Motown (28 page)

“You have a good memory.”

“It was the only time I ever met Bennett. The miserable son of a bitch is hard to forget.” He turned it over and read the date.

“We tracked down the newspaper in the picture,” Canada said. “Friday, May twenty-eight, nineteen thirty-seven. The day after the Battle of the Overpass. I guess a dead cockroach would have beat out Bennett in a union popularity contest that day.”

“That was a UAW beef. That horse’s ass Walter Reuther wouldn’t have anything to do with me when I was working at Chrysler; thought I might snatch his goddamn presidency right out from under him. Would have, too. Anyway there wasn’t any love lost between him and the Steelhaulers. I thought I could negotiate a separate deal with Ford’s, but Bennett wasn’t having any. The stupid bastard thought he’d won that war. My guess is you made copies.” He gave back the picture.

“You should’ve grabbed the camera the minute it was taken.”

“Where would she go with it? The press was on Bennett’s side. Not that the picture means anything.”

“The rank and file might not agree. When one union goes out they all follow. Solidarity.”

“Bullshit. We fought each other as much as we fought the shops. Every third man was a management spy, and half the scabs who drove trucks when the Steelhaulers went out were UAW men who’d been banned from the auto plants.”

“That was then.”

Brock filled his glass with milk and drank it off in a draft. But for that he seemed as unagitated as when Canada had arrived. “I’ve been around too long. I’m working with business-school graduates who don’t know a gear box from a cigar lighter who keep telling me the history of the union I built. I always learn something new. Just yesterday one of them told me I ought to buy stock in one of the steel companies and run for a position on the board. It would give us a say in how the company’s run, he said.”

“Makes sense.”

“My folks kept ducks and chickens during the Depression. Fox killed the hen and all but one of her chicks. That chick started hanging around with the ducklings, ate with them and followed the mama duck all over the yard with the others. One day it followed her down to the river and drowned. Forgot it was a chicken, see. No,” he said, “you got to keep your ducks and chickens separate.”

“Ever considered retiring?”

“And leave it to those whelps? In six months you couldn’t tell it from General Motors.”

“Except for the Mafia.”

“They’ll get their hooks into GM too. I’ve been fighting those guineas straight uphill since nineteen thirty-one.”

“The strike at the Chrysler plant,” Canada said.

Brock tilted his head back, taking his face out of the shadow of his cap. The sun found pleats there that the cameras missed. “You did your homework. I’ve still got a scar on my scalp where one of those headbusters sapped me. It didn’t used to show.”

“That was before they switched sides.”

“They came around when everyone else did, including the papers. There’s no money in losing.”

“A race war’s too high a price to pay for Frankie Orr’s past support, Mr. Brock. It wouldn’t stop with the numbers parlors.”

“Don’t go Pat Boone on me, Inspector. I was getting to like you. You wouldn’t be here if your boss didn’t want to be President.”

“You don’t have a picture. I do.”

“It isn’t evidence.”

“Evidence is for lawyers. You know how it goes in politics. All you have to do is open a crack.”

“I guess you didn’t catch the news this morning. The union voted to kick into my re-election fund.”

“The shop stewards voted. They vote the way the rank and file tells them to, and the rank and file hasn’t seen this picture. Those business-school graduates you mentioned aren’t alone. Half the present membership wasn’t born when you were elected to head the local. They don’t know how bad things were before you became national president. But they all know about Harry Bennett and the Battle of the Overpass. That’s how it is with legends.”

“What’s your pitch?”

“The next time Frankie calls, you don’t know him.”

“If it was that easy, I mean, assuming he ever calls,” Brock said, “there wouldn’t have been any reason to deport him in the first place.”

“If it were that easy I wouldn’t need this picture for leverage. Taking orders from Frankie Orr or anyone isn’t your long suit.”

The union leader took off his cap, ran his fingers through his graying brush-cut hair, and put the cap back on. “I guess all this is off the record. Extortion isn’t covered in the police manual.”

Canada shrugged. He felt a confidence coming like cold metal against his spine.

“I always could bargain with Frankie,” Brock said. “We both knew if he pushed too hard some of it would slop over into the papers, and after the stink that went up when Joey Machine bought the farm he treated headlines like the clap. Now it’s like he doesn’t care. You can’t dicker with a man who thinks he’s got everything to gain and nothing to lose.”

“Can you hold him off?”

“That depends on how long.”

“Just through the hot weather. It’s hard to get up a good riot when you’re standing in snow ass-deep.”

Brock spread his hands, an eloquent move on the part of someone who understood the magic of gestures. It was good enough for the inspector, who held out the snapshot.

Brock took it. “What about the copies?”

“I didn’t make any.”

“Risky.”

“I didn’t think so.”

He tore it in half, then quarters. He put the pieces in his shirt pocket and patted it. “Wouldn’t want to be arrested for polluting the lake. What about the mayor?”

“You can only buy so much with a picture.” Canada rose.

“It’ll be business as usual when I get back from Port Huron. From here to election time I don’t plan to let up on him.”

“He’ll survive.”

Brock shook his hand. “You fish?”

“Never cared for it.”

“Too bad. Look me up if your tastes change.”

“S
ENATOR
H
ART CALLED JUST
before quitting time,” Enid said. “I made an appointment for him to see Wendell Friday. At PG. That’s the first time a politician has offered to come to him.”

“What’s that make, three?” Rick asked.

“Four, with Romney. That was just a courtesy call, so he can tell the press he’s been in touch when they ask. But he’s a Republican governor, and he was president of American Motors. He must have been swallowing bile the whole time.”

Rick had never seen her so animated. They had had dinner at the Grecian Gardens in Greektown, a tough place to get a reservation since the notoriety of the Christmas list, but the only restaurant in town where Rick could be certain they wouldn’t encounter any of his old police acquaintances; then gone to the Lafayette Bar to hear the Greek band. They had ouzo brought to their corner table, where Rick liked to watch the clear anise-flavored liquer cloud up when water was added. He was surprised when Enid drank hers straight. Ouzo was slightly less treacherous than the Viet Cong.

Orange light from the candle in the cut glass on the table crawled over her interesting bone structure as she watched the band getting ready for the next set. She had changed at the office into a rubycolored silk dress with a V-shaped neckline that didn’t plunge as far as the blouse she’d worn earlier, but that for some reason Rick found sexier. He poured more water into his drink. “What did Wendell say?”

“He was still in his meeting last time I called. I left a message for him to call me at my place after eleven.” She looked at the thin gold watch on her wrist. “I assume we want to watch that special report on the news.”

“I was going to ask your TV set or mine.”

She let that slide. “Just because I didn’t welch on our bet doesn’t mean I’ve forgiven you for throwing dice with PG’s future. You’ve only been with us a couple of weeks. What do you know about the years of work that made your little parade worth more than three lines in the police column?”

“My high school algebra teacher defined ‘work’ as an act of accomplishment,” he said after a moment. “If nothing is accomplished, what you’ve been doing isn’t work. All I did was kick the chocks out. You built the wheels.”

“Everything you do and say comes down to wheels. I know the real reason you joined Wendell’s Wonders.”

He made his face expressionless. “I’m listening.”

“You wanted a job where you could talk about cars all day without being told you’re boring. You couldn’t care less about politics. You haven’t discussed them once since I’ve known you, but I could write a book about cars just from what you’ve told me.”

“Son of Hell On Wheels?”
His grin was genuine, fueled by relief.

“I went out once with a young man who loved old movies,” she said. “The older the better. They were his whole life:
Citizen Kane, The Birth of a Nation, Stagecoach
—you name the picture, if it was more than twenty years old he could replay it scene by scene and recite the credits down to who catered the wrap party. It turned out his parents fought all the time when he was growing up and the only theaters he could afford to hide out in were the revival houses. The night before the morning his parents decided to file for divorce he saw
Anthony Adverse
and
War and Peace
back to back. What were you hiding from?”

“No hiding. My father worked at Dodge Main. When he had enough saved up to buy a new Dodge on his employee discount he gave me his old Model A to fool around with. I was thirteen, and what I didn’t know about cars would fill Cobo Hall. By the time I got that piece of junk back on the road and sounding like anything but a bucket of nails falling downstairs I qualified for master mechanic.”

“Sounds like hell.”

“To you maybe. I was in heaven the whole time. First day I took it out was the best day of my life. If it wasn’t for gas rationing I’d have driven clear to Chicago.”

The band started up, the manic strings banishing conversation. Enid looked at her watch again and jerked her head toward the door. He paid up and they left.

Above the lights of Greektown, the night was a narrow black shaft with stars punched out of it. A young man with a tattered beard and hair to his shoulders passed them, humming “Summer in the City.”

Enid said, “There wasn’t any gas rationing in nineteen forty-nine.”

“Sorry?”

“I worked it out. If you’re thirty now like you wrote on your application, you were thirteen in nineteen forty-nine. The war ended in forty-five.”

“Whoops.”

“How old are you?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“You sold yourself short. You could’ve gotten away with twenty. On your looks, anyway. I suspected for some time you were older than you said. Why’d you lie?”

He told the truth. “I thought Wendell would be more likely to take on a kid.”

“Thirty’s no kid.”

“It is from this side.”

They stopped at the Camaro. “We don’t have time to drive to the office and pick up my Mercedes,” she said. “Would you come by and give me a lift in the morning?”

“I still don’t have seat belts.” He unlocked and opened the door on the passenger’s side.

She climbed in, and this time he got to see her legs. “You can’t be a fanatic all the time.”

The house was in Highland Park, a brick colonial on a half acre with a car port and cedars in the yard. He parked in the port and she let them in the side door. They walked past an automatic washer and dryer and up a step into a kitchen full of stainless-steel appliances. It reminded him of the kitchen in a new restaurant.

“Was this your parents’ home?”

“Yes. We had a cook but I let her go; I don’t entertain much. This room always makes me feel guilty. I never learned to cook. I make a great pot of coffee, but you know that. Shall I?”

He said yes and leaned on a counter while she charged an electric percolator. “What’s it like to grow up rich?”

“I don’t have anything to compare it to. My parents argued about money, and I’m told that’s universal. By the time I knew we were wealthy it was too late to take on airs.”

“Any sisters or brothers?”

“None. You?”

“One sister. She left home before I got to know her. She’s a grandmother now. I guess that makes me a great-uncle, but I haven’t seen her since our father’s funeral. Her husband drives a Rambler.”

“Do you judge everyone by the car he drives?” She plugged in the percolator.

“Pretty much. I paired you with the Mercedes in the PG parking lot the moment I saw you. The Volkswagen had to be Pammie’s.” He felt a twinge when her name popped out.

“What are you going to do about her?”

“I’m taking suggestions. No one ever had a crush on me before.”

“Talking helps.”

“Believe it or not, I thought of that. She won’t talk back.”

“An unnatural state for Pammie. Keep trying. That’s a small room for the two of you to spend all day in not talking.”

“I’d do better if she had a carburetor and a drive shaft.”

“It’s almost eleven.”

They crossed through a foyer with a curved staircase and antique chairs against the walls and entered a parlor with a fireplace, chairs of lesser vintage but more comfortable design, and a color television in a cabinet with doors that swung to, concealing the screen. Enid opened the doors and turned on Channel 4. Credits scrolled over a freeze-frame of Bill Cosby and Robert Culp.

The fireplace mantel bristled with family photographs in gold frames. In one, a grave little girl wearing a winter coat and knitted tam with her hands hidden in a white fur muff posed between a couple in their late twenties outfitted for winter. A church building reared behind them.

“Blessed Sacrament.” Enid saw him looking. “Easter, nineteen forty-six. I’ve never known it to fall on a warm day in Michigan.”

“You don’t look happy.”

“I wanted to be Jewish like my Uncle Hans. He took the picture. My father converted to Catholicism when he married my mother and Hans was the only one on his side of the family who’d have anything to do with us after that. He was my favorite person in the whole world. That’s him on the end of the mantel.”

It was a portrait in an oval frame of a Satanic-featured young man in a jacket and glistening tie. He had a cocky smile and Enid’s dark coloring. “Was he killed in an accident too?”