miles of flat farmland with only a few passable roads and a couple of railway lines connecting it to the rest of the province. If they controlled that frontier, it would only leave the river, and the river was a fast-moving no man’s land.
“Tell you what,” Frank McCloskey said, “I’ve done a bit of business out there before. I’ll make the trip.”
Billy smiled. This is just what he wanted to hear. Plans were drawn up for an annex operation in Belle River. Boats would be refurbished over the winter, materials ordered for new docks, and stills fired up along the county roads.
Less than a week later, Lesperance got a call from his cousin Bernie. The deal was off. What Lesperance and McCloskey & Son were unaware of was that the Lieutenant’s boys were also knocking on doors in Belle River. Any operation that impacted negatively on their business had to be either assimilated or eliminated. They were finished making overtures; now they were delivering ultimatums. Frank McCloskey took Lesperance out to investigate, but now no one would even give them the time of day.
The Lieutenant called Jack into his office to explain this business with his family. Before stepping across the threshold, McCloskey asked himself which would be worse: to lie and say he knew nothing, or to tell the Lieutenant the truth and say he knew but hadn’t come clean. McCloskey lied. He owed it to blood being thicker than whisky. He swore to the Lieutenant that he knew nothing about their activities and in fact hadn’t had words with them in years. The Lieutenant wasn’t interested in the family history. He just wanted the matter resolved.
“Listen, Killer, the boys’ll take care of those frogs in the county, but I want you to lean on your father and brother.”
McCloskey said he would deal with it.
One of Billy’s overland suppliers was scheduled to make a delivery the next day. A provincial policeman being paid by Billy to keep the way clear reported this to Jack. The lesson to be learned here is that while good money might buy you information, better money will buy you a snitch. McCloskey headed the supplier off at Maidstone and relieved him of his whisky, his gun and, as an added touch, his pants.
“Next time you want to do business in the Border Cities, get in touch with the Lieutenant first.”
Billy phoned his contact the next morning and demanded an explanation. The contact told Billy what happened and said word was out that the Lieutenant was running things between Lake Erie and Lake St. Clair.
“I’m telling you kid, you’re finished.”
The man hung up before Billy had a chance to form a reply. Billy tore the phone off the wall and hurled it through the kitchen window.
— Chapter 6 —
THE INSURGENT
By the end of the year the Lieutenant had accomplished everything he had set out to, so he threw himself a New Year’s party fit for a king. The guest list included not only the brash young bootleggers who helped him seize the day but also the police, lawyers, and city councilmen he enlisted along the way to ensure things continued to run smoothly.
The soirée was held at his palatial new digs on Richmond Street in Walkerville. He had purchased two side-by-side properties and levelled them both to make room for it. The classically-inspired pile took over a year to build and was an architectural assault on the dry establishment’s cozy Queen Anne manses. The guests arrived around eight o’clock, rolling into the semi-circular drive in their brand new Lincolns and Cadillacs. The men looked sleek and refined in their tuxes. The girls made their entrance in full-length furs that, once inside, they peeled off to reveal slinky shift dresses that barely reached to the tops of their stockings.
The main hall was done in Italian marble. Staircases curved to the left and right and between them stood the centrepiece to this enormous space: a sculpture of a winged goddess that stood over a shallow reflecting pool that tonight was filled with whisky. At the front of the reflecting pool was an ice dam, already melting, and below the dam was a model of an American city that by midnight would be awash in Canadian Club.
Guests were led to a great ballroom forming the north side of the house’s quadrangle. Rose-coloured walls were complemented by a wooden floor stained a rich amber hue. Sumptuous curtains with a striking Oriental pattern framed the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the garden, and the vaulted ceiling was adorned with a gold-and-turquoise mosaic reminiscent of a sunset over the river.
A band from Detroit had been hired for the party and they played all-out jazz, the real thing, not the fluff that Paul Whiteman was churning out for the masses. There were six musicians and a singer the boys called Queenie. Together they were the Royal Seven, and they got things rolling right away with a hot little number called “Jazzin’ Babies Blues.” Queenie sang about jazz blues causing her to scream and moan and make her think of all the good things that her sweet daddy’s done. It was liberating, frenetic, and fun.
Mesmerized by the performance, the crowd didn’t actually start dancing until the second or third number, and then they hammered away at the Anvil Trot until dawn. Everything glittered; whisky was gold. If 1921 was the test drive for the Lieutenant and his gang, 1922 was going to be the Grand Prix.
Billy McCloskey spent most of the winter sitting in a rocking chair in the back room of the house, watching the river ice over then break up, ice over, and then break up again. Out of the corner of his eye was always the cabin, empty now except for his pa’s old still. It mocked him, as did River Rat, which was dry-docked in the yard.
After their well had finally run dry, Frank McCloskey somehow managed to acquire a crate of English ale. He figured it had been traded a few too many times and finally fell into the hands of someone who simply didn’t have a taste for it. It was packed with pages of newsprint. Frank passed the pages to his son.
Not having anything else to do, Billy read them. They happened to contain articles about the labour movement in Great Britain, and about strikes and political unrest. He wanted to know how the folks in Belle River enjoyed being the Lieutenant’s wage slaves. He was suddenly inspired.
On a spring-like day in February, he went out to Belle River and managed to sell a few yolks on the idea of solidarity among bootleggers and still operators.
Word got back to the Lieutenant, who told McCloskey to resolve the matter once and for all, or he would have to get personally involved.
“This ain’t baseball, Killer. You don’t get three chances. The only reason I let it get this far is because these people are your family.”
Jack found Billy sitting alone at the bar in the Crawford Hotel downtown on Riverside Drive. He grabbed Billy by the shoulders and dragged him back towards the kitchen.
“Let’s you and me have a conversation.”
They interrupted a group standing around a chopping block discussing odds on horses. A fat, sweaty man holding a fistful of betting slips shot Jack a look as he hustled Billy around the corner into the pantry.
“I swear the Hun was the only thing that kept those two from killing each other in France.”
No one laughed. Too much money was on the table. Suddenly there was a commotion out front.
“Jee-zuss!”
Two Mounties brandishing Colts burst into the hotel and ran up the stairs to the rooms. The dozen or so folks drinking liquor at the tables guzzled what was left in their
