Curse of the Jade Lily: A McKenzie Novel

by David Housewright

  “Good luck,” the guard said and closed the door for me. He smiled like I was a patient about to be wheeled into surgery; smiled like he felt sorry for me.

  I put the key in the ignition, started up the car, depressed the clutch, put the transmission in reverse, and—sat there for five seconds, ten, fifteen …

  Why are you doing this? my inner voice asked. Are you crazy?

  The guard watched me through the window, an expression of concern mixed with puzzlement on his face.

  “McKenzie, are you okay?” he asked.

  “Never better,” I said.

  I slowly released the clutch and backed the Audi out of my driveway.

  * * *

  The artnappers had chosen the location wisely—a motel overlooking Interstate 694 within minutes of three freeways and three major highways. Make the exchange and boom, the thieves would have quick access to the 2,950 miles of U.S., state, and county thoroughfares that crisscrossed the Twin Cities in a pattern as complicated as a cobweb. If things didn’t work out, they’d also have half a dozen shopping malls to hide in as well.

  There were two levels to the motel. The doors to the rooms on the bottom level opened onto the asphalt lot—you could park directly in front of them. The doors to the rooms on top opened onto a metal and concrete landing that ran the length of the motel. There was a square window next to each door. Two staircases led to the upper level, one to each side of the motel. A second, smaller structure was separated from the actual motel and contained the office, a bar, a restaurant and several banquet rooms. There was a small swimming pool between the two structures that was surrounded by a tall iron fence. The pool was filled with snow—it was January, after all. The sight of it made me feel a bit sad.

  I parked between a pair of white lines painted on the asphalt directly in front of the office and turned off the engine as I had been instructed.

  The artnappers could be working it in a number of different ways, I decided. They could have followed me from my house, although that wasn’t likely. Since my conversation with Heavenly Petryk, I had become ultra careful about that. Or they could have already checked into the motel and were watching me now. Hell, they could have been sitting on the motel for days watching the traffic, getting a sense when it was normal and when it wasn’t. Or they could be somewhere else, across the freeway perhaps, sitting in a car with a pair of binoculars. What else could they do?

  I sat in the Audi, my cell phone in my hand, my coat open so I could reach the Beretta in a hurry. I had powered down the driver’s window to keep the interior glass from fogging over. It was cold, but not too cold—about twenty-eight degrees. Granted, it was a temperature that would freak out most people. On the other hand, I went to San Antonio in February a couple of years ago to play golf. It was seventy degrees down there, and most of the natives were dressed in coats and sweaters and wore hats and gloves. My buddies and I were dressed in shorts and polo shirts. This old guy looked at us and said, “You boys aren’t from around here, are ya?” It’s all about what you’re used to. Twenty-eight in the middle of January—we’ll take that in Minnesota every time.

  A good half hour passed, and I was beginning to think that it was another dry run when the cell phone sang to me.

  “Park in front of room 122,” the voice said. “The room is unlocked. Take the money inside.”

  I started the Audi and drove from the office through the parking lot, following the room numbers as I went. Room 122 was in the center of the motel. When I found it, I parked backward with my trunk facing the motel room door. The window drapes had been drawn, and I couldn’t see inside. As I did at Loring Park, I refrained from using the interior latch and instead waited to open the trunk with my remote once I was sure that there was no one nearby. I muscled the dolly and gym bags out of the trunk and pivoted toward the door. I carefully turned the knob. As promised, it was unlocked. I nudged the door open with the toe of my boot, my left hand holding the handle of the dolly and my right gripping the butt of my Beretta under my leather coat. Nothing bad happened, so I stepped inside. It was like every other motel room you had ever been in. There was a bed, a nightstand, a dresser, a small table, a pair of chairs, a cheap clock radio and telephone on the nightstand, a TV on the dresser, a lamp on the table, and a couple of paintings securely fastened to the walls—nothing anyone would ever want to steal. I closed and locked the door and rolled the dolly next to the bed. It was dark inside the room with the drapes drawn, yet not so dark that I couldn’t see. I looked in the bathroom. No one was hiding there. I turned on the overhead light and sat on the edge of the bed and waited. After a few minutes, I stretched out on the bed and waited some more. Time passed slowly. I got off the bed and went to the window. I pulled the drapes open a crack and looked outside. I saw no one. I sat down again, this time on a chair. I slipped the Beretta out from under my coat and set it within easy reach on the table. More time passed. The phone on the nightstand rang. It had a loud ringtone that was so startling I grabbed the Beretta, went into a crouch, and aimed it at the phone—I almost shot it.

  Dammit, McKenzie, my inner voice said. Get a grip.

  I lunged for the phone.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Empty the bags; put the money on the bed,” the voice said before he hung up.

  I didn’t ask why. I knew why. The thieves wanted to easily check the bundles for ink packs and tracers, just like I had told Mr. Donatucci they would. I did as I was instructed, examining the bundles myself in case someone had tried to pull a fast one. The money was clean. I waited some more.

  The phone rang again. I let it ring four times before I answered.

  “Bebe’s Peanut Shop, Bebe speaking.”

  There was a long pause before the voice said, “Are you fucking crazy?”

  I didn’t answer.

  “McKenzie?”

  “I’m listening.”

  “The Jade Lily is in the room directly above you—room 222. You will leave your room, take a right outside the door, and walk to the staircase, climb it, go to 222—the door is unlocked.”

  “All right,” I said. “Now you listen. I scattered the money nicely over the bed. It’ll take you a few minutes to gather it together, check for tracers and ink packs, and then put it all in bags. That’s all the time I’ll need to make sure the Lily is in the room as promised. If it’s not, you’re going to find out just how crazy I am.”

  “McKenzie, I will be so very glad when our business with you is concluded. Shall we get to it?”

  “I’m leaving the room now.”

  The first step, they say, is the hardest. I went to the door and pulled it open and stood there for what seemed like a very long moment. If someone wanted to pot me with a .30-06, that was as good a moment as any. The fact that I wasn’t shot encouraged me to take the next step and then the one after that. I walked the length of the motel until I reached the staircase. Did I say it was twenty-eight degrees? The way the sweat beaded on my forehead and welled up under my arms it could have been ninety-eight. I jogged up the staircase and followed the landing to room 222. It occurred to me then that we were playing out the exact same scenario as when I recovered my friend Jenny’s jewels from her Internet lover, and I wondered if there was a handbook that these bastards followed, a template. As with that time, I did not look right or left, only straight ahead until I reached the door. The drapes were closed over the lone window so I couldn’t see inside this room, either. I tried the knob. It turned easily. I opened the door and stepped inside, locking it behind me.

  The Jade Lily was sitting on the table in front of the window.

  I turned on the overhead light. It didn’t give me the light that I needed, so I opened the drapes. Sunlight danced over the spinach-colored flowers.

  “Wow,” I said.

  The sculpture was not nearly as fragile as the photographs had made it seem. I rubbed a jade flower petal between my thumb and forefinger. It seemed quite sturdy. It also had the soaplike feel that I
ndia Cooper told me to look for. I pulled the magnifying glass she had given me from my pocket and trained it on the stalk where it sprouted from the ground. “M, M, M,” I chanted as I looked through the glass. It took a moment before I realized I was looking on the wrong side of the sculpture. I turned it around, surprised by how heavy it was. I searched again. This time I found it, easily. “M for McKenzie.”

  The M brought a smile to my face, but it didn’t last long. I saw movement outside the window. A red SUV was moving through the parking lot, moving much faster than it should have been. The SUV contained the artnappers and the money—I knew it without knowing it.

  The phone rang. It was sitting on the nightstand on the opposite side of the bed. Someone had lain down on the bed before I arrived—the spread was matted, and two pillows were squashed against the headboard. The phone startled me as it had in room 122. I paused for a moment, then circled the bed and answered it.

  “Yes,” I said.

  “Are you satisfied?”

  “I am.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “You kept your end of the bargain.”

  “All right, then. McKenzie?”

  “Yes.”

  “There is a bomb in the room. It will go off in ten seconds. Good luck.”

  TWELVE

  I snapped awake the way you do when you hear a sound that shouldn’t be there. The sound was two voices talking, two women. One was a doctor; the other was a nurse. The nurse said, “I don’t know if I should go out with him,” and the doctor said, “He acts like a jerk sometimes, but he’s awfully cute,” so I knew they weren’t talking about me.

  “Keep it down,” I said. “There are sick people trying to get some sleep.”

  “Good morning, Mr. McKenzie,” the doctor said. She picked up my hand, careful not to disturb the device clamped to my finger that resembled a white plastic clothespin. The clothespin was attached to a wire. The wire ran to a monitor above my head that the doctor was reading. The lights, except for those that came from the monitors, were dialed down. The blinds were drawn over the window, yet I knew it was dark outside.

  “What time is it?” I asked.

  Instead of answering, the doctor said, “Do you know where you are?”

  “Target Field?”

  She sighed with exasperation.

  “North Memorial Medical Center in Robbinsdale,” I said.

  “Do you know why?”

  “Because it was closest?”

  She sighed again.

  “C’mon,” I said. “We’ve gone through all of this before.”

  “And we’re going to go through it again. Tell me who you are.”

  “Rushmore McKenzie.”

  “How did you get a name like Rushmore?”

  “My parents took a trip to the Badlands of South Dakota. They told me I was conceived in a motel near Mount Rushmore, so that’s what they named me. I’m sure they thought it was a good idea at the time. Still, it could have been worse. It could have been Deadwood.”

  The doctor smiled but did not laugh.

  “You thought it was funny the first time I told you the story,” I said.

  “When did you do that?”

  “A couple of hours ago—the last time you woke me.”

  “You remembered.”

  “You don’t think I’m still demonstrating perseveration, do you?”

  “What is perseveration?”

  “I don’t know the clinical definition, but it manifests itself in the repetition of a particular response and is often associated with head trauma. I’ll ask, ‘Where am I, how did I get here?’ and you’ll answer. Fifteen seconds later I’ll ask again.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “You did, Doctor—when you woke me up the first time.”

  The doctor smiled some more. “What happened to you?” she asked.

  She already knew—I had explained it twice before, so I gave her the abbreviated version.

  “I was in a motel room off I-694. I was examining the Jade Lily. I was looking for an imperfection caused by the carving process that resembled an M. And then—”

  “What happened next, McKenzie?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “What do you remember?”

  “I was in the parking lot of the motel next to my car. I was on the ground, the asphalt. My shoulder…” I tried to sit up in the bed, and when I did, the broken ends of my collarbone rubbed together and a pain as excruciating as anything I’ve ever felt rushed like a tsunami from my shoulder to my brain. “Oh—God!” My hand went to my collarbone. Touching it only made the pain worse. “Dammit.” I started laughing because it hurt so much. “I remember that. I remember the pain in my shoulder.”

  “You fractured your clavicle,” the doctor said.

  “I know,” I said. “I know, I know.”

  “You also sprained your left ankle and sustained numerous cuts, contusions, and abrasions, mostly on your extremities.”

  “I forgot about those. Thanks for reminding me.”

  “You were fortunate to be wearing a Kevlar vest.”

  “Be prepared—I learned that in the Boy Scouts.”

  “Somehow I find it hard to believe that you were ever a Boy Scout.”

  “Truth be told, I wasn’t. They tossed me out. Said I had a problem with authority.”

  “What else do you remember?”

  “About the Scouts?”

  “McKenzie…”

  “I remember hearing the sirens while I was lying in the parking lot. Then there’s a gap. Then I remember the paramedics were putting a collar around my neck and sliding me onto a backboard and loading me into the ambulance. The rest is all bits and pieces—the ride to the hospital, the ER, a CAT scan—how did that go, by the way?”

  “It was negative. No bleeding whatsoever.”

  “That’s good.”

  The doctor shrugged.

  “Isn’t it?” I asked.

  “A head injury and resultant cognitive impact is not readily measured by any blood test or X-ray.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It means that people with a normal CT can still have significant issues.”

  “What kind of issues?”

  “Severe headaches, nausea, problems with concentration, with balance, blurred vision, ringing in the ears.”

  “I’ve had concussions before.”

  “I know you have. What you need to know is that the more concussions you have, the more susceptible to concussions you become and the more persistent the symptoms you will experience. Being in motel rooms that blow up—not a wise choice for you, McKenzie.”

  “Ain’t that the truth,” I said. And moved my shoulder. And felt the pain. “Oh, God. Shouldn’t you be giving me morphine or something?”

  “The trouble with pain medicines is that they can mask symptoms that we need to be aware of.”

  “How ’bout aspirin? How ’bout ibuprofen? How ’bout you just hit me over the head with a two-by-four and get it over with?”

  “I’ll get you some Tylenol for your headache. You do have a headache, don’t you?”

  “You’ve read my mind.”

  “Afterward, I want you to try to get some sleep.”

  “So you can wake me up in a couple of hours and do this all over again?”

  “It’s important that you can be roused to normal consciousness.”

  “You call this normal?”

  The doctor set my hand back on the bed and gave it a gentle pat. “I’ll see you soon,” she said.

  * * *

  Bright sunlight flooded the hospital room. I was sitting up in bed, my back against the headboard. Lieutenant Rask stood at my side. His eyes were tired, his clothes were rumpled, and his face was in need of a shave. I doubted he’d had a moment of sleep since I was blown up—was it only twenty-four hours ago? It seemed so much longer. Mr. Donatucci was standing next to the window staring out at God knew what. He looked the same as he always did. I had s
poken to both of them earlier, giving them bits and pieces of information. Now they were back for more.

  The doctor was leaning against the door, her hands behind her back, monitoring the interrogation.

  “How did you get out of the motel room, McKenzie?” Rask asked.

  “I don’t remember.”

  I winced as I turned my head toward him. It’s impossible to put a cast on a broken collarbone. Instead, the doctor put me in a shoulder immobilizer—a wide elastic belt that wrapped around my chest. An elastic cuff went over my upper arm, another went around my forearm, and both cuffs were firmly pinned to the belt so that I was unable to move either. The immobilizer supported the weight of my arm, keeping it from pulling the fracture out of alignment. It also limited shoulder rotation. All this was supposed to allow the bone to heal itself within six to eight weeks. Unfortunately, it didn’t do anything for the pain, which I was assured would remain my constant companion for at least three weeks. I was offered Vicodin and Percocet, but both made me nauseous, so I settled for Tylenol and ibuprofen. Neither seemed particularly helpful.

  “We found you in the parking lot outside the room,” Rask said. “How did you get there?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You weren’t blown out of the room. The blast was too powerful. You would have been shredded like the bed, like the windows, like everything else.”

  “Was the bomb in the room?” I asked.

  “No. It was a shape charge attached to the ceiling of the room beneath you and detonated by remote control.”

  “The artnappers set it.”

  “Obviously. What isn’t obvious is how you got out alive.”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “McKenzie, when we found you, when the paramedics were treating you, glass, plaster from the walls, other debris, it was under your body. You collapsed on top of the debris after the bomb went off.”

  I kept looking Rask in the eye because it seemed important that I do so regardless of the pain it caused me.

  “I don’t know what to tell you, LT,” I said.

  “How is that possible?” Rask turned to look at the doctor. “How is this possible?”