King of the Corner (12 page)

The dumpster took up part of the parking area in front of a pair of dormitories shaped like cracker boxes laid end to end; the university architecture must have been designed by a committee that never met.

“Keep an eye on Darryl,” Ance told Doc. He climbed out and dropped the revolver in his overcoat pocket

Taber, getting out, said, “You’re not figuring on using that thing?”

“Only if Roy makes me. Thanks to Darryl we know it won’t blow up and that it’s accurate to within twelve feet at close range. Just make sure you’re standing behind me when it goes off.”

“I don’t even know where the hell Bangladesh is.” Taber slammed the door on the rest of their conversation. They entered the building.

Doc adjusted the rearview mirror to take in Stemp, slumped against the door he was cuffed to and dabbing at his bleeding lip with the front of his sweatshirt. “Are you a student here?” Doc asked.

“Go pfuck yourselpf.”

He gave up and switched on the radio. They were still discussing Wilson McCoy and the Marshals of Mahomet. McCoy’s death seemed to have triggered new interest in the civil rights movement of the sixties. One caller was a former Black Panther who had served five years in Marquette Branch Penitentiary for arson in the 1967 riots, where he had become a born-again Christian: He said he was less interested in McCoy’s postmortem reputation than he was in the condition of his immortal soul after having renounced Jesus. When the caller began reading from Matthew, the announcer cut him off.

McCoy’s funeral was announced for the following night at a private establishment in Taylor. The press was invited.

Ance and Taber returned sooner than expected. Walking stiffly between them was a young man of about Darryl Stemp’s age wearing corduroy slacks and a red Windbreaker over a black T-shirt with writing on the front. He wore his black hair in a buzz cut and the general squarish shape of his face reminded Doc of Howard Wizotsky. Doc got out and walked around the car and held open the door opposite Stemp. Taber, who had been gripping the youth’s right arm behind his back, reversed the twist with an expert maneuver, shoved his head down with one hand, and pushed him into the backseat. Ance meanwhile opened the door on the other side, pulling Stemp halfway out of the car, freed him from the cuffs, and tossed them across the roof of the Cadillac to Taber, who manacled the fresh captive to the other door. The bail bondsman pulled Stemp out the rest of the way and took his place.

Darryl stood pinching his lip on the pavement. “Don’t I get a ride back?”

“This ain’t the People Mover.” Ance slammed the door.

“Hey, what about my gun?”

Taber and Doc sat in front Taber made a flicking motion with his hand. Doc hit the ignition and pulled out of the space. Darryl still hadn’t moved when he lost sight of him behind the hill.

“Did he give you any trouble?” asked Doc.

“No, Roy ain’t such hot shit when he’s facing two and he doesn’t have any stupid friends handy,” Ance said. “He was just laying there on the janitor’s sofa jerking off to M. C. Hammer when we walked in on him.”

Roy said, “That’s a fucking lie.”

“Well, one of them dickhead rappers, anyway. I’d rather listen to my ulcers bleeding.”

“I didn’t do nothing. I got a right to hitch a ride out of town when I want”

“
I
own all your rights, Junior. Bought ’em for twenty-five thou.”

Taber said, “What do we do with him? His hearing’s three weeks off. If we take him back to his folks he’ll just kick over the traces again.”

“We’re going to tank him.”

“What for?” Roy was shouting now.

“Carrying a concealed weapon; unregistered handgun at that. You’re under citizen’s arrest.”

In the mirror, Roy goggled at the revolver. “That ain’t mine!”

“Take Washtenaw down to Hogback,” Ance told Doc. “That’s the Washtenaw County Sheriff’s Department. They’ll notify Wayne County. The judge will revoke bail, I’ll get my money back, and the Wizotskys get to keep their house. At least until the next time Roy fucks up.”

Doc joined the traffic on the broad avenue. Several blocks later, when Roy had quieted down, Ance said: “Some days I’m nuts about this business. Can’t get enough of it.”

T
HE NEXT DAY WAS
F
RIDAY
. Morning spread buttery sunlight over the dry pavement. Convertibles Doc passed in the Cadillac had their tops down.

Ance, getting into the car in front of his house, said, “What’d your brother say when you tooled in last night with the Caddy?”

“He said if I was running girls I’d get in trouble with the coloreds. I took everybody out to the Big Boy for dinner. I hope that was okay.”

“Sure. I generally try to run rentals into the ground before I give ’em back. I won’t be needing you today,” he said. “I’m in all day. My accountant’s coming in and we’re going to see if he can keep me out of jail for another year.”

“I guess you’ll need the car.” After the massage parlor Doc didn’t have enough cash left for bus fare.

“No, just bring it back when you’re through with it.” Ance pulled out his wallet, took some bills out of it without counting them, and placed them on the dash in front of Doc. “Friday’s payday. I don’t want you bringing it back with the tank empty.”

Doc took one hand off the wheel to riffle the bills with his thumb. There were three hundreds, two fifties, and five twenties. He wondered how Ance had managed the exact amount. “No withholding?”

“No. Shit, no. You’re a contract worker. Figure your own taxes.”

After Doc let him out behind the office he picked up the bills and looked at the WE EMPLOY ONLY AMERICAN MASSEUSES sign. Then he pocketed the cash and drove out of the dirt lot. A man could spend his whole paycheck in the building where he earned it

A few blocks from the office he pulled into a metered space, bought a
Free Press
from a stand, and had a second cup of coffee at a counter manned by an Arab while he read through the classifieds. He borrowed a pencil from the Arab and circled five notices under APARTMENTS FOR RENT.

He drove past the first address without stopping. It belonged to one of a row of buildings on Antietam with plywood in most of the windows and three young black men in torn jeans, bomber jackets, and hundred-dollar Nikes leaning against a burnt-out car parked in front.

The second address, on West Grand River, looked more promising. It was a brick house with green shutters and a shady front porch built sometime in the twenties and well-maintained. But the owner, a tall handsome black woman of about the same vintage, told him she was looking for a married couple to occupy the two rooms on the second floor; she had had bad luck renting them to single men in the past. She took his name and number and said she’d be in touch if she changed her mind. The third place was in a warehouse that had been converted into lofts on Highland Park, light and roomy and the rent was reasonable, but it was right next to a mosque with a loudspeaker chanting Moslem prayers at all hours. Doc didn’t leave his name.

Two of the three others he checked out were more than satisfactory, but the owners wanted first and last months’ rent in advance with a security deposit, which came to more than he had on him. He decided he’d have to postpone serious hunting until next payday, and since the last place was only a dozen blocks from Greektown he went to the Acropolis for lunch. Maynard Ance was in a booth with a man Doc didn’t know. The bail bondsman spotted Doc and motioned him over.

“Doc Miller, Jeff Dolan,” Ance said. “We’re on a break.”

Dolan had the grip—and the build—of a center for the Lions. He had red hair and bright blue eyes in a big face full of freckles. “You don’t look like an accountant,” Doc said.

“I get that a lot,” Dolan’s voice was high and soft for a man his size.

“Dolan used to make the figures jump through hoops for Patsy Orr. You wouldn’t remember his grandfather, Big Jim Dolan, the Irish Pope; he died when I was a little kid. He told the fat cats who to elect for mayor.”

“I’ve heard of Patsy Orr.”

“I quit just in time,” Dolan said. “Six months later Wilson McCoy dusted him and his new accountant in an elevator in the Penobscot Building.”

“Congratulations.” Doc didn’t know what else to say.

“Sit down. Dolan was just leaving. We’ll hit the books next week, same time.”

“I guess that’s my exit line.” Dolan rose. He was as big standing as he looked sitting. “Good to meet you, Doc. Maynard tells me you played ball.”

“A little.”

“We should get up a game sometime. I used to belong to a softball league in my neighborhood, but everybody died.”

“What position?”

“Hot corner.”

“What are you doing Saturday?”

In the exchange that followed Dolan gave Doc his card and wrote down the Millers’ telephone number in an alligator notebook. They shook hands again and Dolan left. Doc sat down.

“If I wasn’t a hockey man I’d offer to umpire.” Ance popped a chunk of roast lamb into his mouth and pushed his plate to one side. “Lucky we ran into each other. Dolan rode me down here. I’ve been trying to get Taber all day but I guess he’s drunk again. Any plans this afternoon?”

“No.” He’d been hoping to stop by a sporting goods store and pick up some stuff for tomorrow’s game with Sean and Sergeant Battle and his son.

“Good. Did the state give you a dark suit when they kicked you?”

“I’ve got a dark suit.”

“How’d you like to wear it to Wilson McCoy’s funeral? I got an invitation this morning.”

“Who invited you?”

“Well, you might say I invited myself. I bought the casket.”

“Why?”

“McCoy wasn’t my only M-and-M client. It gets around I dump them just because they’re dead, I lose half my revenue. The Marshals have been paying my mortgage for years. Anyway the six grand was just a drop in the bucket after the fifty he cost me when he flushed himself down the toilet. Where’s the suit, at home?”

Doc said it was.

“We’ll swing by there after lunch. Funeral’s at two-thirty. We’ll be late, but these colored revolutionaries don’t go by the clock. White man’s invention, don’t you know, to keep the slaves in line. Try the shish-kebab; it’s my own recipe.”

*     *     *

The Brown & Kilmer Funeral Home on Sherman was a two-story house built sometime in the twenties with a fresh coat of white paint and a red brick front that looked as if it had been added on. As Doc slowed down in front, a mixed group, all black, in dark suits and gray and blue and lavender dresses was climbing the front steps, one of the men holding the arm of an old woman in a flowered hat. A black Cadillac hearse was parked in front and a number of limousines with smoked windows and other cars of various makes lined both curbs. One was a powder blue van bearing the News 4 logo on its side.

A young black in pinstripes approached the rented Cadillac carrying a handful of small red flags with suction cups attached and leaned down next to the open window on the driver’s side. If Doc’s white face surprised him he gave no indication. “Will you be joining the procession?” he asked.

Doc looked at Ance, who shook his head. Doc said no and the young man directed him to park in the alley that ran next to the building. As they came back around the corner on foot they passed the van, where a bald-headed black man built like a professional wrestler was fooling around with a video camera and a small spare white man Doc thought he recognized from TV was looking at his reflection in the window on the passenger’s side. He had on a trenchcoat, although the temperature was in the upper fifties and there was no sign of rain.

The entryway was done in soft grays with a mauve carpet that extended into the other rooms wall to wall. There was a lighted portrait in a heavy gilt frame, a photograph tinted with oils, of a middle-aged black man with a tabby-cat smile in sixties lapels with an engraved plate reading ELROD BROWN 1921–1970. The lighting was indirect and so was the manner of the bearlike man in a black suit and French cuffs who took their hands in a warm, enveloping grip while steering them firmly toward a room on the left. This room, separated by gray curtains from the rest of the ground floor, contained rows of folding chairs with an aisle down the center, a dais supporting the casket, and murmuring guests seated and standing about in groups. There were some white faces among them. Doc thought he could tell the undercover police officers, each of whom stood alone in a different part of the room. He looked for Sergeant Battle but didn’t see him.

The recorded organ music was turned so low in keeping with the rest of the proceedings that it was several moments before Doc realized the tune being played, albeit in half-tempo, was “My Guy.”

“You’d think they were burying a Methodist.” Ance was almost whispering; Doc had to stoop slightly to hear him. “In the Depression my old man took work as a gravedigger at Mt. Elliott Cemetery, and he was there when they planted this big black numbers boss the wops iced. He said he could’ve retired on the diamond rings and gold teeth that showed up for the graveside service.”

“Times change.”

“I’m glad as hell I don’t.”

Ance circulated, shaking hands and introducing Doc. None of the mourners seemed pleased to see them, but Doc didn’t sense real hostility. McCoy had left no family and it was clear he hadn’t many friends. Doc mentioned this to Ance when they moved out of the others’ hearing.

“Hell, he didn’t have
any
friends,” the bail bondsman muttered. “McCoy was a stone asshole. Only reason the Marshals put up with him at all was his reputation. He should’ve been glad he was born black or
nobody
would’ve hung around him more than five minutes. Well, let’s go pay the son of a bitch our respects.”

The casket was polished mahogany, almost black, with brass handrails and an eggshell satin lining. McCoy, dressed in a brown leather Windbreaker and blue silk shirt with the collar spread to show off a gold chain around his neck, was lying slightly propped up on a pillow with his hands folded atop a paperback-size book resting on his sternum. Doc twisted his head to read the tide stamped on the black Permabound cover.
Mahomet: The Life and Death of a Negro Prophet,
by Clinton Baedecker.