And then she disappeared into the back room.
He turned around and winked at me. “What can I say, Alex?”
“You’re the master,” I said.
Randy’s reign as the master lasted another ninety seconds. Then Teresa’s supervisor came charging out of that back room, a woman who looked exactly like Alex Karras, the old Detroit Lions defensive lineman. Maybe Alex Karras on a bad hair day.
By the time she got done with Randy, I was already out the door.
It was almost five o’clock when we hit Woodward Avenue again. The rush-hour traffic was heavy, and it didn’t help that half the roads were being torn up.
“Don’t say a word, Alex.”
“I’m not saying anything.”
“We were close,” he said. “We almost had it.”
“Tackled at the one-yard line.”
“You going to the library?” he said. “It’s gotta still be open now, right?”
“We’ll find out,” I said.
We were driving north on Woodward. Woodward Avenue. The library was up by Kirby Street. I could feel my stomach tightening up. A few more blocks north and we’d be driving right by it. The building where it happened.
We drove by the new stadium, right across the street from the old Fox Theater. Comerica Park, they were gonna call it. Not quite the same ring as Tiger Stadium.
“There it is,” he said. “Hell, you can see right into it.”
“That’s the way they build them these days,” I said. “You’re supposed to able to see the city while you’re watching a game.”
“I don’t get it,” he said. “It’s Detroit, for God’s sake.”
I let that one go. When we got to the library, it was obviously closed.
“How can a library be closed at five o’clock?” Randy said.
“Budget cuts,” I said.
“Maybe when the casinos open up, the city will have more money,” he said.
“That’s right,” I said. “Those casinos will be a godsend to the library.”
He looked at me. “You all right?”
“It’s been a long day,” I said. “I could use a drink now, and some dinner. You still want to go to Lin- dell?”
“Let’s go,” he said. “Then maybe later you can show me around.”
“Around where?” I said.
“Around Detroit,” he said. “Your Detroit. This is your hometown, right? You gotta have a lot of memories here.”
I drove south, back to the motel. I didn’t say anything.
Memories, he says. You gotta have a lot of memories here. If he only knew.
CHAPTER 6
Its full name is the Lindell Athletic Club, but I’ve never heard anybody call it that. It’s the Lindell AC. It used to be a few blocks east, over by the old Hudson’s department store; then they moved it to the ground floor of an oddly triangular-shaped building on the corner of Cass and Michigan Avenue. If you didn’t know better, you’d swear it had been there forever. The building itself looks like nobody’s touched it since World War II, right down to the old metal awnings over the windows. Next door there’s a barbershop where you can still get a shave with a straight razor and a splash of Royal Bay Rum.
As soon as you step into the Lindell, you see fifty years’ worth of photographs and memorabilia all over the place. Right above the door, there’s a huge black-and-white photograph of an old-fashioned hockey brawl, back when everybody could come off the bench to join in. The caption read “Detroit vs. Toronto, 1938.” A lot of sports bars try to look like the Lindell AC, but they don’t pull it off. You can’t just open up a bar and try to stick all the sports crap you can find all over the place. It has to evolve naturally over time. A bat one week, a ball the next. The next week a jockstrap. Two thousand weeks later, you’ve got the Lindell AC.
We sat in a booth in the comer, right under the picture of Mickey Stanley going over the left-field wall. We ate our world-famous grilled hamburgers while the sun went down outside. I didn’t say much. Randy was too busy soaking in the place to notice.
“God, this place hasn’t changed at all,” he said. “There’s Johnny Butsakaris over there behind the bar. Think he remembers me?”
“You were here a couple times almost thirty years ago,” I said. “You really think he’s going to remember you?”
“You’re right,” he said, rubbing his mustache and goatee. “Not with this stuff on my face.”
“I’m gonna go see if Mr. Shannon is home yet,” I said. I had his number circled on one of the sheets of paper Leon had given us.
“You’re gonna call him?”
“No. I’m gonna go walk back to his house,” I said.
“Somebody’s a little grouchy,” he said. “I’ll get you another beer. Then we’re gonna go out and you’re gonna show me around, right? You promised.”
“I didn’t promise that, Randy.”
“I want to see where you grew up, Alex. I want to see the parking lot where you lost your virginity.”
“I’m gonna go call him now,” I said.
“Go,” he said. “Go do your thing.”
I went to the pay phone and called the number. I heard two rings and then a rough voice saying hello.
“Mr. Shannon?” I said.
“Speaking.”
“My name is Alex McKnight. I’m a private investigator. I’ve got a question for you, and it’s going to sound a little strange.”
“A private who? What’s this about?”
“Mr. Shannon, I’m trying to find somebody who lived at your address in 1971. I don’t suppose you know who owned your house back then.”
“Nineteen seventy-one? Are you serious?”
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry to disturb you this evening. The family’s name was Valeska.”
“No, no, stop. Nineteen seventy-one, I was nowhere near here. I’ve only been in this house a couple years.”
“Perhaps the person you bought the house from?”
“No, he only had the place for… a year, I think. And before he had it, I remember him telling me, the place was sitting empty here for a long time…”
“I understand, sir. Can I ask if you’re aware of an old staircase that used to run up the right side of your house?”
“Matter of fact, yeah. It looks like there used to be something like that. They redid the whole place, knocked the back wall out. Looks like they put in a new staircase when they did that.”
“That makes sense,” I said. “That’s kinda what we figured.”
“If you know about that old staircase,” he said, “then I guess you really are looking for somebody from that long ago. You’re really a private investigator?”
“Yes, sir, I am. If I can ask you just one more question…”
“Ask away.”
“Is there anyone on your block who may have been living there back in 1971?”
