Motown (20 page)

“I’ll look at the material later,” Caroline said. “I just need to ask a few questions about your methods of obtaining information.” In the straight chair, she crossed her legs, exposing a trim calf and ankle encased in nylon. Rick could see his reflection in the toe of her blue pump.

Enid said, “Most of our sources are named in the book. I can’t discuss the ones that aren’t. That was a condition of the information.”

“The attorney-client privilege applies. I need those names.”

“Why?”

“General Motors’ attorneys are charging libel. That’s the one area in American jurisprudence where the accused is required to prove his innocence; in other words, that the claims Wendell made in the book are true. I’ll need affidavits.”

“That would mean exposing them in open court. Some of them work for GM. They’d lose their jobs.”

“It may not come to that. The affidavits would be kept under lock and key and introduced only if every other strategy fails.”

“Just giving you the names would be a violation of the promise of anonymity. Even if you got the affidavits, which I doubt you could, we might win acquittal at the expense of never developing another source. PG would be crippled. Which is what GM wants. They couldn’t care less who comes out ahead in court.”

“We
aren’t being sued for four million dollars. Wendell is. Perhaps if you were named in the suit you wouldn’t be quite so protective of others.” The whip cracked.

Enid crossed her legs. “Why don’t you ask Wendell?”

“I did. He referred me to you. You did enough of the research to qualify for a shared byline; even he doesn’t know the names of all your contacts.”

“I’m sorry.”

The two women watched each other across a silence. Rick wondered what was in it besides secret sources.

Caroline pointed a blue toe at the files. “I assume there are documents in here to support the allegations Wendell made on the pages I quoted to you. Are they originals?”

“Some are. Most we had photocopied. GM would have missed them if we kept them all.”

“Were they stolen?”

“Well, nobody sneaked into the General Motors Building at midnight with a flashlight and a crowbar, but technically—yes, they were smuggled out by people without authority to remove them from the building.”

“Evidence obtained by illegal means is tainted.”

“Only if it was obtained by the police. Consumer groups enjoy certain liberties not available to law enforcement.”

“I’m talking about how it will look in court,” Caroline said. “A lot depends on which judge we draw. Some of them haven’t practiced in a long time and know less about the law than our Perry Mason fan here.” She measured him a small amount of her JFK smile; then it went away. “I wish Wendell had let me read the book before it went to press. I could have saved PG a fortune in legal fees.”

“By castrating the book?” Enid’s tone was mild.

“Castration is a poor choice of terms between us, isn’t it?” Caroline consulted a yellow legal tablet. “On eleven May nineteen sixty-four you conducted a telephone interview with an unnamed source connected with General Motors. The subject was the ventilating system on the Corvair. Did you tape the interview?”

Rick didn’t hear Enid’s answer. Her expression hadn’t changed after the castration comment, but an arc of raw hostility had passed between the two women and he had felt it, as if he’d touched a spark plug wire. In its wake he knew a blissful warmth spreading through him, an old familiar sensation, and he remembered what it was he had liked—needed—about going undercover. A suspicion confirmed was like a sexual release.

There were no more such confrontations, however, and his attention drifted. He found himself wondering what Caroline Porter would be like in bed. His experience of these gimlet-eyed career women had taught him that the tailored jackets and below-the-knee skirts usually concealed the sort of underwear you saw in stag films, mainly the S/M kind; before the night was through their lacquered nails had skin and blood under them. Maybe that was what had sent Porter looking. From there Rick thought about how Enid would be in comparison, and in that pleasant frame of mind he waited out the end of the meeting.

“I’ll have more questions when I get into the material.” Caroline laid aside the legal tablet and stood. “Thanks again for making the time.”

Enid rose. The two smiled at each other. Rick got up. This time Caroline’s hand lingered a moment before sliding away. “Welcome aboard, Mr. Amery. I’m sorry you had to come on when everything’s standing on end.”

“I get the impression that’s the normal state,” he said. “It was a pleasure, Mrs. Porter.”

“Caroline.”

They were halfway back to the office before Enid spoke. “Now that you’ve met her, what do you think?”

Rick slowed down to let an empty paper sack blow across the street in front of the Camaro. The wind had come up and a pepper of drops appeared on the windshield, scouting a summer storm. “I think Lee’s got a lot to learn about women. She belongs in the Arctic like a chili pepper.”

“Lee’s only seen her in passing. She almost never comes to the office.” She watched the grainy scenery.

“So she’s not one of Wendell’s Wonders. A gun doesn’t care if it’s being pointed by a cop or a crook. It just does its job.”

“Cops and crooks don’t marry their guns.”

He decided not to press it. He switched on the radio in the middle of the
Batman
TV theme, punched up another station in a hurry. WJR News was in progress.

“… as developments continue to unfold in the Detroit Police Department’s ongoing investigation of the so-called ‘Christmas list.’ On the labor front, Albert Brock, national president of the American Steelhaulers Association, announced his endorsement today of former Michigan Governor G. Mennen ‘Soapy’ Williams for the Democratic nomination for United States Senator. Citing what he called Detroit Mayor Jerome P. Cavanagh’s ‘disgraceful labor record’ …”

A blue-and-white Tactical Mobile Unit powered past them, its siren drowning out the announcer, before Rick could pull over to make room. It swung onto Cadieux, lights wobbling. Rick turned off the radio. “Politicians. How’s Wendell getting on with Washington?”

“Like lead and feathers,” Enid said. “I don’t suppose you have President Johnson’s home number.”

“Sorry. What he ought to do is con a congressman onto the Farm, give him a ride on the test track.”

“He’s not ready to go public with the Farm. He wants to be sure of his results before the local authorities find out about it and shut it down for violation of some ordinance or other. A lot of communities in the area depend on General Motors for jobs. But it’s not a bad idea. Don’t tell me you’re converted.” She was looking at him now.

“I don’t like seeing some poor schnook getting picked on. Big company like that has better things to do than turn loose its lawyers”—he’d almost said
spies
—“on a guy just because he wrote a book. That’s not supposed to be what this country is about.”

“A lot of people are saying that kind of thing these days. I think the kids are right about as often as I feel like spanking them. Maybe we ought to stage a sit-in at the Federal Building, get the TV stations involved.”

Rick said, “I’ve got a better idea.”

D
UANE COOPERSMITH HAD BEEN
with Detroit Homicide seven years and had the dead face that came with the job, as if someone had tied off all the nerves that controlled the muscles of expression. Lew Canada had never acquired the knack, and after six months of body parts in dumpsters and wives in fuzzy bathrobes with their faces blown off by their husbands and dead naked babies with cigarette burns all over their bodies he had gotten a transfer. Career homicide men were like morticians and proctologists, welcome when they were necessary but not the sort of person you invited to a barbecue. Canada, seated on a corner of Coopersmith’s desk on the third floor of 1300, shuffled through the Polaroid photographs the lieutenant had handed him: Eight different angles of the same blue 1966 Cobra with a hole rammed through its rear window and thumb-size punctures in the trunk. “Double-O buck?”

Coopersmith nodded. He had a young face and thin fair hair on top of a high forehead, and could have passed for some kind of scientist but for the nerveless features. “The scroat has good reflexes. If he hadn’t ducked we’d still be hosing him off Cadieux. They took another pass on their way around the car but the angle was bad and most of the pellets skidded off the roof.”

“Where’d we find the Caddy?”

“Parked on Brush. Steering wheel and door handles wiped clean.” He consulted the report on his desk. “Registered to Sylvanus Humbert, eleven sixty-three West Grand River. He didn’t even know it was stolen until the uniforms called on him.”

“Sure it was stolen?”

“Humbert’s sixty-eight, a deacon at New Bethel Baptist. You’re the inspector. I don’t think he did it.”

“Where’s DiJesus?”

“Interrogation, making lawyer noises. I was about to kick him when you called. It’s not against the law to get shot at, thank God; can you imagine the paperwork? Anyway he’s too lively for Homicide.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“Sure. Here or in Interrogation?”

“Here. It’s less formal.” Not by much, he thought; there wasn’t a single personal item in Coopersmith’s office. Everything about the man was department issue, from his thick-soled Oxfords to the scarlet-backed volumes of the Michigan Penal Code arranged in order on the gray file cabinet behind the desk.

The lieutenant used the intercom and sat back. “I expected a visit from Civil Defense or the commandoes in Motor Traffic. These race things are their meat. What’s your squad want with it?”

“I don’t think it’s race related.”

“These days it all comes down to race. NAACP, CORE, ACME, AAUM, AAYM—every colored with an axe to grind and a working knowledge of the alphabet belongs to some rabble-rousing group. Mostly they’re fronts for blind pigs and policy operations. It’s getting so Vice can’t bust one without back-ups from TCU and PREP. More initials; the reports are starting to look like eye charts. It isn’t like the old days when it was just Jews against Italians and you booked the ones that were still standing. I’ve got a sergeant in my detail working on a degree in Sociology at Wayne State. The next generation of Detroit cop is going to be so socially conscious it won’t shoot a rat without studying the impact its loss will have on the neighborhood.”

“Things change.” Canada got off the desk. “They were still talking about the last chief of detectives when I joined plainclothes. His name was Kozlowski. He was in charge of the old Prohibition Squad during those good old days you were talking about. I’d trade ten of that miserable son of a bitch for that social worker sergeant of yours.”

“You still haven’t told me why you’re interested.”

“I haven’t, have I?”

The lieutenant waited, then said, “Okay, boss. I’s jus’ de he’p.”

A detective whose name Canada didn’t know entered with his hand under the arm of a man of medium height in a tight blue T-shirt and Levi’s. The man was built like a weightlifter and tanned like no white man in Detroit that early in the summer. Grains of pulverized glass glittered in his long blond hair. When he started to sit down, the detective swept the plastic scoop chair out from under him. He landed hard on the linoleum floor. “Nobody said sit.”

“Help him up,” Canada said.

“He’s an asshole, Inspector.”

Canada looked at Coopersmith, who nodded at the detective.

DiJesus slapped away the proffered hand and sprang to his feet, using only his legs. He tossed his hair behind his shoulders.

Canada said, “Okay.”

Coopersmith and the detective left. . “Hello, Harry. I’ve been reading about you.” The inspector returned the chair to its original position.

DiJesus ignored the invitation and remained standing. “Yeah? I don’t know you from Adam.”

“My name’s Canada. My friends call me Lew. You can call me Inspector Canada.”

“What I want to call is a lawyer. I been here two hours on no charges.”

“Nobody’s charging you. You can leave now if you want.”

DiJesus wheeled and opened the door.

“The guys that took a shot at you have had time by now to find out they missed. It wouldn’t be the first time someone waited for someone else to step out the front door here. The steps of a police station are kind of a psychological Demilitarized Zone. You’d be surprised what you can get away with. This isn’t Vegas.”

He closed the door and sat down. “I wouldn’t put it past you cops to do it and lay it off on the jigaboos.”

“I thought you didn’t see them.”

“I saw their car. Who else would drive a big gray piece of shit Cadillac like that?”

“The car was stolen. We found it abandoned downtown.”

“Maybe I saw their faces were black. They all look alike, that’s why they call each other brother.”

Canada reclaimed his seat on the desk. “How are your friends Scavarda and Alonzo?”

“Who?”

“Max Scavarda and George Alonzo. We keep track of the visiting talent. Until the eleventh of last month they were bouncing drunks out the door of the Flamingo Hotel. Now they’re registered at the Sheraton-Cadillac here, same floor as you. The Flamingo is your address in Vegas, isn’t it?”

“Any law against traveling with friends?”

“We only become interested when they pack ski masks and shotguns. It wasn’t the blacks that made a run at you today. Not the ones you think.”

The double-whammy appeared to have no effect on the man in the chair. “The more a cop talks the less sense he makes,” he said. “We’re here on vacation. Nevada’s too hot this time of year. Nobody there even owns a ski mask. I heard about these guys knocking over the nigger joints. Sounds to me like you’re sore at them for doing your job better than you.”

“They’re plenty sore at you. But that wasn’t them who shot up your car.”

“We got coons in Vegas. I guess I know one when I see him.”

Canada flicked a shred of lint off the knee of his black trousers; now they were spotless. “You heavyweights are stupid. It’s no wonder you never get anywhere in the outfit. If Twelfth Street Negroes are planning to take out a mob guy they aren’t going to lift a car with Soul Brother written all over it. Nobody was out to kill you today, shithead. They just wanted to make you piss your pants and run to Patsy with what you saw.”