Tully of course knew the area. But he couldn’t have come up with the name of the church. All he knew about churches was that there were a lot of them on Woodward and yes, he guessed some of them might be cathedrals. He would quickly defer to Mangiapane, who, as a very practicing Catholic, would know the name and location of the Catholic cathedral.
“But,” Mangiapane continued, “there is a driveway off Arden Park for the Cathedral rectory. Visitors always park in that driveway. It’s an obvious parking area and it’s lots safer than parking on the street. So it was a logical question: Why did he park on that street?
“Well, he hems and haws for a while. Then he says he’s an architect and he got out of his car so he could study the large, nice-lookin’ buildings in that area . . . sort of on the spur of the moment, you know?”
Tully snorted.
“Right.” Mangiapane agreed with the nonarticulate utterance. “So Hughes asks the guy for his ID. The guy hems and haws some more. Then he tells them he was robbed. And they say, ‘Oh, that’s interesting: You call us over here claiming somebody stole your wheels. Now you tell us that not only did somebody take your car but, oh, yeah, while I think of it, they also robbed me.
“‘Just when did they do that, sir? You were walkin’ up and down the street and—what was it: one or two guys?’
“The guy says, ‘Two ... it was two.’
“Wolford says, ‘So, two guys take your wallet, your ID. And then they say, “Okay, while we’re at it, I guess we’ll take your wheels too”—that about it?’
“And the guy says, ‘Yeah, that’s about it.’”
“Okay.” Tully was slumped in the passenger seat with his shapeless Irish tweed pulled low on his head. “What happened was this: The guy picks up a hooker on Woodward. She asks him what he wants. He says a blow job will be fine. She tells him to pull into a private driveway on Arden Park. He does. She says she’s not gonna service him till she sees some green. He takes out his wallet and right then two of her friends come out of the bushes. They’re armed. They force him out of his car. They take off with the wallet, the car, and the hooker.
“The driveway happens to be next to the convent. So he goes in there, tells the nuns somebody just stole his car—without bothering to mention the rest of the scenario—and asks to use their phone. And the rest is history . . . right?”
Mangiapane thumped the steering wheel. “You got it, Zoo, you got it! And while the guy is telling his story to Hughes and Wolford, these nuns start cracking up and leave the room . . . ’cause they know where the guy is heading and what really happened.”
“Keep at least one hand on the wheel, okay, Mangiapane?” It was ethnic, Tully thought, and he didn’t usually sink to ethnic observations. But maybe there was some truth to it: that if you were to cut off an Italian’s hands, he’d be struck dumb.
It certainly seemed true of Mangiapane. The gestures added zest to his storytelling. Tully couldn’t conceive of Mangiapane’s narrating anything about which he felt deeply without directing the movement, much as an orchestra leader would do. And, in fact, Mangiapane didn’t actually need even one hand on the steering wheel. The guy was so big he could guide the car by pressing his thigh against the wheel . . . especially at the snail’s pace at which they were now traveling.
Tully plucked the radio mike from beneath the dashboard and began checking with the other units spread throughout the predetermined red-light districts. Nothing. Not a nibble. And it was beginning to get late. Another hour and they would be out of the time frame in which the perp had operated on the previous Sundays.
“No luck, eh?”
Tully shook his head. Mangiapane, eyes alternately on the road and scanning the neighborhood, didn’t catch Tully’s response. No matter, the question had been rhetorical.
“Think we’ll get home in time to see some of the Pro Bowl?” Mangiapane asked.
“Where they playin’?”
“Hawaii.”
“They’re about six hours behind us, aren’t they?”
“About.”
“And the damn game goes on forever.”
“Pretty much.”
“Yeah, I’d say we’ll either get to see the last quarter or the late movie.”
Mangiapane laughed, somewhat more heartily than was called for. He wasn’t quite conscious of the fact that he was trying to ingratiate himself with Tully.
“Speaking of movies,” Mangiapane was off again on one of his vignettes, “. . . you know that movie they’re filming in town now?”
“Uh-huh.” Everybody was painfully aware of the movie now being filmed in Detroit. The local news media, ordinarily extremely professional, lost measurable cool when it came to those rare instances when Hollywood invaded Detroit.
“Did you know that Lieutenant Horan was in charge of the squad assigned to the film crew?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, I got this story from Hughes at lunch. He’s a friend of one of the guys on that squad. And he was talkin’ about the filming the other night. It was about ten o’clock. They got those whatchamacallits—klieg lights?—whatever, and they’re gonna shoot right outside the Book Cadillac on Washington Boulevard.
“Anyway, they get all set up and ready to go when all of a sudden this car comes crashing through the barricades and plows into the set. Damn lucky thing nobody got hurt. Drunk driver.”
“I read about it.”
“Yeah, Zoo, and they had it on TV that night, too. But there was more to it than that. When they were setting up that shot, the director of the movie . . . uh . . . what’s his name?”
“I don’t know, but he’s a major-league jerk.”
“You heard this story before?”
“No, but I heard about that guy.”
“Right. Well, the jerk has five, six marked cars come screechin’ up to the hotel every which way. Some are parked facin’ north, some south, some south-by-southwest, some east. So Lieutenant Horan, tryin’ to be helpful, comes up to the director and tells him, ‘You know, the police never park like that.’
“So, the jerk says, ‘Get off my back, willya? This is Show Biz. This is the way the customers are used to seein’ dungs. I’ll direct the movie and you be a cop, okay?’
“Well, it’s all the lieutenant can do to keep from kickin’ the guy right where the sun never shines. Then this drunk comes plowin’ through everything. And of course nobody can respond because everybody’s radiator is kissin’ everybody else’s radiator.
“So then Horan comes back to the jerk and says, ‘See why the cops never park that way?’“
They chuckled.
“Anyway,” Mangiapane continued, “the Lieutenant got the last laugh. By the time they got everything untangled, it was too late for the shoot. So they wasted all that time and money.”
“Nice when the good guys win one.” Tully again reached for the mike.
If Mangiapane had been alert, he would have noticed a slight tremor in Tully’s hand. It was getting late and Tully was getting anxious.
He checked with the other units. All present and accounted for. No one had sighted anything out of the ordinary.
“Gettin’ late, ain’t it?” Mangiapane noted.
“Uh-huh.”
“There was one more.”
“One more what?”
“Story. It happened to Wolford.”
“That must’ve been some lunch you guys had.”
“It was.”
“Did you eat anything?”
“Sure, Zoo.”
“Sounds like all you did was talk.”
“No, no . . . we had, let’s see . . .”
“Never mind. What was Wolford’s story?”
“Yeah, well, he was in Wink’s Chevy body shop. Had to get a headlight for his car. The manager’s a friend of his. So while he’s waiting, this lady comes in to pick up her car after repairs. But she tells the manager her radio won’t work. Which is news to the manager ’cause there was nothin’ wrong with her radio in the first place. But he gets one of the guys to go out to her car with her. They’re all tryin’ to figure out what went wrong with the radio. Then, as she and the mechanic are goin’ out the door, she says, ‘. . . at least I think there’s something wrong with my radio: I can’t turn it on . . . maybe that’s because I never turned it off.’