King of the Corner

by Loren D. Estleman

  “He’s got a history of not being in when the law comes to call. He was on the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list for fifteen years.”

  “Who was he?”

  “Most recently, Ambrose X. Dryce. Before that he was Wilson McCoy.”

  The name thudded in Doc’s memory like a wooden gong. “Black Panther?”

  “Not for twenty-five years. You’re looking at what’s left of the grand exalted poobah of the loyal and malevolent Marshals of Mahomet.”

  That meant nothing to Doc.

  “I wouldn’t’ve taken him on at all except I thought he was too pooped to run any more. I sure as hell hit that one square on the head. No offense, Wilson.” Ance turned toward the dresser, where a wallet and a straight razor lay in what looked like a scattering of plaster dust from the ceiling.

  “How long do you think he’s been dead?”

  “Somebody saw him check in this morning. I’ll let the cops take his temperature.” He drew a silver pencil from his breast pocket and poked through the wallet. “Asshole spent his last nickel on the room. My luck.” He licked a knuckle, touched it to the white dust, licked it again. “Well, we know where he found the balls to jerk the trigger. None of that cheap Michigan Avenue crack for the leader of the M-and-M’s. Too bad he couldn’t afford enough to just glide on out.”

  That name—M-and-M’s—struck a chord. “Somebody should call the police, I guess.”

  “I’ll do it. No sense you hanging around.” Ance handed him a business card. “Call me and I’ll get your money to you. Not two hundred, though. It’d be different if you had to earn it.”

  “The clerk saw me.”

  “Shit, I forgot. You better stick.” He misread Doc’s expression. “Sorry about this, Spence. I’ll put in a word with your parole cop.”

  “My name’s Miller,” Doc said.

  Chapter 5

  SECOND SUICIDE THIS YEAR,” muttered the clerk while Ance used his telephone. “They going to stop their clock anyway, why don’t they check into the Westin, order room service?”

  “If they could afford the Westin, they wouldn’t be committing suicide, schmuck.” Ance waited for someone at the police department to pick up.

  Doc was watching the game on the clerk’s set. “What’s the score?”

  The police started arriving in pairs, some in uniform, others in sport coats and slacks that didn’t quite match, like high school basketball coaches. Some were white, most were black. One of the first two officers on the scene was a black woman with her hair pinned up under her uniform cap. She asked most of the questions, scratching the answers in a pocket notebook. Doc noticed she used shorthand. While he and Ance were answering the same questions for the plainclothesmen, the medical examiner arrived with his black metal case and went into the room. He was a small neat Vietnamese wearing a Hawaiian shirt and khaki pants under an overcoat with the sleeves turned back, who looked as if he had come there directly from the boat. Doc overheard jokes told in low voices and chuckling. There was an air of lightness about the proceedings, like relatives getting together for the first time in years at the funeral of a despised aunt.

  After an hour or so a man came alone who looked nothing like any of the others. He was black, nearly as tall as Doc but more substantial and a few years older, in tailored charcoal worsted and a blue silk tie on a shirt with a small check. His hair was trimmed close to his skull and frosted with gray, and he had coarse features that reminded Doc of a National Geographic special he had seen on the Ashanti. He stopped to speak with several of the officers and detectives crowded in the hallway, then went into the room. When he came out he caught Maynard Ance’s eye and motioned him over. Doc drifted that way.

  “When you take home a cockroach, you can’t expect him to make honey,” the black man told Ance, then turned to shake Doc’s hand. “Charlie Battle. I’m a sergeant with Major Crimes.”

  His grip was surprisingly gentle. Doc had met his share of bone-crushers in baseball and again in prison and could tell when strength was being held back. “I’m Kevin Miller.”

  “I know. You signed my son’s scorecard the day you shut out Cleveland. I didn’t know you were sprung.”

  “It’s been almost two weeks.” He was conscious of the bail bondsman’s curious gaze. It was the first time anyone had recognized him. He felt suddenly naked, as if he’d been performing in a porno film under a pseudonym and someone had called out his name.

  “I was just telling your boss he ought to choose his clients more carefully. Someone else would have capped McCoy if he hadn’t done it himself. This isn’t the kind of case where you ask if the victim had any enemies.”

  It had been Ance’s idea to claim that Doc was working for him. At his suggestion Doc had parked the cab around the corner before the first squad car squealed in. “I thought he was dead a long time ago,” Doc said. “I haven’t heard about him in years.”

  “He jumped bail on that Orr killing in ’66 and went underground for fifteen years. Should’ve been held without bond, but nobody much cares when a mafioso gets himself gunned. When he finally turned himself in—feds had him down for unlawful flight to avoid prosecution—he had to remind them who he was and why they wanted him. The jury hung, and they decided not to try him again. Then he got involved in this Marshals of Mahomet thing.”

  “What is it?”

  Battle grinned incredulously. It made him look a little less like a warrior. “Don’t they have TV in Jackson?”

  “Mostly I watched sports.”

  “Who’s your parole officer?” The sergeant patted his pockets. Doc couldn’t tell if he was looking for cigarettes or a notebook.

  “Peter Kubitski.”

  “He’s a horse’s ass, but that’s the job description.” The patting stopped. “He know you’re working with Ance?”

  “I just started. I haven’t had a chance to tell him.”

  “Better call him before he sees it on the news. The press is going to like this one. Wilson McCoy’s been the maggots’ meat since Cavanagh was mayor. I bet they make a hero out of the bloodthirsty son of a bitch just like they did the first time.” He looked at Ance. “Got any more M-and-M’s in your drawer?”

  “That’s privileged.”

  “Bullshit, it’s court record. Personally I don’t give a rip, but if I were you and any of them are jumpers, I’d call 911 before I went haring after them. Department policy’s to tag them Armed and Dangerous as soon as we find out they’re Marshals. They see you coming up the walk to any safe house in this city, they’re not looking at the man bailed them out. All they see is your color and a big fat bull’s-eye on your chest.”

  “So I call you and you make the arrest and I’m out whatever I dropped on them,” Ance said. “My way I get back at least a percentage. I’ve been shot at before, Charlie, remember?”

  “Good thing it wasn’t in the wallet or you’d’ve bled to death.”

  “Yeah, well, fuck you, too.”

  But Battle was looking at Doc. “My boy still has that scorecard. His mother and I opened up a safety deposit box for him so he wouldn’t lose it. You had Hall-of-Famer written all over you that year.”

  “I thought so, too.”

  “My uncle who raised me wanted me to be the first black State Supreme Court justice. He was a pro wrestler.” The sergeant moved his shoulders. “I’ll need a statement from both of you by tomorrow. Ance knows where my office is at Thirteen Hundred. Take the stairs. The elevator’s just big enough to hold the fat tub of shit.” He shook Doc’s hand again and went over to talk to the desk clerk, who was leaning dejectedly against the wall next to the office.

  “He doesn’t think much of you,” Doc told Ance.

  “He’s just about the best friend I’ve got in this town.”

  Doc was too tired to laugh. It was past midnight. He’d been up since 6:00 A.M., and he was due at the John Deere dealership in less than seven hours. He stirred to leave, but the bail bondsman kept his hands in his pockets. “Pro ball, h
uh? What was it, gambling?”

  “Drugs.”

  Ance turned half-around, disgusted. “Kids, Jesus Christ. What the fuck’s the matter with bourbon? It’s legal and you don’t have to mug old ladies to pay for it.”

  “I only did drugs once. It loused up my control.”

  “Sure, you got a bum rap. All my clients are innocent too. Take me home, kid.”

  The address Ance gave him was in Taylor. The bail bondsman, Doc had figured out, fueled himself on talk, but not in the aimless, redundant, can’t-get-a-word-in-edgewise way of Mickey Baline and others of that generation; even in his exhaustion Doc found himself paying attention. And as Ance talked, his speech grew more relaxed and less profane. Doc sensed that a guard was being lowered.

  “This wasn’t anything,” Ance said. “One time Taber and me traced this good old boy rapist all the way down to Tennessee, this little jerk-off place called Frog’s Creek or Toad’s Dick or something stuck way up on the side of this fucking mountain. Honest to Christ, we’re hanging on by our foreskins in the front yard. Well, Pa Kettle opens the door and there’s the whole family sitting in the parlor like you see in those oval pictures in antique stores, even Grandma in her hickory rocker with an autoharp in her lap and little Charlotte Rose on the floor with her Raggedy Ann. Pa says it’s been six months since he saw Veal—swear to God, that’s his name, Veal—but the place is built out of packing crates and I can hear someone walking around upstairs and it’s August so it can’t be Santa Claus. But we got out. I don’t start trouble in people’s homes. There was a saloon in town and we staked that out for a couple of nights, listened to “Okie From Muskogee” about a thousand times on the juke, until the good old boy comes in. Well, everybody in the place was his friend that night except us and they kicked the living shit right out of Taber and me, I mean my ears are still ringing. Next day we went back to his house with the sheriff, and he came away with us gentle as you please, on account of he was hung over bad with a fractured wrist to boot. Only little Charlotte Rose smashes Taber on the big toe with a hammer on our way out. They thought for a while he was going to lose the toe, but now it just gives him hell when it rains.”

  “Why didn’t you bring the sheriff with you the first time?”

  “Local law charges too much. They don’t care for bail men on principle, and bail men from out of town are lower than a snake’s asshole in places like that. They’re still waiting for Rhett to come back to Scarlett down there.” He lit a cigarette—Doc thought he had to see the NO SMOKING sign on the back of the front seat when he struck the match—and coughed. “Okay, so this time I’m out five grand plus your two bills. Beats hell out of getting stomped in a Tennessee saloon. I piss my pants every time I hear Waylon Jennings.”

  “I thought I was just getting a hundred.”

  “That was before I found out who you were.”

  “You never heard of me.”

  “Hockey’s my game. But a baseball player with a record has got to be some kind of celebrity, and a celebrity ex-con takes twice the risk getting tied up in shit like this. You’re lucky Battle got the squeal and not some squirt looking to get up in the department through the Six O’clock News. You’d be on your way to County right now, booked as a material witness.”

  “I’m not that well known.”

  “Save it.” Ance coughed again and lowered his window two inches. Doc saw the shower of sparks the discarded cigarette made in the side mirror. The window went back up. “Trying to quit. You handled yourself okay with the cops. I was afraid you might freak.”

  “When I get in a jam like that I imagine I’m coming to the mound with the bases loaded and only one out.”

  “Why one out?”

  “I need it to keep from freaking.”

  The bail bondsman didn’t laugh. “How’d you like to go to work for me?”

  “As a driver?”

  “That too. I never had a lesson. Taber’s getting unreliable. You’re an athlete, so I’m guessing you can take care of yourself when it gets heavy. The job pays five bills a week.”

  Almost twice what he was getting at the dealership. “I’d better not.”

  “Why not?”

  “It pays too much to be on the square.”

  “Hey, if that’s all that’s bothering you I’ll make it two-fifty.” Ance sat back on the springs. “Seriously, I’m licensed. As long as these scroats are in my custody, the law says I can bring ’em back in a shoebox if they’ll fit and I punch a few holes in the lid. I don’t even have to do that more man a dozen times a year; if I weren’t any better judge of character than that I’d be broke. My tax bill last year was forty thousand. Most of the time you’ll just be driving me around.”

  “For five hundred a week.”

  “I said most of the time.”

  They were entering Taylor. “I don’t think so. But thanks.”

  “You’re too wasted to decide. Hell, maybe I’m too wasted to make any offers. Let’s sleep on it. Maybe we’ll both change our minds.”

  The bail bondsman’s house was a deep white frame saltbox on Empire with a small front yard and one of those novelty lawn ornaments where a little wooden man sawed furiously at a log whenever the wind blew. The windows were dark. Doc stopped the car and looked back at his passenger. “You paid forty thousand in taxes last year?”

  “I’ve got four ex-wives. You figure it out.” He slid four crisp fifties out of his wallet and passed them over the back of the seat. “You’ve got my card. Call me.” He got out.

  The electric clock in Neal’s kitchen read 1:28 when Doc came in and threw his keys on the kitchen table. His brother was seated there in his bathrobe smoking a cigarette. “Anybody hurt?” he asked.

  “Hurt?” Doc leaned against the counter.

  “In the accident.”

  “I had an involved fare. I thought you gave that up.”

  Neal looked down at the cigarette as if someone had just put it there and punched it out in a bronze ashtray Doc recognized as one that had belonged to their father. “When’s Spence getting back from California?”

  “Day after tomorrow.”

  “Good.”

  The clock was clogged with cooking grime. It buzzed and moved ahead in jerks.

  “Better sleep fast,” Neal said. “You got about four hours.”

  Doc said, “I quit.”

  GRANNY AT THE BAT

  By Leon “Bud” Arsenault

  (continued)

  The Great Depression was especially hard on Detroiters. People who owned cars were making repairs and making do, and those who did not rode the trolley. Horace MacGryff was just one of thousands of workers laid off indefinitely from the stagnant auto industry.

  Bad times were a double blow to his wife, who although she cheerfully offered her services as cook and housekeeper to residents in the more well-to-do neighborhoods to help keep her young family solvent, dearly missed her frequent trips to what was now called Briggs Stadium. Listening to a distracted announcer on the Philco trying to simulate Hank Greenburg’s virile connecting swing by clapping two sticks together hardly compared to an afternoon in the sun with a cold beer and a hot dog.

  But a paltry ticket to one game would not do for Mrs. MacGryff. Such a day could only prickle her palate and render the unavoidable return to her mop-and-bucket existence unbearable.

  Loyola MacGryff wanted season tickets.

  Not just for her, but for her whole family, which now numbered five with the latest still in diapers. Just knowing that the entire brood could on a moment’s notice pile into the Model A, rumble seat and all, and tool down to that green place where men in baggy uniforms played a boys’ game under the sky would be the beacon that lit their way through the dark days yet to come.

  Obsessed with obtaining capital, Mrs. MacGryff cleared garage and attic of bric-a-brac, stuck price tags on the lot, and set her oldest son to work painting and posting signs for blocks around advertising a yard sale.

  At Horace’s pleading
, she made certain to drape a sheet over his priceless collection of salt and pepper shakers stored in the garage, the passion of a lifetime, lest any of the pieces be damaged or stolen in the confusion of commerce.

  The sale was an enormous success by Depression standards. The McGriff cleared thirty-seven dollars, enough to purchase season tickets for the neighborhood, with enough left over for souvenirs and refreshments.

  It was scarcely the fault of the family in those less cautious times that a victim of hard luck, mistaken for a straggling browser, showed Mrs. MacGryff an old black revolver while she was counting the profits and made off with them.

  The police were sympathetic, but explained that the bandit had as like as not already departed Detroit on the same freight train he had come in on. The money was irretrievable.

  This is one MacGryff story with a happy ending, however.

  On the following Saturday they held another sale; and while the proceeds from Horace’s cherished shaker collection fell somewhat short of the previous weekend’s total, they were more than adequate to treat parents and children all to a season in the bleachers.

  “You should have seen the look on Horace’s face when he found out,” reminisces the widow. “I don’t mind telling you I was so happy I cried right along with him.”

  (to be continued)

  PART TWO

  Change-Up

  Chapter 6

  PETER Y. KUBITSKI, DOC’S parole officer, was one of these comfortable avuncular types in a mohair jacket that had worn to fit his angular construction and a nubby knitted tie on a blue button-down shirt. His hair, receding on either side of the widow’s peak, was salt-and-pepper and fluffed out at the temples and he had a long pale face and one of those noses that looked as if he had slept on it wrong; when he put on his reading glasses he had to come around a corner. A pair of tiny blue-black eyes like gooseberries glittered under the moss cliff of his brows. Doc disliked him on sight.

  His office, on the third floor of Detroit Police Headquarters at 1300 Beaubien, was small and overheated and smelled of the rotting bindings of social science books in glass cases and apple-scented pipe tobacco, Doc’s least favorite kind. Kubitski had all the irritating habits of a pipe smoker: the constant fussing with the charred blob of brier, charging and recharging and tamping and lighting and relighting, the browsing in the dilapidated leather pouch, the business of pointing the stem at his visitor when he was making an observation and then biting down on it as if stamping the whole thing in granite. Sparky Anderson smoked a pipe too, and Doc had never gotten on with the aging Tigers manager.