Man with an Axe

by Jon A. Jackson

  “Ah, tell me again how you happened to get onto this notion of focusing on Grootka's activities,” I asked her, “as a lens on history, so to speak.”

  She dusted off her hands and placed them on her hips. She was very young, I saw, as if for the first time. Perhaps it was having met her mother, but I was conscious of her being so very much younger than me that I lost all interest in her, in a romantic way, as it were. Especially when she popped her forefinger into her mouth, girlishly, thinking for a moment.

  “You know,” she said, after a suitable time, “it really wasn't my idea. It was suggested to me, by Mr. Toscano.”

  “This is the director of the Alpha/Alpha Foundation? He's the one who came to interview you at the university? What's he like?”

  “He's very pleasant, though I'd say he isn't very used to these interviews. Most of the questions were asked by his assistant, Miss Sedgelock. Mr. Toscano just occasionally interjected. But it was he who suggested the Grootka approach.”

  “That's interesting,” I said. “Grootka is pretty well known in police circles, although not so much anymore, but I'd say he was practically unknown otherwise.”

  “Oh, I wouldn't say that,” Agge said. “He's still pretty well known on the Street, as you guys like to put it, and in a certain milieu.”

  “Well, yes, I see what you mean. But the director of a foundation hardly belongs to that milieu. How often do you see Toscano?”

  “I haven't seen him since our one interview. They send a check to my bank account every month, so I don't even see that. It's pretty nice.” She smiled.

  “How much?”

  “Five thousand?” She almost winced, looking at me as if for approval. She knew it was a pretty hefty figure.

  “They're paying you five thousand dollars a month to research and write this history! For how long?”

  “They only promised a year, but hinted that it could be renewed.”

  “A foundation is paying a gi— a newly graduated student sixty thousand dollars for—”

  “I'm not exactly buying a house, or even a Buick, on these wages,” she said, somewhat indignantly. “You know, I've put in years of study. I'm a Ph.D.!”

  “Sure, sure,” I said. “I didn't say you weren't worth it. But how often do you hear of it? Young lawyers do better than that, I know.”

  “So do M.B.A.s, and what do they know?” she retorted.

  Indeed, I thought. “Well, what do you plan to do?” I asked.

  “Do? What are you so angry about?”

  “Me? I'm not angry, I . . .” I shut my mouth. What was I angry about? I guess I was angry at being used, for being misled, for having interests in this young woman that I suddenly saw—with the same suddenness with which I saw that Kinanda was Tyrone Addison—were not only futile but absurd. She was at least twenty years younger than me. I was disappointed and felt a little abused. But what the hell, I was a big boy.

  “I.’m not angry,” I said. I made an effort to smile. Not a Fang smile, but a genuine one. This young woman didn't owe me anything and the best I could see, she had simply been misled herself. But she was also, I saw, the contact with whoever was trying to manipulate me.

  “You must report on your progress from time to time,” I said. “Who is this Miss Sedgelock? How do you contact her?”

  Agge crossed her arms, rather like her mother had when confronted by me. “Why do you want to know?” she asked.

  I explained to her that I thought that her project was not a bona fide project, that it was really more in the way of a fishing expedition. But I had to admit I didn't know what kind of fish the Alpha/Alpha Foundation was fishing for. Possibly, they simply wanted to assess how much was known, particularly by me, about the death of Hoffa and Grootka's role in it.

  Agge was a little hard to convince. No researcher or scholar wants to think that her project is false, that it's really somebody else's stalking-horse. But she was compelled to realize that once such suspicions were aired and allegations were made, they had to be resolved before she could continue. She agreed to approach Alpha/ Alpha, with me.

  Her contact with Miss Sedgelock was not very encouraging. Miss Sedgelock, who was not to be found at the number she had provided—it turned out to be an answering service—finally rang back to say that Mr. Toscano was unavailable, but that she would be willing to meet with Agge the following week. She did not wish to meet with Sergeant Mulheisen of the Detroit police. She was fairly curt in declaring that Miss Allyson's relations with the department were her own lookout, that the foundation could not be involved. She hinted a little nastily that Miss Allyson might find her grant rather abbreviated if she were unable to carry out her stipulated research and report. I was unable to monitor this conversation, but Agge's account of it seemed unsettling. I could tell that Agge was deeply upset.

  The prospect of a meeting next week didn't satisfy my sense of urgency, but what could we do? I told Agge to go ahead and meet, and we'd see if something more immediate could be arranged. As we parted I remembered something.

  “How long have you known M'Zee Kinanda?” I asked.

  “Known him? I don't know him. He asked me for a date, but I kind of brushed him off. These old guys are always hitting on me.”

  “He asked you out?” I was shocked. Well, as shocked as I get. Startled, anyway.

  “He asked me to come over.”

  “You didn't know that he is really Tyrone Addison?”

  “That's Tyrone? You mean Mama's old boyfriend?” She was genuinely intrigued, I could tell. “You mean he isn't dead, he just changed his name? I wonder if Mama knows that.”

  I wondered, too.

  13

  Meeny, Miny, and Mo

  Grootka's Notebook, #6

  I ran back through the woods, looking for anybody, but whoever had been there was gone. At least I hope they was. I didn't wanta stand toe-to-toe with whoever was cranking that fucking cannon and, anyways, I had work to do and I knew it hadda be done in a hurry. I heard some cars, probably the limo and whatever other vehicle they brought with them, but by the time I got to the county road it was empty and you wouldn't of thought nobody'd been there. I hiked up the road to where Tyrone had taken my car and it was still there, but no sign of Tyrone and no sign of the money. I looked around but not much, ‘cause I figured that cannon might of been heard, even out here in the woods, and I didn't wanta be around when somebody came to check. The keys was still in my rig, so I pulled out and drove back to the dirt track and up to where Janney Jacobsen lay in the road.

  Janney was dead forever. It was too bad about Janney, I thought. He got in the way. But, what the hell, he might be some use, after all. I searched him and found a roll of bills, quite a good roll, ten thou at least, which I hadda figger was pretty goddamn useful. He didn't have no gun, though. I'd given him a H&R .32 earlier, ‘cause he wasn't armed, so where the hell was it? I found it on the side of the road, actually all but covered up in the leaves. Whadidhe, try to get rid of it? Or maybe it just flew outta his hands when the Fat Man shot him? I didn't know, but I wrapped it up careful in his shirt, which I had stripped from his body, real quick. He'd been shot in the face, just below the left eye, a small entry but no exit wound, which with a .32 didn't surprise me none. Too bad for Janney, but just as well for me, I thought, since I wasn't gonna have to screw around hauling a half-dead body or a whole-dead body away.

  Lonzo was alive, though, hiding under his car. It wasn't a good hiding place, but he didn't have much of a chance to go someplace else. I guess he figured when I drove up that I was the Mob, coming back to mop up. He thought I'd been taken out, he said, when he heard that big cannon, and now he figured they'd just blast his ass. But no, it was me, although he wished I hadn't wasted so much time fussing with Janney, who was a dead rat.

  Anyways, I dragged him out from under the car. He was a long ways from dead, but he wasn't exactly whistling “Zippety-doo-dah.” He'd taken a shot in the mouth, which it was one hell of a piece of luck. It
removed a coupla teeth and broke his jaw, but didn't kill him, though it burned his tongue a little so he couldn't talk for shit, which wasn't nothing to complain about from my view. I told him it was because his fucking mouth was so fucking big that when they shot at him that was all they could hit. But he showed me he had gotten another shot in the shoulder which knocked him down, but otherwise just took a little chunk of meat out of him.

  “You're better off than the white meat,” I told him, but he just glared like he didn't get the joke.

  I axed him if he could drive and he said he could, though his jaw was starting to hurt awful bad. But I told him we hadda get the hell outta there. He nodded, and then he pointed to Jimmy and looked at me kind of questioning. I went to look, but I knew it didn't mean nothing. Jimmy and Janney could be comparing notes somewheres, but they wasn't anyplace local. I never seen such a mess as those shells made of Hoffa. I picked up the revolver he'd been waving and wrapped it in his Hawaiian shirt, which luckily wasn't too bloody, it being loose and open, so he didn't lay on it and bleed too much. It could come in handy, too, you never know.

  The guy in the bushes that I'd popped, I checked just to make sure. It was sure. So that left Janney. Lonzo was sittin’ in the passenger seat of his own car, I don't know what he was thinking. I wasn't gonna drive both cars. I pointed that out to him and told him to follow me, in case he got too bad to drive.

  I couldn't take Janney with me, even if I wanted to, and I sure as hell wasn't gonna waste no time and effort on Hoffa, who as far as I was concerned was to blame for all this shit in the first place. Well, that ain't right—Carmine and the Fat Man were to blame, but I wasn't in no mood to argue it out in my mind. The trouble was that Janney was a connection between me and Lonzo and Tyrone and Vera and the Mob. Hoffa was dead and folks expected him to be dead. There was also a dead Mob guy in the bushes. Okay. And the cabin belonged to somebody that Hoffa knew but none of us knew. Okay. So there really wasn't nothing to connect us to the Mob and to Hoffa, except Janney.

  I hustled up to the cabin and looked it over, making sure there wasn't nothing to connect me and the others to this sorry scene. I was tempted to burn the fucker down, but that don't always get rid of the evidence and anyway it just attracts attention and I wanted time to get the hell out of this part of the country. I hadda figger the Mob would be back to clean up their part of the mess. I couldn't do everything, I didn't have a lotta time, but I tried to wipe down the place to remove as much of the fingerprints as I could.

  Though I never had much confidence in fingerprints. If you know whose you're looking for in the first place, it's fine, but if you're just prospecting, good luck.

  So, that was it. Me and Lonzo drove outta there in good time, no interruptions. I stopped in Faraway, at a outfit called Fred's that is a butcher who makes great venison sausage and stuff. I had Fred make up a couple sammidges for me and Lonzo, plus he wrapped up some sausage for when I got home, and we managed to get the two cars back to Detroit, no sweat. I began thinking that my weekend in the country hadn't been too unprofitable. The sausages was real good.

  Tyrone Addison has disappeared. I don't know what happened to him. After a few days, when she didn't hear nothing about Hoffa or Tyrone, Vera called me at Homicide. I went out to see her. She was living at Jacobsen's, taking care of the kid. Turns out she was married to Jacobsen! They had this kid, Agge. Nice little girl, except she ain't Jacobsen's kid if Vera is s'posta be the mother. Anyways, I give Vera the roll I took off Janney and Tyrone's soprano sax, but she insisted that I keep the sax, so finally I took it.

  I guess we both figured Tyrone had been snapped up by the boys who done the number on Hoffa. I heard that they cleaned up Cess's place, although I never went back. But I ain't heard nothing and it's been a few weeks, so I don't expect to.

  [Here there is a piece of notepaper taped onto the original text, as before, with some observations by Grootka that obviously date from somewhat later.—M.]

  Mul, by now there ain't gonna be no sign of Jimmy, unless a miracle occurs. Maybe he's in a iceberg somewhere in Alaska, that'd be the only way we're gonna see Jim again. But I don't think so. I since found out that the cabin in the woods was burned down and the new owners (guess who?) had the site bulldozed and landscaped. Yeah, the new owner is the Krispee Chips Corporation. They built a fancy lodge there. I guess for the employees, you can guess which ones. Hint: it ain't the secretaries. [End of note.—M.]

  Except for Tyrone disappearing, everything has worked out pretty well. Anyways, about as good as you could hope. The trouble with these things though is that they never do stay under the ground. Somebody has got to dig, it's human nature, especially when it's such a big-time guy like Hoffa. I may be gone by the time you're reading this, otherwise I guess you wouldn't be reading it, I'd be telling you it. But if you are reading it, prob'ly it's because something has happened. What could it be? They found Jimmy? I doubt it. No, I bet it's because Carmine or the Fat Man has decided that enough ain't enough. One of them, maybe both, has got to thinking that you can never bury nothing deep enough. They prob'ly got to poking around and decided that ol’ Grootka must of been involved and he prob'ly left some evidence that will hang them.

  Is that it? Did I guess right? Or did they guess right?

  Well, I don't know how right I was, but they were right on. The guy to talk to is Books. I left everything with him. Even some of the sausages.

  Yr pal Grootka.

  Well, that was about it. That was about all the “help” I was going to get from Grootka, I guessed.

  14

  No Mister Nice

  There was no answer at Books Meldrim's number. This was more than a little unsettling. I had a strong desire to march into Buchanan's office and confront him. But what would I say? Why were you poking around Lonzo Butterfield? What's your interest here? That wasn't going to get anybody anywhere. Nor could I descend on Humphrey DiEbola, the erstwhile Fat Man. For one thing, I couldn't approach him on my own; I needed the backing of the department, at least. Which meant Jimmy Marshall, my lieutenant, not to say the support of my captain, Buchanan. But really, it needed the authority of the F.B.I., the U.S. marshall, the county prosecutor. All of these people.

  Of course, if you are Grootka you don't need any of these people. You just strap on the Old Cat and go to work. But that was just the problem, wasn't it? Grootka had interfered, deeply, in the lives of several people and then when it had come to a small war, had grinned and waved and walked off, kind of like Ronald Reagan getting on Air Force One. “Oh, Mulheisen will take care of it.” He had more or less said just that.

  But this wasn't looking after Books. And I had a feeling that someone ought to, if only to warn him that sleeping dogs were up and about.

  I didn't need any help to do this. I could drive down to Books's Lake Erie hideaway and be there in an hour, maybe less. It took less.

  Books's car was parked in the drive, which was a treacherous little lane that led down from the road toward the lake, very narrow, with no way to turn around. It brought one to a point below the house, actually, and then one had to climb stairs to the deck. I peered into the house from the sliding glass door and realized immediately that there was trouble. All the books were thrown on the floor. Many other things had been tossed on the floor, as well, including flour, houseplants, clothes. Somebody had done a job.

  The door was ajar and although I hadn't noticed any other cars about, nor any signs of other people—the neighbors were weekend and summer folk, not regular residents—I drew my gun and entered. I stepped away from the framing doorway and listened. What I heard was that well-known silence that says, Nobody home. I called for Books. No response. Then I moved through the house, carefully.

  I'm not an admirer of the two-handed-squat approach when searching room to room. I like to be alert, but erect, not planted. I keep my hat in one hand and my gun in the other, close to my waist, where it can't be batted away and possibly lost. The hat can always be waved or toss
ed as a distraction. Stillness is helpful, listening. Move quickly, stop, listen. There was nothing to hear.

  Room to room and the whole house had been tossed. Trashed. It was a mess. They had even thrown jars of mustard into the open box of the grand piano. That kind of violence evokes fear for the inhabitant. But no sign of Books, no nice Mr. Meldrim. Finally, I went back on the deck.

  I stood there amid the disarray—I hadn't noticed when I came up that the deck itself had been savaged, chairs kicked over and a railing splintered—and felt . . . well, I started to say depressed, but it felt more like despair. I had failed in the one thing that was essential: to protect. It didn't matter that I was still almost totally baffled by this case. (Note that I said “still,” as if I were confident that the case would yield its meaning eventually, if not its solution. This is true arrogance.)

  It was not a bad day. I sighed and stood there on the deck, in this great silence broken only by a faraway gull and the gentle lapping of water against the shore and the pilings of the dock. Unconsciously, I took out a cigar and lit it. The sun was not shining, but the sky was light, a familiar kind of pearly lakeside luminescence that made it impossible to see a true horizon. The lake was slaty gray and gently undulating, cold and grave. The air wasn't really cold, just that dull, breezeless chill that can seem almost unnoticeable until your nose and fingers get numb.

  I had an incongruous thought: the Red Wings were playing the Blues tonight. I actually considered trying to attend. What an amazing thing the human mind is! It crawls out of a depression to take refuge on the ice of a hockey rink! Or maybe it was only the well-known salutary effect of the H. Upmann's tobacco.

  I descended the steps to the little dock and walked out to the end, noticing a freighter seemingly motionless at the very limits of visibility. I looked down at the little boat tethered at the end of the dock. The blue canvas of the protective cover was drawn over the boat, but not over the outboard motor, which was in the upright position, with the propeller in the water. Evidently, Books had been fishing but hadn't restored the motor to its horizontal position. And then I noticed that the cover wasn't really tightly drawn about the boat. A brisk wind would strip it off, exposing the interior. It wasn't like Books to leave it like that. I clambered down the two or three steps of the wooden ladder to the point where the soles of my shoes were just above the water and leaned out. With the cigar clenched in my jaw and clinging to the ladder with my free hand, I flipped back the loose canvas with the snub-nose of my .38 Chiefs Special, fearful of what might be underneath.