Detroit 32: Cadillac Kill: A Jonathan Raines Novel

9781626756953

ONE

He wasn’t Henry Ford or one of the Dodge brothers, but he was an important enough heavyweight in Detroit to squander plenty of green on extravagant trinkets, the most current, according to the Free Press gossip columnists, was blonde stage actress Mary Ann Bingham.

Normally, I wouldn’t have known Willis Ponder from Adam, but he had become as recognizable as Lucky Lindy with his mug in the papers all the time. He turned up most often on the business page leaning on one of his new Hudson models jabbering how the brand was going to outsell Ford and Chevrolet.

When he called me I assumed it wasn’t about selling me a new Hudson or to help with a company problem that his own security department could handle. This had to be something on the sly.Ponder’s voice wasn’t as resonant and commanding as one would expect from a top automobile executive, but then again, Henry Ford had a whiney, grating voice. Photographs of Ponder showed a bulky man with white beard and bushy white eyebrows, a prominent lip and nose. He looked like an industrial magnate.

I want to hire you for a job, he mumbled in a grating monotone. I got your name from some business acquaintances of mine who know Sid Engel and he recommended you. He said you’re a regular at his club and you are extremely dependable.

Oh? I responded smartly.

Yes, and I did some further checking to find you are quite a war hero, ex-Marine, tough as nails, or so I’m told. The word is you were the one who caught up with the killer of that radio rant Buckley back in ‘30.

I was hired by the radio station to track down the shooter who hit Jerry Buckley, a radio commentator on WMBC. He was shot dead in the lobby of the LaSalle Hotel after one of his broadcasts in which he unearthed the mayor’s connections with the mob and the Ku Klux Klan. I found the guy after a couple of weeks but by the time I reached his place to grab him, he’d been killed too. The cops said it was just another gang hit and let it go at that.

Yeah, too bad he was dead already, I pointed out. What is it you need, Mister Ponder?

I can’t explain what job I have in mind for you over the phone and I can’t meet here at my office at Hudson where we can be seen, he continued. Let’s make it at Sid’s club out on U.S. Twelve. Be there by six o’clock.

That was it. He hung up without even waiting to hear if I planned to agree. He seemed quite sure of himself and hadn’t even suggested how much I could expect to be paid. He must have been confident that whatever amount he thought was fair would find me eager to accept.

I reached down and opened the bottom drawer of the dilapidated oak desk I had salvaged from one of the downtown banks going belly-up in December, an occurrence that was becoming much too common. While the big shots had tons of money circulating amongst themselves, little of it had filtered down to ground level. I glanced at the calendar, noting it had not even been a month into the new year but it was already dragging on so long it seemed like the year had passed. I retrieved a bottle of smuggled Canadian Club and a small surprisingly clean glass. I guess Mrs. K-- my pet name for Irene Kastor who owned the place along with her husband, Ralph—decided to tidy the office up and actually washed the glass for me. How thoughtful.

I poured a couple of fingers and sipped it, letting the dull burn take hold. I still had a few hours before driving out to the roadhouse, enough time to make a few calls to check out Mister Ponder.

If you knew your way around, it wasn’t so difficult to take a route on practically all new roads, which avoided the potholes and washboards some of the older streets had developed, and missing much of the rush hour traffic at the same time. Getting to Sid’s Sunset Gardens roadhouse was pretty uneventful because there were so many fewer people driving and taking up space on the roads. The depression had its benefits.

Sid Engel opened the roadhouse about four days after the state prohibition laws went into effect, long before it became a nationwide curse. All he had to do was pay off the sheriff’s boys, which wasn’t a big problem, and he was wide open. Sid had purchased a huge eight-bedroom farmhouse from a family one step ahead of the foreclosure officer from the bank and spent a few bucks converting it to a night club. He even experimented with adding a second floor sporting club, gambling in a main room and a few midnight dollies in the others, but his heart wasn’t in it, he said. What he meant was he had to pay off the Purple Gang a bit too much in up front money to keep his sidelines going. The Purples were Jewish thugs who had murdered their way to the top, running most of the illicit booze in Detroit and even supplying customers such as Scarface Al in Chicago. The Purples wanted a cut of all the action, so Sid decided to drop back into just operating a night club and restaurant with a little gambling room, buying his booze, of course, from the Purples. They actually gave him some money back to rent a big barn on the back forty providing ample room for stockpiling hundreds of cases of imported booze at a time while they negotiated prices with the Chicago Outfit. Capone would send his trucks over to pick up the supply. Sid said that he was pleasantly surprised each month when someone would leave an envelope marked rent in his mailbox with a generous wad of bills inside. Sid’s only concession to the vices was a furnished room in the basement where high-stakes poker occasionally took place.

There weren’t many cars parked in the lot in front of the place when I got there, but it was a Thursday night and probably not much action was planned for the evening. Paydays and weekends had the place jumping, but otherwise it was a bit subdued. The dance bands only were booked for those particular days anyway.

I didn’t see any new Hudson in the lot, either, so I was early, which wasn’t a bad thing to be when you were meeting someone like Willis Ponder. The place inside looked nothing like a farmhouse. The entire lower front half was open with white cloth-covered tables and a dance floor in front of a bandstand tucked into one corner. A long mahogany bar stretching the length of one wall greeted guests as they walked through a pair of floor-to-ceiling frosted-glass doors, a coat and hat stand to the left. Sid had built onto the other side of the entire structure, expanding the rooms and a kitchen, providing several large round tables for groups and some private booths in a far corner away from the crowd. The rear portion housed the kitchen and storerooms. Toilets and washrooms were on the second floor, obtained by a curved staircase near the far end of the bar. There was also a back staircase that led to what one would think was a cellar, but which was the well-furnished room catering to the wealthy gamblers intent on giving Sid much of their money in high-stakes poker games a few times a month. A dumbwaiter lowered drinks to the gamblers and kept the cash separate from the chits.

A small lighted globe, dim but silvery, hung over the barroom, while a much larger, grand chandelier, bright and dazzling was suspended above the dining room. Sid could manipulate the brightness with switches near the bandstand so that later in the evening couples could enjoy themselves in a more romantic setting. He had spent a lot on those particular items, giving the roadhouse a touch of class, making it THE speakeasy for sophisticated patrons. One outside wall featured a stone-inlaid floor-to-ceiling fireplace and hearth which was lighted in the cold-weather months on weekends although it added more ambiance than warmth.

Jonathan, my friend, I’m so glad you stopped by for a visit, Sid called out as he strode across the empty dance floor. He sported a dark blue tuxedo with a bit of lace running along the line of buttons on his shirt. He was tall and fit but not muscular, with dark brown hair, a touch of gray at each temple, clean shaven and impeccable. He held out a manicured hand and as I shook it he clasped his other hand on my wrist in an exuberant display. While he might appear a dandy, he was a tough guy who had survived in the murky underworld which had claimed the city, successfully negotiating with cutthroats and murderers in such gangs as the Downriver Boys, the East Siders, or the Purples, not to mention the growing menace of the Italian mobsters.

He grinned broadly at me as he clutched my elbow, guiding me over to the bar. What brings you out so early? he asked as he directed me to the empty line of plush red-cushioned bar stools.

Business, Sid, I responded, glancing around at the relatively empty tables. There were only three occupied, two by couples and another by three business-types who paid no attention to what was going on around them. Just business, but I don’t see my client yet.

Oh, Sid grinned, it’s not a woman this time, Jonathan?

I’m afraid not, Sid. Just business.

He arched his brow and gave me a wink, snapping his fingers for the bartender to serve me. I slid onto a bar stool and ordered a CC and water, grabbing a handful of salted peanuts from a bowl on the bar. I swiveled around on the chair, eyeing the door and a window to one side of the bar with a partial view of the parking lot. No movement. Maybe I was being stood up over some big business problem that reared up preventing Ponder from getting out of the city.

I spun back to face the bar, glancing up at my reflection in the long rectangular mirror behind the row of liquor bottles. I was surprised at how old the guy staring back at me looked. While only thirty-two, I didn’t think of myself much beyond twenty-one and I always expected to see that familiar boyish post-teenage face sneering back at me. Those days were long gone, thanks to the Marines and that goddam war. We fought it, and fought to win, but we sure as hell didn’t understand it. The official line was we were fighting to make the world safe for democracy, but as I stared at myself in the mirror there was still a king in England, dictators in Rome, Moscow, Japan, and some said Germany was headed that way again. So—I shrugged at myself—what was it all about? Our own country was sinking into a morass of poverty and lawlessness, and here I sat hoping to cash in on someone’s ill-fated peccadillo.

The war had sparked the imaginations of a gang of Irish kids in Corktown itching for some adventure. So we crossed over into Windsor and volunteered to join up in a special brigade the Brits organized and four of us ended up in the American regiment thrown into the trenches in France. When the U.S. got into the war, I volunteered for the Marines and with my combat experience, made sergeant right away.

A scrawny kid going in, I emerged a hardened man if somewhat psychologically damaged. I was amazed and often felt guilty that I was never hit by a bullet or even grazed by shrapnel from mortars or grenades. Almost three years overseas and all I suffered was the occasional nightmare, but the taste of fear, the stench of it, comes back.

Now here I was, fourteen years later and looking to have aged twice that, the dark hair dulled by a strand or two of gray. I had shaved off the mustache a couple of years ago so I wouldn’t have to worry as the gray crept in there, too. About the only things I was sure remained the same were the eyes, the same hazel green of that wild teenager, providing a distraction from the haggard look.

May I join you? The voice was feminine, soft, almost whispery. I focused on the reflection in the mirror, finding a striking, strawberry blonde with bright red lips, elegantly high cheekbones, and slim shoulders wrapped in a dark brown fur stole staring back at me. She had dark eyes, the right intriguingly hidden by a tilted black hat, pinned precariously to that side. Beneath the wrap was a three-quarter length white evening dress with a studded bodice of glittering diamonds—perhaps real—but definitely out of place in a roadhouse, even one as sophisticated as Sid’s.

Aren’t you drifting far afield and elegantly overdressed for a joint like this? I offered, tipping my glass in salute but keeping my eyes glued to hers.

May I? she repeated, nodding toward the empty stool next to mine.

Of course, Miss… I said spreading my right palm out toward the seat beside me. She crossed behind me as I watched in the mirror and swiveled the back of the vacant chair around so she could sit down.

Ponder, she filled in the blank. Eunice Dehavilland Ponder. She fitted nicely onto the stool and in the mirror. We resembled a very unusual, but intensely interesting, couple.If danger was a woman, I was staring at her.

You aren’t the Ponder I was expecting, I began, not sure where the entire conversation was going to lead, but looking at her, I wanted it to last for a while.

I’m sure of that, Mister Raines, she laughed, though it didn’t sound like she was amused.

In the other room, someone had begun playing a guitar, very mellow, a band member practicing for the weekend no doubt, his chords drifting into the barroom adding a little more atmosphere to my unexpectedly pleasant situation. He strummed through the first few bars of Ain’t Misbehavin’, which somehow seemed to be a warning.I noticed in the mirror that Sid had moved back through to the barroom and was whisking past me.

You are such a liar, Jonathan, he declared in a raspy voice, shooting a sideways glance at the beautiful woman next to me as he breezed on toward the kitchen. I disregarded his admonition.

Am I to assume Mister Ponder will not be joining us? I asked, offering her a Lucky from my silver case which I carried to impress clients. She accepted, taking a black and silver holder from her purse. I lit her cigarette and watched intently as she drew in a breath, her red lips on the tip of the holder.

She laughed and this time it was a bit more sincere, a pleasant, throaty laugh. You are a sharp one, Mister Raines; I’ll give you that.

I pride myself on my sharpness, I countered, looking into her wide brown eyes. To what do I owe this pleasure, and believe me, it is a pleasure?

I’ll be very direct, Mister Raines…

Please, call me Jack, I interrupted, offering a smile and raised my glass in salute.

I thought it was Jonathan, Mister Raines, she smiled curiously, puffing again on that cigarette holder.

I studied her lips. My friends call me Jack, although Sid insists on my proper name.

Well, Jack, she paused, Mr. Ponder wants to hire you to follow me, to identify for him any and all lovers I may engage, and for that, he will pay you a very healthy sum, she said. You won’t have to take pictures or anything like that. Just report back to him.

I nodded and took a sip of the Canadian Club. It wasn’t quite enough so I took a second one. She smiled at my confusion and I awaited the inevitable plea to please not take the job, to keep her private life private. She’d insist the old man was paranoid and that she had done nothing wrong, but he wanted to get rid of her and she was being set up.

Is this too uncomfortable for you? she asked, sliding closer so that her thigh encountered my right knee. She moved slightly, drawing her leg along my knee. I swallowed and took another sip, finishing the glass.

What would you like to drink? I asked her as I attracted the bartender with my empty glass.

Bourbon, neat, she said softly.

Of course it is, I smiled, repeating it for the bartender.

Once the drinks were delivered, I tried to turn to face her but her leg prevented it. She made a show of removing her white gloves and letting her left hand drift from the bar onto my thigh. Am I to assume you do not want me to take the job?

She reached out and carefully brought the Bourbon to her lips. It was hard to believe that the simple task of sipping a drink could be so suggestive, but there it was in front of me, enticing me.

She put the glass down. On the contrary, Mister Raines, I hope you will accept the position and you can accompany me on my various excursions. You can report back on every minute you observe my activities. I believe you will begin your new duties this very night. She smiled and squeezed my leg. I will plan to leave my home at about ten. No need to be hanging around before that because but I won’t wait for you either. Tomorrow I’ll be home most of the day but I could very well be going out to dinner. Now you can stake out my home, if that’s the right phase, or you could give me your card and I will call you when I plan to leave. That is up to you, of course, because I would not assume to tell you how to do your job,although, if you were to wander by the house, I do plan to take my daily swim at about three.

Squeeze.

In January? I looked at her in the mirror.

Yes, I swim every day. It’s been almost warm enough outside to go swimming, but as it happens, we have an indoor pool, Mister Raines. It is heated and quite exotic. If circumstances were otherwise, you might be invited to come for a dip.

Squeeze. Squeeze.

I attempted to ignore her gestures by picking up my refreshed drink and swigging it. The burn helped for a moment. How long might this job last?

Oh, three or four weeks, at least, she answered, her voice dropping into the dangerously-sexy zone. She stared at me in the mirror.

Squeeze.

Do you realize how strange this whole proposal seems? I said. You are a very attractive woman, Mrs. Ponder, and I would love to watch you as long as I am allowed, but it doesn’t feel right. I think there are some things you are leaving out.

Really? she said arching her brow. Her soft-skinned hand patted at her bobbed reddish-blonde hair not covered by the hat.

Yes, and I have a feeling deep down in my gut that says you are dangerous and that I should scram right now.

She threw her head back, releasing a throaty laugh. That was sexy, too, dammit. She didn’t say anything immediately, but then turned her eyes toward me as she sipped slowly from her glass, running her tongue sensuously over her lips. I squirmed on my chair.

Squeeze.

‘You’re still here, Mister Raines, she said. I wonder what that means."

Jack, I whispered, downing the last of my second drink. Call me Jack.

She finally removed her hand from my leg and reached into her purse on the bar, retrieving some folded bills, sliding them along the bar to me. This is a retainer, from me. I am sure Mr. Ponder will give you one as well. Now, there’s nothing wrong with that. It isn’t really a conflict because you are being hired to follow me and just because I know you are doing it, doesn’t make it any less of a job. I just want to make sure that you are the one following me and not some unsavory type.

I picked at the bills. There were three hundreds folded up. You’re paying me to follow you and he’s going to pay me to follow you and all I have to do is follow you?

Like I said, you are sharp she cooed slyly, raising her glass but this time swallowed the entire contents clearly familiar with the process of downing a dose of hard liquor.

What if you are seen doing something that might make him…

Jealous?

That, too.

I doubt jealousy will be a problem, Jack, she said. I believe he is trying to prove a point, and for my part, you could say I’m going to prove mine. You just report what you see. You also can do some digging and your research might uncover some interesting facts to go in your report.

Like what? Clearly, my interrogation skills had deteriorated.

Just follow me and your instincts, she smiled, her eyes catching mine again in the mirror. Find out all you can about the people you encounter. I hear you are good at that.

I can do that, I said picking up the money and placing the bills in my suit coat pocket.

I know you can, she smiled turning her eyes from the mirror to the real me, her lips parting slightly. Mr. Ponder will call here momentarily to tell you he was delayed. I’m so glad you will be on the job, Jack. So glad, indeed.

She eased off the stool and brushed past me, her lips almost touching my ear.

By the way, she purred, if you come across a whore by the name of Bingham, Mary Ann Bingham, be sure to let me know the particulars. I’ll be ever so grateful. There’ll be a bonus in it for you.

I liked the sound of that, wondering if I might choose the nature of my bonus. I watched her as she moved slowly to the door her body moving sensuously under the fur coat. She turned and looked back at me and then was gone into the gloom of the January evening.

TWO

I hadn’t quite finished my third scotch when the bartender ambled down to inform me of a call on the house phone. I walked to the end of the bar, glass in hand, and picked up the receiver.

I’m sorry, Mister Raines. You know who this is and I’m aware I have inconvenienced you but do not fear, you will be compensated for it. Willis Ponder’s gravelly voice was agitated, almost plaintive. I can’t get out there tonight as planned but I am going to the game at Olympia and if you hurry I can meet you at the front gate. Is that possible?

I didn’t know if I was up for a hockey game, but if Ponder was paying, and with almost half the population out of work, I guess I could squeeze in some time for a match. I told him I’d leave right away, skipping the part about not being able to have dinner and instead filled up on whiskey and water.

The marquee announced the Detroit Falcons were playing host to the Chicago Blackhawks at eight and I had made it easily despite a cold drizzle icing up the roads, parking across Grand River and dodging traffic on foot to get to the front of the arena. The new Olympia Stadium was quite a show place and I’d already seen a handful of fight cards and a few games of the old Cougars hockey team before they became the Falcons.

Are you Mister Raines? asked a boy in an oversized pea jacket and knit cap, holding a stack of the Detroit News late editions. We stood on the corner of Grand River and McGraw after I had reached the relative safety of the sidewalk as people