Motor City Shakedown Read Online Free PDF Page A

and took a trolley to the factory. I detoured to my father’s office in the administration building. His secretary, Mr. Wilkinson, a neat, fastidious man with a thick brown beard that hung to the perfect knot of his cravat, told me I could go right in.
    My father stood at the window, hands clasped behind his back, peering through the blinds at the men striding down the cobblestone road toward the factory. He turned and waved me in. “Will, my boy, how are you this morning?” He wore a warm smile on his fleshy face. He’d become much more demonstrative with his affection since my stay in the hospital, and I knew he was very concerned about my state of mind. I’d politely refused his entreaties to see Dr. Miller and tried to act happy when I was in his presence.
    â€œI’m fine, Father. And you?”
    â€œI’m fine.” He appraised me for a moment. “What can I do for you this morning?”
    â€œI’m going to need to take some time off—perhaps a few weeks.”
    His eyes searched my face for some hidden meaning. “Why?”
    â€œJust a little vacation.”
    â€œThis seems rather sudden.” He walked around his desk and stopped a foot away from me. “You’ve just been getting settled in engineering.”
    I maintained eye contact. “I just need a week or two.”
    â€œDr. Miller said you need normalcy, a regimen.”
    â€œI know.”
    He placed a hand on my shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “Keep working. In fact, come back and live with your mother and me. Just for a while, until you feel better.”
    â€œThank you, Father, no. We’ve been over this.” I stepped back, and his hand slipped off my shoulder. “I appreciate your concern. I do. But I have to do this.”
    â€œYou have to take a vacation?” He sighed and sat on the edge of his desk. “This is about Wesley, isn’t it? You’re going after them.”
    I looked away and then met his gaze again. “No. It has nothing to do with Wesley.”
    He stared into my eyes. “Will. You can’t bring him back. Let the police do their job.” His tone turned to pleading. “You have important duties here. The engineering department needs you.”
    Even he had to know what a stretch that was. The engineering department hadn’t been impacted in the least by my presence. “I’m sorry, Father.”
    He looked down at the wooden floor. When he met my eyes again he looked older than his fifty-nine years. “All right, son. But take care of yourself.”
    I thanked him and left his office with a feeling of regret. I’d been a disappointment to my father since I’d come to work for the company two years earlier, due to my drinking and the personal problems I’d allowed to interfere with my work. I had no doubt he’d already given a great deal of consideration to who would take his place as president of the company when he retired. There were many candidates more qualified—and infinitely more reliable—than I.
    I got my hair cut and then rode down to the towering Penobscot Building and the Peoples State Bank, where I withdrew a hundred dollars in cash. Assuming I could find the prostitute, it was unlikely I’d be able to get any of her time without paying for it. If I couldn’t find her, I’d have to spread some money around, bribe some people.
    When I returned home, I thought about my next move. It seemed all I could do was find the prostitute and get the truth out of her, a task I viewed with a great deal of trepidation. Finding this woman among the denizens of Detroit’s “Paradise Valley” would be both difficult and dangerous.
    At five o’clock I stuck the .32 into my belt at the small of my back and squeezed onto a trolley. I got off at Grand Circus Park and worked my way over to the unsavory climes of Detroit’s three-block run of brothels, dives, after-hours clubs,