Motown (24 page)

“Son, are you trying to bribe a police officer?”

“I ain’t your son.”

Mahomet laid a hand on Lydell’s arm. They had begun to attract the attention of the other officers in the room. “Excuse me, Sergeant, but regulations say we can post bond on a misdemeanor.”

O’Pronteagh took in the white suit. “If you’re selling Ajax, where’s your horse and lance?”

One of the uniforms snorted. Mahomet said, “How much is bond?”

“I’m a peace officer, son. It’s not my job to let you people run around with firearms.”

“What you mean, ‘you people’?” Lydell gripped the counter.

The sergeant made an infinitesimal movement of his head. One of the uniforms standing nearby stepped in, grabbed Lydell’s wrist, and jerked it behind his back. His other arm went across Lydell’s throat. The prisoner stopped struggling.

O’Pronteagh handed the roll of bills to another officer behind the counter. “Count it and tag it as evidence. Attempted bribery and resisting arrest.”

“Call Gidgy,” Lydell croaked. “The Morocco Motor Hotel.” His eyes were starting from his head.

Mahomet went to a booth near the door. He was reaching for the receiver when someone pulled him out of the booth. A fist plowed into his stomach. His knees lost tension. Someone caught him before he hit the floor.

“Another resisting.” The sergeant’s voice, far away. “Book them both and make it stick.”

“Jesus fucking Christ. Jesus fucking goddamn Christ.”

The other plainclothesmen in the seventh floor squad room stood around in silence. They had never heard the neat quiet inspector raise his voice before. Now he was standing over a goggle-eyed Sergeant Esther, both hands clenching the sides of the sergeant’s desk to avoid seizing the sergeant’s fat throat.

“It wasn’t me, Inspector. I just found out about it myself.”

“O’Pronteagh and the others just got bored, decided to kill some time with a little nigger-baiting?”

“Not exactly, no.”

“What, exactly?”

Esther took a deep breath and exhaled. Canada smelled stale coffee. “Wasylyk busted Springfield at the stakeout in front of the place on Collingwood; Springfield had a piece. When he came in I told O’Pronteagh to hold him no matter what. I knew you’d want to talk to him. But I never said to rough anybody around.”

“Where are they now?”

“Holding.”

“Kick ’em.”

“Inspector—”

Canada shoved a finger in the sergeant’s face. “Kick them. Give back the money and the gun; it isn’t as if they couldn’t score another one thirty feet from the door. Tell O’Pronteagh if I even see erasures where their names were on the blotter I’ll have him up on charges so fast his shorts will ride up. The whole fucking thing never happened.”

“That might not be so easy, Inspector. There was a reporter downstairs when it happened.”

“News
or
Free Press?”

“News.
It was Conger.”

“That’s a break. They don’t go to press till afternoon. Cut a deal.”

“What kind of deal?”

“Use your imagination. Offer him first look at the final I. A.D. report on Grecian Gardens. That ought to hold him for a couple of months.”

“These aren’t exactly leaders of the Negro community, Inspector. Springfield’s and Lafayette’s priors would fill a drawer and this Mahomet character’s a born troublemaker. I bet he’s the one started it.”

“I don’t give a fuck if he started the New York blackout. Any rookie knows you don’t muss up coloreds on the ground floor of Thirteen Hundred in a hot month like July. Especially not when the Orrs and the Springfields are stalking each other all over town. You want Joe Weaver and a Channel Two camera up here on seven?”

Esther lifted his receiver. “Give me the desk.” He made eye contact with the knot of the inspector’s necktie. “Coopersmith heard back from the FBI.”

“What?” Canada was disoriented.

“Just a second,” Esther said into the mouthpiece. “On that partial thumb the print boys found in that stolen Caddy. DiJesus, you know? I started to tell you when you came in, but—”

“What’d they say?”

“Belongs to somebody named Curtis Dupree, Negro, did a nickel in Jackson for opening up some poor schnook’s skull over a fender-bender on the Lodge. Works at McLouth. He’s a Steelhauler. A.P.B.?”

“Let me.” He went into his office.

After he got off the telephone to Dispatch, Canada took the photograph he had gotten from Susan Niles out of his wallet and stuck it to the center of the bulletin board covered with mug shots. He resisted the temptation to drive the thumbtack grinning between Albert Brock’s eyes.

T
HE TIGERS LOST, BUT
Rick and Pammie got to overhear Jim Northrup negotiating to buy a used Chevy from Norm Cash next to the dugout. During the game, Pammie ate a prodigious number of hot dogs, drank three Cokes, and visited the ladies’ room at least six times. She wore a Tigers cap as promised and a Snoopy T-shirt over a pair of tight green shorts that pushed the fat on her thighs into white ridges. Her knowledge of history at the corner of Michigan and Trumbull made Rick want to run home and bone up on his ten-year collection of programs. When the players went to the showers the two remained in their seats while most of the crowd hurried to join the crush of traffic leaving the parking lot. An old Negro worked his way down the bleachers, spearing paper cups and hot dog wrappers with a nail on a stick.

“I wonder if he bought it,” said Pammie.

Rick rested his head on the back of his seat and watched clouds boil past the quarter moon. The night was warm. “I doubt it. Sounded to me like the block’s cracked.”

“Maybe it didn’t sound like that to Northrup.”

“He’s been in the game too long not to know anything about cars. Everybody misses the bus from time to time.”

“I don’t think it’s the block at all. The plugs need cleaning.” She grinned when he turned his head in her direction. “I got three brothers. I spent more time in garages than Parnelli Jones.”

“That how you wound up at PG?”

“No, I’m just staying out from under foot during summer vacation. I start Eastern Michigan in September.”

“Everybody in the office seems to be on his way somewhere else,” he said. “Lee’s joining the Peace Corps, I’m going into politics, you’re waiting on a baseball scholarship—”

She giggled. “I watch. I don’t play. I’m majoring in Business. Either that or Elizabethan Poetry. I haven’t made up my mind yet. Did you go to college?”

“U of D, two years. I’d have thought you’d been around longer. You run the office when Wendell and Enid are out.”

“Oh, I’ve been there two years, nights, weekends, and vacations. My pop thinks I’m being taken advantage of, not getting paid and all. I keep telling him, money doesn’t motivate our generation.”

“Now you sound like Lee.”

“You sound a lot older than thirty sometimes.”

She was pouting now. He changed the subject. “Enid isn’t on her way somewhere else.”

“Enid was born rich.”

“You say that like you’re sorry for her.”

“I am, sort of. It sure hasn’t made her happy.”

“She and Wendell got something going?”

She looked at him quickly, then at the infield. The grounds crew was unrolling the tarp. More rain was predicted. “I wouldn’t know about anything like that.”

“Come on. You know everything.”

“You ask too many questions. Lee says it’s because you were a reporter, but I think you’re just plain nosy. Everybody should do his own thing and leave everybody else’s alone.”

“That’s Lee talking. He reads all that stuff they hand out on street corners.” He shrugged. “I just don’t like being the only one who doesn’t know what everyone else knows. Personally I think she likes women.”

“Why, because she wouldn’t give you a tumble?”

“Hey, I never asked.”

“What was that needlepoint thing all about then?”

“It was a joke. Are you sore at me for something?” He sat up.

She didn’t answer. She took off her glasses and wiped them with the tail of her T-shirt. She rubbed both eyes and put them back on. “They’re going to kick us out of here.” She stood.

“Sit down. We’re not the only ones waiting for the parking lot to clear.”

She sat down. She was still looking at the grounds crew.

“I’m sorry,” he said.

“Sorry for what?”

“For being a jerk. A guy isn’t supposed to talk about other women when he’s on a date.”

She smiled then, without looking at him. “I thought this was a buddy thing.”

“If it were a buddy thing I’d have asked Lee. Him I could win an argument with on who leads the Tigers in bases on balls.”

“You still owe me a Coke.” She’d forgotten about the infield. “I thought you were interested in Enid. Just about everybody who comes to the office is. I might as well be a file cabinet when she’s around.”

“She scares the hell out of me.”

She beamed. “You?”

“These fashion mannequins with their eyes locked on their goals always do. Enid never doesn’t talk shop. When you’re a guy that’s intimidating.”

“That’s nothing. Well, you met Caroline.” She had shifted gears into gossip.

“I don’t see her every day.”

“Enid had a tragedy. I shouldn’t talk about it.” The eyes behind the glasses said she couldn’t wait to.

“She told me about her parents. I don’t think that explains it.”

“Well, you were warm before.” She got up. “I think you can get your car out now.”

He didn’t bring up the subject again. The hook was set; from here on she would reel herself in.

In the car, Pammie said the hot dogs had made her hungry. They drove to Nicholson’s Steak House on Woodward, waited a few minutes to be seated, and ordered two open-face steak sandwiches with fries. The other diners were in suits and crepe dresses and ballpark casual, like them. He watched her pour Heinz ketchup over her sirloin.

“Why Elizabethan Poetry?” he asked.

“’Cause I don’t know much about it and I sure won’t read it unless somebody makes me. I know me.” She offered him the bottle; he shook his head. She shrugged and set it down. “I’m sort of a poet. One of my poems got Honorable Mention in the
Detroit News
Scholastic Writing Competition last year.”

“Congratulations.”

“All I got was a Certificate of Merit and my name in the paper on a big list. Anyway, if I’m going to make anything of myself, I think I ought to try and understand it, don’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

She dipped a french fry in the ketchup and held it up like a scepter. “You’re a writer, right? I mean, you wrote for the papers.”

“Actually I just talked to people and took notes. Someone else did the actual writing.”

She looked disappointed. Then she shrugged again and took a bite out of the fry. “Still, you’re as close to a real writer as I ever got. Would you read my poems? You could tell me if they’re any good.”

“The Certificate of Merit ought to have told you that.”

“That was high school stuff. I want to know how they stack up to the professionals.”

“All I know about poetry is it doesn’t rhyme any more.”

“Oh.” She concentrated on stirring the stub of potato in her ketchup.

“I’d be glad to read them.”

“That’s okay.”

“No, really. It’s just that my opinion isn’t worth more than anybody else’s.”

“I haven’t shown them to anybody else.”

He stopped sawing at his steak. “They’re not, like, personal, are they?”

“Just stuff that comes to me.”

“You even sound like a writer.” He took a bite.

“Really?” She brightened. “I’ll bring them to the office tomorrow. Don’t spare my feelings. A poet has to have a clear idea of her limitations.”

“Who said that?”

“I just thought of it. Is it good?”

“It’s a good simple declarative sentence. They liked those at the
Times.
” The closest he had ever been to a newspaper office was an occasional cup of coffee with the police reporter from the
Free Press.
He had chosen the
Times
for his background cover because the paper had been defunct for six years, making his story difficult to check.

They ate their meals. Pammie sipped her Coke through a straw and wrinkled her nose. “Too much syrup. How’d you guess Wendell and Enid had—something going?”

“Do they?”

“I didn’t say that. I was just wondering what made you think so.”

He backed off again. “Just something I overheard her say to him on the phone once. Also I get the impression neither of them thinks too much of Caroline, except as a lawyer. Probably I’ve just got a dirty mind.”

“I read a letter he wrote Enid.” She took another sip.

“A letter?” He hadn’t counted on letters. His inner antennae were tingling.

“It was an accident. She had to go out and asked me to file a bunch of letters on her desk. I guess it got mixed up in the stack. By the time I knew it didn’t belong it was too late; I’d read it.” She flushed. “No, that’s not true. I went on reading after I figured out what it was. I guess that’s pretty terrible.”

“What did it say?”

But she’d sealed off. “I put it back on her desk, under some other papers. I never said anything. I don’t think she knows I saw it.”

“Must’ve been pretty hot.”

“It wasn’t your usual office memo.” She ate her last fry. “Do you think they have a dessert tray?”

He drove her home. He didn’t bring up the letter again. “We’ll get ’em Saturday,” he said, referring to the game. “McLain’s pitching.”

“I like Lolich. I just wish he’d lay off the beers. He’s starting to look like Jackie Gleason.” She watched the scenery roll past, lighted shop windows and pools of light under the street lamps like the ones Jimmy Durante used to walk through at the end of his TV show. She turned her head suddenly. “What’s this big idea you had that you wouldn’t tell Enid about?”

“I’d better not say anything yet. It might not come off.”

“Is it legal?”

“Not entirely.”

“Wendell says we should be careful and not break the law. That’s just what GM wants us to do so the government will shut us down.”

“Right, like we could be any less effective if it did.”