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

by David Housewright

  The “yet” hung in the air like a threat.

  I pointed the Beretta at Frank’s face.

  Frank said, “I never touched her. Never laid a finger on her.”

  “Where are her clothes?” I asked.

  “Hey, now. There’s no harm in lookin’, is there?” He grinned like he couldn’t help himself.

  I studied his face. There was an intelligence there, yet at the same time, he seemed a couple of steps removed from what you’d call normal.

  I took up the slack on the trigger.

  Frank’s eyes were wide, as if he were suddenly afraid to close them. His expression was unidentifiable. He said, “Don’t, now. Don’t. Don’t shoot me. You ain’t got any reason to shoot me. Girl’s okay. You can see. She’s right there.”

  I glanced toward Pen. Sykora had freed one hand and was working on the other.

  “Mr. Mosley,” I said.

  “You mean the nigger? That’s what all this is about, ain’t it, McKenzie? That’s why you’re fuckin’ up my life. The nigger. Only I had nothin’ to do with him. I keep sayin’ so, but no one fuckin’ believes me.” I remembered that he had said that to Sykora over the phone when he wasn’t arguing for his life. “The lawyer’s wife? That wasn’t me, either. That was—you can’t get no fucking good help in Minnesota, I’m tellin’ ya. I told ’em just muss her up. But the boys, it was Danny and Brucie gettin’ outta hand.”

  Brucie.

  Again I pivoted on my knees.

  “Where is Bruce?”

  “You can’t shoot me,” Frank said.

  Sure I can, I thought but didn’t say. First things first. I looked down at him.

  “Where’s Bruce?”

  He shrugged as if he had never heard the name before.

  “Don’t make me ask again,” I told him.

  Frank smiled. Smiled the same way Danny had smiled at the motel in Chanhassen. One of those smart-ass grins you see when a loudmouth poker player fills a straight flush with the last draw. And I knew. Knew even before I felt the barrel of the sawed-off brush the back of my neck.

  “McKenzie,” Bruce said, making my name sound like an obscenity.

  Sonuvabitch!

  “Gotcha,” said Frank.

  In the corner, Sykora lunged for his Glock.

  “Don’t!” Frank shouted. He added, “Don’t do anything stupid,” in a lower voice when Sykora held himself up. “Don’t want the little lady hurt now, do we, Fed?”

  Sykora looked at the Glock, his wife, back at the Glock. He raised his hands. Pen dropped her one free hand over her lap.

  I glared at Sykora. This is your fault, my mind screamed. The first two times were my fault, but this one is yours. Dammit. You just couldn’t wait, could you?

  Frank worked himself into a sitting position.

  “Okay,” he said.

  He made a gimme motion with his hand. I handed him the Beretta. He glanced at it, handed it off to Bruce. Bruce slipped the gun into his pocket.

  “You,” he said, looking at Sykora. “On your knees. Put the Glock on the floor. Slide it under the couch.” Sykora did what he was told, then positioned himself so that he was kneeling directly between Pen and Brucie, shielding her naked body.

  “You,” Frank said to me. “You just stay there on your knees.”

  Frank pushed his great bulk up and off the floor with terrific effort. I suspected it would have been hard going even if he didn’t have a hole in his side. He crossed the room and sat in an overstuffed chair. I turned on my knees to face him. Sykora and Pen were now on my right. They would have had to run over me to get to the door located on my left and slightly behind me. Only it didn’t make much difference. Brucie moved to Frank’s side. He now had a clear line of fire at all of us, and with the sawed-off, accuracy wasn’t an issue. No one was going anywhere.

  Frank picked at his wound.

  “That hurts,” he said.

  The cabin wall and his multiple layers of fat had reduced the impact of the 9mm slug. Instead of killing him, it had merely given him a bellyache. I couldn’t believe I had only hit him once out of six tries. I needed practice.

  “I should have aimed higher,” I told him.

  Brucie said, “He thinks he’s funny.”

  “I noticed that,” said Frank.

  “Let me kill him, Mr. Russo.”

  “In a minute.”

  Bruce changed his grip on the sawed-off. He pointed it at my head with one hand. The other hand he filled with the seven-inch stainless steel combat knife he had threatened me with before.

  “I wanna cut ‘im. Make ’im cry like a little girl for what he did to Danny.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a minute,” Frank insisted.

  Brucie smiled.

  I adjusted my position.

  “Stop,” he said. “Put your hands behind your back.”

  I did. Then I sank backward, sitting on my heels. Because of the angle, my body now blocked Brucie’s view. He couldn’t see my hands slowly working my pant leg up, reaching for the .25 Iver Johnson that was taped to my ankle.

  Frank poked his wound some more. There was surprisingly little blood. What there was he licked off his fingers with his tongue.

  “Whaddaya think, Penny? You want some?”

  Pen gave him no sign of anything but her anger.

  He winked at her.

  “You know what? This is really going to work out nice. Much better than I thought. Right, Bruce?”

  “Sure, Mr. Russo.”

  “Uh-huh.” He pointed at Sykora. “I knew you’d be coming. A pretty wife like yours, you didn’t think I knew you’d be coming? True, I didn’t think you’d be bringing McKenzie. But c’mon. Who woulda thunk that?”

  “Let Pen go,” Sykora said.

  “I will, I will,” said Frank. “I said I would. How come no one ever believes me when I tell them shit?” Frank pointed again at Sykora. “I don’t suppose you brought my money with ya? No? I didn’t think so. But that’s okay. Doesn’t matter. Nothin’s changed. The deal’s the same. Tomorrow you’re gonna go get it for me. Just like I said before. Do that. Get the money, bring it back here, and you and the missus get away alive. Whaddaya say?”

  “Just like that,” Sykora said. “I give you the money and Pen and I walk away?”

  “Sure. Why not? I don’t hold a grudge.”

  “What about McKenzie?”

  “Fuck do you care as long as you get what you want?”

  Everyone was looking at me now.

  Frank grinned.

  Pen said, “Jake?”

  “Jake?” said Frank. “He tell you his name was Jake?”

  “Yes,” said Pen.

  “Then he’s a liar. Cuz he ain’t Jake. This here is McKenzie. McKenzie who shot me. McKenzie who’s been causing me nothin’ but trouble since I got to this lousy neck of the woods. Me, who ain’t never done nothin’ to him. Nothin’ at all. If I had, I’d say so.”

  “Let me cut ’im,” Bruce said.

  “Why not?” said Frank.

  My father was a hunter. He tried to instill in me a hunter’s patience. It was a life lesson, he said, learning not to rush, learning how to wait for your shot. It was a lesson I had learned well. But it was now or never. I threw a look at Sykora. A second’s diversion. It was all I asked.

  Bruce stepped forward. He raised his combat knife high in the air, prepared to slash down on me.

  “Brucie,” Sykora shouted and dove under the sofa for the Glock.

  Bruce glanced at Sykora, calculated how long it would take for Sykora to fish the gun out, quickly turned to face me.

  I rolled onto my shoulder and grabbed the butt of the .25.

  If he had fired the shotgun at that moment, I would have been killed. Instead, he brought the knife down in a long arc, slicing nothing but air. Brucie didn’t seem to mind that he missed. He was smiling the same damn smile he gave me in the parking lot of the motel in Chanhassen.

  I yanked the gun free. Brought it up.
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br />   A half dozen shots—they sounded like howitzers in the small room. Only they weren’t my shots, I never fired.

  A half dozen bullets slammed into Brucie, stitching him from his hip all the way to his head. Blood and bone and brain sprayed Frank and the back wall. Bruce fell against Frank’s chair as if someone had shoved him there, spun off, hit the wall behind the chair, and sunk to the floor.

  Frank screamed and wiped at the blood and bone and brain.

  Pen turned her head away, her hand clamped over her mouth.

  I was lying on my side on the floor. Sykora was on his stomach. We both angled our heads toward the door.

  Nick Horvath stood there with an Israeli-made 9 mm Uzi submachine gun in his hands.

  He said, “I don’t want any trouble with you two. Drop your guns, slide them away.”

  From the look of the magazine, I figured Horvath had about thirty-four shots left. I set the Iver Johnson on the floor and slid it across to him. A moment later, Sykora followed suit with his Glock.

  Horvath smiled. He nodded at Pen and said, “How you doin’, sweetie?”

  “I’ve been better,” said Pen evenly. The pain in her eyes hadn’t reached her voice yet.

  Horvath glared at Frank. “Did fat boy here hurt you?”

  “A little bit. Not a lot.”

  “I’m terribly sorry about all this.”

  “It’s not your fault.”

  “In a way it is. I could’ve stopped Frank in New York, but he slipped away from me.”

  “Butterfingers.”

  Horvath smiled at Pen like he was proud of her. Truth be told, so was I. She was handling herself extremely well. A brave front.

  Sykora asked Pen, “Do you know this man?”

  Pen said, “He’s our neighbor. Nick Horvath.”

  The one who couldn’t hit the broad side of a Ford truck with a baseball bat, I remembered.

  “Ishmael,” I said.

  “I’ve been called worse.”

  “I understand now,” I told Horvath. “The so-called kidnapping attempt outside Pen’s trailer. You arranged that to gain Pen’s trust.”

  “Yeah. Looks like it worked out better for you, though, huh?”

  “You’re the one who bugged her trailer.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re the one who warned Granata that the FBI was going to hit his cigarettes.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I thought it was the gay guys down the road.”

  “I heard they broke up,” Horvath said.

  “Tell me something. If you knew the FBI had the quarry staked out, why send a truck at all? Even an empty one?”

  Sykora answered the question for him.

  “Granata wanted to send a message. He didn’t want us to think the shipment was jacked or diverted. He wanted us to know that he knew that we knew all about it.”

  “It was a chance to say, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah,” Horvath said, and I flashed on what Sykora had told me earlier—it was a game, cops and robbers.

  “You’ll never get away with it,” Sykora said.

  “Oh, shut up. Never get away … You know what?” Nick pointed the Uzi at Sykora. “I’m not talking to you. In fact, I’m not talking to either of you. Puttin’ Pen in danger. What a couple of schmucks.”

  “You followed us,” I told him. “You heard our plans on the bug in the trailer and you followed us.”

  “Yes, I did. Shut up, McKenzie.”

  Horvath pointed the Uzi at Frank.

  “Get up, fat boy.”

  Frank looked to be in shock, his face and clothes splattered with pieces of Brucie.

  “C‘mon, Russo. You want to die in fuckin’ Minnesota?”

  Frank slowly struggled to his feet and shuffled toward Horvath like an old man.

  “Maybe we can work something out,” he said.

  “You keep thinkin’ that, Frank,” Horvath told him.

  Nick spun the fat man around, then pushed him toward the door. Before Frank stepped through it, Horvath yanked his arm, halting him. He turned back toward us.

  “Enough is enough, huh, guys,” he said. “Enough bullshit over this fat fuck.” He settled the muzzle of the Uzi on me. “When Little Al takes care of Frank, he’ll take care of ‘im for your people, too. And you.” Nick swung the Uzi on Sykora. “You’re just gonna have to find another way to become a fuckin’ hero. Personally, I suggest you try doin’ your job.”

  Horvath sighed like he was suddenly tired.

  “I want fifteen minutes. Fifteen-minute head start. That’s it. Whaddaya say?”

  “Yes,” said Pen. Her calm voice filled the room as completely as soft sunlight. “A fifteen-minute head start. I promise.”

  “Thank you, sweetie.”

  “Thank you, Nick.”

  “You take care.”

  “And you.”

  Horvath nodded. He pointed the gun at Sykora. “She’s way too good for you. You don’t deserve her.”

  He swung the Uzi on me.

  “Neither do you.”

  Or you, I almost said but didn’t.

  A moment later, he was gone. I listened as Frank huffed and puffed into the darkness. When I couldn’t hear him anymore, I came off my knees. I found my Beretta in Brucie’s pocket and the Iver Johnson against the wall. I looked toward the door.

  Pen said, “I promised him fifteen minutes.”

  So she did.

  I moved through the cabin, trying as best I could to avoid Brucie’s corpse, and found a bedroom. I pulled a blanket off the bed and went back into the living room. Sykora was removing the last of the duct tape from Pen’s wrists and ankles.

  “I’ll make this up to you,” he said. “I’ll take care of this.”

  I remember saying pretty much the same thing to Sweet Swinging Billy Tillman. What a load of b.s.

  I draped the blanket around Pen’s naked shoulders.

  “Thank you,” Pen said.

  “Give me your cell phone,” I told Sykora.

  He handed it to me.

  “Fifteen minutes,” Pen repeated.

  Her eyes were red with tears that hadn’t fallen, yet her voice still seemed unaffected, and I wondered if somehow she would manage to get a song out of all this.

  I sat and waited.

  Pen said, “Your real name is McKenzie?”

  “Yes.”

  “Not Jake?”

  “No.”

  “I liked Jake,” she said.

  You didn’t know him the way I did, I thought.

  A moment later, Pen rested her fingers on my wrist and I received the same unexpected jolt of electricity that I felt at the pool in Hilltop.

  She said, “I forgive you, McKenzie.”

  I didn’t realize how much I needed forgiveness until she gave it to me.

  “Thank you,” I told her.

  Fifteen minutes later, I punched 911 into the keypad of Sykora’s cell.

  “Operator, give me the FBI.”

  At last, Pen began to weep, her husband’s arms wrapped tightly around her.

  12

  Give him credit, Sykora didn’t try to explain or defend himself. He confessed to everything he had done and why he had done it. He even put in a good word for me. Lord knows I needed it. The fact that Pen sat next to him wrapped in the ratty old blanket seemed to make a difference to the hardened federal agents who filled the tiny cabin.

  Still, neither the AIC of the Minneapolis field office nor a Justice Department attorney he had dragged to Whitefish Lake was pleased with me. The attorney spent a good deal of time pacing in front of my chair, listing all the federal and state crimes he could charge me with. I interrupted him after about a half dozen and reminded him of the recordings I had made of Sykora’s phone conversations. That only made him angrier.

  Finally he said, “I’m letting you go, McKenzie, but not because of the lousy tapes.”

  “Why, then?”

  “Because if I charged you then we’d all be sonsuvbitches.�
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  After I was released I returned to the Hilltop Motel and cleared out Jake Greene’s clothes and surveillance equipment. I paid all of his bills with cash, including the rental on his car, and destroyed his credit cards, driver’s license, and other ID. With any luck, he’d never know how badly I used him.

  I retrieved my Jeep Cherokee from an impound lot—for about 5 percent of its original sticker price—and drove along Mississippi River Boulevard in St. Paul. I stopped under the railroad bridge near the Shriners Hospital. There was a catwalk under the bridge. I climbed out on it as far as my acrophobia would allow and dumped the gun I had used to kill Danny. I watched it splash and disappear under the water. Then I dumped all the copies of the tapes I had made of Sykora’s and Frank’s conversations. I would have liked to keep a copy of the song Pen had written, but the deal I had made with Harry took precedence.

  Afterward I drove home. But I stayed there only long enough to shower, shave, dress, and arm myself with the 9 mm Beretta I kept in my basement safe before driving off in my Jeep.

  There was still Mr. Mosley’s killer to deal with.

  The lawn around Mr. Mosley’s house was freshly cut, and the hedges had been trimmed. I wondered if some parishioners from King of Kings had come over and tidied up the place. I parked my SUV and approached the front door.

  I knocked. There was no answer. I held the latch down and pushed against the door. It swung open.

  “Mr. Hernandez?”

  I walked inside. The house was neater than I had ever seen it, neater even than when Agatha was keeping it. Someone had given the place a serious spring cleaning.

  “Mr. Hernandez?” I called again.

  No reply.

  I stood at the base of the staircase and shouted upstairs.

  “Lorenzo?”

  Still nothing.

  The kitchen was just as orderly as the rest of the house. Dishes washed and put away. Table and counter wiped. The floor where Mr. Mosley fell scrubbed clean of blood. Everything was in its place, including the ancient coffee percolator.

  I went through the back door, the screen bouncing against the frame behind me. There was no one in the yard. I walked past the hives, ignoring—for the first time—the hundreds of bees that swarmed around me. I made my way to the bee barn where Mr. Mosley had kept the centrifuge that he used to extract honey from its comb, the pasteurizing machine that heats the raw honey to 155 degrees to kill bacteria, and his bottling operation. The huge door was open. Hernandez was inside. He was humming to himself as he polished the extractor’s massive 16-gauge stainless steel drum. It was bright enough to bounce my reflection back at me.