Freaky Deaky

by Elmore Leonard

  Miss Abbott said she just sort of got her toes wet.

  Did she recall Greta Wyatt going in the pool?

  She had old copies of underground newspapers Chris hadn't seen or heard of since he got out of school: East Village Other, Rat Subterranean News, Fifth Estate, South End, the Wayne University paper. A copy of the Berkeley Barb dated May 16-22, 1969, with a headline that said PIGS SHOOT TO KILL. . . . Hearing Miss Abbott tell Maureen she wasn't sure who went in the pool and who didn't. He waited for her to mention Mark Ricks. He picked up a book called Is the Library Burning?, still waiting as he put the book back on the shelf.

  He glanced at the desk as she tapped her cigarette toward the ashtray sitting there.

  The notebook with the red cover was no longer in sight.

  He heard Maureen asking Miss Abbott if she recalled Greta Wyatt going upstairs and Miss Abbott saying she wasn't sure which one Greta Wyatt was.

  Chris picked up a book from the shelf with the dust-jacket flap folded into the pages and turned to Miss Abbott.

  "You still reading William Burroughs?"

  Miss Abbott looked over and seemed to notice him for the first time. She stared with no expression before gradually beginning to smile.

  "You want to make something of it?"

  "I was looking at your books," Chris said. "I've read some of them. Abbie Hoffman, I've probably read all of his."

  "You like Abbie?"

  "I don't know why he wasn't a stand-up comic. Yeah, I liked him," Chris said. "I felt sorry for him too. The poor guy hiding out all those years and nobody was even looking for him."

  She didn't seem to care for that. Miss Abbott said, "He was wanted by the FBI, wasn't he?"

  "Yeah, but how bad did they want him? It was like he finally pops up: Here I am. And they go, 'Oh, shit. Now we have to arrest him.' " Chris saw her start to frown and said, "Yeah, all this takes me back," looking at the bookshelves again. "I went to Washington for the biggest peace march in history, the Vietnam Moratorium, one of a million protesters. I was at Woodstock . . . I think it was that summer, yeah, I was still going to U of M, I lived in a house on State Street right next to Pizza Bob's. It was that summer the ROTC building got trashed. I remember typewriters flying out the window." He was grinning.

  It seemed to encourage Miss Abbott. "More than just typewriters, all the records. . . . Did you take part in that?"

  "I watched," Chris said. "No, the only time I saw any action was when George Wallace was here. That time he was running for President and had a rally at Cobo Hall. He's trying to make his speech, we're in the balcony, we stand up and give him that Hitler salute and yell, 'Sieg Heil, you-all!' His fans didn't like it. There was a scuffle, pushing and throwing chairs." Chris grinned. "I remember Wallace yelling at us, 'Get a haircut and take a load off your mind.' I don't know why hair bothered people so much."

  "Really," Miss Abbott said. "Or the way we dressed."

  "And spoke rather freely," Chris said. "You were at U of M at that time?"

  Miss Abbott drew on her cigarette. "I lived on Packard."

  Chris said, "Packard, you could throw a rock from my front steps and hit Packard." He gave her another grin. "And some people did. You miss those days?"

  "I have them." Miss Abbott said. "I can look at them any time I want."

  That was a little weird. She seemed to want to get into it with him but was holding back.

  Maureen, seated now in a plastic chair that looked like it was coming apart, was watching. She met Chris's gaze for a moment, not saying a word.

  Miss Abbott said, "You were at Woodstock?"

  "In the rain and the mud, all three days."

  "I really wanted to go, but I had something on."

  "You had to be there to believe it," Chris said. "Half a million people sitting there all wet and nobody cared. Saturday I got to see my all-time favorite, Grace Slick. I saw Janis, the Who, Santana. On Sunday, Joe Cocker. He had stars on his boots. You remember Ten Years After? Alvin Lee?"

  "They were at Goose Lake, the next summer," Miss Abbott said. "You remind me of a guy, a friend of mine. He'll go, 'You remember Licorice? Who was she with?' "

  "The Incredible String Band," Chris said.

  They were grinning at each other.

  "You aren't Nicole Robinette by any chance?"

  "I'm afraid so."

  "I haven't read any of your books, but I'd like to."

  "No, you wouldn't."

  Again, both grinned and Chris glanced at the bookshelves. "How'd you manage to hang onto all this? You've got Rising Up Angry. You've got the Rat, Barb, ones I've heard of but don't think I ever read."

  "You never know," Miss Abbott said, "they could be collector's items someday. I stored everything at Mother's while I was in New York, working for a publishing house."

  Chris said, "How about when you were at Huron Valley, working in the laundry?"

  That took care of Miss Abbott's pleasant expression, left over from the grin.

  She said, "I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to leave."

  "You don't want to talk about old times?" Chris said. "Tell us how you got busted, any of that?"

  "I don't care to talk to you about anything," Miss Abbott said. "Okay? So leave. That means don't say another word, just get the fuck out."

  Going down the stairs Maureen paused on the landing to look back at Chris.

  "I thought she might try to finesse around it, at least act dumb. No, sir."

  "She comes right at you," Chris said. "You notice she didn't say anything about Mark? Didn't want to go near that, get on the subject of bombs. Did you learn anything?"

  Maureen said, "You mean outside of what she doesn't want to talk about? No. She won't be any help to us on the assault--yeah, I did learn that much."

  "I wouldn't worry about that one," Chris said. In the front hall by the manager's apartment he said, "Can I make a suggestion?"

  "Give it to Wendell."

  "Yeah, but call him, from here. Tell him to get a judge to sign a warrant, so he can come right over and search her apartment. You could stick around, make sure she doesn't leave."

  "What're we looking for, bombs?"

  "Any kind of explosives, copper wire, blasting caps, timers, maybe some kind of remote control switch. Clothespins, the snap kind. Be sure to check the refrigerator."

  "Clothespins?"

  "Have Wendell put on the warrant you're looking for explosive materials and literature."

  "What kind of literature?"

  "A notebook with a red cover that's marked 'May to August 1970.' If you don't find anything else, at least get hold of the notebook. There's something in it, 'cause she hid it while you were talking to her. Covered it with some papers. Maybe she's got instructions in it, how to make a bomb. But even if it doesn't look like anything," Chris said, "hold on to it and let me see it, okay?"

  Maureen didn't answer. She squinted, making a show of studying him. "I don't get it. You want to work so bad, why don't you straighten out your residence problem, get your shield back?"

  "I don't think I like Sex Crimes."

  "Okay, but why this? What're you trying to prove?"

  "Nothing, I'm just going along."

  "That's what I'm asking you. Why?"

  He had to think of words to describe something he knew without words, something that came to him as he stood at Robin Abbott's bookshelf and looked at her past and realized her past was her present. "One thing leads to another," Chris said. "Greta takes us to Robin. You find out she was a hard-core revolutionary at U of M and I pick up on it because I was there, I saw what was going on. I was even into it, not much but enough that I could feel it again. She did too, when I was talking about it. You see her face? She was dying to tell stories, top anything I said easy, but she held back. She was afraid if she got started she might say too much, give away what she's into now."

  "If she's into anything."

  "Maureen, come on. Why'd she hold back? What's wrong with talking
about old times?"

  Maureen said, "It looked like she's living in those times."

  Chris smiled at Maureen coming around. "Or she'd like to relive them, huh? But if she can't, then maybe she gets into it in a different way or for a different reason. You know what I mean?"

  "Maybe she's mad at somebody," Maureen said.

  It raised Chris's eyebrows.

  "Maybe somebody, when she was busted," Maureen said, "turned her in."

  Chris said, "That's not bad, Maureen." He thought about it and said, "Yeah, I like it. I might be able to look into that."

  He remembered one night in the Athens Bar, a guy he'd see in there, an artist by the name of Dizsi, telling how they had planned to blow up a submarine, the one that used to be parked in the Detroit River behind the Naval Armory. It was for sightseeing, Dizsi said, but it was also a symbol of war. He believed someone informed on them, because the submarine disappeared before they could destroy it and later turned up in the Israeli navy.

  Chris liked to listen to Dizsi. He was Hungarian and spoke through his gray beard with an accent that was perfect for telling about anarchist plots. Dizsi had escaped the Russians, traded Budapest for Detroit, taught fine art at Wayne State and supported student demonstrations until he was fired. Now he lived in a loft studio in Greektown where he painted wall-size canvases and was waited on by his mistress, Amelia.

  "You remember Robin Abbott?"

  "Yes, of course, and I'll tell you why."

  Chris liked to watch him eat, too. Dizsi could make things Chris wouldn't dare even to smell look good. Today, having his lunch in the studio when Chris walked in, he was eating marinated squid and hummus, wiping Greek bread in the colorless paste. A bottle of Greek wine stood on the table where tubes of paint had been pushed aside. Chris didn't especially like retsina, either, but had some when Amelia appeared in a long white shirtdress and filled Dizsi's glass, Dizsi saying, "We tried to get Robin to join the Socialist Labor Party. Or it was the Young Socialist Alliance." Chris watching Amelia, her face clean and pale as a nun's within the soft curve of her dark hair parted in the middle, eyes cast down; Dizsi saying, "It was a fantastic opportunity, here in a blue-collar city, for a mass orientation program. . . ." Chris watching Amelia's eyes raise and lower again, Amelia leaving them now, Chris wondering what a mistress did all day, Dizsi saying, "But Robin was only words, pretentious rhetoric, writing about the proletariat without even knowing one person who worked on the line." He pushed the plate of hummus toward Chris.

  "Please, help yourself."

  "Mashed-up chickpeas doesn't make it with me."

  "Then why do I think you want some?"

  "Go ahead and eat," Chris said. He took an olive. "You know what organizations she belonged to? Was she in the Weathermen?"

  "Yes, but in and out," Dizsi said. "She was in the White Panthers at one time helping the Black ones. I know that because I went to a cocktail party for them to raise bail money. There were so many different groups. The Yippies, the Revolutionary Youth Movement, the Action Faction, the Crazies, the Progressive Labor Party, strict Maoists. The Black Panthers were known here as the National Committee to Combat Fascism, and the White Panthers became the Rainbow People's Party. I was younger then, I knew what I believed. I ask these people, what's the matter with the friendly Socialist Labor Party, uh? I don't know, I think it was because we didn't drop acid and practice kundalini yoga. It turned them off."

  "Was Robin involved in that submarine thing?"

  "Oh, no, that was in 'sixty-seven, before her time."

  "But she did set a few bombs."

  "I don't know if Robin actually did or if it was her friend Skip."

  "Who's Skip?"

  "You don't know that name? Skip Gibbs?"

  "I've heard of Emerson Gibbs."

  "Yes, that's Skip. He came out of prison and went to Hollywood, someone told me, to work in the movies. In Special Effects."

  "You're kidding."

  "Sure, he knows how to blow up things."

  "They were making a movie here," Chris said, "blowing up things." His gaze moved to the painting Dizsi was working on: a giant canvas that was solid black except for a diagonal streak of white that had some yellow in it, near the base of the painting. He said, "You don't suppose Skip was here, working on that movie." The streak of white could be headlights, the way it started narrow and widened out. "If he was . . ."

  Dizsi said, "And if Robin knew he was here or happened to see him, and if they're still friends . . . and if I sell that painting I want twenty thousand for it. No, make it twenty-five."

  Chris studied the painting, about seven feet high and fifteen feet wide. A door opened at the far end of the loft and Amelia appeared, daylight showing her body in the white dress. She stood there.

  He looked at the painting again. "What is it?"

  "Tell me what you see," Dizsi said.

  "Car headlights coming out of woods at night."

  "You're absolutely right. It means you can buy it."

  "I don't have a wall for it," Chris said. "I don't even have a house." He watched Amelia close the door.

  Dizsi was staring at his painting. "Those two could live in there, in the woods, Robin and Skip. They were lone wolves. I think half by choice and half of it because people didn't like to associate with them."

  "Why not?"

  "They were unpredictable, they scared the hell out of people."

  "Did you know Woody and Mark Ricks?"

  Dizsi grinned, eating his squid. "Ah, now we're getting to it. I didn't want to be rude, ask you what's this about. I met them, yes, and their mother. They're the ones had the party for the Black Panthers. I don't know what I was doing there, I left. But I did see the mother another time, when I was subpoenaed and had to go to the Federal Building."

  "For what?"

  "They were always inviting me to sit down and discuss subversive activities with them. Listen, I'll show you something. I have complete records of FBI and CIA investigations that concerned me directly or even where my name appeared. Like investigations of some of my friends or associates. All of this I got through the Freedom of Information Act, three entire file drawers full of stuff."

  "Were Woody and Mark ever arrested?"

  "Mark was picked up once," Dizsi said. "You know when those students at Kent State were shot and killed? After that, there was a demonstration in Kennedy Square. May ninth, 1970. I know, I was there. Mark was one of those taken in and then released, no charge filed."

  "That's why his mother was at the Federal Building?"

  "Oh, no," Dizsi said. "No, what I started to tell you I have in my records? It shows that Mrs. Ricks, following the Black Panther fund-raising party, became an FBI informant. Told them things she learned right in her house."

  "She snitched on her own kids?"

  Dizsi was shaking his head. "To save her kids. She gave information about the Black Panthers, nothing important. No, but her biggest coup, she told the FBI where to find Robin and Skip."

  "Jesus Christ," Chris said.

  Now Dizsi was smiling a little. "Why does that make you happy?"

  * * *

  The notebook with the red cover marked MAY-AUGUST '70 was on Wendell Robinson's desk, the metal desk in the far corner of the squad room by the window with the air-conditioning unit that didn't work. Wendell, sitting behind the desk in a neat gray suit and rose-tinted necktie, watched Chris taking his time: looking around as if he'd never been here before, appraising the office full of old desks and file cabinets that made Barney Miller's TV squad room look swank. Mankowski taking his time 'cause he'd seen the notebook lying there and knew a search had been done. Wendell picked up his coffee mug with a "7" on it and took a sip. There--Chris finally turning this way, about to get to it.

  "Where is everybody?"

  "Out on the street, where they supposed to be."

  "That's a good-looking suit. You don't seem to go with the decor around here."

  "I have to say you do
," Wendell said. "Is that what you're trying to tell me, you want a job?"

  "You're gonna want to give me one."

  "Why's that?"

  "First, tell me what you know."

  "I don't know shit. We didn't find nothing."

  "You got the notebook."

  "I still don't know shit. It's full of how smart she is and how dumb everybody else is."

  "You talked to her. . . ."

  "Yeah, I talked. That girl knows how to act with police. Kept her mouth closed tight."

  "Gave you dirty looks?"

  "Gave me nothing."

  "You want a motive?"

  Wendell didn't answer, looking at this old-timey young cop comes in here in his worn-out sportcoat and some kind of angle, with that instinct of an old-timey cop, too.

  "Mark and Woody's mom, now deceased, turned her in," Chris said. "Told the shoes where to find Robin and her buddy Skip Gibbs. They picked them up in Los Angeles and brought them back for trial."

  Wendell got comfortable in his chair, sat back with his coffee, raised his tasseled loafers to the desk, next to the notebook.

  "So the mama's dead, Robin takes it out on the two boys?"

  "Why not?"

  "I'm not arguing with you, I like it. I'll take anything given to me free. But how good is it?"

  "It's good," Chris said. "It could even get better." He picked up Wendell's phone and dialed four numbers.

  "Jerry? . . . Fine, I'm in the building, up at Seven. . . . No, I'm not talking to anybody higher than lieutenant," Chris said and looked at Wendell. "I want to ask you something. When you were with that movie crew and they blew up the cars, you met all the special-effects guys, didn't you? . . . Was there a guy named Skip Gibbs?" Chris listened for a moment. "Well, it must be. How many Skips are there? . . . Can you check? . . . Call up the company and ask them. . . . Out in Hollywood, the one that made the movie. Would you do that? I'm sure it's the guy, but let's nail it down. . . . No, it only sounds like I'm working. Jerry, I'll talk to you. Thanks." Chris hung up and looked at Wendell again.