Elmore Leonard: City Primeval

At a press conference following the release of the Tenure Commission opinion, Judge Guy called the investigation a “racist witch-hunt organized by the white-controlled press.” In the same statement he accused the Detroit Police Department of trying to kill him, though offered no evidence of specific attempts.

Alvin Guy stated emphatically that if the State Supreme Court suspended him from office he intended to “write a very revealing book, naming names of people with dirty hands and indecent fingers.

“Remember what I’m saying to you if they suspend me,” Guy added. “The stuff is going to get put on some people, some names that are going to amaze you.”

ONE OF THEvalet parking attendants at Hazel Park Racecourse would remember the judge leaving sometime after the ninth race, about 1:00 A.M., and fill in the first part of what happened. With the judge’s picture in the paper lately and on TV, he was sure it was Alvin Guy in the silver Lincoln Mark VI.

Light skin, about fifty, with a little Xavier Cugat mustache and hair that hung long and stiff over his collar and did not seem to require much straightening.

The other car involved was a Buick, or it might’ve been an Olds, dark color.

The judge had a young white lady with him, about twenty-seven, around in there. Blond hair, long. Dressed up, wearing something like pink, real loose, lot of gold chains around her neck. Good-looking lady. She had on makeup that made her look pale in the arc lights, dark lipstick. The valet parking attendant said the judge didn’t help the lady in. The judge got in on his own side, giving him a dollar tip.

The other car, the dark-colored Buick or Olds-it might’ve been black-was pretty new. Was a man in it. The man’s arm stuck out the window-you know, his elbow did-with the short sleeve rolled up once or twice. The arm looked kind of sunburned and had light kind of reddish-blond-color hair on it.

This other car tried to cut in front of the judge’s car, but the judge kept moving and wouldn’t let him in. So the other car sped off down toward the head of the exit line, down by the gate, the man in a big hurry. There was a lot of horns blowing. The cars down there wouldn’t let the other car in either. People going home after giving their money at the windows, they weren’t giving away nothing else.

It looked like the other car tried to edge in again right as the judge’s car came to the gate to go out on Dequindre. There was a crash. Bam!

The valet parking attendant, Everett Livingston, said he looked down there, but didn’t see anybody get out of the cars. It looked like the judge’s car had run into the front fender of the other car as it tried to nose in. Then the judge’s car backed up some and went around the other car and out the gate, going south on Dequindre toward Nine Mile. The other car must have stalled. A few more cars went past it. Then the other car made it out and that was the last the valet parking attendant saw or thought of them until he read about the judge in the paper.

Leaving the track, all Clement wanted to do was keep Sandy and the Albanian in sight.

Forget the silver Mark VI.

Follow the black Cadillac, the Albanian stiff-arming the wheel like a student driver taking his road test, hugging the inside lane in the night traffic. It should’ve been easy.

Except the Mark kept getting in Clement’s way.

The ding in the fender didn’t bother Clement. It wasn’t his car. Realizing the guy in the Mark was a jig with a white girl didn’t bother him either, too much. He decided the guy was in numbers or dope and if that’s what the girl wanted, some spade with a little fag mustache, fine. Since coming to Detroit, Clement had seen all kinds of jigs with white girls. He didn’t stare at them the way he used to.

But this silver Mark was something else, poking along in the center lane with a half block of clear road ahead, holding Clement back while the Cadillac got lost up there among all the red taillights. The jig was driving his big car with his white lady; he didn’t care who was behind him or if anybody might be in a hurry. That’s what got to Clement, the jig’s attitude. Also, the jig’s hair.

Clement popped on his brights and could see the guy clearly through the rear windshield. The guy’s hair, when he turned to the girl, looked like a black plastic wig, the twenty-nine-dollar tango-model ducktail. Fucking spook. Clement began thinking of the guy as a Cuban-looking jig. Oily looking. Then, as the chicken-fat jig.

Sandy and the Albanian turned right on Nine Mile. Clement got over into the right lane. When he was almost to the corner the silver Mark cut in front of him and made the turn.

Clement said, You believe it?

He followed the taillights around the corner and gunned it, wanting to run up the guy’s silver rear-end. But instinct saved him. Something cautioned Clement to take her easy and, sure enough, there was a dark-blue Hazel Park police car up ahead. The Continental shot past it. The police car kept cruising along and Clement hung back now.

He saw the light at the next intersection, John R, change to green.

The Albanian’s Cadillac was already turning left, followed by several cars. Now the Mark was swinging onto John R without blinking, making a wide sweep past the Holiday Inn on the corner. Clement began to accelerate as the police car continued through the intersection. He reached the corner with the light turning red, heard horns blowing and his tires squealing and thought for a second he was going to jump the curb and shoot into the Holiday Inn-a man on the sidewalk was scooping up his little dog to get out of the way-but Clement didn’t even hit the curb. As he got straightened out he floored it down John R, beneath an arc of streetlights and past neon signs, came up behind the lumbering Mark and laid on his horn. The chicken-fat jig’s head turned to his rear-view mirror. Clement pulled out, glanced over as he passed the Mark and saw the jig’s face and his middle finger raised to the side window.

My oh my, Clement thought. I’ll play a tune on your head, Mr. Jig, you get smart with me.

Except he had to be alert now. The next light was Eight Mile, the Detroit city limits. Sandy and the Albanian could turn either way or make a little jog and pick up 75 if they were headed downtown. If they made the light Clement would have to make it too. Else he’d lose them and have to start all over setting up the Albanian.

The Eight Mile light showed green. Clement gave the car some gas. He glanced over, surprised, feeling a car passing him on the right-the Mark, the silver boat gliding by, then drifting in front of him as Clement tried to speed up, seeing the light turn to amber. There was still time for both of them to skin through; but the chicken-fat jig braked at the intersection and Clement had to jam his foot down hard, felt his rear-end break loose and heard his tires scream and saw that big silver deck right in front of him as he nailed his car to a stop.

Sandy and the Albanian were gone. Nowhere in sight.

The chicken-fat jig had his head cocked, staring at his rear-view mirror.

Clement said, Well, I got time for you now, Mr. Jig, you want to play…

The girl turned half around and had to squint into the bright headlights.

“I think it’s the same one.”

“Sure it is,” Alvin Guy said. “Same wise-ass. You see his license number?”

“He’s too close.”

“When I start up, take a look. If he follows us pick up the phone, tell the operator it’s a nine-eleven.”

“I don’t think I know how to work it,” the girl said. She had lighted a cigarette less than a minute before; now she stubbed it out in the ashtray.

“You don’t know how to do much of anything,” Alvin Guy said to the rear-view mirror. He saw the light change to green and moved straight ahead at a normal speed, watching the headlights reflected in the mirror as he crossed Eight Mile and entered John R again, in Detroit now, and said to the headlights, “Out of Hazel Park now, stupid. You don’t know it, but you’re going down town-assault with a deadly weapon.”