Motor City Shakedown (19 page)

The bartender slipped the bill into his pocket, but I didn't think I'd actually bought myself anything.

“I'll be back tomorrow. Tell him.” Fitting my hat onto my head, I walked out the door. I trudged along in the cold rain that poured down onto the gray city—Mother Nature's vain attempt to clean these streets. I could have told her. The filth was permanent.

*   *   *

I walked to the corner the next morning for a paper, expecting Izzy to harass me for the other fifteen dollars, though I didn't plan to pay until I confirmed he'd been telling the truth. He wasn't there, nor was the redhead, so I headed down the block for a
Free Press.
When I returned home, I sat in the parlor with the paper and a cup of coffee. One of the first articles I saw made me choke.

The headline read,
MURDER SUSPECTS TURN SELVES IN
. My curiosity turned to amazement as I read the article. Yesterday afternoon, Vito Adamo and Filipo Busolato had walked into police headquarters and given themselves up for the murder of Carlo Callego. According to the writer, Mr. Adamo did not speak English, when in fact I knew him to be more erudite than the majority of American natives. A quote from his interpreter—Ferdinand Palma, the former police detective turned banker turned interpreter for Maria Cansalvo—concluded the article:

Mr. Adamo, a poverty-stricken delivery truck driver

(that made me laugh out loud)

is confused by these charges but wishes to let it be known that he is completely innocent. He wants only to be exonerated and is asking for a speedy trial so that he may return to his wife and children.

It could hardly be a coincidence that Palma was translating for Vito Adamo. It only made sense that the man who had interpreted Maria Cansalvo's damning testimony against me would be helping him. But I didn't see Adamo's angle in turning himself in. The Gianollas must have been getting too close.

Well, I knew where Vito Adamo was now. Today would be as good a day as any to stop by the jail, have a chat, assuming the police agreed to let me talk with him. And I couldn't forget to pay the Bernstein boys. As far as I knew, they delivered on what they said they would.

Now, how to get in the jail? I set the paper down on the coffee table. Murphy. He'd pulled strings before. So long as I paid, he'd do it again.

My father and I were going to the Tigers game at one, which gave me only a couple of hours to get this done. I called the Bethune Street station and, posing as Murphy's brother, asked if he was on duty. My Irish accent was dismal, though apparently passable, as the fourth man to whom I was transferred finally told me that Murphy was out on patrol until 10
A.M.
He'd be back then. It was already half past nine. I plunked a derby onto my head and ran out to the streetcar stop. Sunday-morning traffic uptown wasn't heavy, as most of the riders were heading the other direction, to one of the churches on Piety Hill.

I stood outside the station between the driveway and the front entrance until one of the Chalmers police cars pulled up, Murphy in the passenger seat. A lanky middle-aged cop with a sagging face and handlebar mustaches to match unfolded himself from the driving seat and walked inside.

Murphy was still squeezing himself out of the car. “Hey, Murphy,” I said, walking toward him.

He forced his left knee out of the car and stepped down off the running board. “Gaddamn midget cars,” he muttered. When he noticed me, he said, “Anderson. And just when me pocketbook was getting a mite thin. Whattaya want?”

“I need to see Adamo. Ten minutes, that's all I ask.”

“He ain't here. He's down at the First.”

Police headquarters downtown, where I had spent many long months. “Fine. But I need you to grease the wheels for me. Make a phone call.”

He scratched his chin while he thought. “Twenty bucks.”

“Fine.” I knew it wouldn't be free. I pulled a twenty from my wallet and handed it to him.

“Wait here.” He waddled inside the building and returned about five minutes later. “See O'Toole at the desk. Ten bucks to him.”

“Great. Thanks.”

Murphy gave me a dismissive wave and walked back into the station. I took a streetcar to Campus Martius, the park at the point from which Woodward, Michigan, Gratiot, and a number of other major streets radiate out like spokes on a wheel. From there I hoofed it a couple of blocks to police headquarters. O'Toole, a thick man with gray hair and dark eyes, forced me to pay him twenty dollars, but finally walked me into the jail and down a pair of long corridors lined with crowded cells. At the end of the second one, Adamo sat on his cot, writing on a notepad.

An image of Wesley popped into my head. This man in front of me, this son of a bitch, was involved in Wesley's murder. My vision went dark, and I felt the heat in my face. I wondered if I could even get the words out of my mouth.

Adamo had dressed down to his role as a poverty-stricken truck driver. He wore a white shirt with a short red tie and pair of gray wool trousers held up by suspenders. His vanity hadn't allowed him to let his grooming go, however. His jet-black hair and waxed mustaches were carefully combed into place.

“Five minutes,” O'Toole said, and walked back down the corridor.

Adamo looked up from his pad and gave me a quizzical look. “Mr. Anderson. What brings you out on this fine morning?”

I pushed down my revulsion and said as neutrally as I could, “I think we can help each other.”

He set the pad on the cot, rose, and met me by the bars. An amused expression on his face, he said, “And just how are we going to do that?”

“You want the Gianolla brothers dead,” I whispered. “So do I.”

He chuckled. “So you owe them for providing you with a patsy. And you don't want to pay.”

“What—Esposito?”

He just raised his eyebrows.

“I didn't ask them for anything. And I didn't kill your man.”

“Please, do not lie to me. I am where you want me to be. Isn't that enough?”

“But Esposito confessed. Why would he confess if he didn't do it?”

“No.” The word was short, clipped. “It wasn't him.”

“How do you know that?”

“My hands reach into the state prison. I have been assured Esposito was not the killer.”

“Well, it wasn't me.”

He returned to the cot and picked up his notepad. After a moment, he met my gaze again. “I know you were at Carlo's that night. I know you hold me responsible for the death of your friend. I know you would like nothing better than for me and my men to rot in your miserable prisons. Why would I not also believe that you killed Carlo? Prove to me otherwise, and perhaps I could take you seriously.”

“How am I supposed to prove I
didn't
do something?”

He chuckled again. “By proving someone else did.”

I tried to persuade him for another couple of minutes to no avail. His position was solid: Prove someone else killed Moretti, and perhaps he'd listen to me.

I walked back to the front desk at the station lobby and asked O'Toole if I could see the Moretti file. He looked around furtively before leaning down and saying, “Fifty bucks.”

We dickered, ending up at thirty dollars. He jumped down from his seat and walked me back into a different hallway, where he closed the door and held out his hand. I pried the banknotes from my quickly emptying wallet and gave him the bills. He turned and led me into a large room filled with a dozen desks and rows of filing cabinets against the walls. Other than for us, the room was unoccupied. He walked down the line of cabinets, running a forefinger along the drawers as he wandered along, mouthing letters. “
S
 …
R
 …
O
 … there.” He pulled a drawer open and flipped through some files before pulling out a thick folder and handing it to me. “You got ten minutes. If I got to come back here for you, I'm gonna introduce you to my billy club.”

“Fine.” He left. I set the file on top of the cabinet and leafed through half a dozen police reports from the night of the murder and the following days, just skimming the material, looking for names. When I got to Maria Cansalvo's account of the evening, I slowed and really read it. I hadn't thought of her since the trial. Where was she now? On her way back to Sicily, I supposed. The only two people in this whole mess who were completely innocent were Maria Cansalvo and, according to Adamo, Giovanni Esposito, the only two who had been punished.

When I finished her account, I looked through the rest of the file more closely—Esposito's confession, the officers' and detectives' statements, everything. Nothing even hinted at a killer other than Esposito or me. I grabbed a blank piece of paper off the closest desk and wrote down Esposito's home address. If there was a Mrs. Esposito, perhaps I could get some helpful information. Perhaps Esposito was one of the men who had entered the building prior to Moretti coming home. If not, I had to learn the identity of the prostitute. Right now, my only two suspects for the woman playing that role were Elizabeth and Pinsky's daughter. I couldn't quite get myself to believe that either of them would have gone that far.

I walked back to the lobby and headed toward Woodward again. I'd see what I could find at Esposito's address, but I didn't have much hope for help there. Regardless, I'd speak with my father first. He was the key to my only other idea for extracting myself from the situation with the Gianollas—spilling my guts to the Employers Association of Detroit. Their primary function was to eliminate threats against their members, which usually involved one union or another. They responded with fists, knives, clubs, and guns, and used criminals to do their dirty work when necessary. Unfortunately, they wouldn't help me without my father's approval. I had to involve him. Perhaps the power of the EAD could get me out of this.

But I first had to explain it all to my father, a task I eyed with dread.

*   *   *

The man next to me cupped his hands around his mouth and hooted, “Yer a bum, Cobb!”

Ty Cobb glanced our way and gave the man a one-fingered salute before turning back to the action. Others joined in cursing him. Cobb had lost a bit of his popularity this year for beating the hell out of a cripple—a one-handed man—who'd been riding him during a game in New York. I kept quiet. Cobb and the other Tigers' outfielders, Sam Crawford and Bobby Veach, were all they had going for them.

I couldn't get used to the ball field. They'd torn down Bennett Park while I was in jail and replaced it with the gargantuan Navin Field. My father and I sat in the second row behind the right field fence, drinking soda pop and watching the action in the bright sunshine. There wasn't much to cheer about. The Tigers were being whitewashed by Cleveland's ace, Vean Gregg. Nap Lajoie and Shoeless Joe Jackson had each driven in two runs, and the Naps led 4–0 in the ninth inning. Ten minutes later, Gregg put the Tigers out of their misery.

After the game, we stopped at Charlie Churchill's for a drink. We sat at a table in the bar, my father with a brandy, me with a Faygo orange pop.

“Son?”

Startled, I looked at my father. For some time I'd been staring in the direction of the “Brunette Venus” painting behind the bar, lost in my thoughts. I had no idea how to begin this conversation.

“You seem like you're a million miles away. Is that electrotherapy accident still affecting you?”

I shook my head. “I wish it were that simple.”

He touched my arm. “What is it? Are you in some sort of trouble again?”

Taking a deep breath, I nodded and began explaining about the Gianollas and the Teamsters, the meeting I had with Ethan Pinsky, and the alternatives he had given us. When I finished, I told him I'd gone to see Detective Riordan but didn't trust any other policemen enough to talk to them. Then I added that I'd spoken with Vito Adamo in jail that morning to ask for his help and was rebuffed.

His face variously registered shock, disbelief, and, at the end of my tale, a fatal acceptance. “This all goes back to Vito Adamo?”

“Yes. The gun battles in Little Italy are Adamo and Gianolla men fighting for turf. But the Teamsters, of course, are a new wrinkle that came with the Gianollas.”

My father met my eyes. “I don't have the money. The truth is, I've sunk most of our savings into the company. I couldn't come up with fifty thousand dollars without selling Anderson Electric.”

“No. You can't do that. We have to meet them head-on. I want to bring this to the Employers Association.”

He nodded. “This is what they were designed for. Well, perhaps not exactly this, but for keeping the unions out. We can get them to help. We'll need to see Finnegan, the security head.”

“I asked him about Adamo the other day. He said he wasn't familiar with him.”

His forehead wrinkled. “Well, perhaps they don't employ criminals anymore. They changed quite a bit after the Cooper mess.”

“The Gianollas might have men inside the EAD as well as the police. Do you trust Finnegan?”

“We haven't had any need for his services for a while. I'll ask around.”

“Father, if we do this, you and Mother are going to have to be very careful. If the Gianollas get wind I'm not cooperating, there's no doubt they'll come after you.”

His eyes narrowed. “I'd like to see those scum try anything with me. But your mother … I'll phone the Pinkertons.”

“I'm not sure that's a good idea. They're not exactly invisible. If the Gianollas see them, they'll be gunning for us.”

My father thought for a second. “All right. I'll wait. We'll just have to take precautions. Tomorrow morning we'll go see Finnegan. We'll show those Sicilians who runs this city.” He leaned toward me and nudged my shoulder. “Dr. Miller wanted me to speak with you about the rest cure again. But I think we can forget about neurasthenia treatments for the time being.”