The Switch Read online

  “Over at the Mexican Village,” Louis said, “on the wall in the can it says, ‘Coleman is a copsacker.’ Now you want a safe place and some good burritos, go to the Mexican Village. All the cops eat there.”

  “I notice that,” Ordell said. “The cops love to eat Mex. I was in there, it’s right over by Michigan Central where I been doing some business.”

  “By the freight yards,” Louis said.

  “Freight yards, the Ho Chi Minh Trail, man, all the stuff that comes out of there.”

  “That’s where you’re getting the building supplies?”

  “No, the choo-choo comes in, we get mostly appliances,” Ordell said. “Ranges, refrigerators, the man buys for these apartments I’m gonna show you. The building stuff we pick up out on jobs.”

  “This deal,” Louis said, “if we’re talking about lifting work you don’t want me, you want some strong young boys.”

  “I say anything about lifting work?” Ordell looked at the rear-view mirror and made a sweeping left turn off Woodward. “I’ll show you where the man makes his money.”

  Ordell made a couple of loops through the Cass Corridor area, giving Louis the tour.

  “On the right you have the beautiful Wayne State University campus—”

  “I had it two years,” Louis said. “I should’ve learned something.”

  “On down the street,” Ordell said, “to a fine example of neo-ghetto. I went to school too, man. You can see it’s not your classic ghetto yet, not quite ratty or rotten enough, but it’s coming. Over there on the left, first whore of the day. Out for her vitamin C. And there’s some more—hot pants with a little ass hanging out, showing the goods.”

  “How come colored girls,” Louis said, “their asses are so high?”

  “You don’t know that?” Ordell glanced at him. “Same way as the camel.”

  Louis said, “For humping, uh?”

  “No, man, for going without food and water when there was a famine, they stored up what they need in their ass.”

  Louis didn’t know if Ordell was putting him on or not. He looked at him, then shifted his gaze to the street again as Ordell said, “Uh-oh, see those people picketing? Trying to keep the neighborhood from falling in the trash can.”

  The van coasted past the people on the sidewalk, white and black, some with children, who were marching in a circle that extended from a bar to the entrance of an upstairs hotel. Louis read a sign that said, PROSTITUTES AND PIMPS GO AWAY. Another one said, HONK YOUR HORN IF YOU SUPPORT US.

  Ordell beeped a couple of times and waved. A prostitute in white boots and hot pants waved back. There were prostitutes standing around watching, making comments, and a blue-and-white Detroit police cruiser parked at the curb. Most of the signs, Louis noticed, said, SEE AND TELL.

  Ordell said he liked the one, GO HOME TO YOUR WIFE. He said, “If she was any good, the man wouldn’t come down here.”

  Louis didn’t understand the SEE AND TELL signs or the license numbers, it looked like, painted on a couple of other signs.

  “That’s the Johns’ numbers,” Ordell said. “Man stops his car to pick up a whore they write it down. Then the TV news man comes and takes pictures and the John’s license number appears on the six o’clock news. How’d you like that, you’re sitting home with mama and the kids? ‘Hey dad, ain’t that our car license?’ Everybody’s protesting. The other day I see these two ugly chicks look like pull-out guards with the Lions. I mean ugly, got these little halter outfits on, their tits hanging way down, they’re walking along with a sign says, ‘Lesbians Are Good Mothers.’ One’s got this little kid. She’s holding his hand, he’s trying to get away to kick some beer cans. The little kid not knowing shit what he’s into.”

  “Well, I’ve seen whores,” Louis said. “What else you got, some muggings?”

  “The whores’re part of what I want to show you,” Ordell said. “Be cool, Louis. You ain’t got to be anywhere but with me.”

  He showed Louis where you could buy liquor with food stamps. He showed him the second best place in town to buy fine grass.

  Finally he showed Louis the apartment buildings, about ten of them scattered around on different streets in the Corridor, all of them big, worn-out-looking buildings, four and five stories, with names like Clairmont and Balmoral and Carrolton chiseled in stone above the entrance ways. Louis said, yeah? They didn’t look any different than all the rest of the ratty looking places. Jesus, Louis said, how could people live around here? Louis hated dirt. He didn’t hate real dirt, soil. He hated manufactured dirt, soot, and all the wrappers and empty bottles and crap in the doorways. Why didn’t the people who lived there bend over and pick up the crap?

  “It’s inside the apartments are different,” Ordell said. “These the ones the man bought and fixed up. I’ll show you.”

  He took Louis past an old Airstream house-trailer that was parked in front of an apartment house. The trailer was painted yellow with DYNAMIC IMPROVEMENT COMPANY lettered on the side, and in a smaller, fancy script, Licensed Builders.

  “That’s the man’s company,” Ordell said. “Dynamic.”

  “You’re gonna tell me,” Louis said, “he got rich renovating apartments?”

  “He got rich buying the apartments cheap, then improving them even cheaper with materials and appliances and what have you supplied by the Ordell Robbie take-it-and-get, man, delivery company. You following me? He gets them all fixed up, then rents them—not to the po’ black folks and the people on welfare and the ones got strip-mined and fucked over and come up here from the Kentucky hollers, shit no—he rents them to the pimps and the ladies with the high asses you like.”

  “So it’s a business like any other business,” Louis said. “What’s the big deal?”

  Ordell turned left off Third Avenue at Willis, pulled over to the curb and parked so he could swivel around in his captain’s chair and look directly at Louis and see the whores in front of the Willis Show Bar.

  “The deal—all these colorful people pay him in cash. You understand?”

  “I guess they would,” Louis said.

  “Start multiplying,” Ordell said. “He’s got twelve buildings I know of, average thirty units each, two to $300 a month rent. That’s a gross of almost 100 grand every month.”

  “And he’s got taxes, overhead. You said he’s buying buildings,” Louis said.

  Ordell gave Louis a pained look. “You think he uses his own money? He mortgages the buildings, ten per cent down. Yeah, he makes some payments. But he takes his rent receipts in cash, declaring only about sixty per cent occupancy. You listening? And he takes out around fifty grand every month, fifty, and goes and hides it.”

  “Where?”

  Ordell grinned. “Gotcha, haven’t I? He been doing this, we know of, two years.”

  “Where’s the money?”

  “In a bank.”

  “Well, for Christ sake, what good’s that do us?”

  “Bank’s not in this country.”

  “So what? A bank’s a bank.” Louis stopped. “Wait a minute. He knows who you are, right? How you gonna work it?”

  “He knows me, yeah, but just barely. One time I met him and a couple times maybe he’s seen me. But I don’t—shit, you think I deal with him and he buys the merchandise himself? Shit no. Listen, he don’t even have his name in the company, not on any paper the company’s got.”

  “You’re talking about Dynamic.”

  “Yeah, Dynamic Improvement. You saw it. Man name of Ray Shelby runs it. He’s the front for the man, been working for him years.”

  “Okay, he’s putting money away—”

  “And breaking the law, way he’s doing it.”

  “Okay,” Louis said, “you get next to the man and say excuse me, give me all your money or I start screaming and hollering. That’s what you got in mind?”

  Ordell shook his head, giving Louis a little grin. “Uh-unh, that ain’t what I got in mind. Now I’m gonna take you some place else
on the welcome home tour of the Motor City.”

  “Where we going?”

  “Got to wait and see. This is a surprise mystery tour.”

  “Is it far?”

  “About half hour.”

  “I better take a leak first,” Louis said. He got out and crossed the sidewalk to the Willis Show Bar, the whores looking at his can in the tight pants and making comments.

  Ordell was glad Louis was back from Texas. He liked Louis and liked working with him. They saw things the same and could bullshit each other with straight faces, not letting on, but each knowing he was being understood and appreciated.

  When Louis came out he walked over to the van and looked in. He had an unlit cigarette in his mouth.

  “Guy come out behind me?”

  Ordell looked over past the whores to the Willis Show Bar entrance. “No—yeah, big guy?” Ordell, hunched down, could see the man now in the doorway. “Got on a Bosalini?”

  “That’s him. I’m in the can,” Louis said, “he comes up, says hey, loan me some money. I say loan you some money? You need a buck for a drink, what? He says I want to borrow whatever you got in your wallet. Mother took $27.”

  Ordell was still looking past Louis toward the big black guy in the Borsalino felt worn straight on his head with the brim up and the high round crown undented.

  “Go on out in the street and call him some names.”

  “I don’t think it’d work,” Louis said.

  “Try it,” Ordell said. “If it don’t work, keep running.”

  “Gimme a match,” Louis said. He was a little nervous.

  Ordell watched him walk away from the van lighting his cigarette. Louis called out something to the big black guy and the whores looked over at him again. Now the big black guy said something, grinning, and the whores laughed and started juking around, feeling something about to happen. Ordell watched Louis begin to edge back now, throwing the cigarette away as the guy came toward him. Ordell heard Louis’ words then, Louis calling the guy a tub of shit and, as the guy tried to come down on him, Louis faked a hook, feinting with it, and threw a jab hard into the guy’s belly. Ordell put the van in drive. He watched Louis run past the windshield and then the big guy run past and make a cut and begin chasing Louis down the middle of Willis. Ordell brought the van out and started after them, creeping up on the big black guy who ran pretty well for a man his size. He had one hand up now holding his Borsalino on.

  Ordell was looking down at him through the windshield when he beeped the horn. The big black guy jumped, trying to look around as he kept running, and Ordell punched him with the blunt front end of the van. Hit him and braked, seeing the guy get up and start running again, looking back big eyed. Ordell punched him again with the van, Ordell flinching, pulling back from the steering wheel, as he saw the guy’s Borsalino crush against the windshield, right there in front of him. He jammed the brakes and the guy went down, disappeared. Louis came back and bent down, taking the guy’s wallet, then throwing it aside and helping the guy over to the curb where he sat with a dumb dazed look on his face.

  Ordell waited, watching Louis get in with the wad of bills folded in his hand.

  “How much it cost him?”

  “Couple hundred,” Louis said. “I hope he learned something, but I doubt it.”

  4

  * * *

  ANALYZE IT: Why was it hard to talk to Bo? Because she was tense with him, guarded.

  Why?

  Because she was afraid to level with him.

  Why?

  Because she was always defending an untenable position. Playing make-believe, pretending everything was nice. So it wasn’t Bo’s fault at all, was it?

  No, it was her own fault, always trying to be Nice Mom. Protecting him from what? Why in hell couldn’t she be straight with him?

  “Jeez, what’d you do to your car?”

  “I guess I parked crooked. Your dad backed in—”

  Bo waited.

  “—and I guess my car was over too far in the center.”

  “He was smashed last night, wasn’t he?”

  “No, he wasn’t smashed. That’s an awful thing to say.”

  “I heard you. I mean I heard him. Did he throw something at you?”

  “Of course not.”

  “How’d his trophy get broken?”

  “It fell. He was putting it on the dresser and something was in the way. It fell off.”

  “How come he brought it upstairs?”

  “I don’t know, to look at it, I guess. He won the club championship—he’s proud of it.”

  Silence. Mom and son in tennis clothes driving to the club twenty minutes before noon: Bo studying the strings of his Wilson racket, pressing the gut with the tips of his fingers; Mickey waiting for the lighter to pop, reaching for it and looking straight ahead at the road as she lit her cigarette.

  “Where’s your sweater?”

  “I guess I left it out there.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so.”

  “You packed everything you’ll need?” She knew he had; she’d checked his suitcase.

  “I guess so.”

  “You’re not going to have much time to get to the airport.”

  “I don’t see why all of a sudden he has to go.”

  “Bo, how many times? You don’t say he.”

  “You know who I mean.”

  “That’s not the point.” She stopped before adding something about respect.

  “Okay, how come dad’s going all of a sudden?”

  “Because he has a meeting in Freeport next week and he thought—” What did he think? “—it would be nice if the two of you could fly down together. Give you a chance to talk.”

  Why did everything have to be nice? Like a TV family. Hi, mom. Where’s dad? Dad’s in the den smoking his pipe, wearing his old baggy sweater and working on your model airplane. Mmmmm, you making brownies, mom? Change the script and see what would happen. No, I’m smoking grass. What do you think I’m doing?

  She wondered if Bo had ever smoked. She wondered what he was thinking right now. All she had to do was ask.

  But she said, “Dad’ll stop by Nana and Papa’s with you and make sure—” What? “—you get settled all right. And I think he wants to call the tennis camp.”

  “I thought it was all set.”

  “It is. Just, you know, to make sure.”

  “He’s gonna hang around and watch me?”

  “No, I told you, he’s going to Freeport.”

  “How about today? Is he gonna be there?”

  “He’ll try to. He’s playing with a customer.”

  “I hope he doesn’t come.”

  “Bo—” Now what do you say? “That isn’t nice at all.” The word again. “He loves to watch you.”

  “He loves to tell me what to do and he doesn’t know shit.”

  “Bo!”

  “Well? Does he?”

  “He tries to help you.”

  “He does?”

  “He’s encouraging you, he wants you to win.”

  “How can he help me? He doesn’t know a topspin volley from a groundstroke.”

  “He knows the basics. You don’t have to be an expert to offer advice, do you?”

  “If you say so, mom.”

  She waited and stopped herself from calling him “young man,” and saying something traditionally altogether dumb. If he was right, why couldn’t she agree with him?

  She wanted to say something, desperately. But she held back. She tried it in her mind several times. She tried it again while she drew on the cigarette one last time and rolled the window down and threw out the butt.

  “Bo—” she stopped.

  “What?”

  “When you come back—we don’t have time now.”

  “For what?”

  “A talk. As soon as you come back. Bo—let’s cut out the baloney and tell each other how we really feel. All right?” She had rehearsed saying,
“Let’s cut out the bullshit,” but couldn’t do it.

  Bo looked at her. He didn’t seem surprised. He just looked up and said, “Okay.”

  She felt relieved, just a little self-conscious. “I think I understand how you feel. I mean about dad. Sometimes we let people bother us too much and we feel guilty when we really shouldn’t.”

  “I don’t feel guilty.”

  She was injecting her own problem. “I don’t mean necessarily guilty. I mean we sometimes feel distressed, you know, disturbed, when there’s no reason to. We sort of let things get out of hand.” She was using words instead of sticking to feelings and losing him.

  Bo didn’t say anything. Mickey was conscious of the silence. She wanted to fill it, quickly.

  “Are you worried about your match?”

  “Why should I be worried?”

  “I mean have you been thinking about it, planning your strategy?”

  “I played this kid before,” Bo said. “He’s big, he’s almost sixteen. But he’s got a piss-poor backhand.”

  “Well,” Mom said, “you should beat him then. Right?”

  Mickey waited for Frank in the main hall off the lobby. She wandered past the entrance to the grill, looking in, thinking the room was empty, and was trapped.

  Tyra Taylor called out, “Hi, celebrity!” The three ladies in tennis dresses, at the table near the window, waved and motioned her to join them. “We were just talking about you. Come on and have a Bloody.”

  Celebrity. Tyra would hang onto that all day and use it to death. At least there were no other members in the grill. Mickey approached their table shielding her eyes with one hand, squinting, knowing Tyra by the annoying sound of her voice, but not able to see faces clearly with the wall of glass behind them and the sun reflecting off the lake. Tyra Taylor, Kay Lyons and Jan something, with three Bloody Marys and three empties, getting a good jump on Sunday. Tyra said she loved the article, it was darling. Jan agreed and told Mickey she should be proud. Mickey said thank you, not sure what she should be proud of. Kay asked her, straight-faced, what it was like being a tennis mom.