Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  Even this close, the figure had to shout in order to be heard. “Where are you going?”

  “I need to use the john.”

  “Where are you going?” the figure repeated.

  “You wanna punch my ticket?” said the bootlegger, cracking wise again.

  “Yes.” The man in black pulled a Webley out of a holster inside his coat and used it to blow a hole clean through Barney’s head. The bootlegger tumbled off the roof of the car and landed in a snowdrift, limbs outstretched and looking like a big, ugly snow angel. The man in black replaced his Webley, turned back the way he came, and re-entered the passenger car, walking past the fourth, who was still guarding the front door. There was a new face in the crowd: a conductor was across in the aisle seat. The old man was sweating bullets, fiddling with the hem of his jacket but staring straight ahead, not making eye contact with the shadowy man as he entered and sat down. The train was picking up speed again, travelling faster now than it had been before its unscheduled stop. The fourth man proceeded up the aisle and left the car at the rear.

  When he reached the still-open baggage car, he found Mouse positioned near the door, sitting on one of the remaining suitcases of rye and frantically waving his lantern at the farmer’s speeding pickup truck. Mouse caught the figure out of the corner of his eye.

  “Shit — you a cop?”

  “No.”

  “You with the railway?”

  “No.”

  “Then who are you?”

  Back in the engine cab, the first man in black checked his watch while the second noticed a vehicle tearing up the service road, heading in the same direction and gaining speed.

  The farmer made a sharp left down the next concession and stopped right on the level crossing. He put his brake on and flashed his headlamps. His boy, unconvinced that the train would stop in time, bailed out of the truck and started running home. The farmer cursed him and his mother and then sat back and lit his pipe. He was determined to get the rest of that rye. There were folks in roadhouses all along St. Clair’s shores counting on him. His reputation was at stake. And then of course there was the money; he would make a tidy sum that would at least partly make up for that lousy corn crop last year. He puffed away on his pipe and thought for all his trouble that he should hold back some of his payment.

  “I’ll teach those fuckers.”

  The train was racing now and, what with no news about what was going on, the passengers were becoming a little uneasy, and not just in the car hosting the dark figures. A few looked to the conductor, but he was busy twisting his hat in his hands. Minutes later they were shaken by a sudden impact, but the train kept barrelling down the track. Debris flew past the windows in the first passenger car. It looked like automobile parts flying past. The locomotive had thoroughly demolished the pickup. The farmer managed to jump out in time.

  The train breezed through Pelton Junction, normally the last stop before the city limits. Toward the end of the long stretch broken by only one county road, they passed the Kenilworth and Devonshire racetracks and the roundhouse. Soon there were lights in the distance and a glow in the night sky, indicating downtown Windsor and Detroit. The train was charging right into the city now. The lit surroundings were giving passengers a more accurate sense of just how fast they were travelling, and tension mounted. People were gripping their armrests, purses, and bags tighter. A few of the older women muttered prayers while the men remained quiet. They were bracing themselves for the worst.

  Back in the baggage car, the fourth man in black had become bored with Mouse and hurled him through a wooden fence they were passing. A few suitcases of liquor followed. The figure then made its way back to the passenger car and took a seat next to the third. The first and second figures reappeared, made their way up the aisle and took seats across from their partners, completing the dark quartet. The rest of the car remained silent. All that could be heard was the rhythm of the rails.

  The train finally began to slow and the four checked their watches: 9:12 p.m. The engineer started fiddling with the gauges and his assistant began applying the brakes, something he normally didn’t have to do this soon and so aggressively.

  They were entering the rail yard. A signalman in the first tower rang his contact at the station and told him to get everyone off the platform. Something was clearly wrong.

  Both the engineers had their hands on the brake now. The assistant had his foot against the wall of the furnace for leverage. Their ears were filled with the head-splitting, stomach-churning sound of steel on steel. The engine cab was vibrating, almost shaking. The engineer noticed his assistant’s eyes were closed; sweat streamed down and mixed with the soot on his face, black tears running down his cheek and off his chin. His teeth were clenched, the engineer could tell.

  The train finally stopped, the first car about thirty yards beyond the platform. It was 9:14 p.m.

  Passengers, shaken and stirred and white as snow, disembarked slowly. Many took a deep breath of the cold, crisp air as soon as they got outside. It cut the motion sickness. Red caps helped the women passengers climb down off the train and through the snow toward the platform.

  “Watch that last step, miss.”

  “Thanks a bunch,” said Vera Maude, a little wobbly. She was adjusting her hat and coat when she stopped and shuddered.

  “Something wrong, miss?”

  “No,” she said, “just got a sudden chill.”

  “It’s this cold snap we’re having. People getting chilled right to the bone.”

  “Yeah? Say, can you call me a cab?”

  The four dark shadows stepped off on the other side of the train, boarded a freight elevator that dropped them below track level, resurfaced at the end of a tunnel on the Wellington side, and disappeared into the night.

  — Chapter 6 —

  THE MAN ON THE STREET

  Campbell closed the Cadillac Café and started winding his way home through winter. Not enough ginger, he thought. Not enough ginger.

  He frequented Ping Lee’s establishment on Riverside Drive because Ping kept late hours and let him order off-menu. Campbell had asked him what was fresh, and knowing what he liked, Ping skillfully assembled a succulent chicken and vegetable chow mein. The fried noodles were filling and the chicken juicy and tender, done just right, but there wasn’t enough ginger, and that’s what Campbell was most looking forward to: something to gently keep his insides warm while he measured the streets of downtown. Ping had frowned at Campbell’s ginger request at first. He didn’t believe it should be included in this recipe that he took great pride in preparing. But he liked Campbell; he always told him he was “okay.”

  Campbell occasionally went to Ping just for information, but knew better than to call it that. Informants in the Border Cities, particularly those who worked or resided along the river, had a tendency to disappear. He told Ping that he sought his opinion, his sage advice.

  The wisdom of the Orient.

  Ping smiled the first time he heard Campbell use that phrase.

  What’s so funny?

  Campbell eventually stopped using it.

  He was looking for Ping’s thoughts on Judge Gundy’s decision this morning. He had a copy of the Border Cities Star opened in front of him on the counter. “Two Chinese Get Big Fines.” It was an opium trafficking case. The fines followed a messy RCMP bust at a grocer’s on the other side of the Avenue. Ping was his usual philosophical self.

  Dou yan.

  What?

  One of his daughters happened to be standing nearby, stacking hot, clean plates. She bridged the divide for them.

  He say, you cross-eyed.

  Really? What else does he say?

  Not much. Not tonight.

  Campbell stopped telling anyone at the department about his surveys of the city streets in his off hours. He had thought they would have appreciated it, respected his desire to know the territory as well as any constable walking a beat. Chief Thompson told him he was wasting his time a
nd the other cops said, in not so many words, that he was cutting their grass. They also thought he was checking up on them, maybe being used by Thompson to keep tabs on them. Things didn’t used to be this tangled up, thought Campbell. Regardless, he quietly kept to his routine.

  Every intersection was an open invitation to the bitter wind. Campbell pulled his overcoat collar up against the elements. It did little good. He hated doing it, but he decided to shorten tonight’s planned circuit by taking Pelissier Street up to Wyandotte, and then loop back north toward his apartment once he crossed the Avenue.

  The wind whistled around the slack in the telephone wires and howled through the gaps between buildings. Any warmth Campbell might have been carrying with him was quickly dissipating; he could barely feel his nose, and his cheeks smarted like they’d had a good slapping.

  A strange amber flash in the big windows along the side of Meretsky & Gitlin’s furniture store caught his eye. It was a reflection. He glanced up at a dying streetlight and that was when he noticed the snow swirling overhead. Pulling his collar up further, his bowler down lower, and plunging his gloved hands even deeper into his pockets, he continued on his chosen path.

  No traffic on London Street. No streetcar wheels grinding to a stop on frozen tracks. No sputtering motors. No surprises. He shifted his eyes over toward the darkened Capitol Theatre as he crossed. It would have recently emptied. It was the last night for Heroes of the Street; he had meant to catch that one.

  Probably just as well.

  He continued his brisk pace. At Park Street, the businesses gave way to simple clapboard houses. They didn’t hug the sidewalk and didn’t throw much light. The snow was landing now and he was picking up the smell of wood and coal burning. He had resisted long enough; he paused at the top of Maiden Lane to light a cigar. He dug deep through his layers to find it, procured under the counter from Ping, and his Ronson. The spark, a flash, and the aroma. He was feeling better already. But only for a moment.

  The crash cleaved through the night. Campbell instinctively ducked, but his curiosity made him turn just in time to see a shadow hit the pavement along with broken glass and what appeared to be windowpane. He looked up and saw a curtain billowing out of a yawning gable in the third storey of the sole dwelling on Maiden Lane. He ran over. The body was splayed out in the dusting of freshly fallen snow. Blood was pooling around the head and glass fragments glittered in the streetlight. Campbell unhitched the flashlight from his belt, picked the victim’s pockets, and found a wallet. He opened it, found some identification and then his mind kicked into gear.

  Kaufman: Male, foreigner; year of birth 1867. Right cheekbone crushed from impact; cuts on his face attributable to glass; broken right arm raised over his head; cuts on his hand also from glass; left forearm tucked under his midsection; body twisted slightly — both feet pointing to the right.

  A constable came running from the Avenue, not thirty yards away. He was surprised to see Campbell already on the scene. “I rang the box, sir.” Maybe his way of saying he would have been there sooner.

  Campbell noticed a neon sign hanging in the ground floor window of the house. No other light came from the window. The sign looked like an eye. Below it, painted on the glass were the words Madame Zahra’s Astral Attic. A small parade of concerned citizens dressed in bathrobes, overcoats, galoshes, and other people’s hats came staggering, bleary-eyed, out of their homes along Pelissier and the Avenue, converging on the house on Maiden Lane. Campbell pulled the cigar out of his mouth. “Send up whoever from the department gets here first,” he said, before pointing his cigar at the gawkers, “and keep these people back.”

  There were no fresh footprints on the front steps. The entrance was unlocked. Campbell entered. On the other side of the tiny vestibule was a longish, narrow hall. First to the right was a locked door, and just ahead on the left was a staircase, with light coming from above. He leaned against the handrail and looked up. A fixture was dangling above the second-floor landing. Campbell took to the stairs, two at a time, until they delivered him through the floor into a tiny attic apartment.

  He felt as though he just passed into another world, and in some ways he had. It resembled a gypsy tearoom from a Hollywood movie. Stepping up, he first noticed the stars painted on the ceiling; then the richly patterned wallpaper; iconography and idols; fringes, tassels, incense, and candles. He was so distracted by the décor it took him a moment to notice the three people sitting around the table to his left and a fourth chair tipped onto the floor. A woman whose costume and demeanour suggested she was none other than Madame Zahra appeared calm. The other two, older, about the victim’s age, appeared agitated. The trio made eye contact with him but did not move or speak. They appeared frozen in the moment. He left them in that state while he quickly examined the window, a gaping hole that went almost from floor to ceiling. In addition to the winter gusts, it was also opened to a view of the neighbourhood rooflines and the bright, distant beacons of downtown Detroit.

  Campbell considered the trajectory of the body. To have gone through the window and landed that far away, Kaufman either would have had to have a running start or have been thrown with a great deal of force — and the trio at the table looked to him like a card of featherweights. He looked down again and happened to catch the station’s REO as it turned from the Avenue onto the lane, coming to an abrupt stop about ten feet from the body. Campbell held his gaze until he saw a constable step out of the vehicle. He whistled and then went to the top of the stairs to greet him.

  “Bickerstaff,” he shouted.

  “Detective Campbell?”

  The constable scrambled up the stairs and into the apartment. “What happened, sir?”

  “I think the sidewalk killed him,” said Campbell.

  “And what of these ones?”

  “They haven’t spoken, haven’t moved. See if you can’t pull that tapestry down and hang it from the curtain rod. It’s Siberian enough in here already.”

  “Sir?”

  “Nothing. Has someone contacted Laforet?”

  “I phoned him from the station. He was none too happy.”

  “That’s because he hates the telephone. But I have a feeling he’ll like this.” Campbell pulled out his notebook and approached the table. “I’m Detective Campbell, and,” pointing behind him with his pencil said, “that’s Constable Bickerstaff. Would you be Madame Zahra?”

  “Yes.”

  “Is that your first or last name?”

  In a tone that made her sound like she was used to random searches and interrogations, she answered, “I am Zahra Ostrovskaya.”

  Campbell’s pencil hovered over his notebook. “I’ll stick with Zahra for now. A man identified as Kaufman is lying dead on the pavement outside. Was he pushed out of that window?”

  Zahra said she did not see him go out the window. In what Campbell figured to be an Eastern European, possibly Russian accent, Zahra went on to explain how she did not see anything because she was in a trance.

  “A what? Don’t — we’ll come back to that.” He shifted his attention to the couple. “What is your name, sir?”

  “Yarmolovich. Pavel Yarmolovich. And this is my wife, Sonja. She does not speak good English.”

  Campbell nudged up his bowler with the heel of his thumb. “I’ll decide whether or not she speaks English well, sir. Are you carrying any identification?”

  Yarmolovich reached inside his coat, pulled out a yellowed paper, and handed it to Campbell. It unfolded into something resembling the Treaty of Versailles. Campbell scanned it. Thinking it official-looking enough, he refolded it and handed it back to Yarmolovich. He then manoeuvred toward a beaded curtain that he presumed sectioned off some sort of cooking area. He sliced through the hanging beads with his hand and parted it several inches. It was indeed a kitchen, about the size of a closet and about to collapse upon itself. He turned back to his host.

  “Madame Zahra, would you wait for me in here?”

  The detective
widened the gap in the beaded curtain for Madame Zahra, who then slowly made her way up from the table. Campbell then sat in the chair she formerly occupied and turned his attention toward Pavel Yarmolovich.

  “Did you throw Kaufman out of that window?”

  Yarmolovich seemed shocked at the accusation. Or at least that’s what his performance suggested. He denied it, first in his native tongue and then in broken English, both served hot. Campbell then turned to the woman, but before he spoke a word to her, he held up his hand to Yarmolovich, just stopping himself from putting it over his mouth. The question was going to sound ridiculous, but he had to ask it. “Sonja, did you push Kaufman out of that window?”

  She glanced at her husband with an expression that could only be described as incredulous and replied, “No.”

  “There,” said Campbell, “now that we have gotten that out of the way, am I to conclude that Mr. Kaufman jumped out of that window?”

  “Yes,” said Yarmolovich. Without checking with her husband first, the wife nodded.

  “Please stay seated.”

  Campbell rose from the chair and slowly walked back toward the window, along the way examining the bits of furniture, wall hangings, and the carpets on the floor. There were no signs of a struggle, nothing looked disturbed. From the window, he paced the distance back to the table. If Kaufman had jumped, it would have to have been after a running start. He sat down.

  “Now, what would make Kaufman do a thing like that?”

  Yarmolovich sighed and, rubbing the stubble on his chin with the back of his hand, said, “He was talking to his wife.”

  “She was here?” said Campbell.

  “Yes, they were arguing. Kaufman was angry, and then frightened. He got up, and then fsht,” said Yarmolovich, smacking his hands together and sliding his right palm forward, “out the window. That was when Madame Zahra came from her trance.”

  “And Mrs. Kaufman, where did she go?”