Smog - Baggage of Enternal Night (9 page)

Copyright
© 2013 by Eric J. Guignard

All
rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means
graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping,
or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission
of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical
articles and reviews.

This
is a work of fiction. All of the characters, names, incidents, organizations,
and dialogue in this novel are either the products of the author’s imagination
or are used fictitiously.

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The
views expressed in this work are solely those of the authors and do not
necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby
disclaims any responsibility for them.

ISBN:      978-1-940161-01-3 (sc)

ISBN:      978-1-940161-17-4 (hc
– limited edition)

ISBN:      978-1-940161-02-0 (ebook)

Library
of Congress Control Number:   2013941614

Printed
in the United States of America

JournalStone
rev. date: September 6, 2013

Cover
Design:         Denise Daniel

Cover
Art:              Alan M. Clark

Edited
by:                Norman Rubenstein

Endorsements

"Wonderfully
weird! Detroit may be gone, but in Eric J. Guignard's Baggage of Eternal Night
the majesty that was Detroit so long ago is found again. Guignard writes with
an effortless flow that feels so natural, so easy, that I couldn't help but
feel I was sitting next to him, listening with rapt horror at the tale he spun.
Read this, right now. You will not be sorry."
— Joe McKinney
, Bram
Stoker Award-winning author of
Dead City
and
Inheritance

“Eric
J. Guignard is a brilliant writer, and
Baggage of Eternal Night
, his
debut work of long fiction, pays off the promise of his early stories,
tenfold. The prose is vivid, the characters richly drawn, and the pages seem to
turn themselves. Do yourself a favor—don’t miss this!”
—
Peter Giglio
,
author of
Stealing Night
and
Lesser Creatures 

Dedication

Dedicated
to my family;

We’re
all collectors of something.

Thanks
also to Lisa, Chris, and Norm

for
inspiring me.

Chapter 1

I
want to tell you about Joey Third.

You probably never heard of Joey before, but at
one time in the early 1950s he was a big-shot gambler in the underworld circles
of Chicago and Detroit. Joey Thurston was his real name, but
Joey Third
is the name some wise guy called him on account of there being three different
Joeys gambling one night in Little Louie’s Den. After that, the name just
stuck.

Joey and I became good friends. I didn’t get to
know him until after his poker days were over. I wouldn’t have associated with
him in those backroom circles anyway; those were the tables run by gangsters
like Joseph Zerilli and Angelo Meli, men who could make you vanish if you
laughed at the wrong joke or they didn’t like the color of your tie. But by
1959, Joey had quit with the cards. Seemed that when he lost at poker, he
really lost big. And when he won…well, he still lost. After a night of straight
aces, two mucks accused him of cheating and broke every bone in his left hand
with a framing hammer. I don’t believe Joey ever cheated—the times I knew him,
he would return a gold watch to a man that dropped it on the street. I think
those mucks that busted his hand were just sore losers. That, or their bosses
were.

Anyway, how I met Joey was at the baggage
auctions. Joey may have soured on cards, but he was a gambling man at heart. I
began to recognize him at places like Roman’s and the liquidation house on 23
^rd
.
I got used to seeing him waving that crippled hand of his up in the air, those
ruined fingers askew like the twisted legs of a dead spider. Joey had an
affable presence about him, a sense that, whether he was joking or irritable or
even plain silent, one could still find companionship just by standing next to
him. He was a genuine people-person. I won a few auctions over him, and he won
a few over me, and pretty soon we’d get to drinking a couple mugs afterward,
bearing a bond of baggage gambling.

Now, in case I’m getting ahead of myself, let me
explain what a baggage auction is, for those of you not around during the war
in the Koreas. These auctions are for pieces of luggage that go unclaimed at
all the big hotels. Maybe the guests forgot about the baggage. Maybe folks got
locked up, or they didn’t pay the bill…maybe they died. The bags are sold off
unopened to the highest bidder. You never know what you’re going to find
inside, but with a little education and experience, you get pretty good at
guessing. A big, frumpy carpet bag with paisley print on it likely contains
some old marm’s stockings and brassiere. A scuffed attaché case might contain
makeup or the display merchandise of a traveling salesman. A midsize valise,
plain in color, but from a high-end manufacturer—well, those are the best to go
after. More often than not, you’ll find a gentleman’s vanity or lady’s jewelry
inside. The first time I competed in an auction, I bid one dollar and won a
dented footlocker speckled on the front by dark stains. Inside was an envelope
stuffed with ten fifty-dollar bills. After that, I was hooked for life.

The tale I want to tell you about Joey Third
involves a leather suitcase he won at a baggage auction. I want to tell you
about what was
inside
that suitcase.

It all began late on a Thursday afternoon in the
midst of July. I remember that day because the Tigers had taken an awful
pounding by the White Sox for three days in a row. The whole city just seemed
to slump at that, as if every building and car were inflatable and air slowly
leaked out from the seams. People were in a foul mood and the summer heat
didn’t help none. The baggage auctions were normally a hoot for Joey and me
both, but our hearts didn’t seem to be in it that day.

The auctions were a weekly event, every Thursday
afternoon, and that day it was held offsite in a distribution warehouse that
doubled as a union hall. There weren’t even chairs to sit on. We just stood in
a large group, sweating and small-talking. Most of the guys in there knew each
other—we all traveled to the same auctions the way you would follow horses at
the tracks. We had our favorite auctioneers and our favorite hotels that the
luggage came from. Today wasn’t much different, except we were in the warehouse
rather than a lodge or liquidation house.

Joey and I worked our way over to Ray Galler, a
friend from the north side of town who owned a couple consignment shops. Ray
was also an art and collectibles dealer who bought anything of value that we
won. Between his stores and his private dealings, Ray could find a buyer for
just about anything, if the price made sense. He was only a few years older
than us but twice the hustler. I didn’t make a lot of money from the auctions
or races or my other gambling ventures—I also ghostwrote political editorials
to pay the bills—but to Ray, the auctions were a way of life.

He had a habit of snapping his fingers when he
spoke, as if the words hid a secret beat only he could hear. He snapped away.
“Charlie, Joey, what do ya say? Anything lookin’ hot?”

The bidding started at five o’clock, but you were
allowed to preview the closed baggage for an hour before.

“Your eyes are as good as mine,” Joey said.

“What do you think of the big steamer trunk over
there?”

“I saw it,” I replied. “Had nice locks, solid
brass and polished. Somebody took good care of it.”

“Could be some nice artwork inside,” Ray said.

“Or Grandma’s family photos,” Joey replied. “Bet
it wasn’t used for nothing but a hope chest, filled with baby clothes.”

“But why would someone cart it along to a hotel if
that’s all it held?” I asked.

“People bring strange things with them when they
travel. You should know that by now.”

Joey was right; I did know. The wonder was endless
when it came to trinkets that people found valuable. I once knew a man who was
destitute and homeless, but who carried with him a large box of baby rattles
wherever he went. Those rattles meant the world to him, but to anyone else it
was a collection of pastel-colored crap that sounded like shattering glass
whenever he moved.

The auctioneer arrived and announced it was time
to start bidding. Before you could whistle, the first suitcase was carried in
by a porter and the auctioneer jumped right into the whole spiel. He was
country-fat—the kind raised on gravy and hog—and his teeth stuck out as if his
mouth caught fire and every chomper tried escaping in different directions. But
his voice was molten honey, burning hot and pouring from between those screwy
teeth in a flood of sweet words.

“First up open bid, one dollar for the green soft
case, do I hear one? One! Over there, do I hear two? Two! Over there, now
three, give me three, three dollars for the soft case. Three! The man in the
back, going four, now four, do I hear four? Four! Man in the green coat, going
five, now five, going five once, going five twice. Sold! Four dollars, man in
the green coat.”

The first case sold in about seven seconds, and
one porter set it aside, while a second porter carried in the next item, a
canvas tote bag.

As a matter of habit, Joey and I bid the
minimum—one dollar—on just about anything, and the bids increased depending on
our interest. The experienced bidders let the price rise on its own, as it
didn’t make sense to inflate the market right away on used items. That’s how
you could tell those who knew what they were doing against the dabblers, anyone
who was anxious or inexperienced. Ten items into the auction, and one guy
outbid everyone by yelling out forty bucks right away for a leather
portmanteau. That suggested maybe it was his own to begin with and he needed it
back. I used to think a sudden high bidder knew there was something valuable
inside an item and tipped his hand the way a guy over-bets at cards when he’s
got a royal flush. I went up against a couple of those schleps in the past and
won, only to find the case filled with stockings and rotting knickers. I lost a
lot of money and couldn’t get the smell from my nose for a week. You just never
can figure out the motivation behind some people’s bidding decisions.

As it was, we never did find out what was in that
portmanteau, or if it was worth the money he over-bid. It was house policy—and
common sense—that you opened the bags privately, off premises. There were two
reasons for this: first, the auction houses didn’t want winners to just skim
the contents and leave the empty luggage lying around for the proprietor to
have to dispose of. Second was for the safety of the winners; you didn’t want
to open a case in front of hoods when a trove of valuables might be stuffed
inside.

That auction, Joey and I each won a couple of
suitcases and purses. Just before we were set to leave and after the auction
had ended, one of the porters ran up dragging a heavy leather case that had
somehow been set apart from the others. The auctioneer announced there was
another item, but most of the bidders were already leaving, and the rest had
spent all their money. Joey won that last item with his default opening bid of
one dollar.

Afterwards, we went back to our apartments. Joey
and I lived in the same building, me on the sixth floor and him on the fourth,
of a complex that once had been a swanky hotel during the thirties, but since
then changed owners and suffered renovations, so that linoleum and
Vacancy
placards overlaid the memory of its glitz.
Les Deux Oies
. That was its
name—French for “The Two Geese.” I’m told the hotel was originally owned by
Hollywood Jews, designed by Swedes, built by Italians, and then christened in
French. Maybe that’s why it never succeeded: the national
melting pot
philosophy never seemed to fare well when it came to local business economy.
Folks get confused, and a hotel ends up being called “The Two Geese.”

We elected to go to my apartment, as it was filled
with slightly less leftover luggage than Joey’s. That’s the burden of the auctions—we
brought things in faster than we could dispose of them. Piles of teetering
boxes and empty suitcases pressed up against the walls of our homes, nearly as
high as the ceiling, placed where other men might erect bookcases or cabinets.
Containers of shot glasses were stacked on cartons of bowling shoes that sat
upon cases of screwdrivers that all listed precariously above egg crates filled
with gloves and flashlights and tubes of artist’s oil paints. Then, that was
bookended on one side by the props from someone’s Coney Island magic show and
on the other side by a locker filled with the equipment of a man who scaled
Mount Everest. Neighboring bulwarks were composed of magazines, German steins,
fishing lures, candles, cufflinks, sports gear, batteries, bottle caps,
typewriters with missing keys, ornamental Easter eggs, jars of face cream, wood
carvings, cameras without film, and a thousand other items I meant to inventory
but never got around to.

I brought out a couple of Stroh’s beers, and Joey
and me settled down on my living room floor to open what we won today.

It was like Christmas between us. We took turns
opening each piece of luggage one-at-a-time, so as to share the excitement of
its contents with each other.

“Lookee here, Charlie,” he said as he popped the
latches on a pink-striped carton. “I got a fancy evening gown. Maybe you have
something I’ll trade you for. This would make a nice gift for your lady friend
to really impress her.”

“Keep it. I’ve got a dozen in every color already
stored in the back of my closet.”

He laughed. “Yeah, I’ve got more broads’ clothes
than I do of my own. If anybody looked in my closet, they’d think I was a
fruit.”

I chuckled at that. Both our apartments looked
like secondhand stores, filled with the junk of Detroit.

It was my turn, so I unlatched a valise. “Couple
wigs in here to match your dress. A bunch of medications for stomach illness.
Pair of Bibles. I suppose you need a backup in case the devil clips the first
copy from you.”

“The Gideons would be proud.”

When you get to be middle-aged like we were,
there’re not a lot of thrills left in life, but opening the cases made us feel
like excited children, exclaiming over what was inside. Sometimes we moaned
over the contents, as a child does when finding a lump of coal in his stocking.
Other times we shrieked with rapture, like the time Joey won a bid and found a
stash of ruby-lined gold rings hidden inside, or when I found the polished old
sword and pistol of a conquistador wrapped in gingham cloth at the bottom of a
crate.

Today, it was mostly moans. Our other luggage held
old men’s shirts, dirty britches, hair tonic, and some nice shoes that were too
large for either of us.

“Not even Ray’s going to want any of this,” I
said. “I think we got skunked.”

“Speak for yourself. I’ve still got that
left-behind case that I won. It’s old and heavy, and I’m feeling good about
it.” He held his hands over the case, as a mystic might do in order to discern
its hidden power. “I’m hoping someone left bricks of gold inside.”

Joey’s last case
did
look old, and it
looked European, like the kind of luggage shown on posters for luxury cruise
liners that crossed the Atlantic. The large frame was wrapped in brown leather
and crossed with a pair of double-stitched belts. Its handle appeared to have
been carved from a hard, white substance like ivory, and there were similar
white stones with a greenish hue embedded along the edge of the case where it
would open apart.