Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  His feet were heavy.

  — Chapter 15 —

  SPRAYS, WREATHS, AND RYE

  Tuesday

  “Jesus, where did you come from?” Lavish pressed his hand to his chest and pleaded for a moment to catch his breath. Yes, he would freely admit, he was the nervous type. Morrison had called out to him from behind this morning’s edition of the Star. The detective had been waiting for him in one of the two wooden chairs meant for customers here at Wyandotte Garden Florist. A curious sort of waiting room for people anxious about their roses.

  “It’s been two days, Lavish, and I’ve heard not a peep from you.” Morrison folded his paper and pulled himself up out of the chair. It was at least two sizes too small and begging for mercy.

  The girl behind the counter looked a little nervous too. Lavish figured Morrison had something to do with that. Lavish approached him. “You know we can’t talk here,” he whispered. He was here to check on shipments for some arrangements he was going to be working on. “And it has not been two days.”

  “Yes, it has.”

  Morrison was now rolling up the folded newspaper, like he was about to swat the nose of his naughty dog.

  “How do you figure?”

  “C’mon, let’s cross over to Whittakers,” said Morrison. “We can talk there.”

  “But —”

  “You can come back and finish your business when we’re done.” Morrison held open the door and they took baby steps across the ice on Crawford Avenue, trying to outpace a car turning from Wyandotte that looked as if it might be losing its grip on the road. A snowflake hits the pavement and suddenly everyone forgets how to drive.

  “So you’re still doing these funeral arrangements?” said Morrison.

  “People like my work. I get compliments, repeat business.”

  “So then why are you still bootlegging?”

  “The flowers don’t really pay. It’s more of a hobby.”

  They paused outside the door.

  “It’s been two days, Lavish.”

  “I still can’t figure that.”

  They entered Whittakers, a stove works joint. They’d been doing a brisk business, what with this arctic stuff happening lately, but this morning things looked a little slow.

  “I ran into you Sunday morning,” said Morrison, “and this is Tuesday morning.”

  “Don’t I get till tomorrow morning?”

  “No. You had all day Sunday and all day yesterday. That’s two days.”

  “The way I see it, I should have until tomorrow morning. Two full days.”

  “Is this your way of telling me you don’t have anything?” Morrison asked, and then he turned and hello’d the boys behind the counter before asking them if anyone was in the stock room. They said no. Morrison had worked here when he was a kid and continued to maintain contact with some of the staff. He always liked to say, You can’t know too many people.

  Lavish followed Morrison into the stock room and Morrison closed the door behind him. It was a big space, as large as the front area. Without missing a beat, Morrison swatted the side of Lavish’s head with the rolled-up newspaper, knocking his hat off.

  “Ah, crap … was that necessary?”

  “What can I say? I got off to a bad start this morning. Now get your head out of the long stems for a minute, Lavish, and tell me what the fuck Shorty Morand is up to, or I’ll trade for that brass poker over there.”

  Lavish bent down to pick up his hat. “All right, all right.” He held his hands up. “It’s sketchy. It doesn’t make any sense. I was hoping I would have had today to try and piece some if it together for you. It’s like someone threw the pieces of different jigsaw puzzles together in a box.”

  “What are you talking about, Lavish?”

  Lavish sighed and took a moment to collect his thoughts before he began, glancing around the stock room. “It’s like this,” he started. “Shorty and the rest of his boys are doing their own snooping around. I don’t know what they’re looking for, but they’ve been asking questions at their old pool hall, and get this, poking around Davies’s old place in Riverside. They also botched an across-the-ice shipment to some boys in Rouge over the weekend — Sunday morning. And a colleague of yours, Detective Henry Fields, tried to do some follow-up on that caper yesterday morning in LaSalle and came up with nothing.”

  “I talked to Fields last night,” said Morrison, “and he never mentioned anything about that.”

  “With all due respect, Detective, do you tell Fields everything you’re up to?”

  “All right. Tell me, when you hearing this stuff about Shorty Morand, did Jack McCloskey’s name ever come up?”

  “Nope. I didn’t think he was in the game anymore.”

  “That’s because he isn’t. At least I don’t think he is.”

  “Should I ask?” said Lavish.

  “No, don’t bother. What else have you got?”

  “This is the shadier part: those boys from Montreal might be back in town, and they’re doing their own investigating.”

  “What boys from Montreal?” said Morrison.

  “The ones that were seen in town after Davies got taken down. You heard about the train the other night? The near-runaway train? Well, they were on it.”

  “Anyone seen them?”

  “Not in town, but I know people who know people who rode on the same train.”

  “And what are these characters supposed to be after?”

  “I don’t know. Like I said, I was hoping I would have had today to piece at least some of it together for you.”

  “This is interesting stuff, Lavish, but —”

  “I got more.”

  “What?”

  “You know that murder on Maiden Lane?”

  “I understood it was a suicide,” said Morrison.

  “I’m hearing it was a murder. And that’s one of Campbell’s? You should ask him.”

  “We don’t talk much.”

  “Yeah, you and Fields neither.”

  “That’s why I have to talk to people like you,” said Morrison.

  “You’re not the only detective on the force, Morrison.”

  “I’ll pretend I didn’t hear that, Lavish.”

  “All right, all right, don’t take it the wrong way. I was just saying. Anyway, that’s the latest, and it’s the stuff that’s not making the papers, or your desk, apparently. Can I have my shipment back now, or at least what might be left of it?”

  Morrison was rubbing his chin, letting his eyes wander over the racks of stovepipe, the andirons, potbellies, hardware, and whatnot. “I don’t know, Lavish. It’s a bit thin.”

  Lavish didn’t think so. He was thinking he could have pieced more together if he’d had until tomorrow morning. He was thinking Morrison drank all of his rye.

  Morrison started pacing the aisles. It was a maze of shelving units. Lavish stood where he was and let the detective ruminate.

  “This Maiden Lane thing just sounds like a few foreigners airing their differences. Let Campbell sort that out. There’s nothing for me there. Shorty botched a job. He and his boys were a little careless. Daring, but a little careless. But keep them in your scopes. I’m sure they will have to pull something else off in order to make it up to their partners on the other side of the river. Revisit these boys from Montreal. If it’s true they’re back in town, they sure are going through a whole lot of trouble.” Morrison reappeared in front of Lavish. “Is there more?”

  “You remember them, right?” said Lavish.

  “I remember the stories. I never actually saw them. Come to think of it, I can’t think of anyone I know that did.”

  “That’s because if they did see them, they wouldn’t have been around to tell you about it.”

  “But you said you know people who were on the train who saw them.”

  “Yeah, but they weren’t getting in these boys’ way. Now, you know how the rest of the story goes, don’t you?”

  “Give it to me in a nutsh
ell,” said Morrison, “I gotta be somewhere.”

  “Those boys from Montreal foiled a drop-off that a few bootleggers had organized for somewhere in the county. They didn’t jump off the train to avoid the law. They were thrown. Now, those three, I’m guessing, got in the way of our Montreal boys.” Lavish was feeling like he had Morrison hooked now.

  “Like I said,” repeated Morrison, “it sounds like they’re going to an awful lot of trouble. What are they doing here? What do they want?”

  “Davies’s money,” said Lavish with his arms extended.

  “That again?”

  “That’s what we heard all along.”

  “I don’t know. I’m thinking they want to set up shop down here. Isn’t that why Davies came to the Border Cities?”

  “I guess so.”

  “Okay,” said Morrison, “I want you to leave these Montreal boys to me. I want you to keep your ears open with regard to Shorty Morand and his boys.”

  “And McCloskey?”

  “I still think he’s out of the picture. He’s washed up.”

  “And my rye?”

  “Find out what Shorty’s next job is, the one that’s going to make up for his little mishap, and you can have it all back when we make our standing engagement on Friday afternoon.”

  “But you said —”

  “Or none of it, Lavish.”

  Morrison followed Lavish out of the stock room, thanked the boys behind the counter, and headed back outside to the cold.

  “Good luck, Lavish.”

  The stick was getting longer and the carrot was getting smaller. Lavish sulked all the way back to the florist.

  — Chapter 16 —

  MERCURY RETROGRADE

  Early afternoon

  “I’ve been doing some reading.”

  “You are smarter now?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  Zahra rose from her chair. “Do you want tea?”

  “Thank you,” said Campbell.

  She seemed different. He watched Zahra pass through the beaded curtain into the tiny kitchen still stacked with pots and saucepans and tea things. He was wondering who should speak next. Zahra solved that.

  “What are you reading?” she asked.

  “Um … a variety of things,” said Campbell. He was busy noticing other details in the décor. And then he could hear the samovar.

  “But you have more questions,” she said.

  “Yes,” he said after some hesitation.

  She came out of the kitchen with two tiny cups of black tea and set them down on the same little table they had shared yesterday morning.

  “Is this good?”

  Campbell looked down into his cup. “It’s fine, I mean it looks good.”

  She returned to the kitchen and came back with two small tumblers of water. She caught Campbell sniffing his tea and tried to hold back a smile.

  “So you’ve been reading,” she said.

  “Yes,” said Campbell, “and like I said, I have some questions.”

  She sipped from her cup. “If it helps.”

  Campbell took some water. It cut the bitterness of the tea. Then from his coat pocket he pulled out a notebook larger than the notebook he usually carried around. For this case it would serve as his primer.

  “When we spoke yesterday, I have to admit I wasn’t really prepared to talk about … what it is you do. Would you call yourself a medium?”

  “Yes.” She nodded politely. Her elbows were resting on the elbows of the chair.

  “And because you said you were in a trance, this means,” he glanced down at his pad, “you don’t practise physical mediumship?”

  Zahra smiled. “No.”

  “Did I say something wrong?”

  “When I immigrated here, I came through London. I was there only short while. I went to see other spiritualists, other mediums. It is true, the English are very theatrical. I saw dolls floating on wires, flashing coloured lights, puppets, and cut-outs — pictures of dead I recognize from old paintings.” She smiled again. “And sounds that were supposed to come from beyond, from the astral place, but I could hear scratches on the gramophone.”

  Campbell started wondering about half the things he had just spent the night reading about. But now he had some perspective.

  “Your séances are much simpler?”

  “Like I said, I take what I do — what I am — very seriously.”

  Campbell looked around. “I don’t see a crystal ball either.”

  “No,” she said, “no crystal ball. Would like more tea?”

  “Please.”

  She took his cup and went back into the tiny kitchen. While she got to work, Campbell flipped ahead in his notebook. He was enjoying this. His world was opening up a little. She returned and saw him looking at his notebook.

  “You have more questions,” said Zahra as she set the cups down.

  He looked up. “And what about tarot?”

  “My mother read the cards. She taught me. I was very young. I could read them, but while I was practising, while she shared other things with me, she saw I possessed other skills, things that couldn’t be taught.”

  “Like channelling,” said Campbell.

  “Yes. Where I come from, there’s more money in that than the cards. She knew what it meant to be medium; she saw them at work. She helped me develop.”

  “You said she saw these skills in you. How did she see them?”

  He was becoming more and more curious. Having grown up in a conservative, Catholic, and academic household, this was all so foreign to him. She was right when she mentioned gypsies in Hollywood movies, newsstand magazines. She saw the fear and prejudice, and she also saw both the demonizing and rendering silly and trivial everything her people might believe in and hold dear.

  “My mother had vision, a sense.”

  “Your mother was psychic?”

  “Yes, she was.”

  “I read that mediums often or usually carry psychic abilities. Do you possess them as well?”

  She hesitated. “All of these abilities, these gifts, they have run through our families — our mothers, and our mother’s mothers. But different women had different strengths.”

  “When you are in a trance, when the séance is in progress, what are the others seeing, hearing?” Campbell had asked the Yarmoloviches a similar question already, but he wanted to hear how Zahra put it. “Would Mr. Kaufman have heard his wife’s voice?”

  “No. He would have heard mine.”

  “Your words, or his wife’s words?”

  She hesitated again. She knew what Campbell was getting at. She also knew he would have asked the Yarmoloviches the same question. He could also ask any one of her previous clients. “Mine,” she said, “but not clearly.”

  “Explain.”

  “They hear mutterings, murmers, sometimes just noise. My voice, but they cannot make out the words. They are not meant to hear them. The spirits know this is private conversation. Participants like Yarmoloviches are there to help open the door wider, to increase the energy, and sometimes to make it more confortable, more familiar for the spirit.”

  “I see. And as you’ve already told me, while you are in a trance, you do not know what it is you are saying, what words you are speaking. Is that correct?”

  “Yes.”

  Campbell wasn’t sure he enjoyed where he had to go with this. He needed to give her a rest. He also needed to maintain her trust. He thought he’d change the subject, shake things up.

  “What’s your sign?”

  She blinked, genuinely confused by the question. “I beg your pardon.”

  “Your astrological star sign. What is it?”

  “I … I’m not sure.”

  “You don’t practise astrology either?” He found that hard to believe, and if it was true, rather interesting.

  “I don’t concern myself with stars and … myths.” She noticed his surprise. “You think because I am who I am and I do what I do, that all of these i
s the same to me, that I am following or believing all of it. That is not true. I am who I am. What I do, I do naturally. I am no different from you, Detective. We are who we are.”

  “When is your birthday?”

  Little did Campbell know it, but he was merely exchanging one flavour of awkwardness with another.

  “It was last month.”

  “Really? Even if you don’t practise astrology, have you ever come across a phenomenon known as Mercury Retrograde?”

  “No,” she said.

  “Well, apparently at certain times of the year — hang on a minute,” said Campbell as he opened his notebook again and looked for the page, “at certain times of the year certain planets can appear to be travelling backward through the zodiac?”

  “I didn’t know that.”

  “And that there is speculation that astrological events like this might explain certain events and behaviours. Mercury, if we could see it through this cloud cover, would appear to be moving backwards, that is, against the Earth’s orbit.”

  She smiled. “You mean like full moon?”

  He smiled back. She was relaxed now. “Yes,” he said, “like the full moon.”

  He folded up his notebook and thanked her for her time, and the tea.

  “And once again, if I have any other questions, I’ll be contacting you.”

  He stood up and threw his coat around his shoulders, touched the brim of his hat, and headed back down the hole in the floor.

  There was much more to think about. He needed to sound some of this off someone. Laforet was supposed to contact him this afternoon about last night’s dead horseman, the Indian, an alleged member of Jack McCloskey’s gang. This one was most definitely a homicide. Campbell decided he wouldn’t wait for Laforet’s call; he’d reach out to him first, and he wanted more than a simple phone conversation. Campbell would ask for a sit-down with the doctor. They now had plenty to talk about.

  Mercury Retrograde, thought Campbell.

  — Chapter 17 —

  YOU PICKED THE WRONG POCKET

  LIQUOR SENT IN DISGUISE