“Any hint of fraud or evidence of impropriety?” asked David Gass.
“If there was, there isn’t now,” I answered.
“I suppose that’s why we hired you, Mr. Jackson ‘Doc’ Holiday. Thank you for letting us continue on with our important work,” said La Verne Ella Scott-Dixon with the coldest smile I had ever seen on a woman, as she handed me my final check and a letter stating that I had free office space for more than another two and one-half years.
I had never done much business out of my free space and actually met few clients in it. Just a few minutes after I discovered Grubb there, my office became the busiest and most crowded it had been for the year and a half I’d had it. This was due to the entry of Captain Horace Hobbs, Detective Sergeant Manners, and two uniformed members of the Berkeley Police Department.
Chapter Thirty-Six
“Jefferson Davis Grubb AKA John Dewey Grubb AKA Amos Bosco Grubb—” began Manners.
“AKA ad nauseum,” Hobbs interrupted. “Just Mirandize him.”
Manners advised Grubb he was under arrest, read him his rights, and after a perfunctory pat-down, handcuffed his left wrist to the office chair. The prisoner sat down with a casual air.
“Jeff Davis, I was about to tell you that I am under electronic and visual surveillance,” I said.
Grubb stared stone-faced at Hobbs and then said matter-of-factly, “I would be more than obliged if you all would tell me what kind of charge you got.”
“Charge? Charge as in single charge?” Hobbs said with a sneer. “We first identified you three hours ago when you broke in. When we pulled your sheet—I guess ‘sheet’ isn’t the correct word, since your record has about as many pages as the King James Version of The New Testament—it was like we hit the big jackpot on a nickel slot machine. You’re wanted in three countries, on two continents, and in how many states and municipalities? Well, the results are still coming in. Last count, Manners?”
“Last count was three states and four cities, sir. And a Red Notice from Interpol.”
“A what?” I asked.
“It’s not exactly an international arrest warrant, more like a world-wide alert,” answered Manners.
“All due respect, Chief,” Grubb said deferentially, “I haven’t heard a specific charge on ol’ Grubb.”
“My title is Captain, Ol’ Grubb, and as for charges, we probably have more of them than you have aliases; as I say, the final tabulation on both isn’t in yet. Me, I always like to go with capital crimes if I have a choice, so let’s start with treason and sedition.”
“Treason and sedition?” I inquired, looking at Hobbs. He didn’t speak but just stared at Grubb, who stared back. They sat silently like two poker players, each waiting for the other to raise or call. Finally Grubb started to chuckle, and Hobbs smiled.
“You want to let me in on the joke?” I asked, looking first at Hobbs, then Grubb.
“No joke, is it Grubb?” asked Hobbs. He pulled a chair from the corner and sat while Manners continued to stand to the left of Grubb. I sat in my chair behind my desk as Hobbs ordered the uniformed officers to close the door and wait outside.
“So you know about that shit,” said Grubb.
“I know what the Department of Justice said,” Hobbs said as he leaned forward in his chair.
“Bet they didn’t tell the whole story.”
“When do you get the whole story from those DOJ or FBI pricks? Anyhow, you are hereby under arrest for the charges of treason and sedition. Of course, extradition might be a little tricky, huh, Ol’ Grubb?” Hobbs’ smile was insincere.
“It might be at that, Cap’n,” said a laughing Grubb.
“Or should I just call the local chapter of the Aryan Brotherhood, let them sort it all out, and save me a whole lot of paperwork,” Hobbs said coldly. He sat back in his chair, no longer smiling.
Grubb was no longer laughing. He stared at the ceiling, once again expressionless.
“What the fuck, guys?” I asked.
“Seems about seven years back,” started Hobbs, “Ol’ Grubb here was going across the western United States manufacturing and trafficking in counterfeit U.S. currency. Somewhere between Wyoming and Montana the Secret Service got wind of Grubb’s activities. He felt the heat coming down and needed a hideout to cool out in. How am I doing so far?”
“Allegedly manufacturing and trafficking,” corrected Grubb. “The only case I caught was for conspiracy to traffic. And you know I walked.”
“Why don’t you tell it?”
Grubb picked up a paperclip from my desk, straightened it and then put it in his mouth like a toothpick. Leaning back in his chair, he said, “As the matter has already been adjudicated, and the statute of limitations is up on any and all related state and federal charges, I don’t mind if I do. Let’s not forget this happened in a sovereign foreign country.”
Hobbs snorted out a laugh at that, but signaled Grubb to go on.
“As I was traveling through western Montana on a fishing trip, it came to my attention that certain government agencies had placed me under surveillance. Apparently they were looking for a patsy to pin a counterfeiting charge on, and because of my youthful indiscretions and former unwise associations—and having been a scapegoat in the past—I decided to look for sanctuary.”
“Of course, most guys don’t take hundreds of thousands of bogus twenty and fifty dollar bills with them when they go fishing,” Hobbs said. “And by the way, refugees look for sanctuaries. Outlaws look for a hide-out. So who does Ol’ Grubb hide out with?” says Hobbs, looking at me. “Blind Billy Jon Balz!”
“Billy Jon Balz? The white supremacist?” I asked.
“Actually, he prefers to be called a separatist,” said Grubb.
“Actually, he is separate now,” Hobbs said. “Balz is separated from society for the next eighty years in a super max prison in Colorado.” He paused. “But I’m getting ahead of the story.”
I turned to Grubb. “You were in bed with Blind Billy Jon Balz?”
“Before you get on your high horse, Doc,” offered Grubb, “you need to hear the rest of the story.” Hobbs nodded to Grubb to continue.
“I was in Kalispell, Montana, and figured I was about one day away from the long arm of the law. I had heard about this armed compound somewhere outside of Bumfuck, Idaho, where that state and Canada and Montana come together. Led by the Reverend Blind Billy Jon Balz, they had formed their own sovereign nation, the New Republic of the True Confederacy in Jesus Christ—although the citizens usually just referred to it as the New True Confederacy.”
Manners leaned against the wall as Hobbs adjusted his weight in his chair. Grubb moved the paperclip toothpick around his mouth and continued.
“So I go to the gate of the compound and declare that I’m a patriot, a Christian, and a son of the old confederacy who wants to join the new confederacy. This little pissant guard at the gate gives me a batch of shit and tries to run me off, so I say I ain’t going nowhere lessen I talk to Reverend Billy Jon. The pissant and I get up in each other’s business pretty good until here comes Blind Billy Jon, who asks me why I am giving his man a hard time. So I tell him that his man has been haughty with me and that one should, ‘never be haughty with the humble and never be humble with the haughty.’ ” Grubb paused for effect. There were blank stares all around as he continued, “Blind Billy Jon recognized that as a famous quotation of the original Jefferson Davis. He asked the pissant guard to look at my ID and when he reads my name out loud, Blind Billy Jon declares that my arrival is a sign from above. He puts his arm around Ol’ Grubb and says ‘If Jefferson Davis and God be with us, who can be against us?’ ”
“So,” I inquired, “Here you come—virtually, if not literally—whistling Dixie, and they think you’re Moses, come to take them to the Promised Land?”
“And Jefferson Davis Grubb did take them,” said Hobbs, “but not quite to the Promised Land.”
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Manners took a
seat on the edge of my desk, as Hobbs shifted his weight in his chair. Grubb crossed his legs and remained the center of attention as he continued his story.
“See now, the New True Confederacy was a self-sufficient sovereign state that—” he began.
“Self-sufficient?” Hobbs broke in. “According to an FBI intelligence report, the main industries of this brave new world were the manufacturing of methamphetamine and moonshine. While they were under scrutiny from the FBI, DEA, ATF, and an alphabet soup of government agencies, the pussies at Justice decided they had no probable cause for a warrant. According to all reports, the place was an armed camp, and the memory of Waco and Ruby Ridge was too fresh in the public’s mind. The government needed evidence. They needed to flip one of the confederate citizens—but Ol’ Grubb can tell that part better than me. By the way, just what cabinet position did they give you, Jefferson Davis?”
“They were rolling in cash. They had a network of distribution for meth and moon that went into three states and two Canadian provinces. They needed someone with a financial background to control the currency of this new country. So they made me Secretary of the Treasury.”
“Secretary of the Treasury.” Hobbs looked at me and laughed. “Who did these peckerwoods—these inbred rednecks—who did they choose to manage the money of their great, newborn nation? A man who was born with his hand in someone else’s pocket. A man who has been on the grift since he learned to walk. A man who not only sold counterfeit lotto tickets to old ladies, but a man who, unknown to them, walked into their camp with a duffle bag full of counterfeit United States currency.”
Grubb described his contribution to the new country where he had just been made a citizen. He decided that there needed to be a National Bank of the New Republic of the True Confederacy of Jesus Christ. However, this idea was vetoed by President Balz. The Reverend Blind Billy Jon Balz pointed out that other than two confederates who had successfully robbed one, hardly anyone in the new country had any positive experiences with banks. They had experienced foreclosures, repossessions, denial of credit, and on one occasion even been turned away because they were barefoot. On another occasion, a bank manager had declared “X” to be less than a legal signature.
Also, Blind Billy Jon Balz had pointed out, what was really wrong with the Union were the banks. While he never cited chapter and verse or a specific book, Reverend Balz declared that The Old Testament was rife with admonitions about the abomination of banking. Indeed, the entire concept of banking was inherently evil. However, he didn’t see any reason why they couldn’t create a credit union. Banks were evil, but credit unions weren’t in defiance of the Word of God, at least per Reverend Balz.
“Wait ….” I interrupted Grubb. “Banks are evil, but credit unions good?” Since I didn’t even know where to begin to attack that specious argument, I shrugged and asked, “You started a credit union?”
“Sure as hell had enough cash. We did auto loans, personal loans, checking, savings, and CDs. I also played the stock and bond markets a bit. We were doing well. Money was rolling in in barrels from the meth and moon, and the credit union was making a profit while it was giving out higher than market rates in saving and CD interest rates. Things were going good until Blind Billy Jon starts getting crazy.”
“Balz, by all accounts, is a textbook psychopath,” Hobbs said. “And a full-blown megalomaniacal meth head who although legally blind, walked around all the time with two loaded Colt Forty-Five Pistols like he was one of the Wild Bunch. How does someone like that ‘start getting crazy’?”
“Point taken, Cap’n. See, he was a cooker, a hell of a meth cooker, and he did it for years, and if you cook meth then after a while all the chemicals and fumes destroy the lining of your eyes. It leaves you blind. Blind or not, he could still cook up some killer crystal meth—none of this bathtub crank shit the bikers deal, and superior to even the best the Mexican cartels make—as well as some world-class moonshine from a recipe his great, great grandfather down in Flemingsburg, Kentucky, gave him. He was blind but still directed all the cooking for both. Sonofabitch was a gourmet chef, too. Made the best damn venison stew you ever tasted. He used to say that if you brought him the recipe and the right ingredients, he could cook up any goddamn thing better than anybody.”
“Anything,” said Hobbs. “Like a nuclear bomb.”
Grubb gave a what-can-you-do shrug.
“What a minute,” I said. “This guy cooked meth, moonshine, and deer stew and then decides that he is going to start mixing up subatomic nuclear particles?”
“He was building what they call a ‘dirty bomb.’ ” Grubb shook his head. “Not just that, but he was going to blow up the Alamo.”
Grubb let the paperclip in his mouth move back and forth while Hobbs stood up, moved his chair a few inches forward and Manners stood up and stretched.
“Our new country had the United States on one border and Canada on the other, and while Blind Billy Jon was crazy, he was crazy like a fox. He wanted a nuclear weapon because he said if you want peace with your international neighbors you must show them that you can destroy them. Which is pretty damn smart.”
“That’s also a basic tenet of Machiavelli,” pointed out Hobbs.
“You would know the basics of Machiavelli’s philosophy, wouldn’t you, Hobbs?” I said.
“Machiawho?” asked Grubb.
“Guy who wrote Politics for Dummies, but back to your story,” directed Hobbs.
“Well, things were going fine. Cash is rolling in, credit union doing fine, and we are as fat and happy as pigs in shit. Only thing is we can’t slow Billy Jon’s roll on this dirty bomb thing. He’s wired up on meth and moon, a natural paranoid to begin with, and here he is demanding to know ‘where in the fuck is my isotope ninety’ or whatever the hell it was he needed for his bomb. He was hell-bent on making that bomb, and soon that was all he talked about.”
“Might have happened if not for Ol’ Grubb,” Hobbs said. “Seems he slips out of the compound and tells the FBI not only about the dirty bomb, meth, and moonshine but that the National Treasury has over half a million dollars in counterfeit currency. Ol’ Grubb knows about the last part, not just because he is Secretary of the Treasury, but because he is the one who switched the fake for the real. Get it about right?”
“Not quite as simple as you make it,” corrected Grubb. “The term my attorney used was, I believe, was that I ‘repatriated.’ Yes, I repatriated and brought this terrorist threat to the attention of the U.S. government. Hell, Blind Billy Jon was just days away from getting the uranium or isotope or what-the-fuck-ever he needed to make that bomb. He was going to blow up the Alamo. I knew the man, and I’ll tell you, hand to God, Billy Jon Balz made Timothy McVeigh look like Little Bo Peep.”
Hobbs made a derisive sound and said, “You’re a national hero, although it doesn’t make the evening news because in reward for your service, federal marshals took you into the Witness Security Program,” said Hobbs. “Meanwhile, Balz and his cohorts got from sixty to eighty years a piece in Supermax prisons, where they joined, or in some cases re-joined, the Aryan Brotherhood. Locked down twenty-three hours a day. Turns out your old confederates weren’t so much stupid as just slow. They figured out who stole their money and sold them out. So tell me, Ol’ Grubb, at last count how much did the AB have for a price on your head?”
Grubb shrugged and said, “Last I heard, a hundred large.”
“Not only is that a nice chunk of change, but I heard it has some added value.”
“What’s that?” asked Grubb.
“Heard that one hundred thousand dollars was actually authentic, genuine U.S. dollars,” said a smiling Hobbs.
Chapter Thirty-Eight
At that point in the conversation it was mutually decided that both Hobbs and Grubb needed a drink. Captain Hobbs pointed out that we were in luck because John and Mary’s was right across the street, and as a convicted felon, Grubb would be embraced with open arms. He said the saloon served a
fine selection of liquors and even had some bottles with labels on them.
In one quick motion, which hardly involved movement, Grubb took the paperclip from his mouth, unlocked his handcuffs and handed them politely to an open-mouthed Manners.
“That’s okay,” said Hobbs to Manners. To Grubb he said, “Cute. But don’t get too fucking cute, and don’t forget you’re still in custody.”
The uniformed police were dismissed. Hobbs and I walked abreast across College Avenue; Grubb and Manners followed. We entered John and Mary’s and it was a typical ten p.m., with the usual clientele, the usual simple-minded discussions, and the typical honkytonk songs playing on the jukebox. Hobbs went to the men’s room after giving Manners the instruction to shoot Grubb if he moved. But Grubb went over to the jukebox, and when he returned, he said to me, “I like this place already. Hell of a jukebox. Not only does it have Hank, Merle, and George, it’s got Mickey Newbury, Billy Joe Shaver, Jimmy Dale Gilmore, Willie, Waylon—damn, all the major poets of the common man.”
I shook my head. “I don’t recognize any of them as Nobel laureates, but I assume some are Pulitzer Prize winners? What do they say about country music: three chords and the trite?”
“That’s another hole in your bucket, Doc. You’re a snob. Snobs miss a lot with their noses up in the air.”
Hobbs returned, and we settled into a booth. Mary greeted us with, “Well, Jackson, outside of Can’t-Cut-It-Anymore Hobbs, who do we have here?”
Grubb stood and bowed. “Jefferson Davis Grubb, ma’am. They call me Jeff Davis. I know a fine saloon when I see one, young lady, and this here’s a fine saloon.”
“And I know a horse thief when I see one,” she said, pointing an index finger at Grubb. “But thank you for the compliment on my place.” Mary did something she rarely did. She smiled. Then she pointed at Manners. “Who’s the Mormon missionary?”
The Big Bitch Page 17