The Bootlegger

“Long,” he said. “Very long. I’ll hand you to the U.S. Marshal. He’ll get you on a federal offense.”

“This ain’t federal.”

“Ever heard of the Espionage Act? The Congress wrote it with your name on it. Radicals throw bombs. Aliens throw bombs. Communists. Bolsheviks. The United States Attorney will put you in the big house for life.”

“They can’t pin that on me.”

“Thirty witnesses saw your gang throw a grenade. Thirty witnesses saw you rake a crowd of people with rifle fire.”

“They don’t have the guts to testify. I’ll be out in a day.”

“I’ve got the guts to testify,” said Texas Walt.

“So do I,” said Ed Tobin.

“Me, too,” said Dashwood.

“Even I will muster the courage,” said Isaac Bell. “That’s four of us.”

“Mister,” said Texas Walt, leaning in to put his hawk face an inch from the gangster’s. “You’ve got one greasy foot in the federal penitentiary and another on thin ice. It is high time you start talking.”

The gangster pressed his free hand to his bloody head. “What do you want to know?”

Bell studied their prisoner carefully. The thug would expect Bell to ask who had ordered him to bomb the roadhouse. Fear and criminal pride would make him resist turning in someone he knew.

“Your name.”

“Tony.”

“Tony what?”

“Big Tony Sana.”

“Who gave you the grenade, Tony?”

“War surplus. They’re all over the place.”

“It was a German stick grenade. How did you happen to get your paws on a grenade from the Kaiser’s army?”

Bell reckoned that the Comintern was the likeliest source. Such a powerful grenade would also explain the phenomenal damage Bell had seen at the former Van Dorn offices. The Detroit mobs hadn’t yet figured that the Texas Walt roadhouse was a Van Dorn masquerade. But the Comintern might well have.

The gangster shrugged. “I don’t know. One of the guys got a box of ’em somewhere.”

Bell thought that Tony Sana looked genuinely puzzled that of all the questions the roadhouse torpedoes could ask, who cared where a hand grenade came from? Had Marat Zolner paid Tony’s gang to attack Texas Walt’s? Had he allied with them as he had with the Black Hand in New York? No. Tony was small-time. If anything, Zolner was playing Tony’s boys for suckers, as he had the Gophers.

“I want to know who gave you the grenade.”

“Maybe some doughboy brought souvenirs home from the war.”

“Which one of your guys did he give it to?”

“I think it was Little Angelo.”

“We’ll deal with Angelo later. Now, what’s this I heard about a hooch tu

“I didn’t hear nothing about no tu

Bell said, “People tell me boats are old hat. And come winter, driving whisky sixes across the ice will be old hat, too.”

“Yeah, well, there oughta be plenty of business for everyone.”

“Who’s your boss?”

“I’m my boss.”

“What about the cable sub?”

Tony looked glad to discuss a topic outside his own business. “These dumb Polacks, they got a long rope and a crank. They sink the booze in the river in steel kegs. The rope drags it across the bottom.”

“From where?”

“Some island.”

“Where does it go?”

“Poletown.”

“Who runs it?”

“I told ya, Polacks from Poletown.”

“Poles from Poletown?”

“Yeah, except the Jaworski gang says it ain’t them. Lying bastards. They was speaking Polack.”

“Polish? Who was speaking Polish. The cable sub?”

“That’s what I heard.”

“Speaking Polish? Or Russian?”

“Same thing, ain’t it?”

Bell exchanged glances with Dashwood and Tobin. Suddenly, there were two Dashwoods and two Tobins. It took a moment to realize that the shot that had creased his skull was giving him double vision. He blinked. There were still two of each detective. He turned to two Tonys.

“Tony, you say you don’t have a boss. If you did have a boss, who would he be?”

Big Tony Sana looked intrigued by the thought. He said, “Bosses come and go.”

“Let’s say one came.”

“Could be a bunch of guys.”

“Max Stern?”

Tony looked surprised. “Where’d you hear that?”

“Around. Could it be Max Stern?”

“Could be.”

“Where do I find him?”

“Who knows? I’m telling you, Max Stern ain’t my boss.”

“Admiral Abe,” said Marat Zolner. “Aren’t you glad you saw reason?”

They were dining on sweetbreads, the most expensive item on the menu at Detroit’s classy new Hotel Wolverine and one that Weintraub could chew without many teeth.

Abe Weintraub shot a murderous glare across the table. He had a moon-shaped face with a small nose, ears, and mouth. He looked, Zolner thought, i

“Don’t get the wrong idea. I ain’t no pushover.”

“You made that clear,” said Zolner, who had seen enough Cheka torture chambers to admire a thug as determined as Abe Weintraub not to be broken. His conversion had taken so long that it was a miracle they hadn’t accidentally drowned him. But Weintraub had been worth the trouble. He commanded the Purple Gang’s Jewish Navy by dint of brains, unmatched brutality, and ruthless determination. He knew every Detroit criminal worth knowing, saw them with a clear eye, and knew their weaknesses and their strengths. He would make an aggressive captain of foot soldiers in any revolution.

“Now what?” asked Weintraub, mopping his plate clean with a slice of bread.

“Now you will tell me who to kill.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Tell me which gangsters to get out of our way. Starting at the top.”

“Tell you? Or kill ’em for you?”

It was like discussing terms with a wolf or a shark. Or the hotel’s namesake wolverine. Weintraub understood destruction and only destruction, but he understood it very well. Zolner had set up a number of gangsters like him in New York — to control supply and demand — but none so ferocious.

He said, “You will help me locate them. We will ferret out the chinks in their armor. Then we will kill them.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because I will allow you to pick up the pieces.”

Weintraub stared in disbelief. “I thought I heard it all. This takes the cake.”

“I am offering you the city of Detroit,” Marat Zolner said.

“When I’m done, it will be my city. I don’t need you.”

“Would you prefer to wait five years in hopes your enemies all kill each other off? Keeping in mind that the one who survives will emerge strong. Or do you want to get to it right now?”

“Now.”

“Starting at the top, Abe, who do we kill first?”

“Max Stern.”

“Is that a fact?” the Bolshevik asked coldly.

“Max Stern,” Weintraub repeated.

The agents whom Zolner had sent ahead to scout Detroit and Windsor had predicted that the top boss would be a Jew. The Italian gangs had decimated themselves in the murderous Gia

“I’ve heard that, too,” said Zolner.

“Now you hear it from me.”

“Except that I also hear that Stern has disappeared.” The gangster had vanished the very night Black Bird rumbled into her Windsor boathouse.

“Yeah, well, these boss guys lay low. For their health.”

Marat Zolner’s features hardened. “Max Stern was incinerated in a brewery furnace over in Windsor.”

“Oh yeah?”

“You have one more chance, you lying son of a bitch.”

Abe Weintraub did not protest the insult. “O.K. Just testing who you are. I don’t know how you know this stuff, but you’re the real thing.”

“Last chance, Abe: Who do we kill first?”

“Sam Rosenthal.”

Zolner settled back in his chair. At last. “I wondered if it was him.”

“Wonder ’til you’re blue in the face,” said Weintraub. “Rosenthal is bulletproof.”

“Isn’t Sam Rosenthal digging a tu