Neither Elizabeth nor my father knew the meeting location. It was almost six o’clock.
Slamming my fist on the door, I screamed, “Rogers! Rogers! Open this door!” My voice was a raw croak.
A key rattled in the lock, and the door swung inward. Sergeant Rogers stood silhouetted in the doorway—ramrod straight, big shoulders, derby pulled down low over his eyes. I grabbed him by the front of his shirt. “You son of a—”
He threw me over the table in the middle of the room. I tried to brace my landing with my hands, but one of the chairs went down with me, and I landed on it, ribs against the front of the seat, right hand pinned underneath. I howled and rolled off the chair, sharp pains cutting into my side, waves of searing agony shooting up from my hand. I cradled the hand in my left and rolled on the floor, trying to stifle the groans that forced themselves from my lips.
When I could, I got to my feet, wincing, and stalked back toward Rogers, who stood where he had, watching me with a scowl on that stupid face. “God damn you!” I shouted. “You’ve killed my parents!”
He held up one big forefinger. “Stop.”
I stopped a foot away and stared coldly into his eyes. “You son of a bitch. You don’t even know what you’ve done. Let me out of here.”
“Sit.” He pointed at the table.
“You’ve got to let me leave,” I pleaded. “They’re going to kill my parents.”
He pushed me toward the chair I’d knocked over. “I said, sit down.” I stared at him a moment longer before stalking around the table, picking up the chair, and dropping into the seat. Rogers took off his derby and ran a hand through his wiry brown hair. “The Gianollas?”
“Yes.”
He fit the derby back onto his head and leaned over the table. “Tell me about it.”
The pain in my hand made it hard to concentrate. I tried to focus. “They want to get the Teamsters into Detroit Electric, and if we don’t do it, they’re going to kill my parents and Elizabeth Hume.” I used my handkerchief to wipe the sweat from my face and neck. “Look, I’ll come back and tell you everything. But you’ve got to let me out of here.”
“You’re not going anywhere until you answer some questions. And I better like the answers.”
The pain in my hand had me rocking back and forth on the chair. I didn’t have time for this. But I wasn’t going anywhere until he was satisfied. “All right. A man named Ethan Pinsky is negotiating for the Teamsters. We were supposed to meet with him this afternoon and would have if not for your gorillas. Pinsky moved the meeting location, and I’m the only one who knew it.”
“Pinsky, huh?” He patted his pockets until he found a pad and a pencil. “How do you spell that?”
I spelled it for him.
“Where’s he live?”
“He’s on Gladstone. Can I go now? I’ll come back tomorrow and tell you everything.”
One corner of his mouth twisted up in what apparently, for Sergeant Rogers, passed as a grin. “Why would I let you go now that you’re finally answering my questions?”
I just gave him the dead-eye look.
“Tell me everything.”
I hurried through the story of the Gianollas’ threats, the Teamsters, and Pinsky. I left out everything else, including Detective Riordan’s involvement.
He took notes, and when I finished, he sat back and gave me another of those twisted grins. “There now. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”
“Can I go?”
Nodding toward the door, he said, “Get lost.”
* * *
I stopped only long enough to retrieve my gun from the desk sergeant before running out of the station and down Bethune to Brush Street. It would take forever waiting on a trolley, so instead I ran, thankful for all the exercising I’d done. Even so, I was exhausted when I finally turned onto Rowena.
The feeling of dread I’d had since Rogers’s men grabbed me intensified when I caught the first glimpse of my parents’ three-story shingle-style Victorian. I ran up the sidewalk and took the steps two at a time.
At the top of the stairway I froze. A cold slug dropped in my stomach. The front door was open a few inches. I pulled the gun from my belt and approached the house cautiously. Using my fingertips, I pushed the door open the rest of the way and sneaked in, sliding to the right, listening for voices, movement.
The house was still. I moved on, walking heel to toe, trying to be silent. I stuck my head into the parlor. Nothing. Down the hall to the kitchen. Oh, shit. A pile of dirty dishes sat beside the sink. My mother would never leave the house without washing the dishes. But nothing else. I tiptoed around the rest of the first floor, seeing no sign of anyone or clues as to where they might be.
I climbed the steps, afraid of what I would find in my parents’ bedroom. It was empty, as was the rest of the floor. All that was left was the basement. I took a deep breath as I crept down the steps. My senses were sharp. The musty odor seemed more powerful than usual. I inched across the floor, seeing the shadowy shapes of the boiler, stacks of crates, my father’s golf clubs.
Nothing.
I climbed the stairs and hurried to my father’s den, thinking to call the factory. But it was after hours. No one would be there.
Wilkinson. He would know. I phoned him at home, but he didn’t answer. I cursed and walked out of the house, using my key to lock the door behind me. My parents weren’t here. That could be good. It was, at least, better than finding them here, victims of the Gianollas. Now, for the Humes’ house.
Running again, I made it to the Humes’ yellow and white Queen Anne in about fifteen minutes. Their door was closed and locked. I rang the bell several times, but no one stirred inside.
I talked to servants at the houses on either side of theirs. No one had seen or heard anything. A Jefferson Line streetcar rolled past, heading toward downtown. I sprinted out to it and jumped up on the step, riding all the way to Woodward, where I started running again, this time to the Detroit Electric garage. I picked up the Torpedo and raced out to Hamtramck, to the house at which we were supposed to meet Pinsky. It was dark, empty.
I sped to Gladstone, nearly causing a pair of accidents before I stopped in front of Pinsky’s house. Seeing no lights on in the front, I crept around to the back. No lights, no sounds, nothing. No one was home.
“Son of a bitch!” I shouted, slamming my hand against the kitchen door.
My parents, Elizabeth, and her mother were all missing, and the only man who could tell me where they were had disappeared like a wisp of smoke.
* * *
I drove home and started phoning the area hospitals. No one matching my parents’ or the Humes’ descriptions had been admitted. I took a deep breath and called the city morgue. Again, no matches. I tried Riordan’s home number.
“Hello?” a woman answered.
“Is Detective Riordan in?”
“Who’s calling?” She had a British accent, which surprised me.
“Will Anderson.”
“Oh, Will. He’s talked about you. I’m afraid he’s not here at the moment. I haven’t heard from him since he left for work this morning.”
I thanked her and asked her to have him phone me when he came home. She said she would. I sat back in my chair and racked my mind for ideas. Where could everyone be? Could my parents and the Humes have left of their own volition? Unlikely. More likely was what I didn’t want to acknowledge—that the Gianollas had done exactly what they said they would.
Which would mean they were dead.
Elizabeth.
My mother.
My father.
Because of me. Because I didn’t deliver.
I was dizzy. I couldn’t catch my breath. My thoughts were fractured, broken. Images raced through my mind, horrific images of Elizabeth, my parents. My hand tortured me.
I had to get control. I had to be able to think.
The little bottle. It was still in the nightstand.
I hurried into my bedroom, pulled open t
he drawer, and rooted around for the morphine. When I felt the bottle, I pulled it out and unscrewed the cap.
Just a capful.
I tipped enough morphine into the cap to fill it and drank it down. Then I lay back on the bed and wished it to happen. And it did. The numbing warmth in the throat … the ripples of peace lapping against my mind … the waves of contentment …
I smiled. I could think again. I would find them. And the Gianollas would pay.
* * *
I decided to go back to my parents’ house. Perhaps all this was a mistake. I couldn’t just assume the worst. I didn’t know if it was the morphine giving me hope, but I also didn’t want to examine it too closely.
I took four hundred dollars from the nightstand and tucked it in my wallet. The bottle of morphine went into my trouser pocket. I drove to my parents’ house and wandered around, looking for clues. All signs pointed to them leaving the house quickly, but there were no signs of violence, so I was hoping they’d gotten out when I didn’t make it to the meeting.
I broke into my father’s gun cabinet and took a double-barreled twelve-gauge shotgun. After loading it and filling my pockets with shells, I locked up the house again and cruised slowly around Little Italy. It was senseless, I know. The odds of finding my parents and the Humes were one in a million, but I couldn’t sit home and do nothing. I considered driving out to Ford City, but it made no more sense than what I was already doing. I had no idea where the Gianollas would hole up.
I smacked the steering wheel. Rogers had ruined everything. My parents, Elizabeth, and Mrs. Hume could already be dead. Or worse, considering what Sam Gianolla did to the man who betrayed them.
After a few hours of useless trolling, I drove back to my parents’ house and phoned the Humes. No answer. I tried Mrs. Riordan again. She still hadn’t heard from her husband. I gave her my parents’ number and asked her to have him phone me as soon as he got home.
Returning to the foyer, I flipped on a single light and sat on the stairway, the twelve-gauge lying across my thighs. I had a clear view of the front door, but someone there would have to look hard to see me. If my parents or the Gianollas came back, I’d know it.
I sat forward, my elbows on my thighs, and fingered the shotgun. I had to do something, but what was there to do? Of one thing I was certain: Regardless of whether my parents and the Humes were safe, I was going to have to kill the Gianollas.
After another swallow of morphine, I settled in to wait for them to return. I don’t know how long I stayed awake, but finally unable to hold up my head, I leaned against the wall and fell asleep.
* * *
I was perhaps five years old. We were vacationing in South Haven, staying in a resort hotel on Lake Michigan. My sisters had gone off for a walk down the beach, to meet boys, no doubt. I was playing with a shovel in the wet sand near the lake. My mother and father sat on a blanket behind me. A soft breeze blew in, carrying a faint odor of rotting fish.
I looked out at the lake. A small boat with a crimson sail bobbed perhaps a hundred feet offshore. It was unoccupied. A single rope, tied to the front, angled out into the water. I stood, turned, and called, “Father! I want to ride in that boat!”
He looked away from my mother, and glanced first at me, then at the boat. With a smile, he stood and strode past me in his woolen bathing costume, tousling my hair as he went by. “You stay on the beach, boy.” He waded into the freezing water and, when he was almost up to his waist, dived in and began swimming straight out, bobbing up and down in the waves as he cut through the water with strong, sure strokes. The sailboat seemed to be farther away now, but he kept swimming.
Then I was sitting on the blanket near my mother. We watched my father swim out far past the pier, so far that his head was nothing more than a pinpoint bobbing in and out of view, but he was no closer to the sailboat.
My mother gripped my shoulders and pulled me to her. I could feel her heart racing. A warm droplet of water fell onto my head. And another. I looked up at my mother’s face. Her mouth was stretched open in a silent sob. I looked out again at the lake.
My father was gone. The boat was gone. I turned to look at my mother. She was gone. The wind picked up, the smell of death stronger now. Waves crashed against the shore like thunder.
Without another thought, I ran to the water and plunged in. Instantly an undertow pulled me away from shore. I tumbled across the bottom, my back scraping against sand, my head hitting a rock, all the while being pulled deeper and deeper into the endless lake. I held my breath and fought to reach the surface. My lungs ached.
“Thank God,” a woman’s voice said from far away. “Will?” Now she was closer. She grabbed me from behind and stopped my tumbling, but still I was underwater. I looked up toward the surface. A hundred feet above me, waves rolled by one after another.
“Will?” she said again.
I tried to pull away, to swim to the surface, but strong hands held me in place. I craned my neck around and saw Elizabeth smiling at me. Her auburn hair undulated in the current. She held me like a baby. I knew it was all right to give up. I took a deep draught of water into my lungs.
“Will? Wake up.”
I blinked and squinted into the sunlit room. I was lying on the staircase, propped up against Elizabeth, who sat behind me with one hand on my shoulder, the twelve-gauge gripped in the other. I sat up, my mind still half in the dream. She leaned in and hugged me hard. “Thank God,” she said again before letting go and standing. “Will, come on, we’ve got to go.” I saw dark smudges under her eyes. She wore a rumpled indigo day dress that looked as if it had been slept in, with a red ribbon tied sailor-style around her neck. She wasn’t wearing a hat, and her wavy auburn hair spilled down over her shoulders.
I rubbed my eyes. “Are my mother and father all right?”
“They’re fine.”
Relief flooded through me. “And your mother?”
“Fine too. But we might not be if we don’t get moving.”
I pushed myself up off the step.
Elizabeth touched my arm. “What happened to you?”
“The cops happened to me. That’s why I didn’t pick you up.”
“Thank God it wasn’t the Gianollas.”
“What’s going on?”
“We can catch up after we get out of here.” She held up the shotgun. “Do you want to take this?”
Nodding, I grabbed the cold barrel and hefted the gun. “Just a minute. I need one more thing.” I ran down to my father’s shop and grabbed a hacksaw from the wall.
The shotgun needed some work if I wanted to carry it around with me. And I definitely wanted to carry it around with me.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
I pulled on my duster as we hurried outside into the early dawn. The sun was peeking out above the buildings downtown, bathing the city in its red glow. My father’s Detroit Electric roadster stood by the curb. “Did he—is he here?” I said.
“No.” Elizabeth walked around the car to the driving side and climbed in. “He’s at the Pontchartrain with our mothers.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll follow you there.”
I started the Torpedo, hopped in, and stayed close behind her on the short drive to the hotel, feeling dazed. They were all alive and outside the Gianollas’ reach. After the previous night, it seemed too good to be true. Yet the evidence was in the car in front of me. It was still early enough that virtually no one was on the street. Still, Elizabeth drove carefully, keeping her speed below ten miles per hour. She pulled up to the curb just down the block from the hotel, and I was able to park behind her.
I shoved the shotgun farther under the seat and joined her as she was pulling a flowered ivory valise from the backseat. “You packed?” I said.
“Some of my father’s guns and a couple of knives.”
“Do you mind if I take a look?”
She set the bag back down on the seat. “Go ahead.”
I opened it and looked inside. Pushing as
ide boxes of bullets, I saw a pair of switchblades and a Browning .32, like the one Elizabeth had been carrying in her purse, lying atop a Marlin rifle case. “What, no land mines? No hand grenades?”
She made a sour face at me. “No, but I’m also carrying a couple of guns.”
I closed the bag and lifted it out of the car. “A couple? I saw the one in your purse the other night.” I eyed her. “Where’s the other one?”
“Gentleman don’t ask questions like that.”
“What’s that got to do with me?”
“Oh, you’re right, I’m sorry. It’s none of your business where my guns may or may not be.” We were both giddy with relief.
“So what happened yesterday?” I asked.
“When you didn’t pick me up I called your father’s office. He had Mr. Wilkinson come get my mother and me and bring us to the factory. After he talked with Detective Riordan, we all came here.”
We started walking toward the Pontch. “Why did you leave?” I said.
“I needed to find you.” After a brief hesitation, she added, “We’re partners, right?”
“My father wouldn’t have let you take his car and go out by yourself.”
A shy smile worked its way onto her face. “No. I had to wait until everyone had fallen asleep to swipe the valet ticket for his car and get out of the room. It was three o’clock by then.”
“Is someone guarding them?”
“Yes. Your father has two security men inside. They’re armed.”
“What’s Riordan doing?”
“Last I knew he was out trying to track down Pinsky and the Gianollas. He stopped in at the hotel around eleven but hadn’t had any luck. He left shortly thereafter to run down some leads.”
We walked up to the hotel. The doorman held the door for us, and we hurried inside, taking the elevator to the fourth floor.
When we turned the corner in the hallway, we saw two men wearing the Anderson Electric Car Company’s blue security uniforms standing in front of a room with their hands inside their coats—shoulder holsters, no doubt. They looked twitchy, but when they saw it was us, they relaxed. Both were men in their late fifties or early sixties, and had worked for my father for years. Their normal responsibility was guarding the factory from generally nonexistent thieves, not protecting people from murderers. I was embarrassed that I didn’t know either of their names.
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