Motor City Shakedown (37 page)

I put my arm around Elizabeth's shoulders. Her whole body was trembling. “We need to think, honey,” I whispered. “What should we do?”

“I … I don't know.” She sounded small, breathless. “How did they know we were going to be there?”

“I don't think they did. They must have followed Palma. If they knew we were here they would have killed us at the same time.”

A shiver went through her.

“We'll be okay,” I said. “Detective Riordan will keep us out of it.” I remembered my derby on the hat rack, but there was nothing to tie it to me. “So long as we're not identified by witnesses, the Gianollas won't know we…”

“Killed their man,” Elizabeth finished in a wooden voice.

“We've got to get off the streets,” I whispered. “But we can't go home or back to the hotel. It's not safe.” Every beat of my heart set a new wave of fire burning up my arm. I swallowed the groans that wanted to force themselves from my mouth.

“The mission,” Elizabeth said. “We can stay there.”

“But that's for men. What will you do?”

“The sisters will let me in. I'll stay with one of them.”

The McGregor Mission sounded like a good idea to me. It was close, and it was full of men who looked at least as bad as I did. And nobody was going to look for us there. Tonight we'd be safe, and tomorrow we'd call Vito Adamo and work up a plan.

I remembered the aspirin and swallowed half a dozen; then we crawled out from under the stairs and stood in the light of the streetlamp, looking each other over. Her dress was rumpled, but other than that she looked fine, so long as you stayed away from her eyes. She thought I looked enough of a bum to fit in at the mission. I wasn't sure if it was her sense of humor coming back or if she was serious, but I left it.

Few people were on the streets, but we struggled to look like a couple out for a stroll. As much as my hand and shoulder hurt, I don't think I pulled it off very well, but no one stopped us. We threaded through back alleys for fifteen minutes before turning a corner and seeing the McGregor Mission, a narrow three-story red-brick building. A line of perhaps twenty men stood outside, shuffling forward as another of their ilk was either allowed in for the night or sent away with a stern admonition.

Elizabeth put a hand on my arm. “I'll wait until you get inside and then go around back. If the father doesn't let you in we'll have to figure out something else.”

“Why wouldn't he let me in?”

She shrugged. “He's not always the most rational sort. Now go.” She gave me a little push.

“When will we meet up?”

“They roust everyone at six for breakfast. We'll talk then.”

I held my arms out and took a step toward her, ignoring the flare in my shoulder. She let me hug her and returned it, though her grip was tentative. “I'll see you in the morning,” I said. “If you need anything, you know where to find me.”

“No offense, Will, but the sisters might be better company for me tonight.”

I nodded and walked to the end of the line. Father McGregor's booming Scottish brogue cut through the murmured conversation around me. “Paddy! Good to see you again, lad. How's the missus?” A minute later, “No, sir, not drunk! Be gone with you!” An old man walked past me, away from the mission, muttering curses. McGregor kept up the patter as I moved forward one step at a time, staring at the pavement. I peeked up when he started talking to the man in front of me. The priest's long gray hair bobbed in rhythm with his speech. He didn't quite have a John the Baptist look, but he was tall and thin with wide eyes, a bony face, and a somewhat fevered countenance—the kind of man who might cause you to think about moving to the other side of the street if you saw him approaching.

The man in front of me walked inside the mission with McGregor's blessing, and the father cast his gaze on me. “Yeh've been here before, haven't you?”

I shook my head. “No, sir.” I did my best to sound like a poor man. My accent struck me as somewhere between Black Irish and Black Death.

He cupped his chin in his hand, studying me. “How do I know ya then?”

I looked at the pavement. “Don't know, Father. I been around.”

“Yer not drunk?”

“No.”

“What happened to your arm?”

I realized I was cradling my right arm in my left. “Hurt my shoulder workin'.”

“What kind of work you do?”

“Ice.” It just popped into my head. “Ice delivery.”

“Can't do that with a bum shoulder, now, can you?”

“No, sir.”

“Let me guess. They fired you after you got hurt.”

“Yes, Father.”

“What's that on yer neck?” He gestured toward the right side of my throat. “Don't look like dirt.”

I ran a hand over my neck and looked at my palm. It was streaked with blood.

*   *   *

A lead weight dropped in my gut. “Oh.” I pushed down my revulsion, forced out a laugh, and started babbling. “My shoulder. One of the big tongs at the factory got me. Can't get it to stop.”

He reached out and touched the left elbow of my jacket. His finger came away tacky with blood. “Yer really bleedin'. Look at me, son.”

I raised my eyes. He appraised me for perhaps a quarter of a minute before nodding toward the doorway. “See one of the sisters for bandages. No smokin', no drinkin', and if you can help it, no fartin' either. Go on in. I think there may be some soup left if you're hungry.”

“Thank you, Father.”

In any other setting, McGregor would likely have recognized me. But no one expected Will Anderson to be sleeping at a charity mission. I was so out of context as to be almost invisible. I climbed the final steps into the first room, a large dining hall with long tables running front to back and a serving window at the far end. A few men sat at the tables with bowls in front of them.

I climbed the stairway toward the second floor, and a mass of noise filtered down to me—men talking, laughing, shouting. When I reached the top of the steps, I turned the corner into a huge room with perhaps four hundred cots lined up in tidy rows. Men lay or sat on about two-thirds of the beds while a few of them milled about, talking to one another.

My pulse was pounding so hard in my hand I thought it would rip the glove open. I headed for the bathroom. The smell was horrid. The toilet arrangement was that of a long trough covered by a stained board with six holes cut through it—similar, actually, to the toilets in the Anderson Electric factory. I shrugged off my coat and washed the big man's blood off my neck. Then I peeled off my shirt and did my best to wash off the blood, both the big man's and mine that had leaked out around the bandages on my shoulder.

Other men came in and used the facilities, but I hid my hand from them, and they all left me alone. I washed the blood off myself, my shirt, and my coat. Finally I set my jaw and worked the glove off my hand. My thumb and first two fingers were purple and swollen, like sausages ready to burst. The other two, though nothing but gnarled scar tissue, had turned a darker shade of red. I looked at myself in the mirror. My eyes were sunken. My face looked bony, nearly skeletal. I made a pact with myself to avoid mirrors for a while. There was no getting the glove back on. I'd have to keep my hand in my pocket and hope I'd be able to keep it hidden well enough to avoid notice.

I took a cot near the back wall and watched the activity for a while, trying to take my mind off my pain. The men were unshaved and dirty, smelling of body odor and stale tobacco, some with whiskey working its way through their pores. They spoke in a polyglot of languages, none really distinguishable over the drone. Four nuns in black habits worked the room, getting men into beds, taking away cigarettes, scolding recalcitrants. Eventually all the men climbed onto cots, and the father came up and said a prayer before shutting off the lights.

I lay awake a long while. My hand and shoulder throbbed, and my mind raced. I got little sleep. Awake was better than asleep. When I did manage to fall off, my dreams were haunted by gushing fountains of blood.

*   *   *

Something exploded into my kidney. My body arched back, my hand reaching to ward off the blow. Again, something smashed into my lower back. I fell off the cot and landed on my right shoulder, crying out from the pain.

“Is 'at him?” a voice growled.

“Yes, it is,” Father McGregor said.

“Get up, ya jackass,” the first man said. There was just enough light to see McGregor and a policeman standing over me.

“What?” I held up my left hand in front of me. My eyes watered from the pain.

The policeman was a thin man with long handlebar mustaches. Raising the club over his head, he said again, “Get up.”

“All right, all right.” I struggled to my feet. “What do you want?”

He grabbed my arm and shoved me forward.

“Hey, let 'im alone,” a voice called. Another man yelled at the cop to leave me be.

He just shoved me again and shouted, “I'll bring the whole lot of you in if you don't shut your holes!”

The men grumbled, but no one made an issue of it. He pushed me to the stairs, down to the first floor, and outside, where a fat policeman stood in the light of a streetlamp with his back to us, hand resting on his holstered pistol.

The other cop pulled me down the stairs. “Murphy, we got our man.”

“Zat right, Scotty? Let's have a look.”

Murphy?
I began to turn toward him. The first cop rammed the truncheon into my stomach, doubling me over, and then shoved me to the ground. I struggled to catch my breath. Through the tears, I saw the two of them standing over me.

“Don't look like much, does he now, Scott?” Murphy said. “Whattaya think? Shoot him and toss him in the river, or bring him in?”

“Murphy,” I gasped, “it's me, Will Anderson.”

He stared at me, dumbfounded. “Anderson?
Jaysus
Christ…”

“I can explain. Just let me talk to you for a minute.”

The thin cop looked at Murphy. “You know this asshole?”

Murphy met his partner's gaze. “Take a hike, Scotty. Lemme talk to him a minute.”

The other man frowned at him, shook his head, and walked away. Murphy helped me to my feet. “Christ, Anderson, look at ya.”

I was still bent over from the blow to the stomach. “It's a disguise, Murphy, and it's a long story.”

“Well, ya better start the tellin'. We got a couple'a dead bodies over on Gratiot, and you're the guy stinkin'a blood down at the mission.”

“Listen, Murphy, I need a favor. Let me walk. I'll make it worth your while.”

He scratched his head with his billy club. “Don't know about that. They're sayin' Tommy Riordan and a pair of accomplices murdered those guys and put Ferdinand Palma into a coma.”

A shock went through me. “What?”

“You and Riordan are old buddies.”

“Riordan wouldn't murder anyone. If he killed somebody it would be in the line of duty.”

Murphy gave me a big smile. “Ain't what the witnesses are sayin'. Him and some Annie Oakley turned Gratiot into a shootin' gallery.” He rubbed his chin. “Sergeant Rogers has been lookin' for ya anyway. If I hand ya over to him, it's prob'ly worth a promotion for me. They might even make me a dick. What's he want you for, anyway?”

“How much?” I was already pulling my wallet from my coat.

He snatched it away from me and pulled out all the bills with a pudgy fist. Handing the wallet back, he riffled through the money. “Hundred, two, hmm.” He pursed his lips, pushing his bottlebrush mustache up against his nose, then shot a glance down the street in the direction his partner had gone. “Tell ya what. Make this a down payment, I'll let ya off.”

“Done.” I didn't know where I'd get any more money, but that was the least of my concerns.

“Ah, don't know why I got a soft spot for you, Willy, my boy, but awright. Enjoy your holiday.”

I didn't wait for him to tell me twice. Holding my stomach, I trotted off down the street, in the opposite direction his partner had gone.

CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

I hid in an alley six or seven blocks away, behind a dozen overflowing garbage bins. I'd go back for Elizabeth at six. I wrapped a rag around my right hand and tried to fall asleep again, but the pain was too great. I swallowed another handful of aspirin.

While I lay there, I tried to decide what to do. The cops were after me—or rather the gang squad was looking specifically for
me,
while the rest of them were after the people who helped Detective Riordan kill the men outside the Saint Petersburg last night, particularly the female accomplice. If this didn't end soon, we'd have no chance of getting the Gianollas out of our lives. I had to get Vito Adamo to help us now. I hoped he was serious about working together.

Near six I crept over to an alley near the mission and watched the front door. A few minutes later, Elizabeth ran around from the back, her eyes scanning the street. When she looked my way I waved and caught her attention.

She hurried over to me and grabbed my arm. “I heard about the police. I can't believe I slept through it. I thought you … I'm so glad you're still here.”

“I knew one of the cops. He let me go.”

“That was lucky.”

“Maybe our luck is changing.”

She nodded and gave me a tentative smile. “It probably can't change for the worse. Say, why don't we find a place for you to hole up for a little while. I'll get us some breakfast and find a place we can make that call.”

“Sounds good. About twenty cups of coffee would be a good start.” I nudged her arm. “How are you doing?”

She stared at the brick wall opposite us. “I had to do it. He was going to kill you.”

I nodded. “I know it's not enough, but thank you.”