Border City Blues 3-Book Bundle

by Michael Januska

  “I knew what you meant,” said Gorski.

  They went back into the theatre and took their seats. The next time the chorus line came out, Shorty looked, and then glanced discreetly over at Gorski, who saw in his peripheral vision and nodded slowly. At the final intermission, they left the building, grabbed a taxi, and had the driver race down to the ferry dock.

  “What about Ozzie and Moishe?” asked Gorski.

  “Honestly, I don’t know what Jack sees in those two.”

  They had to get this information to McCloskey. Even if Baxter wasn’t in Detroit, Pearl was likely the last person to have seen him or spoken to him.

  — Chapter 20 —

  THERE’S NO ONE HERE BY THAT NAME

  Late afternoon

  The store closed at five, but apparently Mr. Copeland always stayed behind to close the register, count the receipts, and do a quick balance of the accounts. He wasn’t one of those types who liked taking his work home with him.

  “Well, Miss Maguire, how was your first full day?”

  “I thought it went well, Mr. Copeland.” She hoped that was the right answer. She knew it was at least an honest one.

  “I did too,” said the old man, smiling. “Have you any plans for tonight?”

  “No, not really. I thought I’d do some more catching up with my uncle and then read for a while.”

  “Very good.” The old man nodded and smiled. “I’ll lock the door behind you when you’re ready.”

  She started wrapping the layers on and had to pull the muffler down from her mouth to wish Copeland a good evening. She heard the bell dingle one last time and the door latch behind her. What Vera Maude had left out in her plans for the evening was the side trip she would be making to the British-American, where she would inquire about a certain Jack McCloskey.

  She shuffled across the icy sidewalk down the Avenue and distracted herself by looking into the shops and checking which were still open and which were closed. Most of them were closed by now. It had occurred to her that she had no idea what Jack’s reaction might be, or what she would even say to him. Maybe she never heard from him because he wanted nothing to do with her. Or maybe he was just the out-of-sight-out-of-mind type. He had his life and she had her new one, and maybe that’s the way it was meant to be. But it might not be what she wanted. She wasn’t sure. She’d only find out if she got to talk to him.

  Is that why I’m walking through the freezing cold to the British-American, an alleged criminal meeting house? Er, maybe that was a little dramatic.

  She crossed Riverside Drive, stepped over the snow accumulated at the curb, and paused at the entrance of the hotel. She really didn’t know what to expect from the place. Sure, she had been living the last several months in New York, but this was a little different. For one thing, this was her hometown. But it wasn’t like she had a reputation to uphold, or at least she didn’t think she did. And besides, she thought, no one would know me from Eve in this place.

  She entered. There was a different kind of a buzz and commotion in the place, different than what she had experienced in other hotels. Maybe it was unique to the British-American. It was certainly nothing like the Prince Edward. There were the denizens, the ones checking her out, and the travellers, just searching for a room for the night. Salesmen and businessmen, most likely, people who knew nothing of its reputation — unless the B-A happened to be a regular stop on their circuit. Not many tourists visiting the Border Cities this time of year. She must have looked a little lost because a bellhop came up to her and asked if he could be of any assistance. She had no bags, she wasn’t heading for the bar, the doors into which were right in front of her, and she was pretty sure she didn’t look the working type. She thanked the bellhop and walked up to the desk.

  She gave the bell a gentle slap, and after a moment or two, the desk clerk put down the pen he was using to dot i’s and cross t’s in the giant registration book. He seemed to be in no hurry.

  “May I help you?”

  He had droopy eyes, a thin moustache that matched his thin lips, and his jet hair was slicked back.

  “Yes, I’m looking for Jack McCloskey.” Vera Maude could swear the desk clerk’s moustache twitched, but it could have been her imagination.

  “Sorry, miss, there’s no one here by that name.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes, miss. Now if you will excuse me.” He started fussing with some unseen objects behind the countertop.

  “Well, was he here? I mean did he recently check out or something?”

  “No, miss. His name doesn’t ring any bells at all, and I make it a point of meeting everyone who comes through here.”

  He kept moving further along behind the desk, but Vera Maude continued to follow him.

  “See, I met Jack once, a while ago mind you, but he told me at the time that if I ever needed to reach him, all I need to do was drop by the British-American or leave him a message or something. Could I at least do that?”

  “I don’t see how that would be of any use.”

  “Are you new?”

  She didn’t mean to sound snide, but she was sure it must have come out that way.

  “I beg your pardon, miss?”

  Is this guy for real? He’s snowing me, probably running interference for McCloskey.

  “Forget it,” she said and headed for the door. The bellhop was quietly standing there, probably watching and listening. She briefly considered asking him about McCloskey but then thought it might get him into trouble. He smiled, touched his hat, and helped her with the door.

  “Thanks. I like your hat.”

  She stood on the street corner for a while, cooling off and collecting her thoughts. She looked up and down the Drive, back at the doors of the hotel, down toward the ferry docks where she had met McCloskey last summer, and then up the Avenue. The points of a compass. And then she looked behind her again at the doors of the hotel.

  No, we’re done for today.

  Cold and hungry, she decided to just head back to her uncle Fred’s. She wanted to avoid running into Copeland on the Avenue, so she walked west along the Drive to Dougall Avenue and then up to London Street, where she caught the streetcar. She didn’t want to risk having Copeland see her on the street at this hour, not after what she had told him. She couldn’t mess this job up, not like she messed up at the library. Copeland’s was a good job. And she had to demonstrate how women could hold their own, or so she thought. She always felt she had something to prove. Maybe it wasn’t necessary. Maybe that’s just the way she was — a little worried all the time.

  She was more tired than she thought and doing a continuous head bob in the streetcar as it rumbled along toward McEwan. There weren’t many passengers at this hour, maybe a dozen, so it was cold inside, not like it was when the car was packed with bodies. Okay, she thought, it’s cold, but at least it doesn’t smell.

  She let her mind wander: I saw Jack McCloskey today. I know I did. Or was it a ghost? No, the desk clerk knew who I was talking about. I could tell. I bet the bellhop did too. But if I’m not going to get anywhere with the staff at the British-American, what’s my next move? Maybe I could stake out the hotel? A girl hanging out in a hotel lobby — this hotel lobby — or worse, the bar. Yeah, that’d go over well. Then again, it might be worth a try. I just have to time it right. My next day off, Thursday. That’d give me time to come up with some sort of plan. And if that leads to nothing, if that’s another dead end, then what? Who can I talk to? The police? Interesting angle, but how to play it. They’ll look suspiciously on me. And again, I can’t be screwing things up at the store. And then there’s Uncle Fred. I have to think about him too. Winter’s different along the Detroit River, different than in Montreal or New York. The ice, the snow, the wind, everything. Different under my feet, different in the air. And despite that, the Border Cities never really seem prepared or it. This is a summer place. Great. Now I’m feeling lost again. I’m like the sailor who crossed the ocean only to
find that China wasn’t there, where the mapmakers said it would be. And yet I feel like I have to bring back something from the new old world. I’d bring back a potato, but that’s been done. Maybe I’ll just bring back a disease. I know I saw Jack McCloskey. I also know it was that bitch I shared the apartment with in the Village who stole my copy of Ulysses. What’s worse, she probably sold it. Gosh, I’m tired.

  — Chapter 21 —

  SHOOK’S SYNCOPATED ORCHESTRA

  Early evening

  Laforet was first and foremost a surgeon, and it showed as he gently and precisely cut into his sausage-stuffed quail. He closed his eyes and leaned over it as the aromatic vapour escaped. He breathed it in deeply, and then scooped a shred of the tender meat along with a bit of the stuffing into his mouth. Campbell could tell by the look on his face that it met with the doctor’s approval. His favourite thing about dining with Laforet was watching him eat and listening to him talk about food.

  “Sausage?” said Campbell.

  “Oh, not just sausage.” The doctor was dissecting the morsel of stuffing he still had in his mouth, staring ahead somewhere across the dining hall. “Cranberry, chestnuts … thyme and sage, and … I think I’m getting some nutmeg in there … lemon. Wonderful. How’s your prime rib?”

  “Tastes like prime rib.”

  “Probably a better plate than what you’re accustomed to being served at those roadhouses.”

  Campbell was used to this. It was the other side of dining out with Laforet: the occasional scene in a restaurant as he complained about the food; being teased about his profession; his so-called life (unmarried); his taste in clothes, etc., etc. But Campbell always took it in stride, not because he was some sort of masochist, but rather because he actually liked the man and greatly respected his work. Otherwise, he would have pushed him into traffic a long time ago.

  “You always assume I frequent the roadhouses, like they’re my home away from home,” said Campbell.

  “Well, aren’t they? I thought they were where all you dicks hung out, where you got your information.”

  “We’ve been through this before,” said Campbell.

  It was Laforet who had proposed the Prince Edward when Campbell contacted him about meeting over dinner. True, it wasn’t exactly Campbell’s style, but neither really were the roadhouses. And he knew he’d never get the doctor to join him in some chow mein over at Ping Lee’s. They were having the table d’hôte. It was Laforet’s favourite way to dine at the Prince Edward; he claimed the food tended to be of better quality and a little more adventurous when it came off the fixed menu. He also took great pleasure in coming up with just the right combination, given the limited selection.

  Laforet flagged down the beverage waiter. Campbell braced himself, but all the doctor wanted was a top-up on their lemon cordials.

  “Thank you.”

  “Maybe I’ll take you to a roadhouse one day,” said Campbell. “Somewhere nice, like the Island View out in Riverside.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “We’ll wait until the weather turns around.”

  “The weather. It seems to be all anyone ever talks about these days. You wished to discuss your Maiden Lane case?”

  “If you wouldn’t mind,” said Campbell.

  “Not now,” said Laforet. “Let’s wait until dessert. Eat those vegetables.”

  Laforet was using his fork to point at the braised carrots, butter peas, and seasoned roast potatoes so far untouched on Campbell’s plate.

  “Yours look better than mine,” said Campbell. “Would you like to trade?”

  “Now that wouldn’t really make any sense, would it?”

  They could hear the band warming up below them on the mezzanine floor. Shook’s Syncopated Orchestra was a regular at the Prince Edward. Laforet wasn’t really much of a jazz fan, or of this type of arrangement, but here on a special engagement were Dorothy Curtin, violinist, and Dorothy D’Avignon, pianist. The orchestra was to assist with their solos, and it was something he had been looking forward to since he saw the notice in the Star.

  “We should order our dessert,” said Laforet, and he gave the waiter a nod, who in turn signalled another waiter. They both descended on the table; one began removing the dinner plates while the other handed each of the gentleman a dessert card.

  “I’ll have the pineapple sherbet.”

  “And I’ll have the vanilla ice cream.”

  “Any toppings, sir? Caramel? Chocolate?”

  “Just the vanilla ice cream, thanks.”

  “Coffee?”

  “Yes.”

  “Yes, please.”

  The waiter scurried off with his orders and Laforet gave Campbell a look.

  “What? I like vanilla ice cream. Why ruin a good thing.”

  The coffee arrived first.

  The truth was that Campbell did not have to bribe Laforet with dinner at the Prince Edward to get him to come out on a frigid winter evening; Laforet was intrigued not just with the Maiden Lane case, but last night’s as well.

  “All right, what can you tell me about our night rider?”

  “Extraordinary. A severe beating, as anyone can plainly see, but there are no hand, fist, or any kind of weapon-shaped bruises on him.”

  “What about the rope used to tie him down?”

  “It appears only to have been used for that purpose. I know what you’re thinking, and there were no rope marks around his neck.”

  “And how did he die?”

  “Severe internal hemorrhaging. Most terrible thing is, Campbell, there is evidence that he died on the back of that horse. Did you find out where it came from?”

  “Belongs to a boy in Sandwich.”

  “It rode in all the way from Sandwich?”

  “Looks that way. I’m going to be speaking to McCloskey further on this. I have a feeling he knows more than he is telling.”

  “Simple gang warfare?”

  “Possibly,” said Campbell.

  The dessert arrived in chilled silver cups.

  “Now, the Maiden Lane case.”

  “I’m not sure what to make of it, of her.”

  “Go on.”

  “Well, first off, from what I know of the subject, I don’t know how much of an occultist she really is. While I’m still skeptical about all of this astral plane stuff and channelling the dead through these séances, her comments about other aspects of the occult seem, to me at least, a little inconsistent. Do you know much about the occult?”

  “A little, mostly from friends and acquaintances. And Mrs. Laforet once attended a lecture. It was all I heard about for a week.”

  “All right, tell me your thoughts on a medium who, for instance, does not believe in astrology? Or possess a crystal ball?”

  “So she specializes. So do most of my colleagues.”

  “I never would have thought the occult could be so compartmentalized. I mean, isn’t the idea that these people, these individuals, are supposed to be open, connected — that it’s all — on some level the same? It wasn’t that she didn’t practise these other … crafts. She didn’t believe in them. She was critical about how other mediums practise their crafts. She doesn’t go for the theatrical stuff; you can see she’s no vaudeville act.”

  “So what is it she does, exactly? I mean, how does she make it work?”

  Campbell got into it and Laforet signalled the waiter.

  “They sit around a table, touching hands. No crystal ball, like I said, just a candle in the middle of the table. No props, no light show, or sound effects. They close their eyes, and she simply opens, or rather, as she put it, becomes the spiritual door.”

  The waiter brought over two fresh lemon cordials and took away the dessert things.

  “And is she one of these mediums who speaks in the voice of the dead?”

  “No she isn’t — and that’s another thing. Zahra says it’s the words of the spirit, but in her voice.”

  Laforet looked up from his glass. What did th
e other couple have to say? The Yam …”

  “Yarmoloviches. They said that when they do this sort of thing, and it’s successful, they hear Zahra’s voice but not the words. Just murmuring. Zahra said the same thing. Interesting. She says the spirits treat it as a private conversation.”

  “So it’s not a party line,” said Laforet.

  “I guess you could put it that way.”

  “Did she tell you anything else about her background?”

  “She did,” said Campbell. “She told me she comes from a long line of spiritualists, people — all of the women on her mother’s side — each endowed with certain gifts. Her mother was primarily a tarot reader and psychic; she began to cultivate and hone these natural skills in Zahra at a very young age.”

  “Interesting.”

  “I’m going to continue reading up on it.”

  “Is it going to help you solve the mystery of Kaufman’s death?”

  Campbell hesitated, staring across the room at the other diners, watching the waiters flit about like fireflies in July. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “I feel like somehow it might. The truth is: I’m not quite sure how to continue with this case. Speaking of Kaufman, what have you learned from the autopsy? Anything useful?”

  “You observed how the body was contorted?”

  “Yes,” said Campbell.

  “Well, I would have to agree that Kaufman did turn at some point in mid-air, probably very close to impact.”

  “But he landed face down.”

  “And?”

  “I’ve pretty much concluded that he propelled himself out of the window — dashing straight into it. Could he have turned more than once?”

  “I suppose it’s possible,” said Laforet.

  “A very fast, agitated fall. Like he would have been writhing in mid-air.”

  “Difficult to imagine.”

  “If only I had looked up in time,” said Campbell.