Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel

by David Housewright

  “The Lily was stolen at two…”

  “Tarpley was probably clipped between, say, two thirty and four, then.”

  “The artnappers first contacted the museum at eight. According to the museum’s security footage, Tarpley handed off the Lily to at least two accomplices inside an SUV. Maybe they clipped him later for his trouble. That would sever any identifiable connection between them and the heist and leave them with one less partner to share the ransom with.”

  “Always an incentive.”

  “But, LT—”

  “What was he doing in Wirth Park, in the middle of the night, in the cold, in the snow?” Rask said, finishing my thought. “We spoke to his wife. Her name is Yvonne Tarpley, called Von. Twenty-two years younger than her husband. Pretty. At least she was pretty before we told her we found her husband—you know how grief can, what it does to some people.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  “She claimed she hadn’t seen or heard from her husband since he left for work Sunday afternoon. She said he hadn’t answered his cell phone and she was starting to get anxious. She said she called the museum, but there was no answer. She refused to believe Tarpley had anything to do with the theft.”

  “What about the murder weapon?”

  “A 25.”

  Despite what you might see on TV and in the movies, only amateurs use guns the size of howitzers. Professionals prefer small-caliber weapons, get in close, aim for vital organs. I didn’t express that theory out loud, of course. It would be like telling a landscaper that grass was green. Instead, I said, “I don’t suppose you were allowed to ask Hemsted and Pozderac where they were between two thirty and four yesterday morning.”

  “No, I wasn’t.”

  “It would be fun to put them at the scene, wouldn’t it?”

  “It would make my day.”

  “I appreciate that. They hurt your pride.”

  “Yeah, they hurt my pride. Coming in here and telling me not to be a cop, Not to do my job. Threatening me if I do. They threatened you, too, McKenzie. Are you going to let them get away with that?”

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do yet. I’ll tell you this much, LT. If I do what you ask—you follow baseball, right? When they list transactions, do you know what it means when Team A trades a guy to Team B for a player to be named later?”

  “It means the quality of the player Team A gets in return will depend on how well the deal works out for Team B. You’re saying that the more you do for me, the more I’m going to owe you.”

  “You might want to think about that before we become co-conspirators. I’m high maintenance.”

  * * *

  I stepped out of the front door of the Minneapolis City Hall and got slapped in the face by a hard, cold wind for my trouble. I pulled my scarf tight and zipped my leather jacket closer to my throat as I made my way to the Jeep Cherokee. The time on the parking meter had expired. Fortunately, there was no ticket under my windshield. I unlocked the vehicle, slid inside, and started it. I pulled my cell from my pocket and made a call while the engine warmed up. The phone was answered by Special Agent Brian Wilson of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

  “Hi, Harry,” I said. I had given him the nickname when we first met because he reminded me of the character actor Harry Dean Stanton. As far as I knew, I was the only one who called him that. “How are things?”

  “Hey, McKenzie. What’s going on?”

  “Same-old, same-old.”

  “That bad, huh?”

  “Just another day in paradise. So, Harry—how’s my credit?”

  “I think you might be one or two favors ahead,” Wilson said. “Why?”

  “I need information.”

  “You are so high maintenance, McKenzie. What kind of information? Tell me it’s not confidential.”

  “I don’t know if it is or it isn’t. I need to find out as much as I can about a State Department wonk named Jonathan Hemsted.”

  “The State Department? Getting a little ambitious, aren’t you, McKenzie?”

  “Just a few minutes ago, Hemsted asked me to do something that I’m pretty sure is illegal.”

  “How illegal?”

  “If I did it, you would throw me in the can without a moment’s hesitation.”

  “Hell, McKenzie, I’d do that if I caught you littering. What exactly do you want to know?”

  “How much trouble I’d be in if I told Hemsted to stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Well, if you can get me anything on a politician from Bosnia and Herzegovina named Branko Pozderac, that would be helpful, too.”

  “This doesn’t sound like one of your usual gigs. What’s going on?”

  “I’ll be happy to tell you everything, Harry, once I find out how dangerous Hemsted is. After that, you might not want to know.”

  FIVE

  Chopper’s wheelchair was parked behind a small table in the center of the restaurant by the time I arrived, and a pretty waitress dressed in black was fussing over him. It wasn’t the let-me-help-you-because-you’re-handicapped sort of fussing, either. It was the kind that accompanied the question “Your legs don’t work, but what about the rest of you?”

  I paused inside the front door to give him time to make his play. Even from his wheelchair, which Chopper operated with the fearlessness of a dirt-track biker, thus the nickname, he managed to have more fun—and pick up more girls—than anyone else I knew. I had known him since I found him lying in a parking lot in St. Paul with two slugs in his spine—this was back when I was a cop and he was a robber. He had insisted that I saved his life and therefore was responsible for it, although it seems like he has always done more for me than I ever have for him. Over the years he slowly but surely gave up the business of thievery for the far more lucrative and entirely legal occupation of ticket scalper. That’s what he insisted on calling it, “scalping,” although by act of the state legislature he was now a taxpaying “ticket broker.” What other enterprises he continued to involve himself in were kept secret—“the less you know, the more you’ll like me,” he once said.

  After a few moments, an attractive hostess carrying menus as if they were stone tablets asked if I wanted a table.

  I pointed at Chopper. “I’m with him,” I said.

  “Oh, you’re Mr. Coleman’s guest,” she said. “Please come this way.”

  Mr. Coleman? my inner voice asked.

  By the time we reached Chopper’s table, he had transcribed the waitress’s name and phone number into his iPhone and had even taken her photo. The waitress became flustered when the hostess approached, and I wondered if the restaurant had a nonfraternization policy.

  “I’ll return with your bread in a moment, Mr. Coleman,” she said before hurrying away.

  Mr. Coleman? my inner voice asked again.

  The hostess seated me and wished us both bon appétit. When she departed, I asked, “Mr. Coleman?”

  “’At’s my name, don’ wear it out,” Chopper said.

  “When I invited you to an early dinner an hour ago, you said you never heard of this place, and now it’s Mr. Coleman?”

  “I told ’em to call me Thaddeus, but they said oh, no, they couldn’t, although…” He gazed at the waitress and raised and lowered his eyebrows Groucho Marx–style a couple of times.

  “How do you do it?” I asked. “I’ve been in this restaurant a dozen times and they never called me Mr. McKenzie. They don’t even know my name.”

  “When you friendly t’ everybody, everybody be friendly t’ you. You such a morose fellow, McKenzie. Gots t’ lighten up.”

  The waitress returned with a basket of garlic bread and a small plate that she filled with extra-virgin olive oil and pepper for dipping. She asked for drink preferences, and I ordered a winter ale brewed in Duluth. Chopper said he was in the mood for a well-rounded red wine, supple and spicy, yet not too intense, and asked the waitress to select it for him. She chose a zinfandel, an
d after he sampled it, Chopper announced that the waitress was not only beautiful, she had exquisite taste. All in all, I thought she took the compliment very well. After she left with our orders, Chopper leaned across the table.

  “She has a roommate,” he said.

  “Lucky you.”

  “Naw, man. Lucky you. Whaddaya say? T’morrow night. We meet ahh, ahh…” Chopper waved his hand in small circles as if he were trying to hurry someone up. “I forgit ’er name.”

  “Oh, for God’s sake.”

  “I gots it written down.” Chopper fumbled with his cell phone. “Emma. Em-ma. Roommate is named Ali. Whaddaya say?”

  “I’m already spoken for.”

  “Still seein’ the honey what owns the jazz joint, ain’tcha?”

  “I am.”

  “Been a while now.”

  “It has.”

  Chopper sighed deeply. “I gots t’ do that,” he said. “Find a good-lookin’ woman can support me in my old age.”

  “It’s what I recommend.”

  The waitress soon returned with our lunch orders. After much flirting, Chopper labeled his pappardelle with duck ragu, red peppers, and tomato the best he ever tasted. Emma was thrilled to hear it. On the other hand, she couldn’t have cared less what I thought of my Dijon pork tenderloin.

  We talked about this, that, and the other thing until the meal was nearly finished, at which point Chopper said, “I suppose we ought t’ git down to biz-ness.”

  “Business?”

  “You buyin’ for a reason, ain’tcha?”

  “As a matter of fact…”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I was wondering if you heard anything about a crew taking down the City of Lakes Art Museum the other night.”

  “Someone hit City of Lakes? No shit? Whadda they git?”

  “A chunk of jade worth three-point-eight million.”

  “Nice.”

  “I’m guessing you know nothing about it.”

  “Nah, man, but why would I? That kind of heist is a little outta my zone, man. You wanna know who’s smuggling cigarettes, who’s boosting cars, HDTVs, computers, yeah, I can git the four-one-one on that. But art theft? Uh-uh.”

  “Who would know?”

  “In the Cities? Wow. That’s a tough question.”

  “There must be someone. How about a fence?”

  “You gots t’ know, this kinda thing don’ have a lot of buyers. Steal a big-screen TV, people fall all over themselves t’ buy it. A paintin’, work of art, somethin’ famous, somethin’ valuable cuz it’s famous, that only appeals to what you call a select clientele, high rollers happy t’ pay big bucks for somethin’ they can’t ever show off, you know? What you need is somebody who tied into that, knows the people who knows the people here in the Cities and elsewhere, am I right?”

  “There has to be somebody I can talk to.”

  “Man, I don’ know. Let me think … Only one comes t’ mind is Cid.”

  “Sid who?”

  “No, no. Cid, like in El Cid.”

  “The Lord?”

  “What?”

  “El Cid, it means the Lord. It was the title given to Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, the Spanish knight credited with driving the Moors out of Spain in the eleventh century, supposedly making Europe safe for Christianity.”

  “Moors? That was like brothers, right? Africans.”

  “African Muslims. Truth is, the Cid was a glorified mercenary worked for the Christian king, then the Muslims, then the Christians again.”

  “Huh? I did not know that. How come you know all this shit?”

  “I read,” I said. Actually, everything I knew about El Cid came from a movie I once saw starring Charlton Heston and Sophia Loren and a documentary on the History Channel, but what the hell?

  “I wonder how Cid got the name,” Chopper said.

  “We could ask. Think you could arrange a meeting with him?”

  “Yeah, yeah, I’ll git on that.”

  Chopper took up his cell phone, and for a moment I thought he was calling Cid from the table. I changed my mind when he said, “I’m ready,” into the microphone and then closed the phone. A few moments later, a large black man dressed in shiny leather filled the front doorway of the restaurant. The sight of him filled me with dread.

  “Herzog,” I said.

  “Yeah,” Chopper said.

  “When did he get out of the joint?”

  “Six months ago. Spent time in a halfway house—now he works for me.”

  “Jeezus, Chopper.”

  “Ain’t what you think, McKenzie. I’m legit now. Well, practically. Herzog, all he does is drive and, you know, take care of me.”

  “Since when do you need to be taken care of?”

  “I bought me a van. Gots one of them elevators and shit. I wheel onto this platform and press a button and it hoists me up. Press another one and it slides me into the van. Fuckin’ cool.”

  “What happened to the tricked-out Porsche you used to drive?”

  “I still gots it. I be drivin’ it ’morrow night.” Chopper tilted his head toward the kitchen where Emma had disappeared. “You know, McKenzie, I ain’t bankin’ as much as you—I’m talkin’ taxable shit—but I gots enough I can afford a driver.”

  “Herzog, though? He’s a stone killer. Chopper, Herzog?”

  Chopper leaned across the table. When he did, Herzog started moving across the restaurant toward us.

  “Don’ you go hatin’ on Herzog, man. Me and him go back a lot longer than me and you. He’s family. If he wasn’t in stir that one time, no way those fuckin’ Red Dragons got the balls t’ pump two in my back. No fuckin’ way. Ain’t gonna happen.”

  I held my empty hands away from my body in surrender, just as Herzog arrived.

  “Anythin’ I can do for you, Chop?” he said. He watched me intently while he spoke.

  “You know McKenzie,” Chopper said.

  “I knows ’im. Cop.”

  “Ex-cop,” I said.

  “Fuckin’ cop.”

  “Okay,” Chopper said. “McKenzie, I’ll be in touch.” With that we engaged in a ritual handshake that I messed up, as usual.

  “I don’ know why I hang wit’ you,” Chopper said.

  “I’m likable,” I said.

  “Hmmph,” Herzog said.

  Chopper spun his chair and started rolling it toward the door; Herzog never touched it. As they went, I heard Chopper speaking.

  “You know, Herzy, it’s like I was tellin’ McKenzie. You gots t’ learn t’ lighten up.”

  * * *

  A few moments later, Emma returned to the table with the tab. She expressed her disappointment that Mr. Coleman had left without saying good-bye. I told her that he was sorry he had to rush off, but he was looking forward to seeing her again the next evening and would pick her up in his Porsche, if that was all right.

  “He drives a Porsche?” Emma asked.

  “Yep.”

  “What else can he do?”

  I considered the question carefully before I answered.

  “I’ve known Mr. Coleman a long time,” I said. “I have never heard him admit that there was anything he couldn’t do.”

  Emma seemed to like the answer very much. Certainly she was smiling when she left with my credit card. By the time she returned, Lieutenant Scott Noehring was sitting at my table. I settled the tab before I spoke to him.

  “Where did you come from?” I asked. “Are you following me?”

  “The company you keep, McKenzie, makes me wonder. I told Rask that I thought you had more to do with the theft of the Jade Lily than you let on, and here you are, breaking bread with one of the worst criminals in Minneapolis.”

  “When you say worst, do you mean he doesn’t do it very well? Because I don’t think Mr. Coleman has ever been convicted of a crime.”

  “He’s been into drugs, prostitution, gambling; he ran a shoplifting ring that had more customers than fucking Mall of America. I know for a fact that he’
s been smuggling cigarettes into the state from Kentucky and North Carolina.”

  “You should arrest him, then. Put his black ass in jail. If you can.”

  “You don’t think he has it coming?”

  “I know a lot of people who have it coming.” I reached across the table and caressed the material of his overcoat between my thumb and forefinger. “Cashmere?”

  Noehring slapped my hand away. “Italian wool,” he said.

  “Nice,” I said. “On a cop’s salary, too.”

  “Don’t get sanctimonious with me, McKenzie. I know you. I know how you made your money. You arrested an embezzler. Instead of bringing him and the stolen money in like you were supposed to, you quit the St. Paul cops and negotiated a reward from the insurance company. You sold your badge.”

  I didn’t see it that way, but I knew a lot of cops that did.

  “Well, didn’t you?” Noehring asked.

  “What do you want?” I asked in reply.

  “How about a drink?”

  Why not? my inner voice asked. I caught Emma’s eye and motioned her back to the table.

  “I’d like another winter ale,” I told her. I gestured toward Noehring. He asked Emma to recite the restaurant’s Scotch list and settled on Glenlivet, double, neat. He smiled as if he expected both Emma and me to be impressed by his selection. It was the same smile that I had seen the night before, but in the harsh light of day it seemed worn-out from overuse. He kept smiling as he watched Emma walk to the bar.

  “Nice ass,” he said.

  The smile flickered slightly when I didn’t reply.

  The drinks were served, and Noehring drank half of his in one swallow.

  “That’s good Scotch,” he said.

  “Finish it,” I said. “Have another.”

  Noehring smiled some more. “One is fine,” he said. “I’m working.”

  “For who exactly?”

  Noehring leaned back in his chair and gave me a look as if I had insulted him and he was wondering what to do about it.

  “I’ve been hearing things,” he said.

  “What things?”

  “I heard that you decided not to make the exchange for the Jade Lily. Something about being spooked from seeing Tarpley dead last night.”