Motor City Burning

by Bill Morris

  Jimmy was looking at his watch, but Doyle beat him to the punch. “Don’t start, Jimmy. I just put sixty-six miles on that old Bonneville. You get my note?”

  “Oh yeah. I got you note.”

  “Where you been, Frank?” Sid said. “Scoping out the co-eds in Ann Arbor?”

  “No, I went out to Birmingham. Got a good look at Helen Hull’s killer.”

  Jimmy yawned. “It’s still your move, Sid.”

  “Fuck you. I know whose move it is.”

  “Where else you been?” Jimmy asked Doyle.

  “Went to St. Clair Shores to talk to a car dealer. Then down to Wyandotte.”

  “What’s in Wyandotte?”

  “Our man Willie Bledsoe’s old Buick—the one that carried the guns to the Larrow Arms. I got there just in time, too. The new owner’d already stripped off almost all the paint. Turns out Bledsoe painted the car solid black just before he traded it in.”

  “So what?”

  “So doesn’t that tell you something?”

  “Tells me the man likes black cars. So do I.” Nobody played devil’s advocate better than Jimmy Robuck. It drove Doyle up the wall sometimes, but they both knew it had to be done. Kept a cop honest. “Is painting you car black a crime now?”

  “No, Jimmy, painting your car black’s not a crime now. But why does a guy get a cheap paintjob on a mint-condition classic car just before he trades it in—unless he’s trying to hide something? For that matter, why does he trade it in in the first place?”

  “People trade up every day in this man’s town. That ain’t no crime neither.”

  “The seats are still red and black, though, just like Charlotte Armstrong remembers them. And there’s oil stains in the trunk. May be gun oil. An evidence team’s on the way to Wyandotte to tear the car apart.”

  “Terrific.” Jimmy turned to Sid. “It’s still your—”

  “Fuck off!”

  “—but while you been out scopin circumstantial shit, Frank, we been doin some real legwork. Ain’t that right, Sid?”

  Sid Wolff groaned and pushed a checker forward one square. “That’s right, you prick.”

  Jimmy performed a triple jump and added Sid’s captured pieces to the tidy stack beside the board.

  “What’d you guys find out?” Doyle said, walking up to Jimmy’s desk and noticing the tomatoes for the first time. There were four plump beefsteaks lined up beside the empty In/Out basket. Doyle picked one up and smelled it. “Where’d you get these?”

  “Grew ’em. They for you. A little thank-you note for turnin me on to the joys of gettin my hands dirty.”

  “Thanks, Jimmy. They’re beautiful.”

  “Thank you, Frank. Flo’s makin ratatouille as we speak.” It was the French dish Frank served the first time he had Flo and Jimmy over to his place. Most delicious food Jimmy ever ate. Doyle said he made it from scratch with things he grew in his back yard and on his kitchen windowsill—all the vegetables, even the garlic, basil, thyme and parsley. That was the night Jimmy decided to take up gardening. It made sense. When he and Flo got urban-renewed out of Paradise Valley—the planners flattened the whole neighborhood to make way for the Chrysler Freeway, a slap in the face to every black person in the city—the Robucks bought a place in Conant Gardens, out near 7 Mile. Every house had a deep back yard designed to accommodate a garden. After that ratatouille feast at Frank’s, Jimmy decided to plant a garden of his own. These four beefsteaks were the first things he’d harvested, and he hadn’t felt so proud since his youngest girl’s college graduation. He turned to Sid. “Your move again.”

  “You say another fucking word and I’m gonna come across this desk and ring your neck, you ruthless black bastard.”

  After putting the tomatoes on his desk, Doyle said, “So what’d you guys find out?”

  “Tell him what we found out, Sid.”

  “We matched the thirty-cal bullet that came out of Helen Hull with one of the guns from the Riopelle raid.”

  Doyle couldn’t speak at first. Then he was babbling. “Jimmy!—Sid!—that’s the best fucking!—that’s!—we’ve!—this is the one we been waiting for!”

  “Calm down,” Jimmy said. “Turns out they were half a dozen Winchester Model 70 target rifles in that warehouse. One of ’em had a very nice Starlight scope on it. Infra-red. The kind preferred by snipers in Namland after the sun goes down. That was the one the slug matched.”

  “God damn, Jimmy! We got our murder weapon!”

  Between Doyle’s delight and Sid’s misery, Jimmy was having himself a time. “Man, you wouldn’t believe some a the shit come out that warehouse. Am I right, Sid?”

  “You’re always right, Jimmy. Your ass is the blackest.”

  “Automatics, assault rifles, M-1s and M-14s, Remington M-700s, grenades, claymore mines, thousands a rounds a ammo. Man, them niggers was fixin to make some noise. No wonder Mr. Viet Cong’s kickin so much ass—the shit that’s suppose to be killin him’s on the wrong side a the Pacific Ocean.”

  Jimmy could see that Doyle wasn’t thinking about Vietnam. He was thinking about the gun. He’d spent the day chasing his tail all over metropolitan Detroit and had come up with nothing they could use in court—while Jimmy walked up one flight of stairs and came back down with the single most crucial piece of the whole puzzle. Now Doyle said what Jimmy expected him to say: “You able to get any prints off the gun?”

  “Got a few decent latents,” Sid said. “Nothing we’ve been able to match so far. Records is still running the prints, said it might take ’em a couple days.”

  “They make any arrests when they raided the warehouse?” Doyle said.

  “Just one,” Jimmy said, standing up and stretching. “Gentleman name of Alvin Hairston. Apparently it was his job to make sure nobody broke into the armory. I’m afraid he’s not the talkative type.”

  “Alvin Hairston,” Doyle said. “Why’s that name familiar?”

  “Probably cause he’s a wild-eyed nigger likes to see his name in the newspaper. He come here from New York a couple years back with that group called itself the Northern Student Movement. All they are’s unemployed niggers. He set up a bunch a Black Power rallies, called Detroit ‘Upper Mississippi,’ shit like that.”

  “Right. You find Alvin’s prints on any of the guns?”

  “Not a one,” Sid said. “I don’t even think he knows how to use the damn things. Kid looks like a fag you ask me.”

  “Where is he?”

  “Got him housed on the seventh floor,” Jimmy said. “He pulled Judge Columbo at his hearing. I do believe Hizzoner’s still pissed off about last summer. Hank the Deuce couldn’ta covered Alvin’s bail.”

  “He ask for a lawyer?”

  “Nah, he ain’t that smart. He’s asleep.”

  “I give up,” Sid said, brushing the pieces off the checkerboard and standing up. He reached for his sportcoat, a nice plaid polyester number. “Can I buy you boys a drink?”

  “You certainly may,” Jimmy said. “To the victor go the spoils—and the Chivas Regal.”

  “But Jimmy,” Doyle said, “what about Alvin?”

  “What about him? He ain’t goin nowhere. Come on, let’s go have a few pops, celebrate a little. Sid’s buyin. We can start beatin on Alvin in the mornin.”

  It was Frank’s turn to make the call on where they went, so Sid and Jimmy followed his ratty old Bonneville out East Jefferson to the Riverboat. Jimmy had only been in the place a couple of times. It had brass rails and a lot of mirrors and a nice view across the river, a mixed-race clientele of salesmen and car guys and secretaries. More of a pickup place than a cop kind of place. Jimmy figured Frank had a reason for bringing them there.

  He saw the reason standing behind the bar, flipping cardboard coasters like a blackjack dealer. She was tall with some serious curves, and she was looking at Doyle in a way that made it hard to tell if she wanted to kiss him or slap him.

  “Well hello there, stranger,” she said with a crooked smile.
>
  “Hello, Cecelia,” Doyle said. “Brought you two of the worst reprobates in the city. This is my partner, Jimmy Robuck. And this is Sid Wolff, from ballistics. Cecelia Cronin, gentlemen. She’s in grad school at Wayne State.”

  They shook her hand and said their hellos. Then she was back on Doyle, still smiling but a little sharper now. “Your phone broken?”

  “Um, no . . . listen, Cecelia, I’ve been meaning . . . we been busier’n hell for—”

  “The past three weeks?”

  Jimmy took pity on him. “He ain’t lyin, Cecelia. They been workin us like dogs the past month. It’s been Murder City out there. Ain’t that right, Sid?”

  “That’s right, Jimmy. Murder City.”

  “So what’ll it be, gentlemen?” she said, still looking at Frank, her smile not quite so crooked.

  “Chivas on the rocks,” Jimmy said. “Better make it a double.”

  “I’ll have a Stroh’s,” Doyle said.

  “Just a Coke for me, thanks,” Sid said.

  They were sitting at the curved part of the U-shaped bar and they all watched her walk to the far end to fix the drinks. Her green skirt was cut tight and didn’t try too hard to hide her legs.

  “That,” Jimmy said, “is some serious boo-tay.”

  “Since when you start effin college girls, Frank?” Sid said.

  “Fuck the both of you,” Doyle said. “She’s in grad school. She’s a year older than me.”

  “If I ever forgot to call Flo for three weeks like that . . .” Jimmy shook his head. He didn’t even want to think about it.

  “You and Flo’ve been married for twenty-five years, Jimmy. I’ve been out with Cecelia twice.”

  “Still and all. . . .”

  “Legs like that,” Sid said, “I’ll bet she’s a real tiger in the sack, eh Frank?”

  Doyle told them to fuck off again but Jimmy could tell that for once he wasn’t bothered by the teasing. When the drinks came they talked a little shop, they talked about the Tigers, they talked about their gardens. Doyle wasn’t all the way there. He had one eye on Cecelia as she moved back and forth behind the bar, but Jimmy knew him well enough to know that mostly he was thinking about the good news they’d gotten today and how he was going to play it with Alvin Hairston in the morning.

  After their second round, Jimmy said he had to be getting home, had a date with a pot of ratatouille. When Sid asked for the check, Frank said he was going to stay and have one for the road. Jimmy reminded him to go easy. They had a big day tomorrow.

  Just before he and Sid left the room, Jimmy turned to wave goodbye. Cecelia had her elbows on the bar, her face inches from Doyle’s. There wasn’t anything crooked about her smile now. Jimmy had a hunch his partner was going to show up late for work tomorrow morning. If he showed up at all.

  Didn’t matter one way or the other to Jimmy. Like he’d said, Alvin Hairston wasn’t goin nowhere.

  20

  AFTER HE TRADED HIS ’54 BUICK FOR THE DEUCE AND A QUARTER, Willie made a point of swinging by Murphy Buick at least once every day. He wouldn’t be able to quit worrying until the old Century disappeared. Every day, to his horror, it was right there in the front row on the Mack Avenue side of the lot, the chrome teeth of its front bumper winking in the sunshine, a pink helium balloon bobbing from its antenna, and CHERRY ’54!!! written in big red block letters on its wraparound windshield. The car sat there for an agonizing week, just begging the cops to come in and ask all the wrong kinds of questions.

  And then one day—just like that—it was gone. Vanished. Willie couldn’t believe his eyes at first. He made three laps around the lot to make sure they hadn’t moved the car. It was definitely gone. A fifty-pound sack of sand was lifted from Willie’s back.

  At Oakland Hills that night he worked a private cocktail party attended by Chick Murphy and a couple dozen other drunk and boisterous Buick dealers. As the party was breaking up, Willie took an empty glass from Chick Murphy and managed to sound casual as he asked what had become of his old Buick.

  “Sold that crate this morning,” Chick Murphy said. “Kid from downriver practically stole it from me, says he’s going to turn it into a hot rod.”

  The very next day Uncle Bob dropped by Willie’s apartment for their long-overdue heart-to-heart talk. It took some doing, but Willie managed to convince his uncle that he and Wes had had nothing to do with any shooting from the rooftop of the Larrow Arms; they hadn’t even heard any gunshots. Willie said he’d driven Wes home that night and patched him up because Wes had gotten a vicious beating from the cops who broke up the craps game and shot those people at the Algiers Motel. This finally placated his uncle. Can’t fault a man for looking after family in a crisis. It hurt Willie to dupe a man as decent as Uncle Bob, but he didn’t see that he had any choice.

  After his uncle left, Willie spent the rest of the afternoon on his porch admiring the shiny blue ragtop parked at the curb. Seeing his new Deuce in plain view out on Pallister and knowing that his old Buick was gone gave Willie the giddy feeling that he’d slipped the noose. He knew he wasn’t in the clear yet, but he quit waiting for his brother to call from Denver. No detective revisited his uncle or telephoned his mother. Alphonso Johnson’s legal woes became old news, and there was no new news about investigations or arrests related to the riot. Willie even managed to convince himself that during the test drive in the Deuce he’d done a good job of deflecting Chick Murphy’s suspicions about Blythe flirting with the guys at Oakland Hills. It helped that the weather had turned hot and the city was gripped by a strange malady known as pennant fever. All anyone could talk about was the Tigers. As long as they kept winning, Willie felt safe. A new sense of ease possessed him. While he was smart enough to be distrustful of it, he was also desperate enough to be grateful for it. It helped that he’d missed the news about the raid on the Riopelle warehouse.

  After working the dinner shift at Oakland Hills several nights later, he was sitting at home listening to some Thelonious Monk and talking to Octavia on the telephone. They talked almost every night now, and he found it strangely soothing to listen to her gossipy monologs about life inside the Motown studios. It was a welcome escape, like watching a soap opera on TV. As the conversation was winding down that night, he was idly thumbing through his files when the picture of him with Bob Moses at the Farce on Washington fell out of a folder and landed face-down on the floor. Only then did he realize there was writing on the back. It said: Two soulful brothers, Bob M. and Willie B., at the March on Washington, August 1963. With love and respect, D.N.

  For days the initials tormented Willie. The harder he tried to place them, the dimmer they seemed to grow. His torment was made worse by his hunch that the identity of D.N. might be the key that would finally unlock the door. He kept returning dutifully to the microfilm room at the library, but nothing jogged his memory. He began to feel panicky. Had his brief run of good luck already dried up?

  He kept scrolling through newspaper microfilm and reading back issues of magazines, hoping something would reveal the identity of D.N. Finally he came to the edition of the Michigan Chronicle that carried the front-page picture Clyde had mentioned at the Seven Seas. Snapped moments after the Freedom Riders were attacked outside the Montgomery bus station, it showed Willie in the middle of the frame, looking dazed, blood pouring out of his mouth. On the right was a tall lanky white guy named Jim Zwerg, who was reaching into his own bloody mouth for loosened teeth. On the left, looking strangely composed, was John Lewis, his shirt spattered with blood. The accompanying article appeared under the by-line of Moses Newsome, Special to the Chronicle. The same writer from Baltimore who had been interviewing Willie when the fire-bomb came through the Greyhound’s rear window outside Anniston. Willie knew he was getting close.

  Two days later the front page of the May 24, 1961, New York Times swam onto his microfilm screen at the library. There was a picture of Jim Farmer, Ralph Abernathy, Martin Luther King Jr., and John Lewis at a press conference in
Montgomery, announcing after three days of fierce debate that the Freedom Riders would continue from Montgomery into Mississippi and from there on to their original destination, New Orleans. Though Willie was certain he had never seen the picture before, it looked familiar. It was spooky, like déjà vu before the fact. He kept staring until it hit him: He had been standing next to the man who took the picture. He had seen the picture before it was a picture. Now Willie remembered the photographer—a big sweaty white guy named Larry something who worked for the Associated Press and wore a pistol on his hip to discourage people from messing with him or his cameras.

  The most arresting detail in the photograph was the bandage on John Lewis’s head, which covered the gash where he’d had his skull cracked during the melee at the bus station. The sight of that bandage was enough to make Willie’s lip throb. He kept studying the four Negroes sitting at the table full of microphones. Jim Farmer was at the top of the frame. The head of a New York group called CORE, Farmer had come up with the idea of the Freedom Rides as a way of testing new desegregation laws on interstate bus routes in the Deep South. He was on one of the buses that left Washington, D.C., on May 4. He rode as far as Atlanta but had to return to Washington for his father’s funeral. When the story started making national headlines—that is, when buses and riders started getting photogenically attacked—Farmer had flown from Washington to Montgomery, eager be part of the blossoming coverage. Willie and his fellow riders distrusted Farmer instinctively. To them he looked like an overfed businessman who’d gotten off a plane at the wrong airport.

  Next to Farmer sat solid, decent Abernathy, who, as always, looked like he was melting from the glare of all this unwelcome publicity. Next to Abernathy sat King, who had flown in from Atlanta for the mass meeting at Abernathy’s church the night after the riot at the bus station. To King’s left sat John Lewis, the only Freedom Rider in the picture, the only one of the four who had put his body on the line.