“So the tunnel is why you want to kill Rosenthal?”
“And why I want to give you Detroit—so you can help me hold on to the tunnel.”
“But Rosenthal could be good for business if he stops the wars. Divvy up territories. Lay down some rules.”
Marat Zolner asked, “Do you really believe that Rosenthal can stop the wars without sinking your Jewish Navy? Better we lay down the rules.”
For the first time since Marat Zolner hijacked Abe Weintraub’s boat, he saw the Jewish gangster smile.
26
“WHY’S A JEW getting buried by the Catholics?” Scudder Smith asked the Detroit police captain whose blue-coated squads were struggling to keep ten thousand spectators on the sidewalks.
The Van Dorn detective had notebook and pencil in hand and his Brooklyn Eagle press card in his hat. It was a hot, sunny morning on Detroit’s west side. Across Dexter Avenue stood St. Gregory the Great, a sturdy red brick church with a limestone façade. The doors were open, and pallbearers were staggering down the front steps under the weight of a fifteen-thousand-dollar silver coffin.
“His mother was from Ireland,” said the cop. “She made him go to Saint Gregory’s school straight through fourth grade.”
Scores of polished autos were lined up to follow the hearse and flower cars to the cemetery. Bronze stars attached to bumpers identified autos that belonged to city department functionaries, and Scudder Smith said from the side of his mouth as Isaac Bell passed by, “Gives the official touch to the ceremonial procession. Look at all those five-thousand-dollar motors. You’d think they were burying the king of England.”
• • •
BELL MOVED RESTLESSLY among the crowd, disguised as a workman in plumber’s overalls and a flat cap that covered the bandage on his throbbing head. Fitful bouts of double vision flipped the sidewalk into a funhouse ride.
Tobin was here, too, as was Dashwood, trying to identify the hoodlums and beer runners and whisky haulers attending the lavish funeral. The newspapers were calling it the Purple Gang’s biggest-ever “send-off.”
The flower cars behind the hearse carried wreathes with the dead man’s name in gold letters.
OUR PAL MAX
OUR BROTHER MAX
LOVE TO MAXIE FROM UNCLE HANK AND AUNT HELENE
TO MAX STERN FROM THE BOYS
Bell was deeply disappointed and thoroughly disgusted by this latest setback. Inside the coffin was a heap of bone and ash discovered by Windsor brewery workers while cleaning a firebox. The bones had been identified by their owner’s prized blackjack. The nickel-stainless grip engraved with his initials MS had survived the flames.
With the gangster Bell had hoped would lead him to Zolner now dead, Bell could do little but draw on his photographic memory to compare wanted posters and police mug shots to Max Stern’s gangster friends and family lining up their luxurious automobiles. In one of those splendid autos could be the new boss of Detroit’s Purple Gang—the gangster with whom Marat Zolner would join forces.
Cops on motorcycles and horseback cleared a lane in the middle of Dexter Avenue, and the biggest wreath by far came up the avenue towed on a trailer hung with black crepe. Thousands of red roses depicted a full-size replica of a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. A golden banner ran its length.
MAXIE’S RIDE TO HEAVEN
FROM SAM
“What’s the word on Sam?” Bell asked Scudder, who had been buying liquor lunches, dinners, and breakfasts for Detroit’s newspapermen to get the latest on the gangs.
“The boys in the pressroom were taking bets whether Sam Rosenthal would show his face, figuring he’s safe with Max dead.”
“The new boss?”
“They say he’s smarter than Einstein. And the other contender hasn’t been heard from lately.”
“Admiral Abe?”
“Abe Weintraub. With Abe out of the picture, Sam could be Marat’s new pal.”
Bell focused on a real Rolls-Royce behind the trailer, a slab-sided sky blue Silver Ghost town car agleam with glass and nickel. A window rolled down, and he saw a sun-starved, hatchet-faced figure observing the crowds with a cold smile. Rosenthal looked young, strong, and triumphant.