Bill Morris - Motor City Burning

“The settlement?” Here we go, he thought.

She clicked her glass against his. “Here’s to my divorce.”

“To your divorce.” He held the celery stalk aside with his index finger and took a drink. He closed his eyes when he swallowed.

“You like it?” she said.

He could hear the anxiety in her voice. “No, I don’t like it, I love it,” he said. “The cracked pepper, the horseradish, the Worcestershire sauce. It’s perfect.” He took another drink. “So. You were married.”

“For two years. The settlement finally came through last week. Now I get to pay the rent on this groovy pad all by myself.” She waved at the room. “This is Ronnie’s idea of class. You’ve really got to wonder about a guy whose favorite color is brown and who’s got more chrome in his living room than he’s got on his car.”

“So what happened to the marriage?”

He was afraid he was pushing too hard, but she didn’t hesitate. “For starters, I married him for all the wrong reasons. I’d just gotten back from New York, my dream of making it as an artist all shot to hell, like I told you. I was a mess. We met at a wedding — and when he asked me to dance, that was it. Guy’s a great dancer. Four months later we were at another wedding. Ours.”

“Then you moved here?”

“No, we lived in an apartment in Warren for a while so he could be close to work — he worked as a stylist at the G.M. Tech Center. Mostly did dashboards and door handles. We moved down here last year because Ronnie wanted to be where the action is. He actually said things like that with a straight face. He talked me into dying my hair that tacky blonde color. He started staying out later and later and got into drugs and eventually lost his job at G.M. Last I heard he was selling auto parts in Ecorse. Or maybe it’s Wyandotte.”

“So what does he drive?”

“Hunh?”

“You said there’s more chrome in this room than there is on his car. You can tell a lot about a man in Detroit by the car he drives.”

“Oh. It’s bright yellow, an Oldsmobile 4-4-something. Loud as hell, and fast. One of Ronnie’s favorite expressions was You can tell the men from the boys by the size of their toys. What a complete jerk.” She sipped her drink. “So how about you?”

“I’ve never been married — or divorced.”

“No, I meant what do you drive?”

“Oh. A baby-shit green ’61 Pontiac Bonneville with a hundred and twenty thousand on the odometer. I love that old thing. You?”

“I just bought a blue Mustang convertible. First new car I’ve ever owned. I love that new thing.”

With marital status and cars out of the way, they were quiet for a while. Frank cocked an ear, picking up the music. She’d put on a Chopin record with the volume way down. “I could change the music if you like,” she said.

“No, no, this is nice.”

“I like to listen to classical on Sunday — it’s so soothing. But I’ve got plenty of Motown. Or I could put on the new Creedence album if you’re into rock—”

“No, please. I love Chopin.” A shower of snowflakes washed over them. “Isn’t that Scherzo No. 3?”

“I’m not sure what it’s called.”

“That’s Van Cliburn playing though, right?”

“As a matter of fact, it is. You actually like Chopin?”

“I love him. I heard Van Cliburn play an all-Chopin program last year at Ford Auditorium. I was in pig heaven.”

“You’re really something, Detective Doyle.”

“How’s that?”

“Well, you’re the first cop I’ve ever met who says ergo and has heard of Chopin. Let alone Van Cliburn.”

He shrugged. “And you’re the first bartender I’ve ever met who studies Mexican murals and listens to classical music at home on her day off. I can’t stand it when people put each other in boxes.”

She went into the kitchen to check on the food. Knowing that he’d spent a week in San Francisco eating at fancy restaurants probably wasn’t doing anything for her self-confidence. He watched as she took a deep breath and started putting the food on plates. “You hungry?” she called to him.

“I’m always hungry.”

“I hope you like Eggs Benedict.”

“I liked them the last time I ate them.”

“When was that?”

He came across the room and leaned against the bar, watched her pouring Hollandaise sauce over the eggs and ham, then spooning out roasted red potatoes with peppers and onions and garlic on the side. “Let’s see — it was a little over a year ago. At the Detroit Club.”

“I didn’t know they allowed cops in there.”

“I didn’t either. But when I got promoted to Homicide last year, the shift commander and my sergeant took me to Sunday brunch there. Brunch!” He laughed softly. “It was their way of baptizing me. On street patrol they do it with Stroh’s and shots of well bourbon. In Homicide, they do it with mimosas and Eggs Benedict.”

“Well, I’m not making any promises that mine are as good as the Detroit Club’s.”

They ate at the glass-topped table with chrome legs in the corner of the L-shaped dining nook. Frank ate quickly, eagerly, with deft movements of knife and fork. He didn’t keep switching the fork from his left hand to his right, the way most men in Detroit did. The fork stayed in his left hand, the knife in his right.

Cecelia was wearing a skirt and espadrilles with open toes, and she’d painted her toenails to match her fingernails, berry red. It was all visible through the glass tabletop, and none of it was lost on Doyle.

“Everything okay?” she asked, topping off their drinks from the pitcher she’d mixed earlier.

“Wonderful. You made this Hollandaise from scratch, didn’t you?”

“First time. Are they as good as the Detroit Club’s?”

“Way better.”

“Really?”

“Swear to God. I wouldn’t lie about something as important as food.”

She believed him. He surprised her by asking for a second helping of potatoes. It was no great sacrifice — the food was sensational — and besides, his mother had taught him that every woman loves to watch a man devour her cooking. In time he learned that it cut both ways. He loved to watch a woman devour his cooking.

In the elevator Cecelia told him pink peonies were her favorite flower, then asked where he’d bought the bouquet.

“I didn’t buy it,” he said.

“Then how. .?”

“I grew them.”

“You grew those flowers?”

“Got a garden behind my house and I built a hot house last year. Now I’ve got flowers and fresh herbs year round.”

She was revising her earlier opinion that he was a member of that legion of men who try too hard. This man grew flowers — and he listened to Chopin and appreciated good food and had good table manners. He even stuck out an arm to hold the elevator door open for her when they reached the lobby. In two years of marriage Ronnie had never held a door open for her once.

Cecelia knew more about baseball than Doyle did. Way more. She knew when base runners were supposed to steal. She knew when managers were supposed to change pitchers. She even knew in the bottom of the 12th that it was time for Mayo Smith to send in Gates Brown to pinch hit. Which he did. Which resulted in a sharp single up the middle that scored the winning run from third base. When Doyle praised her knowledge of the game, she shrugged. “Comes with the territory when you’ve got six brothers.”

Cecelia was so wound up after the game that she insisted they swing by the Lindell AC to decompress. It was packed with fans, roaring and boisterous. The tables were full so they stood at the bar. Doyle spotted Gates Brown and Willie Horton at a corner table, sharing a pitcher of beer with a group of fans. Cecelia pointed out her favorite piece of memorabilia on the walls — the framed jockstrap once worn by Lions linebacker Wayne Walker. When the drinks came she said, “I love coming to the place where Alex Karras got his ass kicked.”