“I know,” she said. “But it wasn’t that reason. I think I had that straightened out in my mind. But from the moment he met Joe Warren, it began to go from bad to worse.”
He stared at her. “Joe Warren,” he said bitterly. “Everywhere I turn I hear that name.”
“Junior told me that Warren signed an assault complaint against you and the sheriff’s office was going to pick you up.”
“I know about that,” he said. “But I have some pretty good friends downtown. They sat on it.”
“I’m glad,” she said. “But don’t think that it’s over. Joe is a real bastard and he won’t give up. He’s got Junior under his thumb.”
He stared at her. “That’s the one thing I don’t understand. What the hell power has he got over Junior that makes him jump when he pulls the strings?”
“Don’t you know?” she asked, her eyes meeting his steadily.
“No.”
“Joe Warren is Junior’s boyfriend,” she said in a matter-of-fact voice.
A puzzled look crossed Loren’s face. “His boyfriend?”
Suddenly the naïveté of this giant of a man, his blindness about his son, reached out and touched her. Her voice grew very gentle. “I thought you knew,” she said. “It seems as if everyone else in Detroit knows it. Ever since the day they met in the steam room at the Athletic Club.”
She could see the shock well up into his eyes as he looked at her. His hand began to tremble, spilling the whiskey over the sides of the glass. Slowly he put the glass down on a table next to him. She could see the gray winter of age etch its way into his face. Suddenly, he put his hands up to his face and hard, wracking sobs shook his body.
She was very still for a moment, then went over to him and knelt in front of his chair. She pulled his head down to her shoulder and held him tightly against her.
“I’m sorry,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry.”
Chapter Nine
It was a few minutes after seven o’clock in the evening when Melanie Walker got off the streetcar and started the four-block walk to her house. It had turned cold during the day after the rain of the morning had stopped and now the night winds blew strongly through her thin coat. She pulled it tightly around her as she turned the corner and started down the street.
“You’re late,” her mother said as she came in the door. “We already ate. You’ll have to make do with the leftovers.”
“I don’t care,” Melanie said. “I’m not really hungry.”
“We thought—” her mother began to say.
“Shut up!” her father yelled from his seat in front of the radio set in the corner of the kitchen. “Can’t you see I’m listening to ‘Amos and Andy’?”
She took off her coat and walked into the room. She hung it carefully on a hanger on the back of her door. Then she got out of her dress and slip and laid them neatly on the bed. She would iron out the wrinkles after dinner so that it would be crisp and neat for the morning. She slipped into a cotton housedress and, tying the sash around her waist, went back into the kitchen.
Her mother had laid out some cold cuts on a plate on the table together with some already browning lettuce and squashy sliced tomatoes next to a plate of bread and butter.
She looked at it. “Not liverwurst and bologna again?”
Her mother shook her head. “What did you expect? You should have been home in time for dinner.”
“I had to work late,” she said. “I was in Mr. Hardeman’s office today.”
“You should have called,” her mother said.
“I didn’t have time. Besides you know Mr. McManus doesn’t like us to bother him too much.”
McManus was their neighbor on the floor below. He was the only tenant in the house who had a telephone. He was a cop on the city police force. “We don’t bother them that much,” her mother said.
Her father erupted in a shout of laughter. Still chuckling he got out of his chair and walked over to the icebox and took out a bottle of home brew. With a practiced motion of his hand, he swept off the stopper and got the bottle in his mouth before the foam had a chance to spill over. He took a long pull, then held it down in front of his large stomach. “Those niggers are the funniest,” he belched. “Especially that Kingfish. He talked Amos into buying a new car and now Amos can’t make the first payment and he wants the dealer to take the car back and give him back his old flivver.” He began to laugh again thinking about it. “Andy got into the act to straighten it all out and now the dealer has both cars and they have nothing.”
Neither of the women laughed. He stared at them for a moment. “It’s funny, see,” he explained. “Amos bought a new car and—”
“If you think niggers are so funny then why are you so mad because they’re moving in a few blocks from us?” her mother asked.
“That’s different,” he said. “Amos and Andy are good niggers. They know their place. They ain’t trying to move into white neighborhoods. They stick with their own kind like they should.”
The women didn’t answer him; he looked over at Melanie who had just begun to butter a slice of bread. “How come you’re so late?”
“I had to work late in Mr. Hardeman’s office today,” she said. She picked at a piece of liverwurst.
Her father grinned. “At least you don’t have to worry about him trying to grab a feel of you when you walk past his desk.”
“It wasn’t that one, it was his father,” she said. She chewed at the liverwurst. It tasted mealy and flavorless.
“You mean Number One?” her father asked, curiosity in his voice. “He’s back?”
She nodded.
“Your boyfriend ain’t going to like that.”
She stared at him. “How many times do I have to tell you that Mr. Warren isn’t my boyfriend? Just because I have dinner with him once in a while don’t mean anything.”
“Okay, okay,” her father said placatingly. “So he ain’t your boyfriend. He still ain’t going to like it. He’s got Number Two under his thumb. The old man is another story. Nobody pushes him around.”
Melanie tried the bologna. It was no better. She pushed the plate away from her. “I’m not hungry,” she told her mother. “Do you have a cup of coffee?”
“How about some eggs?” her mother asked.
She shook her head. “No. Just coffee.” She looked at her father. “Did you go out for a job today?”
“What for?” her father answered. “There ain’t nothin’ around.”
“There were openings for six machinists at our place today. Over eight hundred men showed up.”
“You don’t expect me to get on line with all them rednecks, Polacks and niggers, do you? Don’t forget I was a foreman out at Chrysler.”
“Right now, you ain’t nothin’,” her mother said. “You been out of work for almost three years. If it wasn’t for Melanie’s workin’ we’d all been on the streets.”
“You stay out of this!” her father snapped angrily. He turned back to Melanie. “Besides, didn’t your boyfriend promise me the first openin’ that came along?”
Melanie nodded.
“But that was for a foreman’s job,” her mother said. “None of the plants are hiring foremen. What are you going to do, wait around forever for one to come along?”
“I told you to stay out of it!” her father roared. “What do you want me to do? Come down in the world?”
“I just want you to get a job,” her mother said stubbornly.
“I’ll get a job,” her father muttered. “Just as soon as we can get rid of all those foreigners and niggers that came pilin’ up here after the war to grab the easy money.”
“They ain’t goin’ away,” her mother said. “The war’s over fifteen years now an’ they’re still here.”
“We’ll get rid of them,” her father said. “You wait and see. We’ll show them that nobody can push real Americans around.” A blast of music from the radio caught his ear. “That’s the ‘Fleischman Comedy Hour,’” he said, starting back to the radio. “Now you women talk real quiet. I don’t want to miss any of it.”
“Is there enough hot water for a bath?” Melanie asked. “I’m so tired, I think I could use one.”
“Wait a minute, I’ll see.” Her mother walked to the corner of the kitchen and put her palm on the outside of the water tank. “No.”
She knelt beside the water tank and turned on the gas heater at the same time, striking a match. Nothing happened. “The meter must have gone off again,” she said. “Do you have a quarter?”
“I’ll get one,” Melanie said. She went into the bedroom and opened her purse. She took a coin from the small pile of change she kept in it and went back into the kitchen. “Here.”
Her mother took the quarter and pulled a chair over to the sink, then climbed on it. She reached up and placed the coin in the slot in the meter and hit the meter two resounding slaps as the coin tinkled its way into it.
“You always do that,” Melanie said.
“Makes the meter give you two extra hours of gas that way,” her mother said smugly, getting down. She went back to the water heater. This time the gas went on.
She was just about to step into the tub when her mother knocked at the bathroom door. “There’s a telephone call for you from Mr. Warren on McManus’ phone downstairs.”
“I’ll be right there,” she said, reaching for her housedress. She went down the flight of steps. The McManus door was ajar. She knocked on it before she went in. Mr. McManus was in front of the radio in much the same position as her father upstairs. Mrs. McManus came to the door.
“I’m sorry to bother you,” Melanie said.
“That’s all right,” the woman answered.
Melanie went into the tiny hallway between the kitchen and the bedrooms. The phone was on a small table. She picked it up. “Hello.”
“Melanie?” asked the familiar voice.
“Yes.”
“I want to see you right away. I’m in St. Joseph’s Hospital.”
“I know,” she said. The stories and rumors were all over the plant. “Are you all right?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “But the stupid doctors won’t let me out. They want to keep me for observation.”
“Maybe you’d better rest,” she said.
“I want to see you.”
“I was just going to take a bath,” she said. “Besides it will take me almost two hours to get there by trolley.”
“I’ll send a car for you,” he said flatly. “You be downstairs in front of your door in half an hour.” The phone went dead in her hand and she put it down.
She went back into the kitchen. “Thank you,” she said to the little Irishwoman.
McManus turned from his radio and looked at her. Something in his policeman’s eyes told her that he knew she was naked under the housedress. Unconsciously her hand pulled it closer over her chest. “Is your father workin’ yet?” he asked.
“Not yet, Mr. McManus,” she answered politely, moving toward the door.
“Times are bad,” he said heavily. “No tellin’ now what’s goin’ to happen.”
She was almost out of the door. “Thank you for letting me use the phone, Mr. McManus.”
“That’s okay,” he said. “As long as you don’t abuse it like some people I know.”
“Good night,” she said, closing the door behind her. Half an hour later she came out of her room fully dressed.
Her mother looked at her in surprise. “Where are you going this time of the night? It’s almost nine o’clock.”
“I’m going to see Mr. Warren,” she said. “He’s in St. Joseph’s Hospital.”
Her father turned from the radio. “What happened to him?”
“He had an accident. He says it’s nothing serious.”
“It’ll take you almost two hours to get there this time of the night,” her mother said. “It’s not safe for a girl to be out alone in this neighborhood now that the niggers are only a few blocks away.”
“He’s sending a car for me.”
Her father got to his feet. “He must want to see you real bad. What for?”
“I don’t know. But he is my boss. It’s probably business.”
Her father leered. “Monkey business, you mean.” He turned to her mother. “I think maybe Mr. Warren has got something on for our little girl.”
Her mother made a face. “Stop thinking with your dirty cracker mind. I know my Melanie. She’s a good girl.”
“I’ll be back as soon as I can,” Melanie said, slipping out the door.
Her father called after her as she went down the stairs. “Don’t forget to remind him of the promise he made to your daddy!”
He was sitting up in bed, his right arm held out in front of him on a pulley sling, his head bandaged, and several large square patches on his right cheek. He didn’t wait for her to speak as she came into the room.
“Personnel told me over the phone that they didn’t receive the usual nightly batch of blind carbons from your office today.”
“There weren’t any,” she replied. “Mr. Hardeman didn’t dictate a single note.”
“That’s strange,” he said. “He was in three days last week and spent all day writing memos.”
“There were none today,” she said. “There are stories all over the plant that Mr. Hardeman beat you up. What happened?”
“I tripped on a rug in the office and hit my head against the corner of a desk, that’s all.”
She looked at him without speaking. If it had happened in Number Two’s office like they said, he should know better than to tell a story like that. Mr. Hardeman, Jr., did not have any rugs in his office.
“They didn’t get your telephone call sheet either,” he said.
“Mr. Hardeman came out at the end of the day and took it away from me. Besides he made all his outside calls on his private line. That doesn’t cross my desk.”
“What about his meetings? Who came to see him?”
“First thing in the morning, he called Mr. Coburn, Mr. Edgerton and Mr. Duncan.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “He sent me down to the canteen. When he called me back, they were gone.”
“Who else came to see him?”
She thought for a moment. “In the morning, Mr. Williams of Sales and Mr. Conrad of Purchasing.”
“What did they talk about?”
“I don’t know.”
“You were told to keep your intercom switch open whenever there was a meeting in his office so you could make notes!”
“I did,” she said. “But nothing came through. He pulled the plug every time someone came into his office.”
Warren was silent for a moment. “Anybody else come?”
“In the afternoon, no one from the plant.”
“Anyone from outside?”
“Yes,” she said. “A Mr. Frank Perino.”
“I know what they talked about,” Warren said. “Perino’s his bootlegger. And Number One likes his whiskey.”
“That wasn’t it,” she said. “Mr. Perino’s son is a doctor and he wanted Mr. Hardeman to get him into a Detroit hospital. It seemed he was having trouble because of his background. Mr. Hardeman fixed it.”
He was surprised. “How do you know about that?”
“Mr. Hardeman called me into his office for coffee and aspirin. I was there all the time with Mr. Perino.” She hesitated a moment. “Mr. Hardeman takes a lot of aspirin. He must have had at least twelve tablets during the day.”