H.J. Gaudreau - Jim Crenshaw 02 - The Collingwood Legacy (4 page)

Sol rented a room above a small meat market. Mr. Spadoff went home for the day at six, the market was closed, lights off. They circled the block twice. Sol was careful to keep his speed up and tried not to draw attention to the car. Nothing moved, no one sat in some dark car. It looked normal.

On the third trip past the store they slowed to a crawl and Dolly peered through the windows inside the market. A small red glow flared in the back behind the meat counter. Dolly spotted the cigarette just as Sol began to brake, intending to park next to the front door.

“GO, GO, GO!!” she yelled.

Sol stepped on the gas and the Chrysler lurched forward, caught its wind and sped off. The door of the meat market burst open and two men ran out. By the time they reached their car Sol and Dolly were ghosts in the night.

Thirty minutes later, certain they’d not been followed, Sol turned off Jefferson Avenue and coasted to a stop ten yards from the boathouse. Sol moved Dolly’s two bags from the car to the Chris-Craft.

“We’re all set doll. I just need one thing. Run up there to the market and get me a razor and some blades would ya? A man’s gotta look presentable when we get to Canada.”

“Where’s the market?” Dolly asked.

Sol walked Dolly to the door and pointed. “Around that shed, up the hill, between those two warehouses and down the street to the corner.” Dolly agreed and was on her way.

Sol watched Dolly as she rounded the small tool shed and walked to the alley leading to the street. When she passed from sight he headed into the boathouse. Sol boarded the Chris-Craft and quickly checked the forward liquor hole. No one had tampered with it; the money was safe. He jumped to the side of the boathouse and grabbed a hose connected to two fifty-five gallon drums. The drums were on an elevated stand and gravity fed the hose. It took twenty minutes to fill the fuel tanks.

When he had finished Sol checked his watch and muttered, “Damn, bet she got lost. Where the hell is she?” Unfortunately, it was a question that Sol would never have answered.

Chapter 8

The setting west sun blinded Ray Bernstein as he peered at the street from his fifth floor apartment. It had not been a good day. They had hunted Sol Levine, they’d hunted him like the dog he was, and the game bag was empty.

They had come close. Somehow he’d spotted Ray’s men in the market. Ray wondered if Sol had been tipped off. He shook his head. No time to think about that now. The trail had gone cold after that. They’d gone to his girlfriend’s rooming house. Nothing. Some of the girls played cute, but none could say where Dolly and Sol were. Like a wounded animal the two had gone to ground. It would be hard to find them. Ray pulled the blinds closed just as the phone rang.

“Who the hell is that?” he spat. No one in the room answered, they didn’t know, how could they? Ray picked up the receiver, “Yeah,” he growled. Slowly his face grew hard. He listened closely to the little man on the other end of the line.

“A friend.” Ray knew there was no such thing; this mutt was looking for a reward. Word had already gotten out. “How the hell did that happen?” Ray wondered. He slurped his drink then nodded his head. “All right, if it’s on the level then twenty-five hundred, not a dollar more.” A moment later Ray hung the receiver on the hook. “Some small timer spotted Sol down on the river. He’s in the boathouse.”

Milberg and Keywell each rose without saying a word. Milberg picked up his shotgun. The damn thing was a ten-gauge, sawed off to fit under an overcoat. It could blow a man in half. It had come to think of it. Ray hated that smell.

Thirty minutes later Berstein’s Cadillac coasted to a stop outside the Detroit River boathouse. The three men got out, checked their guns and quietly closed the door to the car. Silently they walked to the boathouse.

Darkness was spreading across the eastern sky. It didn’t change anything, the city was never quiet. The sounds of distant boats, cars, trucks and factory whistles were part of the background like a cicada’s song in the summer. The men reached the door. Milberg took his position on the left and leveled his shotgun at the handle. Ray stood on the right and did the same with his Tommy gun. Harry prepared to kick in the door.

“On the count of three.” Harry whispered.

Chapter 9

Dolly gave the kid at the store a dollar and a quarter and told him to keep the change. She was feeling lucky tonight and in a few hours a dime wouldn’t mean squat. She nearly sprinted down the store steps. Then she remembered there were men after her, if she wasn’t careful she’d be dead in the time it took to pull the trigger. It would happen, right here, right now.

She stopped on the top step and carefully studied the few cars parked on the street. Nothing moved, no glow from a cigarette. Then she shifted her attention to the windows and doorways overlooking her route to the alley. Nothing.

Satisfied, but not comfortable, Dolly took a deep breath. She knew she should walk, blend in, be part of the background. She couldn’t help herself, she stepped off the shop step and began to run. To Dolly it took hours, but finally she reached the dirt path between the two small warehouses. Slowing to a careful walk she edged down the path. Sol’s little shortcut would save her at least five minutes. Down a small hill, behind another warehouse, around the tool shed and she would pop out just thirty yards from the boathouse.

She was nearly giddy as she rounded the warehouse. She was going to be rich. Sol had told her and she could tell he was on the level. He wasn’t acting. She knew that. Sol had been so scared he could barely light a cigarette.

She reached the tool shed, rounded its corner and stopped. About ten yards in front of the shed were two stacks of railroad ties and wood planks. Darkness had covered the city, but lights from Windsor and boats on the river lit up the boathouse and the ground around it.

Crouching behind the two stacks of wood she could see four, no five policemen. “Where the hell had these guys come from?” She’d only been gone fifteen minutes. Dolly quickly ducked into the shed; panic grabbed her by the throat, and she started to shiver. “Buck fever, it’s just buck fever,” she muttered to herself. Standing in the dark she imagined the feel of bullets tearing into her body. “No, no, no…get ahold of yourself honey,” she whispered.

She’d gone to the market, just for some razor blades, maybe a chocolate. Then they were going to Rondeau, Canada. From there Long Point, Buffalo and finally Toronto. Sol had it all planned, no one would stop the boat, it was too fast. He said there was money, plenty of money, and it was all loaded on the boat. But there were cop cars parked behind the warehouse; “Shit, shit, shit!” she screamed to herself. She thought about running, but surely the cops would hear her, better to wait them out here. The building was small, a bench on one side about six feet long. A window on the other side covered in dirt and cobwebs.

Dolly stared out of the window. She moved to her right and looked along the edge of the parking area, she could see two policemen there. She thought she saw another to the far right of the woodpiles. She shifted to her left and, SHIT! There was a cop right there! She could see his outline through the window. He was standing with his back to the shed and pissing on a weed. Instinctively Dolly ducked. He hadn’t seen her. She wondered if he heard her open the door to the shed. Dolly was trapped.

Several minutes went by. Carefully she raised her head and peeked out of the window. The cop moved back to the woodpile. Steam rolled off the weed. After a few minutes Dolly spotted more cops on the other side of the parking lot. She was sure there were more out there, but night was closing in, she couldn’t tell. She knelt on the shed floor. She had to think; cops everywhere, Solly in the boathouse. Maybe they already had him? No, why would they be surrounding the place if they had him? They were going to shoot him, that was it, they were just going to pump the building full of lead and be done with it.

She wanted to run. Escape, that was it, she needed to escape. She could open the door and run, she’d be up the alley and down the street before… That wouldn’t work. Dolly mulled the word around in her mind ‘escape’.

She could picture a rabbit, safe inside a pile of brush. Her father would climb on top of the pile and jump up and down and pretty soon that rabbit felt like it needed to escape. It would come flying out of the pile and never, ever, did the rabbit make it past Daddy’s shotgun. Dolly found a stool and carefully, silently placed it in front of the window. Putting her chin on her hands she positioned her eyes just above the window frame. She settled in to see what was going to happen.

She watched the cops. And they watched the boathouse. Dolly sat there for ten minutes, then twenty. She couldn’t figure out how to warn Sol. Movement to her left surprised her and her head snapped up. Through the moist, heavy air she could see the outline of a big car. Its headlights were off. She couldn’t hear the engine and thought that strange. Then she realized, the ignition had been turned off, it had simply coasted down the little hill and ghosted to a stop in front of the boathouse.

Three men got out; they all had guns, one carried a machine gun. It was Ray, Harry, and that other guy, Millsomething.

She could picture his face, mean, deeply cut features and eyes that never smiled. They started walking toward the boathouse. Dolly’s mind raced. They were here for Sol, they had to be here to kill Sol.

The cops. Surely they would stop the three killers. Silently she begged the cops to stop them. The cops didn’t move. They just watched. How could she warn Sol? She tried to figure out what to do. She could scream, but it was too late. The men kept walking.

They were nearly at the door. She didn’t understand. Sol? Where was her Sol? Suddenly two of the cops to her left lifted a spotlight and flipped it on. An instant later a second light exploded from behind a stack of crates lighting the three men up like strippers on a vaudeville stage. Then, nearly in unison, a chorus of voices shouted, “HANDS UP.”

Men wearing Detroit police coats rushed at Harry, Ray and the other one. Dolly watched as Ray began to raise his gun, but someone shouted, “DON’T DO IT RAY! You’ll be dead before you get a shot off.”

Ray stared into the light. She could see him clearly. Ray squinted, held his hand up to shade his eyes. He was trying to see past the spotlights, trying to decide. The wet night air suddenly turned silent. Even the trucks on Jefferson had stopped their distant noise. The sea gulls, “rats with wings” Solly called them, had stopped their squawks. Out there, behind the lights the only sound was of men with guns. She watched Ray slowly raise his left arm and toss his Tommy gun with his right. A rush of feet and the three killers were swarmed with police officers.

The three men were slammed against the wall of the boathouse. One yelled a curse, but she couldn’t tell exactly what he said. A big man wearing a plain long coat handcuffed one of the prisoners then slapped him hard on the back of the head. She wasn’t sure, but she thought it was Harry. Several police had the Purples by the arms, others held onto their coats. The big man pushed between the officers and put handcuffs on the other two.

She used to be afraid of them. She hated it when Sol took her to their clubs. Someone always got beat up or backjacked or shot or just something. Now…hell, now they looked like schoolboys she thought.

A patty wagon arrived. The three were marched, pushed, and shoved to the back of the wagon. One tripped and fell to his knees. The big man kicked him then pushed him to the patty wagon doors and swung them open.

Another cop tossed a crate on the ground. “Step up, get in and shut up,” a voice said. All three climbed inside.

The police picked up the guns laying on the ground; one pointed at the car and another quickly ran over and got in. In a moment the car was driving away. She hadn’t seen her Sol; maybe they hadn’t found him. She began to hope.

Then two men opened the door of the boathouse. Sol, his hands cuffed at his waist, stepped into the light of the spotlights. A policeman, his hand under Sol’s right arm walked with him to the back of the wagon. They made Sol climb in.

She wanted to scream; she wanted to stop them. She wanted to be rich and it had been right there, just one more hour and they would have been in Canada.

The truck backed up a few feet, stopped then lurched forward up the long two track driveway to the street. Sol was gone.

Dolly couldn’t believe what had happened. What was she going to do? Would the rest of the Purples come after her? She didn’t know. They might think she helped Sol plan the job. They might think she knew where the money was. She peeked out of the tool shed window again. If the Purples found her she was dead, she knew that. The last of the cops were leaving.

Dolly sat down, she needed to think. They would come after her, she was sure of that. She made up her mind. She needed to leave. Not just this boatyard, she needed to leave the city. When the last of the police cars had rounded the corner Dolly slipped out of the tool shed and began to run. She didn’t know where she was or where she was going, but she knew she couldn’t stay here.

Chapter 10

The Collingwood Manor murder trial was big news. All of the Detroit dailies, the Chicago Tribune and the Cleveland Plain Dealer sent reporters.  Wayne County Prosecutor Harry Toy himself argued the case.

Toy was anxious to perform well in front of the reporters and he needed a big win. It was only natural that he paid a visit to Sol Levine. They talked about prison. Sol didn’t want to go to prison. Sol wasn’t sure what he’d done that would send him to prison, but Toy explained what an “accessory” was.

To Sol it seemed like a cop’s trick to convict him of something someone else did. Sol tried, but couldn’t wrap his mind around the concept. All he knew was that it meant prison. Prison meant the Purples would find him, someone, sometime would kill him.

Toy offered to drop all charges if Sol talked. Sol wasn’t sure what he would say, a detail which didn’t seem to bother the prosecutor. Toy would tell him what he would say. It seemed like a good deal and less than two months after the arrests Sol was sitting on the witness stand delivering his lines perfectly.

The trial held no mystery. He did exactly what Harry had warned he would. Each day his suit was brought to his cell, after dressing Sol was marched to a waiting police car and soon he was on the stand. Sol was at his very best. He spilled his guts; he talked, he sang, his description of a bullet passing “just under my nose” was a masterpiece. Sol did everything but a reenactment.

Prosecutor Toy was very pleased.

Through the entire ordeal one thing kept spinning around Sol’s simple mind. He would play the scene in the boat salon over and over. He could hear the bundles of twenties as they fell from the bag on to the table; he could taste the caramels, his fingers held the cigarettes.

Sol knew. He knew where four hundred thousand dollars was hidden. All he needed was an eight hour head start. He could be down to the boatyard, on that boat and gone in no time. He could still take Dolly and to hell with her if she didn’t want to come. They could still make it to Toronto.

He just had to get out of this damned jail!

The Purples did their best too. Every bookmaking operation in the city was assessed a two dollar a day “betting service” fee, each bootlegger was similarly assessed. The best lawyers in town were approached. Cops and court clerks were “talked” to.

The money didn’t help. The best lawyers couldn’t change the facts. No one could get to the jury and the Judge was incorruptible.

Judge Van Zile was all too aware that witnesses might suddenly change their story, that evidence could suddenly disappear and prosecutors have mysterious car accidents.

He pushed the trial hard. It only took a week before the case went to the jury. It didn’t stay there long. After an hour-and-a-half of deliberations, the verdict was in. All three were guilty. A week later Judge Van Zile handed down his sentence.

Less than a month after the trial a specially assigned Pullman train arrived at the ornate Michigan Central Station. The three men, waddling in wrist and ankle chains were put aboard.

Waiting to board they noticed the armed guards and armored plates on the engine and few cars. Moments later the train was headed for Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. The ride was an express. They only stopped for fuel. Nothing and no one was going to stop the train from moving. In less than a day the Purples began serving life without parole at the maximum security Marquette Branch Prison.

The remaining Purples were livid. They hadn’t been able to spring their brothers in crime, but they could get to Sol. And ol’ Solly would pay.

The departure of Bernstein, Milberg and Keywell for the long winters of northern Michigan provided little comfort for Sol Levine. He had run the streets long enough to know the score. There were contracts out on him. Small time hoods and professionals alike all were looking for Sol.

He’d been warned by Detroit’s finest, there was nothing they could do. This wasn’t going to pass, Sol knew the remaining members of the Purple Gang would not rest while he was alive.

Sol had to figure a way to stay alive long enough to get to that boat, preferably, but not necessarily with Dolly at his side.

The danger was too much. In a surprise move Sol simply refused to leave police headquarters. He decided to live on the second floor. The cops weren’t happy, but sympathized with poor Sol. Prosecutor Toy knew Sol would be killed too. But Toy wasn’t going to turn the building into a boarding house.

It took a bit of effort, but Toy soon finalized a plan to rid Detroit of one more hoodlum. He offered Sol a deal. Leave the country now, under police escort or some charge would appear which would send poor Sol to Marquette.

It was a bitter pill. It meant he’d have to sneak back in a year or so to find the boat. But what choice did he have? Sol took the deal. He was sure Dolly would understand.

In a few weeks Sol was put on a ship destined for France. Toy’s plan was a good one; it could have worked. But, the French weren’t stupid either. They refused to let Sol get off the boat. On his own, penniless and without prospects Sol tried to go to Ireland.

The Irish and their British overseers weren’t any more stupid than the French. After two years Sol ended up headed back to the United States. He died a bum on the streets of New York never having made it back to Detroit.