Motown (7 page)

Quincy had managed to heave the Royal over onto its rubber feet. Now he got his knees under him and jacked himself up using the fallen chair as a lever. The room did a slow Twist. His head was going
bloing-bloing.

The angular-faced man in the black suit studied him. The upper third of the man’s head seemed to be resting on the single black lintel of his eyebrows. He looked clean for a cop. “Did he hit you?” he asked the sergeant.

“I talked him out of it.”

The man in the plaid coat was amused. “You should talk to Castro.”

“Tank him for disorderly.”

“He took a cut at me, Inspector.”

“Next time let him connect.”

Quincy said, “Give me my call first. I got to call the hospital.”

“Sergeant Esther didn’t hit you that hard.”

“Not me. Lydell.”

“Lydell?”

The sergeant said, “That’s the partner. I don’t know where their mammies get those names.”

“You’ll get your call when you make up your mind to quit bullshitting,” the inspector told Quincy. “Nobody robs a pig
before
it opens. Not for what’s in the till.”

The Wayne County Jail was clean as lock-ups went, no bugs and they lent him a broom once a day to sweep the cell and cleanser to scrub the little sink and toilet. The blue coveralls were as comfortable as pajamas. He had no cellmate. It was a quiet place to stretch out on the shallow mattress and listen to the pulpy mass heal over his right ear, the traumatized skin crackling as it dried and shrank. The throbbing had receded to a warm buzz. He would miss it when it was gone.

He stopped thinking about the injury after two sheriff’s men dragged a Negro in coveralls into the cell kitty-corner from his and dumped him on the cot. The man’s eyes were swollen shut and his lips were puffed. He lay motionless on his ruined face after they slammed the cell door and didn’t stir hours later when they came with supper. Quincy wondered if he was dead and how long they’d let him stink before they hauled out the carcass.

The next morning, Quincy’s second at County, he woke up and looked across at a pair of cinnamon-colored hands dangling between the bars of the man’s cell. Quincy got up and leaned his face against his own cell door. The man’s face had broken out in yellow blistery streaks and the blood on his split lip had dried to a black thread, but Quincy could see something glittering in the slits of his eyes. He was short and slender, with straight glossy black hair that would have reminded Quincy of Johnny Mathis if the man’s face didn’t make him think of Quasimodo.

The man was saying something now. He had to try a second time to make it come out like words. “Got a cigarette, brother?”

“Don’t use ’em,” Quincy said.

“That’s okay. I’m too pooped to puff anyway.”

“Whitey do your face?”

“I ran into a door. It was marked POLICE. I couldn’t see on account of the flashing red light.” He started to smile and winced. Fresh blood glittered on his chin.

Despite the distortion, the man’s voice had a roundness and depth that suggested practice. Quincy wondered if he was some kind of preacher. “What’d you do, brother?”

“Broke a window.”

“Liquor store?”

“Restaurant.”

“How come?”

“They wouldn’t serve me, so I threw a chair through the front window. Waiters did this.” He gestured toward his face.

“Had a date, huh.”

“No, it was just me.”

“Brother, you’re crazy.”

“I heard that before.”

“What’d they hang on you?”

“Assault and battery of five waiters. I didn’t hear the other charges; they were beating on me with sticks at the time. What’d
you
do?”

“Slugged me a cop.”

“Yeah? Who for?”

Quincy felt himself grinning. “I hear you.”

They were silent for a moment.

“When do they feed you here?” the man asked.

“You missed supper. Breakfast’s coming.”

“How do you know? You got a watch?”

“No, I can hear the trays.”

Silence again.

“You a preacher?” Quincy asked.

“I’m a singer.”

“No shit, where? Church?”

“Used to. Guess I will again. I cut twelve sides for Berry Gordy, but he didn’t renew my contract. He said my English was too good.”

“Whyn’t you do something about it?”.

“Tried. Can’t. I’ve got a BA from Wayne State and I can’t shake it.”

“So you bust windows in restaurants.”

The other man turned his better eye Quincy’s way. “Where’d you study psychology?”

“Twelfth Street.”

A big deputy came down the hall and stopped in front of Quincy’s cell. He wasn’t carrying a tray. “Springfield?”

“Where’d he go if I ain’t him?”

The deputy unlocked the door and opened it. “You get your phone call now.”

In the corridor between the cells, Quincy asked the man with the swollen face what he called himself.

“Mahomet.”

T
HERE WAS NO TELEPHONE.

The room the deputy took him to and left him in was twice the size of Quincy’s cell, with two laminated tables surrounded by vinyl chairs and three machines against the wall selling coffee, sandwiches, and cigarettes. Copies of
Argosy, True,
and last week’s
Life
littered the tables. The inspector from yesterday stood by the cigarette machine. He had on the same black suit without even a rumor of lint and a red tie on a white shirt. He placed a quarter against the slot in the machine. “What brand?”

“Don’t smoke,” Quincy said.

The inspector made a noise in the back of his throat and pocketed the coin. “Me too. Have a seat.”

“Cop said I was getting my phone call.”

“I can save you a dime. They kicked your friend Lafayette out of Receiving yesterday. All he had were splinters in his wrist and hand, from where the shotgun blast hit the bar. Thirty minutes in and out. He’ll be writing down numbers left-handed for a day or so, but he’s fine.”

“You could be lying.”

“It’s a fair bet. I lie a little every day. You can call and find out for yourself after you leave here.” He waved a hand. “This is the guards’ lounge, like it?”

“Beats where I been.”

“You ought to try a bamboo stockade on Rabaul.”

“Where’s that, downriver?”

“It was in New Guinea. Still is, probably. I don’t plan to go back and check. Battery acid?” The inspector slotted a dime into the coffee machine.

“Yeah, okay.” In the cells it was milk; Quincy had decided the county didn’t want its inmates staying awake. He slid out a chair and sat down. The slippery seat felt good. He’d memorized all the slats in his cot.

He wondered about Rabaul.

The other man bought coffee for himself too and carried the waxed cups over to the table and set them down. Before sitting he unbuttoned his coat and tugged up the knees of his trousers. Quincy could count his pores, man was that clean. He made Quincy, who hadn’t shaved since day before yesterday, feel even grubbier.

“My name’s Canada. I apologize for Sergeant Esther. The department dumped him on me six weeks ago and I don’t like him any better than you do. But he does his job.”

“Done one on me.”

“You were begging for it. I’m talking about that racist shit. This department’s in enough trouble without it.”

“That’s what I heard.” In January, a gambling raid on the Grecian Gardens restaurant a block from 1300 had turned up a “Christmas list” of recorded payoffs to high-ranking police officials to ignore gambling in the Greektown area. A number of the officials named had since announced early retirement.

“Scandals come and go like buses,” Canada said. “The population of Detroit is better than forty percent black. If we don’t improve relations with the Negro community we could have another Watts on our hands. I told Esther if he mouths off like that again I’ll get his fat butt suspended.”

“Don’t make no difference to me. Man’s got enough trouble getting by on his own without worrying about everybody else that’s his color. Do I get to make my call or what?”

“You really don’t believe me. About your partner being okay.”

“I believe you. Now I don’t got to think about Lydell. I can use a lawyer.”

“I’d have thought he’d show up with one himself before this,” Canada said. “Friend like that.”

“Lydell looks out for himself.”

“Who looks out for Quincy?”

A deputy with a Wyatt Earp moustache entered the room, bought a pack of Kools, and left. Quincy sipped coffee; battery acid was a fair description. “You got a wife, Inspector?”

“I did for a while.”

“She call you Inspector or what?”

“She called me Lew when she wasn’t throwing things at me. It’s my first name. That’s what you wanted to know, right?”

“Okay. I thought as long as you knew mine.”

Canada rotated his cup between his palms. So far he hadn’t drunk from it. “I did some homework on you while you were in the tank. Your old man used to leg liquor from Ontario back in the dry time. The Machine mob killed him.”

“Strung him up by his wrists in the Ferry Warehouse and barbecued him with blowtorches, my ma said. I never knew him.”

“He ran with Jack Dance. Jack the Ripper, the papers called him. I was just a kid when they gunned him and two of his boys in an apartment on Collingwood. Just down the street from your place now.”

“That so?”

“It can’t be easy working with the Italians, knowing they killed your father.”

He’d been wondering how they were going to come around to it. “Like I said, I didn’t know him. And I don’t work with no Italians. Me and Lydell sell drinks after hours. What you going to do, throw me in jail for it?”

“Settle down. You’ve got a lot of anger in you, you know it? Can’t be the jail time; you’ve got two priors for liquor violations, so this is old stuff to you.” Canada drank from his cup finally. “Someone knocked over a policy operation on Clairmount an hour before your joint was hit. Same M.O., three guys in ski masks with shotguns. Nobody was killed there, so it didn’t come across the police blotter. You numbers people aren’t much for hollering cop.”

Quincy said nothing.

“The street talk is someone’s crunching down on the West Side: Policy, dope, fencing. Especially policy, which means whoever it is is targeting the Negro rackets. Only thing around with that kind of muscle is the Mafia. Getting on with Patsy, are you?”

“Patsy who?”

Canada sat back. “I’m not Vice. I don’t give a shit about numbers and who’s selling who a snort after the bars close. I’m just trying to avoid a war. Is Patsy Orr turning up the heat or what?”

“Arrest the three guys. War’s over then.”

“Assuming they’re not all out in Vegas by now, what good’s that? He’ll just hire three more. Next time maybe they’ll get smart and take you out instead of your bouncer.”

“What you want, Canada? You got your street skinny. You don’t need me.”

The inspector slid a copy of
True
out of the clutter of magazines on the table and laid it in front of Quincy. The cover was a color photograph of a square-built man standing on an asphalt lot with his back to a row of gleaming diesel tractor-trailers parked facing the camera, Macks and Whites and Kenworths with square grilles and shiny stacks. The man, in his fifties, had on a navy blue suit and patent-leather shoes and stood with his elbows turned out slightly and his hands hovering in front of his thighs in an unconscious weightlifter’s stance. His hair was short and spiky, dark on top and graying on the sides so that his temples looked shaved, and there was about his scowling face and thick frame—not going to fat so much as retreating before it slowly, fighting it at every step—that echoed the bottled thunder of the towering rigs at his back. The legend on the cover read:

BROCK!

The Steel Behind the Steelhaulers

EXCERPT FROM A SENSATIONAL NEW BOOK

“Ever see him?” Canada asked.

“On TV, sure. He invented unions.”

“I mean in person. Maybe you saw him in Patsy’s office a time or two.”

“I never been.”

“The express elevator to Patsy’s floor only makes one stop. I’ve had a man watching the elevator for two months. Your description shows up on the list six times. I can haul him down here for a positive ID.”

“Bullshit.” But he’d hesitated, and had seen the other man flick his tongue at the flutter of doubt and wobble it around.

“Okay, it’s not an express. Point is you’d have to have been to the Penobscot Building to know it. Anyway, Brock’s too sharp to pay a call on a
paisan.
” Canada took a crumpled envelope out of the side pocket of his coat and laid it on top of Brock’s face.

“What’s that, breakfast?” Quincy didn’t touch it.

“Wallet, change, keys. Make sure everything’s there and give me back the receipt. You can change into your street clothes in Admissions. I never filed charges.”

Quincy looked inside the envelope and dumped out its contents. He counted the bills in the wallet, groped for and handed over the twist of paper he’d gotten for his valuables, and put everything in his jumpsuit pockets. He rose. Canada wasn’t watching. “Aren’t you going to ask why I put you in lock-up?”

“My ma taught me never to ask the Man for nothing.” He started for the door.

“How’s your side?”

Quincy slowed. “Which side?”

“The one they took thirty-two stitches in at Receiving last spring. You walked into a blade at the Chit Chat Lounge?”

“Hurts when it rains.” He hovered inside the door.

“You’ve got balls, Quincy. It’s one thing to spit over the brink when you don’t know what it’s like to have your blood filling your shoes, something else when you do. Once is lucky. Twice doesn’t happen. Not in Motown.”

Quincy returned to the table. “You got family, Inspector?”

“One uncle in a nursing home in Stockbridge.”

“Nice place?”

“It’s okay. The doors to the rooms are painted different colors so the patients won’t get lost.”

“My ma caught clap from her customers. When she couldn’t feed herself no more the Welfare folks stuck her in Ypsi State. Up there they keep them doped so they’re less trouble and tie them to their beds so they don’t fall out. She strangled herself with the ties, they said. They wasn’t sure just how.”