The Hanging Tree (26 page)

“I’m guessing these envelopes have to do with those freedom-of-information requests you made a while back on Mr. Haskell,” Philo said.

“Probably, yeah.”

“Would you mind if I took a look?”

My heart was pounding. What a wuss I was. Why didn’t I just get out and talk to the guy? Maybe he knew something. I couldn’t think about it now. Philo suddenly wanted to pry his way into the Haskell story.

“Why do you want to look at that stuff?”

“Fair question. I don’t blame you. I haven’t been, shall we say—well, let me put it this way. When I was leaving the drain commission meeting this morning, that Elvis fellow took me by the elbow and steered me into the men’s room, where he proceeded to, as he put it, ‘advise’ me of his confidence that the
Pilot
wouldn’t write a word that would jeopardize the future of the community. He also mentioned he’s having dinner with my uncle tonight.”

“Elvis is a pillar of the community, you know.”

“And while he’s talking to me, Haskell walks in and takes a leak.”

“Just like hockey. It’s all about two-on-ones.”

“Yes, well, frankly, it ticked me off a little. Plus I missed that meeting at headquarters.”

So maybe it wasn’t me that had gotten to Philo, but Elvis. And Haskell. And that meeting he missed.

I crossed Oakwood going south, watching my rearview for the Suburban while keeping an eye out for Wally’s Wonder Print. “Are you planning to cover the town council meeting tomorrow?”

“I’m considering. Somebody told me it was routine and I probably didn’t need to bother.”

“Somebody, huh?”

“Yeah. Somebody.”

I considered telling Philo about the note I’d received in the mail, decided his new interest in real stories had come up a little too abruptly for that. But I thought maybe he could help me.

“Can you do me a quick favor?”

“I’ll try.”

“Go online, do a clip search. Just the Detroit papers. Look for someone named Trixie the Tramp. See if you can figure out who she is, where she is.”

“Trixie the Tramp. Is this family too?”

“You could say that. And go ahead and look at what’s in the envelopes. You probably won’t find much. But you never know. If you see something interesting, give me a call.”

“Will do. And Gus?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t forget. Eight a.m. tomorrow. Sorry.”

“Uh-huh. Gotta go.”

I swung my truck into Wally’s, over the paved lot, and into the back. I parked between a Dumpster and a utility pole where I thought the truck would be hidden from the road.

I stepped outside. The wind snapped my coat collar against my cheek. I pulled the zipper all the way up and stuffed my hands in my coat pockets.
Knobbo
, I thought as I walked around to the front door. If anyone could refresh my memory, Wally could.

sixteen

The three glass walls that enclosed Ron Wallman’s office faced out on a room filled with laser printers, computer terminals, paper cutters, and tall steel racks stacked with boxes and rolls of paper. Signs hanging from the ceiling cheerfully exhorted the workers bustling between printing jobs to bustle a little harder: “Attitude is a little thing that makes a big difference” and “Don’t judge those who try and fail, judge only those who fail to try.”

Dozens of photographs, plaques, pennants, and certificates crowded the plaster wall behind Wally’s wooden desk. Most of the pictures hung in cheap black frames at haphazard angles: Wally posing on a rink with his hockey pals; Wally on the tee with his hockey pals; Wally hoisting a frosted mug of beer in a bowling alley with his hockey pals. A row of plaques pronounced him Melvindale Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of the Year from 1992 to 1996. At the center of it all were professionally framed photos of his wife, Sheryl, and their kids, Joe and Roy.

“What happened to the jersey?” I said.

I was sitting in a cushioned folding chair across from his desk, nursing a Labatt Blue and still feeling the hurt Wally had put on my ribs when he had hugged me in the reception area. The last time I’d been in his office, drinking Scotch after a late-night hockey game a few years before I’d left Detroit, the centerpiece of the wall had been a framed display of his old gold-on-black jersey with the name
PIPEFITTERS
running diagonally down from the shoulder. Wally had been the star defenseman on the team that had beaten us in the 1981 state final, a six-foot-six, 225-pound bruiser with agile feet and pretty fair hands for a big man.

“Ah, you know, time to grow up,” he said. He was sitting on the front edge of his desk, which I could barely see for his bulk. He grinned and winked. “Got it hanging behind my bar at home. The wife never goes down there.”

I smiled. “Looks like you’re doing OK, Wall.”

“Can’t complain. Wife’s good, boys good, life’s good.” He thrust his right hand forward again. It swallowed mine. “Always good to see you, buddy. What brings you to town? You bring your gear? I got a nine forty skate now every Tuesday at the Yack. I can tell one of the ’tenders to stay home tonight.”

“Nah, gotta get back. Got a game. And I’m not playing goal anymore.”

“I thought I heard that. What the hell?”

“Like you said, gotta grow up some time.”

I’d gotten to know Wally playing late-night hockey against him during my years at the
Times
. He sponsored a thirty-and-over team in Melvindale called Wally’s Wonders. On the ice we’d scrap and bitch and try to beat the hell out of one another. Then we’d have a beer in the parking lot before closing Nasty Melvin’s. We got to be friends over bad Buffalo wings and worse nine-ball.

Wally had only teased me once or twice about the state title game. I’d only teased him about a thousand times about his ballooning up to three hundred pounds. I noticed he’d grown another chin since I’d last seen him.

“Hell,” he said, “maybe I’ll bring the boys up there for a couple of games some weekend.” He’d been talking about coming up for years. Thinking of my liver, I hadn’t encouraged it. “Hell, the hockey, I don’t even care. Seeing all the boys, having a few pops, that’s the thing, right, man?”

“Absolutely.”

“How’s old Soup?”

“Still skating.”

“Still dangling? That fucker could play, boy. He went by me once like I was a turnstile. I think he grabbed a token.” It was an old hockey line, but Wally laughed like he’d just thought of it. He lifted the Blue to his mouth and drank half the bottle in one long pull.

“Yeah. He bought the bar on Main Street.”

“You’ve got to be kidding. Now there’s trouble. You know, I’ve done some work for his ex. She’s got a nice little business in Lincoln Park.”

“Didn’t know she’d moved there,” I said. “Small world. Speaking of which, I’ve been working on this little feature story and came across a guy I think might’ve played for you or played in your league a while back.”

Wally was leaning over his fridge again. “Ready?” he said.

“I’m good.”

“Pussy.”

“No news there, pal.”

“Which guy?”

“I don’t remember his name, but his nickname was something like, I don’t know, Knobs or Knobby or Knobbo?”

“Oh, fuck. That guy.” Wally twisted the cap off the fresh Blue and snapped it at the plastic wastebasket behind me, missing. “Fucking Knobbo, man.”

“Jarek Vend.”

“I’ve seen him in the paper. He’s mixed up in all sorts of shit now. Ever been to one of his strip joints?”

“No. Didn’t know the guy.”

“I dropped like seven hundred in one of them once. That was some high-end foo foo, boy. Thank God I’m married. It’s cheaper.”

“He played goalie for the Wonders?”

“Yeah.” Wally shut his eyes, thinking. “Ninety-one. You in the league then?”

“No. I was still playing in St. Clair Shores.”

“East side homos. Anyway, we made the finals and lost to Paxton Van Lines, best of three. We win five to one the first night, Blummer gets a hat trick. Next game we shit the bed, blow a two-goal lead, lose four to three in OT. Paxton comes out in the rubber with this ringer, played at ND, guy named Schneider—his brother played for the gold medal team in eighty—and just fucking swamps us, four-zip.”

He had a memory like that. I was sure he could have told me the starting lineups on each team and where each guy played his kid hockey.

“And Knobbo was in the net? Why do they call him Knobbo?”

Wally cracked a big smile. “If you don’t know, I ain’t telling you.”

“Fuck you then.”

“Hey, maybe the knob on his goalie stick, eh? Anyway, he could play, too. And he was like, I don’t know, forty. Played for the Junior Wings way back when Gordie Howe’s kids were still playing.” Wally stood and waved his arms around like a goalie stopping shots, beer slopping out of his bottle and onto his carpet. “Total flopper. But, man, what a weirdo. Always with the blow in the dressing room.”

“Cocaine?”

“Yeah. One line before the first period, two before the second, three before the third. A little superstitious, are we? Some nights he’d be the life of the damn party; other nights, not a word. You definitely didn’t want to fuck with him, though. I know all you goalies are crazy, but this guy took the cake.”

“Really.”

“Oh, man.” His face burst into a smile. “You heard about Antonoff.”

“No.”

Wally told me. Antonoff played for a team called the Gray Hawks sponsored by a mortgage company in Southgate. Everybody mistook him for a Russian because of his name and because he talked funny, but he was just some East Coast guy in for a year to consult with Chrysler on some manufacturing stuff. It took him only a few games to establish himself as a major asshole on the ice, always chopping guys, kicking legs out, running goalies. Always after the whistle.

One night, late in a game, the Wonders were blowing out the Gray Hawks when Vend—Knobbo—made a save and smothered the puck with his stick-hand glove. Antonoff came flying in after the refs had blown the play dead, sprayed Knobbo’s head with ice, then slapped the side of Knobbo’s mask with his stick blade. Knobbo jumped up, said something to Antonoff in a language other than English. Antonoff told him,
Go back to your worthless fucking country.

As Antonoff skated away, laughing, Knobbo pulled his mask back on his head and said something else and looked up into the stands where he had two buddies with three young women dolled up in furs and silk scarves, smoking, drinking something that probably wasn’t 7Up from giant 7Up cups. Knobbo gave them a furious nod and waggled his big flat goalie stick in the direction of Antonoff. Both guys nodded back. The chicks giggled.

“Late that night, man,” Wally said, “they fucked him up.”

“Antonoff?”

“Yeah. He was always the last guy out of Nasty’s. Those jag-offs were waiting.”

“Knobbo?”

“No. The guys from the stands, talking in Polish or Ukrainian or whatever the hell it was. They beat the shit out of him, messed up his face so
bad he had to have reconstructive surgery. Left him in a Dumpster back of Nasty’s. Supposedly Knobbo showed up at the very end and got up on the Dumpster and pissed all over him.”

“Wow. I think I’ll take that other beer now.”

Wally went around to the fridge again, plucked out two Blues. “What’s your article about?”

“I don’t really know yet,” I said. “Knobbo apparently has some business interests up our way.”

“Better be careful what you write, eh?”

“Yeah. He only played that one year?”

“He got hurt, man. Old Meat cut him.”

“Meat?” I said.

Wally’s door swung open and a woman ducked her head in. “Hey, boss,” she said. Wally swiveled his big body around.

“What’s up, Claudia?”

“Got to get Annie up to Fraser.”

“Fraser? That shithole? What’s the matter with you? Rinks around here aren’t good enough for your little girl?”

“The sacrifices we make for hockey.” She grinned and pointed at Wally’s Labatt bottle. “Getting an early start, are we?”

Wally spread his arms wide in supplication and nodded toward me. “I have a guest. Meet Gus, an old hockey bud down from up north.”

“Hey there, Gus.”

“Nice to meet you, Claudia,” I said, but all I could think was, Meat? Jason Esper knew Jarek Vend? Could it be that there was no coincidence in Jason returning to Starvation not long after Gracie had?

“Don’t forget to punch that clock on your way out,” Wally said.

She chuckled. “Right on, boss.”

The door closed. Wally said, “Mark my words—her kid’s going to be the first babe to stick in the NHL. Great kid.”

“You talking about the same Meat I know?”

“Meat? Oh, yeah, Jason … Jason … Esper—yeah—he played with me on the ’Fitters. He was just a beanpole back then.”

“Yeah. He’s living in Starvation. What’s he got to do with Knobbo?”

“You don’t know?”

The Wonders were playing Big Bill’s from Inkster, Wally said. During
a scrum at the net, a Bill’s center named McSween slashed Knobbo across the forearm. Knobbo went down just as Jason came zooming in with his stick up around his elbows, aimed at McSween’s forehead. McSween ducked. Jason went flying. As he catapulted over the pile, one of his skate blades sliced through the right side of Knobbo’s neck.

“I swear, man, I almost lost my lunch,” Wally said. “The blood shot up this high”—he held a palm flat at his shoulder—“and Knobbo was rolling around and screaming like he was going to die.”

“But he didn’t.”

“Nope. Meat, man, Meat saved his life. He cut him and then he saved his life. He got down and jammed his hands down on Knobbo’s neck until the ambulance came. It was lucky we were close to the hospital.” Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Wally went a little pale. “I can still see Meat in the dressing room, blood all over him, shaking like a leaf.”

“And that was it for Knobbo?”

“Yep. For Meat, too. Next time I saw him—the last time I saw him—was at one of Knobbo’s clubs, working the door.”

“No shit, bouncing? When?”

“Last fall?” Wally looked sheepish. “I mean, I don’t go to those places usually, but Poke had a bachelor party. Meat didn’t look all that glad to see us. We didn’t stay long.”