The Detroit Electric Scheme (20 page)

“When did you get out?” he demanded.

“I was arrested last week Tuesday and didn't get out until late yesterday afternoon.”

He blinked. “I can check that, you know.”

“Of course I know that, Judge. Now how long has she been missing this time?”

His brow furrowed, and a look of uncertainty appeared on his face. “She went out two days ago and hasn't come back.” He turned to go inside but stopped. In a pitiful voice, he said, “She's been ill.”

I returned home and spent the next hour pacing in my den. Elizabeth's disappearance had to be tied to her drug addiction, and I feared overdose. I thought to call the hospitals and the police, but the Humes would undoubtedly have done that already.

I needed to start at the beginning. She had gone to the pharmacy on Hastings and apparently not gotten what she asked for. That was odd. It didn't matter if she was addicted to heroin, morphine, or opium. They were all available for the asking at any pharmacy.

I phoned Dr. Miller. “With Elizabeth in the condition she was when you examined her, would a pharmacy sell her heroin?”

“No. Well, that is, not a reputable pharmacy. Before they sell an opiate, they're supposed to use their judgment as to whether the customer is abusing it.”

“But there are pharmacies that would sell it to her?”

“Oh, certainly. Usually in the more sordid parts of town.”

I thanked him and hung up. When I was walking out of the den, the telephone rang. I thought about ignoring it, given that it was almost certainly a reporter, but for some reason I answered.

It was Edsel. “I've got a report for you on the unions. Our security men have been working with the EAD to see if there's any chance they can pin Cooper's murder on the AFL or IWW. The Wobblies didn't even know who John Cooper was, and the AFL leadership has already turned over all their Employers Association files to the police. They swear they and their affiliates had nothing to do with it. Our men, though they'd never admit this publicly, believe them, and trust me, they'd love to stick the AFL with the murder.”

This was not good news. “Okay, Edsel, thanks. I appreciate you checking.”

“Oh, I'm not finished yet. I suppose finding Frank Van Dam is next.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

“All right. But Edsel?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

“Not to worry, Will, my boy. I'll be very careful.”

I hung up and called Sutton, asking him if he'd had any luck finding Frank Van Dam. He hadn't. I filled him in on what Edsel said about the unions, then hung up again and set the receiver on the table. If it wasn't one of the unions, I had no idea who could have wanted John dead. I hoped Frank knew. And I hoped Sutton or Edsel could find him.

I sat in the parlor, thinking about what Dr. Miller had said. Now I understood why Elizabeth went to the pharmacy on Hastings. But it didn't explain why she had gone to that horrid saloon. It appeared the handsome man with the Italian accent had something to do with the pharmacy or sold drugs illegally. Either way, he was involved.

Son of a bitch
. I was going to have to make another trip to the Bucket.

 

I went straight to Wesley's apartment. He answered the door in black trousers, shiny black boots, and an undershirt. “Just getting dressed, chum. Come on in.” He walked down the hall to a room at the end.

I stayed in the foyer. “Wes, I need your help again.”

“You've got it. What can I do?”

“I need somebody to watch my back. At the Bucket.”

His head popped out of the room. “The—Okay. When?”

“Tonight. And I think we should have guns.”

Fumbling to button a sky blue shirt, he ambled down the hall toward me. “Tell me what we're doing.”

I explained about Elizabeth's addiction, that she was missing, and that I was sure the Italian man could give us at least a clue to her whereabouts, but it would first involve getting past the giant. Wesley asked me questions about the layout of the saloon and listened carefully while I described it.

A thought hit me. “Wes, I think the bouncer could be the killer. He
might be the only person I've ever met who could overpower John. You said the man who killed the Doyles was huge, and this guy certainly qualifies as that.”

Wesley rubbed his chin, and a little smile turned up the corners of his mouth. “When I see him, I'll know. I hope his life insurance is paid up.”

“You said you didn't see his face.”

“I don't need to, I saw how he moves. I study that. I'm a trained actor, after all. To become someone else, I have to move like them, too.”

“Good,” I said. “Maybe we'll get lucky. But I can't figure out why they would kill John.”

“Could Elizabeth's . . . situation have something to do with it?”

I considered the idea. “It's as good a theory as any. If John was buying her the drugs from these men, he could have run afoul of them somehow. And John wouldn't have backed off if they had a problem with him. John never backed off.” I shook my head. “But if that's so, why would they frame me? I'd never even heard of these guys.”

Wesley only shrugged. Neither of us could make sense of it.

“Now, about those guns,” Wesley said.

“I'll go buy a couple this afternoon.”

“Don't bother.” Wesley returned to the room in back. A minute later, he reappeared with a pair of dark wooden boxes clutched to his chest. I followed him into the parlor. He set the boxes on the coffee table, opened them, and pulled out a pair of large pistols. “Colt Cavalry forty-fives. Got 'em from my pop.” He held one out for me, and I took it. The revolver was huge, easily a foot long, the barrel more than half of it. The grip was dark wood, smooth to the touch.

“Single-action, so make sure you cock it before you try to shoot somebody.” He tipped back an imaginary cowboy hat and drawled, “This here's the same gun Buffalo Bill's got. There's five bullets in there that'll stop anything, up to and including a bear.”

“Good, because we may need to shoot someone about that size.”

“Yup,” he said. “Jes' pull back the hammer, point her, pull the trigger, and look down on the ground, 'cause that's where he'll be.”

“I have fired a pistol before.” I handed the gun back to him.

“Have you ever shot a man?” he asked, suddenly serious.

“Of course not.”

“Me neither.” With a bandaged hand, he spun the cylinder in one of the guns. “But if this is the guy who killed my friends, I'm going to tonight.”

“Wes, if you're going to help me, this has got to be about finding Elizabeth, not getting revenge. If we can do both, okay. But Elizabeth has to be the priority.”

Wesley sat on one of the yellow chairs, his forehead creased in concentration. “You're right. But if we find her and then I get a chance, he's a dead man.” He tried to bend his forefinger far enough to fit it inside the trigger guard of the gun. After a moment, he gave up and awkwardly stuck his middle finger in far enough to reach the trigger. Sighting down the barrel at the wall, he made the sound of a gun shooting, and his hand jerked back from the imagined recoil. He looked at me again. “So, how are we going to do this?”

“I'd guess everybody in the place will be carrying guns, knives, or both. If we go in like wild Indians we'll be cut down before we get anywhere. We need to be careful. Maybe you go in first, get a feel for the place, and set up where you can see everything. Then I'll come in and, hopefully, find the Italian. I'll get him off someplace we can talk. You just watch my back.”

He agreed, though he didn't seem satisfied with the role I'd given him. We decided to leave at ten o'clock. If the saloon was busy, it was less likely we'd be noticed.

The Italian man could fill in the blanks. I just had to get him to talk.

I ate a cold dinner and pottered around my apartment, nervously killing time. Around nine thirty, I started to dress, finally deciding on the outfit I wore when working on cars—stained brown trousers, a greasy blue shirt, and scuffed work boots. I pulled out an old black derby with a bent brim and grabbed my duster from the coatrack. Before leaving I took two long swallows of bourbon to clear my head. It helped still the tremors in my hands.

I collected Wesley, who was dressed in a similar fashion, though with a waist-length dark coat. We were just two recently-beaten-up poverty-stricken
men out for a night on the town. I was fairly certain we looked as derelict as the average Bucket patron.

He handed me a gun. I tried to fit it in the pocket of my duster, but the weight of the thing made the whole coat sag to the right, and the wooden butt hung out to the side.

Wesley turned around and lifted the back of his coat. His revolver was tucked into his trousers. “With the long coat, you might want to try the front.” He grinned. “But take care not to shoot off anything you're attached to.”

Again, I felt a tug of trepidation. Though other men I knew would likely make the same wisecrack, it was different coming from him. But I smiled back at him just the same. I pulled out the waistband of my trousers and started to slide the gun inside, but stopped. I glanced up at Wesley with a grimace.

He chuckled. “Single-action, remember? Just don't cock it.”

I stuffed the huge gun into my trousers and adjusted it, trying unsuccessfully to find a comfortable position. I finally gave up and left it in the middle, though with the barrel pointing toward my pocket. “Okay,” I said. “Let's go.”

At the bottom of the stairs, Carl Hatch gave us an all clear. We skulked out the back into a cold dark night, the glow of a half-moon just visible through the heavy clouds. After catching a Woodward Line streetcar to Gratiot, we walked down to Hastings. The street lamps were dim and widely spaced. Shadows moved through the street, shouting, cursing, laughing. The dark seemed to amplify the stench of the street-side privies.

Wesley and I shared a look, and he began to stumble toward the Bucket with the lurch of a drunkard. When he opened the saloon's door, a cacophony of music poured out, then quieted again when the door banged shut. I waited until a pair of men shoved past me and followed them inside, using their bodies to shield me from Big Boy. Through the haze of smoke, I saw him sitting in the same spot at the bar he had occupied last week. Over the normal saloon smells—stale beer, tobacco, and unwashed bodies—floated a sweeter component, some kind of smoke with which I wasn't familiar.

Wild music echoed through the saloon. The same man I'd seen before banged on the piano alongside other black men playing clarinet, trumpet, trombone, tuba, banjo, and drums. The music soared and swooped, similar to ragtime but untamed, improvisational.

One of the men in front of me spat a stream of tobacco juice onto the warped wooden boards at his feet before heading to the bar. As surreptitiously as I could, I scanned the room. There had to be a hundred men packed into the saloon, crowding the bar, playing cards, rolling dice, chatting up prostitutes. Wesley stood at the end of the bar nearest the door. I caught his eye, and he looked meaningfully at the giant and then back to me, shaking his head just enough to be sure I got the message.

Big Boy wasn't the man who killed the Doyles.

Wesley leaned on the bar with an elbow, turned toward the back of the saloon, and took a sip of his beer.

The Italian was nowhere in sight. I headed toward the back of the saloon looking for an office or storeroom, my face turned away from the giant. An unmarked wooden door in the rear wall seemed the only possibility.

I edged around the card tables, trying not to draw attention. Behind me, over the sound of the music, came a loud
crash
! I flinched and turned around. A man holding a pair of chair legs stood over another, who lay unconscious on the floor, the rest of the chair scattered around him. Big Boy jumped from his seat and began to stalk in their direction. The man holding the chair legs spun and ran from the saloon, holding the wooden posts in his hands like batons in a relay race. It appeared everyone was afraid of the giant, which in some odd way comforted me.

The wild music continued unabated. One little skull fracture wasn't enough to get the attention of the musicians. With everyone looking elsewhere, I hurried to the door in the back and turned the knob. It was unlocked. I pushed it open and slipped inside.

Wooden crates and beer kegs were stacked haphazardly against the side walls, leaving small crevices along a narrow walkway leading to a pair of doors in the back. One was ajar. The light was off, but I could see stairs leading down to a basement. The other door was closed, and a
flickering yellow light leaked out underneath it. I pulled the gun, cocked it, and walked down the aisle. A murmur of conversation was just audible over the muffled music from the saloon. Then I heard the sound of chairs scraping against the wooden floor. I ducked into a shadowy opening between two stacks of boxes.

No sooner was I hidden than the storeroom brightened, and the voices became distinct.

“You swear you don't know?” a man said. He sounded familiar, but somehow out of context, and the music blaring in the saloon made the identification difficult.

“I do not,” a man with an Italian accent said. “But I wonder . . .”

“Wonder what?” the other man said.

“If I were able to find her, I wonder if your gratitude would be such that you would allow me to run my business without interference.” His voice hardened. “Or payoffs.”

“You son of a bitch.” Shoes scuffled. “Where is she?”

I peeked over the top of the boxes in astonishment. The handsome Italian was facing toward the door. The other man held him by the lapels, his back to me.

I didn't need to see his face to know it was Judge Hume.

 

The Italian pried the judge's hands from his coat. “Judge Hume, you are trying my patience. If you want to find your daughter, I'd suggest you act more civilized. We are civilized men, are we not?”