From the Grave--A McKenzie Novel

by David Housewright

  “Where’s your boyfriend now? I thought he was your designated protector.”

  “Kyle is not my boyfriend or my protector. He’s more like”—Kayla tilted her head back and glanced at the ceiling—“I don’t know what he is.” After a moment, she brought her head forward and looked at me again. “Like I said, there’s so much I need to learn.”

  “Don’t worry about it.”

  “But I do.”

  “Listen.” This time I reached across the table and rested a hand on Kayla’s hand. “You do need to learn discretion. Give every man thy ear, but few thy voice…”

  “Polonius to Laertes in Hamlet.”

  “But you’re going to be fine, Kayla. You’re on the side of the angels.”

  “Thank you, McKenzie. Wait. Does that mean the angels are also on my side?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Yes, it does.”

  “I hope they’re with me during my test tomorrow morning.”

  I thought that would have been a good time for me to thank her again and depart, only Kayla wouldn’t think of it. Instead, she took hold of my arm and told me to finish my coffee. The folk singer had returned to the stage and was channeling Bob Dylan—of course she was—and doing a very nice job of it, I had to admit, giving “The Times They Are a-Changin’” an anarchistic tone. Next she slid into a nice rendition of Paul Simon’s “American Tune,” and I decided that I was way too hard on folk singers.

  While I listened, Kayla leaned in close to me and whispered.

  “There’s a woman with long white hair standing on the stage,” she said. “She’s singing along.”

  “What woman?” I asked. “I don’t see a woman.”

  Kayla looked at me and grinned.

  “Oh,” I said.

  * * *

  Apparently Kayla wasn’t the only one who had a lot to learn, because I was taken completely by surprise when the kid rose up in front of me with a gun in his hand.

  What happened, I had left the Dunn Brothers and walked east on Grand Avenue until I came to the lot where I had parked my Mustang. It was way in the back, the only empty slot I could find when I arrived. I aimed my key fob at it as I approached. In quick succession the lights flashed, the locks clicked open, and I heard a voice say, “Don’t move.”

  Only, I did move, turning toward the voice, and found Jackson Cane pointing a semiautomatic handgun at me.

  “Don’t move,” he repeated.

  Yet again I ignored him, this time by cautiously raising my hands to shoulder height.

  Jackson eased closer to me.

  I waited.

  “You’re going to help me.” Jackson’s words came out as puffs of white vapor that drifted away into the night. There was the noise of traffic, but I heard no other voices.

  “Okay,” I said.

  He moved closer.

  “I mean it,” Jackson said.

  “So do I.”

  And closer still.

  He raised the gun so that the barrel was pointed at my forehead.

  “Don’t mess with me, McKenzie.”

  I knocked the gun up and away with my left hand, even as I shifted my head out of the line of fire. I closed my hand on his wrist, keeping the handgun pointed upward, slammed my knee into Jackson’s groin, and hit him just as hard as I could with a palm heel under his jaw.

  He fell.

  As he fell, I twisted the gun out of his grasp.

  I ended up standing above Jackson as he writhed across the dark asphalt, holding his groin with both hands.

  Take that, Dave Gracie, my inner voice shouted.

  I glanced around to see if anyone had filmed the encounter with their smartphones or, worse, called the cops. I saw no one, heard no sirens.

  I bounced the gun in my hands, a nine-millimeter Smith and Wesson, a member of its M&P series, very popular because of its ergonomics, reliability, and soft recoil.

  “Nice piece.” I shoved the gun into the pocket of my heavy leather jacket after making sure the safety was on. “I gotta tell you, though, Jacks, that was pretty sloppy for a kid who grew up in Ventura Village.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “I met your mother this morning. She told me that she was so proud of you that sometimes it made her want to cry. I wonder what she’d think if she could see you now.”

  “Fuck my mother.”

  I nudged him probably a little harder than I should have with the toe of my shoe.

  “Don’t you dare talk about her like that. What’s the matter with you?”

  He didn’t say.

  I reached down, grabbed him by his shoulders, and helped him to his feet. I half pushed, half carried him between my car and the one parked next to it and leaned him against the hood.

  “You want to explain yourself, or what?” I asked.

  Jackson was still breathing hard; the white puffs reminded me of the engine of a train.

  “My mother lied to me,” he said.

  “About what?”

  “About my father.”

  “Do I really need to know this?”

  “She said it was a boyfriend who ran out on us after she became pregnant. But it was really Leland Hayes.”

  I have to admit, that was a bigger surprise than the gun, and for a few moments I didn’t move; I didn’t even breathe.

  “What makes you say that?” I asked.

  He didn’t answer, just stayed bent over, his hands resting on his thighs, staring at the ground.

  “Jackson,” I said. “What makes you say that?”

  “I grew up hearing Leland’s name. Not from Toy, never from Toy…”

  He calls his mother by her nickname?

  “The neighbors, though. I heard what an asshole he was, what a racist, how he was supposed to be haunting the house next door. I didn’t pay any attention. Why would I? Fuck ’im. But then I heard from Kayla about how Leland was supposed to be threatening some asshole from the grave, no offense.”

  “Why would I be offended?”

  “So I looked him up. I found photos of him online because of the robbery—and I knew. The second I saw his photo I knew. Don’t you think I look like him?”

  “No.”

  “Look past my skin tone, I’m lighter than my mom. Look past the hair. My eyes. My mouth. My chin. I look like Leland Hayes.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “I know, McKenzie. I fucking know.”

  “Did you ask your mother about this?”

  “Why? So she can lie to me some more?”

  “Do you honestly believe that your mother had sex with Leland Hayes? Because I’ve known her for all of five minutes and I don’t believe it, not a word.”

  “I didn’t say it was consensual.”

  “You think she was raped and she didn’t tell anyone?”

  “Who would she tell? McKenzie, I was born almost exactly eight months after Leland was killed.”

  “Jackson, you need to talk to your mother about this.”

  He shook his head.

  “Is this why you think the money he stole belongs to you? Do you think it’s your goddamn inheritance?”

  He shook his head some more.

  “You pointed a gun at me, you little prick.”

  He glared at me with an expression that suggested he didn’t like the word. I shoved him hard enough that he nearly fell down again.

  “You talk shit about your mother and now you feel insulted?” I shoved him again. “You pointed a gun at me. Why?”

  “I can’t find Ryan on the internet,” Jackson said.

  “He hasn’t been out of prison long enough to leave a footprint.”

  “You know where he is.”

  “Do you expect me to lead you to him? Why? So you two can have a family reunion? He’s your half brother if what you’re telling me is true.”

  Jackson didn’t have anything to say to that.

  “God, kid,” I said. “You need to talk to your mother.”

  “Will you help me?”

 
; “Do you need a lift to her place? Is that what we’re talking about?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Go home, Jackson.”

  “Give me back my gun.”

  “No.”

  “It’s mine.”

  “Tell you what—I’ll give it to Toy. You can get it from her.”

  “What are you going to tell her?”

  “I’m sure she’ll ask how I got your gun. If she does, I’ll tell her the truth.”

  “Don’t do that. Don’t you do that.”

  “If you want to talk to her first, I’ll be happy to give you a head start. Now get out of here.”

  Jackson wandered into the center of the parking lot and made for the exit. Halfway there he paused as if he wanted to come back and plead his case some more, then thought better of it and kept walking. As he left the lot, my cell phone started playing “West End Blues.”

  I read the caller ID—Ryan Hayes.

  Why not? my inner voice asked.

  TWENTY-FOUR

  The big-box store where Ryan Hayes worked was all but deserted when I arrived. He had lingered at the entrance while his fellow employees filed out, telling them that he was waiting for a ride. “What’s her name?” some of them asked, and Ryan would look embarrassed like a teenager might; only he wasn’t embarrassed. He was frightened.

  “McKenzie, I need this job,” he had told me over the phone.

  He also said that a trio of older men had appeared at the customer service desk an hour earlier and asked for him. Thinking that they were just that—customers looking for service—the clerk directed them to the milling department. Only instead of going there, they asked when Ryan would be getting off. She told them what time the store closed, and the men left. She mentioned all this to Ryan when she saw him later. He contacted me, using the number on the card I had given him.

  “I didn’t know who else to call,” he said. “The only friends I have are the people I work with, but if I keep bringing trouble into the store…”

  I holstered the SIG Sauer to my hip—I had removed it when I went to see Bobby and Kayla—and drove to meet him.

  The lights near the entrance were as bright as they had been when the store was open. Ryan stood beneath them while he waited for me, wearing a heavy coat, gloves, and a hat yet still rocking against the cold. He was clearly visible from a distance, which I thought was a good thing. I didn’t want the boys to become confused.

  I pulled to a stop in front of the door. Ryan hesitated. I powered down the passenger window of the Mustang and called to him.

  “Get in,” I said.

  He hesitated some more but eventually opened the door, and slid inside.

  “This is a really nice car,” he said.

  “Thank you.” I gestured at the half-dozen other vehicles still in the parking lot. “Are any of these yours?”

  “No, I take the bus.”

  I put the car in gear and drove slowly toward the exit. One of the parked cars was started and began following behind us; it didn’t turn on its headlights until it reached the street.

  “What are we going to do?” Ryan asked.

  “I thought we’d let them follow us around for a bit and then ask them what they want.”

  “You know who they are, right?”

  “Like I told you over the phone, if I had to guess, I’d say it was Stuart Moore, Fred Herrman, and Ted Poyer.”

  “My father’s friends.”

  “In a manner of speaking.”

  “How do you know them?”

  “We had a lengthy conversation this afternoon.”

  “About what?”

  “The money.”

  “That’s why they want to mess with me, too, isn’t it? The money.”

  “If they had just wanted to say hello, they would have walked right up to you and said hello.”

  “Bastards are as rotten as my old man.”

  “I got that impression, although…” I told him what Poyer had told me at Everson’s Cozy Corner.

  Ryan thought about it and said, “I don’t believe him.”

  “It’s possible that they don’t mean you any harm whatsoever,” I said.

  “What do you think?”

  “Better to be safe than sorry. Are you hungry? I know where we can get some great tacos.”

  Ryan stared at me as if he were trying to see inside my head.

  “I could eat,” he said.

  “My treat,” I told him.

  * * *

  When Ryan went to prison, Minnesota had about half a dozen breweries and no brewpubs; I’m not even sure they had been invented yet. Now there were more than one hundred and seventy, and while they were all happy to pour you a glass or a growler of craft beer in their taprooms, only a handful actually had kitchens. The rest made do by teaming up with an astonishing array of food trucks that served everything from soup to lutefisk in their parking lots or from the curbs outside their front doors. Some of them were so popular that customers tracked their movements on their smartphones. One of my favorites was called Street Legal Tacos.

  The way I explained it to Ryan, when most people think tacos they envision crunchy hard corn shells or fluffy flour tortillas loaded with beans, cheese, veggies, and ground beef. Street Legal stuffed their smaller tortillas with breaded and fried tilapia or slow-cooked pork or grilled chicken or chopped sirloin and very little else. I ordered one of each plus a side of Mexican slaw. Ryan didn’t have a preference, so he ordered what I ordered.

  He took a bite and said, “This is incredible.”

  “Right?” I said.

  Street Legal was parked in the lot next to a brewpub that had taken over an aging factory inside an industrial park located along the northern border of Minneapolis and St. Paul; I had no idea which city we were in. Because of the fourteen-degree temperature, most of the truck’s customers carried their food into the pub. Ryan and I were the only people sitting at one of the picnic tables arranged outside. That way I could carefully watch the car that had followed us there while pretending not to. It wasn’t difficult. The industrial park was virtually empty at that time of night; nearly all of the traffic was centered on the brewpub.

  The car was parked near the entrance to the parking lot a long way from the front door of the pub. The occupants remained inside while Ryan and I ate, their car running, its exhaust snatched away by the wind. They waited and waited and waited some more, and I began to wonder what they were waiting for. Did they think that once we were finished eating, Ryan and I would grab a couple of shovels and start digging?

  Customers came and went, cars entered and left the parking lot, and still they waited. I sent Ryan inside the brewpub. Five minutes later, he returned with a couple of glasses of beer, which was illegal. The alcohol was supposed to be kept inside. No one said anything, though, so we sat at the table sipping our beverages. Ryan said the beer tasted better than the ones he had when the BOP first kicked him loose, yet he still wasn’t sure if he liked it. I told him my girlfriend wasn’t a beer drinker either, that she preferred European ciders. Ryan said he thought he might give one a try sometime.

  After a few minutes, the doors of the parked car opened and three men slipped out. I couldn’t recognize them from that distance in the dark, but as they approached I realized that I had guessed right—Moore, Herrman, and Poyer. They approached in a semicircle as if they knew what they were doing.

  A fourth man emerged from a car parked several spaces to the left of where the boys had parked. He came up from behind them. My first thought was that he was a brewpub patron. I changed my mind when I noticed that he kept pace with the boys, neither losing nor gaining ground on them.

  “Anything happens, I want you to make a run for the brewpub,” I said. “Call for help.”

  “Why?” Ryan asked. “Don’t you think I can take care of myself?”

  “You just got out of the joint. Do you really want to deal with the cops?”

  Ryan watched me watching the three me
n approaching us. I kept thinking of him as being much younger than he was. Probably that was a mistake.

  “What are you going to do?” he asked.

  “Whatever is necessary,” I said. “Don’t worry about it. I got this.”

  Since when? my inner voice wanted to know.

  Moore, Herrman, and Poyer halted well beyond striking distance yet close enough so that we could talk without shouting, the picnic table between us.

  The fourth man halted twenty yards behind them, lingering in the shadows.

  “Hey, guys,” I said. “What’s going on?”

  “We want to talk to Ryan,” Stuart said.

  “Go ’head.”

  “In private.”

  “Ryan, do you want to talk to these guys in private?”

  “No,” Ryan said.

  “Don’t be like that,” Stuart said. “It’s been a long time since we’ve seen each other.”

  “You say that like we’re friends,” Ryan said. “When were we ever friends?”

  “We watched you grow up.”

  “You watched my old man abuse me every day of my life and did nothing about it except sometimes you laughed.”

  “Listen, kid—”

  Ryan stood slowly.

  “Who the fuck are you calling kid, you shriveled up old bitch?” he asked.

  Herrman raised his hands like a man saying no to a second helping of pie. He did it so abruptly that my right hand sought the butt of the SIG Sauer. I released the gun when I was convinced that he meant nothing by it. Poyer saw me do it, though, and took a step backward.

  “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry, Ryan, for what happened to you. We should have looked out for you a little bit, and we didn’t. We should have come forward when you were arrested to tell the court what Leland was all about, and we didn’t. We’re sorry.”

  “Yeah, we’re sorry,” Stuart said, although I didn’t believe him.

  “I’m sorry,” Poyer said. “We didn’t come here to dredge up bad memories.”

  “Why did you come looking for me?” Ryan asked.

  “Cuz of the money, why else?” Stuart said.

  “If I knew where it was, do you think I’d share it with you?”