Part 4 (2/2)

”In what way?” I asked.

Books made a face of careless certainty, a comical moue: ”Oh, you know . . . Hoffa got all screwed up with them Mob boys. There wasn't much to it, but I guess Hoffa was stubborn and wouldn't let it drop, whatever the beef was. So he had to go.” He shrugged. That was all there was to it. Open and shut.

I pursued it a little further, but Books didn't know any more. We fell to considering the list of names I'd brought and that was good for a laugh or two. Books confided that a couple of the names on the list, Shakespeare and Homer, were alternate tags for himself.

I was happy to accept Books's invitation to dinner, which turned out to be black-eyed peas with ham hocks and cornbread. It was delicious, particularly with the poke sallet greens. I was curious where Books would get these things locally; it seemed unlikely that supermarkets in this region of southern Ontario would feature the makings for soul food. He said he drove up to Detroit once a week to shop, or sometimes a friend would come down. Something in his tone made me ask how he enjoyed living down here on the lake.

”I like it fine,” he said. ”I have my books, my records. I generally enjoy solitary living. But, you know, once in a while a fellow longs to see another dark face.”

He smiled thoughtfully and sipped at his wine. We had finished the dishes and withdrawn to the fireside again. He drew on the H. Upmann ”Pet.i.t Corona” I had provided. ”When a man lives alone,” he said, ”he is tempted to philosophize. I am not immune. I have come to believe that race is one of the biggest servings of bulls.h.i.+t that man has ever tried to digest. But look at it this way: say you're sick. You got a tumor and you need help, right now. There are two doctors available to you and both are named Brown. But one of them is white and one is colored. Which one will you go to? As long as you don't know that they're different races, there's nothing to choose. But if you do know which is which . . . well, if you're me, it would be hard not to at least see the colored doctor first, don't you think? It would be easier, more comfortable. And I'll bet you would see the white Dr. Brown first. That's 'cause there is nothing but skin color to distinguish these two doctors from one another, so race becomes at least a minor factor. But say that one of them is a well-known surgeon and the other one practices holistic medicine-you know, herbs and naturopathy, that kind of thing. Well, if you're me, you wouldn't give a fart in a whirlwind what color that surgeon was: you'd go see him. Another man, like my old friend Henry Chatham, he's a naturopathy man: he'd go to a witch doctor or a conjure woman before he'd let a man of any color cut on him. You see? But.” He looked a bit wistful. ”Sometimes I miss n.i.g.g.e.r Heaven. Maybe I should have retired there.”

I was momentarily nonplussed.

Books chuckled. ”I'm sorry, I don't mean to embarra.s.s you. I should have said Turtle Lake. It's a colored resort up in the Thumb. Maybe you heard of it?”

I had, though it seemed ages ago, and I'd even heard its nickname. And now I made the connection with the piece of music that I'd seen attributed to Tyrone Addison, in Grootka's apartment.

”Did Tyrone Addison have a place up there?” I asked.

”Tyrone? Naw. Why, Tyrone wasn't no more than a boy when I used to go up to, ah, Turtle Lake. I had me quite a nice place over by the golf course, actually closer to the casino. Oh yeah.” He shook his head. ”I had me some times! But, you know, come to think of it, I used to see Tyrone up there. His uncle had a place there. Lonzo. Now what was Lonzo's name? He was a bail bondsman, great big 'ol black fellow. Yes,” he said with triumph, proud of his memory, ”it was Lonzo b.u.t.terfield! My, my, what a fellow. Talk about conjure men, or women, ol' Lonzo was one. He could walk that walk and talk that talk. Mmmmhmmm. Yeah, and there was something going on up there once, too. I remember Grootka coming to me about it.”

”Really! What?”

”Grootka was after Lonzo for something,” Books said. He shook his head with regret. ”I'm doggoned if I can remember what it was! But you know these bail bondsmen, they're a wicked bunch. No telling what it was.”

”When was this?”

Books stared at the fire for a long moment, seemingly focusing into its depths. Finally, he nodded and said, ”If I had to put a date to it, I'd say July or August of . . . oh, let me think . . .” Suddenly, his face brightened. ”I just had bought a brand-new seventy-five Continental, except that it wasn't exactly brand-new. So it must have been 1975. August of seventy-five.” He beamed.

I was impressed. But alas, no amount of encouragement could dredge up from the past the details of Grootka's interest in Lonzo b.u.t.terfield. All he could remember was that Grootka had asked him to drive up to Turtle Lake and see if Lonzo was there.

”Was Lonzo there?” I asked.

”No. But somebody was. I guess it must have been Tyrone. Yeah, come to think of it, Tyrone was there, with that white wife of his.”

”Tyrone was married to a white woman?”

”Nice lady, too,” Books said. ”Man, she had t.i.ts like melons. And she didn't mind showing them, either. She wore a little skimpy bikini down to the beach. Oh yeah. I wonder if Tyrone put her up to it, or did she do it to p.i.s.s him off? You know, I believe he put her up to it. I don't believe she wanted to show herself like that. But some of these fellows . . . they want the world to see what kind of woman they got.”

”What did Grootka say about all this?”

”Nothing. He was only interested in Lonzo.”

”You don't say. I wonder if he knew Addison then, or was it later? You know, the lessons and so forth?”

”Well, he might have known Tyrone beforehand,” Books said. ”But I wasn't aware of it.”

From there the conversation drifted to music and I asked Books if he had any of Addison's stuff on record.

”Well, you know, I don't. I'm not even sure there is anything. But, d.a.m.n, there oughta be! The cat was a stone genius. I'm not taking Grootka's word for it, though he knew a thing or two about the music. Tyrone was supposed to be pretty hot stuff back in the seventies-h.e.l.l of a player. He played with Ornette and Charlie Haden, Marcus Belgrave-all them cats. I remember Yusef-you know Yusef? Lateef? Yeah. The man is heavy. Yusef told me once Tyrone could burn on the bari, like he reinvented the horn, man. And he could write. Very heavy stuff, but basic. It made you think. But . . . I don't know what happened to him.”

”Drugs, you think?”

”Well, when you're talking about these fellows, it does come to mind. But I don't recall that Tyrone ever was into drugs. Course, that don't mean a d.a.m.n thing.”

I had to agree. Junkies were notorious for concealing their habit. ”What kind of stuff did he write?” I asked. ”You saw him play?”

”Oh, h.e.l.l yes. He worked quite a bit around town. He'd be playing hard bop, mostly, with Joe Henderson and Marcus. I saw him in a really hot group with Woody Shaw and Louis Hayes.” He shook his head, marveling. He was looking through his record and compact disc collection. ”Ah, here's something. You might like this.”

It was a CD ent.i.tled A Parvus Fanfare, by one M'Zee Kinanda. The cover featured a remarkable photograph of a small country church with a few barefooted black children perched on the steps, smiling. Church was not meeting, evidently.

There were fifty-nine minutes of blues-tinged music on the disc, mostly featuring soprano sax and some remarkable drumming. I can't say that the music really grabbed me, although it was interesting. It swung, but only sporadically. Most of the time it was very serious music. Myself, I'll take Ellington any day.

Books insisted I take the disc along. He wasn't interested in it, he said. And he gave me a tape, also by Kinanda. ”A little something to listen to on the drive home,” Books said.

Before I left I remembered to ask Books if he'd ever heard Grootka talk about suicide, or about another self on the loose.

”Haw! That's a good one,” Books said, grinning. ”He actually told you that? Well.” He shrugged, his face becoming thoughtful. ”Grootka could surprise you. If he did have some notions about that, a good person to see would be that conjure man Lonzo b.u.t.terfield.”

”I thought you said he was a bail bondsman.”

”Yeah. Conjure man, too. From New Orleans, you know. Look him up. He'd be interesting to talk to.”

One thing about unpleasant weather: it's no fun to drive in. But I took it easy on the way back to Detroit and mulled over the things I'd been hearing. The Hoffa disappearance really was remarkable, more remarkable than I'd ever considered. The thing that stood out the most for me was the way everybody blithely concluded that James Riddle Hoffa, deposed union leader and well-known crony of infamous mobsters, had been murdered and disposed of by those same old pals of his. I didn't find this so easy to accept. If Hoffa was so buddy-buddy with the Mob, why would they knock him? The Mob doesn't hit people for fun. There has to be a reason, especially when the target is a very visible guy who has a long-standing reputation as a friend of the Mob.

I had long contended that the Mob, considered as a corporate ent.i.ty, was not one of the better-run organizations. It has a reputation for ruthlessness and constancy, not to say implacability-characteristics of successful corporations (Ford Motor Company comes to mind). The fact was, the nature of much of their business meant that a high degree of personal trust and loyalty, of reliability, was essential. The Mob had often fallen back upon actual blood relations.h.i.+ps to ensure this crucial loyalty, even when it meant accepting perhaps a lower standard of performance. In the modern hard-driving and technical world, that factor was often a serious drawback. Still, I figured no mobster could be so stupid, so indifferent to general syndicate approval, as to hit Jimmy Hoffa out of anger or annoyance or even bad judgment. Except maybe Carmine, I thought. But even Carmine wasn't that dumb, and besides he always had Humphrey DiEbola, the Fat Man, to counsel and restrain him. No, I figured there had to be some as yet unknown reason . . . if, indeed, the Mob had done the number.

What the h.e.l.l, Hoffa was a pretty rough and reckless guy. He'd stepped on a lot of toes, shot off his mouth an awful lot, had surely ruined a few lives on his road to fame and fortune. There ought to be no shortage of candidates without Mob a.s.sociations who would want him dead and be willing to do the job themselves. I would sure like to see the F.B.I, file. I wondered if Pedge could help.

And, of course, I was most interested in looking through Grootka's old notebooks, to see what his findings, if any, had been.

I stopped at the precinct, although it was nearly midnight. To my surprise, Maki was still there. He was an old hand; it wasn't like him to linger after his s.h.i.+ft. But he said he'd been waiting for a guy to come in and see him, and then he'd gotten sidetracked by some old files.

”You know,” I said, ”I've been thinking a lot about Hoffa. He must have made a few enemies, wouldn't you say?”

Maki snorted derisively. ”A few? You'da thought the guy was drafting an army of a.s.sa.s.sins.”

”That's what I was thinking. Take that guy, for instance, the one he stomped at the local . . . the laborer.”

Maki shook his head. ”Well, that's one he didn't have to worry about. That was Sam Peeks.”

The name was familiar to me but I couldn't place it. Maki filled me in.

”About a week after his run-in with Hoffa, Sam took his act to his own local. He got maybe a hundred guys to picket their own leaders for not supporting them, not negotiating in good faith. So the president over there, what's his name . . . McKenzie-he's dead now-invites Sam up to the office to discuss his grievances . . . alone.” Maki frowned, remembering. ”I heard there was over thirty shots fired inside that office. Somehow, all but five of them found their way into Sam Peeks.”

The M'Zee Kinanda tape was pretty good, an improvement over the CD. He had a better ba.s.s player, I think, and the horns weren't so determinedly atonal and abrasive. Even haunting, at times.

<script>