Twin Cities Noir

by Julie Schaper

  Then the trouble started. I initiated some routine cross-checking between his various accounts, and the numbers I produced were wildly divergent from the ones we had been supplying to the government. In addition, large sums of money were vanishing from Vincent’s business funds into his personal accounts. A good deal of his income was disappearing without being reported.

  Now, Vincent wasn’t the first tax cheat in the history of the world, nor was he the originator of stealing from his own business. Yet both were crimes, and by their discovery I was implicated. I had never been a party to this sort of thing, nor did I plan to. I agonized for a couple of days, dodging Vincent’s calls, until I hit upon what seemed the right course of action. I would not report him to the authorities, but I would no longer be his accountant. I called him at home to give him the news but immediately lost my nerve. Instead I asked him to meet me after working hours the next day at a bar downtown.

  “What’s the matter?” Vincent asked. “You don’t sound right.”

  “I’m fine,” I told him. “Just…a headache.”

  “Well, get some rest, kid,” he said. “It’s a good thing we’re getting together tomorrow. I have something I want to talk to you about, and I’d prefer we didn’t do it at your office.”

  I had suggested meeting at the Irish pub around the corner from WCCO because it was familiar to me. It was the kind of place where businesspeople had lunch, or stopped by for a drink before resuming their masquerade as loving family men. As soon as I stepped in, I instantly regretted the choice. People knew me there, or at least they used to. I hadn’t gotten out much since I no longer had my wife to avoid, but the thought occurred to me that someone might see me with Vincent and associate me with some future crime he might commit.

  But I was getting ahead of myself, wasn’t I? I mean, he was a financial crook, but I had no reason to believe he was anything more nefarious. Money, after all, was just an aggregate of abstract sums to be played with and manipulated on computer screens and ledger sheets. It couldn’t hurt, or kill.

  He was different from the moment he sat down. He was wearing a suit, for one thing, a nice one, and he leveled me with a stare that immediately indicated his day had been far more arduous and treacherous than mine. He ordered two vodka tonics—one for each of us, it turned out—and sat a black leather briefcase on the table between us.

  “Hard day?” I asked when the drinks came.

  Instead of replying, Vincent lit up a cigarette. He blew out a big cloud of smoke and stared at me through it.

  “You wanted to talk,” he said.

  “Yes.” I paused. “Look, I’m sorry. I really am. It’s just that you have to understand…I’ve come across certain discrepancies, certain things in your finances that make me very…”

  “Uncomfortable?” he suggested sympathetically.

  “Yes!” I said with relief. “Look, I have no intention of causing you any trouble. I’ve enjoyed working with you—”

  He slid his chair closer to mine. “I hate to see you worried like this,” he told me. “You’re too serious.”

  “Well, that may be, but—”

  “You don’t want to be my accountant anymore.”

  And I experienced a tremendous, almost painful sense of regret. Sam, who understood me so well, had intuited the reason for our meeting. It was almost enough to make me take it all back, to go on as though nothing had happened.

  “Okay,” he said with a little smile. “That’s fine. I don’t want you to be uncomfortable.”

  “I’m really glad. I—”

  “Forget it,” he said, raising a hand to silence me. “Look, I want to tell you something. Come over here.”

  I obliged, moving my drink closer to his. I didn’t even mind the cigarette smoke in my face.

  “Look over there,” he said. “Be discreet. But get a good look.”

  I glanced over to a table in the corner, where a man a few years younger than me was engrossed in conversation with a younger woman. They were both smiling, seemingly at ease in a fashion that admittedly filled me with a poison sting of jealousy. I looked back at Vincent, and took a long slug of my drink, then another.

  “You think they’re married?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I told him.

  “Believe me, they’re not.” Vincent smiled. “Not to each other, at least. You know what they’re doing?”

  I polished off my drink. Vincent seemed to approve. “What are they doing?” I asked.

  “They’re walking the line,” he said. “A drink after work, they get home a little late. ‘Honey, I got a call just as I was about to leave. Sorry about that.’ Dinner, put the kids to bed, watch some TV, everything is fine. They walked the line, and they got away with it.”

  I was having a little trouble following what Vincent was saying. Another round of drinks had miraculously appeared. Though I usually stop at one, my mouth was dry, and soon I was nearly done with my second.

  “…matter of degrees,” Vincent was saying. I felt hot, and a little nauseous. I undid my top button and loosened my tie.

  “Go back,” I said, surprised by how much my voice was slurring.

  “All I’m saying is that we all have our little transgressions,” Vincent added, nodding with self-satisfaction. “Big ones, little ones. Who cares? All that matters is getting away with it.”

  “But what about—” I started, in a voice not quite my own.

  “You all right?” he asked me.

  “I’m fine.” But, in fact, that wasn’t true. When I moved my head, it felt as though the contents of a swimming pool were sloshing around inside. I blinked, and saw that the lights of the bar had begun to undulate, fragment, and generally indulge in an orgy of visual insubordination.

  “You don’t look fine,” Vincent said. “Maybe we better get out of here.”

  He helped me to my feet. I hadn’t realized that I needed to be helped, but there it was. I teetered, wiped the sweat from my forehead, and nearly fell over. Through the fish-eye vantage of double vision I could detect that I was beginning to make a scene.

  “No worries,” Vincent said to out waitress, who had arrived with the bill and a look of concern that shifted to impatience when I nearly fell into her. “My friend here seems to have come down with something. I’m going to get him home.”

  We were in a car, Vincent’s car. He was laughing and talking about one of his girlfriends. Rain seemed to be coming down on us, streaking and pooling on the window by my face, but I couldn’t be sure. The town passed by, completely unfamiliar to me. I could have been in Kansas City; I could have been in Rome. I could barely see.

  “You enjoying that little pill I slipped you?” Vincent asked me when we were stopped at a red light. “Boy, you made quite an impression back there. Don’t think they’ll be serving you drinks anytime soon.”

  For some reason this struck him as inordinately funny, and his laughter echoed in my ears as we drove on. I had the impression that we were someplace in the warehouse district when we stopped on a deserted side street. Sam came around, opened my car door, and helped me to my feet on the (wet?) pavement.

  “You slipped me something at the bar,” I managed to grunt.

  “Smart boy,” he said, one arm around me, half-carrying me to the doorway of a building.

  “Don’t want to,” I slurred.

  “Come on now,” Sam insisted. “Be a good boy.”

  There were some stairs, fluorescent lights. No people. I could have done with some people.

  I found myself on a sofa in a spare little office, with the lights of downtown sparkling like Christmas trees through the horizontal gaps in the blinds. I slouched back, my clothes soaked through with sweat, while Vincent was doing something at a near-empty desk.

  The phone. He was talking on the phone. He pushed a pretentious pen set to one side as he opened the briefcase, still engaged in conversation, nodding, not smiling.

  I entertained myself for a moment or two by trying to re
member when last I had felt so out of control. I hadn’t been much of a drinker in college, or anytime after. Maybe during one of the lengthy arguments Barbara and I had before our split, those eternal jousting matches that I always lost simply because Barbara would declare me the loser. I sat up a little straighter, my adrenaline burst of irritation serving to focus my senses at least a little.

  Vincent hung up the phone. “Hey, look,” he said.

  He tilted the briefcase so I could see it. It was full of cash, neatly bundled.

  “Forty grand,” he said, giving me a lizard smile. “Big payout on that shopping complex I was telling you about. I wonder how much of it the I.R.S. is going to take when I declare it.”

  He froze, staring at me, waiting for my reaction. Then he burst out laughing.

  “Problem is, I need to find a way to launder it squeaky clean. You know anything about that?”

  I shook my head.

  “I didn’t think so.” Vincent ran his fingers over the cash. “Too bad. I really liked working with you. I didn’t think you were going to get cold feet on me.”

  I stood up and, with some measure of surprise, realized that I wasn’t going to fall flat on my face. Vincent looked surprised too.

  “Hey, pretty good,” he said. He unbuttoned his suit and shoved his hands in his pockets. “I gave you enough to whack out a gorilla.”

  “Let me see,” I said, or sort of said.

  “See what?” Vincent asked.

  “Money.”

  Vincent smiled. “Sure, kid, come on over.”

  I took a couple of unsteady steps. “Need help,” I mumbled.

  “Aw, Christ,” Vincent exhaled. “Sure, why not? You know, there’s someone coming over who I want you to meet.”

  “Someone?”

  “Yeah, sure. Someone who’s going to clear all this up for us.”

  Vincent helped me across the thin carpeting toward the desk. My legs were heavy, and I heard him grunt with effort and finally place my hands on the edge of the desk.

  “Like what you see?” he asked.

  I stared at the money. It was in hundreds.

  “All for you?” I rasped.

  Vincent laughed again. “Know anyone else who needs some?”

  I took a pen from the set next to the briefcase, turned, and, using all the strength I could muster, plunged it deep into the big artery rising from the right side of Vincent’s neck. It was, frankly, amazing how deep it went.

  His eyes opened with shock, a moment of rage, then something that I took to be a quick nod of respect, before Vincent fell to the floor and began the process of bleeding to death.

  I wasn’t particularly steady on my feet, but by holding the railing I was able to methodically get myself down to the lobby. I passed a man at the door who nodded when I held it open for him.

  Outside I tucked the briefcase under my arm and made my way for the bright lights of downtown. Because, after all, business actually hadn’t been going very well for me, and it was undeniable that it was time for a change. My friend Sam Vincent had just made one possible.

  HI, I’M GOD

  BY STEVE THAYER

  Duluth (Up North)

  The Tempest

  All day long a Canadian cold front had been sweeping south along the lake, bringing with it the first real storm of the winter season. By the time the sun went down the temperature was dropping at a rate of one degree a minute. Snow flurries raced by sideways. Droplets of lake water shot by like bullets. Waves thirty feet high crashed ashore, driven by winds up to fifty miles per hour. These ungodly crests hit the Duluth Ship Canal with a force so potent, so ferocious, that the earth shook beneath the concrete.

  The three high school boys standing at the foot of the canal that hellish night had no way of knowing the November gale was about to become another enchanting piece of North Shore lore, a haunting story that would be embellished and embossed and then served over beers at waterfront bars for years to come. The boys themselves had polished off a six-pack on their way down to the ship canal. Sensing the storm, they had come to the lake to play the game. But now, facing waves as tall as buildings, they were a lot less enthusiastic than when they had started down the steep hill.

  “Have you ever seen them like this?”

  “Never. My dad said in the old days they got this big, but I never believed him.”

  “That is one angry lake.”

  “You guys talk like it’s some kind of avenging spirit.”

  “It is.”

  “Bullshit…it’s just friggin’ water.”

  It was Pudge Abercrombie who muttered the bold remark. Pudge topped out at 5'7" in a pair of football spikes, and his weight often rolled past 170 pounds. He was a dark-haired, curly-haired, relatively handsome kid with something of a bulldog visage, which at an early age had earned him the nickname Pudge. And though he may have appeared short and pudgy, he was a good athlete. One of those bowling-ball type of runners. Built low to the ground. Hard to tackle, with good speed. Whether on a football field or a hockey rink, his stubby little legs had carried him fast and far. On the stormy night at the end of football season, those angry little legs of his had led him and his pals Jack Start and Tommy Robek down to the waterfront.

  Along the canal where the giant ore ships came in, there was a long, wide walkway that speared its way into Lake Superior. The walkway was about the length of a football field. It ended at a lighthouse. On sunny summer days, crowds of people would line this walkway to watch the ocean-going vessels sail beneath the famous Aerial Lift Bridge and into Duluth Harbor. But at nighttime, the ship canal was a no-man’s land. Shabby and neglected. Poor lighting. Once in a while, the Harbor Patrol would cruise Canal Park looking for prostitutes and drunken sailors, but for the most part the area was forgotten about until the sun came up.

  The game the boys had come to play was as stupid as it was daring, and more than once in Duluth’s long history the dares had proven deadly. The object of the game was simple: Sprint out the long walkway after a retreating wave, leap up the wide steps, tag the lighthouse, and then race back to shore before the next monster wave could wash over you. The concrete was wet, so the footing was treacherous. Debris washed over the walk. The strong northerly wind was right in your face. Worst of all, year round Lake Superior had only one temperature. Freezing. Paralysis could occur in seconds. Hypothermia took only minutes. If you timed it right, and you could run really fast, you could get back to the safety of the lift bridge without ever getting wet. But if your luck ran out—

  These storms with the killer waves were at their deadliest in the early weeks of November. “My dad said, never challenge the lake.”

  Pudge Abercrombie smiled at his lifelong friend, the revolving beam from the lighthouse sweeping over his snow-soaked face. “But that’s what makes the game so much fun, Jack. There is the real chance we could be killed.”

  Jack Start shook his head. “How many beers did you have?”

  “Just two.”

  “Was she worth two?”

  “You tell me.”

  Standing and shivering alongside Pudge Abercrombie and Jack Start that fateful night was Tommy Robek. Where Pudge and Jack had been the halfback and the quarterback, respectively, Tommy Robek didn’t play sports. He was just the skinny kid from the neighborhood. The three boys had run together all their lives.

  A malicious grin broke over Pudge’s round red face. “Let’s all go together. I mean, same time. One big wave.”

  Jack Start glanced out at a lake gone crazy. Glanced over at his friend. He shrugged his wide, athletic shoulders and smiled. Then he looked into the storm and quoted a line from one of their favorite movies, Little Big Man. “It is a good day to die.”

  They waited for a real live one, gambling that the wave that followed it, the wave that would be chasing them back to shore, would be the smaller of the two. They didn’t have to wait long. A big black monster came crashing over the lighthouse like an invading army. Tons of freezing wa
ter splashed over the canal walls and raced up the walkway with a speed and rage the boys had never before seen. The angry lake water reached all the way to the tips of their toes. Washed over their ankles. Then suddenly the wave began its fast retreat. The two other boys echoed their quarterback’s sentiments. “It is a good day to die.” And the three boys were off and running.

  They ran after the wave as fast as their young legs would carry them. Out onto the canal they ran. Out into the great lake. They hurled over the storm-strewn debris and struggled to keep their balance on the slippery concrete. They were screaming. They were laughing. They were so filled with adrenalin, youth, and beer, that all of the reasoning in the world could not have stopped them from challenging the lake. They were just seventeen, they were incredibly healthy, and their whole adult lives lay before them. And so what if they got a little wet.

  Pudge Abercrombie reached the lighthouse steps first. Jack Start was right on his tail. The skinny kid brought up the rear. Pudge and Jack slapped the lighthouse wall, turned, and leapt back down the steps. That’s when Jack Start slipped and fell. Pudge put on the brakes, barely keeping his balance. He turned and helped his friend to his feet. Now Tommy Robek tagged the lighthouse, jumped down the steps, and crashed into them. All three of them went rolling through the icy slosh. Their laughter was almost hysterical. They were having a real time of it because they knew it was going to be close. So now they were up and running. Running through the wind-driven sleet and snow. The Aerial Lift Bridge bathed in silver-blue spotlights looked like a giant goalpost, and they were about three-quarters home when the enraged lake caught up with them. It slapped them down onto the concrete and then buried them in freezing water.

  The boys disappeared in an instant. All that could be seen was a ghostly wall of water washing down the canal. The giant ray of light from the lighthouse revealed nothing. Then, almost miraculously, all three boys toppled out of the storm, now separated by yards. They lay flat on their faces as the tail of the wave swept over them. When they lifted their heads, looks of pure fright graced their faces. The monster wave had stopped in mid-stream and now it began its determined return to the sea. The quarterback curled into a ball and steadied himself for the onslaught. Tommy Robek dove for a lamppost. He hugged it with all of his might. Pudge Abercrombie raced for another lamppost across the way, but he didn’t make it. He went toppling down the walkway with the outbound water, somersaulting toward the lighthouse. When the wave was in full retreat, Jack and Tommy staggered down the walkway after him and retrieved their buddy Pudge just before he could be swept into the night. Now the three boys locked arms, the famous flying wedge, and they stumbled along the walkway as fast as their heavily sodden legs would carry them, trying to beat the next oncoming wave. At last, with only seconds to spare, they collapsed on their backs before the lift bridge. They were shivering. Coughing and swearing. Savage lake water swept under their heels.