On the screen was a picture of my house with the yellow police tape still up, and as I heard my name mentioned, the bartender mercifully switched the channel to ESPN. I knew if this was becoming a national story, my checkered past would be under scrutiny. And here I was hunting Grubb, a man I grudgingly considered an old friend and former colleague, but who by even the narrowest of definitions had to be considered a sociopath.
“Any good news?” asked Mickey as he returned.
“Yeah, looks like my good old days are coming back again.”
Chapter Eight
In my business you often only find the truth by comparing the lies. The friends and family of subjects who have skipped lie to you. Witnesses and the police routinely obfuscate and make omissions, and clients often seem to feel that since they are paying you, they have the right to deceive you. I knew Jefferson Davis Grubb would lie to me, but I knew how to navigate his falsehoods, and since I didn’t know my new client I decided to start with Grubb.
Moreover, Mickey was right: if Grubb was involved in the dealings and/or disappearance of Jack Polozola then there was likely illegal activity involved. In his sixty-something years I doubted that Grubb had ever acted legitimately in any endeavor.
It proved easier to find his latest company than to get in to see him. A receptionist said no one by that name had ever worked there, and when I insisted, another employee came to the front desk and said that I had the wrong company. When I persisted, a man who introduced himself as the office manager told me I had to leave or he would call security. I told him to call security, but in the meantime he should inform the man whose name wasn’t Grubb that Doc Holiday was here to see him.
“No shit! You’re Doc Holiday? Heard a lot of stories about you.” He seemed impressed and asked me to wait for a moment. In a minute he came and ushered me to the very back of the office. I entered through a door with venetian blinds covering a small window and punctuated with a sign that said EMPLOYEES ONLY. Grubb stood up and motioned me in as he spoke into a telephone headpiece. “Son,” he said, “You got to come right with me on this. I am working hard to make this right for you! What? Well you are jacking my ass up. In fact, if you jack my ass up any higher the bluebirds are going to come by and build a nest in it.” He spoke in a mellifluous baritone with an accent that was one part Deep South, one part Southwest, and one part put on.
He was the youngest son of the late U.S. Senator Benton Grubb of Arkansas. He was also the eldest son of Clay Davis Grubb, an affluent racehorse owner from Lexington, Kentucky. Not only was he the only living heir of Tennyson Grubb, an oil magnate from Forth Worth, Texas, he was also the only surviving child of at least a dozen other prominent, as well as fictitious, men named Grubb. He had been born in Alabama, Kentucky, South Carolina, Tennessee, as well as several other states, and in fact, at one time it had suited his purposes to have been born in Havana, Cuba—the son of United States Ambassador John Dewey Grubb.
Grubb had at one time been the pocket billiards champion of Canada. He had been a professional football player, a pro golfer, a pro bowler and had toured the world with the Barnum & Bailey Circus billed as The Son of Houdini. He had been an owner/operator of a gold mine in Alaska and had run a wide variety of businesses, the most notable being a nightclub in Rio de Janeiro.
I had once pointed out to him that like his namesake, he would have to have been born in 1808 to have done everything he claimed to have done. Yet despite all his fancies and fiction, it is accurate to say that like the founder of the American Confederacy, Jefferson Davis Grubb actually did secede from the Union of the United States, create his own republic, and print his own currency. But that’s a story for later on.
Grubb was a big man, at least six feet seven in his custom-made rattlesnake skin cowboy boots, and he weighed upward of 340 pounds. He had a long droopy face that was, in his own words, “ugly as homemade soap.” One night, while drinking barrel-proof Kentucky bourbon, he told me what I assume is about as close to the truth about his background as I will ever know. At the age of three days he had been left on the front porch of Ardville Grubb’s Emporium in east Memphis, Tennessee. This emporium actually was a pawnshop six days a week and a Pentecostal Tabernacle on Sundays, where the Reverend Ardville Grubb would preach fire and brimstone sermons, often to the smirks of his congregation. They knew his chief sources of revenue were a major moonshine operation and some type of kickback scheme with the county, because he was raising fifteen orphans.
As I waited for him to finish his call, I surveyed his sparsely furnished quarters and noticed the framed portraits he’d had in every office that I had ever visited: one of country singer George Jones, one of former president George W. Bush, and one of tennis great Billy Jean King. All three photos looked like they had been framed in the same shop, all three were personally autographed to Grubb, and all three celebrities seemed to have had the same penmanship instructor. He had a desk, a chair, two clients’ chairs, and a décor that seemed to exemplify what he had once told me: “I never set up an office that I can’t pack up and move in five minutes.”
Grubb produced a bottle from his bottom desk drawer.
“I been saving this for a special occasion. The finest bourbon in the world, Noah’s Mill. Fifteen years old, one hundred and fourteen point three proof. Smooth as a China girl’s butt.”
I smiled but shook my head. “Don’t drink hard liquor anymore. Nothing stronger than a beer—and no more than two of those a day.”
“Least join me in a fine Cuban cigar.”
“Don’t smoke anything anymore,” I said.
He gave me a long, measuring glance. “I can tell by looking at you that you also don’t pack your nose anymore. So you don’t dope, don’t drink, and don’t smoke. Shit, Doc, you get religion?”
“What religion would I have?”
“What religion would have you? That’s the question. So the leopard has changed his spots. Tell me, you still like that darky poontang?”
“ ‘Darky.’ ‘China girl.’ Jeff Davis, I’m not asking you to move into the twenty-first century, but I do suggest you consider moving out of the nineteenth.”
“Good to see you looking so well and giving up them bad habits. But I suspect you still got the same old hole in your bucket.”
“I’m a little rusty on your cornpone magic language. That would be my tragic flaw? My major character defect?”
He nodded. “See, you’re like the old country school teacher. Little boy goes up and asks, ‘Did we come from monkeys or did we come from Adam and Eve?’ Old country schoolteacher says, ‘I don’t know, but I can teach it either way.’ Now with you, Doc, a situation will arise to where the question is are you a solid citizen or are you an outlaw? Hero or rogue? And you shrug and say, ‘I don’t know but I can play either role.’ ”
“That may be the hole in my bucket, but it’s not the hole in yours, is it?”
He laughed, long and hard. “We all got a hole in our buckets, but you know damn well that’s not mine. You didn’t come hunt me down just to listen to my hillbilly homilies. What’s up, Doc?”
“Jack Polozola.”
“Who?”
“Come on, old friend,” I said as he seemed to deeply ponder the question, and I began to wonder if he was going to answer at all. It was a full minute before he spoke.
“You mean Handsome Jack? I know him well, made some long dollars with him—but I tell you, son, he’s in the breeze. Leaf in the wind. Saw him few days ago and he told me he had really stepped in it. Asked if he was leaving town and he acted like he was leaving the country. He said he needed some traveling money and wanted a friendly little second mortgage on his house. Had the equity, but I said it would still take me least two days for the cash. Boy couldn’t wait two days. Must have had some serious heat on his ass. But why come to me? He’s your old buddy.”
“Old buddy? Never heard his name before today.”
Grubb pulled a business card out of his desk. It was Polozola’s, w
ith his picture on it. The only thing I recognized was the tunnel vision of ambition in his eyes. I used to see that in my mirror every morning.
I took a good look and handed the card back to him. “I’ve never seen him before.”
“What was it, three years ago when First Multnomah Mutual went down and you were in that legal shit storm? That’s when I first met Jack. I was keeping a low profile, and was real careful about who I was doing business with. Jack knew all about you. Of course there was a lot about you in the papers then, but he knew your ex-wife’s name and mentioned some tennis club you both belonged to, told me as how you was old college buddies. I called to check him out with you but you never returned my calls.”
“If you were under federal indictment, and pretty sure that the FBI was tapping your phone, would you have called you back?”
“Understood, old friend. Understood. Back to Jack … he was new to the real estate biz, didn’t know any more than a billy goat about contracts, financing, anything. But he tells me he has this California doctor who has a little over eight million dollars to leverage into Oregon real estate. At first I thought he was as full of shit as a Christmas goose, but he damn sure did deliver, and I handled the contracts and loan packaging, and he got everything signed and closed. This doctor probably ended up with twenty million in real estate. Did dozens of loans for him.”
“Any idea what kind of shit he thought he had stepped in?” I asked.
“Wouldn’t say. Just too big a hurry to get gone. But you didn’t know him? Funny thing was I didn’t really see you as friends. See, Doc, with you it’s not how you dress, or your manners or your vocabulary. Or that you know all about French poets no one ever heard of, or even that you’ve forgotten more about jazz and blues than most folks ever learn. No. Thing is, you got class.”
He stood up and pulled on one of his long earlobes, then went over to the wall and adjusted the photograph of George Jones. Placing the palms of his hands on his desk, he leaned toward me and said in a quiet, almost confidential tone, “Now, with Polozola it wasn’t just that he wasn’t much smarter than a box of rocks, or even that he had the literacy skills of your average Mississippi sharecropper. No, and it wasn’t that he didn’t have any real marketing skills. Hell, truth be told, I doubt he could sell pussy in a logging camp. No. You see, the thing about Jack was he just didn’t have any class.”
Chapter Nine
“Let me buy you the best taco in town,” said Grubb, opening his office door. As we walked out, I pointed to one of the photographs on his wall.
“Does President George W. Bush get the same run-around I did when he comes to visit?”
“Hell, no,” laughed Grubb. “George has been here so often he knows the way to my office.”
As we walked past a dozen cubicles, he stopped at several, offering corrections or advice. We stepped out into the midday sun, crossed Northeast Sandy Boulevard, and walked down a block to a small storefront with Tessie’s Taqueria printed in the window.
A woman about fifty years old and about fifty pounds overweight smiled and greeted us. She had a flat face, and even her heavy makeup couldn’t hide her acne scars. I doubted she had ever been attractive, even when she’d been young and slender.
“Hello, pretty lady. Cómo estás, Tessie?”
“Muy bien, gracias, Mr. Jefferson.” Tessie smiled and blushed.
It was just another storefront Mexican joint, but the kind I always found had more authentic cuisine than Tijuana, Calexico, or any border town. You can find a version of Tessie’s in Oregon, Colorado, New York, of course, California and elsewhere, and always with a poorly painted mural of a burro and the Blessed Mother, cheap paper menus, homemade tortillas and salsa, and the smell of lard and beans.
After we made our selections, Grubb said, “I know that every man that comes in here promises to give you the world. Well, I’m gonna do one better, Tessie. I’m not only gonna give you the world, but I’m gonna build a white picket fence all around it just for you.”
“Oh, Mr. Jefferson,” gushed Tessie as she took our orders to the kitchen.
“Doc, I’ll bet Ol’ Grubb has hit on more homely women than you ever have.”
I wasn’t going to deny it. “I’ll bet there are a lot of things Ol’ Grubb has done that I haven’t. Like creating a consumer credit agency that helps consolidate credit card debt, but somehow the consumer’s payments never get to the credit card companies. Or setting up a boiler room operation soliciting funds for the Salvation Army that the Salvation Army never saw dollar one on. Or creating an advance fee scheme like the Canadian Lotto scam or—”
“Small crimes and small time,” he interjected. “You know, Doc, I never had the advantages you did. Never had your looks, your education, your polish, or your brains. But if I had, what I woulda done! I woulda been running a billion dollar mortgage bank. And I woulda run it so far into the fucking ground that it dug up dinosaur bones. I woulda broke so many laws that they would’ve had to impanel a special grand jury just to count all the crimes. But like I say, I never had the advantages you did.”
“Touché.”
“Touché, my ass. Get off your high horse, old friend. Get off your high horse and tell me what’s happening here. Why do you care about Polozola? What’s this about you being a detective? And who are you working for?”
“Officially I haven’t been hired. But you can guess who.”
“I can guess that it’s his broker and boss. Grace what’s-her-name. I imagine after all the business he did, that him running off has got her nervous, if not curious.”
“I’d like to look at the files of Polozola’s transactions,” I said as our food arrived.
Grubb took a bite of taco, chewed a moment and then shook his head. He said, “Same Ol’ Doc, just a different day. In town ten minutes, and you just can’t wait to break the fucking law. You know damn well that’s confidential information. You know that opening those files is not just a violation of the Equal Credit Opportunity Act, the Fair Credit Reporting Act, but also Dodd Frank.”
“Jefferson Davis Grubb, you hiding behind consumer protection laws is like a Palestinian terrorist seeking sanctuary in a synagogue.”
He chewed on his taco, washed down a forkful of black beans with root beer, and cleared his throat. Leaning forward and looking down from his huge frame, he said in a quiet voice, “Goddamnit, Doc, but we’re friends. We go back, and we done some shit together. So I’m going to lay all my cards face up on the table. The deals Handsome Jack brought me for loans for Dr. Smith are straight up. You can take them loan files apart, put ’em under a microscope, then put ’em back together again and tear ’em apart again, and you aren’t going to find any fraud, misrepresentation, or impropriety any-damn-where. And when I say ‘you,’ I mean even the experienced, smart, slick Doc Holiday won’t find shit.”
“Then let me take a look, just for drill.”
Grubb smiled. “Still, son, there is cost involved. Just getting those dozens of files together is time and money, and then I know you’ll want copies, and there we have paper, toner, hours involved for our processors, and hell, I’m only a consultant for the company.”
“Only a consultant. And the original Jefferson Davis was only a community activist. Shit, you tell the men what color socks to wear and the girls how to say ‘Honey.’ Look, quote me a price and I’ll talk to my client. Need to see those files, old friend.”
“I’ll look into it. I’ll do what I can, but if you do get a peek, you’ll find it a waste of time and money.”
I sat there digesting my chicken tostada and what Grubb had just told me. These transactions were certainly tainted, but how? I had to surmise from his protests that this was not low-level fraud, but a sophisticated scheme. This was not some small-time con artist with falsified W2s and pay stubs and an inflated purchase contract and a straw buyer. Because of the amount of money and time and the number of transactions, this had the earmarks of money laundering, if not other crimes. The type of
scam that could involve a CPA, an attorney, perhaps an appraiser, and certainly a clever real estate agent and a crooked mortgage broker. But why didn’t he want me to see the files? I knew that his name would be nowhere to be found in these records, just as he and I both knew I would find at least some irregularities, if not the keys to whatever fraud was being perpetrated. Was it because Grubb never left money on the table and wanted to find exactly how much he could hold up my client for the files? Or was it that this whole Jack Polozola/Dr. Smith scam was so sophisticated that while Grubb may have done his part, he still felt out of his depth. I could only guess, so I decided to go with a bluff.
“You know those files could be subpoenaed.”
Grubb laughed and shook his head. “Son, it’s been five years since I been inside. For the last four years, special investigators from the Oregon Attorney General’s Office have been wanting to talk to me. For the past two years, somebody from the Office of the Inspector General has been looking for me, apparently regarding some FHA or VA loans I was involved in, and for at least a year the new FBI special task force on mortgage fraud has a hard-on for me about one thing or another. Now, also, I have a federal parole officer and a state probation officer looking for me, mainly because I haven’t reported for at least two years to either one of them. Point here is you haven’t lived until you’ve tried to serve Ol’ Grubb with summons or subpoenas or any other court paper bullshit. Believe me, son, you just flat haven’t lived until you try to catch me.”
He finished his taco.
While he was wiping his lips, – he said, “But, old friend, I do have something that might help you. Something that could be important about Polozola.”
The Big Bitch Page 4