Seven

“I'm stupid,” Mulheisen said.

“No shit,” Maki said. They were both hunched over the bar at the Town Pump. Mulheisen had quit filling out a long investigative report form.

“I'm just plain dumb. I call in. Not every night. Some nights I go home. But if I'm in town, say I stop for a drink or two, maybe have dinner, then I almost always call in to the precinct before I head for home. Just out of curiosity. Curiosity and stupidity.”

Mulheisen did not live in the city, which was against regulations. Like many officers he got around the regulation by maintaining an address in town, which was really just an answering service and a mail drop run by a creaky old hillbilly named Speed, on the near East Side. Speed charged each officer fifteen dollars per month, but it was worth it. If anyone called there, Speed made every effort to contact the officer, and he was good at forestalling suspicious superiors.

Maki drained off the rest of his beer and set the glass on the bar. Dick VanLerberghe filled up the glass promptly and waved away Maki's attempt to pay. He also filled Mulheisen's shot glass with Jack Daniel's. “That's what those thugs was drinking,” Dick said to the detectives. “The first bottle of that I opened in months. And you drink it, too!”

“What does that sign say, for crying out loud?” Maki demanded irritably.

Dick looked at the sign over the cash register, then back at the two policemen. “Can't figure it out, eh? What kind of language you think that is?”

Mulheisen examined the sign for the first time. “Hmmmm. It's sort of like Latin,” he said, “but not really. French? No. I don't know. Finnish, maybe? Nah, that's not right. I give up.”

“Boy, a couple of smart detectives you are,” Dick said. Then he recited the message smugly, grinning with vast amusement.

Maki stared at VanLerberghe with undisguised hostility. The bartender's smile faded. Mulheisen said, “Did someone call Vanni?”

“Here!” Jerry Vanni walked in the door accompanied by Mandy Cecil. The two looked like candidates for “Most Handsome Couple of the Year.” Vanni wore a short fur-collared camel's-hair coat, extravagantly flared trousers and shoes with stacked wooden soles and heels that added an unnecessary two inches to his height. His white teeth gleamed and his mustache drooped stylishly. Mandy Cecil's hair was attractively windblown and her cheeks were rosy from the brisk October night. She wore a very woolly kind of fur jacket and voluminous pantaloons that stopped just below the knee where her high leather boots ended.

Maki eyed the pair sourly. “Hubba, hubba,” he said under his breath.

Vanni stood with his fists on his hips, staring at the dark and wounded jukebox. “Now, what the hell?” he said.

Mulheisen watched Mandy Cecil as she examined the ruins of the cigarette machine. She asked what had happened. Mulheisen gave her a quick reprise while Vanni listened.

When Mulheisen finished, Vanni said, “I know what you're thinking, Sergeant. But I'll say it again, I have nothing to do with the mob.”

“What about Sonny DeCrosta?” Mulheisen asked. “Hear anything more from him?”

Vanni shook his head. “No, but it looks like they might be trying to get some kind of point across to me, doesn't it?”

Mulheisen nodded. “You might call it a form of communication,” he said.

“Well, what do I do now?” Vanni said.

“You might give DeCrosta a ring,” Mulheisen suggested. “Talk it over with him, see what he knows about this. Maybe he'd be willing to guarantee you against this kind of loss. Then you'll know where you stand.”

“I'm not going to pay off some slimy creep like that, if that's what you mean,” Vanni said hotly.

“That's not what I was suggesting,” Mulheisen said. “But it doesn't hurt to find out if DeCrosta's really involved. We might be able to work up a case against him.”

“All right,” Vanni said. “I'll call him. In the meantime, I guess I'd better clean up the mess.” He took off his coat and began to sweep up the coins and cigarettes with a broom provided by Dick. Mandy Cecil took off her jacket and sat down at a table to separate the coins into different piles. She was wearing a satiny blouse and it was obvious that she wasn't wearing a brassiere.

Mulheisen and Maki sat at the bar watching her through the mirror. They discussed quietly the problems of pinning anything on the mob. Mulheisen said he would have to talk it over with Andy Deane tomorrow, for sure, and get a thorough check on Sonny DeCrosta. And, of course, the bartender would have to go downtown to Racket Conspiracy to see if he could identify the gunmen from Andy's gallery of known mob hardcases. Dick assured them that if the police had a picture of either man, he'd be able to identify them. “I'd know them noses anywhere,” he said. “I'm a expert on noses.”

The door swung open and a man came in. He was short and dark, with black hair and carried himself with a certain cheerful self-assurance. He wore a fleece-lined leather coat and Levis. On his feet were cowboy boots. “Whew,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “getting chilly out.”

He looked around at the mess, now almost cleaned up. “Hey, looks like you had a brawl, eh?” He hopped up onto a stool.

“Brother, you wouldn't believe it,” Dick said. “What'll it be?”

The stranger looked down the bar and noticed the bottle of Jack Daniel's. “Black Jack Ditch,” he said.

“Black Jack Ditch,” Dick repeated, “which is . . . ?”

“Jack Daniels and water,” the stranger said. He nodded to Mulheisen and Maki. “What happened here?” he asked. Maki turned away. He didn't like questions.

Mulheisen said, “Some guy came in and didn't like the jukebox, so he took a couple of shots at it.”

“No kidding?” the man said. “He must have been packing a cannon.”

Mulheisen nodded. “Probably a .44.”

“I saw something like that out in Wyoming once,” the man said, “in Sheridan.”

“You from out West?” Mulheisen asked.

The man drank off his Black Jack Ditch and called for another, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “I've spent some time out there,” he said. He seemed to lose interest in the conversation and gazed at Mandy Cecil for a while. She looked up and caught him. The stranger smiled at her. She smiled and went back to counting coins. The man drank down his whiskey again and picked up his change, leaving a couple of dollars on the bar. “Buy these fellows one,” he said to Dick and strolled out.

“You know him?” Mulheisen asked Dick.

“Never saw him in my life,” Dick said, pouring out a couple more drinks for the detectives. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, a promotional item from Hamm's Brewers that showed a continuously changing panorama of a Northern trout stream. It was 1:30 A.M., bar time. “Don't look like I'm gonna get much more business. Think I'll close her up. You fellows just sit tight.” He went over to the front and turned out the tavern sign, then locked the door.

“Time to head home,” Maki said. He didn't look very enthusiastic. Mulheisen wondered where he was living, now that he had broken up with his third wife. Maki had left behind him a string of furnished apartments. “Do yourself a favor, Mul, and don't go back to the precinct tonight. The blue boys got a report on this.”

“I won't,” Mulheisen said, “but I don't feel much like driving all the way out to St. Clair Flats. Nobody home, anyway.”

“Where's your mother?” Maki asked.

“Texas.”

“Texas? What the hell is she doing in Texas?”

“She belongs to some bird-watching outfit,” Mulheisen said. “She's gone on a bird-watching tour. I think I'll cruise around town a little more tonight. Maybe I'll head over to Benny's and see what's cooking.”

Maki got up and slapped Mulheisen on the shoulder. “Don't get caught in a raid,” he said. “It'll look bad on your record.”

“Nobody raids Benny,” Mulheisen said. “See you.”

After Maki left, Mulheisen had another drink then strolled over to the table where Cecil and Vanni were both counting change from the jukebox and the cigarette machine. “I guess I'll take off,” he told them. “Let me know if DeCrosta rises to your bait. I'll let you know if anything comes up on your hit man.”

Mandy Cecil looked up from a pile of quarters. “Nothing new on him?”

“So far, all we know is that he liked to swim. Well, good night.”

Dick let him out into the cold, windy night.

•    •    •

Benny Singleton was a short black man with a thick mustache. He was handsome, with large brown eyes and a neat round head. He wore his hair clipped short. “I'm too old for that Afro stuff,” he'd once told Mulheisen. He was forty. He dressed himself in soft browns and grays, in good rich woolen cloth with quiet patterns. He wore oxford-cloth shirts with button-down collars and they looked right on him. With these he preferred silk ties and tweed jackets, silk hose and well-burnished old cordovan shoes in excellent repair. Benny moved with grace and spoke in a low, articulate voice that was audible yards away.

Benny Singleton had been a waiter most of his life. He started as a salad boy in a large downtown hotel, became a waiter, occasionally tended bar, and finally became maître d'hôtel, a position to which he seemed born. He was known, appreciated and even feared by those who dined well in Detroit. Eventually he became maître d’ at the River Inn, a distinguished restaurant on the Detroit River. In this position he served for many years and was often tipped not with vulgar cash but with quietly uttered words of stock-market wisdom. Benny heeded this advice and in due time became wealthy enough to leave service, although he was honestly plagued with concern for his old patrons, who, he feared, would never find anyone to care for them adequately.

With his small fortune, Benny entered the twilight zone of Detroit night life. He opened a blind pig. Every city has its distinctive features. San Francisco has hills and refurbished post-earthquake houses; New Orleans has Creole food and hot jazz. Detroit has barbecued ribs and blind pigs. A blind pig is a tavern that opens after the legal closing hour, which is 2 A.M. In Detroit lots of people don't go out until the bars close.

The origin of the phrase “blind pig” is obscure. It has always meant an illegal drinking establishment. If one supposes that “pig” is a universal pejorative for policeman, and if one considers that no illegal saloon could possibly operate without at least the passive cooperation of the local constabulary, why then, a possible etymology suggests itself. Beyond that, however, one might consider the fact that during Prohibition (the Golden Age of the blind pig) the liquor retained in these speakeasies was often a volatile, unaged substance that was potent enough to blind a pig.

Whatever the origin, blind pigs are numerous in Detroit. Detroit needs them. Despite the fact that it is the fifth largest city in the nation, it has very little in the way of legitimate night life. There are jazz clubs and barbecue joints—sometimes on the same premises—and there are blind pigs. The Fords and the Fishers and the Liebermans go to the opera once a year when the Metropolitan comes to town, and there is a fine local symphony orchestra. But, by and large, after dark in Detroit it is jazz, ribs and juice. Detroit is a working town. It works shifts. When the midnight shift gets off, the boys want to go out and play. So Detroit stays open all night.

The police don't mind the blind pigs. Why should they? For the working cop on patrol it is a source of income. For the vice squad it is a source of income and information. For the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau it is a gold mine. Detroit is the terminus of an enormous bootleg and moonshine whiskey industry. The illicit booze comes in across the largely unpatrolled Canadian border, or it is driven into the city in what amounts to a continuous convoy of specially rigged tanker automobiles from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Detroit is the marketplace for the South's cottage industry.

A blind pig has cheap booze and good booze; sometimes they come in the same bottle. It also offers prostitution, dope, gambling and what a sociologist might term an “interface” between the straight world and the criminal world. This interface is important, for the underworld has much to offer the law-abiding community. Besides whores, marijuana and a shot of whiskey at four in the morning, where else can one find a bargain on a hot car, a gun that doesn't have to be registered, or a hired killer? Even the most law-abiding citizen in Detroit seems to need a gun, and an unregistered gun is preferred. Why advertise to the cops that you are armed? And, anyway, the unregistered gun is a stolen gun and therefore cheaper than the one sold in the stores.

There are many kinds of blind pigs in Detroit, from filthy stews to fancy establishments like the one run by Benny Singleton. This is a pleasant, two-story frame house near Pingree Park, on the East Side, several blocks north of the River and north of Indian Village. Benny has never been raided. He liked to tell Mulheisen that “If it wasn't for me, none of you fellows could send your kids to college.” Mulheisen would grimace and Benny would hasten to add, “Course, I don't mean you, Mul. You always been square with me.”

Benny's clientele was mostly white and well-off. He permitted no heroin or other heavy drugs on the premises. He allowed casual dealers to sell a baggie of marijuana or some tai sticks, but that was it. His whiskey was authentic Hudson's Bay scotch and Wild Turkey. He didn't deal with moonshiners. The prostitutes were young, expensive and free-lance. They sometimes looked like college girls, and were. Benny charged them fifty dollars a night to come into the house and they had to buy their own drinks.

“I been thinking, Mul,” he said. “I ought to open a dining room. Just a little place, room for about eight people. I'd serve one or two parties a night. I'd make it as expensive as I could imagine—maybe seventy-five to a hundred dollars a head. Then I'd get me Alois Belanger, the chef at the Old Plank House, and pay him whatever he had to have. Or maybe I'd get different chefs on a one-week rotation. I bet I'd be booked solid within a week of opening. I already have a very good wine cellar, but I'd have to expand—it'd be a good excuse to go to France for a month.”

“You've got a wine cellar here?” Mulheisen said, looking up from his Wild Turkey and water (he'd ordered a Wild Turkey Ditch).

“Hell, no,” Benny said. “I ain't taking no chances. I never been raided yet, but I don't want the first raid to bag my good wines. I keep it next door, where I live.”

“The restaurant sounds like a good idea,” Mulheisen said.

“The question is,” Benny said, “why do it here if there ain't no question of legality. I mean, why not open up public?”

“Why not?” Mulheisen concurred.

“I don't know,” Benny said seriously. “Somehow . . . I just don't like the idea of a legit business, you know? All them taxes and everything.”

“I never thought about taxes,” Mulheisen admitted. “What do you do about taxes?”

“My lawyer and my accountant are working a deal where I pay the IRS and the state on my investments. But it's hard to fudge investment income, and the IRS knows I have a bigger income than I'm claiming. I don't know if they know about this place, but when they find out, the shit is going to hit the fan. They ain't like no beat cop—you can't just slip them a few bucks to keep quiet.”

Mulheisen thought about that. “You better open the restaurant, then. That'll give you a legitimate source of income and you can funnel your blind pig take through the restaurant.”

Benny considered that for a while. “True,” he said at last. “It's just that I hate going legit.”

Mulheisen looked around the room. He noticed one of the mayor's assistants talking to a well-known mob bagman, but didn't think anything of it, since that sort of business would have been concluded hours ago, during “Happy Hour.” They were probably just friends. A couple of girls looked lonely, and an inevitable drunk was sagging over his glass. Otherwise, Benny's was dead. “Where's all the action tonight?” Mulheisen asked. “Let's go someplace else, Benny.”

“Let's see,” Benny said. “You like music, we could go to Brandywine's. He's got a new jazz group.”

“Brandywine? Never heard of him.”

Benny was shocked. “You don't know Brandywine? That's odd. He's a native. He was here when the Indians came.”

“That long, eh?”

“Well, he's part Indian,” Benny said. “His great-great-I-don't-know-how-many-greats-grandfather came here with the French explorers. That's right! There was some brothers with the French, you didn't know that?”

Mulheisen mused on this while they drove toward down-town in Benny's Cadillac. He had a vision of a giant cargo canoe hurtling through the rapids of the St. Lawrence, portaging onto the Ottawa, then into Lake Nipissing, onto the French River, thence onto Lake Huron. From Lake Huron the canoe would enter the St. Clair River and drift steadily past the site where Mulheisen's home would be built one day. Then it would ride out onto the smooth bosom of Lake St. Clair and float gently down into the Detroit River—d'Etroit, the throat itself—pass by Belle Isle and draw up on the shore where Cobo Hall now stood and the Detroit Pistons played basketball. In this imagined canoe was a tall, strong black man from Senegal now named Maurice Brandaouin after his master. Maurice would find love and comfort among the Chippewa in a heavily forested plain by the side of the river, in a country provisionally named New France.

Mulheisen and Benny pulled up in front of a duplex on Riopelle Street. Riopelle would be named for another French settler, of course—laid out along the ribbonlike edge of his farms as they ran back a mile or more from the river.

There was a fat black man at the door of the duplex. He grunted suspiciously at Mulheisen, but at Benny's gesture, he let the two in. There were thirty or forty people inside, in a somewhat dingier and smokier atmosphere than Benny's. This was more like a house party. People stood and talked with whiskey glasses in hand and passed around joints of marijuana. Mulheisen recognized a young vice-squad detective sitting on a sofa talking to two white girls who were evidently not prostitutes but just a couple of Wayne State University coeds out for a little fun.

Mulheisen and Benny stood at the flimsy dime-store bar and drank bottled beer. A pretty black woman in a blond wig came up to Mulheisen and rested her hand on the nape of his neck. It felt cool and dry. The hand slipped downward toward his hip, where the .38 nestled in its hip grip holster. Mulheisen stopped her hand with his right elbow and gently shoved her away. She drifted off.

About three o'clock, four black men entered the barroom, carrying musical-instrument cases. In one corner there was a low platform made out of plywood and covered with green carpet. A basic drum set was draped with a sheet. One of the men whisked off the sheet and settled behind the snare drum. He set about adjusting the cymbals. Another man took a tenor saxophone out of its case and installed a new reed he'd been soaking in his mouth. The third man blew short, breathy notes from the cornet. He was the oldest, a balding forty-five, and he wore dark glasses in the dimly lit room.

The youngest man switched on an amplifier/speaker behind the chair on which he sat. He held a flat electric guitar on his lap and fiddled patiently with the knobs of the amplifier.

“Who are these guys?” Mulheisen asked Benny.

“I don't know their names,” Benny said. “I believe I've seen that guitar player before.”

The tenor man turned toward the drummer now and began to blow long looping phrases that caught the drummer's cadence on every fourth bar. He had a large, breathy tone and Mulheisen smiled involuntarily, remembering Lester Young.

The cornet man shook his horn to get rid of some moisture. He came along with the other two then, making precise little stabs in tempo.

Finally, the guitar chimed in and they all jammed along in G for a few bars. Then the guitar pointedly set out a brief chord progression and the two horns segued smoothly into “Last Year's Love.” Mulheisen was suddenly very happy, and he hummed along under his breath.

A half-hour later, without warning, Mulheisen felt exhausted. He groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose, yawning into his palm. His eyes felt gritty and the beer was gaseous. He wanted to break wind, but didn't. “Aagh!” he moaned quietly.

“What's the matter, man?” Benny asked.

“I don't know,” Mulheisen talked through a partially suppressed yawn. “I've had it. I've got to get the hell out of here, get some sleep.” He got up and paced a few steps into the next room. A couple of young men sat in easy chairs talking spiritedly about “. . . marijuana laws, then all the big tobacco companies will. . . .” They fell silent when they saw him.

He drifted aimlessly through the room and into a hallway that ought to lead to a bathroom. As he passed what must have once been a bedroom, he heard Spanish being spoken excitedly. He did not hesitate but went on to the men's room.

When he came out of the men's room, he saw a young woman standing outside the room where he'd heard the Spanish. She wore a fuzzy jacket and tall boots and she had brilliant red hair. She smiled as he approached.

“Hi,” Mandy Cecil said.