demoralizing sight around front. Lloyd B. Jensen’s cortege was going past, and people were surging into the street, but not to kiss the governor goodbye. Harry Ford was seated at the passenger window of the hearse, and whether they knew it or not they were crowding up because they believed in what he stood for—redemption. They practically trampled each other trying to touch his cashmere coat, as if some of his magic might rub off on them.
According to the story that every Twin Citian knew, Harry Ford was born to a waterfront whore in Seattle. He’d spent his childhood scrapping for change on the docks, and took off for the Wild West at age sixteen. He worked as a saloon bouncer and a gold miner, then soldiered for Pancho Villa. It was in that latter capacity that he made his first fortune, selling the hides of the cattle slaughtered to feed Villa’s army, about two thousand skins a month, at ten dollars each. Those hides were all he’d asked for in return for his valuable services making deals for supplies in U.S. border towns, but he went AWOL pronto when Pancho realized what a good thing he had going.
He spent the next decade “raising hell” (his term) in the Southwest. That must have included some smuggling, but mostly it was one long party that ended when the Feds fitted him up for a nose-candy charge in Denver. He hired some fancy lawyers who took his money but didn’t beat the rap. He was broke when he went to Leavenworth, where he met Herbert Warren of Warren Enterprises, a St. Paul calendar manufacturing company. Warren was in for tax evasion, and terrified of the other inmates. Ford made a deal with him. He would protect Warren in prison, and Warren would give him a job when he got out.
Ford held up his end. Warren tried to renege many times, but Ford had some hex on him. He climbed relentlessly toward the top, and when Warren died mysteriously, he became president. He’d turned Warren Enterprises into the largest advertising company in the country, and made himself a legend in the process. Like many a millionaire before him, Ford dabbled in king-making. He’d palled around with Lloyd B. Jensen when Jensen was the county attorney, then bankrolled him for governor. He was ready to do the same for Jensen’s shot at the presidency on the Populist ticket. The smart money said that with the Depression on and Ford’s bucks behind him, Jensen could beat FDR. Then the poor man got cancer, and died. It was a sad day for many people when that happened, but it came a year late for Margaret Thornton’s husband.
Jensen was famous for his reply when his gubernatorial opponent accused him of being a Socialist. “You’re damn right I am,” he said. That practically sanctified him among many Depression-weary voters, but he was no saint. He’d grown up poor in a mostly Jew neighborhood in Minneapolis. Many friends of his had joined the mockie underworld, which didn’t seem to end their friendship, even though he occasionally had to prosecute them. You might say he had a past by the time he was elected governor, and started making the kind of deals he had to in order to govern. That didn’t bother most voters, but it didn’t sit well with some of his fellow radicals, especially Walter Thornton, who published a yellow sheet devoted to calling Jensen a crook and a sellout. The guy was a pain in the ass who might’ve hurt Jensen’s chances of becoming president, but about the time he was getting worrisome, a car full of droppers pulled up as he arrived home one evening, and ended his career in journalism.
A mockie button man named Shay Tilsen was tried for Thornton’s murder. He was acquitted, but everyone figured he’d done it. There just wasn’t enough evidence to convict him. The prosecution offered him a sweet deal to rat on whoever hired him, and it was on the table up to the moment the jury walked in, but he never opened his mouth.
I had no skin in that game so I’d never given Ford’s involvement much thought. I could find out though. My clients think it’s sorcery how I get to the bottom of things, but my reputation rests on two solid facts: one—the majority of murders go unsolved. Your higher-ups don’t spread that around, and since most people don’t know it, they’re also unaware of fact two—the shamuses usually know damn well who the perpetrator is, they just can’t prove it.
The rest of the equation is pretty simple. I’m second-generation Irish, I know most of the cops in town, and I can find out what I need to by dropping into Tin Cups and buying a few shots for the right gumshoe. If there’s any skill involved, it’s knowing who to ask what. My first stop wasn’t Tin Cups, however. I dropped into Kuby’s Place on Front Avenue the next morning. Kuby’s served as a living room for many a retired St. Andrew’s parish fellow, and sure enough, there were about ten of them there, a few alone at the bar, the rest gathered around the wood stove, warming their ale on the firebricks.
When in Kuby’s, do as the Kubans do. I pulled up a stool, ordered coffee and brandy, and put my nose to the crossword puzzle. It wasn’t long before I felt a hearty whack on the back. They don’t call him Slap for nothing. He was freshly shaved and nattily attired, the picture of contented leisure. I don’t know how he does it, I thought, for the umpteenth time. By rights he should be in a bread line.
“Top of the morning,” he said.
I nodded. “I need a four-letter name from Shakespeare that epitomizes cunning.”
“I don’t read that limey bastard, Martin. How did it go with the widow Thornton? And isn’t she a fine example of lace-curtain womanhood?”
“She is, and a welcome respite from the molls I generally consort with. But why did she come to you, Slap?”
“Ah, give me a moment…Yes, a fifteen-letter name that epitomizes cunning. Martin McDonough.”
We both knew why she’d been steered to Slap. Eight years ago Slap was an investigator on the St. Paul force. A bootlegging operation he was looking into with little or no enthusiasm led him straight to the late Lloyd B. Jensen. That piqued his interest, and when Slap got interested he found things out. He’s always clammed up on this, but he must have known plenty. That was why the chief summoned him one day and told him an early retirement was called for. No scandal, he assured him, just a health matter (Slap will outlive me), a Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association benefit, and he was a civilian again at age fifty. A lesser man would have been devastated. Not Slap. He lived with his wife and youngest son in a frame house on Oxford, just two doors from the tracks but he claimed that the sound of the Great Northern put him to sleep at night. I think it’s a nip of the Irish that does it, but be that as it may, retirement agreed with him. I don’t know how he maintained their lifestyle, but it was no mystery why Margaret Thornton was sent his way. He was an authority on Lloyd B. Jensen’s affairs.
“What do you think,” I asked, “was Ford behind it?”
“Nah. That husband of hers was preaching to the converted. All that Commie crap. It would’ve
He looked as serious as any guy with a nose like a potato and eternally twinkling eyes can, but he was shoveling a load of malarkey. “C’mon, Slap, he was also repeating rumors that you’re familiar with, that you maybe could verify.”
“Nobody cares about that old bootlegger stuff.”
“A guy who was in bed with gangsters can get elected president?”
“Anybody who can end this Depression can get elected, Martin. FDR has my vote.” He shook his finger under my nose. “What about yours?”
A few of the old gentlemen pricked up their ears at that, but I didn’t take the bait. “Never mind politics. I’ve got other things on my mind. Who hired that mockie to drop Walter Thornton? And another thing. What kind of Jew is named Shay?”
Slap smiled. “I can tell you how to find out. Drop into a place of worship named Adath Jeshurin Synagogue, in Minneapolis. Tuesday night. It’s their social evening. The scholars get together and discuss some Hebrew hocus- pocus, the businessmen talk business, and a bunch of radicals argue with each other so loud it drives everyone else nuts. I hear Shay Tilsen comes around. I wonder who he consorts with. So should you, Martin.”
Slap never disappoints me, but I still have to crack wise. “Should I ask him why he dropped Thornton?”
“Nah. I was you, I’d talk to one of the Reds. Lou Rothman.”
According to Slap, this Rothman and his buddies had Margaret Thornton’s interests at heart. They took up a collection every week and sent it her way, in honor of her dead husband. “Maybe you can find out a thing or two from them,” he said.
I agreed and stood to leave.
“When was the last time you talked to your mother, Martin?” he asked. I told him a week ago Sunday. “Well, I have a message from her,” he said.
I should’ve seen that coming. I was halfway out the door before you could say
It was raining Tuesday night, a cold November rain. The kind that turns to snow. I had to park a block away
