Motor City Burning (4 page)

The question now was: Who to invite to the game? He wanted to ask a woman, but the right kind of woman, one who would be interested in what took place on the field. He couldn't stand going to the ballpark with someone who didn't care about the game, who was just there to show off the new wardrobe or blow off a little steam. Let the Grosse Pointe swells sit down behind the dugout looking like a million bucks, and let the brothers and the longhairs and the rivet-heads from Hamtramck sit out there in the bleachers and take their shirts off and get rowdy and loud. Doyle went to ballparks to watch ballgames.

The choice was obvious. Cecelia, the bartender at the Riverboat out on East Jefferson, had started calling him “Hon” and touching the back of his hand when he dropped in on his way home to drink a few beers and admire the view. Not the river view out the window, the view across the bar. He could watch her for hours, the way her brassy hair flashed in the dim light, the way her hips swiveled as she marched back and forth behind the long U-shaped bar. She would probably have tomorrow off. Just as he made up his mind to swing by the Riverboat after visiting Henry Hull, his phone rang again.

“Homicide, Doyle.”

“Francis Albert Doyle—shame on you, me boy, for working on your day of rest,” came the falsely sugared brogue of his brother, who was the only person in the world who still called him Francis. Rod knew Frank hated it, but that's how it works between brothers. One is forever the big brother and one is forever the kid brother and the former never stops reminding the latter of this unchanging fact of life. Doyle was pushing thirty, which meant he was still too young to enjoy it but way too old to fight it.

Doyle knew his brother wasn't calling to chastise him for breaking union regs. He was calling to make sure the Tigers' tickets had arrived safely and that the gift had been registered in the debit column of their brotherly ledger. Rod had been like this since they were shoplifting Bazooka Joe and Tootsie Rolls, but his native skill at calibrating favors and debts had acquired a razor sharpness two years ago when he made captain. He got the promotion after leading the Vice raid on the Grecian Gardens restaurant, where he personally discovered four little black books that recorded a series of bribes paid to uniformed police officers for ignoring liquor and gambling violations. Twenty-one cops were indicted, a bit of overdue house-cleaning that did not go unnoticed by the man whose image it burnished most, Jerome P. Cavanagh, Detroit's liberal Democratic mayor who, back in 1966, still fancied himself destined for the U.S. Senate at the very least, maybe a Cabinet post, possibly even the White House itself. And why not? The sky hadn't fallen yet in 1966. In the eyes of the national press back then, Cavanagh was still “The Dynamo in Detroit,” the man who'd funneled millions of War on Poverty dollars to his city, which boasted the nation's largest NAACP chapter, low unemployment and high wages, the only city in America with two black Congressmen and a thriving auto industry and a home-grown, black-owned record company called Motown that cranked out the finger-popping hits as fast as the factories cranked out the gas-guzzling cars.

Rod Doyle saw to it that he not only got a captain's chair for his role in the Grecian Gardens case, but that his kid brother stopped patrolling the gritty streets of the Tenth Precinct and started breathing the relatively rarefied air of the fifth-floor Homicide bullpen at 1300 Beaubien Street. Thanks to his brother, Frank even got to skip the detective's standard apprenticeship in Vice, Burglary and Violent Crimes, and he got teamed with Rod's old partner, the Homicide squad's leathery legend, Jimmy Robuck.

Doyle thanked his brother for the Tigers' tickets. Then, since he wasn't supposed to ask, he asked, “So where'd they come from?”

“Believe it or not, I appointed one of Reverend Cleage's cronies to the Citizens Review Board—guy has the beer concession at Tiger Stadium—and suddenly I'm getting deluged with Tigers tickets. Just remember, you'll be watching Al Kaline compliments of the Church of the Black Madonna and the Stroh Brewery Company.”

They shared a laugh at the way the world works.

“All seriousness aside,” Rod said, “what're you doing down there on a Saturday morning?”

“Paperwork. And I just got a call on the Hull case.”

“The Hull case?”

“Helen Hull. You know, Henry's wife—from the old Greenleaf Market.”

“So who was the call from?”

“Henry, of course.”

“Jesus, he still tending the flame?”

“Afraid so.” Doyle paused. He didn't like the sound of what he'd just said. “Actually, I'm glad he is. Mrs. Hull didn't deserve what she got. Neither did Henry.”

“I hear you. I can't believe you boys're still working shit from the riot, though.”

“Well, believe it. One went down last week, but we've still got two unsolved. And your friend on the eleventh floor of the City-County Building wants them to disappear in the worst way. He's even started calling Sarge to check our progress in the case.”

“Cavanagh's been calling Schroeder?”

“Afraid so.” This time he didn't mind the sound of what he'd just said.

“So why don't you figure out a way to pin it on the State Police—or better yet, the National Guard—and make everyone happy? Cavanagh, you, me, and every black-power wacko this side of the Ohio state line.”

“Believe me, the thought's crossed my mind more than once.”

They shared another laugh. This one was shorter than the first.

“I'll let you go,” Rod said. “Kat made me promise to pin you down on that dinner invite. She says you're working too hard—but mainly she wants you to come visit . . .”

I'll bet she wants me to come visit, Doyle thought.

“. . . and the girls want to see their favorite uncle.”

“I'm their only uncle, Rod.”

“True, but they still ask. Christ, you wouldn't believe how fast they're growing up! Liz just got her first pair of toe shoes and we bought a horse for Val.”

“You bought a
horse
?”

“A pony, actually. And we didn't buy it, strictly speaking. Kat did.”

“Oh.” Alcohol makes people do strange things, though Doyle guessed it probably wasn't all that strange for a teenage girl in Bloomfield Hills to have her own pony. What was strange to Doyle was that his brother had actually left the city, had let his wife's family money talk him into a four-bedroom Dutch colonial on an acre of suburban lawn that looked more like a putting green than most putting greens. The hardwood trees that towered over that lawn had been around longer than the Model T. Yes, it made perfect sense for a girl in that world to have her own pony.

“So when can I tell Kat and the girls you'll be out?” Rod said.

“Tell them I'll be out as soon as I clear a few things up. Maybe next week.”

“Promise?”

“Promise. And thanks again for the tickets.”

“Don't thank me. Thank Rev. Cleage.”

“I'll do that next time I see him.”

Doyle's coffee cup was empty and he was awake at last. Talking to his brother—thinking about his life out there in the suburbs—did what it always did. It made Doyle itch to show the world that there was still hope for the Motor City. He got up from the desk without touching the stack of paperwork. He couldn't wait to get to the Harlan House and hear Henry Hull tell him about the unbelievable thing they'd missed.

3

T
HERE WAS A WEDDING RECEPTION AT
O
AKLAND
H
ILLS
C
OUNTRY
Club that Saturday, so instead of spending the afternoon sitting in the bleachers at Tiger Stadium drinking beer with Louis and Clyde, Willie spent it wandering through the mob in the clubhouse's cavernous ballroom, carrying tray after tray of glasses brimming with cheap champagne.

It wasn't a bad gig. The bar boys and Chi Chi, the Mex bartender, set up rows of glasses on the horseshoe-shaped bar in the downstairs lounge, and they popped corks and poured as fast as they could. Every time a busboy came in to refill his tray, custom dictated that he toss off a glass himself. By the end of every wedding reception, a couple of busboys wound up out on the tennis courts on their hands and knees, coughing up everything they'd eaten in the past twenty-four hours.

Willie drank a couple, three glasses, didn't blow his cool. As the reception was winding down and the guests were heading up the broad curving staircase to the banquet room, he loaded up one last tray and made a pass through the hangers-on who weren't eager to have solid food interfere with their mid-afternoon buzz.

“I'll take a couple of those, son.”

Willie bristled. Son—it was half a notch above boy. He turned and faced a barrel-chested man with bright yellow hair. The guy stubbed his cigarette in an ashtray and lifted two glasses off Willie's tray. “Last call for alcohol,” he said, laughing moistly. “Thanks a million.”

“Yes sir.” The man was standing off by himself pounding down a couple of final jolts. His skin was pitted and flushed, his necktie loose. Willie smelled loneliness coming off him, and started to move away.

“Tell me something, son,” the man said.

Willie turned back toward him. “Sir?”

“I've never seen you before. Are you new here?”

“Yes sir. I started about a month ago.”

“I'm Chick Murphy. I'd shake your hand but—” He lifted the two glasses and sipped from one, then the other.

“And I'm Willie Bledsoe, sir. Pleasure to meet you.” Again he started to move away, and again the man drew him back.

“You from Detroit, Willie?”

“No sir, I'm from Alabama originally.”

“No shit. Got a mechanic working for me who's from Alabama—Tuscaloosa, I believe it is. Name's Gaylord Banks. Ever hear of him?”

“No sir, can't say that I have.” What was it with white people up here? They all seemed to think that every black person in Alabama knew every other black person, like it was one big happy jungle village.

“Best damn mechanic ever worked for me,” Chick Murphy went on. His words were a little slushy, his eyes a little hot, but Willie could tell the man knew how to hold his booze. He drained both glasses, returned them to the tray, and took one more.

Willie noticed then that something was wrong with the man's left hand. He looked closer, trying not to stare, and realized the pinkie was missing. Chick Murphy said, “So what brings you way up here, Willie?”

“I've got some family here. Bob Brewer's my uncle and—”

“Bob's your uncle! He's the best damn waiter we've ever had here! Pure class!”

“Thank you, sir.”

“I'll be honest with you.” He leaned close, close enough for Willie to smell nicotine and sour wine and breath mints. “Some of the guys on the staff here aren't worth two shits. But Bob Brewer—he's class all the way.” He drank, then glanced out the tall windows at the golf course. “Christ, I hate weddings,” he muttered. “I had box seats for the Tigers game today, and here I sit because one of my best customers is marrying off his daughter. You been to a game yet?”

“Went to my first one on Opening Day, as a matter of fact.”

“What'd you think?”

“I loved it, especially the park. Only trouble was, they got beat.”

“They're gonna be okay.” The change of subject seemed to revive him. His hot eyes were dancing now. “If their pitching holds up, I don't see how anybody's gonna be able to stay with them this year. They've got too much firepower. Plus they owe the fans one for blowing the pennant on the last day of last season.”

“I saw Earl Wilson hit a home run—and he's a pitcher.”

“Wait'll you see Kaline and Horton and Cash get loose. Those guys can murder the ball.”

Willie noticed Dick Kowalski, the club manager, standing by the doorway to the lounge drawing a finger across his throat, the signal that the bar was closed and it was time to start picking up all empty glasses and dirty ashtrays.

“Well, Mr. Murphy, it's been nice meeting you. We've got to clean up now. Would you care for another before I go?”

“I'm good, thanks.” He drained the glass he was holding and set it on the tray. “Say, I was just thinking . . . I've got a couple of tickets to tomorrow's Tigers game, but I've got to play golf. Any chance you could use them?”

“Afraid I've got to work a double shift again tomorrow. But thanks anyhow.”

“Well, maybe next time.”

As Willie started picking up empty glasses he watched Chick Murphy stride toward the men's room. The man had to be high as a Georgia pine, yet he was able to walk in a straight line. These Detroit guys, their livers must've been made of cast iron.

When the ballroom was cleaned up, Willie decided to head down to the Quarters, the impromptu bunkhouse in the basement where the black waiters and busboys took breaks and sometimes spent the night if they got stuck working late and didn't want to drive all the way back into the city. The champagne was wearing off, and he could feel the first faint throb of a headache. A nap might be just the thing to get him ready for the dinner shift.

When he entered the Quarters, Hudson and Wiggins were locked in one of their epic poker games. They'd taken off their ocher jackets and white shirts and clip-on bow ties and were playing in their T-shirts, suspenders dangling from the sides of their tuxedo pants. They both wore alligator loafers over thick 'n' thins—sheer silk socks with black stripes. They wore gaudy pinkie rings, too, touches that announced to the world that no uniform could bleach the blackness out of them. Just to make sure the message hit home, Wiggins wore his hair in a greasy conk and Hudson shaved his skull.

There was a mountain of dollar bills on the table, and neither man looked up when Willie hung his white jacket and dress shirt on a hanger and hopped up onto one of the top bunks and opened his book. But he was too sleepy to read. The Tigers game was on the radio, and as he drifted off he heard a roar and the voice of Ernie Harwell, the turtle guy:
“Going . . . going . . . long gone! Willie Horton just hit one clean out of the park! That thing might never come down!”