A Hard Ticket Home (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels)

by David Housewright

  “Damn right I ain’t goin’ with you.”

  “So where are they?”

  Chopper gave me an address of an apartment building in Richfield near the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

  I thanked him.

  “So you got any next a kin, Mac? Got an address? I want t’ know where to send flowers.”

  “You’re a funny man, Chopper.”

  I slid out of the booth, said I had to leave. Chopper said he had to scoot, too, and followed me out of the restaurant, one hand working his chair and the other balancing a carton of milk and an envelope of fries. I exited in front of him, holding the door open. That’s when I saw the black teenager striding toward me, walking with purpose, his hands wrapped around a twelve-gauge Mossberg pump gun with pistol grip.

  You feel it in your stomach before you understand it in your head, the animal-like mixture of fear and confusion that makes you flinch, then freezes you in place until the brain has a chance to analyze the danger. If the brain takes too long, you’ll stand there, paralyzed with uncertainty, until the danger overwhelms you, like a deer in the headlights. But if the brain is well trained, with plenty of experience, you just might have enough time …

  I dove headlong between two cars parked side by side in the lot. A shotgun blast took out a chunk of headlight. Another smashed a windshield. I ran forward in a crouch, fumbling for my Beretta, trying to get it out from under my jacket. A third blast sprang the trunk as I swung behind the far vehicle. I came up with the Beretta in both hands. The shooter was facing me, pointing the pump gun at me, yet he was looking at Chopper through the window of the restaurant door, Chopper just sitting there munching fries, watching.

  I fired three times, hitting the teenager in the chest. Dead center.

  I moved slowly toward his fallen body, breathing hard, my gun trained on his chest, my hands trembling slightly, waiting for him to move. He didn’t. I had won again. Yet you can’t win them all. Just ask the kid lying flat on his back, his right hand still clutching the pistol grip of the Mossberg.

  Chopper pushed through the door. Now he was sipping from his carton of milk.

  “Holy shit,” he said.

  I bent over the teenager and put two fingers on his carotid artery. Blood was forming a puddle under his body, spreading across the asphalt, but none was pumping through his neck. I felt nauseous and faint, like I hadn’t eaten in three days. I moved to the back of the parked car, set my gun on the trunk lid and leaned against the fender, sucking air through my mouth. I had managed to go all those years since the convenience store shooting without pointing a gun at anyone. What tough work was necessary I was able to perform with my hands. Now I’d killed two men in two days.

  The air was loud with sirens as I emptied my insides onto the dirty asphalt.

  7

  I gave my statement six times, starting with the officers at the scene and ending with Minneapolis Police Lieutenant Clayton Rask and the assistant county attorney at about nine p.m. Everyone wanted to know what I had against Cleave Benjamn. That was the kid’s name, Cleave Benjamn.

  The final statement was made in front of a videotape camera in room 108, the Minneapolis Police Department’s homicide office located in the “Pink Palace,” the city building noted for its gothic architecture and pink granite facade. For some reason the camera made me nervous. And humiliated. Still, I tried as best I could to sit up straight and look directly into the lens when I answered Rask’s questions.

  “No, I didn’t know him.”

  “No, I never saw him before.”

  “No, he didn’t say anything.”

  “Yes, he was awfully young.”

  “No, I didn’t see anyone else.”

  “No, I don’t know why he was shooting at me.”

  “No, I don’t know why he would want to do that.”

  “Yes, I have a permit to carry a concealed weapon.”

  “No, I don’t believe it’s a license to kill.”

  The carry permit seemed to irritate them more than the shooting. It was issued to me by the sheriff of Itasca County. Itasca County is where my lake home is located. I had once done a favor for the sheriff.

  “Goddamn rurals hand these out like they were party favors,” Rask told the ACA. The ACA agreed.

  “McKenzie, listen to me.” Lieutenant Rask was smiling like we were pals, a very scary sight. “If you talk to me, maybe I can help you get through this.”

  It wasn’t the first time I considered lawyering up.

  “I’ve told you everything I know, LT.” I was smiling, too. “Check with the witnesses. Uptown early on a Thursday afternoon, there must have been a hundred people saw what happened, easy.”

  “Are you telling me how to do my job, McKenzie?”

  “Of course not.”

  Rask told me he was asking the questions. He told me to shut up unless I wanted to spend the night in a holding cell. Then he asked me if I had anything to say that might make things easier on me.

  I assumed we weren’t friends anymore.

  Merci Cole was waiting for me on the porch of my house, standing exactly where Bradley Young stood before I killed him. I was still jazzed from my encounter with Benjamn and my first impulse was to reach for the Beretta, only Lieutenant Rask had confiscated it—I was running out of guns, probably for the best. I parked the Cherokee at the curb and walked to the front door like I owned the place.

  “I’m glad you’re here,” I told her. “It saves me the trouble of finding you.”

  Merci responded by taking a small automatic from her purse and pointing it at my heart. I stopped and stared at the gun. It was too far away to do much about, so I took a chance and ignored it. I stepped past her. She held the gun steady. I unlocked the front door.

  “Want a sno-cone?” I asked, stepping inside. She followed. I snapped on a light.

  “A sno-cone?”

  “Yeah. Before you shoot me. You are going to shoot me, aren’t you?”

  She moved forward, her arm extended, until the muzzle of the gun was six inches from my face and pointed between my eyes.

  “Yes,” she said.

  It was a mistake moving that close. To prove it, I shifted my head out of the line of fire, knocked the gun up and away with my left hand. I held tight to her wrist as I cocked my right and punched her in the stomach just as hard as I could. She dropped the gun and crumpled to the hardwood floor, rasping for breath. I retrieved the handgun and unloaded it. It was a Ruger .22 with nine rounds in the magazine and a live one in the chamber. The bullet bounced and rolled across the floor when I ejected it. I lost sight of it, decided to forget it.

  Merci was in pretty rough shape on the floor, still doubled over, holding her stomach, coughing to regain her breath.

  “Forget the sno-cone,” I told her. “How ’bout a beer?”

  I went into the kitchen and leaned against the refrigerator door while I tried to steady my nerves.

  “What next?”

  A few minutes later, Merci Cole stumbled into the kitchen and sat at the table. I left an open bottle of Summit Ale for her—good, old-fashioned sipping beer brewed in St. Paul, my hometown.

  “I didn’t kill Jamie,” I told her. When she didn’t reply, I added, “Isn’t that what you came here to find out?”

  Merci picked up the beer. “I guess,” she said, and chugged half of it.

  “I found her body. It wasn’t pleasant. I want to do something about it if I can.”

  After a few moments of reflection, she took the beer by the throat, killing it.

  I perched on the chair across the table from her, setting the Ruger in front of me. Suddenly, Merci bowed her head, covered her face with her hands and wept. Her shoulders shuddered and her chest heaved with every sob. I leaned back in the chair and sipped my beer. A woman cries and most men become uncomfortable. A man cries and they become downright claustrophobic. Not me. I don’t trust tears. I know people who can cry at Laurel and Hardy shorts and Merci’s grief
noises didn’t sound even remotely genuine. In any case, she didn’t grieve long.

  “I’m all right,” she told me, dabbing at her eyes with a balled-up paper napkin she took from the dispenser on the table. I had no reason to doubt her.

  “Want another beer?”

  She nodded too quickly, like a saleswoman anticipating a big commission.

  I went to the refrigerator.

  She went for the Ruger.

  I took the Summit from the refrigerator and returned to the table, once again ignoring the gun. I couldn’t believe I was wasting my good beer on her.

  She snarled and pointed the Ruger at my chest.

  “It requires these.” I fished nine bullets from my pocket and held them out to her.

  She slammed the Ruger down on the table and I dropped the .22s back into my pocket. Merci grabbed the beer from my hand and took another long swallow.

  “I didn’t kill Jamie,” I repeated.

  “Who did?”

  “Her husband.”

  “No.”

  “I only know what I read in the papers.”

  “No,” she repeated, adding a head shake.

  “What makes you so sure? Have you seen him? Do you know where he is?”

  “If I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t tell you.”

  “Not even if he killed Jamie?”

  “He didn’t!”

  “Well, if he did, he’s going down for it. It’s not easy to hide these days, especially with a baby, especially if you’re Good Deal Dave and your face is plastered all over billboards. On the other hand, if he didn’t do it, maybe I can find out who did. You can help. You did come here to avenge your friend, right?”

  “Something like that.”

  “Not very smart,” I told her. “There’s no such thing as getting even—trust me on this. Besides, think how bad you would have felt when you discovered I was innocent.”

  “I would have gotten over it.”

  In about thirty seconds, I figured. I swallowed some more Summit Ale.

  “There’s something else. Jamie’s child.”

  “Thomas Christopher,” Merci said. “They call him TC.”

  “TC might be able to donate his bone marrow. He might be able to save Stacy’s life.”

  “I hadn’t thought of that,” Merci said. “Are you sure? He’s so small.”

  “That’s what I’ve been told.”

  “By who?”

  “Richard Carlson.”

  “That bastard. Yeah, he cares about Stacy, but fuck everyone else.”

  “He asked about you.”

  “Sure he did.”

  “He seemed genuinely pleased when I told him you were all right.”

  “What else did you tell him about me?”

  “Nothing.”

  She hit the beer again, then said, “Yeah. Good.”

  “You hooked up with Jamie after you were released from Shakopee,” I said.

  “She let me stay at her place for a couple of weeks.”

  “How did they seem to you, Jamie and David?”

  “Fine. They were okay. We didn’t spend much time with David. Mostly he played with the kid while Jamie and I talked.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Jamie was trying to get me to change my ways. Like I haven’t tried. Only it seems every time I make an effort, there’s a man standing there with money in his hand.”

  “Did you talk to Jamie after you met me?”

  “No.”

  I remembered the message she left on Jamie’s answering machine.

  “We’ll get along so much better if you don’t lie to me.”

  “I’m not,” she began, stopped, thought about it. “After you found Jamie, Jamie called me. She said she was going to tell her husband everything, said she was going back to Grand Rapids to help little Stacy.”

  “What was Bruder’s reaction, I wonder.”

  “He said he was fine with it, said he was looking forward to meeting his in-laws.”

  He said?

  “Do you know where David Bruder is?” I asked again.

  “No. How many times do I have to say it?”

  I finished my Summit Ale and went for another bottle. When I returned I asked Merci to tell me about Jamie. “Start with when she left Grand Rapids.”

  “Why should I?”

  The average person is so unaccustomed to sudden pain that one quick, violent thrust is enough to leave them shaky, nauseous, and immensely cooperative for a week or more. Only Merci Cole had been hit before and she wasn’t afraid of being hit again. No threat was going to persuade her to do my bidding. So I gave Merci the truth. “It might help me find Jamie’s killer.”

  “Like you care.”

  “I do care. I care very much.”

  Merci studied me over the mouth of her beer bottle for a moment. Then she began to talk.

  Merci claimed she hadn’t encouraged Jamie to leave home, hadn’t invited her to her fleabag apartment on Franklin Avenue in Minneapolis. Yet one day there she was, suitcase in hand. Of course Merci took her in.

  “Why did Jamie leave home?”

  “What did she tell you?”

  “She said she was tired of the lies.”

  “Aren’t we all.”

  “What lies?”

  “Ask Richard.”

  “Something happened between her and Mr. Carlson?”

  “What’s it they say? ‘It’s always something.’ I don’t want to talk about it.”

  I did. But I was afraid I might lose her if I kept pushing, so I changed the subject.

  “Her new ID. Jamie Kincaid? Did you manage it?”

  “ID? Yeah. I knew a couple of guys that helped us out—for a price. We furnished Jamie with a new name, driver’s license, social security number, the works. We even forged some transcripts to get her into community college. She worked as a receptionist during the day, went to school to be a paralegal at night.”

  “She worked for a law firm,” I added.

  “In Arden Hills.”

  “That’s where she met Bruder?”

  “Uh huh. He took one look at her and, well, you saw how pretty she was.”

  “She was beautiful.”

  Merci nodded and bowed her head. This time the tears that formed in her eyes were as real as life and death. She brushed them away and took another swallow of beer.

  “I tried to talk her out of it, the marriage I mean.” Merci’s voice was suddenly drenched in regret. “It was selfish of me. I was afraid of being alone again. You gotta know, when we went out together, it was pretty amazing the sensation we caused. Guys would line up three deep to buy us drinks, buy us dinner, buy us all kinds of things. Jamie didn’t like it, though. She thought by accepting gifts we were entering into some kinda—what did she call it—‘implied contract.’ I guess she learned that in school. She said the guys now had the right to expect something in return and she wasn’t willing to reciprocate, which is another legal word. You believe that? I told her to loosen up, only she never did. Then when David came around—Mr. Nice Suit, Nice Manners, Money-in-the-Bank—well, I guess that’s what she was looking for. Jamie earned her diploma but she didn’t use it long. They were married like three months later and that was that.”

  “What about you?” I asked.

  “I was Jamie’s maid of honor. Isn’t that a laugh? Maid of Honor. Me? After the wedding, you knew Jamie wasn’t going bar hopping anymore. That left me by myself and I started to get into some—unsavory situations.”

  “Prostitution?”

  “I got screwed over so often I figured maybe I should make some money at it.”

  “Drugs?”

  “That was a bum rap. I wasn’t dealing, not really. Sometimes I help a guy I know, that’s all. Anyway, I’m on the bus and I asked these black dudes if they want a taste and all of a sudden a guy’s got his arm on my shoulder. I didn’t know they had bus police, guys who ride undercover on the MTC. I didn’t know that. My PD, he says cop a
plea and I’ll get probation, it’s my first felony so I’ll get probation, maybe some community service, but no time. So I cop. Wham, the judge gives me eighteen months, no probation. Don’t ever listen to no overworked public defender, that’s what I learned.

  “So now I’m in Shakopee. People say Shakopee is like a summer camp or something. No fences and you’re allowed to walk around during the day and there are crab-apple trees and a wishing well and inside there’s a gymnasium with a weight room, and a dark room, and a pottery kiln, and a bowling alley. Only it’s no summer camp, no way. The first day I’m there, I’m trying to call Jamie, and this big bull dyke swings a twenty-four-pound fire extinguisher at my head cuz she wanted to use the phone. It was crazy. I decided right then I was going to keep a low profile. I was going to mind my own business and do my time and get the hell outta there and never go back. Jamie was a big help. She would visit and we would talk. Mostly she would talk and I would listen. Jamie was going to straighten me out. I was going to let her.”

  The tears returned, flowed freely. This time Merci made no attempt to brush them away. I moved to her side and covered her hand with mine. She surprised me by not pulling away. Instead she rested her forehead on top of it, her hair spilling across the table. I guess neither of us was as tough as we pretended to be. A moment later, I felt her body shudder. She jerked back her head abruptly, angry at her weakness and quickly brushed the tears from her eyes with the heel of her palm.

  “Anyway, it’s like I always say. Live fast, die young, leave a beautiful corpse.”

  “That’s original.”

  “Oh? Has it been done before?”

  I wanted to talk more about Jamie, only Merci had tired of the subject.

  “This is a nice house,” she told me. “You live alone?”

  “Yes.”

  “How come a bachelor lives in such a big house?”

  “Just lucky, I guess.”

  I finished my beer and went for another. I felt light when I moved. I hadn’t eaten and what little had been in my stomach had been washed off the fast-food joint’s asphalt parking lot with a hose. The alcohol was taking effect.

  “You don’t talk much,” Merci observed.