They were eating when I returned. The talk was small. Spring in Minnesota versus spring in New York. Was Sykora treating Pen’s beloved Matilda with the proper respect and consideration? Songwriters Glass and Heyward were still waiting to hear about some tunes the Indigo Girls had shown interest in.
The phone rang, and again I was forced to reduce the volume on the receiver.
Pen said, “Don’t answer it.”
“I wish,” said Sykora. “Yes?”
A voice said, “Goddammit, you said you were going to take care of McKenzie.”
I leapt for the tape machine and pressed the record button. The spools on the cassette began spinning a half beat later.
“Just a minute.” Sykora muffled the phone. “I need to take this in private.”
“Big surprise,” Pen said. “I’ll be in the bedroom. Let me know when you can trust me enough to come out.”
“Pen—”
There was movement followed by the slamming of a door.
“What did I tell you about calling here?”
“Did you want me to call you at the Federal Building?”
“What do you want, Frank?”
“Fuckin’ McKenzie. He found my boys.”
“The boys you sent to harass my wife? Those boys?”
“I told you I didn’t have nothing to do with that.”
“Yeah, and you had nothing to do with raping that woman, either.”
“You know what happened. I sent ‘em over there to scare ’er, to slap ’er around a bit, get ’er old man off my case. They just got excited.”
“Did they get excited when you killed the old man, too?”
“How many times I gotta say it? I didn’t do the fuckin’ darky. He was gone when I got there.”
“Yeah, right.”
“If I’m lyin’, I’m dyin’.”
“Fuck you, Frank.”
“Watch your mouth.”
“How many times I need to say it? This isn’t goddamn Brooklyn. This isn’t Jersey. This is Minnesota. There’s no culture of violence here. You can’t hurt innocent people and expect everyone to forget about it in a few days, or when the next act of violence occurs. The cops just arrested a guy for killing a coworker eleven years ago who accused him of sexual harassment. Eleven years, Frank. Eleven years they kept after this guy. I tried to explain that to you when you broke the prostitute’s hand.”
“I made some mistakes, okay? I was wrong. When I’m wrong I say I’m wrong, okay? But that don’t address the problem with my boys.”
“You’re not supposed to have boys, Frank. You’re supposed to sit quietly in your house, not go running off to some goddamn roadhouse and recruit talent like you were a capo running a crew back home.”
“That ain’t the point, Fed. The point is McKenzie found ’em in that motel you stuck ’em in.”
“How?”
“How the fuck should I know how. He found ’em, that’s all.”
“I told you he was smart.”
“You told me you was gonna take care of him. Well, he ain’t taken care of.”
“Look, I issued a Seeking Information Alert on him. We’re watching his house, we’re watching his friends—”
“That ain’t good enough. You gotta put his face on milk cartons or somethin’. Put ’im on the news.”
“To do that I’d have to give my boss a better explanation for why we’re looking for him. You want to do that? ‘Well, sir, we lied before. The real reason we’re looking for McKenzie is because we killed his pal and raped his lawyer’s wife and now he wants revenge.’”
“We didn’t kill—ahh, fuck it. Look. We had a deal, okay? Protection for information.”
“That’s right. When are you going to keep your end of it?”
“I told you, the shipment will be here in a few days.”
“Where, Frank?”
“I told ya where.”
“When, Frank?”
“When you gonna take care of McKenzie?”
“Soon.”
“That’s when the shipment is comin’ in. Soon.”
“Don’t screw with me, Frank.”
“Yeah, whaddaya gonna do, Fed? You gonna call your boss? You gonna tell ’im what you been doin’?”
“No, Frank. I’m gonna call your boss.”
There was a long pause. Finally Frank said, “I know where you live, Fed.”
“Yeah, and I know where you live. So let’s be smart, huh, Frank? We’ll both get what we want.”
Frank hung up without saying good-bye. Sykora did the same a moment later. I turned off the recorder and removed the cassette. I wanted to make sure nothing happened to it. I wrapped it in a sock and locked it in my suitcase.
The sound of a door opening startled me. I spun to face the entrance to my room, but of course it was closed.
“May I come out now?” Pen asked.
“I’m sorry.”
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.”
“You’re wound so tight lately. Mysterious phone calls …”
“I used the phone for bureau business, what’s mysterious about that?”
“You’ve never done it before. Not like this.”
“Pen, please—”
“Steve, please. Tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s nothing to worry about, Pen. Nothing at all. I’m going to take a shower.”
“Sure.”
At 3:22 A.M. according to the cheap digital clock radio next to the bed, I came suddenly awake. I listened, stared at the outline of the desk, heard nothing, saw nothing. I thought of Pen and Sykora in bed together, lying side by side, and the idea of it angered me.
I closed my eyes and went back to sleep.
8
I woke up with more aches and pains than I had when I went to bed.
“You’re getting so old,” I told my reflection in the mirror. Plus I hadn’t worked out in days. No sports. No martial arts. Nothing. “You used to be an athlete.”
My reflection stared at me like he didn’t believe it.
I heard Sykora tell his wife, “I’ll see you later,” while I shaved.
She said, “You don’t kiss me good-bye anymore?”
There was movement followed by Pen’s voice.
“You can do better than that.”
A few moments later I heard the smacking sound that sometimes follows a long kiss.
“Not bad,” said Pen. “You could use more practice.”
“I know. I’m sorry. I’m sorry about everything, Lucky. But it’ll be all right soon. Soon we’ll be back in New York.”
“We could be just as happy here as we were in the city. I’ve met people. I’ve talked to them. They like Minnesota.”
“It’s not New York.”
“That’s one of the things they like about it.”
“Good for you, Pen,” I said out loud.
A moment later, Sykora was gone. I finished dressing and opened the drapes of my single window. I ate a few sticks of Twizzlers for breakfast and sat on the edge of the unmade bed.
“So what are we going to do today, Pen?”
I heard a long, not altogether unpleasant groan—a woman stretching—followed by a deep sigh.
“I gotta get to work,” Pen said.
Sounds like a plan, my inner voice agreed.
It was a delightful spring morning. There were clouds in the sky, but not enough to worry about, and the air had a pleasant taste to it.
I parked in front of Ruth Schramm’s trailer. It was considerably older than Pen’s and smaller. It was dark brown with tan trim and narrow strips of rust extending from the edge of the V-shaped roof down the metal sides. There was a wooden porch leading to a door that had been built about twenty years ago and painted once.
From the porch I could see Pen’s trailer. She came out the door carrying a worn black notebook in her hand. Her enormous bag hung from a strap on her shoulder. I waved to her, but she didn’t see. I waved more
frantically and received the same response. I thought of calling her name, but before I could the trailer door opened.
“I know you,” Ruth said. “You’re—what’s your name again?”
“Jake Greene.”
“The writer. You’re writing about Hilltop.”
“Yes.”
“I suppose you want to interview me.”
“If it’s not too much of an imposition.”
“Well, come in.”
Ruth held open the door. I stepped through it. The trailer seemed cramped. There were a lot of plants that appeared to be thriving, family photos, and assorted bric-a-brac, including a painting of John Paul II. Most of the furniture was old, and Ruth employed subtle tricks to conceal its shabbiness—a crocheted bedspread covering the sofa, a lace doily on top of a TV tray employed as an end table, a carefully trimmed tablecloth as curtains. I pretended not to notice.
“The place is a mess, but I won’t apologize.” Ruth directed me to a white wicker chair with faded blue cushions. “Sit.”
“Thank you.”
“Would you care for something? Coffee?”
“That would be great.”
Ruth passed from her tiny living room into an even smaller kitchen. “So what do you want to know?” she asked in a rich smoker’s voice, although I noticed there were no ashtrays in the trailer.
“I’ve been told that you were one of the founding citizens of Hilltop.”
Ruth returned to the living room without the coffee. She pressed her fists against her hips and said, “You know what gets me? It gets me that you hear people degrading trailer parks. People making jokes, and not just comedians. Politicians, too. People who do that, they’ve never lived in a trailer park, let me tell you. The people who live here—do you want to know about the people who live here?”
“Please.”
“There’s nothing trashy about them. That’s what most people think, that we’re trash. Trailer trash. They think that mobile homes are cheap, shoddy, and unattractive, and that the people who live in them are the same way.
“A lot of people live here because it’s affordable, I’ll give you that. A two-bedroom single-wide trailer costs about $30,000 and a double-wide maybe $50,000, and lots run $250 to $300. That’s not much compared to the housing market. But the people who live here don’t live here cuz they’re poor white trash. No, sir. Median income isn’t much less here than it is in Columbia Heights. Hilltop is not a ghetto. Are you writing this down?”
I had been holding the notebook unopened against my knee. For appearance’s sake, I started jotting Ruth’s comments.
“Hilltop’s a good place for seniors and it’s a good place for couples starting out. Young couple moved in last week, just married. And why not? Why not live in a trailer while you save for the big spread in the suburbs? Why not live in one after you raise your kids, after you retire? There’s not much maintenance to worry about, that’s for sure.”
“Do you get much turnover?”
“We’re getting younger, young families coming in to replace the seniors that go off to nursing homes.” Ruth spoke like she was afraid she’d be next.
“Have many people been moving in lately?”
“The young couple, I forget their names, but I can find out for you.”
“That’s okay.”
“Before that, let’s see … There were two middle-aged men around forty just a few weeks ago.” It distressed me to hear what Ruth thought was middle-aged. “They moved in together. I think they’re gay.”
“Why do you say that?”
“They’re two middle-aged men in their early forties living together.”
It’s hard to argue with that kind of logic.
“And you never see them. They just sit in their trailer. Once in a while one of ‘em goes for takeout. You try to be friendly and it’s like ‘Don’t talk to my.’”
“Which trailer are they in?”
Ruth gave me an address on 47½ Avenue. “They’re behind me,” she said, “about a dozen trailers down.”
Which placed them about a dozen trailers from Pen. I made a note of it.
“Who else is new?” Ruth said. “A teacher, new teacher at the middle school. There’s Nick Horvath, you met him. Steve Sykora and Penelope Glass. She’s such a sweetheart. Writes songs, I’m told. And he’s with the FBI. Do they sound like trailer trash to you? I don’t think so.”
I agreed with her.
“Let me take you down to city hall.”
“You have a city hall?”
“Of course we have a city hall. Hilltop’s a city, isn’t it?”
I followed Ruth out of her trailer—I never did get my coffee—and down the same lane that Pen and I had taken the day before. Ruth set a brisk pace, and I had to work to stay with her. Along the way, she pointed out a tree.
“We used to have our own police department. We even had a squad car with ‘Hilltop’ painted on the door. Unfortunately, one of our officers drove the car into that tree back in ’72 and the city didn’t have enough money to replace it, so there went the police department. Now we have a contract with Columbia Heights.”
Ruth stopped and pointed a finger at me.
“That’s another thing. We don’t have a high crime rate. That’s a myth. People don’t do nothing here that they don’t do everywhere else.”
Farther along the road, Ruth began pointing out more trees—maples, butternuts, black walnuts, sycamores.
“When I first came here, Hilltop had all these magnificent Dutch elm trees forming this great canopy over us, over the parkways. It was like a fairyland it was so green and shaded. But we caught Dutch elm disease in the ‘70s, and they all had to come down. We planted these trees, trees with large leaves, to make up for them. They’re just now starting to get real size.”
As we admired the trees, Penelope Glass crossed in front of us, strolling along yet another narrow lane. Her head was down as if she were deep in thought. She walked with her hands behind her back clasping the black notebook. Her bag hung from her shoulder and bounced against her thigh with each step.
Ruth called, “Morning, sweetie.”
Pen waved automatically, then saw me and waved with more enthusiasm.
“Good morning,” she called. “Hard at work, I see.”
“No rest for the wicked,” I told her, then instantly regretted it. What a stupid thing to say.
I paused with the hope of continuing the conversation, but both women kept walking in separate directions. As much as I wanted to remain with Pen, I jogged a few steps to catch Ruth.
“You like her,” she said when I reached her side.
“Ms. Glass? Yes. I suppose I do.”
“She has that effect on people. Men especially fall instantly in love with her. It’s because she has this kind of Audrey Hepburn charm. Or aura. I’m not sure what you’d call it. But Pen makes men feel like Humphrey Bogart playing one of those tough, romantic action guys, and they adore her for it. Ever see the movie Sabrina? The original, not the remake with Harrison Ford, although that was pretty good, too.”
“I’ve seen it.”
“Then you know what I’m talking about.”
Remembering how I had felt when I was with Pen the day before, I decided there might be something to Ruth’s theory, but I said, “It was only a movie,” just the same.
Ruth smiled. “If you say so.”
I continued to follow Ruth until we reached a small, squat structure made of decorative brick and ringed with bright orange flowers I couldn’t identify. A blue and gold City of Hilltop flag flew alongside the Stars and Stripes. Written in gold on the red canopy above the door were the words HILLTOP CITY HALL.
“It used to be just an old, beat-up trailer, but look at it now,” Ruth said proudly. “I was mayor of Hilltop, you know. Twice.”
And just like that I realized that Ruth Schramm wasn’t being defensive after all. She was a living, breathing infomercial touting trailer park life, and unlike most i
nfomercial stars, she actually believed in the product she was hawking.
There were a couple of cramped offices and one large room inside the hall. The large room contained several cafeteria style tables arranged in a quarter circle and facing about a dozen metal folding chairs. One table was pushed against the near wall. On it was an assortment of brochures and forms and two fat blue scrapbooks. The scrapbooks contained the entire history of Hilltop in newspaper clippings, vintage photographs, minutes of council meetings, and the recorded proceedings of the now defunct Hilltop Village court. Ruth turned the pages for me one at a time.
A hundred years ago, Hilltop had been a dairy farm. Later it became the Oak Grove Riding Academy and Stables. The first trailer settled there in 1940. There were photographs in the book showing trees and hills, a tiny lake, a skating rink, and a drive-in theater that had once been across the road.
“You know,” Ruth said, “we’ve recorded the name of nearly every person who has ever lived in Hilltop. Do you know any other community that has such a grasp of its own history?
I told her that I didn’t.
“Do you want to see the pool?” she asked.
The pool had been built by Hilltop residents next to the city garage and was surrounded by a high Cyclone fence. It was about forty feet long and twenty-five feet wide, with a depth of three feet at one end and twelve feet at the other. Plastic tables with umbrellas, lounge chairs, and an oversized picnic table were scattered around it. The temperature was only about seventy-two degrees, but three kids were splashing at each other in the shallow end. Two others were attempting to inflate a rubber raft.
Pen sat at one of the tables, her bag resting against the chair leg. She was wearing white capri pants and a slate blue sweater set that was no match for her eyes. She didn’t seem to be in a hurry, didn’t seem to be waiting for anyone. Children played around her and neighbors came and went without her noticing. Her notebook was open in front of her, and she stared at it, picked up a pencil, waved it at the book like it was a baton, and set it down again. She never looked up, never glanced at her watch.
Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Page 14
