Bill Morris - Motor City Burning

Her hands grappled with his zipper. She moaned as she guided his cock up into her, and then her head was banging the car’s roof as she pumped him. It was all he could do to hold on, just hold on and try not to think about what he was doing. Try not to think about how good it felt and how hard it was going to be to live down, how impossible it was going to be to forget.

The first birds were singing as they rode back to Oakland Hills. Neither of them spoke. She shut off the headlights as she pulled onto the club’s big empty parking lot. When she stopped the car, she put it in PARK but left the engine idling.

“Can I ask you something personal before you go, Willie?”

“Uh, sure.”

“Was that. . is this. . you know, the first—”

“The first time I’ve ever been with a white woman?”

She nodded. He could smell leather and perfume, sex and sweat. Again he considered telling her the truth but instantly decided to tell her the lie she wanted to hear. “Yes, this is the first time.”

“Me too. I mean—”

“I know what you mean, Blythe.”

“And I loved it. Every minute of it.”

“Me too, Blythe.” And this time, though he hated to admit it, he wasn’t lying. He’d loved every sweaty thrashing vulgar taboo minute of it. He’d loved her urgency and her hunger and her lack of shame. He’d loved hearing her curse as each orgasm came on. It was perverse perfection that she was married — to a former Golden Gloves champion who had a gun in his sock drawer and was ready to kill any man who tries to come between you and I. That may have been the thing that had turned Willie on most — crossing a line that could get him killed.

She kissed him one last time, and then he was standing alone in the parking lot watching the Deuce and a Quarter’s taillights vanish into the blue dawn, not quite believing what he had just done.

BOB BREWER LET THE HOT WATER WASH OVER HIS SORE NECK and shoulders. He was dead on his feet, trying to shake off the cobwebs. Without his glasses he could barely read the labels on all the products lined up on the sink next to the Quarters shower stall. Royal Crown hair relaxer. Sulfur-8 scalp conditioner. Shavine depilatory. All the empty miracles that promised to make the black man less black.

Bob had taken the past week off work so he could devote all of his time and energy to cramming for the real estate licensing exam. Nothing else mattered. He was so focused he even forgot about the visit from the sharp-dressed Detroit cop who’d come out to Oakland Hills to ask all the wrong kinds of questions. If Bob passed the exam, he would finally be able to kiss the waiter’s job goodbye. If he flunked. . No, that was not going to happen.

Yesterday, the day after the exam, he got a call from Dick Kowalski begging him to come in and work a big private party for the top hundred Chrysler salesmen in Michigan. Since he wouldn’t know the results of the exam for two weeks, Bob decided it would be unwise to burn his bridges at Oakland Hills just yet. It was while he was dropping off his last tray of dirty glasses at the dishwashing station at 2 A.M. that Bob had heard the news on the kitchen radio: Minutes after being declared winner of the California Democratic primary, Bobby Kennedy was shot in the head by a lone gunman in the kitchen of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. When Bob heard the news he sagged against the dishwashing machine and sobbed.

Now the shower was going cold. Bob shut off the water and stepped out of the stall. As he was toweling off he thought again of Bobby Kennedy and he had to hold on to the sink till the urge to cry passed. He put on his glasses and boxers and plastic shower slippers, wrapped the towel around his neck and went out to get dressed.

He was surprised to see Willie on his bunk reading The Confessions of Nat Turner with a flashlight. Bob walked over to him and whispered over the gentle snoring of the men, “What up, Cuz?”

Willie’s head jerked up from the pillow. “Uncle Bob,” he whispered back. “What you doing up so late?”

“You mean so early. Had to work a private party that went into triple overtime. Caught a few winks and now I gotta go meet my lawyer downtown, sign some papers. You weren’t here when I got up. Where you been?”

“Chick Murphy got drunk and asked me to carry him home. Let me drive his Deuce — even invited me in for a drink.”

“How’d you get back?”

“His wife drove me.”

“Watch out for that one!” Bob said with a chuckle. “I hear she shagged the golf pro. You just now getting back?”

“No, I. . couldn’t sleep. Went for a long walk on the golf course.”

Bob started dressing. “You hear the news?”

“No. What news?”

“About Bobby Kennedy?”

“What about him?”

“He got shot.”

Willie slumped into the pillow, picked up his flashlight and went back to his book.

“You ain’t even gonna ask what happened?” Bob said.

“Sure. What happened?”

“Some A-rab shot Bobby in the head. He’d just given his victory speech after the California primary — and the motherfucker shot him while he was walking through the hotel kitchen. I still can’t believe it. I bawled like a baby when I heard the news.”

“He dead?”

“Last I heard he was in surgery — critical condition. But you figure it out. Shot in the head isn’t usually good news.” Bob turned on his transistor radio and held it to his ear. After a while he shut it off and put it in his locker. “No change,” he said as he finished dressing.

On his way out the door Bob remembered the other thing. He walked back to Willie’s bunk. “By the way, Cuz, a Detroit po-lice was here last week asking me questions.”

He watched as Willie snapped into the sitting position, then took a deep breath and eased his head back down onto the pillow. “What kind of po-lice?” Willie said.

“A homicide detective.”

“He white or black?”

“White.”

“Big guy with white hair and bad skin?”

“No, he was kinda thin, actually. Reddish hair, tall, dressed too good to be a cop, I thought at first. But he damn sure talked like a cop.”

“What all he want to know?”

“All kindsa shit about that apartment building I own down the street from you. The one where Wesley use to stay.”

“What about it?”

“Like I say, all kindsa shit.” Bob leaned in, close enough to whisper. “Say, Cuz, how come you so interested in this detective?”

“I’m not interested, Uncle Bob. Just curious is all. You’re the one brought it up.”

“Bullshit. I stand here and tell you the next President of the United States has a bullet in his brain — and you go right back to reading your book. Then I tell you some honky cop stopped by — and you bout jump out your black hide. I’m holding on to my patience, Willie. What’s going on?”

“Nothing, Uncle Bob.”

“Don’t lie to me, boy. Since when you know what color hair Detroit cops has got?”

“Since I saw one on the TV news the other night. Something about a murder during the riot. I thought maybe it was the same guy came out to talk to you.”

There was a long silence, both of them trying to figure where this was going. Bob said, “Since you so curious, Cuz, he wanted to know if any of my tenants drives an older model car with a red-and-black interior and lots of chrome.” Bob let that sink in good and deep before he went on. “He wanted a list of my tenants from last July.”

“All your tenants? I mean, he know how many buildings you own?”

“He knows exactly how many buildings I own. He knows all kindsa shit. He just wanted to know about my tenants in the Larrow Arms. And he wanted to know who has a key to the roof.”