The Blind Pig Page 6

  During the week the Town Pump was a kind of social club for a dozen or more elderly men, mostly Belgian émigrés, who watched the ball game on the color TV, played euchre, and drank copious quantities of beer. On Saturday the Belgians would gather for pigeon races. They took their pigeons twenty-five miles north to Mt. Clemens, released them, then rushed back to the Town Pump to drink and wait for the judges. The judges went to each man's home mews and checked the automatic timer that stopped when the pigeon entered the cage. By the time the judges reached the Town Pump, everyone was drunk.

  Tonight the television was tuned to the hockey game. Dick VanLerberghe watched the Red Wings score a goal while short-handed. “That's the way to kill penalties,” Dick said, arms folded. At one table, four regulars played euchre, commenting freely on the folly of each other's play. The most loquacious of these players was Uncle Corny, a seventyish gentleman, originally from Rotterdam. He had a mild contempt for his companions, whom he called Buffaloes—they were from Liège and Brussels, respectively—and Polack—a skinny pensioner born in Cracow.

  Two strange men entered the bar. They were about forty and looked quite a bit alike, dressed in blue overcoats and gray hats. They might have been brothers. Dick VanLerberghe took special notice of their noses. He considered that if it hadn't been for the presence of Uncle Corny, the two strangers would have had the largest noses in the bar. Their noses were formidable, Dick thought, but Uncle Corny's nose, that was a deformity: a square “bottle” nose, deeply pitted by a lifetime of daily alcohol consumption. It now resembled nothing so much as a stiff, square sponge.

  The strangers looked the bar over carefully. They each ordered a shot of Jack Daniel's, with a beer chaser. Nobody ever drank Jack Daniel's in the Pump. Dick opened a dusty bottle.

  The heavier man said in a high, mild voice, “You know a guy, Jerry Vanni's his name?”

  “I have known Jerry since he was so high,” Dick said, “and his father before him.”

  “That his jukebox?” the man asked.

  Dick nodded and turned back to watch the hockey game. The two strangers stood silently at the bar. The smaller one stared at the SAVILLE DER DAGO sign, frowning. His lips moved soundlessly.

  Uncle Corny crowed to his euchre companions, “When I see bot’ a dem bowers fall, I know I got da rest.”

  The heavier stranger walked over to the jukebox. It was a big, fancy Seeburg. Dick noticed him and was annoyed. Couldn't the jerk see that the Red Wings were on? Nobody wanted to hear the jukebox.

  The man fumbled in his pocket for change, then slipped a quarter into the machine. He ran his blunt forefinger down the list of titles. “Christ, all you got is polkas and Bing Crosby,” he said in disgust. Dick shrugged. The man punched some buttons. The machine whirred and the strains of “She's Too Fat for Me” filled the room. Dick eyed the man with undisguised annoyance.

  The smaller man had gone to the entrance. He stood just outside, then turned and nodded, holding the door open. There was a draft.

  Dick was puzzled. Then he gawked.

  The heavy drew an enormous pistol from his overcoat. With great care he took aim at the revolving record on the jukebox and then blasted it. The gun bellowed like a cannon. The jukebox slammed back against the wall, spitting glass and electrical sparks. Smoke issued from the gaping hole in the front.

  Dick ducked down behind the bar. The skinny Polish euchre player leaped into the ladies’ room. Uncle Corny, beer glass in hand, slowly eased his bulk around and stared solemnly at the gunman. Everyone else sat perfectly still, their ears ringing.

  The gunman shouted, “Bartender! That cigarette machine. Is that Vanni's, too?”

  Dick's muffled answer came from below the bar. “Yes.”

  The gunman took thoughtful aim and squeezed off four evenly spaced shots.

  The cigarette machine bounced off the wall with the first shot and was knocked careening with the second. The third shot smashed it into the corner. It bounced forward and teetered precariously. The last roaring shot blasted its base out from under it, so that the machine fell forward onto its face, crashing to the floor, knocking over barstools. Quarters and dimes poured out softly and broken cigarettes were scattered about like straw.

  Everyone was deafened. The smell of cordite hung in the air. The gunman strolled to the bar, swallowed the last of his beer wash with the pistol dangling from the end of his relaxed arm. Then he left, slamming the door behind him.

  On the shelf over the end of the bar, the face of Detective Sergeant Mulheisen looked into the room. He and Maki were standing at rinkside at Olympia. The camera had followed the Canadiens’ Yvan Cournoyer to the bench as the Montreal team changed lines for an icing face-off. Mulheisen looked directly into the camera and pointed something out to Maki.

  Seven

  “I'm stupid,” Mulheisen said.

  “No shit,” Maki said. They were both hunched over the bar at the Town Pump. Mulheisen had quit filling out a long investigative report form.

  “I'm just plain dumb. I call in. Not every night. Some nights I go home. But if I'm in town, say I stop for a drink or two, maybe have dinner, then I almost always call in to the precinct before I head for home. Just out of curiosity. Curiosity and stupidity.”

  Mulheisen did not live in the city, which was against regulations. Like many officers he got around the regulation by maintaining an address in town, which was really just an answering service and a mail drop run by a creaky old hillbilly named Speed, on the near East Side. Speed charged each officer fifteen dollars per month, but it was worth it. If anyone called there, Speed made every effort to contact the officer, and he was good at forestalling suspicious superiors.

  Maki drained off the rest of his beer and set the glass on the bar. Dick VanLerberghe filled up the glass promptly and waved away Maki's attempt to pay. He also filled Mulheisen's shot glass with Jack Daniel's. “That's what those thugs was drinking,” Dick said to the detectives. “The first bottle of that I opened in months. And you drink it, too!”

  “What does that sign say, for crying out loud?” Maki demanded irritably.

  Dick looked at the sign over the cash register, then back at the two policemen. “Can't figure it out, eh? What kind of language you think that is?”

  Mulheisen examined the sign for the first time. “Hmmmm. It's sort of like Latin,” he said, “but not really. French? No. I don't know. Finnish, maybe? Nah, that's not right. I give up.”

  “Boy, a couple of smart detectives you are,” Dick said. Then he recited the message smugly, grinning with vast amusement.

  Maki stared at VanLerberghe with undisguised hostility. The bartender's smile faded. Mulheisen said, “Did someone call Vanni?”

  “Here!” Jerry Vanni walked in the door accompanied by Mandy Cecil. The two looked like candidates for “Most Handsome Couple of the Year.” Vanni wore a short fur-collared camel's-hair coat, extravagantly flared trousers and shoes with stacked wooden soles and heels that added an unnecessary two inches to his height. His white teeth gleamed and his mustache drooped stylishly. Mandy Cecil's hair was attractively windblown and her cheeks were rosy from the brisk October night. She wore a very woolly kind of fur jacket and voluminous pantaloons that stopped just below the knee where her high leather boots ended.

  Maki eyed the pair sourly. “Hubba, hubba,” he said under his breath.

  Vanni stood with his fists on his hips, staring at the dark and wounded jukebox. “Now, what the hell?” he said.

  Mulheisen watched Mandy Cecil as she examined the ruins of the cigarette machine. She asked what had happened. Mulheisen gave her a quick reprise while Vanni listened.

  When Mulheisen finished, Vanni said, “I know what you're thinking, Sergeant. But I'll say it again, I have nothing to do with the mob.”

  “What about Sonny DeCrosta?” Mulheisen asked. “Hear anything more from him?”

  Vanni shook his head. “No, but it looks like they might be trying to get some kind of point across to me, doesn
't it?”

  Mulheisen nodded. “You might call it a form of communication,” he said.

  “Well, what do I do now?” Vanni said.

  “You might give DeCrosta a ring,” Mulheisen suggested. “Talk it over with him, see what he knows about this. Maybe he'd be willing to guarantee you against this kind of loss. Then you'll know where you stand.”

  “I'm not going to pay off some slimy creep like that, if that's what you mean,” Vanni said hotly.

  “That's not what I was suggesting,” Mulheisen said. “But it doesn't hurt to find out if DeCrosta's really involved. We might be able to work up a case against him.”

  “All right,” Vanni said. “I'll call him. In the meantime, I guess I'd better clean up the mess.” He took off his coat and began to sweep up the coins and cigarettes with a broom provided by Dick. Mandy Cecil took off her jacket and sat down at a table to separate the coins into different piles. She was wearing a satiny blouse and it was obvious that she wasn't wearing a brassiere.

  Mulheisen and Maki sat at the bar watching her through the mirror. They discussed quietly the problems of pinning anything on the mob. Mulheisen said he would have to talk it over with Andy Deane tomorrow, for sure, and get a thorough check on Sonny DeCrosta. And, of course, the bartender would have to go downtown to Racket Conspiracy to see if he could identify the gunmen from Andy's gallery of known mob hardcases. Dick assured them that if the police had a picture of either man, he'd be able to identify them. “I'd know them noses anywhere,” he said. “I'm a expert on noses.”

  The door swung open and a man came in. He was short and dark, with black hair and carried himself with a certain cheerful self-assurance. He wore a fleece-lined leather coat and Levis. On his feet were cowboy boots. “Whew,” he said, rubbing his hands together, “getting chilly out.”

  He looked around at the mess, now almost cleaned up. “Hey, looks like you had a brawl, eh?” He hopped up onto a stool.

  “Brother, you wouldn't believe it,” Dick said. “What'll it be?”

  The stranger looked down the bar and noticed the bottle of Jack Daniel's. “Black Jack Ditch,” he said.

  “Black Jack Ditch,” Dick repeated, “which is . . . ?”

  “Jack Daniels and water,” the stranger said. He nodded to Mulheisen and Maki. “What happened here?” he asked. Maki turned away. He didn't like questions.

  Mulheisen said, “Some guy came in and didn't like the jukebox, so he took a couple of shots at it.”

  “No kidding?” the man said. “He must have been packing a cannon.”

  Mulheisen nodded. “Probably a .44.”

  “I saw something like that out in Wyoming once,” the man said, “in Sheridan.”

  “You from out West?” Mulheisen asked.

  The man drank off his Black Jack Ditch and called for another, tossing a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “I've spent some time out there,” he said. He seemed to lose interest in the conversation and gazed at Mandy Cecil for a while. She looked up and caught him. The stranger smiled at her. She smiled and went back to counting coins. The man drank down his whiskey again and picked up his change, leaving a couple of dollars on the bar. “Buy these fellows one,” he said to Dick and strolled out.

  “You know him?” Mulheisen asked Dick.

  “Never saw him in my life,” Dick said, pouring out a couple more drinks for the detectives. He glanced up at the clock on the wall, a promotional item from Hamm's Brewers that showed a continuously changing panorama of a Northern trout stream. It was 1:30 A.M., bar time. “Don't look like I'm gonna get much more business. Think I'll close her up. You fellows just sit tight.” He went over to the front and turned out the tavern sign, then locked the door.

  “Time to head home,” Maki said. He didn't look very enthusiastic. Mulheisen wondered where he was living, now that he had broken up with his third wife. Maki had left behind him a string of furnished apartments. “Do yourself a favor, Mul, and don't go back to the precinct tonight. The blue boys got a report on this.”

  “I won't,” Mulheisen said, “but I don't feel much like driving all the way out to St. Clair Flats. Nobody home, anyway.”

  “Where's your mother?” Maki asked.

  “Texas.”

  “Texas? What the hell is she doing in Texas?”

  “She belongs to some bird-watching outfit,” Mulheisen said. “She's gone on a bird-watching tour. I think I'll cruise around town a little more tonight. Maybe I'll head over to Benny's and see what's cooking.”

  Maki got up and slapped Mulheisen on the shoulder. “Don't get caught in a raid,” he said. “It'll look bad on your record.”

  “Nobody raids Benny,” Mulheisen said. “See you.”

  After Maki left, Mulheisen had another drink then strolled over to the table where Cecil and Vanni were both counting change from the jukebox and the cigarette machine. “I guess I'll take off,” he told them. “Let me know if DeCrosta rises to your bait. I'll let you know if anything comes up on your hit man.”

  Mandy Cecil looked up from a pile of quarters. “Nothing new on him?”

  “So far, all we know is that he liked to swim. Well, good night.”

  Dick let him out into the cold, windy night.

  • • •

  Benny Singleton was a short black man with a thick mustache. He was handsome, with large brown eyes and a neat round head. He wore his hair clipped short. “I'm too old for that Afro stuff,” he'd once told Mulheisen. He was forty. He dressed himself in soft browns and grays, in good rich woolen cloth with quiet patterns. He wore oxford-cloth shirts with button-down collars and they looked right on him. With these he preferred silk ties and tweed jackets, silk hose and well-burnished old cordovan shoes in excellent repair. Benny moved with grace and spoke in a low, articulate voice that was audible yards away.

  Benny Singleton had been a waiter most of his life. He started as a salad boy in a large downtown hotel, became a waiter, occasionally tended bar, and finally became maître d'hôtel, a position to which he seemed born. He was known, appreciated and even feared by those who dined well in Detroit. Eventually he became maître d’ at the River Inn, a distinguished restaurant on the Detroit River. In this position he served for many years and was often tipped not with vulgar cash but with quietly uttered words of stock-market wisdom. Benny heeded this advice and in due time became wealthy enough to leave service, although he was honestly plagued with concern for his old patrons, who, he feared, would never find anyone to care for them adequately.

  With his small fortune, Benny entered the twilight zone of Detroit night life. He opened a blind pig. Every city has its distinctive features. San Francisco has hills and refurbished post-earthquake houses; New Orleans has Creole food and hot jazz. Detroit has barbecued ribs and blind pigs. A blind pig is a tavern that opens after the legal closing hour, which is 2 A.M. In Detroit lots of people don't go out until the bars close.

  The origin of the phrase “blind pig” is obscure. It has always meant an illegal drinking establishment. If one supposes that “pig” is a universal pejorative for policeman, and if one considers that no illegal saloon could possibly operate without at least the passive cooperation of the local constabulary, why then, a possible etymology suggests itself. Beyond that, however, one might consider the fact that during Prohibition (the Golden Age of the blind pig) the liquor retained in these speakeasies was often a volatile, unaged substance that was potent enough to blind a pig.

  Whatever the origin, blind pigs are numerous in Detroit. Detroit needs them. Despite the fact that it is the fifth largest city in the nation, it has very little in the way of legitimate night life. There are jazz clubs and barbecue joints—sometimes on the same premises—and there are blind pigs. The Fords and the Fishers and the Liebermans go to the opera once a year when the Metropolitan comes to town, and there is a fine local symphony orchestra. But, by and large, after dark in Detroit it is jazz, ribs and juice. Detroit is a working town. It works shifts. When the midnight shift gets off,
the boys want to go out and play. So Detroit stays open all night.

  The police don't mind the blind pigs. Why should they? For the working cop on patrol it is a source of income. For the vice squad it is a source of income and information. For the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau it is a gold mine. Detroit is the terminus of an enormous bootleg and moonshine whiskey industry. The illicit booze comes in across the largely unpatrolled Canadian border, or it is driven into the city in what amounts to a continuous convoy of specially rigged tanker automobiles from Kentucky, Tennessee and West Virginia. Detroit is the marketplace for the South's cottage industry.

  A blind pig has cheap booze and good booze; sometimes they come in the same bottle. It also offers prostitution, dope, gambling and what a sociologist might term an “interface” between the straight world and the criminal world. This interface is important, for the underworld has much to offer the law-abiding community. Besides whores, marijuana and a shot of whiskey at four in the morning, where else can one find a bargain on a hot car, a gun that doesn't have to be registered, or a hired killer? Even the most law-abiding citizen in Detroit seems to need a gun, and an unregistered gun is preferred. Why advertise to the cops that you are armed? And, anyway, the unregistered gun is a stolen gun and therefore cheaper than the one sold in the stores.

  There are many kinds of blind pigs in Detroit, from filthy stews to fancy establishments like the one run by Benny Singleton. This is a pleasant, two-story frame house near Pingree Park, on the East Side, several blocks north of the River and north of Indian Village. Benny has never been raided. He liked to tell Mulheisen that “If it wasn't for me, none of you fellows could send your kids to college.” Mulheisen would grimace and Benny would hasten to add, “Course, I don't mean you, Mul. You always been square with me.”

  Benny's clientele was mostly white and well-off. He permitted no heroin or other heavy drugs on the premises. He allowed casual dealers to sell a baggie of marijuana or some tai sticks, but that was it. His whiskey was authentic Hudson's Bay scotch and Wild Turkey. He didn't deal with moonshiners. The prostitutes were young, expensive and free-lance. They sometimes looked like college girls, and were. Benny charged them fifty dollars a night to come into the house and they had to buy their own drinks.