Motor City Shakedown

by D. E. Johnson

  We dressed, and after I filled Elizabeth in on my conversation with Abe, we walked into the den. She sat in one of the chairs in front of my desk. I stood near the window, adjusting the gun in my belt while I looked through the blinds at the street in front of the building. Bursts of firecrackers shot out, some near, some far.

  Without turning around, I said, “May I ask you a question?”

  “Yes.” She sounded amused.

  “You don’t have to answer it,” I said, “and either way I won’t hold it against you.”

  “What is it?” She didn’t sound amused anymore.

  Still looking out the window, I said, “Your mother told me you got back in July. Moretti was killed in August. Were you here?”

  She hesitated only a second. “Yes. I’ve been meaning to tell you, but it never seemed like the right time. I had nothing to do with—”

  “Son of a bitch!”

  “Will, let me explain.”

  “No, not that,” I said. “Out there.” The blue Hudson, with two big men in the front, pulled to the curb across the street. The driver wore a straw boater, the passenger a derby. I couldn’t tell if he was Sergeant Rogers, though that didn’t much matter. It would have been a fine time to exit via the back door, but we couldn’t leave the apartment. If they broke in, they had us.

  Elizabeth walked over and spread the blinds with her fingers. “That’s the car that followed us from Ford City.”

  “Yeah. The Gang Squad.”

  Both men turned and looked up at my apartment. Rogers was the man in the passenger seat. Elizabeth let go of the blinds, and we stepped back.

  “What do we do?” she said.

  “If they come up here, I’m not opening the door.”

  Elizabeth took half a step closer to the window. “I guess we’re going to see how they react to that.”

  I looked. Both men were crossing the street. Rogers had his pistol out, checking the load.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  I ran to the door and turned the key in the lock, then hurried to the parlor and opened the window over the fire escape. “Watch the back,” I whispered to Elizabeth. “One of them might come around. If not, that’s our escape route.”

  She nodded but a second later pushed me farther away from the window. “The driver just came around the corner.”

  Footsteps pounded up the stairs and then knocks sounded against my door.

  I pulled the .32 from my belt and whispered to Elizabeth, “Have you got that gun handy?”

  She nodded.

  “You might need it.”

  She took hold of my arm and led me back into my den—the farthest corner away from the door. “You want me to shoot a policeman?”

  “No, but I’m not letting them stop us.”

  She shook her head. “All right. Turn around.” She reached down and started to pull up her skirt. I watched as the fabric rose above her ankle to the curve of her calf, but when I arched an eyebrow she punched me in the arm. I grudgingly turned around until I no longer heard the sound of fabric rustling. I turned back to see that she had a little Mauser pistol, smaller than her hand.

  The knocks got louder. Rogers called out, “Anderson! Don’t make me break down the door!”

  Elizabeth’s forehead creased in concentration. She looked at the window. “Could we get up to the roof from here?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve never tried.”

  Glancing out the front, she raised the blinds and threw open the window, then stuck her head out and twisted around. “The gutter is only a couple of feet above the top of the window,” she whispered. “Do you think you could pull yourself up?”

  “With one arm?”

  Something crashed against my front door. It held.

  “I’ll go up first and help you,” she said. “It’s our only way out. Here.” She handed me her purse, then with no ceremony at all, she hiked up her skirt and slid the gun back into the holster. I put her purse inside the file drawer in my desk while Elizabeth climbed out on the windowsill and worked her feet onto the ledge, a chunk of stone that stuck out perhaps five inches.

  “I don’t know about this,” I said.

  “Shh. Hold on to me.”

  The door shuddered a second time. I held Elizabeth’s arm as she eased up against the window.

  “Give me a boost,” she whispered. I used my left arm to thrust her upward. Her feet dangled in front of the window for a moment, swaying back and forth, and then lowered back to the ledge. I wrapped my left arm around her thighs to hold her there. “Damn it,” she said. “I’m not strong enough.”

  Another smash against the door. This time, it sounded like wood splintered.

  “I’ll help you,” I said. “Move over.”

  Elizabeth slid to the end of the ledge, about a foot past the window. I climbed out, trying not to look down. Rogers hit the door again, and it crashed open, followed by another crash, this one brittle and sharp—something from my china cabinet hitting the floor. I eased myself to my feet, reaching up with my left hand for the gutter. “Quickly,” I said, edging across the ledge to Elizabeth.

  I bent down to grasp her around her thighs. Quiet footsteps, heel to toe, were just audible. Rogers was close.

  “Get away from the window,” I whispered, and slid back to the other side just as a shadow fell across the windowsill. We flattened ourselves against the bricks, trying to keep our weight back as our shoes hung over the edge.

  The footsteps started up again, moving away, but returned perhaps thirty seconds later, stopping at the window. I held my breath. Then Rogers stepped away, his footsteps quieting as he moved from the den. A minute later, he yelled, “Seen anything?” It sounded like he was in the parlor.

  “Nothing!” the other detective shouted back.

  “All right. Stay back there and keep an eye out. I’m going to see if I can figure out what he’s up to.” He started walking again, his shoes clomping across the floor this time, louder and louder. A chair—my desk chair—creaked. A drawer slid open, objects rattled around, and the drawer slammed shut. A few streets over, a string of firecrackers blew off, fifteen or twenty little bangs.

  I glanced over at Elizabeth. Her eyes were closed, and the fingers of both her hands gripped the gutter.

  Another drawer opened. “Huh,” Rogers said. A few seconds later, a number of objects clattered onto a hard surface.

  My weight shifted the slightest bit forward, and I swayed out over the edge. I was just able to get my balance before taking a three-story drop. Something slapped onto the desk, and Rogers began riffling through papers.

  From the corner of my eye, I caught a movement to our left. The detective in the straw boater was walking across the lawn, heading for the Hudson. I looked at Elizabeth again. Her eyes were still screwed shut, and she looked like she was trying to meld into the wall. The detective skipped onto the cobbles and crossed the street to the car.

  My heart hammered. As soon as he turned around he would see us. Rogers sat at my desk, five feet from the window. We had nowhere to go.

  The detective leaned over into the Hudson, grabbed something, and began to turn around.

  * * *

  “Harmon!” a man yelled. The detective’s head jerked back, and he looked at the side of the house opposite my building. I followed his eyes.

  Detective Riordan walked out from between the houses, both hands high in the air. “I’m giving myself up.”

  What? An instant later I understood. He was surrendering to keep Elizabeth and me from being caught.

  The detective pulled his gun and leveled it at Riordan, who kept walking toward him. “Sergeant!” the cop called out, his eyes never leaving Riordan’s form.

  My desk chair creaked again. Rogers’s shadow slid across the windowsill and stopped. “Riordan,” he muttered. “Will wonders never cease?” He walked briskly from the den, his footsteps pounding away.

  “Elizabeth,” I hissed. “Inside. Now.”

  She nodded. Her
eyes were wide. We both grabbed hold of the underside of the window. She must have lost her balance because the window jerked down, pulling me into her. We both began falling off the ledge.

  As I fell, I hooked my left arm over the sill and grabbed Elizabeth’s shirtwaist with my right hand. She clawed for the ledge but missed. Bolts of pain shot up from my hand and shoulder, but I clamped my left arm against the inside wall and clenched my teeth, fighting through the pain, desperate to hold on to Elizabeth. She reached up, legs kicking, took hold of my belt, and began trying to climb up my body.

  Three floors below, the front door opened, and Sergeant Rogers walked out, cutting across the lawn toward the two detectives standing in the street, one holding a gun on the other.

  Elizabeth pulled herself up, one hand at a time. When she was finally able to take hold of the windowsill, I reached down with my right hand and helped boost her up. She fell inside, then jumped up and grabbed my shirt. We both pulled. I got a leg up on the ledge and then we tumbled onto the floor of the den.

  Finally able to relax my muscles, I collapsed. Tidal waves of pain crashed onto me. The next thing I knew, Elizabeth was leaning over me, lightly slapping my face. “Will, wake up. Will.”

  The pain came back, so intense I was sick to my stomach. I took a shuddering breath, and another, trying to push down the agony in my hand and shoulder.

  Elizabeth peeked out the window. “They’re coming back,” she whispered.

  I fought my way to my knees. “Inside my wardrobe. He won’t search the place again.”

  She helped me to my feet, and we hurried to my bedroom and climbed inside the wardrobe, pushing back into the soft folds of clothing. Elizabeth pulled the door closed behind us, and the light extinguished. I thought I was going to be sick. “What’d they do,” I panted, “with Riordan?”

  “The other detective cuffed him,” Elizabeth whispered. “I don’t—”

  Leather shoes slapped against the wooden floor, getting louder. They stopped. A moment later, muffled voices began talking. Rogers. And Riordan. I pushed the door open an inch.

  “—should just take me in,” Riordan said. “Let the chief sort it out.”

  “What’s your story, anyway?” Rogers said. “I mean, I understand the whole ‘last cop with integrity’ shtick, I appreciate that. But why always against the grain? Why can’t you get along?”

  Riordan barked out a laugh. “Tell me what grain I should be going with? The cops with their hands in everybody else’s pockets? Or cops with their heads so far up the chief’s ass they can smell his breath? Like you, for example. Now take me in or let me go.”

  “All right,” Rogers said. “I’ll be happy to have you brought in.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “I’m not going anywhere,” Rogers said, with a sneer in his voice. “Why’d you show up here, Riordan? Coincidence? I don’t think so. I think you were meeting your buddy Anderson.”

  “Why are you here, anyway?” Riordan said. “Why aren’t you after the gangsters you’re supposed to be catching?”

  “Which one is he working with, Adamo or Gianolla?”

  Riordan laughed again. “Rogers, you’re not stupid enough to believe he’s a gangster, are you?”

  “Don’t matter what I believe, Tommy.” One set of footsteps pounded across the wood floor and stopped abruptly. Rogers began talking a few moments later. He gave my address, asked for a patrol wagon, and hung up. Footsteps again. “Let’s go outside,” he said. “Don’t want to scare away your pal. I’d expect he’s coming home soon.”

  The door slammed after them and rebounded against the wall. I pushed the wardrobe door the rest of the way open, and we climbed out and crept into the den. Staying in the shadows, we looked out the window.

  Rogers and the other detective stuffed Riordan into the back of the Hudson. They conferred for a minute before the other detective cut around to the back of my building again.

  “I’ll see where he’s going,” Elizabeth whispered. “Watch Rogers.” She tiptoed out of the den, heading up the hall to the parlor. Keeping my eyes focused on the detective, I sat in my desk chair. Elizabeth’s purse lay upside down on the desk, the contents strewn across the top.

  Rogers climbed into the Hudson, started it up, and drove down Peterboro to Third, pulling around the corner. After he got the car turned around, he parked where he had a full view of the front of the building but wouldn’t be conspicuous.

  Elizabeth tiptoed back into the den with the bottle of aspirin and a cup from my bathroom. “He’s hiding behind the shed in back.” She unscrewed the top of the aspirin bottle and gave it to me.

  I shook out five or six tablets and popped them in my mouth, then took the glass and washed them down. “Thanks.” I looked at the wall clock. It was eight thirty now. Two and a half hours until we had to be at the restaurant. Some time between now and then, one of the Gianolla brothers would call with instructions.

  I hoped Rogers had somewhere to go tonight.

  * * *

  My front door creaked. I pulled the .32 out of my belt and stood by the den’s doorway, listening. Shoes clomped across the wood. I tightened my grip on the pistol. Then a child’s voice whispered, “Anderson. Anderson. You here?”

  I looked around the corner. It was Izzy. He looked younger than his ten years. His black hair stuck out underneath his floppy newsboy cap, and his clothes were about two sizes too large. Smiling, I tucked the gun into my belt and waved him down the hall.

  Elizabeth tiptoed out of the parlor and followed him. He turned to her. “Hey, doll.” I could hear the smile in his voice.

  “Hello, Izzy.” She was smiling too. His obnoxiousness was endearing to her as well.

  “Aw, why’d ya cut off the locks?” he said to her.

  She shrugged. “Had to.”

  “Well, I’d still take ya out on the town, sweetheart,” Izzy said as they walked up the hall. He nodded at me. “What was the circus act about?”

  “Oh, out there?” I hooked my thumb toward the den.

  Rolling his eyes, he said, “No, the elephant parade.” The Bernstein boys didn’t suffer fools gladly.

  “Just trying to stay out of sight.”

  “Hanging out the fuckin’ window prolly ain’t the best way to do that, college boy.”

  Elizabeth snickered.

  “I’ll try to remember that.” I could hear a siren now.

  Izzy looked off toward the front door. “The bulls do the remodelin’?”

  “Yep. How’d you get in without them seeing you?”

  “Ya got some neighbors downstairs ain’t too careful about latchin’ their windows. Came in the side.”

  Elizabeth whispered, “I’ll keep an eye out,” and padded into the den.

  Izzy held out his hand. “Abe says you got a hundred for me.”

  “Oh, right. Wait here.” I crept into my bedroom and pulled half my remaining inheritance—five twenty-dollar bills—from the nightstand. When I turned around, Izzy was peering through the bedroom door. The siren kept getting louder.

  “No use looking for valuables,” I said. He didn’t even have the manners to look sheepish. I gave him the money. “Tell him to hurry.”

  The siren was deafening. It shut off abruptly. Brakes squealed and springs creaked in front of the building. Seconds later the engine revved, and the vehicle pulled away.

  Elizabeth stuck her head out of the den. “They took him. Rogers is sitting in the car.”

  Izzy started down the hall before stopping in his tracks and turning back to me. “You gotta get out a here, right? What’cha gonna do about the cops?”

  “I figured we’d sneak out after dark.”

  His lips pursed, and he moved them back and forth while he thought. Looking up at me again, he said, “I could keep ’em from follering ya. Cost ya ’nother one a these.” He held up the twenties.

  “And you would do what?”

  “Got some taters?”

  “Yeah.” He followed me
into the kitchen, and I pulled a canvas bag of potatoes from the pantry.

  He grabbed as many as he could fit into his pockets. “These oughtta do the job.” Holding out his hand, he said, “Awright. Hand it over.”

  I went back to my bedroom for another twenty and gave it to him. He gestured toward the front of the building and grinned. “Just watch the buggy.”

  “Get word to Abe right away that I paid you.”

  “Yeah, this’ll take two shakes. Turd’ll never know I was there.” He headed for the foyer.

  “Hey, Izzy,” Elizabeth said.

  He stopped and turned around.

  “Be careful.”

  Wagging his eyebrows at her, he said, “I knew you’d come around. Come see me when you’re ready for a real man.” He glanced at me. “No offense.” He walked out into the hallway without a good-bye.

  Elizabeth and I shared a smile before we tiptoed to the den and took our places on either side of the window. Dusk was approaching. The street was bathed in a golden hue with elongated shadows cutting across the lawns, stealing the daylight. Rogers was slumped down in the seat.

  Perhaps a minute later, Elizabeth nudged me and pointed down Third Street. Izzy was peeking around the corner of the house behind Rogers’s car. He was just the depth of the front yard, perhaps forty feet, away from the Hudson. He moved stealthily across the lawn, staying in the shadows. When he reached the sidewalk he eased himself to the ground and crawled, soldier style, to the street behind the car. Rogers never moved.

  Izzy pulled the potatoes out of his pockets and laid them on the cobbles. He selected one and pushed it into the tailpipe. It slipped right in. The next one took a little more work to fit in, and the last couple of them were much too large to fit easily. It was hard to see clearly from the third floor, but it looked like he was screwing the larger potatoes into the tailpipe.

  I realized I’d been holding my breath. “You’ve done this before, haven’t you, Izzy?” I whispered.

  When he finished, he peeked out at Rogers from under the car and began crawling up toward the sidewalk, where he stood, sneaked back to the house, and disappeared behind it.