"I know God has heard our prayers and you are in heaven Ojciec," Joe whispered. " Matka misses you so much, and so do I. Every day I wish you were here with us, but I'm trying my best to take care of Matka and my brothers. I hope you are proud of me… and will you ask God to forgive me for the bootlegging? Take care." Joe crossed himself and out of habit walked to pew number 273 and knelt down on the padded kneeler to pray. Head bowed, he began reciting the rosary. Joe heard the sound of soft footsteps and turned to see Father Gatowski approaching.
"Nice to see you here, Joe," he said, sitting next to him on the hard bench. Joe rose from the kneeler and sat next to the old priest.
"Nice to see you, Father… I'm glad you're here. I was about to come look for you. I wanted to make a contribution to the church in honor of my father. Will you say a Mass in his remembrance?" Joe handed Father Gatowski the remaining sixty-five dollars in his pocket.
"That's quite a large donation for a remembrance Mass, Joe."
"Oh, well… give the rest to the church, Father. For all they've done for me and my family, I mean."
"All right son, thank you." The priest sat back in the pew and looked at the altar. "You know ,Joe, things are changing quickly in this city. I'm not sure banning alcohol was the best idea our government has ever had. The church is already having difficulties with Prohibition."
"Why is that, Father? I thought the Eighteenth Amendment allowed for sacramental wine?"
"Oh, it does. Unfortunately, that's one of the difficulties. I've already heard rumors about priests in other parishes ordering far above the needed amounts for communion, and I'm pretty sure they're not drinking all the excess alone. I myself have been approached by some of our own parishioners with offers to help 'supplement the church's income' with the sale of any extra wine. Of course if you look at it closely, things haven't changed much since the beginning of time… Adam barely hesitated to take a bite of the forbidden apple in the Garden of Eden."
"Yes, but asking a priest to…" Joe couldn't finish. "And in church?"
"Is that what bothers you, Joe? That people commit crimes behind the cloak of the church? God doesn't disparage against disobedience and sin with a heavier hand when it occurs in His house. He abhors all sin and evil. The Catholic Church didn't fight for the passing of the Eighteenth Amendment, but now that it's passed we stand by the laws of this country." Father Gatowski's eyes looked directly into Joe's.
"Of course, Father. I've got to get going… thank you for the Mass for Ojciec." He grabbed his hat from the pew clip and stood up. Father Gatowski stood also and held out his hand to Joe.
"Take care, Joe, and remember I'm here for confession or just to talk if you need me. God be with you, son." They shook hands. Joe left the pew, walked to the back of the church, and turned around. The priest was kneeling in his family's pew and praying. His mood dampened with the unspoken disappointment from Father Gatowski; he crossed himself and left the church.
Joe hopped a streetcar and headed downtown, back to the Sugar House. The sweet smell of sugarcane permeated the air, in stark contrast to the rough voices and cussing from the workers on the floor. Charlie informed Joe that Walt had been persuaded to work on the boats but had struck a hard bargain. It had been agreed that Walt would never operate the boats himself for rum running or even to the hideout. If a boat broke down, Joe and Cappie would somehow have to get it to the docks in Detroit for Walt to work on. Direct from the conversation with Father Gatowski, Joe's conscience felt a little better knowing that his friend would not be directly involved in the illegal operations that Joe had initiated him into.
Supper was a delicious and lighthearted affair. Stephan spooned his mashed potatoes into a mountain of white spuds on his plate as Frank regaled them with funny stories from school. Joes' feeling of guilt abated as he looked around the tiny kitchen at his family. He was providing for them the best way he knew and fulfilling his promise to Ojciec. God would understand.
Chapter Twenty Seven
1927
It was dark when Joe pulled the speedboat into the boathouse in Wyandotte. Cappie quickly shut the door behind the boat and caught the rope Joe threw to him. Electric bulbs cast light on the wooden walls and ceiling as Joe jumped out of the boat and secured the garage door. They had been running whisky from Walkerville for over two years and had it down to a science.
Seven days a week they woke at eight a.m. and pushed carts of whisky and beer through a dimly lit tunnel from the basement of the river house to another house the gang had bought on the other side of the street. When they reached the end of the tunnel, he and Cappie would carry the boxes up the basement stairs to the attached garage at the back of the second house. They loaded it into waiting trucks labeled Fresh Meat, Benny's Breads, or whatever nondescript brand Leiter came up with to disguise the contraband. Drivers took it into the city.
Afterwards, Joe or Cappie ate breakfast in the river house kitchen and then went down to the boathouse to tinker. Walt had designed an underwater exhaust system that decreased the noise of the speedboats by half, but he continually sent notes via the pickup men instructing Joe and Cappie on upkeep or ways to increase the speed. Joe had become an extremely talented boatman, able to evade the Coast Guard with the proficiency of men more experienced than he; but he relied on Cappie for much of the mechanical work. After lunch they'd play cards for a while, and then Joe would read while Cappie took a nap.
On nice days, Joe would meander down to the shipbuilding docks to watch the men construct the giant ships, or he'd walk to one of the two Polish Catholic churches located in the city. Our Lady of Mount Carmel and St. Stanislaus Kostka were sufficient substitutes for his home parish, and if the doors were open he'd go inside and sit for an hour or so, feeling calm and safe in the fragrance of candles and incense. He was unable to attend Sunday morning Mass due to scheduled pickups, but he hoped his silent prayers during the week would suffice for the time being.
Wyandotte was a quiet rural town with quaint streets lined with trees and flowers. Children played in large front yards while prettily dressed ladies sipped tea on expansive porches overlooking the river. But in spite of the tranquil appearance, an intense Italian gang war had begun on those same streets only a few weeks before. The residents were startled from their beds by the sounds of car bomb explosions and loud blasts from sawed-off shotguns blowing bodies to pieces in front of their homes. Burnt corpses were found in nearby farmers' fields, and last week a gift wrapped package intended for an important underboss had detonated inside a drugstore, killing the druggist. But a truce had been tentatively reached, and the last five days the town had reverted to a quiet country atmosphere.
The sky was gray and cloudy that morning as Joe walked to the local grocery store to buy some cottage cheese. Cappie had never tasted pierogi, and he wanted to make some for him. As he neared Vicolli's Fruits and Grocery, several black sedans sped past him up Biddle Avenue in a silent motorcade. When the caravan reached the business block, the pace slowed to a fast crawl. Joe had never seen a hit, but knew the makings of one and leapt into the lobby of the local inn for cover. As he hit the floor the sound of a hundred shots could be heard across the street, shattering windows and splintering bricks and wood. A woman screamed, and the motorcade sped away.
Joe hesitated and then opened the inn's heavy wooden doors. He glanced south at the line of sedans receding and took a deep breath to steady himself as he exited the building. Glass littered the wood sidewalk and street from the windows of Vicolli's and any cars that had been parked in the way. Stepping over bullet casings and shards of glass, Joe looked at the wrecked storefront. A young policeman, not much older than Joe, was propped up in the doorway, holding his leg with his right hand and holding his gun in the left.
"Officer…" Joe said when he had reached the storefront. The cop looked up at him with a blank stare. "They're gone, officer. You can put your gun away." Blood was seeping through the man's uniform.
"Get down, boy!" he respon
ded. The young rookie was in some sort of shock. He grabbed at Joe's coat trying to pull him to the ground. Several Italian-looking men ran out the front door of the grocery store and jumped into their cars to track down the motorcade. People peered out of curtained windows and slowly walked over to survey the damage. Joe pulled off his belt and pulled it tight around the policeman's leg above the wound. Joe pinched the belt hard and lightly slapped the young cop on the cheek.
"See? You're all right. You can snap out of it now," he whispered. "These people are counting on you to calm them down." Joe looked into the eyes of the patrolman and then down at the blood that had pooled onto the sidewalk.
The cop's eyes refocused, and he shook his head slightly looking down at his leg. "Damn this hurts! They got me good for sure… can you help me up?" He grimaced as he tried to rise. Joe put his neck under the rookie's armpit and pulled him up to a standing position. Several shop owners and citizens had made their way to the grocery store now and had grouped around the patrolman. Avoiding attention, Joe casually ducked out from underneath the wounded man's shoulder and sneaked out of the crowd.
"Back already? Ready to teach me how to make those pie-rogees?" Cappie asked, as Joe entered the side door of the house. He was sitting in a rocking chair in the living room reading the morning paper and didn't look up.
"Had a little problem in town," Joe responded. Cappie jumped up and strode to the kitchen. "What kind of prob— What the hell? Are you hurt? Sit down." He looked at Joe's blood-soaked shirt, and he tried to run his hands over Joe's abdomen, back and arms.
"Relax Cappie, it's not my blood. I'm all right." He pushed Cappie's hands away. He sat down hard in the kitchen chair and took a deep breath.
"Not your blood? You get in a fight? You off someone, Joe? What happened? Oh boy, this is gonna be trouble. We gotta get you out of here." Cappie stepped toward the small kitchen window, looking outside for the cops.
Joe laughed, "Kill someone with what… my brute strength? I never take my gun into town. You know that. There was a hit at the grocery store. I ducked into the inn when I saw what was gonna go down. They hit a cop. He'll be all right, but he's pretty shaken up."
"A hit? Did you see who it was, Joe? What'd they look like?"
"Didn't see no faces. Just three black sedans speeding off." Joe pulled off his bloody shirt and threw it in the trash next to the sink. "I don't think anybody else got hurt. You think they're doing a hit on a rookie cop, Cappie?"
"No, they wouldn't bother with a cop. They'd just threaten his family or give him more money. What grocery store did you say?" Cappie got a glass of water and handed it to Joe.
"Viccoli's." Joe took a long drink of the cool water and set the glass on the table. He looked at Cappie and smiled. "They're probably havin a fire sale this afternoon if you wanta go into town."
"Yeah? Very funny, Joe. How'd you get so bloody if you was in the inn anyway?"
"Umm… I helped the cop a little."
"Joe! You gotta think boy! We don't need no one knowing your face around here. We're supposed to stay in the background. Who saw you?" Cappie went to the window again and peered out.
"Relax Cappie! Nobody noticed me, and the cop was too much in shock to remember anything. Let's just make some lunch… how about I boil up a couple of wieners? I'll make pierogi next week."
An hour before dusk they headed out in their separate boats toward Walkerville. Leiter had made a deal with the Walker sons, and they no longer bought from the Pioneer plant. Joe preferred the ride to Walkerville because he didn't have to fight the waves of Lake Erie; and seeing the lights of Detroit, even if it was just from the water, made him feel closer to home.
Boating up the river, Joe felt a freedom he had never experienced before. He loved the sound of the engine, the wind and sun on his face, the waves pushing against the bow of the boat. He felt lucky to be out on the water as he passed the factories and warehouses where men toiled away for their meager wages. The muscles in his arms, back and legs had grown strong from carrying cases of whisky up and down the stairs every day, and he had the feeling of invincibility only found in the young.
Not that his job was without stress and peril. Hijackers were a constant threat—more so than the Coast Guard—and he and Cappie now carried.38 snub noses in the waistbands of their pants. Joe was happy for the added protection, especially after the shooting he had witnessed at the grocery store. Cappie had seen his share of violence in the last month also; he'd been shot at twice coming back down the river with a load but had evaded the thugs by hiding out on nearby Fighting Island.
The summer air was humid that evening, and Joe was swarmed with mosquitoes as he pulled into the Walkerville dock. "How ya doing, Clay?" He threw the dock foreman a rope.
"Sweating and swatting at these damn insects, Joey O." Joe had been so young when he started making his runs to Canada that he hadn't thought to develop an alias, so when the gang started calling him Joey O in reference to all the O's in Jopolowski; it stuck.
"It's like trying to swim through a wet blanket out there. I musta ate twenty bugs on the way up here." Joe handed Clay a folded piece of paper with the order for the day.
"That's a lotta hooch, Joey O," the foreman said, glancing at the paper. "Might slow you down a little. You sure about this number?"
"Yep, boss man says there's a lotta thirsty people dying for a drink, and it's our job to help them out. Let's load it up, Clay."
Truth was there were a lot of thirsty people wanting a drink in Detroit, but there were a lot of people in the rest of the country that wanted one too. The Sugar House Gang, as the newspapers now referred to them, was supplying booze for much of the country now. Wyandotte was just the starting point of the liquor's long journey. From there, it was driven to Chicago or put on trains headed to the south or west. The Sugar House Gang had formed alliances with gangs in St. Louis, New York, Cleveland, and other major American cities. But their largest shipments were delivered to Al Capone in the windy city. Capone had heard about and seen the brutality of the Sugar House Gang and had decided to work with the Detroit based mob instead of fighting against them. To keep up with the demand, Charlie Leiter sent word that Joe and Cappie were to increase their volume.
"All right, Joey O. All loaded up. Where you headed this evening?" Clay asked, handing the boat's rope back to Joe.
"Looks like Mexico, sir," Joe replied with a smile.
"Have a safe trip."
Joe pulled the long speedboat back onto the river. The sun had faded to the west, and the electric lights from the buildings and signs in Detroit helped guide his way down the river for a while. As he cleared the city limits, the lights from the rivers' edge grew dimmer. He looked to the sky for help, but clouds had rolled in. He had to make his way down the river in darkness. Joe didn't worry. He knew the waterway well. Looking to the east he narrowed his eyes, searching the water. A boat was approaching. It was driving fast and straight towards him.
Thanks to Walt, Joe's boat was one of the fastest on the river. But his cargo was weighing him down in the water and slowing his speed. Joe pushed hard on the throttle to try to outrun the intruders. Speeding over the small waves through the darkness his heart pounded in his chest. Unlikely to be the Coast Guard or a customs officer at the speed the boat was approaching, he thought. He'd be safer if it was. But it looked to him like a rival gang out to hijack his cargo.
Can't be a coincidence I'm getting chased the first night my shipment gets increased, he thought. Joe grabbed for the .38 at his waist with his right hand, steering through the dark water with his left. He'd reached the halfway point, but the other boat was still gaining and he knew he couldn't make it to the boathouse. It was too far to Fighting Island. With nowhere to hide, Joe pushed the boat to the limits of its power.
A shot rang out across the water and hit the boat's transom and splintered the wood. Joe steered the boat in a zigzag pattern while taking care to avoid the shallow areas of the river that hid beneath the dark w
ater. Another shot hit the boat, this time only inches from where his hand held the steering wheel. He threw the .38 under the captain's seat where he could easily reach it; resisting the urge to shoot back. He'd only shot the new gun a few times, and he knew his aim was poor at best. In a split-second decision he cut the power to the engine. He raised his hands in the air as the faster boat approached his portside. A light flashed in his eyes, and he was blinded for a moment.
"Give up, do ya?" an Italian accented voice called from behind the light's source.
"You got me," Joe responded, smiling and trying to chuckle, hoping the hijackers wouldn't notice his trembling hands.
"'You got me'? That's what he says boys." The thug laughed to his comrades. "We outrun him and we outgun him, and all he say is 'you got me'. Well, that's a new one. Usually they are a-crying or a-cussing or threatening me, but I never had a 'you got me' before."
"Your boat's faster than mine. That's all there is to it," Joe replied. "I figure it this way: this time you win. I'll go back to the shop and doctor up my boat, and maybe next time I win; maybe not. A load of hooch isn't worth fightin' over, not when there's so much to go around." Joe reached down slowly, picked up a case of whisky and handed it over to show his sincerity. The man lowered the light from Joe's face and took the wooden case.
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