The other rear office was locked but what the hell, it gave little resistance to my jemmy. The premises was still being used, with today’s Free Press alongside lights blinking on the modem and USB hub of a computer. A desk top was bare, apart from a large day planning pad. I shone the flashlight and saw someone had written several phone numbers and addresses. The circled initials TH were against a couple of dates.
I’d noticed a Kinko’s a few blocks away and had planned to take away any files for photocopying and then return them. That, however, increased the risk of our getting caught when we came back to the building under the spotlighting. So, it was time for plan B. I ripped the top copy of the day planner from the pad and folded it into my shoulder bag, becoming the Iron Mike of cat burglars as well.
There was a small two-drawer filing cabinet against one wall at the back of this small office. It looked quite new, solid, and it was locked.
I went to the desk. There were four small drawers on either side. The left-hand drawers were empty. I started with the right-hand side at the bottom. Empty as well. I tried to open the middle desk drawer but it was locked. As I opened the top left drawer again I heard a soft click. I pulled the middle door again, and it opened, with the noise of something metallic inside. I shone the flashlight and there was a small key at the rear of the drawer.
It fitted the small cabinet and I opened the bottom drawer. There were Visa, MasterCard and bank statements, tax returns and expense reports all neatly filed. It all seemed innocent enough.
I flicked quickly through the files in the top drawer. I recognised file folders tagged for each of the company names I’d seen in the shop window at the front of the building. I came to the last two files. The first was labelled MCP IPO, and the second, J P Malcolm. I removed both and flicked through them, the papers neatly clipped to an A4 folder. The MCP IPO file was about an inch thick, the other one had only a few pages. I decided to read them in the security of elsewhere.
My throat was dry from post-alcohol dehydration and the thought of spending the night in a Troy police cell. I put both files in my bag, closed the drawers and doors and left the building, pulling the door shut against a wedge of metal, so it might survive a rudimentary glance from a passing patrol car.
I gave a thumbs up and Jonah appeared from somewhere. We went to our car behind the dumpsters and made a quick exit. We drove back to the hotel and I took the files to my room where I put them in a large brown envelope, given to me earlier by the girl at the hotel reception. I returned to the front desk, where I deposited the envelope. I went back to my room and showered and changed.
It was 10. We burgle with punctuality if we have a hot date.
Ann and Anne were still at Joe Patti’s sitting in a different part of the bar. A couple of jocks sat on either side, the sort of guys who’d linebacked at college but had concentrated more on their business studies, because they would never have made the pros. University of Michigan was written all over them, in that preppy Ann Arborish shiny black wing tip shoes kinda way. Red and yellow suspenders held their trousers to their comparatively slim waists, suggesting they worked out regularly. Their ‘60s crew cuts were styled after the ones their fathers had kept, even after they’d retired from the US Marine Corps after the Vietnam War.
I guessed their names to be Chuck and Brad. The girls waved to us and we walked over to the group.
‘This is Storm and Al,’ said Anne.
‘Milo and Jonah,’ I said.
No hands were offered in greeting, the boys being unhappy with our enforced company. The girls had drinks so Jonah and I ordered Black Label on the rocks with Grolsch chasers.
‘We need to show you how to open that?’ Storm said to Jonah, looking at his hinge-capped bottle of beer. ‘It’s pretty complicated.’ Al thought the remark to be very funny and slapped his friend on the back. Storm gave him a mock left-right jab in return.
Jonah turned to Ann. ‘Friends of yours?’
She was embarrassed. ‘We met tonight. We’ve been waiting for you to come and rescue us,’ she said.
Storm fronted up to Jonah. ‘You a white knight then? Having a big night out north of Eight Mile – white knight. Get it,’ he said for Al’s benefit.
Storm’s hands were on his hips and he threw Jonah a look that must have once scared the hell out of his Phi Delta Kappa frat friends at the U of M. He crossed his arms and jutted out his chest. Jonah caught his look in his catcher’s mitt, then threw it into the foul ball area.
I stood back and waited. Jonah could have taken them both while playing the harmonica and balancing a bowl full of piranha on his head. I could have done it only while balancing the bowl, simply because I’d never learnt Rhapsody In Blue.
The bar was crowded. Al looked across to a couple of noisy guys drinking against the wall at his rear. They looked at him and then at Jonah and me before deciding that caution was the better part of carnage. They turned their backs slightly.
Ann picked up her bag. ‘I think we better be going.’
Storm put his hand on her shoulder, stopping her from standing up. ‘No need. I think the Black and White Minstrels here are on their way. Must be time for their chicken wing supper downtown.’
Jonah looked at the girls, then at me. A smile crossed his face. He’d been sipping his scotch while listening to The Imperfect Storm. He slowly put down his glass and picked up his bottle.
Grolsch beer is expensive. To justify its cost its heavy glass bottle is embossed with a coat of arms, and it has a porcelain stopper instead of a metal cap, which is held against a rubber washer and the neck of the bottle by a wire locking system, which when pressed down is firmly clamped into two indentations on either side of the bottle’s neck.
Jonah carefully removed the clamps from the neck and unhooked the wire lever from the stopper. He was left with a U-shaped piece of wire that curved inwards and slightly downwards at right angles at each upper end of the U. At the bottom of the U swung the white porcelain stopper and the rubber washer. He had the group’s rapt attention. He then spun the stopper around the piece of wire with his left fingers as he held the ends of the U firmly between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand. His eyes never left Storm’s.
Al was looking at us with serious interest, maybe reconsidering what had been said. Storm however rose to the challenge, as Jonah had anticipated. ‘What you doing? Earrings to give to your underage bit of dark meat? Your daughter’s friend? Jungle bunny poontang? Her 13th birthday?’ I marvelled at the stupidity of this verbal barrage.
Jonah imperceptibly moved a step towards him and leant over to whisper something in Storm’s ear. Storm’s eyes widened with apprehension. As Jonah pulled away he brought his right hand up to Storm’s face. Storm raised his right arm in protest. Jonah took Storm’s wrist with his left and firmly clamped the two wire ends of the Grolsch stopper mechanism to the lobes of Storm’s nose as he kept his strong grip on Storm’s right hand with his left, forcing it behind Storm’s back. His right hand contracted, firmly squeezing his thumb and forefinger together, his eyes in Storm’s face.
‘You just had some body piercing super-asshole-honky style,’ said Jonah. ‘Now get you and your hay-eater friend Piglet outta here before I decide to pierce your one inch dick. Go enjoy the punk look. Now.’
Storm stood in frozen suspension as Jonah released his grip from his right arm. His hands now cupped his rapidly bloodying nose.
Storm’s friends had now moved around to see what was happening. As he turned to look at them for support the stopper rotated underneath his nose. They burst out laughing in unison. Ann and Anne covered their mouths with their hands to suppress their shock mixed with laughter. Jonah respectfully handed Storm his jacket. Storm stood firm for a moment, then fled to the washroom through the crowded bar, his hand covering his face. The few bar patrons who had noticed Jonah’s artistry in the brutal ballet went back to their drinks. Respectfully.
‘Why don’t we all go back to our hotel for a nightcap,�
� I said.
‘Well, that depends on what Jonah’s going to do about the cap part of that statement,’ said Anne.
I paid our bills and we all left. Storm’s friends stood back for the ballet master in a spontaneous and respectful parting of their ranks, endorsing their appreciation of the floor show and their wish for survival.
19
Anne left the hotel early in the morning for her Bloomfield townhouse to change before she went to work. She was a partner in a small law firm in Troy specialising in criminal matters. She thought of Jonah and me as a career move.
I retrieved the envelope from the hotel safe and drove to a nearby Kinko’s to have the documents photocopied into two separate sets. Then I went to have coffee and read The Free Press while the copying was being done. I was trading my fingerprints not being on the documents against the slim chance of a Kinko’s employee finding out about the burglary and connecting the documents to it. Besides, I hated using office machines.
It was a typical Detroit news day. A prominent Chrysler executive had been found dead in his car near Ten Mile Road. He was dressed in a black lace bra and panties and had been stabbed in one eye – a Christopher Marlowe. His wife said she thought he was at a church fund raising evening.
And seventy Baptist ministers in Detroit for a church congress had their pistols confiscated by Canadian customs authorities when they went walking on a day trip across the Ambassador Bridge to visit the strip clubs in Windsor, Canada. They’d said they wouldn’t consider being in Detroit without loaded weapons, trust only in the Lord having lethal limitations in this neck of the woods. A headline proclaiming WOMEN SELL THEIR EGGS TO PAY OFF STUDENT DEBTS caught my eye but I decided that nothing in the article would be about poultry rearing or could do the heading justice. There was no news of English football in the paper and no news of much outside the city, as they considered their New York bureau to be a foreign posting.
The photocopying was finished when I returned to Kinko’s. I printed out a computerised label addressed to MCP Inc at its Troy premises and paid the bill in cash.
At the nearby FedEx I picked up a waybill and returned to the car. I filled in the details and rubbed over the original documents where I thought my prints might be, using moist lens wipes. I returned to FedEx wearing driving gloves bought just for the purpose. They wouldn’t be noticed in this poseursville. I sent the package on its overnight service to MCP just around the corner.
My cursory look at the documents had convinced me they were a legit company so I felt they would welcome their return. A crim with a conscience, that’s me.
I drove to another FedEx office and sent one of the photocopied document sets to Tomas in Miami, as they’d make more sense to him than to me. There was no cop or any other activity outside the offices of MCP as I drove past.
Jonah and Ann were waiting for me in the coffee shop. She stood up as I arrived. ‘Morning, Milo. Thanks for a very entertaining evening. You guys are certainly different from the normal dross and detritus around here.’
I said, ‘Our pleasure. Thanks for introducing us to the floor show.’
‘Sorry about that. Look, I gotta go to earn my boringly honest living.’
She hugged me, and Jonah left with her to see her to her car still parked across the road at Joe Patti’s.
I left a message on Dooley’s cell asking him to alert Tomas to the package arriving in the morning. Jonah returned.
I said, ‘You look almost happy. She looked definitely so.’
‘We had a lot to talk about.’
‘I didn’t know conversation could give a girl and a guy so much apparent pleasure. What does she do for her honest living?’
‘She’s a crime correspondent for the Detroit News. She met Anne on some criminology course a while ago – they’ve been friends since.’ He pronounced the word crim-in-ol-o-gy, pausing slightly at each syllable.
We ordered breakfast of fresh orange juice, bagels, smoked salmon and fresh fruit salad. And lashings of coffee.
I briefed Jonah about my morning to date. Then I read USA Today to find out what had happened outside Michigan while Jonah went to find a copy of the Detroit News. I’d never seen him read a newspaper before.
After breakfast I went to my room and checked the file I’d brought from Miami on Johnny Steaknife. One of his convictions in Detroit, and an outstanding warrant, mentioned a joint to the north of the city. I’d called the club from Miami and it was still in existence. I now tried them again. There was no answer, just a recording asking the caller to try again later.
I opened my copy of the files from the MCP office. The first started with the formation of the company in 1998. It had been registered by a Les Cargill, a pharmaceutical chemist from Bloomfield Hills. On a copy of its registration document someone had hand written in pencil ‘M-Melissa, C-Charlie, P-Penelope’. His kids perhaps.
The company had developed some aromatherapy products and was also importing herbal remedies from the Far East for distribution in the mid-west. Business had apparently gone well judging by copies of reports sent to two silent business partners from Grosse Point who had invested funds for forty-nine per cent of the business. Les Cargill had kept detailed minutes of meetings and phone conversations.
A few years later MCP had set up a website and started distribution over the internet. It supplied goods successfully for two years from the electronic site and then had approached various companies about going public with an IPO. Two venture capital investment companies had shown serious interest.
Then legal action had been threatened against MCP as they’d been selling internationally from their web address. Two of their main suppliers, in China and Hong Kong, had threatened to take them to court, saying their sales distribution agreement only covered the western areas of the US. The IPO backers had withdrawn their offer and their overseas suppliers then ceased to ship products to them. Their business was now in trouble.
They had then received an unsolicited telephone call and a subsequent visit from Tono Hendrych of J P Malcolm, offering to resuscitate their IPO despite their current problems. It was pointed out to Tono Hendrych that they were now selling only a few products, one of which was a potency stimulant for men in tablet form. Its main ingredient was extract of ginseng. It was widely available under other names and guises throughout the USA and its placebo effects were thought to be psychological rather than perpendicular. Nevertheless, J P Malcolm wanted to proceed with an IPO and to run with that product, which they would rename T-Bone.
Les Cargill had gone on record declining to falsify scientific studies showing the beneficial effects of taking the tablets in correspondence dated as recently as a month ago. He also stated in the same letter that he did not wish to be contacted further by J P Malcolm. The letter had been sent by registered post with a copy sent to his attorney in Birmingham, Michigan.
I opened the day planner sheet I’d removed from his desk. There were days marked with Tono Hendrych’s initials three times in the past two weeks. I noticed a phone number marked on the sheet on three different dates, each time with a question mark written beside it in heavy pencil. It was underlined and overwritten in scribbly doodles. After holding it against my bedside lamp and its low-wattage bulb, I was eventually able to decipher it.
I hung up after a voice welcomed me to the Detroit office of the FBI.
20
According to his rap sheet, the club that Johnny Steaknife had visited over a period of several years was east of Woodward, just north of Detroit.
We drove south from Troy down Woodward in the early afternoon, past trendy Birmingham toward downtown. The area near Detroit had changed markedly since I’d last been there. The renovated Fox Theatre stood oasis-like in its restored glory in what was previously no-man’s-land. On Woodward South, signs advertised modern loft conversions at prices that the average African American, Arab American, Vietnamese or Hispanic residents of downtown could only dream about. And wooden frames for new town houses r
ose within pot-shot range of Detroit, that gun-loud glade. The black covering on the walls of the frames of the semi-constructed dwellings was more likely to be SWAT standard Kevlar than tar insulation paper.
We found the street we were looking for east of Woodward and Eight Mile Road. If Detroit had a Monopoly game this area would be rent free. Nearby were motels that offered rooms by the hour and waterbeds and adult videos and parking in the rear, where you paid cash upfront and you hoped no one you knew saw you leaving and whose sheets were more graphically stained than the Shroud of Turin.
The front door of The Russian Blue Boy Bar & Club, STRICTLY Members Only, was in the middle of a wooden building freshly painted in canary yellow with a lime green roof. A sign underneath was a neon image of a cat drinking out of a martini glass. Two neon green olives were blinking eyes.
We followed the sign to the rear where parking was promised. Empty wine and liquor bottles were being finger-tipped into wheelie bins by a woman with a well defined rear in silver sequin studded jeans and four-inch heels. She wasn’t a paid up member of the Garbage Worker’s Union.
A large margarita glass superimposed a blue moon in a mural at the back of the building. We parked in a neon-sprayed space marked slut’s. Nearby spaces were painted nut’s, she’s, lady dick’s, and he’s/ she’s. Other names were in similar mis-apostrophed code or I just lacked the imagination to get their meaning.
Trash Lady had now gone inside and the back door was locked shut. We walked around to the front. The door was locked as well. I pressed a buzzer and waited. There was no reply. I pressed again and a voice gravelled from an intercom beside the door.
‘Don’t open till nine. Come back then.’
Kill City USA Page 19