Motor City Burning

by Bill Morris

  So suddenly they had a nice tidy motive in the murder of Helen Hull, the oldest one in the book: revenge. But instead of making Doyle’s life simpler, this had complicated things. All through dinner he’d talked about the questions that were eating at him. Who could blame a young black man—who could blame any man?—for going off the deep end after getting thrown in jail for no reason, beaten, terrorized and humiliated by a pack of vengeful firemen and cops? Jimmy had reminded him that none of it justified the killing of an innocent woman—or anyone else. Frank agreed, but he said he had to ask the questions Willie Bledsoe had surely asked himself after his nightmare in the basement garage came to an end. Who were the true criminals here? And did they really believe that their acts of brutality would not—should not—be answered with equal brutality? Even as he asked himself these questions, though, Doyle said he could hear the answer coming back from Jerry Czapski and Jimmy McCreedy and Walt Kanka and the other ninety percent of the force that was white: “Oh, sure. Cops were the bad guys during the riot. Cops burned down half the city. Cops shot up precinct houses and fire-bombed stores and hauled away as much free shit as they could carry. Tell me all about it.”

  Jimmy had said to Doyle at the dinner table, “Ain’t just the white guys on the force feel that way. I do too. The thing you gotta realize, Frank, is that this country ain’t nothin but a great big motherfuckin tease, especially for the black man. Civil rights—shit—makin it a law don’t make it so. What The Man gives with one hand, he takes back with the other. You watch ‘Star Trek,’ don’t you?”

  The question surprised Doyle. “Sometimes,” he said. “Not religiously.”

  “But you seen Lieutenant Uhura, the ‘communications director’ on Starship Enterprise. See, this is zactly what I’m talkin bout. The Man makes a prime-time TV show bout what the future’s gonna look like, he puts an attractive black character on it—then he makes sure she ain’t nothin but a glorified switchboard operator.”

  Doyle thought Jimmy sounded like Vicki Jones. She was always bitching about the fact that there were plenty of black janitors and secretaries but hardly any black executives at Ford’s Glass House, where she worked in data entry. Or else she was bitching about having to wait longer than white people to get help from a clerk in a store. Or, even worse, about having some white customer assume she was a clerk simply because she was black. Doyle thought she was being paranoid and her tirades wore thin—until the day they were shopping in the women’s shoe department at Hudson’s and an old white lady walked up to Vicki and said, “Miss, do you have these pumps in a seven and a half?”

  “So,” Doyle had said to Jimmy at the dinner table, “what The Man gives with one hand, he takes back with the other, . . .”

  “Right. But that don’t justify nothin. Nothin, you hear me? It don’t give a man the right to kill or burn or loot. Look, the way I come up I should be in prison right now, or dead. Reason I ain’t is cause I made a decision. I decided they’s a right way and a wrong way and they ain’t no future in the wrong way. So I married a good woman, worked for a livin, paid my taxes, put my girls through college, all that noble shit. If I can do it, anybody can do it. Just like makin puttanesca sauce.”

  Doyle had smiled at Jimmy’s little sermon, but he said he couldn’t shake the belief that it was racist cops like Jerry Czapski who fueled the black rage that fueled the fury of the riot . . . and that the riot’s fury demanded an equally furious response from the law . . . and that the law’s response redoubled the rioters’ fury. . . . Round and round and round it went. There were no winners, as Doyle saw it, only losers. Jimmy agreed there was truth in what he was saying, but as they were spooning down the tiramisu, Jimmy had reminded him that assigning blame and meting out justice was somebody else’s job. Their job was to find killers. Period.

  “You know, it’s funny,” Doyle said now, blowing cigar smoke toward the moon. “I’ve never wanted anything as bad as I want to nail Helen Hull’s killer—and now that we’re ready to sweat a suspect, I’m not even sure I want to do it anymore.”

  “You wanna let the motherfucker walk?”

  “Of course not.”

  “Don’t matter what we want or don’t want, Frank. We got a job to do and we gonna do it.”

  “I know that, Jimmy. Of course I’ll do what I gotta do. It’s just that I never imagined this stuff could get so, I don’t know, so complicated.”

  “Ain’t complicated less you make it complicated.”

  “But it is complicated. Shit, I’m a white man sitting here trying to tell you that a black man might have been justified in killing a white woman, and you’re a black man sitting here telling me that this black man—that no man—is ever justified in killing anyone. We’re both right and we’re both wrong. That’s complicated, you ask me.”

  “Maybe so, but I still go back to what I said earlier. Do yourself a favor and keep it simple. Our job’s to find killers. Let other people worry about all that justice shit.”

  They were quiet again. Watching the bridge lights play on the water, Jimmy decided he needed to get the boat out more often. This was even more relaxing than working in the garden.

  “There’s something else been bothering me,” Doyle said. Jimmy waited. Then he waited some more. Finally Doyle continued, “You remember my second case during the riot, that firefight I stumbled into on my way home, that hick from Tennessee on the roof—”

  “Wilson Lee Pryor, sure.”

  “There’s something I never told you or anyone else. I fired two shots at him on that rooftop.”

  “So?”

  “So one of the six bullets that hit him was a .38-caliber—from a department-issue gun. Maybe mine.”

  “And maybe not. I read that report a hundred times. Look, that man died six ways from Sunday—and rightly so. He refused an order to put down his rifle. A bullet went through the windshield a your Pontiac during the firefight, I recall correctly.”

  “That bullet was a nine millimeter, which means it was fired by a Guardsman. Pryor never fired a shot. He was on that roof trying to make sure his building didn’t catch on fire.”

  “And he was carrying a rifle and he refused to put it down, so people made the reasonable assumption he was a sniper. Case closed. Where you goin with this, Frank?”

  “Back to how complicated this is. There’s a chance I got away with killing a man, and it’s been bothering me ever since.”

  “Look, even if you did fire the fatal shot—which is unlikely, I seen you on the pistol range—you’d be justified. You was in a firefight. Your vehicle got hit. You were acting in self-defense—along with a dozen other po-lice and Guardsmen who did zactly what you did. What I’da done. Shit, Frank, you think too much. Like I just said, this stuff ain’t complicated less you make it complicated. Do yourself a favor and let it go.”

  Jimmy got a beer out of the cooler and drank half of it in silence. Then he said, “Since we gettin all confessional tonight, I got somethin I ain’t never tole you or nobody else.” Now it was Doyle who waited while Jimmy finished his beer and went back to the cooler. “You want one?”

  “I’m good,” Doyle said.

  Jimmy sat back down. “I got into the ponies at Hazel Park big-time back in the day. Lost so much money I couldn’t make the car payments, the mortgage payments. We was in danger of losin the house.”

  “The house in Conant Gardens?”

  “No, this was back on Brush, when I was still in a uniform. I was so desperate—I’m almost shamed to admit it—I stole some dope out the evidence room and sold it to a street dealer I knew. I never even tole Flo. Almost got busted too—and it scared me so damn bad I been clean as a whistle ever since. There. I ain’t proud of it, but now you know. You ain’t the only cop in this town with a secret.”

  Doyle finished his beer and his cigar without saying a word. When he flipped his cigar butt into the river—pssssssst!—Jimmy said, “So. When you want to snag Bledsoe?”

  “The sooner the better, I guess.
”

  “Tomorrow?”

  “Might as well. We should probably run everything by Sarge one more time.”

  “Definitely. You want me to come with you to pick him up?”

  “Yeah, absolutely.”

  “Gimme a rough time.”

  “Well, he’s working the lunch shift at Oakland Hills tomorrow, so he’ll probably show up at home around five and chain himself to his typewriter for the rest of the day. Let’s say five-thirty?”

  “Sounds good. What’s he doin on the typewriter?”

  “Writing a book about his time in the civil rights movement.”

  “I might like to read that. Too bad he gonna have to finish writin it in prison.”

  24

  THE NEXT DAY, Doyle and Jimmy ate a long lunch in Greektown with Sgt. Schroeder, going over everything they had on Bledsoe, making sure it was the right time to bring him in. Bring a suspect in too soon and you might get burned; wait too long and he might disappear. When the baklava was gone and the coffee cups were empty, Sgt. Schroeder stood up from the table and said, “Bust him good, gentlemen. Break him in two.”

  The detectives checked out a Plymouth and headed for the corner of Pallister and Poe, Jimmy at the wheel. Doyle didn’t say a word the whole way but Jimmy knew what was going on in his head. He was walking through how he was going to play it in the yellow room. He was like an athlete before a big game, getting his game face on.

  When they pulled up in front of Bledsoe’s building, Jimmy shut off the engine but didn’t reach for the door handle. He lit a Newport and studied the building next to Bledsoe’s, a three-story brick with no roof, no windows, blackened walls.

  “That a riot fire?” he said.

  “It happened during the riot,” Doyle said, “but it wasn’t your typical Molotov cocktail arson.”

  “What kind was it?”

  “The pre-meditated kind. They just arrested the landlord. He lit—or paid someone to light—a pile of oily rags in the basement. Figured since half the neighborhood was on fire, nobody’d look too close and he’d pick up a nice fat insurance check.”

  Jimmy blew a smoke ring out the window. “Jewish lightning.”

  “Irish, in this case. Landlord’s a guy named Sean Devine. He and my brother played football together at U. of D. Guy’s worth a couple mill, lives in Bloomfield Hills, and he pulls a stunt like that. A little girl died in that fire.”

  “Man, this fuckin city. . . .”

  Just then a sky-blue car blazed out of the driveway between Bledsoe’s building and Sean Devine’s botched insurance scam. It was a shiny convertible with its top rolled back, a young black dude at the wheel. It went east on Pallister, toward the Lodge.

  “That our man?” Jimmy said.

  “That’s him. Funny, he usually parks out front.”

  “I thought you said he wouldn’t get home from work till five. It’s ten till.”

  “Guess he got off early. Let’s go.”

  Jimmy nodded. “I could use a little OT.”

  They followed the Buick north out Woodward. Jimmy was thinking, again, that once the Helen Hull case went down he might go ahead and hang it up, retire. Frank didn’t need him anymore. Being out on the water last night was so nice. He could use more of that, more time working in the garden and learning how to cook. And at night there would always be checkers and double-deck pinochle at the Masonic Lodge.

  The Buick turned left on Tuxedo and stopped in front of a tidy brick apartment building. Jimmy pulled over half a block away. They watched Willie Bledsoe hop out of the convertible and jog toward the apartment building. He was wearing a gray shirt with a diamond print on it, sharply creased slacks, expensive-looking loafers.

  “Brother knows how to dress,” Jimmy said.

  “Yes and no,” Frank said. “Some days he dresses like a farmer.”

  “How you mean?”

  “Sometimes when he goes to the library or sits on his porch, he wears overalls and these big clunky work shoes.”

  “Man wears brogans? What’s that all about?”

  “Beats me.”

  “Why don’t you ask him?”

  “I’m planning to.”

  Before Bledsoe reached the building, a girl came out. She was wearing a pink summer dress and matching head band, and she was carrying a white sweater. She gave Bledsoe a big kiss right there on the sidewalk for the whole world to see, then she let him hold the car door open for her. There was a flash of bronze thigh as she slipped onto the front seat.

  “Ooooooo-we,” Jimmy said, letting out a low whistle. “She the one from the fish shack?”

  “Yep.”

  “You didn’t say nothin bout that body. Who is she?”

  “Name’s Octavia Jackson.”

  “She a pro?”

  “A professional receptionist. She answers the phones at Hitsville, U.S.A.”

  “They look pretty chummy. Our man screwin her?”

  “Don’t think so. They’ve been out a few times, but they’ve never spent the night together far as I can tell. A little tonsil hockey’s all I’ve seen.”

  “He a homasexual?”

  “Doubtful. Believe it or not, Jimmy, some guys like to take their time.”

  “And some guys got rocks in they head. I’d be on that like white on Uncle Ben’s rice.”

  “I’m gonna tell Flo you said that.”

  “You do, I’ll cut your tongue out. Then I’ll shoot you.”

  They were laughing when Jimmy dropped the Plymouth into gear and followed the Buick back down Woodward toward downtown. They followed it all the way to Plum Street, to a house with a fucked-up paintjob where a barefoot longhair was standing in the front yard holding a Day-Glo sign that said Stadium Parking $2. The hippie could barely stand up, he was so stoned.

  Jimmy parked down the block in front of a fire hydrant and cut the engine. “Looks like our lovebirds goin to watch Denny McLain make history with his thirtieth win of the season,” he said. “I read in the Freep today that McLain drinks three Pepsis every morning with breakfast.”

  “Yeah, I saw that too,” Doyle said.

  “A wonder the man’s still got any teeth in his head. You wanna snag Bledsoe now?”

  “I’ve got a better idea. You got time to take in a ballgame?”

  “Like I said, I could use a little OT.”

  “First beer’s on me.”

  “What’re we waitin for?”

  “We’re waiting for our man to pay the dipshit parking attendant so we can follow him to the ballpark. It’s bound to be a sellout. We wouldn’t want to lose him in the crowd now, would we?”

  “No we would not,” Jimmy said, getting out of the car and lighting another Newport. He could hear noise pouring out of an upper-story window of the hippie house, loud electric guitars, some guy screaming, “Kick out the jams, motherfuckers!” Man, the shit white people call music.

  They followed Bledsoe and the girl up to the bleachers and sat a dozen rows behind them. Bledsoe slapped hands with two guys sitting on the row in front of him. Jimmy recognized one of them—Clyde Holland, the slickest criminal lawyer in town. Clyde and Jimmy used to run numbers together with Berry Gordy out of a barbecue joint on Hastings called C.T.’s. All three of them wound up going legit, doing all right by themselves. What, Jimmy wondered, were the odds of that?

  Denny McLain didn’t have his best stuff that night, but Jimmy and Doyle got all the way into the game, almost forgot why they were there. McLain gave up two home runs to Oakland’s showboat rookie, Reggie Jackson, and Mayo Smith lifted him for a pinch hitter in the bottom of the ninth with the Tigers trailing, 4-3.

  Al Kaline, the pinch hitter, drew a walk. Mickey Stanley singled him to third. The next batter hit a ground ball, and Kaline broke for the plate. A good throw would have nailed him easy, but the ball sailed over the catcher’s head to the screen. Kaline scored the tying run and Stanley went to second. Willie Horton drove the next pitch over the left fielder’s head, scoring Stanley w
ith the winning run as Denny McLain—a 30-game-winner—sprinted out of the dugout and his teammates hoisted him on their shoulders.

  Doyle wanted to make his move right then but Jimmy pointed out Clyde Holland, said if Clyde saw them collaring Bledsoe he’d damn sure come downtown and make sure Bledsoe kept his mouth shut and didn’t give up a thing. Doyle’s eagerness reminded Jimmy just how much the kid still had to learn. Maybe he should put off retirement a little longer.

  So they followed at a distance as Clyde and his buddy walked down the switchbacks with Bledsoe and the girl. The group finally broke up out on Trumbull, and the detectives followed Bledsoe and the girl back to Plum Street. They held hands the whole way. Too bad if tonight was going to be their first time, Jimmy was thinking, as Doyle called out, “Mr. Bledsoe!”

  “Gentlemen?” Bledsoe said, turning, not yet realizing the two men were police.

  They showed him their shields and half of his cockiness disappeared.

  “We’d like to ask you a few questions, Mr. Bledsoe,” Doyle said. “Would you mind coming with us?”

  “Right now? But—”

  “Right now.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Downtown.”

  “What for, exactly?”

  “We’ll tell you when we get there,” Jimmy said.

  Bledsoe was looking at Doyle, looking him in the eye like they were old buddies who hadn’t seen each other in a long time. “What took you so long?” Bledsoe said.

  “Sir?”

  “What took you so long? All the places you been following me, all the hours you spent camped outside my apartment—and hers—in that old Pontiac of yours. Why didn’t you just knock on my door and save everyone a lot of trouble?”

  The girl said, “Will someone please tell me what the hell’s goin on here?”

  “Please come with us, Mr. Bledsoe,” Jimmy said, stepping closer.

  “My pleasure.” A chubby woman had come out of the hippie house and was standing on the front porch, taking in the scene. Bledsoe called to her, “Hey, Sunshine, can my friend use your phone to call a cab?”

  “Sure, Willie.”