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

by David Housewright

  Get out, I screamed to myself. Get out while you still can.

  I didn’t linger at Margot’s but kept fleeing north, moving quickly, cutting through yards the way I did when I was a kid. I was out of breath when I reached Larpenteur Avenue. I hung a right and reduced my pace to a purposeful stroll, pretending I wasn’t a fugitive, refusing to glance at the vehicles that whizzed past, resisting the urge to look behind me. I knew where I needed to go and calculated the safest route to get there. It wasn’t in a straight line, and it certainly wasn’t from behind the steering wheel of my Jeep Cherokee—I was sure there was a stop-and-detain order on it. Smarter, I decided, to acquire new wheels when the time came and let the golf course tow the Cherokee to an impound lot. I continued to follow Larpenteur east.

  Like me, the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota was actually located in Falcon Heights. No doubt it was just as embarrassed by the fact as I was, since it was never, ever referred to as the “Falcon Heights campus.” It wasn’t long before I reached the student center. That’s where I caught the free shuttle, a full-sized MTC bus that carried students nonstop from the St. Paul campus the few miles to the Minneapolis campus. You’re supposed to be enrolled or an employee at the U to ride the shuttle, but no one asked to see an ID when I boarded.

  I found a seat and waited. The bus filled quickly with young men and women dressed as though they had just finished cleaning out the garage. And pretty. Unmarked by the changing seasons. Looking about as intense as a Sunday afternoon. Especially the women, the finest women in the United States. Normally I would have taken pleasure in being among them, but it’s difficult to enjoy girl-watching when you’re also on the lookout for men in dark suits carrying guns.

  I didn’t begin to relax—and then just barely—until the bus shuddered and shook as it accelerated from the curb and slowly followed a circuitous route through the campus, eventually crossing from St. Paul into Minneapolis. It rolled up to the edge of the East Bank of the campus; the West Bank was located on the far side of the Mississippi River.

  I took my leave of the shuttle in front of Mariucci Arena, where the Gophers played hockey, walked past Williams Arena, where they played basketball, and found a seat on the bench at the bus stop on University Avenue. The MTC stopped for me and several other commuters. I couldn’t remember the last time I rode a city bus and didn’t know the correct fare. I dropped an extra quarter into the meter and probably would have paid more if the driver hadn’t looked at me like I had the IQ of a salad bar. I quickly found a seat, the shoe box balanced on my knee.

  The bus headed east, crossing back into St. Paul. It made frequent stops, but the number of passengers never seemed to grow or diminish. For every one that disembarked, someone else boarded. Still, I had a seat to myself until we reached Snelling Avenue and a man dressed for business joined me.

  “How you doin’?” he said.

  I nodded and looked out the window.

  “Some weather.” He spoke with the enthusiasm of a telemarketer, trying to engage me in conversation, trying to interest me in his product. Whatever it was, I wasn’t buying.

  “Where are you headed?”

  I turned casually toward him. He smiled. His teeth were stained by grape juice, and when he brushed his hair off his forehead the way bad actors do, I noticed that it was very thin on top. I estimated he’d be bald by the end of the week.

  “I don’t mean to be rude, sir, but I’m in a very bad mood. You don’t want any part of it.”

  “Oh.” The purple smile faded quickly. “No problem. I was just trying to be friendly.”

  “Normally I’d appreciate it.”

  “Sure.”

  He wasn’t a bad guy. A Minnesotan trying to be nice just for the sake of being nice. Outsiders—and a few of our more cynical natives—often ridicule us for this behavior. I can’t imagine why. When he left the bus at Lexington Parkway, I said, “Have a good day.” He said, “You, too.”

  After crossing Lexington, the bus began a two-mile stretch of University Avenue known as “Asian Main Street” because of the hundredplus Asian businesses found there. As a nickname, “Asian Main Street” wasn’t very catchy. Nor was “Asian Avenue.” Some had attempted to tag the area “Chinatown,” but the label hadn’t stuck because there were hardly any Chinese there. The inhabitants were mostly Hmong refugees from Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, with a smattering of Japanese and Koreans mixed in. I read somewhere that St. Paul had the greatest concentration of urban Hmong in the world. Which puzzled me. I would have thought the culture shock if not the climate change—we have six months of snow and ice, man—would have sent them scurrying to the southern states.

  I pulled the cord that signaled the driver to stop the bus at an intersection near Rice Street.

  Phu Photography sold film cameras, digital cameras, camcorders, lenses, gadget bags, tripods, darkroom equipment, film, and binoculars. One corner of the store had been reserved for passport photos, and a door behind the cash register led to two studios where individual and family portraits were taken.

  A tiny bell sang when I entered the store, although no bell hung above the door. A moment later a young woman asked if she could assist me. She spoke in the clear and precise English that only foreigners speak.

  I asked to see Phu. I would have used the owner’s first name, but I couldn’t remember it. A few moments later, I was approached by an older woman who looked the way I imagined a Vietnamese librarian would look. She pointed and said, “I know you maybe.”

  “Yes.”

  “You friend of Colin Gernes.” She pronounced the name “Olin Ernes.”

  I said, “Yes.” Colin Gernes had been my supervising officer when I first broke in with the St. Paul Police Department.

  “Kenzie?”

  I nodded. Close enough.

  “You cop no more.”

  “No more,” I confirmed.

  “You not come to roust poor Phu.” She pronounced the word “oust.”

  “I wouldn’t think of it.”

  “You come maybe buy camera?”

  The shop assistant who met me at the door was now behind the glass counter. She scrunched up her nose and shook her head like a sudden chill had run up her spine.

  “Cut it out, Phu,” I said. “You’re embarrassing the help.”

  Phu glanced over her shoulder at the young woman.

  “Oh, nuts, McKenzie. She’s my teenage niece. I embarrass her just by being in the same room.”

  “Kids.”

  “If they didn’t work cheap, there’d be a bounty on them. So what can I do for you, McKenzie?”

  I took Phu’s arm and led her deeper into the store, away from her assistant.

  “Let’s say, just for argument’s sake, that I wanted some paperwork done and didn’t want to trouble the bureaucracy. What would that cost?”

  “Didn’t you try to arrest me for that once?”

  “Nah. That was two guys who looked like me.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “Seriously, Phu. Can you help me out?”

  “I’m retired.”

  “So am I.”

  “Who are you kidding?”

  “Phu …”

  “Help you? You want me to help you?”

  “Yes.”

  “Times have changed since you were last in my store.”

  “Tell me about it.”

  Phu gave it some thought, then said, “You’re not going bad on me, are you, McKenzie?”

  “I need to hide in plain sight for a while, just like your clients.”

  “Former clients.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “What are we talking about, McKenzie? Not passports.”

  “Nothing that elaborate.”

  “That’s good, because I don’t do passports anymore. Not since 9/11.”

  That’s my girl, I thought but didn’t say.

  “So,” she added. “Driver’s license? Credit cards?”

  “Yes to both.”


  “From where?”

  “Anyplace but Minnesota.”

  “Twenty-five hundred.”

  “I need it right now.”

  “Three thousand.” And she didn’t mean dong, the official currency of Vietnam.

  I agreed to the price.

  “You come.”

  Phu led me down a flight of stairs to her cellar. She unlocked one door, then another, and ushered me into a cramped room where a digital camera mounted on a tripod and a pair of strobe lights were aimed at a blue screen. The camera and lights were cabled to an Apple computer. There was a gray filing cabinet against the wall, a table, and three chairs. Yeah, Phu. You’re retired.

  I said, “Can I ask a question?”

  “Hmm.”

  “What’s a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?”

  “Mostly I help immigrants and refugees. You know that.”

  “No, I mean, why do so many Southeast Asians live here?”

  “Family.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “In the seventies, St. Paul became a kind of refuge for people fleeing the war. The population was small back then. But it grew because the refugees had family here. It’s like the Swedes and Norwegians. They settled in Minnesota because there were already Swedes and Norwegians in Minnesota, which in turn encouraged even more Swedes and Norwegians to come to Minnesota.”

  “A lot of Southeast Asians live here because a lot of Southeast Asians live here.”

  “Exactly.”

  “Makes sense. When did you come to Minnesota?”

  Phu chuckled.

  “I was born in St. Joseph’s Hospital on the Fourth of July 1948.”

  “Why, then, do you insist on speaking in that pidgin English of yours?”

  “So many of my white customers expect it.”

  Phu shooed me in front of the blue screen. Noting my appearance—unshaved, unruly hair, creased black sports jacket over wrinkled maroon T-shirt, blue jeans, white Nikes—she asked, “Is that what you want to look like?”

  “No. I want to look like Russell Crowe, but what are you going to do?”

  The lights flashed, and a moment later my image appeared on a computer screen. I actually looked pretty good, all things considered, and urged Phu to take another photo. It took several more shots before we were able to duplicate the vacant-eyed, mug-shot expression that we’ve all come to expect from bureaucracy photography. Afterward, she filled in my height, weight, eye color, and hair color, then slid a card printed with the outline of a rectangle in front of me.

  “Sign in the box.”

  “What’s my name?”

  “Jacob Greene.” She spelled it carefully, and I signed slowly.

  “Where am I from?”

  She told me, “Rapid City, South Dakota. Have you ever been there?”

  “No, but my parents have.” Mount Rushmore is near Rapid City.

  “You sit. You wait.”

  Phu left the room. I sat. I waited.

  About ninety minutes later Phu set a driver’s license in front of me with a blue header bar, a driver’s license number printed in red, the South Dakota state seal, the words “South Dakota” written all over the face, and Mount Rushmore in the background. It also had Jacob Greene’s name and address but my face and signature. Next to it, she placed Visa, Discover, and American Express credit cards.

  “More,” she said, handing me a Rapid City Public Library card, an American Red Cross Volunteer Blood Donor card—it indicated that I had given six pints—a Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance card, and another card saying I was a proud member of the United States Golf Association—all of them in Jacob Greene’s name.

  “These no good,” she said, sliding into her pidgin English. “Just for show. Don’t use. These”—she picked up the credit cards—“good until end of month. Greene get statements then, know something wrong, call companies, companies trace cards. No good.”

  I nodded my understanding.

  “Three thousand dollars.” She said that clearly enough.

  I paid her from my shoe box.

  “Do you have a wallet?”

  “No.” I didn’t want to use my own.

  “Everyone forgets the wallet.” A moment later she produced a worn, thin brown wallet and gave it to me.

  “No charge.”

  I filled it with Jacob Greene’s life.

  What did Thoreau write? Beware of enterprises that require new clothes?

  Fifteen minutes after I left Phu Photography, I entered the Sears store across from the State Capitol Office Building. I was carrying the shoe box under my arm, which made me a figure of some suspicion to store security—how many people carry worn cardboard boxes into department stores, and why would they? A plainclothes guard was dispatched to follow my every move at a respectful distance, watching me while pretending not to. I made sure I did nothing to arouse his suspicion. The last thing I wanted was for him to inspect the shoe box for either a bomb or shoplifted merchandise.

  I found a cart and began loading it up with a week’s supply of socks and underwear, an electric razor, toothbrush and toothpaste, deodorant, and a hairbrush. Next, I rolled over to the men’s department, where I carefully shopped for the most bland polo shirts, Dockers, Top-Siders, sweaters, and blue sports jacket I could find, working hard to choose clothes that would make me appear as colorful and distinct as a loaf of white bread. Finally I selected the ugliest soft-sided suitcase to cram it all into.

  The security guard followed me to the checkout.

  The cashier smiled without actually looking at me. She took each item and ran it past an electronic eye that made an annoying “bip” sound—I couldn’t imagine listening to that eight hours a day. Instead of a bag, I had her pack each purchase into the suitcase. I added the shoe box last. The cashier rang up a total, and I gave her a wad of fifties. After accepting them, she scribbled across each bill with a counterfeit-detector pen. The ink turned amber—instead of brown—proving that the fifties were all genuine.

  It was distressing to know how untrusting people can be.

  I drove the posted speed limit in the right-hand lane and was passed by nearly every car on I-94. Some of the drivers gave me a look that bordered on open hostility, while others demonstrated their disgust with hand gestures. Instead of responding, I found KBEM-FM on the radio and cranked the volume, soothing my savage breast with some mainstream jazz. Normally I’d be speeding, too, but I couldn’t afford a ticket-happy patrolman taking a close look at Phu’s handiwork.

  I had no doubt that the driver’s license was all right, especially after the rent-a-car folks checked it out, but why push my luck? It had been tense enough leaning on the counter while the agent accessed both Jacob Greene’s driving record and his credit card account. There had been a computer glitch, and when the agent said, “Just a moment, Mr. Greene,” I nearly grabbed the suitcase and made a break for it. As it was, I needed the agent to return the driver’s license before I could fill out his forms—in all the excitement, I had forgotten Jake’s address!

  The agent had attempted to put me into an SUV, but I requested something smaller and less expensive. I wasn’t concerned about the money. I wanted a vehicle that was nondescript, only I didn’t want to say it aloud for fear of arousing suspicion or giving the agent something to remember should anyone ask about me. To meet my request, he rolled out a blue four-door Plymouth Neon with a tiny four-cylinder engine, five-speed manual transmission, and a tinny AM/FM radio. It only goes to show, you should be careful what you wish for.

  It called itself a sporting goods store, yet it served only two sports—hunting and fishing. The store was small and old and located just off of I-35 north of Forest Lake, about thirty minutes from St. Paul. A sign near the cash register read GUNS DON’T KILL PEOPLE, ONLY PEOPLE INSTRUCTED IN THE PROPER USE OF FIREARMS KILL PEOPLE. JOIN OUR SEVEN-HOUR “CONCEAL AND CARRY” HANDGUN COURSE. BECOME QUALIFIED TODAY! The store seemed ideal for what I had in mind.


  After a half hour of browsing, I selected two handguns, a Beretta double-action 9 mm with an eight-round magazine and a modest .25 Iver Johnson. I piled fifties on the glass counter next to the guns until I covered the nearly thousand-dollar cost plus tax. The store owner didn’t seem surprised that I was paying cash until I added three more fifties to the stack.

  “What’s that for?”

  “I’d like to buy a little convenience.”

  “What’s that mean, convenience?”

  “I want you to backdate the 4473 three days so I can take the guns with me.”

  The owner looked at the ATF firearms transaction form as if he were seeing it for the first time.

  “You do, huh?”

  “I live in South Dakota, and I’m going home soon. If I have to come back to the store, I might as well buy the guns in South Dakota.”

  The store owner looked at the stack of fifties and then at me.

  “I can appreciate that,” he said.

  “So how ’bout it?”

  “Do you have identification?”

  “Of course.”

  The Holiday Inn on I-494 insisted on a credit card. I gave Greene’s Visa to the desk clerk. It went through without any problem. After my experience with the car rental folks, I was certain that it would. Nor was I worried that Greene had reported his card stolen, because it hadn’t been stolen. Somehow—and there are many ways, including mail theft—Phu had acquired Greene’s name and account numbers and had essentially made a duplicate of his existing cards. The same with his driver’s license. They were as real as the cards he carried in his own wallet. In a month or so, Greene would start getting unexplained charges on his account statements; he’d start getting confusing bills from companies that he didn’t remember doing business with. If he was smart, he’d realize that he was a victim of identity theft and would take the necessary steps to protect himself. Until then, I could confidently pretend to be him.

  Still, I didn’t want to cause any more grief for the man than was necessary. That’s why I was determined to pay for everything in cash when the bill came due—at the motel, at the car rental agency, and anywhere else. I would steal his name for a time, but I wouldn’t take his money.