Practice to Deceive

by David Housewright

  “Oh shit! Goddamn it!” Steve yelled, and then the cell phone went dead.

  “Steve, Steve,” I repeated into the unit.

  “What?”

  “Something’s gone wrong,” I told Freddie. “Let’s get out of here.”

  I signaled for the check. Our waitress was happy to give it. I paid in cash and left a big tip. Freddie insisted.

  Levering was gesturing wildly. The other two men in his party stood by, bewildered. Miss Portia looked even paler than usual. The hostess, her face red, threw up her hands and disappeared behind the partition. Levering continued to talk, speaking to his party now. The hostess returned. Her face a deeper crimson. She handed Levering his card.

  “I’m sorry, sir. The machine must have made a mistake,” she said as we approached.

  “Mistake?! Mistake?! You embarrass me in front of my clients, and you call it a mistake?!” Levering yelled.

  “Having problems, Ring?” I asked as I brushed past.

  He didn’t realize who I was at first. When he did, his expression became pained, like I had just kicked him in the shin. I smiled at him as Freddie and I exited. I heard Levering scream my name on the other side of the closed door.

  “WHAT HAPPENED?” I asked when Steve answered the phone.

  “They almost got me, the credit card posse.” he confessed. “They traced me to Madrid. Christ, Madrid! I had maybe ten, fifteen seconds to spare.”

  “Are you safe?”

  “No problem. But, man, those guys are good. Wow …”

  “Wow, nothing,” I told him. “That’s it, we’re done. No more credit card companies, no more banks.”

  “The bank is safe,” Steve insisted.

  “I don’t care. Enough. We hurt him enough. I don’t want you taking any more chances.”

  Steve was quiet for a moment. Then he said, “Screw it. Why don’t we stop messing around and just cancel all of his credit cards?”

  “Steve, you’re out of control.”

  “And you know what?” he added. “Levering has cable, but he only gets basic programming. No premium channels, no pay per view, no adults-only movies. Couple of key strokes and we could greatly expand his viewing choices. What do you think?”

  “God, Steve …”

  “And since we’re at it …”

  I told Steve I didn’t want to hear anymore, told him I had created a monster.

  He chuckled into the phone and said, “This is fun.”

  THE SUN WAS out, and the snow was melting fast. By the time I reached my driveway, the foot of snow that had fallen the night before had been reduced to half that.

  I parked in the garage and went into the house. After feeding Ogilvy and changing his litter, I went upstairs to my bedroom. I knelt before my waterbed, took a deep breath, then unlocked a drawer built into the pedestal, sliding it out. The drawer contained all my guns.

  I looked without touching: Two identical Beretta 9mm parabellums, one in a holster. A Smith & Wesson 9mm parabellum, modified and silenced for the U.S. Navy SEALS—they call it the “hush puppy” because it was originally intended to kill enemy watch dogs. A Charter Arms .38 special wheel gun. A four-and-a-half-inch long .25 Beretta that could literally fit in the palm of your hand. A Ruger .22 target pistol. A cut-down Mossberg twelve-gauge shotgun with pistol grip called “the persuader.” A .45 caliber Ingram Model 10 submachine gun with three thirty-round clips.

  I took a deep breath and slipped the 9mm Beretta out of its holster. A little over two pounds fully loaded, it felt heavy in my hand. I hadn’t lifted it for quite some time now, since I used it to kill a man who had tried to kill me. One Review Board member thought it was excessive force, shooting a man four times in the chest. But they let me off just the same, saying I “acted within the course and scope of my employment.” One witness even testified I had saved his life. Maybe so. But I lost a lot of sleep over the “subject”—as the review board referred to the deceased. Him and the other three subjects I’ve killed “within the course and scope of my employment.” It wasn’t until I stopped carrying, vowed never again to kill a man, that I have been able to go more than a few nights’ sleep without waking drenched in sweat.

  I slipped the Beretta back into the holster and closed and locked the drawer.

  NINE

  PARANOIA IS A terrible disease, and I had it bad. It was barely nine A.M., and my nerves had already been assaulted by a jogger who crossed my path when I was pulling out of my driveway, by a guy in a Jeep Cherokee who pulled next to me at a stoplight, by a man who bumped my shoulder in the parking lot outside the Butler Square Building, and, finally, by a young woman who made me hold the elevator, who rode the car alone with me, and who asked, “Isn’t this your floor?” when the doors opened and I made no effort to get off. If I had been carrying my gun, I would have shot all four of them.

  I was out of breath by the time I reached my office, locking the door behind me. “This is no way to live,” I told myself aloud, then jumped two feet when the telephone rang. It was Monica Adler.

  “We can’t go on like this,” she told me after identifying herself.

  I wholeheartedly agreed but wasn’t about to admit it. “What are you talking about?” I asked, wary of tape recorders and bugs. “Go on like—?”

  “Taylor, I don’t want to hear it,” she said, interrupting me. “I’m tired. Mr. Field is tired. We want to end this.”

  “End what?” I asked, not trusting her for a minute.

  Monica sighed deeply. “If it is convenient, I would like to discuss your differences with Mr. Field over lunch today.”

  I thought about it for a moment, then said, “I don’t know what differences you’re referring to, but I’m not one to pass up a free lunch.”

  “Swell,” Monica said. “Noon. The St. Paul Grill.”

  “Fine,” I said.

  “Fine,” she repeated and hung up.

  The problem with working alone is that you have no colleague to turn to, no one of whom you can ask, “What do you think?”

  I’VE ALWAYS LIKED Rice Park, especially in the fall when its many assorted trees are shedding their leaves. I like sitting at the base of its enormous fountain, just gazing at the beautiful buildings that surround it: the St. Paul Public Library and Minnesota Club to the South, the opulent Ordway Theater to the West, the Landmark Center with its ancient elegance to the North, the St. Paul Hotel, which houses the St. Paul Grill, to the East.

  The last time I had been in the park was in February with Cynthia. We had come to admire the entries in the St. Paul Winter Carnival ice sculpture contest. It had been about eight degrees then. It was fifty-eight when I parked my Monza at the meters in front of the Ordway. The ground was still wet with melting snow, but the benches scattered throughout the park were dry, and so was the ledge surrounding the now-dormant fountain. The dry spots were nearly all occupied by brown baggers, some of them in short sleeves.

  I waited as several cars passed me, most of them disappearing into the maze of downtown streets. One car circled the park twice, then found a space on the east side near the entrance to the St. Paul Hotel. A man got out; his hands were empty. He went inside the hotel.

  I didn’t see anyone carrying a sniper rifle, so I left the car and made my way across the park, following a path around the fountain. I ignored the intersection, crowded with people queued up for the dogs and sausages a street vendor hawked, deciding to cross in the middle of the street. I waited between two parked vehicles for the traffic to clear. My hand was resting on the quarter panel of a new Ford Explorer, just above the headlight. And then WHOOM! the headlight was gone. Splinters of glass and metal cut into my thigh and the palm of my hand, but I didn’t feel the pain just then. What I felt was astonishment. It turned quickly to panic.

  Fifty feet away on the other side of the street, a tall man wearing a dark-blue parka was drawing a bead on me with a handgun the size of a baby howitzer. He fired again. WHOOM! A tongue of flame licked four feet from the muzzle.
I dived backward onto the boulevard. The bullet zipped past my ear, sounding like a high, inside fastball. I didn’t see where it hit. I was on my feet, slipping in the snow and slush, moving fast along the line of parked cars, trying to keep the cars between me and the shooter. I heard a third shot but didn’t see where that hit, either. The fourth caught the three-inch trunk of a baby red maple on the boulevard directly in front of me. It cut the tree down, leaving a four-foot high jagged post growing out of the ground.

  I had never seen a gun like this.

  I slid between two cars, glancing behind me. Half the brown baggers were running, the others were hugging the wet ground. Not as many people were screaming as you might expect and I was loudest.

  The shooter was on the sidewalk now, coming fast. He was carrying his gun low; it must have weighed a ton. I was squatting between the cars. My strategy was simple: Hit the street and run like hell. A van was approaching. I was going to use it for cover, cut in front of it, hope the driver didn’t run me down. But I never got out of the starting block. The shooter pinned me down, putting two rounds through the car I was hiding behind. I fell back.

  That’s when I heard a series of explosions. Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! They sounded tinny and distant compared to the deafening blasts that were still echoing in my ears. I looked up.

  The shooter was down, half on the sidewalk, half on the grass, his gun two feet in front of his outstretched hand. Blood formed a growing pool under his unmoving body.

  I rose from my cover slowly.

  Freddie stood above the shooter, his Colt Commander gripped in two hands, the muzzle pointing at the shooter’s head. I walked to him as the air bleated with the sound of a half dozen sirens.

  Freddie was breathing hard when I reached him, like he had just run a marathon. Police were filling the streets, guns drawn. I gently nudged him. Freddie looked at me, an odd expression in his eyes, an even odder smile across his lips. He deactivated the Colt and let it rest against his thigh. The cops were approaching cautiously, yelling, telling him to drop the weapon. Freddie tossed the Colt onto the grass like it was a candy wrapper, still staring down at the body; a nervous officer picked it up by the barrel.

  I told Freddie softly, “Anyone asks, you’re working bodyguard for me.”

  Freddie nodded. To my utter astonishment, he chuckled. “Motherfuckin’ eh!” he said, his smile broad. “Did you see that fuckin’ gun?”

  MY HANDS WERE trembling, and I couldn’t make them stop. I put them in my pockets, but that made my legs shake, so I took them out again, hoping no one noticed. Freddie sat next to me on the park bench, immensely pissed. His hands were cuffed behind his back, wrists facing outward.

  “Fuckin’ racist cops,” he muttered.

  “Why?”

  “They didn’t cuff you.”

  “I didn’t shoot anybody,” I reminded him.

  A moment later he asked, “You OK?”

  “Hell, no, I’m not OK,” I answered him loudly. He gestured with his head at the bloodstain on my thigh. “Oh,” I said, gently rubbing my leg. The stain covered an area the size of a softball. My jeans were torn in several places within the circle, the largest rip about three-quarters of an inch. “I think I have some glass in there. Hurts like a sonuvabitch.”

  “Can we have some medical attention over here?” Freddie shouted.

  An officer standing about ten yards behind us, watching us, his hands behind his back, shrugged and went right on watching. Freddie cursed him.

  I tore my jeans another inch and with thumb and forefinger pulled a quarter-inch shard from my thigh, examining it carefully like I expected to see the manufacturer’s name stamped on it, then flicked it away.

  “Tell me something,” I asked Freddie.

  “Huh?”

  “Why’d you do it?”

  Freddie didn’t hesitate. He answered like he was waiting for the question. “Man was lookin’ to send you to the promised land.”

  “No. I mean, why were you watching my back? You said you didn’t want the job.”

  “Yeah, well, I had a change of heart.”

  “Why?” I asked again.

  “Why not?”

  “Fuck, Freddie …”

  “Shit, Taylor …”

  ANNE SCALASI WAS angry. By the time she arrived, the medical examiner had already examined the body and was telling the wagon boys to load it up. Forensics had taken their photographs, the scene had been searched for physical evidence, and the homicide detectives were nearly finished taking statements from the brown baggers. Annie hated to be late for a killing.

  She was speaking with McGaney and Casper, a salt-and-pepper team from Homicide, who had directed the investigation until she arrived. She asked brief questions, they provided long answers. McGaney held up a plastic bag containing Freddie’s Colt Commander and another containing the shooter’s cannon. He gestured toward us. Anne went ballistic.

  “Separate the goddamn suspects!” she shouted. “It’s SOP, dammit!” She was striding quickly across the park to where we sat.

  “Hi, Annie,” I said.

  “Hi, Annie,” Freddie repeated.

  Anne took Freddie by the lapels of his jacket and literally pulled his massive frame off the bench, up to her. She leaned in close. Her eyes were cold; her words were like icy fingers wrapped around your heart.

  “In polite society, it is considered inappropriate to use an individual’s first name unless you’ve been properly introduced.”

  She released his jacket, and Freddie fell back onto the bench.

  “Anne, this is Sidney Fredricks,” I said. “Freddie, this is Lieutenant Anne Scalasi, chief of Homicide, St. Paul Police Department.”

  “Pleased to meet you,” Freddie said.

  “Get this asshole outta here,” Anne shouted to Casper and McGaney behind her back. They hustled him out fast.

  Anne sat next to me. She sighed deeply. “I’m in a bad mood,” she said.

  “Not something I did, I hope.”

  The look in Anne’s eyes—man, I wasn’t going to wait for questions before supplying answers. “Yesterday, Freddie learned that a contract had been put out on my life. He doesn’t know who or why. I hired him to watch my back. This morning an attorney named Monica Adler invited me to lunch at the St. Paul Grill. When I arrived—” I aimed my chin at the wagon that was just pulling away—“this guy started shooting at me. Freddie killed him.”

  “That’s real good, Taylor,” Anne said. “Now, what aren’t you telling me?”

  I shrugged. The soul of innocence.

  “Martin!” Anne shouted. McGaney hurried over. “Check the St. Paul Grill. See if reservations were made for a woman named Monica Adler. If she’s there, bring her out.”

  McGaney took off.

  “Casper!” Anne shouted again.

  “Yes, Loo?” he answered after hustling over.

  “What did the suspect say?”

  Casper read from his notebook. “Yesterday, he heard that a contract had been put out on Taylor’s life. He doesn’t know who or why. Taylor hired him to watch his back. This morning an attorney named Monica Adler invited Taylor to lunch at the St. Paul Grill. When Taylor arrived, the assailant started shooting at him. The suspect killed the assailant.”

  Anne closed her eyes, leaned back, and rested her head on the bench. “You guys have to separate the suspects before questioning,” she said quietly.

  “Sorry,” Casper told her. Then he added, “Shooter’s name was Tom Storey. ID says he’s from Chicago. We ran him through NCIC. Mary Jane says the printout is taller than he was.”

  “What are the highlights?” Anne asked.

  Again, Casper consulted his notebook. “He was on the FBI’s detainer list—two capital murders, one in Detroit, one in Washington, D.C.”

  “A capital in the capital,” I said.

  Anne looked at me and shook her head.

  “Had to be said,” I told her.

  “What are you working on?” Anne ask
ed.

  “Nothing,” I answered.

  “Try again,” Anne urged me.

  “I’m not working,” I told her.

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “I don’t care.”

  Anne leaned in close. Her words came like an Arctic blast. “You will,” she said.

  “I’M AN ATTORNEY,” Monica Adler announced when she was brought before Anne Scalasi.

  “So?” Anne asked.

  Monica didn’t have anything to say to that.

  “Did you invite Mr. Taylor to lunch at the St. Paul Grill?”

  Monica hesitated, then answered, “Yes.”

  “Did you specify the time?”

  “Noon,” Monica answered carefully.

  “For what purpose?”

  “A legal matter, involving one of my clients.”

  “Your client’s name?”

  “I’m not at liberty to say,” Monica insisted.

  “Sure you are,” Anne told her.

  Monica did not reply.

  “Did your client know about your lunch date with Taylor?”

  Monica remained quiet.

  “Did he know what time you were meeting Taylor?”

  Monica looked away.

  “All right,” Anne said, rising to her feet. “You, you, and you,” she said, pointing to Freddie, Monica, and me. “Downtown.”

  “We are downtown,” I reminded her.

  She stared me in the eye while adding, “Separate vehicles, separate interrogation rooms.”

  I RODE WITH Anne. She was in the front passenger seat. A uniform was driving. I was in the rear, my hands cuffed together behind my back.

  “How are the kids?” I asked, referring to her two daughters and son.

  “Kids are good,” she said. “My son wants to know when you’re going to take him to another basketball game.”

  “First chance I get,” I replied.

  Anne had been married to a St. Paul patrolman who rolled with the Midway Team. They divorced a few months back, and he hadn’t spent much time with his kids since. I don’t think it was because he didn’t like his kids; I think he was bitter. He was a five-year veteran when he married Anne. She was a schoolteacher. Fourteen years later, she was a lieutenant, chief of Homicide, and the highest ranking female officer in the State of Minnesota. And he was still a patrolman.