Man With An Axe: A Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery Part 13

"Well, yes, I see what you mean. But the director of a foundation hardly belongs to that milieu. How often do you see Toscano?"

"I haven't seen him since our one interview. They send a check to my bank account every month, so I don't even see that. It's pretty nice." She smiled.

"How much?"

"Five thousand?" She almost winced, looking at me as if for approval. She knew it was a pretty hefty figure.

"They're paying you five thousand dollars a month to research and write this history! For how long?"

"They only promised a year, but hinted that it could be renewed."

"A foundation is paying a gi- a newly graduated student sixty thousand dollars for-"

"I'm not exactly buying a house, or even a Buick, on these wages," she said, somewhat indignantly. "You know, I've put in years of study. I'm a Ph.D.!"

"Sure, sure," I said. "I didn't say you weren't worth it. But how often do you hear of it? Young lawyers do better than that, I know."

"So do M.B.A.s, and what do they know?" she retorted.

Indeed, I thought. "Well, what do you plan to do?" I asked.

"Do? What are you so angry about?"

"Me? I'm not angry, I . . ." I shut my mouth. What was I angry about? I guess I was angry at being used, for being misled, for having interests in this young woman that I suddenly saw-with the same suddenness with which I saw that Kinanda was Tyrone Addison-were not only futile but absurd. She was at least twenty years younger than me. I was disappointed and felt a little abused. But what the h.e.l.l, I was a big boy.

"I.'m not angry," I said. I made an effort to smile. Not a Fang smile, but a genuine one. This young woman didn't owe me anything and the best I could see, she had simply been misled herself. But she was also, I saw, the contact with whoever was trying to manipulate me.

"You must report on your progress from time to time," I said. "Who is this Miss Sedgelock? How do you contact her?"

Agge crossed her arms, rather like her mother had when confronted by me. "Why do you want to know?" she asked.

I explained to her that I thought that her project was not a bona fide project, that it was really more in the way of a fishing expedition. But I had to admit I didn't know what kind of fish the Alpha/Alpha Foundation was fishing for. Possibly, they simply wanted to a.s.sess how much was known, particularly by me, about the death of Hoffa and Grootka's role in it.

Agge was a little hard to convince. No researcher or scholar wants to think that her project is false, that it's really somebody else's stalking-horse. But she was compelled to realize that once such suspicions were aired and allegations were made, they had to be resolved before she could continue. She agreed to approach Alpha/ Alpha, with me.

Her contact with Miss Sedgelock was not very encouraging. Miss Sedgelock, who was not to be found at the number she had provided-it turned out to be an answering service-finally rang back to say that Mr. Toscano was unavailable, but that she would be willing to meet with Agge the following week. She did not wish to meet with Sergeant Mulheisen of the Detroit police. She was fairly curt in declaring that Miss Allyson's relations with the department were her own lookout, that the foundation could not be involved. She hinted a little nastily that Miss Allyson might find her grant rather abbreviated if she were unable to carry out her stipulated research and report. I was unable to monitor this conversation, but Agge's account of it seemed unsettling. I could tell that Agge was deeply upset.

The prospect of a meeting next week didn't satisfy my sense of urgency, but what could we do? I told Agge to go ahead and meet, and we'd see if something more immediate could be arranged. As we parted I remembered something.

"How long have you known M'Zee Kinanda?" I asked.

"Known him? I don't know him. He asked me for a date, but I kind of brushed him off. These old guys are always. .h.i.tting on me."

"He asked you out?" I was shocked. Well, as shocked as I get. Startled, anyway.

"He asked me to come over."

"You didn't know that he is really Tyrone Addison?"

"That's Tyrone? You mean Mama's old boyfriend?" She was genuinely intrigued, I could tell. "You mean he isn't dead, he just changed his name? I wonder if Mama knows that."

I wondered, too.

13.

Meeny, Miny, and Mo Grootka's Notebook, #6 I ran back through the woods, looking for anybody, but whoever had been there was gone. At least I hope they was. I didn't wanta stand toe-to-toe with whoever was cranking that f.u.c.king cannon and, anyways, I had work to do and I knew it hadda be done in a hurry. I heard some cars, probably the limo and whatever other vehicle they brought with them, but by the time I got to the county road it was empty and you wouldn't of thought n.o.body'd been there. I hiked up the road to where Tyrone had taken my car and it was still there, but no sign of Tyrone and no sign of the money. I looked around but not much, 'cause I figured that cannon might of been heard, even out here in the woods, and I didn't wanta be around when somebody came to check. The keys was still in my rig, so I pulled out and drove back to the dirt track and up to where Janney Jacobsen lay in the road.

Janney was dead forever. It was too bad about Janney, I thought. He got in the way. But, what the h.e.l.l, he might be some use, after all. I searched him and found a roll of bills, quite a good roll, ten thou at least, which I hadda figger was pretty G.o.dd.a.m.n useful. He didn't have no gun, though. I'd given him a H&R .32 earlier, 'cause he wasn't armed, so where the h.e.l.l was it? I found it on the side of the road, actually all but covered up in the leaves. Whadidhe, try to get rid of it? Or maybe it just flew outta his hands when the Fat Man shot him? I didn't know, but I wrapped it up careful in his shirt, which I had stripped from his body, real quick. He'd been shot in the face, just below the left eye, a small entry but no exit wound, which with a .32 didn't surprise me none. Too bad for Janney, but just as well for me, I thought, since I wasn't gonna have to screw around hauling a half-dead body or a whole-dead body away.

Lonzo was alive, though, hiding under his car. It wasn't a good hiding place, but he didn't have much of a chance to go someplace else. I guess he figured when I drove up that I was the Mob, coming back to mop up. He thought I'd been taken out, he said, when he heard that big cannon, and now he figured they'd just blast his a.s.s. But no, it was me, although he wished I hadn't wasted so much time fussing with Janney, who was a dead rat.

Anyways, I dragged him out from under the car. He was a long ways from dead, but he wasn't exactly whistling "Zippety-doo-dah." He'd taken a shot in the mouth, which it was one h.e.l.l of a piece of luck. It removed a coupla teeth and broke his jaw, but didn't kill him, though it burned his tongue a little so he couldn't talk for s.h.i.t, which wasn't nothing to complain about from my view. I told him it was because his f.u.c.king mouth was so f.u.c.king big that when they shot at him that was all they could hit. But he showed me he had gotten another shot in the shoulder which knocked him down, but otherwise just took a little chunk of meat out of him.

"You're better off than the white meat," I told him, but he just glared like he didn't get the joke.

I axed him if he could drive and he said he could, though his jaw was starting to hurt awful bad. But I told him we hadda get the h.e.l.l outta there. He nodded, and then he pointed to Jimmy and looked at me kind of questioning. I went to look, but I knew it didn't mean nothing. Jimmy and Janney could be comparing notes somewheres, but they wasn't anyplace local. I never seen such a mess as those sh.e.l.ls made of Hoffa. I picked up the revolver he'd been waving and wrapped it in his Hawaiian shirt, which luckily wasn't too b.l.o.o.d.y, it being loose and open, so he didn't lay on it and bleed too much. It could come in handy, too, you never know.

The guy in the bushes that I'd popped, I checked just to make sure. It was sure. So that left Janney. Lonzo was sittin' in the pa.s.senger seat of his own car, I don't know what he was thinking. I wasn't gonna drive both cars. I pointed that out to him and told him to follow me, in case he got too bad to drive.

I couldn't take Janney with me, even if I wanted to, and I sure as h.e.l.l wasn't gonna waste no time and effort on Hoffa, who as far as I was concerned was to blame for all this s.h.i.t in the first place. Well, that ain't right-Carmine and the Fat Man were to blame, but I wasn't in no mood to argue it out in my mind. The trouble was that Janney was a connection between me and Lonzo and Tyrone and Vera and the Mob. Hoffa was dead and folks expected him to be dead. There was also a dead Mob guy in the bushes. Okay. And the cabin belonged to somebody that Hoffa knew but none of us knew. Okay. So there really wasn't nothing to connect us to the Mob and to Hoffa, except Janney.

I hustled up to the cabin and looked it over, making sure there wasn't nothing to connect me and the others to this sorry scene. I was tempted to burn the f.u.c.ker down, but that don't always get rid of the evidence and anyway it just attracts attention and I wanted time to get the h.e.l.l out of this part of the country. I hadda figger the Mob would be back to clean up their part of the mess. I couldn't do everything, I didn't have a lotta time, but I tried to wipe down the place to remove as much of the fingerprints as I could.

Though I never had much confidence in fingerprints. If you know whose you're looking for in the first place, it's fine, but if you're just prospecting, good luck.

So, that was it. Me and Lonzo drove outta there in good time, no interruptions. I stopped in Faraway, at a outfit called Fred's that is a butcher who makes great venison sausage and stuff. I had Fred make up a couple sammidges for me and Lonzo, plus he wrapped up some sausage for when I got home, and we managed to get the two cars back to Detroit, no sweat. I began thinking that my weekend in the country hadn't been too unprofitable. The sausages was real good.

Tyrone Addison has disappeared. I don't know what happened to him. After a few days, when she didn't hear nothing about Hoffa or Tyrone, Vera called me at Homicide. I went out to see her. She was living at Jacobsen's, taking care of the kid. Turns out she was married to Jacobsen! They had this kid, Agge. Nice little girl, except she ain't Jacobsen's kid if Vera is s'posta be the mother. Anyways, I give Vera the roll I took off Janney and Tyrone's soprano sax, but she insisted that I keep the sax, so finally I took it.

I guess we both figured Tyrone had been snapped up by the boys who done the number on Hoffa. I heard that they cleaned up Cess's place, although I never went back. But I ain't heard nothing and it's been a few weeks, so I don't expect to.

[Here there is a piece of notepaper taped onto the original text, as before, with some observations by Grootka that obviously date from somewhat later.-M.]

Mul, by now there ain't gonna be no sign of Jimmy, unless a miracle occurs. Maybe he's in a iceberg somewhere in Alaska, that'd be the only way we're gonna see Jim again. But I don't think so. I since found out that the cabin in the woods was burned down and the new owners (guess who?) had the site bulldozed and landscaped. Yeah, the new owner is the Krispee Chips Corporation. They built a fancy lodge there. I guess for the employees, you can guess which ones. Hint: it ain't the secretaries. [End of note.-M.]

Except for Tyrone disappearing, everything has worked out pretty well. Anyways, about as good as you could hope. The trouble with these things though is that they never do stay under the ground. Somebody has got to dig, it's human nature, especially when it's such a big-time guy like Hoffa. I may be gone by the time you're reading this, otherwise I guess you wouldn't be reading it, I'd be telling you it. But if you are reading it, prob'ly it's because something has happened. What could it be? They found Jimmy? I doubt it. No, I bet it's because Carmine or the Fat Man has decided that enough ain't enough. One of them, maybe both, has got to thinking that you can never bury nothing deep enough. They prob'ly got to poking around and decided that ol' Grootka must of been involved and he prob'ly left some evidence that will hang them.

Is that it? Did I guess right? Or did they guess right?

Well, I don't know how right I was, but they were right on. The guy to talk to is Books. I left everything with him. Even some of the sausages.

Yr pal Grootka.

Well, that was about it. That was about all the "help" I was going to get from Grootka, I guessed.

14.

No Mister Nice There was no answer at Books Meldrim's number. This was more than a little unsettling. I had a strong desire to march into Buchanan's office and confront him. But what would I say? Why were you poking around Lonzo b.u.t.terfield? What's your interest here? That wasn't going to get anybody anywhere. Nor could I descend on Humphrey DiEbola, the erstwhile Fat Man. For one thing, I couldn't approach him on my own; I needed the backing of the department, at least. Which meant Jimmy Marshall, my lieutenant, not to say the support of my captain, Buchanan. But really, it needed the authority of the F.B.I., the U.S. marshall, the county prosecutor. All of these people.

Of course, if you are Grootka you don't need any of these people. You just strap on the Old Cat and go to work. But that was just the problem, wasn't it? Grootka had interfered, deeply, in the lives of several people and then when it had come to a small war, had grinned and waved and walked off, kind of like Ronald Reagan getting on Air Force One. "Oh, Mulheisen will take care of it." He had more or less said just that.

But this wasn't looking after Books. And I had a feeling that someone ought to, if only to warn him that sleeping dogs were up and about.

I didn't need any help to do this. I could drive down to Books's Lake Erie hideaway and be there in an hour, maybe less. It took less.

Books's car was parked in the drive, which was a treacherous little lane that led down from the road toward the lake, very narrow, with no way to turn around. It brought one to a point below the house, actually, and then one had to climb stairs to the deck. I peered into the house from the sliding gla.s.s door and realized immediately that there was trouble. All the books were thrown on the floor. Many other things had been tossed on the floor, as well, including flour, houseplants, clothes. Somebody had done a job.

The door was ajar and although I hadn't noticed any other cars about, nor any signs of other people-the neighbors were weekend and summer folk, not regular residents-I drew my gun and entered. I stepped away from the framing doorway and listened. What I heard was that well-known silence that says, n.o.body home. I called for Books. No response. Then I moved through the house, carefully.

I'm not an admirer of the two-handed-squat approach when searching room to room. I like to be alert, but erect, not planted. I keep my hat in one hand and my gun in the other, close to my waist, where it can't be batted away and possibly lost. The hat can always be waved or tossed as a distraction. Stillness is helpful, listening. Move quickly, stop, listen. There was nothing to hear.

Room to room and the whole house had been tossed. Trashed. It was a mess. They had even thrown jars of mustard into the open box of the grand piano. That kind of violence evokes fear for the inhabitant. But no sign of Books, no nice Mr. Meldrim. Finally, I went back on the deck.

I stood there amid the disarray-I hadn't noticed when I came up that the deck itself had been savaged, chairs kicked over and a railing splintered-and felt . . . well, I started to say depressed, but it felt more like despair. I had failed in the one thing that was essential: to protect. It didn't matter that I was still almost totally baffled by this case. (Note that I said "still," as if I were confident that the case would yield its meaning eventually, if not its solution. This is true arrogance.) It was not a bad day. I sighed and stood there on the deck, in this great silence broken only by a faraway gull and the gentle lapping of water against the sh.o.r.e and the pilings of the dock. Unconsciously, I took out a cigar and lit it. The sun was not shining, but the sky was light, a familiar kind of pearly lakeside luminescence that made it impossible to see a true horizon. The lake was slaty gray and gently undulating, cold and grave. The air wasn't really cold, just that dull, breezeless chill that can seem almost unnoticeable until your nose and fingers get numb.

I had an incongruous thought: the Red Wings were playing the Blues tonight. I actually considered trying to attend. What an amazing thing the human mind is! It crawls out of a depression to take refuge on the ice of a hockey rink! Or maybe it was only the well-known salutary effect of the H. Upmann's tobacco.

I descended the steps to the little dock and walked out to the end, noticing a freighter seemingly motionless at the very limits of visibility. I looked down at the little boat tethered at the end of the dock. The blue canvas of the protective cover was drawn over the boat, but not over the outboard motor, which was in the upright position, with the propeller in the water. Evidently, Books had been fishing but hadn't restored the motor to its horizontal position. And then I noticed that the cover wasn't really tightly drawn about the boat. A brisk wind would strip it off, exposing the interior. It wasn't like Books to leave it like that. I clambered down the two or three steps of the wooden ladder to the point where the soles of my shoes were just above the water and leaned out. With the cigar clenched in my jaw and clinging to the ladder with my free hand, I flipped back the loose canvas with the snub-nose of my .38 Chiefs Special, fearful of what might be underneath.

Books Meldrim lay there, on his back. His brown eyes were open and he held an old long-barreled revolver on his breast. He looked up into my eyes and said, "I was hoping it was you, Mul."

I swear I could have kissed the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Instead, I said, softly, "You b.a.s.t.a.r.d. Just taking a little nap on the bosom of the deep, Books?"

His eyes were pretty bleak, but he smiled. He clambered up and I helped him onto the dock. He stood next to me and looked up at the deck and the house. "You left my door open," he said. "That's no good for my piano." He p.r.o.nounced it "pee-yaner."

Books had gotten a good look at the two young men who had come to the house. He'd seen them drive up, noticed the Michigan plates and their manner, and had spent an hour of terrified hiding. His last resort was the boat. I knew from his description that the two men were almost certainly the two I'd seen outside Vera's house in Ferndale. I called the border patrol and put a watch on the tunnel and the bridge, but the men had had plenty of time to get back to Detroit, so I didn't expect too much.

I helped Books straighten up much of the mess and encouraged him to notify the police, but he brushed that notion aside. He made coffee and we each had a hard jolt of brandy. His fear, anxiety, and then anger were yielding to depression, I could tell, but he was tough and fought it down. He looked about, at the stains on his rugs and walls-he had thoroughly cleaned the mess out of his piano.

"The gen'amens did a number on me, didn't they?" he said, mildly. "I'm surprised they didn't take a dump on the davenport."

"You'll get it all straightened out," I said. "I'll help you." I sounded agreeable, and I meant to be supportive-the man had been through a h.e.l.l of a deal-but my depression had long since changed to fear, then to relief, followed by a rising anger. I recognized the signs; it was nothing unusual. I remembered a very pretty little cousin of mine, Sarah, who used to come visit me in the summers from California. One day she was dancing in the kitchen while my mother was making cookies. My father had gone down into the bas.e.m.e.nt, which at that time was really only a root cellar, reached by a trapdoor. The trap was open and Sarah, dancing about, singing merrily, had heedlessly tumbled into the hole. I remember my mother's shouts of horror and then relief when my father issued out of the cellar holding the little blond girl, who was dazed but then laughed to see my mother's fright. My mother had struck the little girl, not very hard and not across the face, but then she'd tried to cover up her violent reaction with a justified anger, raging about Sarah's thoughtlessness. It was soon apparent that the slap had only been a frightened reaction, a kind of release of tension.

I felt some of my mother's anger now, listening to Books prattle away. I knew he was just working off his own excess anger and fear, but still.

"Thank you. Yeah, we can fix it up, but it'll always be there, a little faint stain. Well . . . it is time to wind this up. Time to quit playing games, playing Grootka's game. You remember the last time you were out here and I said you should cook a little fish as you would rule the empire?"

"Yeah, yeah. Lao-tse, wasn't it? Govern an empire as you would cook a little fish?" I wondered if he was going to slow down anytime soon.

"It works both ways," Books said. "But that's a concept that wouldn't make a lick of sense to Grootka. If a .38'd kill you, why not use an elephant gun and be sure? That'd be Grootka. Well, I'm ready."

And now it was my turn. "You're ready? Well, I'm glad. What the h.e.l.l do you people think is going on here, anyway? You saw those guys-they didn't drive all the way down here to trash your house and scare you. If they'd found your a.s.s it'd be floating in Lake Erie now. Don't you know that?"

"What's got you so goosey?" he said, eyeing me curiously. "Wasn't n.o.body trying to shoot your a.s.s."

"How do you know?" I retorted. "I get my a.s.s shot at twice a week. Part of the job. How come you didn't tell me that M'Zee Kinanda was really Tyrone Addison?" That was what was bugging me.

"Ah, so that's it," Books said. Then he a.s.sumed an annoyingly pious expression and offered, "If the man wants to be known as M'Zee Kinanda, that's his right. It ain't my business." He started muttering and putting things away, pretending to ignore me.

"Don't give me that c.r.a.p. This whole thing's been a put-up job from the start, leading me around by the nose, feeding me a little info here, withholding it there, 'here read this notebook, here's a tape' . . . it won't do. Not anymore. I've had it." And I had. I was angry.

"All right, all right," the old man said, holding up his large, slender hands placatingly. "I'm sorry about that. I just didn't know how to go about it, how much you should know, what I was supposed to reveal . . . Grootka said-"

"Oh, don't give me any more of that Grootka c.r.a.p," I interrupted. "Give me the goods. I want to hear it. What do you know? I know you weren't up north with those guys-or do I? All I know is what I read in Grootka's notebooks. Which reminds me, are there any more of them? I want them, right now."

"That's what those fellas were after, I expect," he said. He'd dropped the philosopher cloak, I saw, although I suspected it was one that he would prefer to wear as closely as his skin from now until he croaked.

I was momentarily arrested. "Did they get it?"

"I don't have any more," he said. "Course, they don't know that."

I waited a beat or two. "Well, that might be something," I said. "Now tell me a story."

I sat back and lit a cigar. Forty-five minutes later we were en route to Detroit. His story was not vastly different from the one that had slowly accreted in my mind. Books, naturally, played down his role when it was likely to appear criminal, but played it up when it looked admirable, particularly if it seemed wise and sagacious. I didn't mind. It was a good story. You know it.

He had not gone to Faraway, or wherever we should call the cabin in the north, he said. I believe him. Grootka had returned and told him the whole story. Books had helped him write it up. "Except that he wouldn't let me actually write it, and the man couldn't spell 'hockey,'" Books lamented. "Had to be in his writing and in his spelling. Otherwise, it was no good."

"But what," I said, and then repeated, with menace, "what in h.e.l.l was the point?"

"Grootka didn't give a d.a.m.n about Hoffa," Books said. "So in a way, you had to ask, why not just let it drop? Him and Lonzo got out okay, Tyrone and Vera got out okay, I stayed clear right along. . . . Sure, a couple of guys died, but people dying every day."

"Not all of them are Hoffa," I said.

"That's right," Books readily agreed. "n.o.body gives a rat's a.s.s about ol' Janney, he was a foreigner and a oddball, anyway. Who gives a hoot for some jive greaser like Cusumano? I don't believe I ever even saw the guy before and he sure was a killer, hisself. But there's Hoffa. Hoffa is like Pharoah." He p.r.o.nounced it "Fay-row."

"Pharoah? What the h.e.l.l are you talking about?" We were fast approaching Windsor, and I was looking for the tunnel exit.

"Pha-roah don't ever die alone. When Pha-roah dies, a lot of people got to die. He ain't going into that pyramid alone. Pha-roah ain't taking the sun boat without company."

"Don't get philosophical on me, Books," I warned him.

"I ain't being philosophical. That's the truth. That's just the way it is. Pha-roah don't die alone. We all are just lucky it was as few as it was."

I had called ahead, and Customs waved us through. Stanos was waiting for me on the other side. We pulled into the parking lot and he stood up from lounging on the trunk of his Olds Ciera. He was tall and rangy, with a raw face that was all nose and chin and b.u.mps but had somehow weathered from ugly, acned youth into a cruel but not wholly awful maturity. He looked meaner than two dogs tied back to front.

"My good Lord," Books breathed, looking at him. He'd heard me calling for Stanos to meet us. "It's like a young Grootka. Ain't it? I never thought to see anything like that again."