Tin City (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) Page 21

  The walls were sheer and descended fifty feet to the sand-and-gravel floor of an irregular oval about the size of a professional baseball field. There was only one way in, the single dirt road I had seen earlier. It was cut wide enough for heavy earth movers, steam shovels, and dump trucks, although there were now none to be seen. From my perch I could just barely make out the back end of the SUV stationed at the mouth of the road with my binoculars.

  I challenged my fear of heights by looking straight down. That lasted about three seconds before I squirmed backward away from the edge. Never look down, I told myself. It seemed like wise advice.

  A few moments later, a small van drove into the quarry and parked along the north wall. It was followed a half minute later by a battered Ford Taurus. I glanced at my watch. 7:53.

  During the next hour, the quarry filled up with assorted vans, SUVs, pickups, cars, and even a few ancient station wagons, the vehicles forming an irregular circle along the sand-and-gravel walls. Some of the drivers sat inside their vehicles. Others sprawled on their hoods or leaned against bumpers. Still others moved about with hands in their pockets. There was scant conversation as far as I could see. All in all, the gathering reminded me of an unhappy family reunion.

  I examined the drivers with my binoculars. There was a mixture of Caucasians, African Americans, Native Americans, Hispanics, Hmong, Pakistanis, Indians—what is this, the United Nations? I recalled Chopper’s telephone conversation. He had said, “Whaddaya mean, do I have a store?” I guessed these guys were all owners and operators of neighborhood convenience stores. Who else could sell a high volume of illegal cigarettes? It fit the stereotype, anyway.

  Finally my binoculars rested on a decidedly white, European face. It belonged to a man who seemed to wander aimlessly among the other drivers while surreptitiously jotting down license plate numbers in a tiny notebook he hid in the palm of his hand.

  Sykora.

  I followed his movements. Eventually he led me to more than a dozen men standing in separate clusters of two and three near two vans parked on opposite sides of the road near the entrance to the quarry. Some of the men looked intense, like athletes waiting for the game to commence. Others were smiling like a pride of hungry lions that had happened upon a herd of sleeping wildebeests.

  Sykora looked at his watch. I looked at mine. 9:16.

  At 9:22, a semitractor and trailer chugged over the dirt road, passing Sykora and his colleagues and crossing the quarry to the west wall, where it halted. The drivers of the assorted vehicles seemed to hesitate, then moved forward en masse. Soon a single well-behaved, unhurried line formed at the back of the trailer. I seemed to be the only one who noticed Sykora’s vans close with each other, forming a roadblock at the mouth of the quarry, or a dozen men suddenly pulling on blue windbreakers with large bright yellow letters on the front and back spelling FBI.

  Sykora began shouting through a handheld electronic megaphone. I couldn’t hear him from my perch, but the drivers did.

  There was a moment of confusion, followed by panic, followed quickly by angry shouts and running. Lots of running. Most of the drivers dashed to their vehicles. They drove forward at first toward the barricade, then backward, then in circles looking for an exit from the quarry that wasn’t there. The circle of vehicles expanded and collapsed upon itself, the attempted evacuation quickly becoming an unwieldy traffic jam.

  A few SUV drivers—maybe they actually believed the TV commercials—attempted to scale the walls of the quarry, but the slopes were too steep and the sand and gravel too soft, and they slid backward. One SUV managed to climb almost vertically before it tipped over and rolled to the quarry floor. Other drivers abandoned their vehicles and tried to climb the walls, but they had no more luck than the SUVs.

  In an effort to gain control of the chaos, an FBI agent discharged his weapon into the air. A driver turned and fired at the FBI agent. One of the agent’s colleagues shot at the driver.

  “Oh, Jeezus,” I muttered, expecting a bloodbath. But there were no more shots, and soon the FBI restored order.

  I found Sykora with my glasses. He was smiling while he and another agent made their way across the quarry to the semitrailer, smiling when they flung open the trailer doors.

  The trailer was empty.

  Sykora’s smile disappeared.

  He seemed shocked at first. Then visibly angry. An agent said something to him. He snapped back. The agent spoke again, and Sykora turned on him, shouting and waving his hands. The agent smiled benignly.

  “Steven, Steven, Steven,” I chuckled from my perch above and behind the FBI agent. “Put a fork in it, buddy. You’re done.”

  Sykora knew it, too. Other agents tried to speak to him, but he brushed them off. He turned and managed a dozen steps away from the truck and his fellow agents before stopping, his hands gripping the top of his head as if he were afraid it would explode. Suddenly he looked up. I followed his gaze to the rim of the quarry. Something metallic flashed against the morning sun.

  I brought my binoculars up but saw nothing. I trained the glasses back on Sykora, who continued to look upward. I couldn’t hear him, of course, but his efficient mouth movements were easily readable.

  “Fuck you,” he said.

  Frank.

  I trained the glasses back on the rim. I saw nothing, but I knew he was there.

  I have you now, you bastard.

  I crawled backward until I was a good fifteen yards from the edge of the quarry, climbed to my feet, and started jogging along the rim toward the metallic flash. I was determined to get Frank once and for all for what he had done to my friends. Only I wasn’t thinking clearly. For example, I was carrying the binoculars in my hand but not my Beretta. Careless. And I was running full bore, not even thinking about cover. That was worse than careless. It was suicidal. I realized it the moment I saw Frank and Danny standing away from the edge of the quarry, about 150 yards from my original position.

  They were both armed, Frank with his shotgun and Danny with a pistol.

  They saw me coming.

  Danny raised his hand.

  I shied like a horse; stopped running.

  He shot at me with the small-caliber handgun. It would have been dumb luck if he had hit me from that distance, but it’d been done before. Fortunately for me, Danny’s aim wasn’t helped any by Frank, who shoved him toward me, jostling his arm as Danny squeezed the trigger.

  I dove to the ground as Danny fired. The brown grass and shrubs were waist high, and I disappeared into them.

  “Get him!” Frank said.

  I lifted my head. Danny was gazing in my direction, but I don’t think he saw me. Frank was waddling quickly away in the opposite direction—with his weight, he was lucky he could run at all. I moved toward my left to cut him off. Danny saw me and threw another shot my way. I went to ground again, paused for a moment, then circled hard to my right, staying low. When I came up again I saw Frank. He was about fifty yards away, opening the door of a Chevy Blazer. Apparently he had also discovered the abandoned road and used it.

  Danny saw me and fired. Again I sank behind the grass and shrubs. I kept circling to my right until I heard the Chevy’s engine catch.

  Danny was now standing directly in front of the Blazer, studying the terrain. Frank put the Blazer in gear. Danny gave up his search and moved toward the passenger door. Only Frank wasn’t waiting. He leaned on the accelerator. The Blazer’s wheels spun, gained purchase, and propelled the vehicle forward. Danny leapt out of the way. Frank steered a tight circle across the grass, picked up the road again, and drove off. Danny chased after him, roaring epithets you won’t find in Shakespeare.

  “Don’t leave me!” he shouted as the Chevy Blazer reached the far side of the bluff and dipped out of sight. Danny watched for a moment, then spun around, gripping his gun with both hands. I ducked out of sight. I wasn’t worried about Danny. But where was Brucie? I couldn’t find him anywhere, and not knowing his location frightened me. Twice he ha
d managed to get behind me, and I doubted my chances of surviving a third encounter.

  Danny left the road and took refuge in the tall grass and shrubs near a weed tree.

  “McKenzie! Hey, McKenzie,” he called.

  I didn’t answer. Where was Brucie? I gave it a few moments and decided he wasn’t on the bluff.

  “McKenzie,” Danny called again. His back was to the tree, and he was glancing frantically from side to side. I moved toward him. By now I had discarded the binoculars and had activated my Beretta.

  “We can work this out, McKenzie. Whaddaya say?”

  Danny drifted a few steps away from the tree and crouched out of sight. I cautiously worked my way to his location, only when I reached it, he was gone. I lifted my eyes above the grass, did a quick 360. I couldn’t see him. But I could hear him.

  “We can talk. Can’t we talk?”

  I crept toward his voice, only he had moved again.

  I was sweating, and the duckwalk through the grass was causing my back to cramp. I fought the impulse to stand and stretch it out.

  “I can ‘preciate you bein’ pissed about the woman, okay? But that wasn’t me, man. That’s all Frank. Frank’s the boss. You gotta know what I’m saying.”

  I found a large stone and decided to try the old movie trick, see if I could get Danny to reveal his position. I heaved the stone far to my right, listened for the thud. It came and went without Danny reacting to it. I knew it wouldn’t work. Stupid movies.

  I moved forward again, cautiously parting the grass with the barrel of the Beretta, listening. I heard wind. And the pounding of my heart.

  “McKenzie! I didn’t do nothin’ to you.”

  I veered slightly to my right. After a few yards the grass thinned just enough for me to see Danny squatting about twenty paces ahead. I brought up the Beretta.

  “McKenzie, where are you?”

  “Here,” I said.

  Danny spun on his heels and fired two quick shots at me from the hip.

  I returned fire at the same instant.

  Danny dove backward into the grass.

  I waited for him to attempt another shot. When he didn’t I rushed forward.

  Only there was no need to hurry.

  Danny had crawled about fifteen feet across the hard ground before curling into a fetal position, both hands clutching his stomach. His gun was lying in the dirt just out of his reach. I left it there. Maybe he’d go for it, I told myself, and I could shoot him again and pretend it was self-defense. A quick glance at his wound told me that wasn’t going to happen. Danny was already dead, or would be within moments. Even if I wanted to save him, there was no way I could get him off the bluff and find medical attention before he bled out.

  “I don’t want to die,” he told me.

  I was pretty sure Mr. Mosley didn’t want to die, either, but I didn’t say so. What was the point?

  Danny raised a bloody hand toward me.

  “This ain’t right.”

  He dropped his hand over his stomach. And he died.

  As his last breath escaped his lungs, a thought flared deep inside my head.

  This ain’t right.

  I thought I would feel satisfaction, if not outright pleasure, from killing one of the men who had killed Mr. Mosley and raped Susan Tillman. Yet I didn’t. I felt instead like I sometimes did when I left the house, as though there was something important I had forgotten but couldn’t quite place it.

  I crouched next to the body and rested two fingers against the carotid artery. There was no pulse.

  Why was he different?

  I had killed men before. Sometimes I felt sick and ashamed. Sometimes I felt exhilarated. Sometimes I felt overwhelming relief. But with Danny there was—what? Indifference? Apathy? I didn’t have a word to cover it. That, more than Danny’s death, made me think there was something terribly wrong.

  What’s happened to me?

  Me? No, no, no—not me. Think about it. I didn’t do anything wrong. It wasn’t me. It was Jake. Jake Greene killed Danny. McKenzie wasn’t responsible. McKenzie wasn’t even here. He’s in a shoe box in Merriam Park. It was the other guy. It was Jake—that crazy bastard.

  Yes, I know it was a lie. Yet I believed it for as long as I could.

  I left Danny where he fell—not a particularly noble thing to do, but there was no way I could explain him to a county attorney and expect to escape jail. Later, I told myself, I’ll make an anonymous call to the Elk River Police Department.

  It took me a while to find my car and some time longer to discover a way off the service road that didn’t take me past the army of law enforcement types that had gathered at the entrance to the quarry. Apparently none of them had heard the shots from the top of the bluff.

  Afterward, I drove more or less southwest, not caring one helluva a lot where I ended up. I needed time to think, time to decompress. The days were beginning to run together, and I was afraid there were things I was starting to lose.

  Eventually I ended up at a small bar in Glencoe and wondered if this was the joint that Ivy Flynn had called me from a lifetime ago. It was a pleasant enough place, and the pretty blonde bartender knew how to flirt without making a guy think there was something to it. I had two beers and a sandwich before driving back to Hilltop.

  I changed out of my dirty clothes, showered, dressed again, and stretched out on the bed, my fingers locked behind my head. The sun was just a sliver on the horizon, and the motel room was engulfed in gray, yet I kept the lights off. There was nothing I wanted to see.

  Tomorrow, I told myself. Tomorrow I’ll call Harry and he’ll tell me I can go home, and it’ll all be over. Fuck Frank. Let Ishmael have him. What did I care? When he went down for messing with Granata, he’d go down for Mr. Mosley, too. It wasn’t the justice I had been looking for, but now it was justice enough.

  I closed my eyes.

  The room was nearly pitch-black when I opened them again. The only light came from the parking lot and crept through a crack between my window drapes.

  I had been awakened by Steve Sykora’s voice calling for Pen, wondering aloud where she could be. I hadn’t heard a sound coming from the receiver in my desk drawer since I entered the room and had forgotten it was there.

  “Lucky. Where are you?” There was a wail in Sykora’s voice that was almost childlike. I guessed things hadn’t gone well for him during his meeting with the AIC, and the thought of it made me smile.

  “Glad I could help,” I told the empty room.

  I closed my eyes again but didn’t sleep. Instead, I continued to listen and smile as Sykora banged around his trailer. Yet after a few minutes I found myself pressing the tiny button that illuminated the face of my watch. Like Sykora, I was becoming concerned.

  Where is Pen?

  I must have asked that question a dozen times. Finally the phone rang. It rang only once before Sykora answered it.

  “Yes?”

  “I have her,” Frank’s voice said.

  “What?”

  “I have her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I snatched your wife, what the fuck do you think I mean?”

  Sykora didn’t reply. I imagined him staring at the phone, his mouth open but words not coming out.

  “You hear me?”

  “Yes,” said Sykora.

  “I have your wife.”

  “What do you want?” Sykora was calm. A lot calmer than I was.

  “You were always a guy to get right to the point. I like that.”

  “What do you want?”

  “What do you think I want? I want money.”

  “How much?”

  “Fifty large.”

  “Where do you think that’s going to come from?”

  Frank thought the question was funny. “From the FBI,” he said, and laughed some more.

  Sykora said, “The FBI has placed me on administrative leave without pay. I’m being investigated for what happened at the quarry this morning and
for harboring a fugitive. Guess who the fugitive is, Frank?”

  “Well, shit.”

  “What happened to the cigarettes, Frank?”

  “Fuck if I know. Ask McKenzie.”

  “McKenzie?”

  “Fucker was there, watchin’. Look, that don’t matter. McKenzie don’t matter. I kept my end of the deal. Now you’re gonna keep yours or you ain’t never gonna see your wife again. Got it?”

  “You hurt my wife, Frank, you touch her, I’ll kill you.”

  “Fuck. You don’t think I heard shit like that before—threats? Forgetaboutit. I’m still here, Fed. I’ll always be here. So fuck that shit, okay? You can’t go to the FBI? Is that what you’re sayin’?”

  “That’s what I’m—”

  “Fuck it, then. What we’re gonna do is Plan B. Your wife says you have eleven-four in a money market account. I’ll do you a favor. I’ll only take ten thousand. It won’t get me back to the Big Apple in style, but it’ll get me back.”

  “Into Granata’s waiting arms.”

  “You let me fucking worry about Little Al, wouldja? Just get the money.”

  “Banks aren’t open, Frank.”

  “Banks open at 8:00 A.M. I’ll call back at ten o’clock tomorrow and tell you where to deliver it. And don’t fuck with me, Fed. You won’t like what happens you fuck with me.”

  “I want to talk to my wife. I want to talk to her right now.”

  “Sorry, she can’t come to the phone. She’s all tied up.” Frank thought that was funny, too.

  “I don’t talk to her, you don’t get the money.”

  “You can talk to her tomorrow morning.”

  “I mean it, Frank. You hurt her—”

  Frank hung up the phone.

  Sykora screamed as if in great pain. I heard a crash. And then another. And then another. “Pen, Pen,” he wailed, followed by a moan that spoke of all the sorrow there was in the world.