, but he was obviously one of those people who could contain his emotions. His wife wasn’t. “He was always rebellious. His little sister is the same way. Now we’ll worry about her,” Mr. Mueller said. His wife was in the outer room being comforted by relatives that the patrol cops had called. She had dissolved into hysterics as soon as Broom had come to the door and showed his badge. The uniformed officers were standing around, trying not to look uncomfortable. It wasn’t working. Broom could sympathize. He hated this part of the job; you just never got used to it.

  Mueller was a thin, healthy-looking man with bright, intelligent blue eyes and a distracting mole on his temple. The blue eyes were currently full of tears. He was wearing a deep brown polo shirt and khaki pants. He looked like someone’s dentist. His hands were shaking.

  “Would you mind answering a few questions about Henry’s known associates, and their whereabouts, and a few other things? It would really help our investigation.”

  “Of course. Let’s go into the study.”

  They moved into a dark, soothingly appointed room that smelled like books.

  “Have a seat.” Broom nodded but did not sit. Mueller did, and buried his face in his hands, as Broom knew he would. They always did that. Broom remembered losing his wife of twelve years to breast cancer. When she’d died, he’d done it himself.

  “Mr. Mueller, I’m sorry. I’m going to do whatever it takes to find who did this. Look, the person or persons who killed your son are out there still.”

  “I understand. At first, I thought maybe George’s health had caught up with him at last. Now I fine out he’s been murdered.”

  “I’m sorry. His health?”

  “George was born with a weak heart. He was prescribed medication for it. The rough way he chose to live, I can’t imagine he kept up his medication. I assumed, when I heard . . . that he’d had a heart attack. No, I suppose I have to accept that it was his . . . lifestyle that caused his death.”

  “People did this to your son, Mr. Mueller, not his choices. It’s possible that some other young people, these friends of his, are in danger, too.”

  “Friends . . . ?”

  “In a couple of his arrests, your son was said to be in the prior company of others. The descriptions seem to be the same group of young people, five or six maybe, that are professional shoplifters. Would you have met these kids, maybe? Or know their names?”

  “I . . . I don’t . . . no, wait. He used to call. He stopped doing that, a few months ago. But he did mention a couple of kids . . . Scott and Angel.”

  “Last names?”

  “Sorry. George never went into much detail. But I asked him once where he was staying, and he said he was staying with friends, Scott and Angel. ‘Mule,’ they called him. He liked that. I heard another girl in the background, too. He never said her name. I just assumed it was someone he was seeing.”

  “I want to thank you for your help, Mr. Mueller. I can’t tell you how much I regret bringing you this news. If there’s anything I can do, please let me know.”

  “Detective Broom?” Mr. Mueller stood, and it was obvious from his face that he was steeling himself to ask a difficult question.

  Broom stood silently while the man gathered his resolve. Anything he could say would only make it more difficult. Finally, Mueller spoke:

  “It was something he’d done, wasn’t it? His stealing got him into some kind of trouble.”

  It was hard not to give him something. Mueller knew his son. He wasn’t in denial about the types of things that young George III had been involved in.

  Broom put his hand on the man’s shoulder. �
��Mr. Mueller, your son may have been involved in a theft, and his murder may have been part of some kind of response, but we don’t know anything concrete, right now. When I do know something, I promise you that you’ll be the first to know.”

  “I want to thank you for coming here, Detective Broom.”

  Broom gave the man his card and some more kind words, told him to call him if he needed anything, and then bowed out. It was too late to help George Harmon Mueller III, but maybe he could still save his friends.

  * * *

  Broom got into his car, and pointed it toward the Zone. In Birmingham, there were street gangs, and drug gangs. And then there was the Mob, the most powerful faction of which is the Ganato crime family, headed by Don Armand Ganato, that operates from their own part of the North End, referred to by them as The Zone. In the old days, The Zone was once called The Mafia Zone, but the name had become truncated with the passage of time. No one believed in the Mafia anymore.

  Don Ganato lived in The Zone, a part of the city in which there was virtually no law but his, and of which he was the absolute ruler. The Zone lay directly across the Cahaba River from the North Side, the home of the Ganato Family’s enemies, the smaller, brasher O’Hearn mob, which some called the Irish Mob, but was in fact a loose coalition of Scotch-Irish, Welsh, and other mixed-pedigree hoods who longed for the criminal power of the Ganatos.

  Broom rolled up to the front of the Manonera restaurant and got out. This was Ganato’s restaurant and bar, and he could be found holding court there on any given day. Broom walked through the door, where a thick man stood. He was an old gunsel, and he and Broom knew each other on sight. The man merely raised his eyebrows and nodded at Broom, and looked toward the back of the restaurant, where sat Don Ganato and two other men who were obviously his bodyguards.

  Broom walked up to Ganato’s table without preamble. Ganato rose and extended his hand. Broom shook hands with the man perfunctorily.

  “Detective Broom, whatever brings you to this part of town?” Ganato asked. “Please, please, where are my manners. Do sit down.”