The Last Kind Word

by David Housewright

  At the center of the park was a large round fountain. I didn’t see Shelby, so I sat on the low brick wall containing the fountain and waited. The clock on the Landmark Center told me it was 6:07 P.M. I started tapping the face of my watch, or rather the watch I had borrowed from Skarda. There was a bronze figure of F. Scott Fitzgerald near the street vendor and a clutch of statues depicting the Peanuts characters created by Charles M. Schulz, both St. Paul natives. I was debating which author had the greater cultural impact when I saw her zigging and zagging her way through what remained of the rush-hour crowd. Shelby was hurrying the way some women do when they’re inexcusably late, eyes staring straight ahead, chin up, chest out, walking with quick steps just this side of a trot. I had never seen a man walk like that no matter how late he was. She was carrying a black bag by a strap draped over her shoulder and a manila envelope that she clutched to her chest. Her dress was black, low cut, and inexplicably tight and ended half a dozen inches above her knees. I had seen the dress before—on Nina Truhler.

  When she reached the fountain, I said, “What the hell, Shelby?”

  “Sorry I’m late.”

  “I don’t mean about that. I mean the dress.”

  “Do you like it? It’s Nina’s.”

  “I know it’s Nina’s. Why are you wearing it?”

  “I’m the mother of two teenage girls. I don’t have any femme fatale outfits.”

  “You’re not supposed to look like a femme fatale. You’re supposed to look like you work for the DVS. Wearing that dress, every man and most of the women within a three-mile radius are watching you this very moment.”

  “You think so?” Her face brightened like someone impressed by the prize she found in her Cracker Jack box. “Are you being watched?”

  “Not anymore.”

  “I should sit down.”

  “No,” I said, only Shelby wasn’t listening. She nestled next to me on the stone wall, her skirt riding dangerously up her thighs. I averted my eyes, fixing them on the street vendor.

  “Bobby is going to kill me,” I said.

  “Oh, yeah. He promised that was going to happen. Right after Nina gets through with you.”

  “You told him?”

  “Of course I did. I tell Bobby everything.”

  “Nina, too? Why did you involve her?”

  “Because I needed to borrow a dress. She wants to know why you didn’t call her, by the way. So does Bobby.”

  “I couldn’t remember her phone number.”

  Shelby began to laugh. She laughed so hard and vigorously that I was afraid she’d fall backward into the fountain.

  “Oh, that’s wonderful,” she said.

  “All right, all right…”

  “I want to be there when you tell her.”

  “Is that envelope for me?”

  “Take a good look, McKenzie. You are never going to see this dress again.”

  “This is what comes from trying to be a good citizen.”

  “I’m going to have them carve that on your tombstone. Honest to God, McKenzie…”

  Shelby handed me the envelope. It was unsealed. I reached inside and pulled a sheaf of documents halfway out and looked them over.

  “Chad, the guy from the ATF, he said the report with the paper clip in the center is the one you want.” I found it, studied it without separating the pages from the others. “If you think Bobby and Nina are miffed—those guys, Chad and Harry, oh my.”

  “You spoke to them?”

  “They were both there when Chad gave me the envelope. Mostly I listened as they shouted at each other. Chad kept saying everything would be fine. Harry was pretty sure it wouldn’t be. He kept saying, ‘It’s McKenzie, it’s McKenzie,’ as if that alone should warn Chad how bad things can get.”

  “Harry’s just cranky because the FBI moved its headquarters from downtown Minneapolis to Brooklyn Center. A lot of crime in Brooklyn Center—150 percent above the state average, something like that.”

  “Chad said if things go badly, they’ll blame Finnegan since he’s the one who approved your plan. Is he the U.S. attorney who signed the letters you showed us?”

  “Yes. Assistant U.S. Attorney James Finnegan, but they’re wrong. Blame almost always filters down. Rarely does it go upward. Doesn’t matter, though.” I turned to look at her, making sure my eyes were locked on her eyes and not looking somewhere else. “Everything will be fine,” I said.

  “Famous last words.”

  We sat like that for a few more beats, staring into each other’s eyes. Shelby smiled brightly. I found myself smiling back.

  “You want to look at the dress again, don’t you?” she said. “Go ’head. Do I look as good in it as Nina?”

  “Stop it, now.”

  “What are you going to do about her?”

  “Apologize profusely, beg forgiveness, and buy her something both tasteful and expensive.”

  “Then what?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean—how long have you two been dating?”

  “I don’t know. I’ve known her for nearly five years, but we’ve been monogamous for only what, three and a half years? Four?”

  Shelby continued to stare.

  “What?” I said.

  “Don’t you think it’s time to take the next step?”

  “I’ve proposed to Nina three times. Each time she changed the subject, blew me off. The lady doesn’t want to get married again. I met her ex-husband. I don’t blame her.”

  “She doesn’t want to get married because you don’t want to get married. You have commitment issues, McKenzie, you know you do.”

  “How can you say that? I proposed. Actually got down on one knee.”

  “What would you have done if she said yes?”

  “I would have…”

  “You would have run for the hills. Nina knows it, too.”

  “I haven’t got time for this, Shel. In case you haven’t heard, I’m working undercover as a dangerous and unpredictable armed felon.”

  “A lot of our friends, and I’m including Nina, they all think that you want to marry me—and because you can’t you’re not going to marry anyone. Only two people know that’s nonsense—me and Bobby, probably because we’ve known you the longest. If I suddenly became free you’d find a way to sabotage the relationship just like you did with Kirsten, just like you did with Jillian DeMarais.”

  “You didn’t like either of them.”

  “You did—for a while.”

  “I don’t understand women.” I took Shelby’s chin in my hand and kissed her lips. It was a short kiss. I knew my boundaries. I stood up and started moving away from the fountain. “My best to the family,” I said.

  * * *

  When she saw me coming, Josie scooted behind the steering wheel of the Ford Taurus, which was fine with me. I opened the passenger door and settled into the seat.

  “Home, JoEllen,” I said.

  “The woman, she was your contact?”

  “Yes.”

  “She’s lovely.”

  “I hadn’t noticed.”

  “Kinda slutty looking, though, in that black dress.”

  Before she could say more, I directed her to I-94, through Spaghetti Junction, and north onto I-35E. It wasn’t difficult. The roads were still congested, and the slow-moving rush-hour traffic gave us plenty of time to switch lanes safely.

  “This is awful,” Josie said. She said it more than once. “I can’t imagine having to deal with traffic like this every single day.”

  “Me, neither,” I said. “That’s one reason why I don’t work nine-to-five.”

  It took us thirty minutes to travel from downtown St. Paul past the I-694 interchange, a trip that should have taken less than ten. Josie was increasingly annoyed by the delay. I added to it by dialing up KBEM-FM on the radio, which played “that music.” Maryann Sullivan was subbing for Kevin O’Connor, and she liked playing local jazz talent. I was able to hear Debbie Duncan, Hall Brothers, D
oug Haining Quintet, Christine Rosholt, Fantastic Merlins, Mouldy Figs, and Connie Evingson—perhaps my favorite vocalist, channeling Django Reinhardt on “You and the Night and the Music”—one right after another. While I listened, I thought about what Shelby had said and wondered if she was right.

  Commitment issues? How can I have commitment issues? I had proposed three times—on bended knee, no less—and not once did I hope the lady would say no; actually felt a jolt of pain when she didn’t say yes. Not to mention, a lot of women have slid in and out of my life in the past four years, and I’ve kept them all at a distance, including the one sitting next to me in the car. That has to say something about commitment, right? Besides, so what if we weren’t married? A lot of people commit to each other for a lifetime without the benefit of marriage. ’Course, they actually live together and Nina and I don’t, but that’s mostly because she wants to set a good example for her teenage daughter, Erica, who isn’t actually a teenager anymore, she’s an undergrad at Tulane University. Still, we have spent many a long weekend at each other’s homes. I have plenty of stuff at her place and she has a lot of personal items at mine, including a slinky black number that she has never worn for more than a few minutes at a time in my presence. That says commitment, too, doesn’t it? Well, doesn’t it?

  Just this side of Harris, we lost KBEM’s signal. Josie switched off the radio. “Finally,” she said. “How can you listen to that stuff?”

  “Jazz, my dear, is the only music God approves of.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It is a music in which it’s impossible to speak a mean or hurtful thing. Wynton Marsalis once said it’s ‘an art form that cannot be limited by enforced trends or bad taste.’”

  “Who’s he?”

  “Never mind.”

  “The woman back there at the park, does she listen to jazz?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Have you slept with her?”

  “What? No.”

  “Why not? The way she fills out that dress…”

  “Ahh, geez…”

  “Don’t you want to sleep with her?”

  “Of course I do.”

  What are you saying? my inner voice shouted. Talk about your Freudian slips.

  It’s not a Freudian slip, I told myself. I’m pretending to be someone else, remember? Of course Dyson would want to sleep with Shelby. That doesn’t mean McKenzie would.

  “Then why haven’t you slept with her?” Josie asked.

  “Let’s just say the opportunity never presented itself; let it go at that.”

  “Are you sure you’re not the one who’s gay?”

  Instead of answering, I turned the radio back on.

  “Let me guess,” Josie said. “This is your way of telling me to shut up.”

  I found a station that was broadcasting the Minnesota Twins game and turned up the volume.

  “C’mon, Dyson. We’re going to listen to this now?”

  “Baseball, my dear, is the only sport God approves of.”

  “Is that right? Jazz and baseball. What else does he approve of in your unchallenged opinion?”

  “Chili dogs.”

  “Apparently God has peculiar tastes,” Josie said.

  We were fifty miles down the road and approaching the Cloquet exit before she spoke again. “I’ve been thinking.”

  “Uh-oh,” I said.

  “You’re not that difficult to figure out, Dyson. In fact, I have a theory. Want to hear it?”

  “Not particularly.”

  “The reason you haven’t slept with the woman in the park is the same reason you haven’t slept with me. Despite your choice of careers, at the end of the day, Dyson, you’re a nice guy.”

  “What a terrible thing to say.”

  “You pretend to be this dangerous individual, and I suppose you are from what I’ve seen. You also care about people. You care about Jill, and you barely know her.”

  “She’s easy to care about.”

  “You care about Dave, too. And Roy and Jimmy and the old man. And me.”

  “I wouldn’t go that far.”

  “You’re loyal to your friends.”

  I turned my head to stare out the passenger window, a sign to Josie that I didn’t want to talk anymore. My brain shifted from thoughts of Shelby and Nina and whatnot to the Iron Range Bandits.

  Nice guy? my inner voice asked. Who says?

  Once again I was faced with the question—why? Here I was, leading Josie and her family merrily by the hand toward catastrophe. Why? To save a government bureaucracy from its own hubris?

  “You should get out,” I said. I didn’t know why I said it. The words spilled out just as they had when I spoke to Jill, to hell with the ATF and the FBI and all the other initialized so-and-sos intent on making the world safe for the American Dream, whatever the hell that was. Or maybe it was my subconscious showing a commitment to Josie. “When we get to Krueger, you should pack your things and leave. Go to Duluth. Go to the Cities. Go anywhere. Just get out of here. Start over someplace else. What we’re planning, even if it works out, you’re going to be running for the rest of your life, afraid of everyone you meet, jumping at every unexplained noise, scared to use your own name. If not that, then the crime spree you and the rest of the Bandits have embarked on is going to put you in prison or worse. Give it up while you can.”

  “Why don’t you?”

  Stay in character, stay in character, my inner voice chanted.

  “I have nowhere else to go,” I said aloud. “You do. Right now, this minute, you can go anywhere and do anything without a worry—”

  “Except how to pay for it.”

  “In a few days you won’t have that option.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you’re right. I like you. I don’t want you and your family to end up like me, hoping to make a big score so you’ll have money enough to hide on.”

  “I’m not going to hide. Once I get my share, I’m going to live.”

  Well, you tried.

  “Call your father,” I said. “Tell him we’re on our way back. Tell him that we’re going to stop at Buckman’s for a quick beer before we go home.”

  “Why?”

  “So he doesn’t get bent out of shape like he did the last time I kept you out late.”

  Josie fluttered her long eyelashes at me. “Are you going to keep me out late?” she asked.

  “I liked you better when I thought you were gay.”

  * * *

  Despite the best efforts of daylight savings time to keep it at bay, night engulfed us long before we approached Buckman’s, which made the lightbar on the sheriff’s department cruiser all the more brilliant.

  Josie saw the lights at the same moment I did. “What should I do?” she asked.

  “Pull over slowly, put the car in park—they’ll see your taillights and know what you’re doing. Keep your hands on top of the steering wheel. No sudden movements. The cruiser has a high-powered spotlight, so the deputies can see everything. Don’t look directly into it. Don’t speak, not even when spoken to.”

  Josie did what I told her. A moment later Deputies James and Williams approached exactly as they had before. Because of the spot, they were half bathed in light and half lost to darkness. James leaned against the car and looked through the open driver’s window. Williams was on the passenger side, looking back. They spoke to each other across the front seat of the car.

  “Beautiful evening, isn’t it?” James said.

  “Certainly is,” Williams said. “I’m surprised that the honey is driving, though. Kinda hard to have her head in your lap if she’s behind the wheel, ain’t it?”

  “You kiss your mother with that mouth, Deputy?” I said.

  Williams didn’t like the remark. He abruptly pulled open the car door; the dome light flicked on, giving me a good look at the half of his angry face that wasn’t illuminated by the spotlight. I was wondering if he had his brass knuckles
when James intervened.

  “Personally, I didn’t have a mother,” he said. “We were too poor.”

  “That’s sad,” Williams said.

  “I might buy one, though, with my end of the heist. What about you?”

  Williams slammed the door shut. “Nah,” he said. “She’d just complain that I don’t call enough.”

  “Mr. Brand wants to see you,” James said.

  “I’m going to guess that you and he have come to some kind of arrangement,” I said.

  “That’s right,” Williams said.

  “Kinda sucks to be you, though, doesn’t it? I was going to give you half. What is Brand offering?”

  “Not as much,” James said.

  “Seems unfair.”

  “Sometimes you have to make sacrifices. Go along to get along.”

  “Brand gave us the greater-good speech, too.”

  “We’re all striving for Sir Thomas More’s utopian society,” Williams said.

  The remark so surprised me that I damn near gave myself whiplash turning toward him.

  “Deputy Williams,” I said. “You read. I’m impressed.”

  Williams actually smiled, but James’s laughter wiped it from his face.

  “He got that offa Jeopardy!” James said.

  “Nonetheless,” I said. “Where is Brand?”

  “He’s waiting at Buckman’s,” Williams said.

  “What a coincidence. We were just headed that way.”

  “We know,” James said. “We just wanted to make sure you didn’t get lost.”

  “We’ll be right behind you,” Williams said.

  “That’s comforting,” I said.

  “Think of us as guardian angels,” James said.

  “Or cherubim, if you prefer,” Williams said.

  James stared at Williams across the front seat of the Taurus. “Now you’re just showing off,” he said.