Called Electrical Goods; Police Seize It
Between 150 and 200 cases of whisky, shipped from Montreal and disguised as electrical equipment, was discovered Wednesday night by License Inspector M.N. Mousseau and provincial police officers in the village of St. Joachim. The whisky is the property of John Reinke, William Lavoie, and Stanislaus Painsonneault, all of Belle River, the police believe.
The above three men were charged in Windsor court today with unlawfully having liquor for sale. They were remanded for one week on bail.
The whisky seized is the best of Scotch whisky, the King George brand, and the value of the seizure at bootleggers’ prices would run in the neighbourhood of $1,500, it is believed. This brand of whisky sells at between $6 and $7 per bottle at a dispensary.
The license department today refused to give out any information concerning the seizure, but it is known that the whisky was but recently shipped from Montreal in packing cases as electrical goods.
The plan sounded a bit too familiar. It gave McCloskey some pause for thought, but only a short one. He folded up the morning edition and tucked the loose edges under the lip of his lunch plate.
Shorty and Gorski were late. They were supposed to have met him here at the British-American over an hour ago. They were on a reconnaissance mission, meeting with a couple of irregular business associates that might know the whereabouts or where-the-last-seens of Charlie Baxter.
He was tired of waiting. McCloskey wrapped himself up and headed out to see if he might intercept them at the ferry docks. Passing through the swinging door of the bar into the hotel lobby, McCloskey was met by a bit of a ruckus. People — not guests, more like commuters seeking temporary shelter from the cold — were gathering, but sticking close to the entrance and the windows along Ferry Hill. He tried to get a read on what was going on. Lazarus, the bellhop, was on board and trying to maintain some semblance of order, trying to make sure actual guests were being taken care of.
“Lazarus.”
“Jack.”
“New hat?”
“Fella has to keep warm. I’m outside most days.”
“I get you.”
McCloskey looked over at the tall glass showcase that housed the fully dressed model of the nineteenth-century French-Canadian fur trapper who stood guard in the lobby. He was missing his chapeau. McCloskey wove his way through the chaos and found his way out the door. From the top of the hill, he could see what it was all about: two of the ferries were locked in the ice.
He made his way down, bouncing between people moving in both directions; people stranded; people giving up on the idea of a safe and timely passage; others freezing from waiting to connect with friends or family in the cold.
That’s why.
McCloskey got to the shelter where he had a more direct view and thought, That’s not how I’d want to go.
Of course, it wasn’t the first time this had happened. You might pretend, but the truth is you never get over it. In winters like this, you’ll always think twice about boarding one of these paper hats. McCloskey shouldered his way deeper into the crowd to get a better look. He saw the two ferries stuck mid-river, and the de facto icebreaker, a locomotive ferry the size of a city block, struggling as well just a few hundred yards downriver, smoke pouring out of its stacks. Man’s iron muscle grinding away, attempting to break, push, crush the layers of ice. It was awesome. Pity the little wooden ferries.
McCloskey looked around him, examining the crowd. They couldn’t take their eyes off the scene, all except for one man who appeared to be watching the drama unfold on the river but wasn’t really. McCloskey sized him up: slight build, not too tall, not too conspicuous. Eyes furtively dodging about, not just back and forth but a lot of up and down. McCloskey moved closer to him. Thin leather glove on one hand, the other one bare.
With his eyes on the river, McCloskey loosened his overcoat, dropped his bait. The man’s profile imprinted in his mind, he kept him in his peripheral vision. He sidled close to him, and the man appeared to be doing the same. He moved in for the kill. McCloskey kept his eyes on the ferries. He knew what was coming; he knew what to look for, though he would feel it as much as see it.
McCloskey craned his neck as if to get a better view of the ferries.
There.
The cuff of his shirt, a sliver of white between his coat sleeve and glove. McCloskey grabbed his hand and crushed it inside his own paw, his fighter’s mitt, until he felt something snap. The man was silent in agony, his face crumpling. He couldn’t even manage a whimper. McCloskey pulled him through the crowd with the same hand to where it thinned out, but still beneath the shelter. He took the man’s hand and bashed it repeatedly against a support beam. The man wailed this time, but it was right in synch with the whistle of the locomotive ferry, which was now approaching.
“Nothing worse than a fucking low-life pickpocket. You’re out of business now, fingersmith. Cheap son-of-a-bitch.”
“Jesus Christ! You’ve fucking crippled me!”
“Sorry, caught me at a bad time. In one of my moods.”
McCloskey was hearing more and more about these guys slithering through crowds at the docks and the train stations. He raided the man’s pockets, emptying them.
“I’ll give this to the orphanage.”
“You’ll probably drink it.”
“I drink for free in this town. Now, you better get that looked at.”
The fingersmith ran off, the broken tools of his trade tucked under his arm. McCloskey walked back up to the hotel to leave a message for Shorty, saying that whenever he got back he could reach him at his apartment.
He started feeling some remorse at what he had just done. Then he wondered if he wasn’t starting to get soft. It was something else to think about.
— Chapter 18 —
I’LL HOLD THE LADDER FOR YOU
It was a quiet afternoon at Copeland’s, not that Vera Maude was complaining. She was still adjusting to being back home. Back home in the Border Cities, but with one foot still in New York City. Her mind kept wandering.
She tried to stay focused by continuing to familiarize herself with the layout of the store, its selections, and the business procedures that Mr. Copeland had outlined for her. She kept some cheat sheets in her skirt pocket.
A few customers came to pick up the latest bestseller, their special order, or St. Valentine cards. Others came in just to browse and warm up. She could always tell the browsers. She was pretty sure the male customer, the one who seemed to be following her around the store, wanted to be her Valentine. Every time she turned around, he was standing right next to her, pretending to be reading something. At least the book is right side up, she thought.
“Vera Maude?” It was Mr. Copeland. He was bundling up. “I have to run an errand across the street. Lew already knows.”
“Sure,” she said.
“It’s pretty quiet and I won’t be long; I’ll think you’ll be fine,” he said and then headed out. The bell that hung above the door gave up its little jingle.
She then turned abruptly, on purpose, and caught her Valentine staring at her. She didn’t smile or change her expression. Best not give him any encouragement. He was old, maybe forty, with a thin moustache, not narrow but thin and wispy. Some guys just couldn’t grow moustaches and had no business even trying. Blushing, he stuck his nose back in his book.
Yech.
Her co-worker, Lew, was nice. Not boyfriend material, but a decent fellow, a hard worker, and he knew his stuff. Vera Maude guessed he was about her age. She didn’t think he had a girl. He had a sense of humour and could talk, but he was very private. She wondered.
“Excuse me, I was wondering if I could have a look at that book up there — that one there.” It was her Valentine, pointing at a large volume of historical maps of medieval Europe.
Here we go.
“Um, sure, just let me …” She reached for the rolling ladder and pulled it across the front of the bookcase, set it in pl
ace and started climbing up. Valentine moved in, eager to lend a hand.
“May I hold the ladder for you, miss?”
She thought about accidentally kicking him in the face but reconsidered.
“No, thank you. I’ve got it.” The book was really wedged in there, so she had to ease it out from the top of the spine, angling it, careful not to tear it. Once she could wrap her hand around it, she pulled it right out. The weight almost threw her off-balance. She clutched it to her chest with one hand while continuing to grip the ladder with the other.
“Can you take it?” she said.
Valentine shifted his attention from Vera Maude’s calves to the tome that was about to be dropped on his head. When she bent down and her view was in line with the front window, she could see a figure standing outside looking at their display. She could have sworn it was Jack McCloskey. Valentine was babbling something about the Crusades while she was trying to quickly climb down off the ladder without breaking her neck so that she could get a better look at the man.
Jack McCloskey, I’ll be gosh darned.
Her feet finally reached the floor and she rushed up to the window.
“Vera Maude, could you give me a hand for a moment?”
She halted. “What?”
It was Lew. “I need to do a gift wrap.”
Jesus McGillicuddy.
“Sure,” she said, and left Valentine and Jack McCloskey, who was now out of sight anyway, to their own devices.
“Unless you’d like to wrap,” said Lew, trying to get out of it.
“I can’t fold a napkin and I can barely tie my laces.”
“So that’s a ‘no’?”
Vera Maude got out her dimples. “I just know you’d do a much better job.”
Lew rolled his eyes. “All right; I’ll take care of it. Can you help this lady with her purchase?”
“Certainly,” said Vera Maude. “Will that be all today, ma’am?”
A notebook and a copy of the King James Bible.
I guess I can look forward to your annotated edition.
She bagged the woman’s purchase and handed her the change. After that, she followed the lady out the door.
“Vera Maude?” said Lew.
“I’m just checking the window display.”
Once outside, she looked up and down the Avenue, trying to see if she could spot McCloskey. He was nowhere in sight. Sufficiently chilled, she returned back inside the store.
“Everything all right?” asked Lew.
“Yeah,” said Vera Maude. “Everything’s fine.”
All the way from the ferry dock, McCloskey had been debating walking up to Clara’s instead of going straight home. He paused before going any further, staring blankly into a storefront window. It wouldn’t be a pleasant walk in this cold. He supposed he could take a streetcar. No, later, he thought, he’d drive up to her place with the Light Six. Maybe he’d take her someplace for dinner, hit a roadhouse. He did an about-face, hung a left at Chatham Street, and faced the wind all the way to his apartment. Shorty would soon be looking for him there anyway, and he was anxious to hear what he had to tell him.
His mind still kept turning to Three Fingers, the idea of him beaten to death, the image of him tied to that horse. The Guard? No, someone else, someone gone underground, someone like Charlie Baxter. He caught himself about to look over his shoulder and stopped. That’s not me, he thought, that’s not like Jack McCloskey.
— Chapter 19 —
“TROUBLES OF 1922”
Afternoon
Shorty and Gorski met with their contacts, Moishe and Ozzie, in Detroit at one of their speakeasies up Michigan Avenue near Navin Field. The two liked to brag about how Ty Cobb once entertained some friends there. Shorty found that hard to believe. First, because Cobb didn’t have any friends, and second, because he probably had his own cellar. Name-dropping aside, the two had a reputation for being able to keep their ears to the ground and their noses out of trouble. But most importantly, they could be trusted. McCloskey still occasionally did business with them and their gang, and that spoke volumes.
The two gangs had exchanged favours in the past. Shorty was hoping they might have seen Charlie Baxter or heard something to do with his whereabouts. He might not exactly be of particular interest to them, but words, stories, and names can get around. Shorty was sure to leave out the part about Davies’s lost fortune. He just said his people had heard rumours that Baxter had been recently seen in the Detroit area and left it at that. Moishe and Ozzie figured Shorty’s interest in Baxter had something to do with McCloskey looking to exact some sort of revenge for trying to send him to an early grave, after what went down with Davies and all. They said they didn’t like giving guys up just like that, even for someone like Jack McCloskey. They hoped Jack would understand. Suspicious these guys might actually know something about Baxter’s whereabouts, perhaps even hiding him, Shorty assured them it wasn’t anything like that. He gave them his word.
“You know Jack. He’s not that kind of guy.”
“All right,” said Ozzie.
“But if you run into Baxter, or hear anything about where we might find him, let us know, because Jack would like to have a friendly conversation with him. It’s strictly business. And if you want, if it will make you feel better, you can talk to me first. You know how to reach me, right?”
“You still at that hotel near your dock?”
“The British-American. That’s where I pick up my messages.”
“So you’ve seen him?” asked Gorski. He was picking up the ball.
Moishe leaned back in his chair. “Last summer, I assume it was right after the thing with McCloskey. We didn’t know all the details at the time. He came knocking on our boss’s door. He wanted to flop with one us for a while, said he wouldn’t stay long but would appreciate anything we could do for him. No questions. So the boss gives him a spare room in one of our joints, I don’t know why, and doesn’t Baxter rob it and then light out of town. Son of a bitch.”
Now they might be getting somewhere.
“How long did he stay?” asked Shorty.
“I don’t know,” said Moishe. “Maybe two nights. Our boss made some phone calls, got pieces of the story from his contacts in the Border Cities. It was hard to put it together, sounded like things were sort of falling apart.”
“Well,” said Shorty, “we’re putting it back together again.”
“Good,” said Moishe. “McCloskey should sit down with our boss sometime soon then.”
“Any idea where Baxter went after that?” asked Gorski.
“No idea,” said Moishe. “We had other, more important things on the go. Of course we were concerned about Jack and his well-being, but we really had no interest in Baxter. From what we heard, he was just a goon.”
The four had a few drinks and a light lunch, Shorty and Gorski said thanks and they all agreed to stay in touch. They got into the Packard, and Moishe and Ozzie took them down to the ferry dock at the bottom of Woodward Avenue. When they reached customs they saw the little wooden ships wedged in the ice and the icebreakers struggling to reach them. When Moishe and Ozzie, who had stayed to see them off, also observed the situation they recommended that Shorty and Gorski wait it out someplace nice and warm. Shorty automatically assumed they would be returning to their speakeasy, where they could shoot a few racks and throw back some shots. But that wouldn’t be the case. Ozzie had an idea.
“Hey — there’s a vaudeville playing not too far from here,” he said, “a good one.”
“Yeah,” said Moishe, thrilled with the idea. “By the time it’s over, things’ll be sorted out on the river, and we’ll get you back to the dock.”
“A vaudeville?” said Shorty. He was trying his best to hold back his shock and disappointment.
“I know, I know,” said Ozzie, “but apart from the big laughs, of which I guarantee,” he said, holding up a gloved hand, “because we’ve seen it twice and laughed harder the second time — th
ere is this line of chorus girls who are to die for.” His tone softened when he said that.
The more he gushed about the show, the more Shorty thought he might actually be an idiot. He looked over his shoulder at the ferries and the icebreakers, and then at the long faces standing at the dock, blowing snow accumulating on their hats and shoulders, stomping their feet on the wooden platform, and supposed he and Gorski could still probably do a hell of a lot worse.
“Sounds good,” he said. “All right, let’s go.”
“Great.” Ozzie checked his wristwatch. “We have plenty of time to catch the two o’clock, and in this weather it probably won’t be too crowded. We’ll get good seats.”
They brushed the snow off the windows of the Packard, a big one, the single-six hard-top, and then once more piled in with Moishe at the wheel, driving slowly up Shelby to Lafayette. There was some greasy slush under the new snow and the tires weren’t liking it. Neither was Moishe; he was borrowing his boss’s car.
The Shubert Theater was on the southeast corner: a tall, handsome, almost cubic pile of brick, with ribbons of lighter stone running up and down and fancy trim at the top. Shorty and Gorski gaped and goshed as they entered.
The show was George Jessel’s Troubles of 1922. Ozzie liked the tunes; Moishe liked the chorus line. He had a favourite that he liked to imagine he was exchanging private winks with. Truth was, she winked at any fellow who winked at her.
Shorty also spied a girl in the chorus line. He noticed her because she bore a striking resemblance to Charlie Baxter’s paramour and Richard Davies’s trophy girl: Pearl Shipley. She wasn’t a blonde any more, and she was styling her hair differently, probably so that it matched the other girls’. Shorty said nothing to Moishe and Ozzie, but at the first intermission, he spoke to Gorski in the men’s room.
“Impossible.”
“I’m telling you it’s her,” said Shorty.
“Maybe that means Baxter is in town.”
“And maybe these guys do know but they’re not sharing with us. I’ve had a bad feeling about them ever since this whole vaudeville thing. Do I look like I go to those things? Don’t say anything. I mean to Moishe and Ozzie about Pearl.”
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