As I got closer to the center of town, I saw my omen. It was right there next to the street, and whether it was a good omen or a bad omen, I couldn’t say, but I felt like it meant something. The Bad Axe post of the Michigan State Police.
A few more blocks down, I saw the town hall on one side of the street, the Bad Axe Theater on the other. I parked the truck in the lot next door to the theater and got out. The lower floor was a classic old theater but the top three stories looked like a brick office building, with windows that had been covered over from the inside. It was the middle of a weekday, so the lot didn’t have more than a half dozen cars in it. Nobody was lined up outside, but according to the schedule on the marquee the first matinee didn’t start for another two hours.
I tried the door. It was open. I went inside and there was a kid vacuuming the carpet in the lobby. He had a pair of earphones on, so with whatever music he was listening to added to the sound of the vacuum cleaner there was no chance of him hearing me. I tapped him on the shoulder. The way he jumped, it was probably a good thing he was a teenager because otherwise he would have died of a heart attack.
“Sorry about that,” I said. “I’m looking for Mr. Wiley.”
He was pointing at the door before he could manage to speak. Finally, his breath caught up with him. “Try the studio. Across the street.”
“Where’s that? Which building are we talking about?”
He led me over to the door and pushed it open.
“Right there,” he said. “Next to the town hall. You gotta buzz in at the front.”
I thanked the kid and slapped him on the back. Then I walked across the street. There was a big brick building there and behind it I could see a great water tower rising above everything else in the town. Leon would have been proud of my detective skills, as I quickly figured out that this particular building had once been a Buick dealership. It had the wide front windows that you’d want if you were showing off cars, for one thing. My other clue was the big BAD AXE BUICK set in tile across the whole front of the building.
The only light I saw through the windows was a strange blue glow somewhere toward the back of the building. There was a small plate next to the door that read GRINDSTONE PRODUCTIONS. The O in Grindstone looked to be a gray, round grindstone, the kind they once made out of sandstone, I think, with a hole in the center. I had some dim memory that this was once grindstone country here in Michigan’s thumb, but whatever. There was a buzzer below the plate, so I pressed it.
I waited for a full minute. Finally, a man answered the door. He couldn’t have been more than twenty years old and he was wearing a black T-shirt and jeans, weather be damned. He had one of those little rings sticking through his left eyebrow.
“I wonder if I can have a word with Mr. Wiley,” I said.
He opened the door for me and I stepped inside. What had once been the Buick showroom was now a great open space filled with cameras and light poles and boxes to pack it all up in. One corner of the room had been walled off floor to ceiling, with a red light over the door that made me think it was probably a space for audio recording. In the other corner was a haphazard cubicle with chest-high walls, and that’s where the blue glow I had seen was coming from. Through the gap in the walls I could just make out the corner of a video screen next to a desktop computer, plus a few other machines I couldn’t have named if you put a gun to my head. There was a man sitting in front of the screen, and he seemed totally absorbed in what he was doing because he didn’t so much as turn to glance in our direction.
“Somebody here to see you,” the young man said.
“What? Who’s that?” The other man kept watching whatever it was he was watching.
“I just need a minute of your time,” I said.
Finally, the man turned around and looked at me. He got up from the blue glow and came to me through the middle band of darkness. As he came into the natural light filtering through the windows, I saw that he was not the man I was expecting to meet. This could not be Clyde C. Wiley.
He couldn’t have been more than fifty years old, for one thing, although he was doing everything he could to look even younger. He was one of those guys who still have the long hair and the little soul patch goatee, a leather vest on over a blue denim shirt with the sleeves rolled up, trying to be half-hippie and half-biker at the same time, and not coming close to either. He was thirty pounds overweight at this point in his life, and he had faded Chinese characters or something equally nonsensical for a middle-aged white man tattooed on both forearms.
“I’m looking for Clyde C. Wiley,” I said.
“And you are?”
“My name’s Alex. I just want to have a word with him.”
“Yeah, now’s not a good time, okay? We’re kinda busy here.”
“It’ll only take a minute. I came a long way today.”
“Then I’m pretty sure you wasted your time. Have a good trip back to wherever you came from.”
He started to turn away from me, but I sure as hell wasn’t going to give up that easily.
“Look,” I said, “I know the FBI was here. Day before yesterday, right?”
That stopped him.
“Who are you again?”
“I told you. My name’s Alex.”
“Yeah, Alex who? What exactly are you doing here?”
“I’m a private investigator. I just came to ask Mr. Wiley a few questions. That’s all, I promise.”
“We already answered all the questions we’re gonna answer. Unless you’ve got a badge or something, I’m pretty sure we don’t have to say shit to you. So why don’t you hit the bricks?”
He put a hand on my shoulder to turn me toward the door. He had to rethink that idea when he saw I wasn’t moving an inch until I was ready.
“You want to make me call the cops? I’m gonna do that in five seconds unless you get the hell out of here.”
“Is Mr. Wiley even here?”
“None of your concern. Now get out.”
I waited a few more seconds. More than five, no matter how slow he could count. It was pretty clear I wasn’t going to get much further with this guy. I did a quick scan around the room to make sure Mr. Wiley wasn’t lurking in a dark corner. Then I turned and went to the door.
“Don’t come back,” the man said. “You hear me?”
“You can throw me out,” I said to him, “but you can’t stop me from coming back. It would be easier on everyone if you just told me where he is so we can have our conversation.”
He stepped up to me and I thought it might be time for something to happen, but he slid around me, opened the door, and held it for me. I could feel the cold air creeping in around my ankles. I went outside and he closed the door behind me.
“Well, that was interesting,” I said.
As I crossed the street, I imagined him standing at the window, watching my back. I went to the parking lot next to the theater, but then it occurred to me that I’d be giving away an important piece of information if I got in my truck. So instead I kept walking down the street. I walked a full two blocks before I finally turned around. I couldn’t see anybody in front of the Grindstone building.
So okay, I thought, now what the hell do I do?
Of course, I knew exactly what Leon would say about it if he were here. I doubled around the back of the block and came up parallel to the main street. As I got to the back of the theater parking lot, I watched the windows carefully for a full five minutes. I didn’t see any movement. So I slid into my truck, started it, and pulled out through the back exit, working my way around the block until I was facing in the right direction. About a block down, I tucked into a row of cars parked on the street, the theater up ahead on the right, the Grindstone building on the left. Now all I had to do was one of my very least favorite things in the world.