Free The Blind Pig by Jon A. Jackson Page B

a hot car, a gun that doesn't have to be registered, or a hired killer? Even the most law-abiding citizen in Detroit seems to need a gun, and an unregistered gunis preferred. Why advertise to the cops that you are armed? And, anyway, the unregistered gun is a stolen gun and therefore cheaper than the one sold in the stores.
    There are many kinds of blind pigs in Detroit, from filthy stews to fancy establishments like the one run by Benny Singleton. This is a pleasant, two-story frame house near Pingree Park, on the East Side, several blocks north of the River and north of Indian Village. Benny has never been raided. He liked to tell Mulheisen that “If it wasn't for me, none of you fellows could send your kids to college.” Mulheisen would grimace and Benny would hasten to add, “Course, I don't mean you, Mul. You always been square with me.”
    Benny's clientele was mostly white and well-off. He permitted no heroin or other heavy drugs on the premises. He allowed casual dealers to sell a baggie of marijuana or some tai sticks, but that was it. His whiskey was authentic Hudson's Bay scotch and Wild Turkey. He didn't deal with moonshiners. The prostitutes were young, expensive and free-lance. They sometimes looked like college girls, and were. Benny charged them fifty dollars a night to come into the house and they had to buy their own drinks.
    “I been thinking, Mul,” he said. “I ought to open a dining room. Just a little place, room for about eight people. I'd serve one or two parties a night. I'd make it as expensive as I could imagine—maybe seventy-five to a hundred dollars a head. Then I'd get me Alois Belanger, the chef at the Old Plank House, and pay him whatever he had to have. Or maybe I'd get different chefs on a one-week rotation. I bet I'd be booked solid within a week of opening. I already have a very good wine cellar, but I'd have to expand—it'd be a good excuse to go to France for a month.”
    “You've got a wine cellar here?” Mulheisen said, looking up from his Wild Turkey and water (he'd ordered a Wild Turkey Ditch).
    “Hell, no,” Benny said. “I ain't taking no chances. I never been raided yet, but I don't want the first raid to bag my goodwines. I keep it next door, where I live.”
    “The restaurant sounds like a good idea,” Mulheisen said.
    “The question is,” Benny said, “why do it here if there ain't no question of legality. I mean, why not open up public?”
    “Why not?” Mulheisen concurred.
    “I don't know,” Benny said seriously. “Somehow . . . I just don't like the idea of a legit business, you know? All them taxes and everything.”
    “I never thought about taxes,” Mulheisen admitted. “What do you do about taxes?”
    “My lawyer and my accountant are working a deal where I pay the IRS and the state on my investments. But it's hard to fudge investment income, and the IRS knows I have a bigger income than I'm claiming. I don't know if they know about this place, but when they find out, the shit is going to hit the fan. They ain't like no beat cop—you can't just slip them a few bucks to keep quiet.”
    Mulheisen thought about that. “You better open the restaurant, then. That'll give you a legitimate source of income and you can funnel your blind pig take through the restaurant.”
    Benny considered that for a while. “True,” he said at last. “It's just that I hate going legit.”
    Mulheisen looked around the room. He noticed one of the mayor's assistants talking to a well-known mob bagman, but didn't think anything of it, since that sort of business would have been concluded hours ago, during “Happy Hour.” They were probably just friends. A couple of girls looked lonely, and an inevitable drunk was sagging over his glass. Otherwise, Benny's was dead. “Where's all the action tonight?” Mulheisen asked. “Let's go someplace else, Benny.”
    “Let's see,” Benny said. “You like music, we could go to Brandywine's. He's got a new jazz