She planted her elbows on the bar and leaned forward. I thought she wanted a kiss. Instead, she asked, “Well? What happened?”
I told her the entire story. She interrupted only to say how deeply relieved she was to hear that Victoria was now safely home with her parents. Nina was smiling when I finished.
“You had a pleasant day, didn’t you?” she said.
“Did I?”
“Everything that happened, even getting shot at, you enjoyed it, you know you did.”
“That’s crazy.”
“The way you told the story, the way your face lit up while telling the story, it’s like customers that I’ve served who get a thrill out of reliving how they won the big game, or who want to buy rounds because they closed a big deal.”
“I didn’t enjoy it.”
“Then why did you do it?”
“I couldn’t refuse to help Victoria and the Dunstons.”
“Of course not. You know Victoria and care for her. But what about all the others?”
“What others?”
“The other people you’ve done favors for.”
I tried to explain; Nina cut me off.
“You’re always quick with an explanation, and it always makes sense—nearly always,” she said. “Still, you could just as easily find an excuse for not getting involved in other people’s problems. Couldn’t you?”
I took a sip of my drink.
“I’ve come to a conclusion,” Nina said. “You’re committed to lost and hopeless causes, not because you’re an idealist or a humanitarian or anything like that. It’s about pride; it’s about self-esteem. This Wild West– gunfighter, white-knight, Scarlet Pimpernel life that you’ve chosen, it allows you to prove that you matter.”
“Good try. Your Psych 101 professor would be proud. Except I don’t agree.”
“Explain it to me, then.”
“I just like to be useful.”
“Isn’t that what I just said?”
“You make it sound like it’s an ego thing.”
Nina laughed at me. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Of course it is.”
“No, it isn’t. I help people the way I do because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. It makes me feel that I haven’t wasted my day. Not because it makes me a superior being or something.”
“If that’s true, why not go back to the cops?”
“I’ve been too long going where I want, doing what I want, unaccountable to anyone. I’m not sure I’d be very good at taking orders, now.”
“Like you ever were.”
“Or doing things by the book. Besides, the other kids resent me for being so damn good-looking, not to mention rich. I doubt they’d let me play with them.”
Nina sighed like a stage actress playing to the upper balcony.
“Anyway,” I told her, “I don’t think you’d love me if I had a real job, if I worked eight-to-five.”
“Of course, I would.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You know I would.”
“Do you remember the first time we met?”
“You came into my place because you were following a woman who was involved in a gunrunning operation.”
“If I recall, you were very excited by it. You went all Sam Spade on me, explaining how you knew she was cheating on her husband.”
“Well, she was.”
“What I’m asking, would you have spent time with me, would you have even spoken to me, if I had told you I was an accountant?” She didn’t answer, so I asked, “Remember the second time we met, at the Minnesota Club?”
“That was the third time, but who’s counting?” Nina said.
“You pushed a guy down a flight of stairs.”
“He was reaching for a gun. He was going to shoot you.”
“Probably he wasn’t, but that’s not the point.”
“What is the point?”
“You smiled while he bounced on every step until he hit the bottom.”
“Well…”
“You were having fun.”
“Nah-uh.”
“Last summer, we were attacked while you were driving down 94,” I said. “The guy smashed the back of your Lexus and threw a couple of shots at us. You told the story for months afterward, told anyone who would listen.”
“Did I mention how angry I was?”
“At the time, yes, very angry. Not so much later while you were telling the story.”
“You’re saying that I find it all as much fun as you do,” Nina said.
“I never said it was fun.”
She took my hand and spent a few moments twisting it in hers. “What you do is dangerous. Maybe it’s more interesting than working eight-to-five, and maybe that makes you more interesting. It’s still dangerous, and I can’t help feeling… You know what my greatest fear is? That one day Bobby Dunston is going to come knocking on my door…”
“That’s not going to happen.”
“McKenzie, I look terrible in black.”
Actually, Nina looked terrific in black, but I knew what she meant.
I kissed her cheek. I said, “I’m not a cop, I’m not a licensed PI. If things get dicey, I can always walk away.”
“Except you never do. Ahh, nuts. I knew what I was getting into when I visited you in the hospital. Remember the cracked skull?”
“Epidural hematoma.”
“Whatever,” Nina said. She frowned at me, then she smiled, and then she kissed me, softly, without haste, on the mouth. It was a message kiss. It said, “You and me, kid. You and me.” At least, that’s what I heard.
“We’ll be closing soon,” Nina said. “Afterward, I’ll be going to your house, and I’ll be hungry.”
The end to a perfect day, I thought.
The best egg rolls in the Twin Cities were served by a Vietnamese restaurant on Johnson Street in northeast Minneapolis. The beef lo mein was pretty good, too, so I called in an order for both, plus some cream cheese puffs. There were two Asian kids hanging in the lobby when I arrived to pick it up. One of them was wearing a Minnesota Timberwolves jersey, 21, Kevin Garnett’s old number. They were studying the fish in a large, colorful tank with such intensity that I half expected them to announce, “We’ll take that one.”
The cashier asked my name, and I said, “McKenzie.”
At the sound of it, Number 21 pivoted toward me. There was an expression on his face that said he knew me. I didn’t know him, so I blew it off. A moment later, he pulled his pal out of the restaurant. That should have told me something. It didn’t.
The cashier filled my order; I paid and left. Stepping through the door, I noticed that the kids were standing next to a battered Chevy Malibu across the street and down the block. Neither was looking at me. I went to the Audi, started it up, checked for traffic, and pulled into Johnson Street. As I accelerated away I heard two soft pops that reminded me of a small-caliber pistol. I glanced in my rearview and saw Number 21 standing in the middle of the street and gesturing wildly.
Was he shooting at you? my inner voice wanted to know.
Of course not, I told myself. You’re just paranoid after everything that’s happened today.
I was checking the scores on ESPN—the Twins were making yet another run at the Central Division championship, and normally I would have taken time to watch or at least listen to the game, except hey, I’d been busy. My house phone rang. Usually that meant that someone wanted me to donate money to one worthy cause or another; my friends nearly always call me on my cell. Then I realized that my cell was on the bottom of the Mississippi River.
I answered. Bobby Dunston was on the other end. “I’ve just seen the ballistics report,” he said. “The FBI’s been very good about sharing.”
“What in the hell are you doing reading ballistics reports?”
“The bullet the FBI dug out of your upholstery was a nine-millimeter. It matched the slug they removed from Scottie Thomforde’s chest. Which means it was the second kidnapper who came after yo
u at Parade.”
“Should you be working, Bobby?”
“I want to find the man who kidnapped my daughter. How ’bout you?”
“Bobby…”
“I’m not working. Jeannie Shipman dropped by to give me an update.”
“Your young, beautiful, smart-as-hell partner?”
“That’s the one. McKenzie, I want you to know that I don’t think this is over. Watch your back, man.”
“Screw my back, Bobby. Watch your own. Take Victoria and the rest of your family and go to my lake home for a few days. You have keys. Tory could use the vacation. I bet everyone else could, too.”
“Tory is tough.”
“No, she’s not. She’s terrified and putting up a front to hide it, mostly from herself.”
“I already spoke with the department’s psychologist. We’ll be getting her therapy, getting her help. The rest of us, too.”
“That’s later. Right now, get out of here. Go up north. Teach Victoria how to fight. Teach her how to shoot a gun. Teach her to chop down a damn tree. That clump of birch behind the shed can go. Give her a chance to regain her confidence, her self-esteem.”
“You just want us to do your yard work.”
“There’s that, too.”
“For your information, I’m taking the girls to see their grandparents in Wisconsin tomorrow morning. Hopefully, the media won’t find us there. Once Victoria was back, I guess people decided it was safe to talk about the kidnapping. The phone started ringing thirty minutes after Victoria came home and hasn’t stopped. There are TV trucks parked in front of the house right now. I’ve been directing reporters to the PR guy at the department, but they’re not satisfied with that. They want to interview Tory, and I won’t let them.”
“I wouldn’t, either.”
“The Feds want to debrief Victoria one more time; then we’re leaving. In a couple of days maybe the media’ll move on to something else and we can get back to normal.”
I didn’t think that was likely, but didn’t say so. “Did she tell the FBI anything they can use?” I asked.
“Not much. Only two men were with her. She never saw their faces; they always wore masks. She remembers hearing the name T-Man, but no others. The one called T-Man received several calls on his cell phone. Victoria thinks the caller might have been a woman because the T-Man said ‘babe.’ You know, McKenzie, she did everything right.”
“I know.”
“The way she looked out for her sister, that took courage. God, I’m proud of her.”
“Did you tell her that?”
“Several times.”
“Tell her again.”
“What makes you think you know anything about raising children?”
“Because I don’t have any of my own.”
“I want the bastards who hurt my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Remember what we talked about in the kitchen?”
“I remember.”
Bobby paused for a moment; I heard him sigh. He said, “I want to thank you, McKenzie. For everything.”
“I thought you already did.”
A moment later, he hung up the phone. A funny thing happened when he did. I began to weep. My hands shook, and my body trembled uncontrollably. I couldn’t stop. I understood the cause of it. The release of tension and all that. Only it seemed to go on and on, right up until Nina arrived. And then it was smiles the rest of the night and into the morning.
15
My auto-body man laughed when I said I wanted to bring the Audi in for an estimate. Apparently he got a kick out of repairing bullet holes— he actually seemed disappointed that there were only two this time. I told him that since my business brought him such mirth and merriment, he should give me a break on the price. He told me he’d give me a magnetic calendar for my refrigerator. I figured he might sweeten the offer, though, when I discovered a third bullet hole, this one lodged in the back of the car between the trunk lid and bumper. Funny I had missed it before, I told myself. The body shop was backed up and couldn’t service me for a couple of days, so I left the Audi in the garage and drove to the Rosedale Center in my old Jeep Cherokee.
Joley called later that morning.
I had just replaced my drowned cell phone. The aggressive young lady staffing the kiosk at Rosedale had attempted to sell me a device with enough features to manage the space program. It had e-mail, text messaging, Internet search engines, a music and video player, a camera, maps and a step-by-step navigation system, games, an address book, a calendar, a memo pad, and voice-activated dialing. I asked if it also made and received phone calls, and she looked like at me as if I were Robinson Crusoe, just rescued from a deserted island after a couple of decades. Eventually I settled on a sturdy flip-phone, even though it came with several features that I expected never to use, like the camera, and she helped me program it to accept my cell number. I designated the Johnny Mercer–Jo Stafford cover of “Blues in the Night” as the ringtone, only the first time I heard it on the tinny speaker, I decided to change it.
“Hi, Joley,” I said.
“McKenzie,” she said. Enough time passed that I thought the cell phone had already failed me, but there was a muffled sound as if she had covered the mouthpiece of her phone, followed by, “Oh, McKenzie.”
She must have heard about Scottie, my inner voice told me. I said, “Are you all right, Joley?”
“I’m… Yes, I’m fine. Could you come over? Could you come over to my house? Please?” Her voice seemed stilted and artificial; it held none of its usual seductive charm. She’s in mourning, my inner voice said.
“I can come over,” I said.
“Please hurry.”
It wasn’t a conversation I wanted to have, talking about Scottie, yet I hurried as promised, parking the Cherokee in front of her place. Maybe you should get her out of the house, I told myself. Take her to an early lunch someplace crowded, where she’d be less likely to break down. I was considering a few spots as I walked up her sidewalk. I was halfway to the door when it opened abruptly. I expected to see her standing there, grieving for her lost love. Instead, I saw a man dressed in white coveralls and a black ski mask. That’s not what started me running, though. It was the handgun that I could clearly see when he pushed open the screen door.
I heard a single gunshot as I dodged to my left. I was accelerating quickly, pumping my arms the way I had been taught during my junior year in high school when I tried running track and playing baseball at the same time. I crossed Joley’s yard and her neighbor’s yard and the yard next to that. I had been a sprinter and proud of it, yet when I reached the hundred-meter mark I started doing the same thing I had done in school—I slowed down. A quick glance over my shoulder showed me that the man in the coveralls was still in pursuit. I couldn’t tell if he was gaining or not. He was carrying the handgun in his right hand. He brought the hand up as if he were going to try for a running shot. By then I had reached the street, and I cut hard to my right. If he fired the gun, I didn’t hear it.
I had no idea where I was going. I was just running, pumping my arms because Coach told me you can run only as fast as you can pump your arms. I was pumping them slower and slower. I had been slacking off for months now. Walking through my martial arts classes, watching TV instead of hitting the exercise equipment in my basement, finding something else to do other than Rollerblade five miles a day while carrying weights in each hand, like I used to. I told myself I’d get back in shape when I started playing hockey again. Well, good luck with that if you can’t even run a lousy half mile from a killer with a gun in his hand, my inner voice said.
I glanced behind me again. At least the shooter was struggling, too. He slowed, then stopped altogether, resting his hands on his knees and gulping oxygen. I took refuge behind a parked car and watched him, ready to begin running when he did. Only he didn’t, lucky me. He brought his gun up and sighted down the barrel. We were about a hundred yards apart. Even so, I ducked behind the
car, although to hit me from that range with a handgun would have been miraculous. He must have thought so, too, because he didn’t fire. Instead, he spun around and half walked, half jogged in the direction he had come.
I hadn’t considered Joley until the shooter turned away, hadn’t given her safety any thought at all. It was me I was concerned about, which, I decided, made me some kind of a jerk. I felt the guilt as I went to my pocket for the cell phone and fumbled it—my hands were shaking. Fatigue, I told myself. The cell phone was unlike the one I had dropped into the Mississippi River, the buttons were in different places, and it took me a few moments to activate it. Eventually I called 911. “Shots fired,” I said, even though there had only been the one. I gave the operator Joley’s address as well as my name. She asked for my location. I had to walk up the street a bit to read the signs. She told me that the police were on the way. I told her that I would meet them at the house. She said that was unwise, and I agreed with her.
The St. Paul cops were already on the scene when I reached Joley’s house. ’Course, I had given them a big head start while I cautiously retraced my steps, leery that the attacker would jump out at me again at any moment.
Joley’s front door was open. I saw two uniforms inside, along with Detective Jean Shipman, Bobby Dunston’s young, beautiful, smart-as-hell partner. I opened the screen and stepped across the threshold. Joley was sitting in one of her immaculate chairs; Jeannie was interviewing her. The cops didn’t see me until Joley sprang from the chair and crossed the room.
Madman on a Drum Page 16