The Detroit Electric Scheme (35 page)

Despite the grim circumstances, I laughed. Even dead, the judge was a problem for Vito Adamo.

For some reason that laugh forced the weight of the circumstances onto me. The remains of Elizabeth's father lay in a field. What was she to think? Her fiancé murdered, her father vanished. Now I would defile his body again.

I couldn't falter. I didn't kill Judge Hume. All I was trying to do was to survive, same as he would have. Pushing the horror from my mind, I concentrated on the task ahead. I needed to rid myself of the body and for that I would need a Detroit Electric truck. I phoned my father at his office. Wilkinson connected me.

“Hello, Will. I thought we might see you this morning.”

“I'm just tying up a few personal details before I begin my work on the show.” That was certainly true. “But I want to get started tonight. Have we got a 601 I could run through its paces?”

“I would imagine. But what for?”

“I've never driven one. I need to be familiar with it if I'm going to promote it.” Once, I had been proud of my honesty, but now lying seemed as natural as breathing.

“Makes sense. I'll have Wilkinson look into it and phone you with the details.”

We rang off. I lay on the parlor floor stretching my sore muscles for the better part of an hour until Wilkinson called me back, saying I could pick up a 601 panel truck at the garage that evening.

I sat at the kitchen table, gazing out the window. Pebbly snowflakes scattered before a stiff wind that shook the bare gray branches of the trees in the backyard. One limb in particular caught my eye—a skeletal arm with bony fingers reaching out to the heavens.

An image of Sapphira's dark eyes, high cheekbones, and lustrous black hair filled my mind. At the same time, my stomach lurched. The association of Sapphira with the night at the theater would be too strong to ever overcome. I would forget her. Anyway, people I knew had begun turning up dead much more frequently than I cared for. Since I hadn't told her where I lived, it was unlikely she would find me. And after the exhibition I put on, it was even less likely she would try.

I had an odd thought. Had the Dodge brothers not beaten me outside the theater, I would have spent a good portion of the night with Sapphira, and Judge Hume's body would have been found in my apartment. I would be in jail now, never to leave.

John and Horace Dodge had done me a favor.

 

Half an hour later, gun tucked into the small of my back, I took a trolley downtown and then another to the corner of Jefferson and West End. From there I headed toward the river, trying to ignore the saloons lining the street and the trembling in my hands. Snowflakes plummeted down, now larger and wetter, melting to slush on the cobbles but adding to the thin graying layer on the ground. The road ended abruptly at a series of warehouses and factories, redbrick buildings darkened with soot. The factories billowed clouds of oily black smoke from chimney after chimney, the plumes drifting over the river to darken the Windsor sky.

The building closest to the island was a warehouse with tiny windows set high on the walls. As casually as I could muster, I cut around it and hurried to the train tracks. To the north, this track divided into dozens of branches, but only one headed south to Zug Island. Even though the wind was strong at my back, I smelled the island before I saw it. I could have found the way with my eyes closed. Past the bridge was nothing but hills of heaped trash skinned with snow, blocking the view of the foundry. Judge Hume's body could lie there forever, and no one would be the wiser.

The tracks were in good shape and the bridge, though still a hundred yards away, was obviously intact. I don't know why I was worried, what
with the constant flow of pig iron from the foundry to all points east and west.

My biggest concern now was how far I'd have to carry the body. I'd come in on the closest street, and I wasn't sure about driving onto private property with the body in the back of the truck, particularly since night watchmen were sure to be on duty here on the riverfront. I'd have to improvise, something that—clearly—was not my strong suit.

By the time I returned to the warehouse, all that was left of my footprints were slight depressions from my weight in the grassier areas. If the snow continued, I'd leave tracks, but they would disappear quickly.

I went back out to Jefferson and walked east. When I was about a quarter mile down the road, a train roared out from the island, dozens of gray boxcars clacking along the track. In front of me, a security guard in a wrinkled gray uniform slouched against a redbrick building underneath a sign that read
SIMPKINS IMPORTS
. I ambled up to him and smiled. “Good afternoon.” I shouted to be heard over the train.

He looked at me, eyes wary. He was an older man, thin, with a deeply lined face.

“Say, I pass by here all the time,” I said, “and I've always wondered what you import.” I pulled my cigarette case from my coat pocket and held it out to him.

He took a cigarette, and I lit it for him. The sound of the train was fading into the distance. “Much obliged,” he said, and shrugged. “They import paper. Nothing worth stealing, if that's what you're thinking.”

“No.” I laughed. “I'm not a thief. I was just curious.”

He shrugged again and looked away.

I gestured with my head toward the back of the building. “All these trains must drive you crazy.”

“You get used to it.”

“It's got to be the worst at night. Just when you think you're going to get some peace and quiet, another train comes by.”

“Nah. Unless they're really busy, the trains stop around six.”

“Hmm.” I pulled out my watch and glanced at it. “Well, I'd better be going. Thanks for the conversation.”

“Don't mention it.” He took a drag on the cigarette, and I headed for the streetcar stop.

I went home and spent a couple of hours reading in my office. My chair sat next to the radiator, and I moved closer, feeling the warmth cut through the winter chill. Finally, too nervous to wait around my apartment, I began to wander the streets.

The snow continued. An inch of wet slush covered the cobblestones and sidewalks, and began to freeze as the temperature dropped. I picked my way carefully through the dark, certain a fall on the pavement would break me in two. As I moved along, my sore muscles began to loosen.

I walked through the Detroit in which I'd grown up—stone Beaux Arts palaces, Victorian mansions, columned Greek Revivals, and brick and stone skyscrapers rising from the glow of the street lamps into the dark as if they continued on to Heaven itself. For dinner, I stopped downtown at a little French café, refusing wine though the waiter pressed me on the subject. I was determined to maintain my sobriety but understood for the first time how difficult it was going to be. Social situations—lunches, dinners, after-dinner chats with friends, parties, the theater, everything—involved drinking. It was normal and expected. To refuse was to be rude. I was in for a lifetime of awkward moments.

After dinner, I wandered north through the falling snow past “Sauerkraut Row,” the German part of town, filled with breweries, cigar factories, marble works, and homes. Wreaths adorned most doors, and parlors shone with the Christmas trees' sparkling glass ornaments.

I checked the load of my pistol and headed toward the other Detroit, the city with which I'd only just become acquainted. First I looped around to Hastings Street, perhaps a quarter mile north of the Bucket, where I saw the first cracks in the facade. Street followed street with unintelligible store signs in Hebrew and Cyrillic script, and dozens of buildings of dark, cramped apartments. Their stoops were occupied by bands of young toughs, like armies holding territories. Near as I could tell, none of them was the boy who had taken the blackmail money.

I continued toward the river, walking through a section of Greektown,
though I skirted the area in which Sapphira lived. From there I plunged into an unfamiliar area east of downtown. The buildings were crumbling, the streets reeking of shit and piss and rotting garbage, and crammed with humanity. Children huddled together over garbage can fires. Couples hurried past the entrances to alleyways with fearful glances over their shoulders. Rough-looking men with derbies pulled down over their brows leaned against walls and in doorways, appraising passersby. I looked them in the eye. The confidence given me by the gun must have shown on my face, because they let me pass.

My hands and feet were numb, but I continued toward the river, into Black Bottom, the city's small enclave of Negroes. The buildings here were mostly rickety wood, starting with two-story houses only a few feet apart, many with lean-tos attached haphazardly to their fronts and backs. Next came one-story shotgun shacks jammed together in a line, which led finally to the thrown-together wood and tin shanties abutting the coal yards next to the river.

Blinded by the magnificence and grandeur of the city I knew, I had thought Detroit was different than this. But to these people—Russians, Greeks, and Blacks, as well as the Italians, Irish, Poles, Flemings, Hungarians, Turks, Chinese, and all the rest—this was the reality. Nothing more or less than the nightmare result of a dream smashed against the shores of the Promised Land. Detroit hadn't yet gained the opulence or sunk to the depths of New York, but only because it hadn't had time.

I wanted to sink into an ocean of bourbon.

Around ten I walked up to the front door of the Detroit Electric garage and rapped on the window, my movements spastic from nervousness. I took a deep breath and blew it out, trying to build some enthusiasm.

Ben Carr looked through the window. He hesitated before opening the door, probably remembering what had happened the last time I showed up here at night. “We've got the 601 ready to go,” he said, not quite meeting my eyes. He gestured vaguely over his shoulder at the boxy black truck, which stood in front of the closed garage door. The electric lights in the room were bright, sparkling off the shiny finishes of the automobiles arrayed around the outside walls. I was taken, as I always was, by the fresh-air ozone scent of the building.

I extended my hand to him, and he took it. “I'm so sorry, Ben,” I said. “No matter what happens to me, it was wrong to get you involved in this mess.”

His face relaxed a little. “Thank you, sir. I'm sorry I couldn't help you, but I . . . I just couldn't.”

“I understand. I can't tell you how relieved I was when Detective Riordan said he wasn't pressing charges against you.”

Ben looked at his feet. “You know I got to testify.”

“Of course you do. But don't worry. I'm going to get out of this,” I said, with a great deal more confidence than I felt.

His eyes darted to mine and then away again. “I left the logbook on the front seat of the truck. Don't forget to fill it out.”

“Sure, thanks.”

He began to turn around, hesitated, then spun and marched toward the back of the garage. “Just leave it on that stool by the tool crib,” he called over his shoulder. “I'll get it later.”

I watched him until he turned the corner into the office. He wanted my handwriting in the logbook. I couldn't blame him. I walked over to the truck, wrote the details in the book, and set it atop the stool.

The truck was nothing fancy, just a twelve-foot-long box with a cutout in the front for a bench seat over the white Motz cushion tires. The only thing in front of the driver other than the steering wheel—which I thought awkward in comparison to the steering lever on our automobiles—was a one-inch wood panel that held the headlights.

I walked around to the back and swung the doors open. A tool kit and spare tire were inside, but nothing else. There was plenty of room for a body—for a number of bodies. With its one-ton capacity, I reckoned I could get eight or nine more Judge Hume–sized corpses inside without taxing the suspension or motor. And the way my life was going, that could come in handy.

After I opened the garage door, I climbed in the truck and checked the voltmeter. The batteries were fully charged. That gave me a range of at least fifty miles—much more than I needed. I pulled onto the street and parked just long enough to close the door and get cursed by the driver of a black Locomobile roadster. Turning left onto Woodward, I
headed north, back to my apartment for some supplies. The street had begun to quiet, tomorrow a workday.

I pulled up to the curb opposite my building and climbed the stairs. I was unlocking my door when Wesley popped out of his apartment.

“Hi, Will,” he said. “Thought that sounded like you.” He did a double take. “What happened to you now?”

“Nothing. Just a little misunderstanding with the Dodge brothers.”

He shook his head slowly. “Why don't you come in for a drink and tell me about it?”

“No, thanks. I've quit, actually.”

“Drinking?”

I nodded.

“Good for you.” He smiled. “Well, you want to come in for a ginger ale?”

“I'm going to have to take a rain check. I've got to take care of something tonight, just some work I'm catching up on. My father's put me in charge of our booth for the Detroit Auto Show.”

His smile widened. “Congratulations. I'm really happy for you.”

“Thanks.” I looked to the inside of my apartment. “I should get to it. See you.”

“Okay. But let's have that ginger ale soon.”

I turned back to him. “Absolutely. Thanks, Wes.”

He nodded and slipped back inside his apartment. There were a few things I wasn't going to do any longer. One was drink. Another was involve Wesley in my problems.

I changed into a black shirt, trousers, and boots, and fit a black fedora on my head. Then I gathered my supplies—a shovel, a lantern with a black cowl, a clothesline, and a huge plaid blanket I never used, similar to dozens I'd seen at picnics or warming spectators at spring and autumn sporting events. I shrugged on my black greatcoat and tried to decide what to do with the next few hours.