Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 101, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 610 & 611, March 1993

“That at least I can tell you,” he said, flipping through a stack of albums. “None of their stuff has been reissued, even on a collection. The Sultans just weren’t big enough... Here we go, the Sultans of Soul, ‘Motor City Mama.’ ”

He passed me the album. The cover photo was a blurred action shot, four black guys in gold lame jackets doing splits behind the lead singer, a beefy stud with conked hair. Mack appeared to be the tall guy on the left, but the picture had faded. So had Mack. I flipped the album over. “Black Catz?” I read. “What can you tell me about it?”

“Not much,” Cal said. “It was a local label, defunct since...” He frowned, then shook his head slowly, his face gradually creasing into a ghost of a smile.

“I knew it,” I said. “You do know something, right?”

“Nothing that’ll help you, I’m afraid,” he said. “But I did come across a Black Catz reissue recently. Not the Sultans though. Millie Jump and the Jacks.”

“Never heard of them.”

“Maybe you don’t remember the Jacks, but you should remember Millicent. Soul singer who had a few hits in the sixties, then tried Hollywood and bombed? The Jacks was her original group, until she dumped ’em to marry the label owner and use his money to go solo.”

“Wait a minute, you mean Millicent’s husband, Sol Katz, was the original owner of Black Catz?”

“That’s right,” Cal said. “You know him?”

“I not only know him, I’ve worked for him.”

“Worked for Sol?” Cal said, squinting at me from beneath his tam. “Doing what? Kneecaps with a baseball bat?”

“Actually I didn’t exactly work for Sol. His daughter, Desirée, was an opening act for Was Not Was at the Auburn Hills Palace. I was her bodyguard.”

“I would have thought Sol had bodyguards to spare.”

“He wanted somebody who knew the local music scene. Most of his guys are from L.A.”

“And it didn’t bother you, working for a hood?”

“I — heard rumors about Sol, but in this business you hear smoke about everybody. Hell, half the guys in the biz pretend to be hoods just to spook the competition.”

“Sol Katz isn’t pretending, Ax, he’s the real thing. His old man was an enforcer for the Purple Gang back in the thirties. Sol took to the family business like The Godfather Part II.”

“I thought he was from L.A.?”

“He went out there awhile after the Purples ran him out of Detroit for marrying Millie. Having a black mistress in those days was one thing, but marriage? Not in his set. Besides, Millie figured she was ready for the bright lights. She was a fair singer, but never quite good enough to make it big, even with Sol’s money. How’s the daughter, whatsername, Desirée?”

“About the same, not bad, not gangbusters. I think Millie and Sol want her to make it more than she wants it herself. They’ve got her cutting an album of classic soul stuff out at the Studio Seven complex. What label was the reissue on?”

“Studio Seven, which means Sol may still own the rights to the Black Catz library. Including the Sultans. Lucky you. You going to try to collect?”

“That’s what I’m being paid for.”

“Hope you’re getting enough to cover hospitalization. By the way, who is paying you? I thought the Sultans were all playing harps these days.”

“They nearly are. Horace DeWitt, the lead singer, is in a rest home and the guy who hired me, Varnell Mack, looks like an AWOL from intensive care.”

“I probably have them mixed up with another group. There were so many in those days,” he said softly, glancing around the displays, filled with CDs, albums, tapes. And raw talent. And Soul. “So many. You know, it might not matter much to world peace, but it’d be nice if you could squeeze a few bucks out of Sol for the Sultans. Just for the damn principle of the thing.”

“Principles?” I said. “In this business?”

Actually, principle was all I had going for me. Mack hadn’t given me as much as a faded IOU to work with. In the music biz, sometimes deals with very serious money involved are done with a handshake or a phone call. I occasionally get hired to collect on oral contracts, but usually folks know in their heart of hearts that they owe the money. This was different.

Technically, Sol Katz probably didn’t owe the Sultans dime one. Hell, after all these years he might not even remember who they were. Whatever deal they’d had, they’d lived with it for nearly thirty years, so if Sol told me to take a hike, I’d walk. Assuming my knees were still functional. Still, I figured I had a small chance. Mobster or no, a guy who’d risk his neck to marry the woman he loved must have a heart, right?

Right. So why did I keep remembering every story I’d ever heard about the Purple Gang? Two-to-a-box coffins, the shooters at the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, the gang that pushed Capone out of Detroit...

I shook it off. Ancient history, all of it. Then again, so were the Sultans of Soul.

The Studio 7 building is a spanking new concrete castle just off Gratiot Avenue, in the equally new city of Eastpointe, nee East Detroit. The locals rechristened the town, trying to shed its Murder City East image.