Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels)

by David Housewright

  “Uh-huh. Well, tell me this. Just out of curiosity. How are you going to get out of the room?”

  The phone went dead before I could answer.

  I set down the phone and checked my weapons. The Beretta had one round in the chamber and five in the magazine—I had wasted two shots on the Ford Ranger’s tires. The .25 Iver Johnson taped to my ankle carried seven rounds, but it wasn’t worth a damn beyond ten or fifteen feet. I had no idea what Michael and Lawrence were packing. I glanced at them through the window. They were engaged in an animated discussion. I guessed at the topic. Do we wait for McKenzie to leave the room or do we go up there after him?

  I decided to hold the high ground and make them come to me. To emphasize the point, I unlocked the motel room door and let it swing open. A moment later I was in the corner, the bed between me and the door. I kept the Beretta steady on the opening with both hands.

  The wind had picked up and blew rain through the doorway. I waited. And waited. The carpet around the door became soaked, and a chill filled the room. My hands began to tremble—I blamed the cold—and my neck and shoulder muscles began to ache. I heard Michael’s voice.

  “Hey, McKenzie,” he shouted. “You gotta be fucking kidding.”

  They were going to wait on me. Well, let them, I decided.

  I abandoned my position, crossed the room, and closed the door. Once again I pushed the drapes aside and glanced through the rainstreaked window. Once again Michael waved at me.

  Fine, I told myself. Stand in the rain. What do I care?

  I actually grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. I watched about thirty seconds of a rerun of Cops before reality sank in.

  Are you nuts?

  I turned off the TV and returned to the window. Night had fallen, yet I could still make out Michael and Lawrence. They were now sitting inside the Ford Ranger, but beyond that they didn’t appear to be going anywhere anytime soon.

  You’re going to have to go out there.

  I checked the load in the Beretta a second time. It hadn’t improved any. I tore the Iver Johnson off my ankle and dropped it into my pocket, ignoring the pain caused by the duct tape. Let’s hope that’s all you feel.

  I worked the calculations in my head, figuring I could open the door and run half the length of the second-floor landing before Michael and Lawrence opened their truck doors. I’d cover the second half, reaching the staircase just as they got out of the truck. I’d descend to the bottom of the staircase before they could cross the length of the parking lot. And I’d reach the Neon at just about the time they’d blow me to hell and gone, especially if they were carrying any kind of ordnance to speak of. ’Course, I might get them first because, as everyone knows, I’m a helluva shot. I once won a trophy.

  Yeah, go ’head and bet your life on that. Maybe you should call Vegas and get odds.

  I glanced at the telephone.

  “Oh, for cryin’ out loud.”

  Occam’s razor, named after the fourteenth-century philosopher William of Ockham—the simpler an explanation, the better. If it isn’t necessary to introduce complexities into an argument, don’t do it. Maybe if I had paid better attention in Philosophy 101, I’d have come to it sooner.

  I picked up the phone and called the motel office.

  “This is room 23B,” I told the man who answered.

  “Yes, Mr. Cassidy.”

  My last name was Cassidy, I registered. I wondered if my first name was Hopalong.

  “Listen, I don’t want to make trouble for your motel …”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “But there are these guys in a Ford Ranger pickup in your parking lot. I think they’re dealing drugs.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  “They’re just sitting there in the rain, and people keep driving up and getting out of their cars and talking to them and then driving away. I mean …”

  “I understand. It’s nothing to worry about. This happens all the time because we’re located so close to the freeway. I’ll take care of it.”

  “Okay.”

  “I’d appreciate it, Mr. Cassidy, if you stay in your room for a little bit.”

  “Sure.”

  I stayed in my room for exactly six minutes. That’s how long it took for three Burnsville police cruisers to surround the Ford Ranger, blinding the truck’s occupants with their high beams. Guns were drawn and commands were shouted as I covered half the length of the second-floor landing. Michael and Lawrence were pulled from the cab, pushed up against the truck, and handcuffed by the time I walked the second half. A fourth car arrived, a K-9 unit, and a German shepherd held by a short leash began sniffing around the Ford Ranger as I descended the metal staircase. I was inside the Neon and starting the engine when a Burnsville police officer held up a Mac-10 and a Tec-9 with one hand and a baggie filled with what looked like marijuana with the other. The shepherd jumped at the grass like it was a chew toy.

  People drove past the motel. Some slowed their vehicles when they saw the flashing lights on top of the cruisers—a gawker’s slowdown, the traffic people call it—yet none stopped. I was willing to bet that they all lived quiet, normal lives and this was exciting to them. I admit I was a little excited myself as I drove across the gravel parking lot. I didn’t look at the cops and they didn’t look at me. A couple of left turns later, I was cruising down the entrance ramp to I-35. One of my great fears growing up was that one morning I’d discover that, like most people, I was leading a quiet, normal life, that I had become boring. So far I had managed to avoid that fate. Still …

  Bob Seger and the Silver Bullet Band were singing “Hollywood Nights” on the Cities 97—He was a midwestern boy on his own … He knew right then he was too far from home. I had a feeling they were singing to me.

  I had beers in the tiny refrigerator, and I drank two of them while I listened to the voice-activated tape recording. Someone had been moving around in Pen’s trailer. I heard the sound of her door opening and closing and then the tape went silent. I guessed Pen was taking a walk, and for a moment I feared for her safety. Then I dismissed my concerns. Ishmael’s co-conspirators had been incarcerated, and I doubted that he’d make a move on his own.

  It had stopped raining. I decided to walk, too. Clear my head. Shake off Pen. Shake off the fear Lawrence and Michael had instilled in me less than an hour earlier. I got only as far as the coffeehouse up the street. Jellies and Beans. The girl who served me was small and overworked, with a face that had been nowhere and had done nothing. Lucky her, I thought. She held a large paper cup beneath a stainless steel spigot. There followed a hissing, gurgling, gulump. Voilà, a twentyounce café mocha.

  “You want whipped cream? It’s better with whipped cream.”

  “Absolutely.”

  She smiled at me when I told her to keep the change, and I thought, I almost said it at the restaurant. I had nearly told Pen, “I love you.” A few more long kisses under the great oak tree and I might have. I had prided myself on not using those three words without meaning it. Prided myself on not being one of those guys. I could count on one hand the times I had actually told a woman “I love you” and the one time when I woulda, coulda, shoulda said it and didn’t. I wondered if this was going to be another one of those times as I sipped my coffee. I had not seen Pen for several hours, and so much had happened since then. Yet I was still thinking about her. I could still feel her presence.

  I flashed on Nina. Had I told her that I loved her? I didn’t think so, but maybe I had. I couldn’t recall. I adored Nina, yet I hadn’t made any promises to her, nor had she made any to me. My impression: She didn’t want promises, she didn’t want a committment. She had been married. She had been in a long-term relationship. Both had ended ugly, and she was determined to avoid a three-peat. Which meant we were just friends, right? Which meant we were both free agents. Right? I decided not to think about it.

  I liked the mocha so much I bought another and took it back to my room. Listening to the tape agai
n, I heard Sykora arrive home. “Pen? Penelope?” He called her name like he was both surprised and disappointed that she hadn’t answered. Movement followed. I heard the sound of clinking glass, a refrigerator door opening, ice in a glass, liquid being poured. I wondered what Sykora was drinking. Whatever it was, he had two of them.

  Later, lightheaded from the alcohol and caffeine, I thought I could make it work. I could live out my days as Jake Greene. Pen would leave Sykora and we would go away together. It would be a good life, an exemplary life. We’d be kind to each other. Loving. I’d find a way to reclaim my money and we’d buy a house, a cottage. She’d write Grammy-winning songs and I’d—I’d do what? Go into business. Buy a Subway franchise and hire some kids to run it for me. Or a bookstore. Or a music store. Maybe I could just keep doing what I was doing now. Favors for friends. Only Jake had no friends. At least none that I knew of. No Bobby, no Shelby, no backyard neighbors to flirt with. No Nina. And Shelby’s girls. Who was going to teach them the value of junk food and frivolous behavior? And what about the ducks?

  That’s where it broke down, the fantasy, the wide-awake dream as phony as the driver’s license and credit cards I carried in my borrowed wallet. I wouldn’t be McKenzie anymore. And I liked McKenzie. He’d had his ups and downs over the years, but he was a good guy—like his father and Mr. Mosley had been good guys. Jacob Greene wasn’t a good guy. He was a liar. A fake. A fraud. He was willing to go to bed with another man’s wife.

  I was getting drifty when a loud noise snapped me back to full consciousness. It came from the receiver. Pen’s door opening and closing loudly.

  “Where have you been?”

  “Steve! You startled me. What are you doing sitting in the dark?”

  “I’m sorry. It’s just when I came home and found that you weren’t here—my stomach is killing me. Where were you?”

  “I went to dinner like I said I would. After I came back, I went for a long walk.”

  “I’m sorry about dinner.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “Can I get you anything? A drink …”

  “No.”

  “Pen?”

  “Steve, I’ve been thinking.”

  “You have? Umm, what have you been thinking?”

  “You and I should go back to New York. We should leave right away.”

  “Oh, God …”

  “Are you okay?”

  “Oh, God …”

  “Steve?”

  “I’m all right. Let me, let me—I have to sit down. Oh, man—my stomach just did a somersault.”

  “What is it?”

  “It’s all right. I was—I was just frightened for a minute.”

  “What about?”

  “I thought you were going to leave me. I thought you were going to ask for a divorce.”

  “A divorce?”

  “After we spoke on the phone and you hung up I started thinking, ‘She’s going to leave me. I’ve been treating her like crap for six months and now she’s going to leave me.’ And when you said you’d been thinking—I’ve never been so frightened in my life. I’ve had guys shoot at me and I haven’t been so scared.”

  “I wouldn’t leave you, Steve. I love you.”

  “Thank you. Thank you, yes. I love you, too. I love you more than anything. I forgot that for a while, and I’m sorry. I really am.”

  “It’s all right.”

  “No, it’s not. Pen, it isn’t all right. I’ll take you back to New York. I promise I will. I’ve made a mess of some things out here and I have to clean it up before I go, but I’ll take you home, I promise. I’ll write my letter of resignation right now, if you want. I’ll tell the FBI, transfer me back to New York or I quit. There’s a lot of other things I can do. I could make a lot more money, too.”

  “Money’s not important. What’s important is that we’re together. That we love each other.”

  I went to the desk and switched off the receiver.

  “Bullshit.”

  I didn’t believe a word that Sykora had said, and I was amazed that Pen did. She seemed smarter than that.

  I left the room, left the motel, and crossed Central Avenue. The air was cold, and the wind blowing in my face had an edge to it. Lights reflected off the wet pavement, and I deliberately walked down residential streets that were darker and quieter to avoid them. I traveled twenty minutes in one direction, then fifteen in another before stopping. I rested my hands on my hips and stared straight up at the night sky. A solitary dot of light moved in a straight line among the bright stars, and I thought of the International Space Station, flashed on all those glorious photographs taken of Earth from space. The world looked quite spectacular when seen from a distance. It’s only when you get up close that it loses its appeal, and I was way too close. I had lost perspective.

  “Step back,” I said aloud. “Step back and look at the big picture.”

  And I did, literally, stepping backward three paces while looking up at the night sky.

  Now what do you see?

  “Steve Sykora’s future. He messed up my life. Now I’m going to mess up his.”

  Of course, jealousy had nothing to do with it.

  10

  Sunday morning. I slid open the window of the motel room, and the wind stirred the lace curtains like a skirt. I flashed on Pen’s rose-colored dress. I could feel the warm pressure of her body against mine, taste her lips and smell the fragrance of her rain-soaked hair.

  It occurred to me that I might be insane, and I wondered briefly what Dr. Jillian deMarais would say.

  You’re obsessing over a woman you barely know, who’s made it clear she doesn’t want to know you. What are you, nuts?

  Good question. What would you advise, Doctor?

  McKenzie, you need to get out more.

  Sounds like a plan to me.

  Sykora had vowed to spend the day fulfilling each and every one of Pen’s whims, which mostly involved cultural pursuits—the Walker Sculpture Garden, the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, the Minnesota Historical Society. Meanwhile, I sought enlightenment of a different sort.

  I drove to a gas station that had one of those drive-up pay telephones you can operate from your car and pumped two quarters into the slot. I called Jeannie Shipman, Bobby Dunston’s “young, beautiful, smart-as-hell partner” at the St. Paul Police Department, although I don’t think he calls her that anymore. For the briefest period of time, Bobby had contemplated having an affair with her, but cooler heads prevailed.

  “McKenzie,” she said after I identified myself. “There are people looking for you.”

  “Are they looking hard?”

  “I couldn’t say about anyone else, but we’re not.”

  “I appreciate that.”

  “Why are you calling me?”

  “I forgot Bobby Dunston’s extension number.”

  “Uh-huh. Well, why don’t I wave him over. Just in case his phone is tapped.”

  “You’re wonderful.”

  “If I’m so wonderful, how come you never ask me out?”

  “Because you’re way too good for the likes of me.”

  Jeannie snickered. “One day I hope to have a friend as close as you and Bobby are. Hang on.”

  A moment later, Bobby was on the phone.

  “You sonuvabitch,” he said.

  Yeah, me and Bobby were like this.

  “Don’t call me that,” I told him.

  “You bastard.”

  “Much better.”

  “I could kill you.”

  “What did I do?”

  “How ’bout that scene you played on my patio the other night?”

  “What scene?”

  “The scene where you gave my wife all of your worldly possessions—your fucking last will and testament—and said good-bye.”

  “I didn’t say good-bye. I said good night.”

  “You said good-bye.”

  “I didn’t say—did I really?”

  “Yes, you did, really, and now
Shelby’s all shook up wondering what’s happened to you. ‘Is McKenzie all right?’ ‘Have you heard from McKenzie?’ And another thing, pal—where do you get off buying my wife a sports car?”

  “Are you kidding? The only way she gets a sports car is if I’m dead.”

  “Yeah? So?”

  “You jealous bastard. How ’bout if I amend the policy so you both get sports cars? And the kids, too?”

  “That would be much better, thank you.”

  “Fine. I’ll take care of it when I get back.”

  “So you are coming back.”

  “That’s the plan.”

  “Where are you now?”

  “Bobby, you don’t want to know where I am now.”

  “That’s true. But where are you?”

  “Close.”

  “How close?”

  “Bobby …”

  “All right, all right.” I heard the exertion Bobby put into sitting down. He said, “So, how’s it going?”

  “Not bad. Could be better.”

  “Are you playing nice with the other children?”

  “They’re all being mean to me.”

  “Poor baby.”

  “I did meet a nice girl, though.”

  “Don’t tell me that.”

  “What?”

  “Nina.”

  “What about Nina?”

  “If Shelby isn’t asking about you, Nina is.”

  “Nina’s worried, too?”

  “Yes, she is.”

  “That’s nice.”

  “You think so?”

  “It’s nice to know people care.”

  “McKenzie—oh, never mind.”

  “Bobby, I need a favor.”

  “I figured.”

  “Remember that woman, about four years ago, she worked for the New York Times—she did the story about crime in the Twin Cities.”

  “Yeah, the reporter, back when we had all those killings, the one with the big—”

  “Glasses. She wore glasses.”

  “I remember those, too.”

  “What was her name?”

  “Rose, Rosemary, Roseanne …”