The House on Alexandrine

Chapter 11

NOVEMBER BEGAN. The closeness that had developed in the group surrounding Duane in October started to break up. Various incidents effected this. Later in his journal Corbin described them as being "like threads in a tapestry which lie beneath the surface then burst out in violent reds and blues." One of the strongest of these emerging threads shocked them all and may have done more than anything else to drive them back into their separate lives. It wasn't until Mallett's trial several months later that Corbin learned what appeared to be the truth. Lloyd Mallett was a private guard with Stay-Safe, one of the dozens of security agencies which had appeared in Detroit during the past ten years. It was the fifth he had worked for since 1960. He had been fired from the others because of drunkenness and a poor attendance record. One company suspected him of theft but nothing could be proven. But because of his excellent army record and his thirteen years as a policeman, he always got another job. He never rose in any of these jobs, however, and probably never earned more than $150 a week. The war appeared to be the most rewarding part of Mallett's life. Like Orlo Kaniewski, he served in Africa and Italy, but unlike Orlo, Mallett enjoyed talking about it. He had enlisted as a private and came out a sergeant first class with two purple hearts and a silver star. Two of his younger brothers had gone into the Marines and were killed within several hours of each other on Iwo Jima. It was after the war that Mallett's difficulties began. He joined the Detroit police department but didn't make it through the academy. For the next thirteen years he worked for several suburban police departments and was dismissed from each position. He was lazy and suspected of taking bribes. Mallett saw nothing wrong with taking money. He claimed he'd been tricked, 126 T H E H O U S E O N A L E X A N D R I N E 1 2 7 that all sorts of people had been taking bribes, that he'd been singled out only because he was disliked. That might have been true, but whenever something went wrong for Mallett, it was always because he had been tricked. He was not honest, but the only reason he wasn't more dishonest was probably because of a lack of opportunity, ambition and nerve. It didn't take Joe Gage long to find out what sort of person Mallett was. Gage was good at that. He discovered where Mallett worked and calculated what he could get from it. Mallett patrolled in the Boston-Chicago Boulevard area: a wealthy district two miles north of the university. The Kresge family had lived there for years. Toward the beginning of September, Joe Gage began to see more of Mallett. He would talk generally about the Chicago Boulevard area and about the expensive things to be found in the mansions. He didn't mention robbery or Mallett's access to the mansions. He was only planting the idea. The problem was that Mallett didn't like Joe Gage. Mallett had no sense of humor about himself and Joe Gage kept calling him "Rent-A-Pig." That's why Corbin was surprised to see Mallett and Joe Gage drinking together around the middle of September. Joe Gage was fairly successful in playing up to Mallett. Gage had the skill of seeing what a person wanted and supplying it. In any case, after several weeks Gage introduced the subject of a robbery. Mallett later told police that he had run into Joe Gage at a local bar. Joe bought him a beer and they talked about the army. After a while, Joe Gage started talking about the houses on Chicago Boulevard. "There must be a fortune there," Mallett quoted him as saying. "I bet a smart guy could get ten thousand easy if he knew what houses to rob." Mallett asked what he meant and Joe Gage said a little more. "A guy that knows the area would know the richest houses and when the people would be gone. Then if the guy just turned his back, he could make five thousand. Not bad for doing nothing." Joe Gage then dropped the subject. For the next two weeks, he waited. That was how long it took Mallett to make up his...