Chapter 29: Go To It
Back in Greenline, Clench dropped Clare off at The Rag and Bone Shop and drove on to the sheriff’s office.
“Hey everybody,” she said. “What’s new? What’s old?”
“Everything,” Sandy said. “Actually Ed Bennett came in and did some shopping. He asked about the helmet again, and The Cellar.”
“Oh yeah? When did he leave?”
“He didn’t. You can probably catch him at the café.”
Clare did indeed catch him at the café, after leaving phone messages for Roxy and Jerry Jenkins.
“Hi Ed, how are you?”
“Just fine. How about you?”
“Fine. Busy. Sandy said you asked about the helmet again, and about The Cellar. The Cellar still isn’t open — I’ve been collecting a few things but you wouldn’t believe how busy I’ve been, always getting interrupted.” At this she took a sip of her coffee and gave Ed time to decide if he was business or if he was an interruption, although there was no necessity for her to go talk to him, other than the fact that she wanted some coffee and a meal anyway after the trip to Chillicothe. “But everything’s going well and I have new plans in the works too. As for the helmet, I guess you read about the attempts to steal it?”
“Yes, I did. By someone from Akron.”
“Yeah, a young fellow from one of the mosques. He’s in jail as we speak.”
Ed looked surprised. He lifted one eyebrow. He was good at that. He had the ability to raise either eyebrow independently, depending on which one faced the person he was aiming it at. Clare could only raise her left eyebrow, or else both at the same time.
“No, really?”
“Third time’s a charm.”
“So after all that you still don’t want to sell it?”
“No. In fact it’s in storage someplace far, far away. It’s not in Greenline anymore. But it’s not your kind of thing anyway, is it?”
“Not really, but it must be one or two centuries old, so that makes it my kind of thing.”
“Yes, I suppose so.”
“It’s been so much trouble, and you can’t sell it or display it, I don’t understand why you want it.”
“I’m not sure. Somehow I’m not done with it yet.”
“I understand. Sometimes I get attached to an object. Or I want to learn more about it. Sometimes I just want to find out who wants to buy it at whatever ridiculous price I put on it.”
Clare laughed. This was possibly the first time she’d ever enjoyed Ed’s company.
“Or who wants to steal it,” she added.
“Well, here’s something you might like to know. Quite a few immigrants in and around Akron bring me things to sell on consignment. Artwork and jewelry and whatnot from the old country. Sometimes they buy each other’s stuff. I’ve got Russians and Latin Americans and Asians and Africans and Indians and Middle Easterners and people from the Stans.”
Clare became more alert.
“But no Canadians. Anyway, I’ve been putting out feelers to see if I could hear anything about your helmet. The story’s been in the Beacon Journal more than once, you know. So I get into chitchat with the customers and everyone’s interested in the story. A couple of people know the Ebrahims.”
Clare raised her left eyebrow.
“Actually they may suspect that I bought it from you. And there was an idea that Mrs. Ebrahim sold it to you because she needed the money.”
Clare shook her head.
“Of course they think the boy should have it.”
“We’ve been through all that. I met Mrs. Ebrahim. And I talked to my lawyer about it, and we’ve all had to talk to the police. He’s not getting it back. It belonged to his mother and she doesn’t want it in the house. That is, she doesn’t want Ali to have it.”
“That’s what they don’t understand. Of course Mrs. E. isn’t really one of them.”
“That’s right. She’s from around here. She’s an American. And Ali is supposed to be an American. He was born and raised here. Anyway, she’s … she’s trying to loosen what she thinks is an unhealthy interest in certain aspects of his heritage. That’s all I can say now. Now you know and I know there’s quite a lot of thievery in the antiques trade and the art world. Do you know of anybody who might be a little shady in the Muslim community? Not that I know of anything involving this helmet, outside of Ali.”
“You mean you think Ali wanted to sell it? It’s worth maybe a couple thousand, maybe more. But I haven’t heard of anything that makes sense in connection with it.”
“I don’t think he wants to sell it. If you do hear anything at all … and I’m not just talking about money … I’d appreciate it if you’d tell me.”
After Ed left, Clare went back to the store and made her calls to Jerry Jenkins and Roxy, and told them about the theft of the Sears house from the Chillicothe rail yard.
Jerry said the story would be in the Greenline Week, and did she have a picture of the house as it would look after construction.
“Yes, I’ve got a picture in the catalog if you want to come down to the store and photocopy it. Since you can’t exactly get a scoop, being a weekly, could you get in touch with the Chillicothe and the Akron newspapers? And any others you think might be good? I’d sure like to get it back, and catch whoever did it.”
“I’ll do what I can. They’ll print the story first but it will have my byline on it.”
“Right.”
Roxy also asked about pictures.
“But as you know by the time the next edition of the magazine comes out, you may have found it,” she said.
“Yes, but even so, it might be helpful in preventing future thefts if people are aware that there are … house thieves. Who would have thought. Anyway, this one was a good-size house called the Magnolia from 1920, $6,488 not including tax. Ten-room colonial, two story, model number 2089. The number might be on a shipping label somewhere, if they don’t remove it. I can e-mail you a copy of the catalog picture.”
“Good. By the way, after you called me, I wanted to see where Jennifer Ebrahim was meeting her daughter. I drove over to her house so I’d get there about four hours after Adeleh left Greenline, and her car was in the driveway. So I waited to see if Adeleh would go there, but eventually Mrs. Ebrahim left and I followed her.”
“She must think her house is being watched, and if it is, you could be followed too and she wouldn’t be safe meeting the girl anywhere.”
“Well, she went to a spa. A woman-only beauty emporium. So I went in and got a manicure, and so did she. The daughter showed up and then they both got pedicures. Seemed to be having a good time. They left together and got on the interstate, but at that point I didn’t follow.”
That night at home she poured herself a glass of wine and looked up “Go to it, O jazzmen,” which turned out to be from a Sandburg poem called “Jazz Fantasia.”
Drum on your drums, batter on your banjoes,
sob on the long cool winding saxophones.
Go to it, O jazzmen.
Sling your knuckles on the bottoms of the happy
tin pans, let your trombones ooze, and go husha-
husha-hush with the slippery sand-paper.
Moan like an autumn wind high in the lonesome treetops,
moan soft like you wanted somebody terrible, cry like a
racing car slipping away from a motorcycle cop, bang-bang!
you jazzmen, bang altogether drums, traps, banjoes, horns,
tin cans — make two people fight on the top of a stairway
and scratch each other's eyes in a clinch tumbling down
the stairs.
Can the rough stuff . . . now a Mississippi steamboat pushes
up the night river with a hoo-hoo-hoo-oo . . . and the green
lanterns calling to the high soft stars . . . a red moon rides
on the humps of the low river hills . . . go to it, O jazzmen.
She wondered why Clench remembered that poem, or at least the one line. What made him remember it at just that moment. His name was sort of in the poem, maybe that was it. Can the rough stuff, and it could be a love poem.