Elmore Leonard City Primeval
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First published in the United States of America by Arbor House
Publishing Company 1980
First published in Great Britain by Viking 1987
Published in Penguin Classics 2025
Copyright © the Estate of Elmore Leonard, 1980
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City Primeval
For Joan
In the matter of Alvin B. Guy, Judge of Recorder’s Court, City of Detroit:
The investigation of the Judicial Tenure Commission found the respondent guilty of misconduct in office and conduct clearly prejudicial to the administration of justice. The allegations set forth in the formal complaint were that Judge Guy:
1. Was discourteous and abusive to counsel, litigants, witnesses, court personnel, spectators and news reporters.
2. Used threats of imprisonment or promises of probation to induce pleas of guilty.
3. Abused the power of contempt.
4. Used his office to benefit friends and acquaintances.
5. Bragged of his sexual prowess openly.
6. Was continually guilty of judicial misconduct that was not only prejudicial to the administration of justice but destroyed respect for the office he holds.
Abridged examples of testimony follow.
On April 26, Judge Guy interceded on behalf of a twiceconvicted narcotics dealer, Tyrone Perry, who was being questioned as a witness and possible suspect in a murder that had taken place at Mr Perry’s residence. Judge Guy appeared at Room 527 of police headquarters and told the homicide detectives questioning Perry that he was ‘holding court here and now’ and to release the witness. When Sergeant Gerald Hunter
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In testimony describing still another incident the respondent gave the appearance of judicial impropriety by his harrassment of a police officer.
The respondent had presided over a murder case in which one of the three codefendants was Marcella Bonnie. The charges against Miss Bonnie were dismissed at the preliminary examination.
Judge Guy was talking to Sgt Wendell Robinson of the Police Homicide Section about the forthcoming trial of the codefendants and revealed how he had met Miss Bonnie in a bar and thereafter spent the night with her. He went on to say that ‘she was a foxy little thing’ and ‘better than your average piece of ass.’
Sgt Robinson was quite surprised and chagrined to hear a judge boasting of his sexual participation with a former criminal defendant. As a result, Robinson prepared a memorandum about the incident which he forwarded to his superiors.
The respondent learned of this memorandum and exhibited his vindictiveness by improper and heavy-handed efforts to impair Robinson’s credibility, referring to Sgt Robinson before witnesses as ‘a suck-ass Uncle Tom trying to pass for Caucasian because he’s light skinned.’
Attorney Carolyn Wilder testified to the events in People v. Cedric Williams. The charges in this preliminary examination held June 19, were ‘second-degree criminal sexual conduct and simple assault,’ and Ms Wilder, counsel for the defense, had stated clearly that her client would go to trial before entering a reduced plea. However, the respondent, Judge Guy, requested
x questioned the propriety of this, Judge Guy grabbed him by the arm and pushed him against a desk. Sgt Hunter voiced objection to this treatment and Judge Guy said, before witnesses, ‘I’ll push you around any time I want. You’re in my courtroom and if you open your mouth I’ll hold you in contempt of court.’ Judge Guy then left police headquarters with Mr Perry.
the defendant and his counsel to approach the bench, where he stated that if the defendant pled guilty to the lesser charge of assault and battery – a misdemeanor – he would be placed on probation and that would be the end of it.
‘I’m street, just like you are,’ the judge said to the defendant, ‘and your attorney either doesn’t have her shit together or your best interests at heart.’ Whereupon he sent the defendant and Ms Wilder out into the hall to ‘talk the matter over.’
When they returned to the bench and Ms Wilder still insisted on a trial, Judge Guy said to the defendant, ‘Look, you better take this plea or your motherfucking ass is dead.’ When Ms Wilder informed the bench that her client would, under no circumstances, plead to the lesser charge, Judge Guy berated the defense counsel, threatened her with contempt and stated: ‘I see now how you operate. You want your own client to be convicted . . . obviously pissed off because a black man got a little white pussy in this case.’
Again in testimony Carolyn Wilder told how she attempted to serve a notice of appeal on Judge Guy as a favor to another attorney, Mr Allan Hayes. The judge berated Ms Wilder for one half hour calling her ‘a non-dues, honkie liberal,’ who had disrupted the orderly process of his courtroom.
Ms Wilder: ‘At this time I asked if he was going to hold me in contempt. He did not respond but continued his berating monologue. When Mr Hayes entered, having learned what was in progress, the judge addressed him at the bench, saying, “I want you to explain to this honkie bitch who I am and I want her to understand I won’t put up with any bullshit ego trips.” ’
Sometime thereafter, the respondent, in a mellower mood, asked Ms Wilder for a date, which she refused. Judge Guy responded to her refusal with a tasteless and insulting inquiry as to whether she was a lesbian. Thereafter, whenever Ms
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Wilder came into court, the respondent would seize upon the opportunity to verbally embarrass and harass her.
That Judge Guy abused his contempt of court power was witnessed in an incident which involved Sgt Raymond Cruz of the Detroit Police Homicide Section.
On this occasion Judge Guy ordered a twelve-year-old student to be locked up in the prisoner’s bullpen for causing a disturbance in the courtroom during a school field-trip visit. Sgt Cruz – testifying at the time in a pre-trial hearing – suggested the judge make the boy stand in a corner instead. At this the judge became enraged, held Sgt Cruz in contempt of court and ordered him to spend an hour in the bullpen with the boy.
Sometime later, with the court in recess, Judge Guy said to Sgt Cruz before witnesses, ‘I hope you have learned who’s boss in this courtroom.’ Sgt Cruz made no reply. The judge said then, ‘You are an easy person to hold in contempt. You had best learn to keep your mouth shut, or I’ll shut it for you every time.’
Sgt Cruz said, ‘Your honor, can I ask a question off the record?’ The judge said, ‘All right, what is it?’ Sgt Cruz said, ‘Are you ever afraid for your life?’ The judge asked, ‘Are you threatening me?’ And Sgt Cruz said, ‘No, your honor, I was just wondering if anyone has ever attempted to subject you to great bodily harm.’
Judge Guy produced a .32-caliber Smith and Wesson revolver from beneath his robes and said, ‘I would like to see somebody try.’
The record indicates that on several occasions Judge Guy abused members of the media by communicating with them in a manner unbecoming his office. The findings of the Tenure Commission with respect to this allegation state in part:
City Primeval
‘Miss Sylvia Marcus is a reporter for The Detroit News. In his courtroom and before witnesses, Judge Guy subjected Miss Marcus to discourtesies of a crude nature . . . engaged in an undignified harangue about her newspaper being racist and, further, warned her “not to fuck around with him.” ’
In summary, the Judicial Tenure Commission warned:
‘A cloud of witnesses testify that “justice must not only be done, it must be seen to be done.” Without the appearance as well as the fact of justice, respect for the law vanishes.
‘Judge Guy has demonstrated by his conduct that he is legally, temperamentally and morally unfit to hold any judicial position.
‘By reason of the foregoing, it is our recommendation to the Supreme Court that Judge Guy be removed from the office he holds as Recorder’s Court Judge of the City of Detroit and further, that he be permanently enjoined from holding any judicial office in the future.’
At a press conference following the release of the Tenure Commission opinion, Judge Guy called the investigation a ‘racist witch-hunt organized by the white-controlled press.’ In the same statement he accused the Detroit Police Department of trying to kill him, though offered no evidence of specific attempts.
Alvin Guy stated emphatically that if the State Supreme Court suspended him from office he intended to ‘write a very revealing book, naming names of people with dirty hands and indecent fingers.
‘Remember what I’m saying to you if they suspend me,’ Guy added. ‘The stuff is going to get put on some people, some names that are going to amaze you.’
One of the valet parking attendants at Hazel Park Racecourse would remember the judge leaving sometime after the ninth race, about 1:00 A.M. , and fill in the first part of what happened. With the judge’s picture in the paper lately and on TV, he was sure it was Alvin Guy in the silver Lincoln Mark VI .
Light skin, about fifty, with a little Xavier Cugat mustache and hair that hung long and stiff over his collar and did not seem to require much straightening.
The other car involved was a Buick, or it might’ve been an Olds, dark color.
The judge had a young white lady with him, about twentyseven, around in there. Blond hair, long. Dressed up, wearing something like pink, real loose, lot of gold chains around her neck. Good-looking lady. She had on makeup that made her look pale in the arc lights, dark lipstick. The valet parking attendant said the judge didn’t help the lady in. The judge got in on his own side, giving him a dollar tip.
The other car, the dark-colored Buick or Olds – it might’ve been black – was pretty new. Was a man in it. The man’s arm stuck out the window – you know, his elbow did – with the short sleeve rolled up once or twice. The arm looked kind of sunburned and had light kind of reddish-blond-color hair on it.
This other car tried to cut in front of the judge’s car, but the judge kept moving and wouldn’t let him in. So the other car
sped off down toward the head of the exit line, down by the gate, the man in a big hurry. There was a lot of horns blowing. The cars down there wouldn’t let the other car in either. People going home after giving their money at the windows, they weren’t giving away nothing else.
It looked like the other car tried to edge in again right as the judge’s car came to the gate to go out on Dequindre. There was a crash. Bam!
The valet parking attendant, Everett Livingston, said he looked down there, but didn’t see anybody get out of the cars. It looked like the judge’s car had run into the front fender of the other car as it tried to nose in. Then the judge’s car backed up some and went around the other car and out the gate, going south on Dequindre toward Nine Mile. The other car must have stalled. A few more cars went past it. Then the other car made it out and that was the last the valet parking attendant saw or thought of them until he read about the judge in the paper.
Leaving the track, all Clement wanted to do was keep Sandy and the Albanian in sight.
Forget the silver Mark VI .
Follow the black Cadillac, the Albanian stiff-arming the wheel like a student driver taking his road test, hugging the inside lane in the night traffic. It should’ve been easy.
Except the Mark kept getting in Clement’s way.
The ding in the fender didn’t bother Clement. It wasn’t his car. Realizing the guy in the Mark was a jig with a white girl didn’t bother him either, too much. He decided the guy was in numbers or dope and if that’s what the girl wanted, some spade with a little fag mustache, fine. Since coming to Detroit, Clement had seen all kinds of jigs with white girls. He didn’t stare at them the way he used to.
But this silver Mark was something else, poking along in
the center lane with a half block of clear road ahead, holding Clement back while the Cadillac got lost up there among all the red taillights. The jig was driving his big car with his white lady; he didn’t care who was behind him or if anybody might be in a hurry. That’s what got to Clement, the jig’s attitude. Also, the jig’s hair.
Clement popped on his brights and could see the guy clearly through the rear windshield. The guy’s hair, when he turned to the girl, looked like a black plastic wig, the twenty-nine-dollar tango-model ducktail. Fucking spook. Clement began thinking of the guy as a Cuban-looking jig. Oily looking. Then, as the chicken-fat jig.
Sandy and the Albanian turned right on Nine Mile. Clement got over into the right lane. When he was almost to the corner the silver Mark cut in front of him and made the turn.
Clement said, You believe it?
He followed the taillights around the corner and gunned it, wanting to run up the guy’s silver rear-end. But instinct saved him. Something cautioned Clement to take her easy and, sure enough, there was a dark-blue Hazel Park police car up ahead. The Continental shot past it. The police car kept cruising along and Clement hung back now.
He saw the light at the next intersection, John R, change to green.
The Albanian’s Cadillac was already turning left, followed by several cars. Now the Mark was swinging onto John R without blinking, making a wide sweep past the Holiday Inn on the corner. Clement began to accelerate as the police car continued through the intersection. He reached the corner with the light turning red, heard horns blowing and his tires squealing and thought for a second he was going to jump the curb and shoot into the Holiday Inn – a man on the sidewalk was scooping up his little dog to get out of the way – but Clement didn’t even
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hit the curb. As he got straightened out he floored it down John R, beneath an arc of streetlights and past neon signs, came up behind the lumbering Mark and laid on his horn. The chickenfat jig’s head turned to his rear-view mirror. Clement pulled out, glanced over as he passed the Mark and saw the jig’s face and his middle finger raised to the side window.
My oh my, Clement thought. I’ll play a tune on your head, Mr Jig, you get smart with me.
Except he had to be alert now. The next light was Eight Mile, the Detroit city limits. Sandy and the Albanian could turn either way or make a little jog and pick up 75 if they were headed downtown. If they made the light Clement would have to make it too. Else he’d lose them and have to start all over setting up the Albanian.
The Eight Mile light showed green. Clement gave the car some gas. He glanced over, surprised, feeling a car passing him on the right – the Mark, the silver boat gliding by, then drifting in front of him as Clement tried to speed up, seeing the light turn to amber. There was still time for both of them to skin through; but the chicken-fat jig braked at the intersection and Clement had to jam his foot down hard, felt his rearend break loose and heard his tires scream and saw that big silver deck right in front of him as he nailed his car to a stop.
Sandy and the Albanian were gone. Nowhere in sight.
The chicken-fat jig had his head cocked, staring at his rearview mirror.
Clement said, Well, I got time for you now, Mr Jig, you want to play . . .
The girl turned half around and had to squint into the bright headlights.
‘I think it’s the same one.’
‘Sure it is,’ Alvin Guy said. ‘Same wise-ass. You see his license number?’
‘He’s too close.’
‘When I start up, take a look. If he follows us pick up the phone, tell the operator it’s a nine-eleven.’
‘I don’t think I know how to work it,’ the girl said. She had lighted a cigarette less than a minute before; now she stubbed it out in the ashtray.
‘You don’t know how to do much of anything,’ Alvin Guy said to the rear-view mirror. He saw the light change to green and moved straight ahead at a normal speed, watching the headlights reflected in the mirror as he crossed Eight Mile and entered John R again, in Detroit now, and said to the headlights, ‘Out of Hazel Park now, stupid. You don’t know it, but you’re going down town – assault with a deadly weapon.’
‘He hasn’t really done anything,’ the girl said, holding the phone and looking through the windshield at the empty street that was lighted by a row of lampposts but seemed dismal, the storefronts dark. She felt the jolt and the car lurch forward as she heard metal bang against metal and Alvin Guy say, ‘Son of a bitch—’ She heard the operator’s voice in the telephone receiver. She heard Alvin Guy yelling at the operator or at her, ‘Nine eleven, nine eleven!’ And felt the car struck from behind again and lurch forward, picking up speed.
Clement held his front bumper pressed against the Mark, accelerating, feeling it as a physical effort, as though he were using his own strength. The Mark tried to dig out and run but Clement stayed tight and kept pushing. The Mark tried to brake, tentatively, and Clement bounced off its bumper a few times. The Mark edged over into the right lane, the street empty ahead. Clement was ready, knowing the guy was about to try something. There was a cross-street coming up.
But the guy made his move before reaching the intersection: cut a hard, abrupt left to whip the car off his tail, shot into
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a parking lot – no doubt to scoot through the alley in some tricky jig move – and Clement said, ‘You dumb shit,’ as headlights lit up the cyclone fence and the Mark nosed to a hard, gravel-skidding stop. Clement coasted in past the red sign on the yellow building that said American La France Fire Equipment. A spot beamed down from the side of the building, lighting the Lincoln Mark VI like a new model on display.
Or an animal caught in headlight beams, standing dumb. Clement thought of that, easing his car up next to and a little ahead of the Mark – so he could see the chicken-fat jig through his windshield, the jig holding a car telephone, yelling at it like he was pretty sore, while the girl held onto gold chains around her neck.
Clement reached down under the front seat, way under, for the brown-paper grocery bag, opened it and drew out a Walther P.38 automatic. He reached above him then to slide open the sunroof and had to twist out from under the steering wheel before he could pull himself upright. Standing on the seat now, the roof opening catching him at the waist, he had a good view of the Mark’s windshield in the flood of light from above. Clement extended the Walther. He shot the chicken-fat jig five times, seeing the man’s face, then not seeing it, the windshield taking on a frosted look with the hard, clear hammer of the evenly spaced gunshots, until a chunk fell out of the windshield. He could hear the girl screaming then, giving it all she had.
Clement got out and walked around to the driver’s side of the Mark. He had to reach way in to pull the guy upright and then out through the door opening, careful, trying not to touch the blood that was all over the guy’s light-blue suit. The guy was a mess. He didn’t look Cuban now; he didn’t look like anything. The girl was still screaming.
Clement said, ‘Hey, shut up, will you?’
She stopped to catch her breath, then began making a weird
wailing sound, hysterical. Clement said, ‘Hey!’ He saw it wasn’t going to do any good to yell at her, so he hunched himself into the Mark with one knee on the seat and punched her hard in the mouth – not with any shoulder or force in it but hard enough to give her a drunk-dazed look as he backed out of the car. Clement stooped down to get the guy’s billfold, holding the guy’s coat open with the tips of two fingers. There were three one-hundred-dollar bills and two twenties inside, credit cards, a couple of checks, ticket stubs from the track and a thin little 2 by 3 spiral notebook. Clement took the money and notebook. He leaned into the Continental again, bracing his forearm against the steering wheel, pulled the keys from the ignition and said to the girl giving him the dazed look, ‘Come on. Show me where your boyfriend lives.’
They drove over Eight Mile to Woodward and turned south, Clement glancing at the girl sitting rigidly against the door as he gave her a little free advice.
‘You take up with colored you become one of them. Don’t you know that? Whether it’s a white girl with a jig or a white guy with a colored girl, you’re with them, you go to their places. You don’t see the white guy taking the little colored chickie home or the white girl neither. He ever come to your place?’
The girl didn’t answer, one hand on her purse, the other still holding onto her gold chains. Hell, he didn’t want her chains, even if they were real. You start fooling around trying to fence shit like that . . .
‘I asked you a question. He ever come to your place?’
‘Sometimes.’
‘Well, that’s unusual. What was he in, numbers, dope? He’s too old to be a pimp. He looked like a pimp, though. You know it? I can’t say much for your taste, Jesus, a guy like that – Where you from? You live in Detroit all your life?’
She said yes, not sounding too sure about it. Then asked him, ‘What’re you gonna do to me?’
‘I ain’t gonna do nothing you show me where the man lives. He married?’
‘No.’
‘But he lives in Palmer Woods? Those’re big houses.’
Clement waited. It was like talking to a child.
They passed the State Fairgrounds off to the left, beyond the headlights moving north to the suburbs, going home. The southbound traffic was thin, almost to nothing this time of night, the taillights of a few cars up ahead; but they were gone by the time Clement stopped for the light at Seven Mile. He said, ‘This ain’t my night. You know it? I believe I’ve caught every light in town.’ The girl clung to her door in silence. ‘We turn right, huh? I know it’s just west of Wood’ard some.’
He heard the girl’s door open and made a grab for her, but she was out of the car, the door swinging wide and coming back at him.
Shit, Clement said.
He waited for the light to change, watching the pale pink figure running across Seven Mile and past the cyclone fence on the corner. All he could see was a dark mass of trees beyond her, darker than the night sky, the girl running awkwardly, past the fence and down the fairway of the public golf course, Palmer Park Municipal – running with her purse, like she had something in it, or running for her life. Dumb broad didn’t even know where she was going. A Detroit Police station was just down Seven a ways, toward the other side of the park. He’d been brought in there the time he was picked up for hawking a queer and released when the queer wouldn’t identify him. If he remembered correctly it was the 12th Precinct.
Clement jumped the car off the green light so the door would slam closed, turned right, cut across Seven Mile in a jog to the
City Primeval left and came to a stop at the edge of the golf course parking lot. The girl was running down the fairway in his headlight beams, straight down, not even angling for the trees. Clement got out and went after her. He ran about a hundred yards, no more, and stopped, even though he was gaining on her.
He said, What in hell you doing, anyway? Getting your exercise?
Clement extended the Walther, steadied it in the palm of his left hand, squeezed off a round and saw her stumble – Jesus, it was loud – and shot her twice more, he was pretty sure, before she hit the ground.
Anybody standing there, Clement would have bet him the three rounds had done the job. Except he saw the girl, for just a second, sitting in a Frank Murphy courtroom fingering her chains. Better to take an extra twenty seconds to be sure than do twenty years in Jackson. Clement went to have a look. He saw starlight shining in her eyes and thought, That wasn’t a bad looking girl. You know it?
Walking back to his car Clement realized something else and said to himself, You dumb shit. Now you can’t go to the man’s house.
‘I think you’re afraid of women,’ the girl from the News said. ‘I think that’s the root of the problem.’
Raymond Cruz wasn’t sure whose problem she was referring to, if it was supposed to be his problem or hers.
She said, ‘Do you think women are devious?’
‘You mean women reporters?’
‘Women in general.’
Sitting in Carl’s Chop House surrounded by an expanse of empty white tablecloths, their waitress off somewhere, Raymond Cruz wondered if it was worth the free drinks and dinner or the effort required to give thoughtful answers.
‘No,’ he said.
‘You don’t feel intimidated by women?’
‘No, I’ve always liked women.’
‘At certain times,’ the girl from the News said. ‘Otherwise, I’d say you’re indifferent to women. They don’t fit into your male world.’
Wherever she was going the girl writer with the degree from Michigan and four years with The Detroit News seemed to be getting there. It was ten past one in the morning. Her face glistened, her wine glass was smudged with prints and lipstick. The edge remained in her tone and she no longer listened to answers. Raymond Cruz was tired. He forgot what he was going to say next – and was rescued by their waitress, smiling through sequined glasses.
