“That's what this is all about? These messages, this crypto-whatchamacallit? To avoid an official investigation, because the Mob might. . . . I mean, cartoons?” I shook my head, wondering. “You know, it has just occurred to me, Grootka was some kind of radical, maybe like these militia people. He was in the police, but he didn't trust the police. He really felt . . .” Thinking about his stated desire in the notebooks to just let the case fade away, I was momentarily unable to go on.
“But then later he felt that if it was necessary, that maybe I would handle the situation—”
“Discreetly,” Vera finished the sentence for me.
“No, I was wrong,” I said, “he wasn't a militia-type radical, he was more like a kid reading comic books, believing in Batman. You know, I was just telling someone the other day about this image I have of Grootka, walking down the street, a gun in each hand, keeping the peace.”
“Agge. Yes. It was an appropriate image.”
“You know Agge, too?”
“Yes, she's my daughter.”
“Agge is your daughter? Are you sure?”
I was a little revved up, but this blurted gaffe eased the tension. “This is my day for revelations,” I said. “How about Kenty? What's your relationship there?”
“I'm not his grandma, if that's what you're thinking. I was looking for a way to communicate with you, and I heard about Kenty, through Sena, his grandmother. She used to work for me, sort of. Cleaning house, you know. But she came to be more of a friend. I gave her my old computer, for Kenty, because I was getting a new one. I don't think she knows about Kenty giving you my message, and I don't think he knows that the message came from me. Is there anything else you need to know?”
“Yes, of course there is. Can we sit down? Is this a couch?”
She showed me how to set up the Japanese thing. It seemed comfortable. And when I had another cup of coffee she explained.
“Grootka kept in touch, over the years. I mean, after what happened at Turtle Lake. His theory was that while the Mob might be happy not to make waves as long as the issue was still current, later on someone—he thought it would be the one he always called the Fat Man, Mr. DiEbola—would be concerned that some loose ends had been left, well, loose. And they would send someone to tidy things up, so to speak.”
“And did they?” I asked, then stopped myself. “No. No, wait a minute. Let's not get ahead of ourselves. What do you mean ‘everything was smoothed over'? You mean at the resort, where you and your husband had taken Hoffa.”
“Well, sure. What else?”
“But what was smoothed over? From what I've read in Grootka's memoir, he had shot and killed a Mobster named Cusumano and got a couple of Lonzo Butterfield's boys to dump the body for him. What happened to Hoffa?”
“Oh dear,” she said. “I thought you'd read all of the notebooks. How much do you know?”
“Not enough. And frankly, I'm getting a little annoyed. You know, this is blatant criminal—”
“I'm sorry. You'll have to go,” she said. “I'll have to think about this. I'll call you later.”
She looked grim and determined and began to tug at my arm. I unconsciously rose to my feet before I rebelled, but she began to push me toward the door.
“Hey, hey, wait a minute,” I said. “This won't do.”
“Sorry, sorry,” she said, still pushing, “but you've got to go. I have to think. This isn't going right.” She had backed me right up to the front door.
I brushed her hands away. “I think you better come with me,” I said. I reached for my cuffs.
That stopped her. She suddenly backed away, her eyes wide with fear. She held up her hands, warding me off. “Now wait a minute,” she protested. “Grootka said—”
“Grootka said a lot.” I dangled the cuffs before her. “Maybe too much. I'd like to hear more.” I advanced toward her.
She backed into the Japanese thing and abruptly sat down on it. “Would you like some more coffee?” she asked, looking up innocently.
“Sure,” I said, laughing. “Why not?” I leaned against the wall and crossed my legs, waiting, tossing the cuffs nonchalantly.
When she brought the coffee she handed me mine and carried hers to the window. She looked out on the street as she sipped and talked. “You have to be careful when you listen to Grootka,” she said.
“Now you're on the road to wisdom,” I said, “as—” I started to say our mutual friend, but finished with, “Books Meldrim would say.”
“Yes, Books.” She looked thoughtful. “He's a nice man, isn't he? He warned me about playing too many games with you. He said you would tire of it. But I guess I just got caught up. And then, these guys showed up.”
“What guys?”
“Those,” she said, pointing out the window with a finger alongside her cup.
I went over to look. Parked in front of the house was my Checker. There were other cars parked in front of other houses. I didn't see anything. “Where?” I asked.
“In the maroon Continental,” she said.
I looked down the street. The glass of the Continental was tinted. I couldn't see anybody.
“They're just sitting inside,” she said, calmly. She didn't seem that concerned, but maybe she was always this cool. “They've been coming by for a couple of days now. I saw one of them get out and stretch. He went for a walk around the block, then got back in. He's a young guy, about . . . oh, I don't know. I don't judge people's ages very well anymore. He looked like he was maybe twenty-five, or twenty-eight. Dark hair. Wearing a kind of leisure outfit.”
“You didn't recognize him? No? You say you usually live in Santa Barbara. What's that address?” I took it down in my notebook, while I continued to ask, “How long have you been back in Detroit?” I jotted down “week.” “And they showed up when?”
“I first noticed them about three days ago.”
“But they didn't approach you? And you haven't had any threats, in the mail, phone?” I put the notebook back in my coat pocket. “Well . . . what do you want to do?”
“I thought you would tell me. You're the cop. You're the genius, according to Grootka.”
“Let's leave Grootka out of this, okay?” I said. “We're here, he's not. I need to know if you feel threatened, if you want to leave. I don't really have anywhere to take you. I don't know of any place that would necessarily be safer. I can't lock you up as a material witness, or any—”
“What?” she said.
“Unless you are a witness for the Hoffa investigation. And, of course, you are. Would you like me to call the F.B.I.? I'm sure they would be delighted to talk to you. And, of course, they'd protect you. They're famous for it.”
She wasn't having anything to do with the FBI, as I had expected.
“Well, I guess if you aren't worried, I'm not,” I said.
“I'm not exactly worried,” she said. “I'm more scared to death. Those guys are after me.”
“Do you think they want to hurt you?”
“I don't know. Why don't they come in? Why doesn't someone contact me, ask me something?”
She turned and looked at me, putting down the cup. She still didn't look particularly upset. I was reminded of her striptease act outside the house at Turtle Lake. She was a cool customer, to be sure.
“Maybe you're mistaken,” I said. “Maybe it's not what you think. Maybe they're looking for someone else.”
“Don't you have some way of finding out? Can't you call somebody?”
I picked up the phone and called Jimmy at the Ninth. I told him about the guys. He said he'd check and call back. I hung up the phone and looked at Vera. She didn't seem any calmer or more agitated.
“What happened out at the cabin?” I asked her.
“I thought you knew. Didn't Grootka tell you all about it? The notebooks?”
“I don't have all the notebooks. I keep finding them. He's playing a long game, extra innings . . . or maybe, it's ‘sudden-death overtime.’”
&nb
sp; “I have one,” she said. “You want it? He said to give it to you if you asked for it. But I just assumed he would have given you a copy. Maybe this means that it's time.”
“Time?” I said.
“Grootka said the time would come, when everything should be given to you. But it had to be done . . . delicately.”
“I'd say it's overtime.”
She went out of the room and returned shortly with a familiar-looking notebook.
“Let's drop the games,” I said. I set the empty cup aside and took the book. “Where is Jimmy Hoffa?”
She smiled. “He's in Brazil.”
9
Idiots Avant
Grootka's Notebook #4
So we settled into a cozy little household. You know, Mul, it was a good time for me. It was like a family, except that there was no mama and papa and baby bear. More like brothers and sisters, even if there was some big age differences. Hah! Brothers, all right—Brother Lonzo, he be Brer Bear, and then you got Sister Vera, she be Sister Fox. Just foolin'! I never knew family life, you know, so maybe I'm just imagining things, but it was kind of nice. The people seemed to care about each other, even ol’ Brer Bear.
For the time being we didn't really have to worry about the Mob. The food was good and the music was great. And it ain't often that you get a chance to sit down and talk to a guy like Hoffa, man to man. I gotta admit, I never thought much of the bastard before, but he was kind of interesting.
[Here Grootka has inserted an addition, a piece of paper that appears to be torn from a spiral notebook of a smaller size, probably one of those notebooks that many police officers carry to make preliminary notes during the day, for their reports. The note is handwritten with a blue ballpoint pen, pressed very hard. This page is taped into the regular notebook with old, yellowed Scotch tape, or something similar.—M.]
Talking with Hoffa. Me ‘n’ H. kinda grew up about the same, except he had a family, only his father died when he was about six or seven. He was a coal miner, in Indiana. Jim's mother took the kids to Detroit after the old man died and they lived on the West Side. He says the kids called him a hillbilly and he used to get in fights, but he had a good time. He quit school, never went to the ninth grade, he says. He used to work at Frank & Cedar's, the downtown department store, as a stock boy! Christ, how long has that been gone? But, get this, he's one a them guys who says the old days was a lot better, that the city has gone downhill. He didn't come right out and say it, naturally, but he blames it on “the niggers.” Ha, ha! I love that shit. Here's a fuckin’ asshole who starved through the fuckin’ Depression, who used to have to beg for a job and then be grateful for the pennies they threw ya—he even starts a union to fight the bastards, and he says “it was better then.” The man's nostalgic for his youth. You know me, Mul, I ain't much of a union man. I all's thought the union starts out fine, but then it gets in and it turns out to be like the bosses, just one more layer of horseshit. As for the race crap, I don't know that H. actually believes any of that shit, but it gets said so much, just offhand, that a lotta people stupidly repeat it. He's a stupid man in a lotta ways. [End of insert.—M.]
He [Hoffa.—M.] hated our music, naturally, and I don't think he much cared for butter beans and ham hocks with cornbread and mustard greens. Brer Lonzo was the cook. He's a hell of a cook, Mul. His barbecued pork butt is outta sight. The babe turned out to be kind of nice to be around, too. But gee whiz, that f——in’ Janney, what a f——in’ pain in the ass! He'd be the older brother, the smart-ass who knows everything. Also, Tyrone turned kind of sour. I guess he got kinda tired of all these guys grabbing at Vera's buns, speshly since she didn't seem to mind it so much.
It seems like there's always something to make a good time a little f——ed up. But I had a good time. Me and Tyrone got in some good practice, him on soprano and me on the big horn, using his instrument, which I appreciated, it's a hell of a horn. But it's a bitch to pick up an instrument so late in life, ‘cause you know you can never get really good on it—I played in the band at St. Olaf's, sure, but that was so long ago. You don't know what a bitch it is to play a E-flat right after a B-flat, in any kind of up tempo. A kid can do it, but old fingers, unh-uh. Tyrone'd get pissed at me, sometimes, ‘cause I had trouble with tempo, but mostly he was pretty good about that. We played his concerto, mostly just two parts, except when we could get Books to sit in on piano, playing the bass line mostly, since there ain't really a piano part for the piece. And also, Vera could take a clarinet or a alto-sax part—she wasn't too bad.
It was hot and we couldn't really go out during the day, but after dark we had a good time. I was staying at Books's, just like before, so I could go to the casino every night, which was sort of my listening post, and usually Tyrone would come by for a while, or Vera. But they couldn't leave Hoffa by himself, so somebody always had to be there. Lonzo usually drove out from the city, but he had to be in town, to do his bail-bond business, which meant he also could keep his ears open on the street. It seemed like the Mob was buying the pitch, that Hoffa was dead. Everything was real quiet.
We couldn't leave Hoffa by himself because he was so antsy. He was worried sick about his old lady and was constantly trying to figure out some way to get a message to her that he was all right. But I told him, if he ever wanted to see her again, he had to be cool. In the meantime, we had to figure out what our next move should be, if it turned out like it looked, that Carmine had simmered down. Because Hoffa couldn't stay there forever, that was for sure. By now, a whole week had gone by. The outside world was still buzzing, I guess, but a kind of quiet was settling over the whole shitaree. Still, I know it was driving Hoffa crazy, because it seemed like everybody on the TV and in the papers was assuming that he was dead. That has got to prey on a man's mind, I don't care who he is, ‘cause you can't help thinking that if everybody believes you're dead it makes it a little easier for people who want you dead to make you dead.
So after a lotta arguing we come up with a plan, which was if we could get through the weekend, on Monday morning Hoffa could reappear. He disappeared on a Wednesday afternoon. We had a couple more days, is all.
The second big problem was f——ing Jacobsen. It turns out he had a big deal cooking in L.A., to record Tyrone. He got some money together—not that he wasn't loaded—to record an album, including the concerto, and he had the musicians all lined up, a studio, but Tyrone had to be there, naturally, in a couple of days.
It's always something, ain't it? Not bad enough we got Carmine on our ass, we got to worry about getting Tyrone to L.A.
This Jacobsen was a weird duck. He was about fifty or so, it's hard to tell, and kind of odd. A businessman, in the printing business. He's got a nice press over on Grand Boulevard. They do fancy stuff, stationery for large corporations, special brochures, class stuff. He's some kind a millionaire, I think, but he's also a jazz buff. You and me are buffs, it don't mean shit, but a rich man's hobbies get promoted. He was crazy about Tyrone. He wants the world to see what a great genius Tyrone is. Also, he wants the world to see that he is Tyrone's patron. He also wants Vera's ass, which it seems to me he must be getting a little of.
The way I had it worked out, if we could get Hoffa out of here on Monday, Tyrone and Vera and Jacobsen could fly off to L.A. and who would give a shit. I would take Hoffa to Pontiac, to a TV station, where he would make a little statement. Of course, we still had to figure out what he was going to say. So Vera suggests we have a rehearsal. She'll be the news babe, me and Tyrone and Lonzo and Jacobsen will be the audience and other reporters. Hoffa wanted to say that he had gone off on his own to
“think about his future,” especially about his “future with the union.”
Sounded great to me, if he didn't get into it too much. The main thing was to give the impression that his absence didn't have nothing to do with the Mob. Just leave them out of it and don't answer no questions from reporters.
But then, next morning I'm sitting at breakfast with Hoffa
, the others have all gone off somewheres, and he says he's changed his mind. He said he'd been thinking it over and the way he saw it was he might've been a little quick-tempered, but the real trouble was that the Mob thought they could just about do anything they wanted with the union, especially now that they had Fitz in there. He had always been a realistic guy, he says. He used to figure that he had to do business with the Mob because it just didn't make any sense to pretend that they weren't a major power in the way things operated. He seen that once he was out of the way—when he went to prison—they was just as happy to keep him out of it, because now they could move in, bag and baggage, and Fitz wouldn't say shit if he had a mouthful. In fact, he says, since Fitz has took such a taste for shit, he's gonna like it when Jimmy gets back, ‘cause there's gonna be a lot to eat.
“That frigging Nixon was in it up to his frigging neck,” Hoffa tells me. “But now we got Ford. Ford is a schmuck, but I don't think he's in the Mob's pocket. Ford will give me an unconditional pardon, like he gave Nixon—he's in the goddamn pardon business, for chrissake! He knows the gov'mint's got no business in union affairs.”
Hah! He was still thinking the same way. I knew there wasn't no talking to him about this crap and anyway what do I know. I knew Carmine, though, and the Fat Man. Once they got their fat fingers in this pie, you ain't gonna get nowhere slappin’ their fingers. You wanta kick them out, I says, you gotta fuckin’ kick!
We move into Lonzo's front room with our coffee and Hoffa looks me right in the eye and he says, “How do you mean ‘kick'? Do you mean like I think you mean?”
I gotta admit I was a little flip here, but it's just a coupla guys jawin’, right? So I says, “A .45 has got kick.”
Hoffa liked this talk, I could tell. He kind of smirks and says, “Who would you kick?”
“I ain't kickin’ nobody,” I says. “I ain't got no kick.”
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