The Judgment (31 page)

“You wouldn’t understand,” she said as coldly as she was able, “it’s a woman thing.” She really meant to flatten me with that one.

“Do you want to see him go to jail?”

“That’s out of my hands.”

Was this just a case of the woman scorned, or was it something deeper? I wasn’t sure. I leaned back in my chair, took a drink of the orange juice she’d provided, and studied her for a minute or more.

“There was a period of about three weeks between your break with him in the third week of September, and the second week of October, that you continued to work for Conroy as his secretary. Right?”

She nodded.

“What was your relationship with Mark Conroy during this period?”

“Armed truce.”

“Did other people in the office know about your relationship with Mark Conroy?”

“Some did,” she said, “a few women, most of whom disapproved. And the Mouse, the Mouse knew about us.”

“And what was his attitude?”

“Nonjudgmental, but he was sympathetic. During this time you’re talking about, the ‘armed truce’ period, the Mouse and I had a couple of talks. Big as he is, ugly as he is, he’s a pretty tenderhearted dude.”

Not quite my impression of him, but then, who was I to say?

“This money given to you by Conroy,” I began, still pecking away at her, “you said it amounted to about ten thousand dollars?”

“That’s about it,” she said, “no more than that.”

“Did you report it to the IRS?”

“Most of it was this year.”

“But not all of it.”

“No, not all of it. So okay, here’s what I did. I filed an addendum to last year’s report. Cool. There’s a penalty, but I can handle it. This year I’m listing everything he gave me.”

“Sounds like you got good advice. When did you do that?”

“A little over a month ago.” She seemed to realize the significance of this. “You want my accountant’s name and number?”

“Not now. Just have it handy in the future. And how did you list these payments from Mark Conroy? As income?”

The fiercest look yet. “No, as gifts.”

“And how did these payments come to you?”

“What do you mean?” She really didn’t seem to understand the question.

“I mean, were they in cash or were they by check? Personal check or some other account? Were they delivered in person, or did they come by mail?”

She sighed. “Different ways, right? I mean, it was just money to me, you know? But it was important for Mark to give it. Money is power, right? So it was important to him that I take it. The first couple of times he had the Mouse pass it on to me in cash.”

“Did it come from the W-91 Fund?”

“You mean the safe in Mark’s office? Well, obviously it did. That’s where they kept the money. Besides, the Mouse told me it did.”

“You said that only the first couple of payments came that way. How did the rest come?”

“By check. He said he didn’t like dipping like that. It was too hard getting the money back in from his personal account.”

“He said that, did he? So I take it the checks weren’t on his personal account?”

“No, he set up a special account, called it Ad Astra, Inc. He said that meant ‘to the stars.’” She frowned. “He was sort of romantic that way.”

“And he paid you out of that account from then on?”

“Yeah, from about the first of this year on.”

“A thousand a month?”

“That’s right.”

“Plus gifts of what? Clothes?”

“Mostly clothes, yeah. I mean, no mink coats or anything. A couple of nice dresses, a coat last December—Christmas, cloth coat that cost a few hundred.” Then she added almost plaintively, “And flowers. He brought me flowers all the time, even in the winter. Like I said, he was sort of romantic.”

“Jewelry?”

“No, he wasn’t the type, neither am I.”

“Did you take vacations together?”

“We got away for a couple of weekends, once to Chicago, that was nice, and once to Port Huron, the Hermitage up there, but that wasn’t so nice.”

“Why not?”

“He got recognized with me.”

“By whom?”

“He didn’t say, wouldn’t say. Someone who had to do with police stuff. We did take one vacation, though. But that was a real disaster.”

“Where was that? And how was it a disaster?”

“He took me with him to a law enforcement convention in Las Vegas. That’s pretty funny, isn’t it? A cop convention in Las Vegas. Anyway, he was, like,
so
afraid he’d get spotted with me there that I was all alone most of the time. He was busy during the days, so I was off by myself in and out of all the hotels on the Strip, listening to the lounge bands. I walked around downtown, and believe me, downtown Las Vegas is the pits!” She thought, remembered, seemed for a moment positively nostalgic. “I
don’t know, though, in a way it wasn’t so bad. We had some nice dinners together, went to some shows. I probably wasn’t any worse off than some of the wives who were there.”

“Did you gamble?”

“Why else would anyone go to Vegas?”

“Did you win? Lose? Did he give you money to gamble with?”

“He gave me, oh, about two hundred. I had three hundred of my own. I came home with about a hundred, so I guess you could say I won. All my walking-around money came out of that. You know, you win a little, you lose a little. I played the slots. I’m no gambler.”

“What about Conroy? Did he gamble? Did he lose?”

“You’re kidding, right? Mark Conroy is so far from being a gambler that… Well, he’s basically pretty conservative. He was always saying, ‘The ducks have to be in a row.’ He drove me crazy with that.” She shook her head emphatically. “No, Mark did not gamble.”

“And you weren’t recognized on that trip to Las Ve-gas?”

“Obviously we were together—went to dinner, shows, and so on. But Mark is not the kind who is what you’d call demonstrative in public. We didn’t hold hands. He didn’t put his arm around me. He never did that out in public. That’s one of the things that made things hard. A couple of times we met people from the convention, they even sat down with us. He introduced me as Sergeant Tucker, ‘our top computer programmer.’ Everything was cool. Nobody cared. Frankly, I don’t think they would have cared if we’d been sleeping together. They must have suspected, some of them anyway. For them, I mean, basically it was, like, who cared? Mark got too nervous about shit like that.”

Then I asked in an easy, conversational tone, “Did Tim-merman contact you first, or did you contact him?”

“Timmerman,” she answered. “He’s a neat guy on the phone. He—”

She stopped. Full stop. She pulled herself up in her chair and looked at me, at first puzzled, then hostile.

“I’m not supposed to talk about that,” she said.

“Why not?” Friendly, easygoing. “You’ll have to talk about it eventually. I thought we could discuss it sort of informally right now when you’re not under oath. Just some details. For instance, have you met Timmerman yet, or has it all been over the telephone?”

She got to her feet.

“You ought to know all about that. That same afternoon you followed me at school I’ll bet you were trying to track him down, weren’t you?”

I didn’t move.

“What did he promise you, Mary Margaret? A job with the city when you finished law school?”

“Out!”

“You really want me to go? I think it’s in your interest to talk to me.”

“We’re through talking right now. Just get out.”

Reluctantly, I rose to my feet, still arguing in the voice of sweet reason. It did no good whatever.

“Out!”
she screamed.

There was no point in trying to hold out against that. I turned and started out of the kitchen, heading for the front door. But I did have one parting shot left to fire.

“Mary Margaret,” I said, turning at the door, “I hope you remembered to get a receipt from those guys in the Mayor’s Squad for all that money. Otherwise, you know, you could wind up taking the rap for all this. I hope you realize that.”

The look of sudden consternation on her face told me that my educated guess had hit the mark, as I’d intended.

“Any time you want to resume this conversation,” I said, “just let me know. You have my card. Just give me a call. See you, Mary Margaret. Thanks for your time.”

Although I made it to my car without looking back, I had the distinct feeling she was standing there in the doorway, watching me go. Still, I resisted the impulse even to
glance over my shoulder as I started the car, slipped it into drive, and pulled away from the bungalow on Eastburn.

It was only then, a block away and completely out of sight, that I dared to take the thing out of my inside coat pocket, detach a tiny microphone from by buttonhole, and put the entire apparatus down on the seat beside me.

I’d asked Mark Conroy if I might borrow his tape recorder when I parted company with him the night before. He had shown me how it worked, even rummaged around in the glove compartment of his Cadillac and found a new cassette and the right sort of microphone to do the job I had in mind. He checked me a few times until I was pretty sure I could turn it on simply by touch. Then he wished me luck. I hoped that would be enough to get the interview with Mary Margaret Tucker down on tape. As it turned out, there was no difficulty at all.

I stopped at a convenience store in her neighborhood to make a telephone call. This one, like so many others in Detroit, had a protective wall of inch-thick, bulletproof plastic to shield the clerk in the very likely event of a visit by an armed robber.

I glanced around but saw no telephone.

“Got a pay phone?” I asked the clerk.

He pushed up close to the three holes that had been drilled in the plastic wall to ease communication. A young guy, in his twenties, he was dark complected and dark haired. He looked at me sharply and must have decided I was okay.

“It’s in the back,” he said, “against the wall.”

I know Bob Williams’s number by heart. He picked up on the first ring.

“It’s Charley,” I said. “You got a meeting tonight?”

“Sure we do,” he said. “But it’s a matinee. Three P.M., St. Jude’s basement. We’ll get you home in time for dinner.”

“I was thinking we might have dinner afterward, that is, if you don’t have anything planned.”

“Sounds good to me. Are you in special need?”

“Let’s just say I’ve got a few things I’d like to discuss.”

“I’m all ears. See you at three.”

I walked back to the glass booth where the clerk, still regarding me with some slight suspicion, sat on a high stool. I took him to be Chaldean, a Christian Arab. There were a lot of Chaldeans in Detroit, most from Lebanon, some from Syria and Iraq. I’d defended one of them on a murder charge five or six years ago. He’d shot a robber dead in his small grocery store in Dearborn; he probably wouldn’t have been charged, except that it turned out the robber had a replica gun, very realistic but made from plastic and inoperable, and the
Free Press
expressed editorial, outrage. I got him off without much trouble. He might not have had the problem at all if he’d been encased in bulletproof plastic the way this guy was.

I lingered at the booth and noticed a box of unfamiliar cigars among the cigarettes on display on his side of the wall. They were on the small side, a handy size for an occasional smoker like me.

“Are those pretty good?” I asked, pointing at the cigars.

“Very good,” he said. “From Lebanon. I smoke them myself.”

“Give me three of them, would you?”

They turned out to be a dollar apiece, pricey little devils, but they looked good. I shoved a five through the bank-teller slot and got back my change.

“The telephone used to be there.” He pointed to the wall behind me. “One night, late, one of them came in, just this one and me, and he tore the phone apart right in front of me.”

“Why did he do that?”

“He thought he’d get me to come out of here so he could rob me. He had a gun. I could tell. I just sat here and called the cops.”

“Did they catch him?” Stupid question.

“No, they came an hour later. I stayed open and waited for them. They said I did the right thing just to sit and watch him do this. ‘Better luck next time,?’ they said. What does that mean?” He shook his head angrily. “That’s crazy—‘next time.’ How could something so stupid happen two times?”

“I hope you’re right, friend. I hope you’re right.”

I gave him a wave and stepped outside. It was hard to live in a city with so much frustration and anger simmering away day after day—just simmering, though. Things hadn’t come to a boil since the ’67 riots. And for that, whether it pleased all the citizens of Detroit or not, they had the mayor to thank.

Then, as I took a moment to light one of the cigars, I happened to remember something—or rather, someone. It struck me that I knew an associate of the mayor’s from a long time back, one who knew him when old Ismail Carter chain-smoked short, slender stogies just like these. In the old days, he’d emptied many a City Council meeting with them, blowing smoke at the opposition. Representing the old Black Bottom, just east of downtown, he was an old-fashioned power broker, a fixer, the kind of pol who loved to wheel and deal almost as much as he loved dispensing largesse to his constituents. Everybody owed him. He liked it that way.

Though not one of his constituents, the mayor owed him, too. Ismail had taken the mayor-to-be under his wing from the moment he took his seat on the Council in 1968. He taught him how to operate, how to turn Detroit’s distress to his personal advantage. He saw in him one who just might grab what he never could—the crown and scepter, the kingship of Detroit. I wonder what Shakespeare could have done with these dramas of big-city politics, these tales of rebellious succession. They were not all that different from the material he had to work with in his own day. I tried to imagine John Henry and old Ismail blathering on in blank verse, but it was hard, damned difficult. Yet it was true that the two did communicate in a kind of
gutter poetry. Ismail had taught it to his young protégé, persuaded him that if you wanted the people to vote for you, you had to talk to them in the kind of language they understood and spoke among themselves. You gotta walk the walk and talk the talk. That was how the term
motherfucker
became more or less common in serious political discussion, at least within the limits of the city of Detroit. And that was how, to simplify shamelessly, the mayor first got himself elected.