Motor City Shakedown (30 page)

I folded my arms across my chest. “So you don't think you're more capable?”

“Well … it depends on what you're talking about. For man-things, of course I'm not.”

I didn't think it would be productive to explore her meaning of “man-things,” so I just said, “Fine.”

She gave me a tentative smile. “So now what?”

“We go see Izzy Bernstein.”

“What do you want with him?”

“I'm going to have the Bernstein boys find the Gianollas for us.”

“Why?”

“It's time to go on the offensive.”

*   *   *

I parked two blocks from Peterboro on the other side of the street. With the likelihood that the Gianollas were after us, I didn't want to get any closer to my apartment than necessary.

Izzy Bernstein stood on the corner, newspaper bag slung over his shoulder, bawling out his headlines. “Murder suspects not guilty! Getcher paper! Wright brothers fly into fairgrounds today! Read about it!”

“Hey, Izzy,” I called, standing just outside the crowd. He looked at me. “Come here,” I said.

“Come here yourself.” He turned back to his customers. “Murderers freed! Paper, paper!”

I walked over to him. “I need a favor, and I'm paying.”

“Why didn't ya say so?” He cut through the crowd to us and squinted up at Elizabeth. With a grin, he said, “Hey there, beautiful. How'd you like the ride of your life?”

Elizabeth could only stare at him.

“Keep it in your trousers, Bernstein,” I said. “She'd probably take you more seriously if you'd already hit puberty.”

He glanced at me in confusion. I'd introduced him to a new word. It was probably better that he didn't understand it.

Elizabeth recovered enough to say, “How old
are
you?”

He looked offended. “Old enough.” He muttered something in Yiddish before shaking his head and turning to me. “Ya hear about Adamo?”

“What about him?”

“Him and the other wop got off.”

“He what?” Elizabeth said, her voice strident.

“What happened?” I said.

I think he smiled, though it looked more a sneer. “Buy a paper and find out.”

I flipped him a nickel. He gave me a newspaper but kept the change. Elizabeth grabbed the paper away from me and started reading. I turned back to Izzy. “I need to talk to Abe. There's real money in this for you guys.”

“What kind of real money?”

“Don't worry. It'll get Abe's attention.”

“Yeah?” He looked curious.

“I need to talk to him today. You arrange that, and I'll give
you
five bucks. And it's just between us. Abe doesn't need to know about it.”

He hesitated. “Yeah, all right. The Saint Petersburg Restaurant on Gratiot. Eight o'clock. He'll be there. Now gimme the dough.”

“You promise?”

With a grin, he said, “Hey, how we gonna do business if ya doesn't trust me?”

I pulled a five from my wallet. “Tonight,” I said, hanging on to the bill. “He better be there.”

Izzy sneered. “Or what?”

“Or I'm going to come looking for you, that's what.”

“Hah,” he barked. “He's a reg'lar comedian.”

I let go of the bill, and he stuck it in his pocket. “Just get him there, all right?” I said.

“Said I would. Now shove off.”

Elizabeth still had her face buried in the newspaper as we walked back toward the car. “I can't believe this.” She looked up at me. “The only eyewitness never made it to court. Adamo was acquitted and released. He's out.”

Right then I felt an icy jab in my gut. “Oh, shit! Joe! Come on!” I began running toward the car.

“What's wrong?” Elizabeth said, trying to keep up with me.

I raced across the street. “Joe Curtiss! The Gianollas were holding him responsible for putting this deal together. Son of a bitch! I can't believe I forgot about him.”

*   *   *

I ran through the first floor, shouting, “Joe! Joe!”

Elizabeth was right behind me. Plenty of other men were working, but Joe was nowhere to be seen. I took the stairs two at a time to the second floor, where mechanics were at work on a dozen or so automobiles. I shouted out his name again. All the mechanics looked my way to see what the panic was. No Joe. We skipped down the stairs again.

The day manager, Mr. Billings, a heavyset, balding man of about forty, stood at the foot of the stairs. “What's going on?”

“Where's Joe Curtiss?”

He frowned. “That's what I'd like to know. We've been behind all day.”

“He didn't come in?”

“No.”

“Did you try phoning him?”

“Yeah. No one answered.”

“Let's try him again.” Squeezing past Mr. Billings, I ran into his office, grabbed the phone, and asked the operator to ring Joe's number. The phone rang. And again. “Come on, Joe,” I muttered. The phone rang ten more times. No answer. “Let's go, Elizabeth,” I said, heading for the door.

We ran for the Torpedo. I started the car, pulled out onto Woodward, and raced up to Highland Park. I turned onto Church Street and stopped in front of Joe's house, a small red-brick two-story on a street of similar houses, some brick and some wood, all quite close together.

“You're still armed?” I asked Elizabeth as I climbed out of the car. She nodded, and we headed up the walk. The house was dark. I peered through one of the small panes of glass in the door and then leaned over and looked through the window at the edge of the parlor. Nothing. To all appearances, the house was empty. I rang the doorbell and waited a minute before taking hold of the doorknob and trying it—locked. “Let's go around back.”

I glanced at Elizabeth as we walked behind the house. Her mouth was tight, her forehead furrowed. My stomach sank when I saw a broken pane in the kitchen door. I turned the knob and pushed. The door swung open. I looked back at Elizabeth, put my finger against my lips, and nodded toward the inside. “Stay behind me,” I whispered, and pulled the pistol from my belt. I saw she already had a gun in her hand. We walked in and crept silently from room to room.

The house looked as I expected it would on a normal day—the oak floor clean, a few dishes in the drying rack next to the sink, a stack of folded towels, edges squared, on the coffee table in the parlor. Seeing nothing on the first floor, we climbed the stairway, shoes scuffling softly on the wooden steps. I first looked in the bedroom on the right—the children's room—empty. Giving only a cursory glance to the bathroom as I passed, I hurried to Joe and Gina's bedroom—also empty. A clacking sound came from behind me, somewhere beyond the hallway. I walked back out of the room.

“Will,” Elizabeth said. It came out a croak, reverberating in such a way that I knew she was in the bathroom. Something metal clattered onto the tile floor. I hurried down the hall and stopped in the doorway.

“Will.” This time, her voice caught in her throat.

Elizabeth stood motionless before the tub, her hand on the bath curtain, her eyes cast down in front of her, her gun lying on the floor.

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

I stepped forward and caught a glimpse of crimson on ivory skin. I grabbed hold of Elizabeth's shoulder and turned her away. Taking her arm, I led her to the first bedroom, sat her on the bed, and bent down to look into her eyes. “Wait here.”

Eyes wide, she nodded. I took a deep breath and went back into the bathroom.

Joe lay in the tub, naked, brown eyes staring at nothing. He was partially turned away, knees up toward his chest as if in modesty. Other than his head, which was a gray white, he was painted in blood. The limbs that were visible, his right arm and leg, were shattered, white bone splinters sticking through the skin. The blood was heavier around his midsection. What I could see of his groin was nothing more than blood and tissue. A crimson curl ringed the drain.

Joe.
God damn it.
If I had only … Could I have saved him?

I realized I was holding the morphine bottle in my left hand. I didn't remember tucking my gun into my belt or taking out the bottle. I spun off the cap and took a pull, then recapped the bottle and shoved it into my pocket before rejoining Elizabeth in the bedroom. Her eyes begged me to tell her it wasn't real, that she didn't see Joe like that.

A calming weight began to settle around my mind. The drug cut through my horror and fear. I sat next to her and took her hand. “Sam Gianolla did it.” My voice was thick.

Her head slowly turned toward me, and she looked into my eyes. Her bottom lip trembled, but she remained silent.

“We have to get out of here.” I stood. “But first we need to wipe down everything we touched. The cops will be lifting fingerprints everywhere.”

“Okay.” She didn't move.

“Elizabeth.”

She looked up at me.

“We need to wipe everything down. Now. We have to get out of here.”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes, you're right.” She seemed to be coming to her senses.

“Go downstairs. Wipe down the banister, all the doorknobs, anything else you might have touched. I'll take care of this floor.”

“I…” She faltered.

“What, Elizabeth?” If the police caught us here, we'd both be going to prison. I was beginning to lose my patience, but shouting at her wouldn't help.

“I touched the curtain.” She waved vaguely toward the bathroom.

“I know. Now go downstairs.” I helped her to her feet and led her out of the room. “And be sure to get the banister.”

“Yes.”

She began down the steps, using her dress to wipe the wooden railing. I hurried back into the bathroom, picked up her gun and stuck it in my belt, then used a towel to wipe her fingerprints off the curtain. I gave quick service to the front of the sink, in case she touched it as well, then got each of the doorknobs. I threw the towel on the bathroom floor and ran down the stairs. Elizabeth stood near the kitchen door, trembling.

“Did you get all the doorknobs?”

Her eyes still staring off into the distance, she nodded.

I took hold of her arm and turned her toward me. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” She shook her head and glowered at me. “Of course I'm sure.”

“Okay. Let's go.” I took a look into the backyard. Seeing no one, I gave her a gentle push out, closed the door, and wiped down the knob with my shirt before leading her to the front of the house. “Wait here for a minute.”

She nodded. I slipped past a hedgerow and, as casually as I could muster, went back to the front door and wiped down the knob. I thought we had gotten everything. Taking a surreptitious glance around us, I hurried back to Elizabeth and led her to the car. After helping her up onto the seat, I started the car, climbed on, and slowly pulled away from the curb, my brain operating on automatic.

Tears spilled from Elizabeth's eyes. “I can't do this, Will,” she whispered. “I can't.”

“That's all right, Lizzie. No one would expect you to.”

“I thought I could. But…”

“It's okay.” I was certain that, without the morphine, I would be every bit the wreck Elizabeth was. So long as I could stay sharp, the drug would help me.

So long as I could stay sharp.

*   *   *

Neither of us spoke while I drove away. My mind was still coated with the soft shine of morphine, and her mind—well, I didn't want to think about what was in there. I drove through Hamtramck to give us some distance from Joe's house, and then down West Grand to Belle Isle.

I pulled the Torpedo into a gap in one of the island's stands of trees and shut off the car. “I'm going to cut down the barrel of the shotgun and then drive you up to your aunt's in Flint. You can stay with her until this is over. Perhaps you can get your mother to join you.”

Looking exhausted, she shrugged and climbed out of the car. She wandered off and leaned against a tree about thirty feet away, looking out at the river and Windsor beyond.

Keeping one eye on her, I wedged the shotgun barrel in the door to hold it in place and cut it down to a foot long. Now the gun would destroy anything within ten feet of me. I wanted to be that close when I killed Sam Gianolla. I fit the shotgun into the lower left inside pocket of my duster. It sagged but not so much that I thought it would be a problem.

I walked over to Elizabeth and touched her shoulder. “Come on. We should go.”

She turned and looked at me. “Could we … sit for a minute?”

“Sure.”

We walked over by the pond and sat on a park bench in the shade of half a dozen dense elm trees. Elizabeth wiped her eyes and looked at me. “Lord … Joe.” A freshening breeze riffled through her hair. Her hat lay on the bench next to her, hatpin atop the brim. Her hair had spilled down around her shoulders.

I put my arm around her. “Don't think about it.” Canoes floated past on the island's small pond, young ladies facing their beaux, who idly paddled while they looked for an advantage. It wasn't so long ago that that was us, but the memory was vague, like something I'd read in a book when I was a child.

Elizabeth pressed closer to me and laid her head against my chest. “What do we do now?” Her voice was muffled by my duster.

We?
“I'm driving you to Flint, remember?”

“I don't know.” Her voice was quiet, barely a whisper.

“Elizabeth, this is too much for you. You said it yourself.” I stroked her head. “And there's no shame in that. This is too much for anyone. You need to get away from all this—permanently.”

“Yes, but—”

“Elizabeth, please. Let me do what's best for you for a change.”

Her head rose, and her emerald eyes met mine. “No. I can't. I have to see this through.”

Bending over, I propped my elbows on my knees and held my head in my hands, ignoring the pain in the right one. I was exhausted. How had my life gone so wrong? Could it all have been that one moment, the moment in a drunken stupor I decided to make love to Elizabeth whether she wanted me to or not? Could a single idiotic decision lead to the deaths of so many and the ruination of so many more?