Riverside Drive: Border City Blues

by Michael Januska

  She looked over at Braverman. He was gazing out the window and drumming his briefcase lying flat on his lap with his fingertips. He had a far-away look in his eyes, like he was imagining elegant cafes, romantic cul-de-sacs, and ancient bridges; artists, lovers, and ex-soldiers walking the streets, basking in the glow of the city of light. Vera Maude had never noticed before how handsome Braverman was. There was something vaguely aristocratic about him. Surely he was one who could move comfortably through a range of social circles.

  From saloon to salon.

  Vera Maude liked the sound of that. She thought it would make a good title for her memoir. The horse was finally coaxed off the tracks and the way was clear.

  “E-E-E-E-rie.”

  The stop outside St. Joe’s Hospital seemed to last an eternity, and it cost Vera Maude a bit of her surplus time. She started working on her lateness excuses for Miss Lancefield.

  I overslept. The streetcar derailed. There were these sailors on leave, drunk, vandalizing public property. They wouldn’t quit. Let’s just say I made the ultimate sacrifice.

  She studied Braverman some more. She thought about his hands holding a brush, and then she looked at her own small hands. She had been biting her nails again.

  “Wy-y-y-yn-DOTTE.”

  The blocks were shorter now. This was the city in one of its earliest incarnations. On the older maps the river was the main street with little lanes running off it into farmers’ fields. On the newer maps the streets intersected the Avenue like steps up a ladder towards the river. In a little over a decade, streetcars and the automobile had completely shifted the axis of the city.

  Some uniformed schoolgirls were skipping down the Avenue towards the sound of a bell. St. Mary’s Academy was coming up after Maiden Lane. Had her great-grandfather, a Catholic farmer, not decided to re-invent himself as a Methodist linen merchant, Vera Maude might very well have found herself a graduate of St. Mary’s.

  And got me to a nunnery.

  She wondered how the other branches in her family tree were managing their inheritance, especially those still in Ireland now living through a violent revolution. Maybe some wished they had remained Catholic. Perhaps some had even converted back. To Vera Maude, it was all a bit like those people jumping on the Giants bandwagon at the beginning of the World Series.

  Some old codger was looking her over, and she made a face at him. He kept staring so she looked away. She would much rather have belted him one.

  “Pa-a-a-rk Street.”

  On any normal day, this was her stop. She could still potentially make the library on time, provided Braverman wasn’t going all the way to the ferry dock. Vera Maude stood up and grabbed one of the leather straps that hung in the aisle. She needed to be able to bale out as soon as Braverman made his move.

  The streetcar driver was trying to motivate some of the taxicabs that were congregating in front of the Prince Edward Hotel. Insurance agents, dentists, physicians, and barristers, a host of characters Vera Maude preferred to avoid like the plague, were marching into the King Building. Next door the girls at the Laura Secord Candy Shop were putting the finishing touches on today’s window display. A fellow on a ladder was straightening the letters on the marquee at the Allen. At first glance Vera Maude thought it said The Man for Me. It actually said The Man From Home. It boasted “American millions, European titles, Mediterranean beauty, and smashing romance!”

  Not to mention air-conditioning. I feel a double feature coming on.

  “Lo-o-o-on-DUN.”

  Braverman stood up as they approached the Bank of Montreal building at the corner. The streetcar came to an abrupt halt just as Vera Maude was letting go of the hand strap. She fell into a man standing in front of her.

  “Pardon me, I’m sure.”

  He helped her regain her balance. It was his pleasure. She made a beeline for the door and managed to wiggle through before it closed.

  She spotted Braverman walking in front of the streetcar and followed him down Chatham Street. A couple people went into Wesley Radio, some went into the Chinese laundry. Others continued around the corner down Pelissier. The clock was ticking. Vera Maude stopped at Dougall and watched Braverman cross. She was about to give up hope when she saw him enter a building just up the block. She hustled over and checked it out.

  CURTIS PRINTERS

  She stared at the building for a moment. She was a little disappointed, though she wasn’t sure exactly why. What was she expecting?

  A big sign saying Braverman & Co.: Bootleggers, Con-artists, and Petty Criminals?

  She made a few mental notes then double-backed and turned up Victoria. She noticed the time and got going as fast as she could in heels. She slowed at London Street just long enough to let a streetcar pass and then almost got knocked down by a bicycle when she ran across Park without looking.

  “Jeepers, fella!”

  When she got to the top of the steps of the library, the janitor greeted her at the door.

  “Don’t rush yourself, Maudie. They’re a little preoccupied this morning. And Miss Lancefield’s at another one of her meetings.”

  “Thanks, Joe.”

  Vera Maude strolled in and sure enough they were all huddled around Daphne, gasping and whistling like so many kettles on the boil. Daphne was telling them about the gunshots she heard early this morning from the direction of the rail yards. Mavis said she heard something that sounded like gunshots too, though she had thought it was just a truck backfiring.

  “But, come to think of it, it did sound more like a gun.”

  Yeah, like you know what a gun sounds like.

  Vera Maude started sorting the daily papers. She was grateful no one noticed she was over a quarter of an hour late. Unless they were saving it for Miss Lancefield. Some of the girls were like that — walking around with an ace up their sleeve, waiting for just the right moment to slap it on the table. Vera Maude knew Miss Lancefield was getting tired of her excuses and apologies. One wrong move and Vera Maude would be facing a life sentence behind a counter at Smith’s department store.

  There was another conversation wrapping up at one of the reading tables. Several members of the Music, Literature, and Art Club were discussing topics for the fall season. They were recalling a meeting held earlier in the year. It was an open meeting, Vera Maude’s introduction to the club.

  She had to attend. Among the members were Miss Lancefield, a couple of assistant librarians, several schoolteachers, and representatives of the city’s cultural elite — the Merry Wives of Windsor. It was held up the street at the Bowlby house. The guest of honour was an associate of the Royal Academy of Music. He gave a talk and then later in the evening he and Margaret Bowlby played an arrangement of Beethoven’s 5th. In Reverend Paulin’s wife’s report on current events she touched on the so-called Art War being waged over a modernist exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. Vera Maude had to bite her tongue through the discussion that followed. The meeting closed with the singing of the national anthem.

  It was all very pleasant and very civilized and done with the utmost taste and decorum. But it was quite different from the new world of music, literature, and art that Vera Maude was reading about in the journals from London and New York.

  Veddy different indeed.

  She tried to picture Braverman in the audience, dressed as he was today and with his paint-splattered briefcase on his lap. Part bohemian, part gentleman, and part gangster.

  Gunshots from the direction of the rail yards?

  — Chapter 15 —

  ALL BETS ARE OFF

  McCloskey was sitting at the bar at the British-American having his first meal since leaving Hamilton: a plate of chicken and frog legs with a near-beer chaser. The beer, Cincinnati Cream Lager, tasted like the punch line to a joke that no one was getting.

  He needed to clear his head after the police had finished with him, so he walked the short mile back to City Garage on Erie Street, where he reclaimed the Light Six and topped up i
ts fuel tank. His plan had been to head down to the British-American to trade information, but arriving on the scene he found everyone tongue-tied and with their fingers in their ears. Getting nowhere, he pulled up a stool at the bar and ordered breakfast.

  “That sounds more like dinner,” Eddie said.

  “I’m catching up.”

  He was cleaning off the last of the chicken bones when a boy came in with copies of the morning edition of the Border Cities Star draped over his arm. McCloskey peeled one off the top and pressed a coin in the boy’s palm. The boy continued to work the room, alternately offering a shine with the gear slung over his shoulder, but met with little success.

  McCloskey turned to the sports pages and noticed the Star was still carrying “Fanning with Farrell.”

  “Wills thinks he can take Dempsey,” he said to no one in particular.

  Eddie returned with clusters of empty glasses dangling from the fingers of each hand like dirty chandeliers. He set the glasses down below the bar and immediately got to rinsing and polishing them.

  “That so?” he said.

  He was a bear of a man with a gentle touch, just the kind of diplomat the British-American needed. McCloskey continued his digest of Farrell’s column.

  “Rickard says Wills’ll fight for less than a hundred thousand. He must be figuring he can take the purse. And listen to this: ‘Every time the champion fights, thousands will go just in the hope of seeing him knocked out and their presence adds to the house and the fighters’ purse.’ How do you like that?”

  “They set them up for the pleasure of watching them fall.”

  “Is this you waxing philosophical, Eddie?”

  “I wouldn’t say it if it weren’t true.”

  “I should’ve gone to see him fight Carpentier. Who knows, maybe things would’ve turned out different.” McCloskey sighed.

  “Now who’s the philosopher?”

  “The fight of the century. That’s what they all said.”

  “You know he was here on the weekend, don’t you?”

  “I know, I know.”

  McCloskey turned the page. Eddie was referring to Dempsey’s exhibition fights down at the Devonshire track on Saturday. Dempsey got a grand for putting pillows on his mitts and going two rounds each with Billy Wells and Bert Snyder. It was pretty light stuff. All the same, McCloskey wouldn’t have minded the chance of meeting his hero. But he had his hands full with Sophie at the time. Every time he thought of her a little tremor went through his body. Her image played like one of those short films at the arcade, the ones in the little machines with the hand-crank. A penny for a few minutes of flickering light and magic.

  It suddenly became very still and very quiet in the room. The tension that McCloskey had felt when he first sat down was quickly being replaced by something more tangible, like a chill in the air or a charge of electricity. He glanced up at the mirror behind the bar and saw a familiar face. Jigsaw was making his way towards him. He pulled up a stool, leaving one between him and McCloskey. Tilting his hat back, he exposed part of the scar that the Lieutenant said made him look like a goddamn autopsy.

  “I’ve been wondering when I’d see you,” said McCloskey. “Then I thought if I just stayed still long enough you’d probably come to me.”

  “Yeah. You attract trouble, don’t you, Killer?”

  Jigsaw hadn’t lost his patronizing tone.

  “Actually, I just got tired of talking to myself. You and your boys have this town sewn up pretty good, don’t you?”

  Jigsaw’s grin looked more like a gash in his face.

  “Well, you haven’t bumped me, and I know if you really wanted to you would have by now, so you must be here to —”

  “I’m here to tell you to blow.”

  McCloskey took a gulp of his beer before replying. “Maybe I’m not finished my business here yet.”

  “Really? I understand you chased the guy that done your father and brother all the way to the border. The trail’s still hot; you should think about —”

  “I’m not interested in him anymore. I don’t want the serpent’s tail; I want its head.” McCloskey paused. “C’mon, it was you who gave the order, wasn’t it?”

  Jigsaw put his hands up in mock defence. “Now don’t go jumping to conclusions, Killer.”

  “I didn’t buy the line the cops were selling about the gangster from Detroit. That’s the one they use whenever they need to blame the Yanks something.” McCloskey paused. “So who gave the order?”

  “You know who.”

  “No, I don’t. That’s why I’m asking.”

  “Green.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “It’s true. You were naïve to think that Green wasn’t all business, because he is. You and your family were costing him.”

  “So he’s still running things?”

  “Of course he is.”

  “That’s not what I heard.”

  “Is that what this is about? The Captain isn’t bothering himself with our little skirmishes. He’s busy fighting a war. The Lieutenant’s in command of this front. He’s the reason you’re not locked up or at the bottom of the river right now.”

  “Yeah, feel like I owe him a debt.”

  McCloskey finished his beer.

  “He gave you too much credit,” said Jigsaw. “You’re a meathead and you belong back in the ring. There you’re actually worth something. In the real world you get too confused and you lose focus. You need the bell, the ropes, and somebody standing over you with a bucket of ice water.”

  Eddie reappeared from the kitchen and McCloskey pointed to his glass. Eddie pulled him another pint.

  “Can I get you anything, mister?”

  Jigsaw turned slowly towards Eddie and bared his jagged yellow teeth. “Whisky.”

  Eddie stiffened. “You know we don’t serve liquor here.”

  “Would you like to?”

  Eddie just walked away. Jigsaw laughed and turned and fixed his gaze back on McCloskey. His eyes were dull, black, and bottomless.

  “If I find you in the Border Cities tomorrow, you’re fair game.”

  “You know you’re the second person to sit in that stool and tell me that.”

  “Maybe you should try sitting somewhere else.”

  Jigsaw slid back off the barstool and adjusted his hat. His eyes swept the room and everyone looked away. He moved slowly across the floor, through the swinging doors, and into the lobby of the hotel. Conversation didn’t resume in the bar until he was seen to make the street where, despite the heat and the sun, he still appeared as dark and cold as the river in February.

  McCloskey looked down at the greasy chicken and frog leg bones on his plate. The last meal he had was at one of Lieutenant Brown’s clubs in Hamilton. New York steak. Whisky. Cigars. What was he doing here? A girl came out of the kitchen and picked up his plate, exposing another section of the sports pages. McCloskey looked down and saw the listings for Kenilworth. He noticed the name of Green’s foal, Contender.

  “Welcome back, Jack.”

  “Thanks, Annie.”

  “Checking the want ads?”

  “Picking a horse. Heard anything?”

  She rounded the bar and paused behind him. “Yeah — all bets are off.”

  “Thanks.”

  McCloskey left some silver on the bar, tucked the rolled up newspaper under his arm, and headed out. He had parked the Light Six over on Goyeau Street, away from the pool hall. He had no idea what he’d do if he ran into the Lieutenant, or for that matter what the Lieutenant might do if he ran into him, so he thought he’d steer clear for the time being. He opened the car door and climbed in. The Light Six was reassuring and familiar. Everything fit just right.

  Heading up Goyeau he considered the homes that lined the street. They looked safe, quiet, and predictable, nothing like his home growing up. Maybe they were more like his home on the inside. Somehow he doubted it. He couldn’t imagine the police stopping by to settle a domestic
dispute or drop off children that were picked up for stealing from the general store.

  Had he not seen their bodies with his own eyes he probably wouldn’t have believed it. His pa and Billy had lived through so much, it seemed as though they’d be alive forever. It had been a family of men, much like his pa’s. His mother, however, came from a family of women — a pious, Irish Catholic family that she escaped by marrying a city boy. Frank McCloskey was the youngest son of a Scottish merchant. He was rebellious and out to make a name for himself as a contraband smuggler. Mary Callaghan loved the idea of Frank McCloskey but not the man. She gave him sons, did the chores, and attended church alone on Sundays. Her dying wish was for her husband to let a priest into the house. The moment she died, Frank McCloskey threw the priest, his manual, and his holy water across the front porch.

  McCloskey was still trying to get past the idea that if he had he arrived in Ojibway only minutes earlier he could have saved them. If he had got out of the train station quicker, if he got Sophie there sooner, if they hadn’t messed around, if they hadn’t met, if he hadn’t let himself get sent to Hamilton in the first place, if he hadn’t taken up with the Lieutenant, if he had just stayed home after the war and worked things out with his pa and Billy. If only he could learn to stop torturing himself.

  He paused for traffic at Park and looked over at the new police headquarters. He had to wonder what their orders were. Again he got the feeling that he was exactly where someone wanted him and he hated it. He didn’t believe what Jigsaw said about the Lieutenant. He remembered the day he got shipped off to Hamilton and the look in the Lieutenant’s eyes. Was his old boss being pushed aside? Was it Jigsaw’s play or was the Captain playing Jigsaw off the Lieutenant? A long time ago the Lieutenant had asked for McCloskey’s help in building an empire. Was he really all business? McCloskey had to find out for himself and there was no better place to confront the situation than at a crowded racetrack.