The Devil's Own Rag Doll Page 2

  We walked up the alley and waited out of sight in front of the garage door. In a minute Thrumm hot-stepped it toward the garage and began to swing open the big door from the inside. I ducked in and grabbed Thrumm by his spotty shirt and lifted him onto the hood of the old Fargo truck. Thrumm’s head and backbone bounced all the way up to the windshield as I dragged him up over the front of the vehicle, and then again on the way down to the dirt floor of the garage. Bobby quietly pulled the garage door closed, cutting down the light to what could squeeze through the murky windows.

  Thrumm’s eyes got bigger when I pulled out my revolver. I held the barrel of the pistol hard to the base of Thrumm’s neck and watched a snaky vein grow fat with stoppered blood. Bobby pulled a little knife from his pocket and absently cleaned his nails for a moment, watching Thrumm with lazy eyes. Then he stooped and eased the blade slowly into the sidewall of one of the truck’s precious wartime tires, twisting to let the air hiss out more quickly. Thrumm gasped and jerked but made no attempt to escape. I watched his eyes jumping and judged that I was about to hear another lie, so I twice brought the butt of the revolver down onto the bridge of his nose.

  Thrumm yelped and coughed, then held up a pale, dry palm in submission.

  Bobby leaned close. “Lie to me again, lover boy.”

  “Shoo!” sputtered Thrumm through running blood. “I won’t tell no more stories.” Thrumm blinked to get the water from his eyes and moved to get up, but I pushed the nose of the gun into his neck again. “Okay, okay. He stay out on Wyoming, little apartment building next to Bidwell’s on Fenkell there, you’ll find ’im.”

  I stood up, wiped the muzzle of my gun on my trousers, and holstered the piece. I wanted to spit the coppery taste from my mouth. You could have just told us that in the first place, I thought.

  Thrumm said nothing more. He drew his arms and legs in close and pulled up his shirttail to dab at his bloody nose. Bobby folded his knife and slipped it into his pocket with a wistful look on his face. He turned to push open the big door of the garage. Bright light washed in to show how small Toby Thrumm had become: all out of lies and bluff, smacked down to the dirt floor of his own garage, his blood let out. I turned away from him because the rich redness dazzled my eye.

  I knew that the quick escalation of low-level violence had panicked Thrumm into telling the truth. But one thing troubled me as I followed Bobby out of the garage: Why was Thrumm so reluctant to spill Pease’s whereabouts? Thrumm was not such a big man, but he was hard in the arms and back from his labor, and Pease had never been anything more than a loser on a slow downward slide, small and soft and used to talking his way through trouble. I was thinking hard as we walked back to the car.

  Another thing tugged at my gut. Because I did not see how it could be useful, I had not told Bobby of my acquaintance with young Jane Hardiman. In the late fall of 1941, not long before the Japs came to Pearl Harbor, I was walking my beat as usual. Two girls came out of Bland’s Liquor and turned up the street toward me like it was the Easter Parade. To see them walking arm-in-arm like they were, in a district where there wasn’t anything but bump shops and beer gardens and grubby factory rats—well, it put a jolt in me. It was getting toward dusk, and I knew the type of trouble that percolated on my beat after sundown. As they came close, I pulled out my billy and spread my arms to corral them to a halt.

  The tallest one spoke with a twinkle in her eye. “Some trouble, officer?”

  “Not yet there isn’t,” I said. “That’s the way it’s going to stay. What kind of business you girls have with Bland?”

  The smaller girl kept her eyes down.

  The other said, “He wouldn’t sell us any liquor, if that’s what you’re wondering. He did sell us a pack of smokes, though.”

  “Jane!”

  “I don’t mind the smoking, girly,” I said. “But the two of you can’t be anything but trouble for me down here.”

  “I’m Jane Hardiman, and this is my friend Missy—”

  “Jane! Don’t tell him—”

  “I don’t care who you are,” I said. “I want you off my beat before the wolves come out.”

  “Rousted by the authorities! I suppose we’re criminals now,” Jane Hardiman said. Her tone was flippant, but her eyes smiled warmly. “Will you have to take us in? I don’t think Missy’s constitution can accommodate any hard time.”

  “If you won’t get into a cab, I’ll have to call a scout car to take you home.”

  “We’ll take the cab!” piped Missy.

  I brought them along to the cab stand around the corner and put them in the first car.

  Jane rolled down the window and beckoned me near. “Officer, I don’t suppose you could front us a dollar or two for the cab? We’re a little short.”

  The cabbie said, “I don’t take no charity case.”

  The girl was not more than fifteen years old, I judged, but she had managed to confound me. I put my hand on the door and stooped down to get a look at her face. I was ready to pull the money from my pocket.

  “I’m just teasing, Officer,” Jane said. “I have plenty of money.” She put her hand over mine—the bad one—and then brought it up to touch my cheek softly just below my patch.

  “You’ve been kinder than you had to be,” she said.

  The girl was trouble, all right. I could see that. Smart as a whip and used to having her way. But there was something close and familiar in her eyes. She looked warmly at me, as if she felt sorry for me. Sorry about the eye and the fingers, sorry that it was my job to roust the trouble from my little corner of the world.

  I stood up and took a step back from the cab, then tapped the door a couple times with the billy. “I don’t want to see either of you down here again,” I said.

  “Don’t worry,” said Jane. “We can take care of ourselves.”

  She sat back and squeezed her friend’s knee. I could hear her clear voice giving the cabbie a Grosse Pointe address as the car pulled away from the curb.

  That was the only time I had ever seen her, and I hadn’t thought of it again until Bobby mentioned the name to me for the side deal he had cooked up. She was a smart girl, and I hoped that she had learned enough in the two years since then to keep her safe. As I settled into Bobby’s car for the drive to Pease’s place, an odd tug of emotion pulled at me: No matter how seamy the situation turned out to be, I hoped that the girl would recognize me when she saw me. I hoped she would appreciate what I was trying to do.

  * * *

  “What a city, eh, Pete?” Bobby asked, his pale face lit up with exhilaration. “I tell you, if this isn’t the greatest city in the world, I’m as ugly as Churchill.” He lit a smoke and sucked on it till he trembled, then laughed and coughed the smoke into the air. “Industry! Manufacture! It’s all right here! Right here in the middle of the country, down along the beautiful Detroit River. What else could we need?” Bobby sat with his back off the seat, clutching and slapping at the steering wheel with both hands. “Brother, look at those trees. You think they have trees like that in any other city?”

  I let my attention wander, knowing that Bobby’s spiel would blow itself out after a time. Nothing is ever as simple as people make it out to be, I thought. Why would Pease be worth a busted nose to Thrumm? And why would he be willing to cut out like that, just throw his things in a bag and light out? I guessed that Thrumm had to be making at least a decent wage to be able to afford to stay at the flat without a dozen little niggers running about the place, too, and a garage and what looked like his own truck. It was a sweet deal for Thrumm, no doubt about it, and not likely found anywhere but here.

  We were heading to the west side, a little pocket around Wyoming where they let the dark folks stay. She’s somewhere in the city, I thought. She could be anywhere.

  “Take it easy, Bobby,” I said. “You’re driving like a rumrunner.”

  “I tell you, Pete, what a town! It’s taking the war to show the world what’s really important. Detroit steel! We’ve
got to think ahead to what’s going to happen after this whole Hitler thing blows over. We should put our money where it’ll make a little something for us. You think Chrysler or the Dodge brothers or Jasper Lloyd sat around waiting for things to happen? No! Got to stay ahead of the game!”

  Bobby made himself at home as he drove. When he didn’t need it for the clutch, he hiked his left foot up onto the seat and rested his knee against the open window. He put the old Chevy through a workout, drove six blocks the wrong way down John R, clipped the mirror off a new Lloyd City Cruiser parked on the corner at Harper. He eyed the crowds flashing by full of women shopping and running out for lunch dressed in office wear. “This is the place to be, all right. Anybody could get laid in this town. I’d bet my ass on it, even a three-letter man could get laid around here!” He glanced at me and rapped two bony knuckles onto my chest. “Hell, even a one-eyed gimp could get some action now and again if he put his mind to it. You should get out a little more, that’s my take on the whole matter.”

  “You talk like a woman sometimes,” I said. “Just talk and more talk.”

  “I’m always ready for action,” said Bobby. “Trouble is I get nothing but dragging feet whenever I try to scare something up.”

  “Okay, I got you.” I let my face go slack. The last thing I thought I needed was Bobby Swope’s advice on how to improve my social life. “How should it go with Pease?”

  “You’re the man with the rough-stuff experience, Pete.” Bobby ditched his butt out the window and fumbled for another smoke. “But see, think of it this way. Pease is a known felon from the auto beef in St. Louis, and he’s been known to carry a weapon. He might also be found in possession of a small quantity of an illicit substance, namely a little packet of reefer”—he patted the inside pocket of his jacket—“if he gives us any trouble. That won’t look bad if we end up having to make a report of all this. So you can use your discretion about the persuasive stuff.”

  “What about the girl?” I asked. “If she’s that type, she’ll be back over as soon as things cool down.”

  “I call that job security, Pete,” said Bobby. He tapped a finger three times against his forehead, leaving three white marks on his skin that took their time coming back to pink. “I’m always thinking ahead.”

  I wondered if Captain Mitchell had expected that his new detective would receive such errant guidance when he paired me with Bobby to learn the ropes and get a handle on procedure. Mitchell was hard to figure, but he was not a fool. It had been such a surprise that I had done so well on the detective’s exam that nobody in the brass knew what the hell to do with me. They all knew me as a pug, a big lug, and I guess people in general don’t want to go to the trouble of thinking twice about anything if they don’t have to. In fact, I wasn’t sure myself why I took the exam in the first place. Bobby had told me that it seemed like somebody higher up was pulling some strings, maybe on account of my old man’s popularity. So there I was with Bobby, so full of go-go-go, and I just fell into the rough stuff because it felt comfortable. I knew I could throw a scare. But it isn’t easy to change into another man, and I wondered if I’d ever get to be much of a thinking detective.

  Trying to feel Bobby out, I said, “You’re saying it would be okay to bust his nose?”

  “Okay with me,” said Bobby.

  “Break a couple fingers?”

  “That’ll hurt.” Bobby grinned and flicked his butt out the window, half smoked.

  “Break his arm?”

  “Well, we don’t want to make too much of a fuss, after all.”

  “I got you.”

  I guess I was happy enough just to do what I was told. Maybe that was the one thing about me that always rattled my old man. He was looking for a little initiative out of me, and he never found it. I guess I took the detective exam as a nod to him. Sure, he would have wanted it. What you go through with your family works on you, underground, no matter how much you try to tell yourself that you’ve put all of it behind you. My old man used to talk about freedom and independence—and he seemed to want to hold on to an idea about this country like he was an immigrant. But freedom, as I had it figured, was just a way of saying that you were responsible for what you did every minute of the day. You had to decide all along what you should do. It could tire you out from thinking. So when it came down to it, I had always been willing to be told what to do, as long as it wasn’t too far out of line.

  But nobody would ever tell you exactly what they wanted. Bobby was an example: I could bite my way closer to a picture of the situation by asking questions, and sooner or later I’d get an idea where the lines were drawn. But Bobby liked to hint around, to wink and lay a finger to the side of his nose. For Bobby, the lines were always part of a negotiation; they could always be shifted or ignored if a better deal showed up, especially if they weren’t drawn in anything firmer than sand in the first place.

  It was a bit of a drive to get to the little colored section on the west side. As we rolled toward Pease’s apartment building, we pulled a lot of eyeballs from their business in the overcrowded district. The rows of small apartment buildings, though generally made of brick, dropped bits of spalled masonry and crumbling mortar to the walk. Everything sat too close to the road. Along the edge where the concrete met the buildings and in all the cracks in the sidewalks, weeds poked up and spilled out in fronds to catch sun and water. In between the small businesses, a few rickety wood houses stood, all with big porches on the upper and lower flats. These were filled generally with older folks and very young children, and I could feel them staring. I guessed the colored folks were probably tired of the shit that seemed always to roll their way.

  Bobby crept along the curb, casing Pease’s building. It was like all the rest; the windows were open to let the feeble breeze through, and yet the blinds were drawn shut to keep out the sun. I thought, Why would she want to come to such a filthy place? What in her private-school life of leisure could make her want to dirty herself this way? Roger Hardiman should have had enough money, I imagined, to keep his family from falling apart. I checked my mind from wondering too much about what Jane and Pease might be doing inside, or what kind of fussy talk it must bring up in the district to see a white girl going up to a colored man’s apartment. It was only a job for us. We had not been hired to involve ourselves any more than we had to, and yet I found myself gritting my teeth and squeezing my hands into fists. Maybe the girl would turn out to be a foul-mouthed shrew, and we’d have to drag her kicking and screaming back to the car. But I was stirred up with feeling, with jealousy or anger or an odd protective instinct, and I did not want to put a reason to it. I was glad when Bobby parked next to a hydrant and killed the motor.

  “Some joint, ah?” he said. From the outside, from the street, it wasn’t easy to see anything wrong. Colored kids were just out of school for the summer, running and screaming, ripping up the tiny patches of grass, and scrawny old gents sat on benches and chairs and tried to soak up warmth into their dry bones. But when we stepped into the cramped vestibule and scanned the mailboxes for Pease’s name, I knew something was up. I could smell every onion that had ever been cooked in the building. The odor hung in the air, seeping from the soggy, piss-grade lumber of the trim and doors and from the plaster flaking from the ceiling. The air just isn’t moving, I thought. It was like the hush that falls over a room after somebody sends glass crashing to the floor. Blood came up in my face, and my scalp bristled.

  Bobby tapped one of the boxes: Pearson, scrawled in uppercase letters in smudged pencil, a name Pease had used in St. Louis. Second floor, straight shot toward the back. Bobby took the stairs at the front of the building, and I walked through the dim hallway to the back stairs, feeling my shoulders brush against the walls. As I thumped up the steps, colored boys began to pass me on the way down, creeping along the rail with their eyes put aside, the only sound the swish of their too-big trousers. One by one they went. Then, as I got to the top, the last of them tried to push past me
. I grabbed the boy’s bony arm and jerked him back hard enough to make him yelp.

  I judged him to be no more than thirteen, tall for his age. His bones seemed recently grown and now waited for the flesh to catch up. He couldn’t stop his big wet eyes from staring at my eye patch. I almost let him go.

  “What’s going on here, boy?” I said, growling and pulling the boy close to me.

  “I don’t know nothin’,” he said, too scared to wriggle or pull away.

  “What’s your name, boy?” I could see the boy’s eyes begin to skitter. “Don’t lie to me!”

  “Joshua.”

  “You know Donny Pease?”

  The name lit up the boy’s eyes, but before I could say any more, Bobby’s voice boomed in the still air. “Caudill! God damn it, Caudill!”

  I pushed the boy aside and hoofed it double time to Pease’s door, pulling out my revolver as I went.

  I couldn’t see anything at first because Bobby stood just inside the doorway. The heavy revolver at his side seemed to stretch his arm, so that his white wrist stuck out from his sleeve. He had pulled off his hat, showing the few black hairs he had left on his prematurely balding head. I shouldered him aside with my pistol up, thinking—if I was thinking of anything—that I could protect him from whatever was inside.

  But it was too late for protecting, and more trouble than a gun could blast away: Young Jane Hardiman sat sprawled on the couch, her legs spread, her pleated skirt pulled up to her chin, and dried blood covering all but a few glimpses of the pale skin on her thighs. It seemed like a big wind had blasted her there. Seeing her arranged that way, facing the door, with her hair flying up and stiff from dried blood, I felt like I ought to run berserk. My teeth gnashed together, my lips pulled back, and the blood ran into my arms and hands; I would have squeezed off a shot into the ceiling if the pistol had not been so close to my face.