Bill Morris - Motor City Burning

“You mean where he got busted for betting on games?”

“No, don’t you remember? He came in here with a bunch of guys from the Lions and picked a fight with that pro wrestler, Dick the Bruiser. Got his clock cleaned, way I heard it.”

“And people think wrestling’s fake.”

“Tell that to Alex Karras.”

They laughed. They’d been laughing all afternoon. Doyle found her easy to be with, and even easier on the eyes. With one espadrille propped on the brass rail, she went unnoticed by no one in the largely male crowd, and she seemed right at home in the loud smoky company of men. She was aware that these men were aware of her, yet she wore the awareness with an easy grace. It was, Doyle thought, the rarest of womanly arts. Probably had something to do with those six brothers.

When the drinks were gone she offered to buy a second round but Doyle said he had a better idea. “You like jazz?”

“The only kind of music I don’t like is country. Can’t stand all that weepy hillbilly shit.” She broke into a fair approximation of Mel Tillis’s anthem for all the displaced Southern yokels marooned in the Motor City: “Last night I went to sleep in Dee-troit city. . By day I make the cars, and by night I’m a-makin the bars. . I wanna go home, ohhhhhhhh Lord, I wanna go home. .”

Doyle said, “I know a place that has jam sessions on Sunday. I saw Charlie Parker there when I was in high school.”

“I’ve got a paper to finish, remember?”

“We’ll only stay for one set. I’ll get you home early. Promise.”

“Well, if you promise. . ”

As he guided the Bonneville out Grand River, away from downtown, he asked her if her door was locked.

“No. Should it be?”

“Yes. Please lock it.”

“How come?”

“Because you’re a fool if you don’t in this town.” Even though it was Sunday. Even though the day was fair and the sun was barely brushing the treetops and he had a snub-nosed Smith & Wesson insurance policy tucked under the driver’s seat.

“What’s a big mean cop like you scared of, hunh?”

“I’m not big and I’m not mean and I’m not scared. I’m just being smart. Believe me, there’s a big difference.”

But she wouldn’t let it go. “I think you’re scared. Well I’m not scared — and I’m not locking my door. Can’t make me.” She folded her arms, stuck her lower lip out in a fake pout.

Now she was pissing him off. Most of the people he knew who thought they were fireproof had gotten burned; more than a few had gotten dead. The alcohol had helped turn Cecelia’s native confidence into cockiness, but she was too pretty, too noticeable, too ripe a mark to be able to afford the luxury of cockiness in this part of Detroit. It was time to instill a little fear in her, for her own good. He said, “See that stain on the carpet, there by your feet?”

“Yeah. What is it, motor oil?”

“No, it’s blood.”

She moved her feet away from it. “How’d it get there?”

“Same way that dent got in the dashboard.”

He gave her the short version of the night he was driving on this very stretch of Grand River three winters ago, headed to Olympia to meet his brother for a Red Wings game. While he waited at a red light, his unlocked passenger door swung open and a big black girl with a yellow wig and turquoise eye shadow slid onto the front seat beside him. He told her to get out. Hookers had long ago lost their power to rattle him. As he reached to turn down the radio he felt the tip of a knife blade pressing against his throat.

The light turned green and she told him to take the next left and suddenly they were moving away from the lights of Grand River, into a dark tunnel. As soon as he felt the knife blade leave his neck, he slammed on the brakes and jammed the gearshift into park. Her face made a loud POP! when it hit the dashboard and he grabbed a fistful of yellow wig and kept banging her face against the dash. Blood was pouring from her nose and mouth onto the carpet. She’d dropped the knife. He reached around her and opened the passenger door and shoved her out with his foot. He didn’t bother to wash the blood out of the carpet or fix the dent in the dashboard.

When he finished telling the story, Cecelia said, “Okay, you win.” She locked her door, then slid across the bench seat, pressed herself against his ribs. His anger vanished as suddenly as it had arrived. He put his arm around her and pulled her close as he made the jog at West Grand Boulevard onto Dexter, then headed north.

Dexter, like Twelfth, carried a load of memories for Doyle, and as he drove slowly up the street he pointed out the numerous shops with Jewish names on the signs — Dozodin Market, Sussman Printing, Goldman Hardware. It was an illusion, he told her, because when the Jewish merchants gave up, as often as not they sold their businesses to Arabs — A-rabs, in the lingo of the street — Syrians, Palestinians and Chaldeans.

“What’re Chaldeans?” Cecelia said.

“Iraqi Catholics. Under the Chaldeans’ code, a slight to any man is a slight to his entire family, and retribution has to be swift and final. Last winter this junkie with a gun held up the new Chaldean owners at Gutman Brothers Variety, a party store over on Linwood. Thought he’d made the perfect score — couple hundred in cash plus a half dozen Hershey bars for good measure, then out the door clean as a whistle. Two nights later, the junkie winds up in the basement of Gutman Brothers handcuffed to a pole with a chained German Shepherd snapping a few inches from his crotch. After a day of that, Johnny and Tommy Yacoub went down and beat the living shit out of the guy and then un-cuffed him and told him to get lost and stay lost. Next time they’d kill him. The Chaldeans’ code says to hell with probable cause, to hell with search warrants, reasonable doubt, Miranda rights and all the rest of it. If you know the guy did it, you make him pay. There’s more than a few cops in this town who think they’re on to something.”

“But not you.”

“Let’s put it this way. There’s never been another holdup, or so much as a report of shoplifting at Gutman’s. It’s hard to argue with that kind of results.”

They pulled up in front of the Drome Lounge at dusk, just as the pink neon martini glass in the front window started sputtering to life. Muffled jazz leaked out of the place, drowsy drinking music. Doyle hurried around and opened Cecelia’s door. She took his hand and, rising to her full height, kissed him on the lips. “Thanks for the tour,” she said.

“My pleasure.”

“I do believe you love this sorry old city.”

“Yeah, I do. I really do.”

“I promise I’ll never accuse you of being scared again.”

He shrugged. “Nothing wrong with being scared.”

They kissed again, longer this time, then walked arm-in-arm past two sharply dressed black guys who were leaning against the club’s side wall. Doyle watched them watching him. He didn’t recognize them. Drug dealers or pimps, he guessed. They rattled him even less than hookers.

The place was half full, the Benny Anflick Trio on the bandstand. As though on cue, the seductive music they’d heard from the street died and Benny launched into one of his drum solos. When you own the place, you get to bang on your drums as much as you want. The other players, a sax man and a bassist, yawned and checked their watches. Doyle thought of that long-ago night when that bandstand belonged to Charlie Parker, the doomed god. Things had slid at the Drome, just like they’d slid everywhere else in this town.

Doyle guided Cecelia to the booth near the front door, as far from the bandstand as they could get. The booth was bathed in lovely pink neon from the martini glass, a light that had the power to make the world go away. Cecelia slid onto the bench facing the bandstand and ordered a whiskey sour. Doyle slid in beside her and asked for a Stroh’s. Again he had a splendid view of her thighs. All through the ballgame he’d had to fight off the urge to bend down and plant his lips on the succulent slopes of those thighs. When he looked up he saw Walt Kanka waving from the far end of the bar.