Man With An Axe: A Detective Sergeant Mulheisen Mystery Part 14

"The world is round, Books. He's not as smart as Grootka, but he's got time."

Stanos leaned into the car. He was wearing a gray suit that looked like he'd stolen it from Grootka's closet. It flapped open to reveal a shoulder holster that carried a gun as big as the Old Cat. "You must be Books Meldrim," he said. He extended his arm across me to shake Books's hand. He had a husky, gravelly voice that still carried an element of youth in it, kind of c.o.c.ky, but sort of indifferently happy with the day. "Glad to meetcha."

He stood up and rocked on his heels, swinging his long arms restlessly and smacking a fist against an open palm. "Well," he said, "nice day for somethin'. You ready to go knock some f.u.c.king wop heads?"

I let him stand there for a while until he came down off his high horse. Then I looked up. "It's not like that, Stanos. I just want to go by Krispee Chips and talk to Humphrey."

Stanos grinned. "And you need a little backup? That's great! Maybe they'll get out of line." He gestured with his thumb at Books, and said, "Is the spoo-, is he go in'? Yeah? Great! That's just great. Okay!" He slapped his hands like a pistol shot and turned toward his car. "Le's go!"

I looked at Books. He was looking me in the face. He shook his head slightly, his lips pursed to whistle softly. I gave him my best Fang grin. "Le's go!"

Humphrey DiEbola was not the Fat Man, not the man I had met many years ago with Grootka in the halls of 1300 Beaubien. n.o.body today would think to nickname him the Fat Man. I had seen him several times in the interim years, and not more than a couple of weeks earlier, but each time he looked leaner. He was almost handsome these days. He was standing behind his desk in the old office that had been Carmine's. It still had the fascinating sculpture in the corner: a man-size figure of a rat in a pin-striped suit and a fedora, carrying a shotgun. It was a great piece by the legendary sculptor Jabe.

It was a pleasure to meet the nice Ms. Soteri again. She ushered us into DiEbola's office and I was taken by surprise. There stood Ms. Helen Sedlacek, sometime paramour and a.s.sociate of my old nemesis, Joe Service, standing behind the boss in her own pinstripes.

Ms. Soteri brought coffee, along with a tray of brandy. Humphrey leaned back in his padded leather and teak chair and patted the hand of his a.s.sistant, Helen. "What can I do for you, Mul? This isn't about Ortega, is it? I'm afraid I haven't heard any more from the fellow."

He basically ignored Stanos and Books. Stanos had slammed back the brandy and set the gla.s.s down on a bookshelf, near his coffee cup. He lounged with one hand idly scratching at his midriff, comfortably close to his shoulder holster, and smiled at nothing at all. Books sat as silent as Buddha, merging with the soft leather chair.

I had been thinking carefully about what I was going to say to Humphrey all the way down here. I wanted to get it right. "Mr. DiEbola, I didn't come here with any kind of wish list, or demands, or to ha.s.sle you-"

"Mul, it's Humphrey," he interrupted.

"Sure, sure. We've had some problems in the past . . . I don't want to go into all that. The police have problems of one sort or another with anyone, any organization. Yours is a little different. No, no, I'm not going to get into that."

Humphrey nodded. I noticed Helen step a little closer to him and then I saw his hand slip down behind the desk. What the h.e.l.l, I thought, is he actually going for a gun? But then, no, I saw Helen's hips move slightly and I thought, What the h.e.l.l! He's feeling her a.s.s! I couldn't believe it. Humphrey DiEbola was feeling Helen Sedlacek's a.s.s right in front of us. They have a relationship!

"You know, sometimes I can feel the earth tremble," I said.

"What?" Helen said, echoed by Humphrey.

"I was just going to say a few words about you've got your agenda and I've got mine and I'm sorry, but when your agenda crosses mine the one that takes precedence is . . ." I paused, tapping my chest. "But then I felt the earth tremble. I can see it doesn't make much sense talking. Just let me say this, Humphrey. I know where the bodies are buried."

Helen spoke quickly. "People often say that, but then when they go to dig them up . . ." She lifted a hand and opened it, palm up, then tipped it over as if pouring out dirt or something, "Nothing there."

I decided to ignore that. "I've got a case that would be-how shall I put it?-difficult to make," I said, talking not to Helen but to Humphrey. "But it'll make."

Humphrey leaned forward, both hands in view on his desk, clearly interested. "This is about Pepe, isn't it?" he said.

I shook my head. "We're nowhere on that, Humphrey. I don't think I'm giving away department secrets if I tell you I don't think we're going to get anywhere on that. This goes way back." I looked at Helen then and tried a little smile, one that I hoped would look rueful. "I was hoping you and me could talk privately," I said. I glanced at my two companions and said, "I'm sure Stanos and Mr. Meldrim would excuse us."

Helen did not like this, at all. "Sergeant Mulheisen, I've had to deal with you before," she said. "So has Umb-, Mr. DiEbola. The problem with dealing with you is that you speak for yourself, and whether you're genuinely candid or not, you don't necessarily speak for the police department. So there's no point in speaking to you at all, is there?"

"Well, Helen," I said, "I know you have the ear of various police, uh, figures. I daresay some of them are pretty significant. But this, what I have to say to Humphrey, is just between him and me. He and I. Him and me." We all smiled at that verbal clumsiness. It's amazing how nicely that works.

I walked outside with Humphrey and we strolled down the graveled parking lot toward the loading docks. I looked back and saw Helen standing in front of the building with her arms crossed, watching us. Stanos stood nearby. Books was drinking from a fountain.

"How long has this been going on, Humphrey?" I asked him, looking back at Helen.

He glanced over his shoulder and grinned. "Can't sneak the sun past the rooster, can I?" he said. "I've known Helen since she was a baby, Mul, but by G.o.d . . ."

He really was happy. I hated to spoil his day. "You ever hear of a guy named Cusumano, Humphrey?" He shook his head. He looked serious now. "No? Well, it doesn't matter. As far as I know his body doesn't exist. And it wouldn't matter if it.did. I think he got to be part of a Buick, or maybe a Ford, though even that would have been junked by now. But the name should evoke some memories. A place, a time? A guy? How about a guy named Jacobsen?"

Humphrey turned away from me. He was an intelligent man. He didn't like games. But right now his mind wasn't on my needs. He was watching Helen. She had sauntered over to Stanos and was talking to him, her back to us, hands on her hips, feet boldly apart.

She was a good-looking woman, young. Stanos was laughing, lighting a cigarette, his own legs widespread like hers. She laughed at something he said.

"Janwillem Jacobsen," I said.

"Never heard of him," Humphrey said, over his shoulder. He turned back to me. "What is it you want, Mul? I want to get along, you know that. Carmine, he was old-fashioned, but that's all gone. We can get along. Just tell me what it is." He wanted me to name my price, I could see, and get out of his hair. He had his hands full. I could feel the earth tremble.

"I have the gun that killed Jacobsen," I said. "It has your fingerprints on it. Like I say, it would be a hard case to make, but it'll make."

I'll give the man credit. He didn't blink. He just looked at me, not a muscle moving. "Okay. You have a gun. All G.o.d's chillun got guns, Mul. What do you want for yours?"

Now, that was the question. What did I want?

"I want the guy who took down Hoffa," I said.

He glanced away, at Helen again. She was talking fairly animatedly with Stanos, her hands gesturing, her short skirt swinging. She had pretty nice legs. She and Stanos were getting along like a quarterback and a cheerleader, it seemed.

"What do you want with him?" Humphrey said. He could hardly attend to what he was doing. I almost felt sorry for him.

"What do I want with him? Humphrey, I'll be famous. I'll be the d.i.c.k who broke the Hoffa case. I want to send him to prison, for murder, to avenge the death of one of our greatest union leaders. What do you mean, 'What'?"

"What if he's dead?" he asked.

"Is he dead?"

"A long time ago. But . . . I could find a guy . . . a guy who was there, anyway. He didn't pull the trigger, but he's still . . . you know, what is it? Culpable."

"What's his name?"

"Bring me the gun. I'll bring the guy."

I stared off into the sky. It was a little sunny here, not like down on the lake. I thought for a minute about what was implied by that "I'll bring the guy" statement. It could mean a lot of things, such as: DiEbola would find someone to take the fall, he'd provide a corpse . . . I wasn't sure what other permutations were conceivable. So I tossed in my kicker, as if I'd simply overlooked it: "There's one other thing."

DiEbola restrained a sigh of impatience. "What now?" he asked. He wanted me to leave and take my tall, skinny detective with me.

"Buchanan," I said.

He looked at me sharply. But after a moment he snorted. "Sure. Why not? He's a G.o.dd.a.m.n liability, anyway. I'll send you some material on him. Where do I send it?"

I held up my hands in horror. "Don't send anything to me! I'm not your pal. You got something on Buchanan, send it to someone who can use it. Or let me make that clear: someone who will use it. The papers, maybe."

He smiled. "I'll do it today. It's a pleasure to serve the community, Sergeant."

Driving away, Books said, "Stanos and Helen kinda hit it off."

"I saw that. What was it all about?"

"They went to Denby High School together. She remembered him, he was in the band."

"Yeah? I guess I heard that. From Jimmy Marshall. They used to be partners, in the patrol car."

Books chuckled. "Man, I bet he was a mess in high school. But she was sure flashing the p.u.s.s.y in his eyes. Now why do you think she did that?"

I looked at Books. "You know why she did that, Books."

It wasn't far to the Renaissance Center hotel, where M'Zee Kinanda was staying. I pulled into the underground parking and as we took the elevator up, I observed, "You know, Books, I thought I was taking Stanos along to DiEbola's for muscle, but the muscle wasn't needed. Still, he did all right, didn't he?"

"Oh, it was the muscle that she responded to, all right," Books said.

Kinanda had a top-floor suite. It gave him a terrific view of Canada and much of Detroit. He was dressed in sweatpants and a kind of Russian-looking belted smock that had a cadet collar. He wore Persian slippers and a brocade skullcap. He was very happy to see Books, clearly. To me he said, "Well, Sergeant, we meet again, but without the pretty girl. Too bad."

I tried to imagine this robust, self-confident man of the world as the skinny, self-absorbed Tyrone that I'd pictured from Grootka's and Vera's accounts. It was a different man, to be sure, though not completely different. One was soon conscious of a kind of restrained impatience, which may be what we notice when we remark patience, of a man who would rather be at work.

"The pretty girl," I said, "was Vera Jacobsen's daughter, Agge. Did you know that?"

He shook his head. "No, but I'm not surprised. I knew there was something familiar about her. In this life-in the show-biz side of it, anyway-you meet so many people. You get used to people seeming familiar, even if you're in Paris, or Moscow. Well, the musician's life is pretty cosmopolitan, especially nowadays."

"M'Zee, lets forget Agge. I want to talk to you about the Hoffa case." He nodded. I sketched briefly the extent of my knowledge and its sources. "You can see my situation," I said. "I don't have any kind of case, and yet I have a duty and an obligation. On top of that, I'm more or less hopelessly compromised here."

He nodded and observed, thoughtfully, "It's a tough one, I agree. And yet . . . I can't help feeling that the real stickler is the ethical and moral issue. Right? If, for instance, you had simply been told these things, not as a police officer, but as an interested citizen, a bystander, you wouldn't have the same problem. Or at least, you wouldn't feel such a bind. Am I right?"

"Possibly," I said. "As long as we remember that what's important is not what I feel, but what was done."

"Oh, yeah, sure." He picked up a soprano sax and took the mouthpiece cover off, placing his lips around the mouthpiece and fingering the keys lightly. "I'd like to play you something," he said.

I wasn't really in the mood, but what can you say? "Great," I said and stood with my hands clasped behind my back, gazing over his shoulder, out the windows.

I didn't know what the tune was, but he played an absolutely heart-wrenching three or four minutes of pure, soaring melody. It made one want to weep. A haunting blues in such a beautiful, pure tone . . . I saw it, floating like a pear in midair, and enclosed within it the sunny field and the orchard, the woods, the little birds gaily calling in the flickering shadows . . . and then their sudden haunted silence when the hawk arrives and their tentative but waxing joy when he leaves. I stared through misted eyes out through the big, tinted windows at the river and beyond it to the flatness of Canada in the spring. From up here I could see that the haze on Lake Erie, which had made it such a pearly day of terror for Books, was just a local thing . . . in reality, the sun was shining everywhere.

"That's wonderful," I told him. My voice was a little husky. "What's it called?"

"I call it . . . 'Faraway.'"

I didn't quite take it in. I said, "It's beautiful."

"Yeah, but is it catchin' crooks?" He laughed. He set the sax on its stand, next to a gleaming baritone. "For a long time I called it 'Blues in G,' but that didn't seem quite, ah . . . quite it. So where we at? Oh yeah, you're trying to figure out how to reach that final note, that resolving G. Well, everybody knows-in the key of G, you only got that one sharp, F. Unless," he muttered in an aside, "you're in G minor." "Now," he went on "what would I tell Grootka? Probably something like, 'Don't strain for the note, be free.'"

"F-sharp minor, hunh?" I said. "How do I get to G from F-sharp?" Suddenly, it struck me. "Faraway?"

He lifted his right middle finger. "Just lift this finger," he said. "F-sharp. G."

"What's in Faraway?"

"A man named Fred. He runs a little butcher shop, skins out deer for hunters, makes some nice sausage. If he's still alive, he can tell you about Grootka."

In the car, Books said, "Do I have to go?"

"Did you know about this Fred?"

"I heard of him. I ate his sausages. Grootka used to go up there every deer season, and he'd bring back some sausages."

"I never knew Grootka was a deer hunter," I said.

"I don't know that he ever shot a deer," Books said, "but he'd bring back some sausages, every year."

"What do you think's up there?"

Books shook his head dolefully. "I don't know," he said.

"Well, we better get started."

He sighed. "I'll put on a tape. You still got that Kinanda?"

15.

Outtake I think his name was Fred Miner, but in the way of things, in a small town, or maybe it was in the can-he'd spent some time in Jacktown, courtesy of some people who wanted him to serve it for them, and were willing to pay-folks called him Major. Not Fred Major. Major Fred, I guess. If you didn't know him too well, as with Kinanda, you could call him Fred. If you were a pal, you called him Maje.

He'd spent more years at Jackson than he'd planned. There was some violence, and he wasn't protected. So he spent the time and came out and got his payoff, and retired to fish and hunt and support himself. But in one of those c.r.a.ppy little ironies of life, he'd found himself going blind. He could still fly-fish, after a fashion, on the Manistee and the Au Sable-"Sort of like night fishing, you know?" He laughed. A low, rumbling laugh.

He had a round, grizzled head with a curly beard and he wore a wool cap indoors and out, along with a red-and-black-check wool hunting shirt that had the sleeves rolled up to reveal long johns. He wore wool military pants and felt-lined rubber and leather boots. His eyebrows had gotten s.h.a.ggy and he hid behind them, it looked like.

When Books and I showed up it was quite late. But he said he'd just been sitting in the dark, listening to the radio, to the hockey game. The Red Wings were beating the Blues. So we had something to talk about. I fumbled through my introduction until finally he said, "You're Mul."

"That's right."

"And you." He turned to Meldrim. "You'd be Books. C'mon in. Grootka said you'd be along, one of these days. It's taken you a while." He turned on some lights. He had a small shop with a couple of refrigerated meat counters, not presently showing a lot of goods and all of it wrapped and put down for the night, of course. "You'll want some of my venison sausage. I'll give you some to take with you, but I just cooked some up a while ago."

He led the way into a very messy bachelor apartment in the back. That's where he'd been sitting, in a chair surrounded with duck decoys, carving gear, shotguns, implements like that. He'd been carving a decoy head. It was unpainted, so I had no idea what it was supposed to be. There was a smell of sausage in the air, all right. He turned the burner on under a skillet and began to warm up the remains of a thick sausage or two, which he had sliced into discs. He sawed off a couple of large chunks of home-baked bread-"Neighbor lady bakes it," he said. "It's just farm bread, but good." He slapped some sausage onto the bread and shoved the plates at us. The wine was jug wine in jelly gla.s.ses. It was delicious.

"I guess you come to get Grootka's package," he said.

"That's right," I said, glancing at Books. He smiled slightly and gave his head a tiny shake, as if to marvel at my luck.

Fred found his key ring and a big dry-cell lantern. He pulled on his hunting coat and led us through the shop and out the back. "I want you to know that I never opened that box," he told us as he showed the light for us to follow, "and I know that Grootka never did. I don't know what's in it and I don't want to know. I'd appreciate it if you could just take it with you and whatever happens from there, let it happen there."

He led us along a path that went back along a creek, which we had to cross on a mossy two-by-twelve plank, and into a little thicket, which shortly gave way to a clearing. While he unlocked a padlock on a rough wooden shed door, I told him I'd do what I could, but I couldn't promise anything.