There really was a career criminal named Nicholas Dyson. If you surf the right websites, you’ll discover that he specialized in robbing banks, jacking armored cars, and burglarizing the occasional jewelry store. What those files will not tell you, though, is that Dyson is currently doing time in the United States Penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. And what they absolutely will not tell you is that the photographs that accompany each of the files are not of him but of, well, me. In one I’m clean-shaven; in the others I’m wearing long hair and a scraggly beard.
What happened, a couple of years back I was coerced by both the FBI and the ATF into going undercover as Dyson to search for weapons along the Canadian border that had been stolen from the U.S. government during a botched sting. The operation was off the books. The Feds were desperate to avoid the embarrassment of public disclosure, which is why they wanted a civilian to take it on, a civilian that could later be disavowed if things went sideways—you know, like in the Mission: Impossible movies. That’s how I met Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Finnegan and why he now owed me a huge favor that I had been hoarding ever since. Although the case had long been closed and forgotten, the Feds neglected to update the files or take down the pictures. I never said anything about it because I figured there were times when a fellow might want to pretend to be someone else. In fact, I had used the Dyson disguise with some success just fourteen months ago.
I unlocked the door to my condo. Nina wasn’t home; no surprise there. It was Friday, and Fridays were as big at Rickie’s as they were at Salsa Girl.
I swung open the door that led to my secret room and stepped inside. I exchanged my IDs for those with Nick Dyson’s name, replaced the SIG Sauer with an unregistered nine-millimeter Taurus, and counted out the $40,000 before shoving the cash into a small soft-sided gym bag. I grabbed one of my burn phones and punched in a number. I recognized the voice that answered my call; he recognized mine.
“You busy?” I said.
“Naw, man. Not for you.”
“How ’bout for Nick Dyson?”
“Fuck.”
“Is Herzy around?”
“I’m lookin’ right at ’im.”
“I’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”
* * *
Thaddeus Coleman, aka Chopper, was an entrepreneur. When I first met him he was running a small but lucrative stable of girls around Selby and Western, a neighborhood in St. Paul that used to be rich with prostitution until patrons became bored with it, as they eventually do with any so-called trendy hotspot, and moved elsewhere. Afterward, he moved to Fuller and Farrington and dealt drugs. Sometimes he sold the real thing; sometimes he passed laundry soap and Alka-Seltzer tablets crushed to resemble rock cocaine to the white suburban kids who drove up in Mommy and Daddy’s SUV. I busted him for that—representing and selling a substance as a drug, whether it is or not, is a felony—only the judge threw the case out. I blamed the prosecutor.
The court might have been lenient with Coleman, but the Red Dragons not so much. They objected to his activities and pumped two rounds into his spine as a way to express their displeasure. I’m the one that scooped him off the sidewalk and got him the medical attention that saved his life. We’ve been friends ever since, even though six weeks after he was shot, Coleman wheeled himself out of the hospital in a stolen chair. A couple of days later, we discovered the bodies of three Red Dragons under the swings at a park near the St. Paul College of Technology. We never did find out who did the deed, although the ME reported that the bullet holes had an upward trajectory as if the Dragons were shot by someone who was sitting down.
It was the wheelchair, which Coleman drove with the reckless dexterity of a dirt-track biker, that earned him the nickname Chopper. As Chopper he ran a crew of shoplifters that operated in the Twin Cities malls until the security guards began greeting him by name. Later, he smuggled name-brand cigarettes out of Kentucky and sold them to independent convenience stores, making a hefty profit by dodging the state’s cigarette tax. Now he was involved in the less criminal if not less reprehensible business of ticket-scalping, working out of a small office in a converted warehouse with a view of Target Field, where the Twins played baseball.
I carried the gym bag into his office. He smiled at me from the other side of his desk. There was a computer on the desk and half a dozen more arrayed on tables along the wall. Chopper would have associates sitting at every terminal to grab concert and sports tickets when they became available online. Or he would use bots and other computer gadgetry to circumvent security systems to buy bundles of the best seats. Or he would hire guys to stand in line at the on-site ticket booths. Or he would tap insiders who had access to the events. Or, usually, all four simultaneously. That’s why he could get $700–$850 for tickets with a face value of $39–$147 for the Adele concert at the Xcel Energy Center.
I asked him about that once.
“Face value—what does that mean?” Chopper said. “It’s just an arbitrary number. What we do, we let the fan dictate the market price. You know, if people refused to pay what I charge, I’d have to charge less. Am I right? It’s called capitalism, the backbone of America.”
He had me there.
“McKenzie, you sonuvabitch,” Chopper said.
He rolled his chair out from behind the desk and greeted me in the center of the office. We engaged in an elaborate handshake dance that didn’t end until I messed up. Chopper laughed when I did. Not Herzog. He just looked at me and shook his head like he felt sorry for me.
“Herzy,” I said.
“Fuckin’ McKenzie,” he said.
“Good to see you, too, man.”
Herzog was sitting in a chair along the wall, the largest man I had ever met in person; you could roller-skate on him. He was also the most dangerous. He had done time for multiple counts of manslaughter, assault, aggravated robbery, and weapons charges. He’d been out on parole for the past three years, with two more to go, and had been working for Chopper ever since they released him from the halfway house.
He tolerated me because we both liked old movies and listened to jazz, and because I had arranged through Nina to get him and his date the table closest to the stage when Cécile McLorin Salvant sang at Rickie’s.
“What you doin’ here?” he asked.
“I thought I’d take you guys to dinner. Pick a spot. Any spot.”
“Dinner,” Chopper said. “Dinner means you want somethin’.”
“What are you talking about? We’re old friends. Can’t a man take his friends to dinner?”
“You maybe,” Herzog said. “But Dyson? Chop said you mentioned Dyson.”
“I did.”
“Last time I saw Dyson people was shot.”
“Yes, but neither you nor I did the shooting, so…”
“Don’t matter. I told you before, McKenzie, do I have t’ tell you again? I ain’t doin’ nothing that’ll break my parole. I ain’t hurtin’ nobody no more.”
“There’s a few bucks in it.”
“I’m doin’ just fine workin’ for Chopper.”
I turned toward Chopper. He was smiling.
“You was the one who got all hot and bothered when I took the man on,” he said. “A stone killer, you called him. Now you tryin’ to git him to go back to the life?”
“I ain’t doin’ it,” Herzog said. “If it wasn’t that I like your girlfriend, I’d kick your ass outta here.”
“You guys have me all wrong. I’m not looking to hurt anyone. I’m just trying to avoid getting hurt myself.”
“Looks like you already there,” Chopper said. “What’s with the sling?”
“That’s part of the story.”
“You on another one of them fucking crusades, ain’t ya?” Herzog said. “Gonna save the world from itself.”
“There’s this girl—”
“Shit. That’s exactly what you said the last time.”
I explained, making Salsa Girl sound a lot more innocent and vulnerable than she really was, ramping up Randy Bignell-Sax’s duplicity, exaggerating both the explosion and my injury, and tossing in Alice’s story of love and betrayal for good measure. The thing about Herzog, and Chopper, too, for that matter, is that despite their career paths, they both have kind hearts.
When I finished, Chopper was laughing. Herzy said, “’Kay, you tell a good story, but goddammit, McKenzie.”
“I’m not asking for a lot,” I said.
“If everything goes ’cordin’ t’ plan it ain’t a lot. But if it don’t…”
“I don’t know this Alejandro Reyes,” Chopper said. “Him or his crew.”
“Would you?” I asked.
“Man workin’ the drug trade here in the Cities for half a decade, yeah, you’d think I’d at least heard of ’im.”
He has a point, my inner voice said. The man has more connections than Xfinity.
“Tells me he know how to keep a low profile,” Chopper said. “Tells me he’s smart.”
“I’m counting on him being smart,” I said. “Smart means he’ll listen to reason.”
“I know a lot of smart people up at Oak Park Heights,” Chopper said. “Know a lot of smart people fuckin’ dead, too. Don’t you?”
“When did you become so negative?”
Herzy snorted at me.
“I’m thinkin’, though, there might be another way t’ git rid of Alejandro wit’out takin’ the risk,” Chopper said.
“I’m open to suggestions.”
“Drop a dime on ’im.”
“I told you before, I’m trying to avoid police involvement.”
“No, no, no, man. Not the po-lice. The Red Dragons.”
“Your old friends—those Red Dragons?”
“Dragons been dealin’ OxyContin for some time now. Got a lock on the local market. Alejandro’s heroin, though, it’s gotta be siphonin’ off some of the Dragons’ customers and vice versa. Some people will tell you that heroin and Oxy and horse be exactly the same, ’ceptin’ for the way it’s ingested.”
“‘Hillbilly Heroin’ is what some call it, call Oxy,” Herzog said.
“Average Oxy user, he’s spendin’ $70 to $140 per day for his pills,” Chopper said.
“About the same for heroin,” I said.
“So, Alejandro and the Dragons are chasin’ the same dollar, and the Dragons, I speak from experience when I say they don’t like competition.”
“We should start a good old-fashioned gang war. Is that what you’re suggesting?”
“War already be waging, McKenzie. I’m just sayin’ it might be fun to let both sides know the face of its enemy.”
I like it, my inner voice said.
“Except it won’t get my friend clear,” I said aloud. “It might even have the opposite effect. Reyes would need resources to fight a war. It could force him to tighten his grip on Salsa Girl.”
“I feel ya, man, but now that I got it in my head—I don’t mind seein’ some blood on the streets if it don’t belong t’ me or someone I care about,” Chopper said. “’Specially if it’s Red Dragon blood. Once you take care of your friend, I might drop a name here and there kinda incognito like. See if that don’t spark a confrontation.”
“Feel free. In the meantime, knowing about the Dragons is another argument in my favor.”
“We’re back to that?” Herzy said.
I opened the gym bag and pulled the soft sides down so he could get a good look at the money inside.
“Ten thousand for you,” I said. “Another five each for as many people as you think we might need, up to half a dozen.”
Herzog stared at the money for a few beats, closed his eyes for a few beats more, and opened them.
“Who’s runnin’ the show?” he asked.
“You are,” I said.
“Got a location in mind?”
“You decide.”
“How much time we got?”
“As much as you need.”
“You makin’ it hard for a boy to say no.”
“Oh, Herzy, neither me nor anyone I know is dumb enough to call you boy.”
Herzog turned toward Chopper.
“How’d you git to be friends wit’ this asshole, anyway?” he asked.
“Fuck if I know,” Chopper said. “I’m still wonderin’ where he’s gonna take us to dinner.”
* * *
Dinner had to wait for a more convenient date, because once he made up his mind, Herzog moved quickly. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to take some time to think about what he was doing; he didn’t want to give Reyes time to think. He went to his phone, his back to me; it made a helluva buffer so I couldn’t hear what was said or to whom. Chopper made small talk. Billy Joel was coming to Target Field, and he was sure that he’d make the score of the year scalping his tickets. I wasn’t sure if the man was a big enough draw to make scalping his tickets worth the effort.
“Man’s old,” I said. “I mean, I love him, but he’s been singing the same songs for decades.”
“Pretty good songs, though,” Chopper said.
“Do you think the millennials are going to line up to hear him? Think the man can sell out a forty-four-thousand-seat stadium?”
“Yeah, I do. Easily. And you know, millennials aren’t the only ones going to outdoor concerts. Plenty of ol’ farts like you, McKenzie, wanna relive their childhoods.”
Herzog finished with his phone and turned toward me.
“You parked somewhere your car won’t be towed?” he asked.
“Yes, in the surface lot down the street.”
“’Kay. You ride with me, then. And, ah”—he waved a finger at the gym bag—“bring the money.”
“Should I contact Alejandro?”
“Not till I tell you.”
* * *
If you look it up on a map, you’ll see that the City of West St. Paul is actually located due south of the City of St. Paul, albeit on the west side of the Mississippi River. I suppose they could have called it “South” St. Paul, except the name was already taken by the City of South St. Paul, which was more or less east of the capital city.
Garlough Park is located in the bottom half of West St. Paul; I have no idea who it was named after or why. I did know that it had a nine-hole disc golf course with a B+ rating. I’d never once played the game, so I didn’t know if that was good or bad.
Herzog and I were sitting in his SUV on Marie Avenue bordering the park. It was nearly six forty-five with a bright, cloudless sky; the sun wouldn’t set for another seventy-five minutes, yet I was unable to see inside the park because of the trees. Traffic drove past us, but there wasn’t much of it. We hadn’t spoken while he drove me there from Minneapolis, but my curiosity wouldn’t allow me to remain silent any longer.
“I notice this isn’t much of a public place,” I said.
“Nope.”
“What are we doing here?” I asked.
“Waiting.”
“Uh-huh. After we’re done waiting, will we then be going to a public place, you know, with lots and lots of people?”
“We’re where we’re supposed to be.”
“I don’t want to tell you your business…”
“Then don’t.”
“Humor me.”
“West St. Paul has a solid Hispanic and Latino population; this is where most of the Cinco de Mayo events are held. ’Kay? So the man’s gonna feel more comfortable; less like he’s rollin’ into an ambush.”
“Yes, but why here, exactly?”
“I know the ground. McKenzie, did you think I didn’t?”
“You’ve done something like this before, is what you’re saying. I thought you were out of the life.”
“You ain’t the only friend tryin’ to drag me back in.”
“Now I feel bad.”
“You should feel bad corruptin’ a brother what’s tryin’ to become an upstandin’ citizen.”
A few seconds later a second SUV rolled to a stop behind us.
“They’re here. Stay until I call,” Herzog told me.
I stayed.
Herzog left our vehicle and moved to the driver’s side window of the second vehicle. I angled the sideview mirror to watch him. A few moments later, he returned.
“Get out,” he said. “Bring the money.”
I opened the door and stepped out of the SUV. The gym bag was on the floor. I scooped it up by the handle and moved to the back of the car. Herzog was now standing there with three other African Americans. All of them were bigger than I was. None of them looked young.
“Gentlemen,” I said.
Herzog spoke before I could say anything more.
“Open the bag,” he said.
I opened the bag. The men glanced inside. None of them seemed surprised by what they found there.
“This is the money,” Herzog said. Only he wasn’t speaking about the cash. He was speaking about me. “Nothing bad happens to the money. We clear?”
The men nodded.
“’Kay. You know what to do.”
The men moved to the back of their SUV, popped the trunk, and removed three gun cases. They carried the gun cases into the park.
“You ready to call Reyes?” Herzog asked.
“Sure.”
He told me what to say.
“He’s not going to like it.” I waved at the park. “Hell, I don’t like it.”
“I don’t care what he likes.”
Or you either, my inner voice said.
* * *
After making the call, I locked the gym bag inside the SUV along with the sling—there was no reason to let Reyes know I was hurting. Herzog and I entered the park. We followed a narrow footpath until we emerged from the woods into a clearing. At the top of the clearing was a hill.
“Up there,” Herzog said.
I followed his lead to the top of the hill, where I discovered that it wasn’t a clearing after all, but rather a fairway of the disc golf course; the fifth hole, to be exact. At the top of the hill the fairway sloped dramatically downward toward a metal basket target. I found two green benches angled toward each other. They were surrounded on three sides by thick brush and trees. Herzog’s people could have been ten feet away and I wouldn’t have seen them. ’Course, the same could be said of Reyes’s people.
It was not an unusual setting in the Twin Cities. There were dozens of these miniature forests, some surrounding parks, some surrounding lakes, some of them just there—giving people a refuge from the asphalt and concrete, allowing them the feeling that they were “up north” even though there was a Taco Bell three minutes away. But instead of solitude, I was feeling isolated; I was feeling like a target.
“Are you sure about this?” I asked.
“Don’t look for my crew,” Herzog said. “They can see us fine.”
“That doesn’t answer my question.”
“What time is it?”
I glanced at my multipurpose watch—7:22 P.M. We had told Reyes to be there at seven thirty exactly because at seven thirty-one we’d be gone.
“He won’t have time to position his people, make sure it’s safe,” Herzog said. “Instead, he’ll come with an army; try to intimidate us with sheer numbers.”
“You say that like it’s a good thing.”
“You’ll be doin’ all the talkin’ when the man gits ’ere. I won’t be sayin’ a word. Just gonna stand ’ere lookin’ bored. ’Kay? If I do talk, though, man, you best you do what I say.”
I nodded in agreement.
“Nervous, Dyson?” Herzog said the name as if he were making fun of it.
“Who?” I said. “Me?”
By using the name Dyson, Herzog told me that it was time to get into character. Despite what could be described as an occasional bout of moral ambivalence, McKenzie was more or less a nice guy. Dyson, on the other hand, was a sonuvabitch with no moral code at all. With him, it was all about self-preservation. To become him, I told myself how lousy life was, how unfair. I listed in my head all the crimes that had been committed against me going back to my childhood. The teacher who accused me of cheating even though I hadn’t. The criminals I arrested who went free because of some county attorney’s incompetence or the brain-dead stupidity of a jury. I thought of my mother who died of cancer when I was twelve and my father who died when I was thirty-six. I thought of the cops who refused to talk to me because I accepted the reward on the embezzler to give my father a cushy retirement before he died. I thought of the men who had tried to kill me over the years and the ones that I had killed. I thought of those friends I’d helped and those I failed to help. By the time Reyes showed, I was pretty angry.
He and his people emerged from the forest at the bottom of the fairway near the disc target. He started climbing the hill toward us. I counted seven gunmen with him.
I’m supposed to be impressed? my inner Dyson said. Fuck that.
I reached behind me and adjusted the Taurus, making sure I could reach it in a hurry.
As they climbed the hill, Reyes’s men spread out until they were approaching in a skirmish line. I noticed they were all dressed as if they were going to a ball game. No gang colors, no flags. When they came closer I also noticed—no tats. Chopper was right. They knew how to maintain a low profile.
Reyes—I assumed it was Reyes—was in the center of the line. When he got into shouting distance I called to him.
“You’re late.”
Reyes didn’t reply until he was near enough to where I sat that he could speak without raising his voice. His voice was relaxed, nearly as relaxed as Salsa Girl’s, but not quite.
“Did you bring my goods?” he asked.
“No. Did you expect that I would?”
Reyes motioned with both hands. His men closed in a tight semicircle. I wondered if they started shooting how many of them I would get before they got me. Not enough, I decided. I glanced at Herzog. He stood behind me and to my left. He was dressed in black. His weapon was hidden under his jacket—if he had a weapon. Truth was, I hadn’t even bothered to ask. His hands were folded over his belt buckle. As promised, he looked as bored as death.
“If you don’t return my product, I’ll kill you,” Reyes said.
“I figured you might take that attitude.”
Reyes smirked. He nodded at the man next to him. The man slipped a Hi-Point .45 out from the waistband of his pants. A cheap handgun, I thought. He’s planning to use it and then dump it.
At the same instant, three red dots of light from three different laser sights mounted on three different rifles centered on Reyes’s chest. His first thought was to brush them away with his hand. His second—“Para, hombre!”
The hombre stopped moving.
I glanced at Herzog. He hadn’t budged an inch. I would have smiled at him but I knew he wouldn’t like it. I gestured at the semicircle.
“They might kill me, Alejandro,” I said. “But you won’t. Do you understand my meaning?”
Reyes regained his balance.
“What’s your play?” he said.
“Are we done posing for each other?”
“It’s your meeting.”
I noticed that his accent was very slight, and I wondered, Where is he from, anyway? Instead of asking, I said, “Tell your crew to put its guns away and keep their hands in plain sight. You.” I pointed at the hombre next to the Reyes. “Drop the Hi-Point on the ground.”
He did, but only after Reyes gave him a nudge in the ribs with his elbow.
Reyes sat down on the bench across from me. The red dots disappeared.
“Talk to me, what?” he said.
“First, you gotta know I’m not interested in your business.”
“I didn’t think so, a professional heist artist like you.”
“Ahh, you looked me up. I’m flattered.”
“What do you want?”
“I’m here to have a conversation and that’s it. You listen while I say what I was hired to say and everybody goes home.”
“What about my product?”
“We’ll get to that.”
“Better get to it quick,” the hombre said.
“Be quiet,” I said. “Adults are talking here.”
The hombre bent at the waist and reached for his Hi-Point.
The three dots returned to Reyes’s chest. He spoke so quickly that my high school Spanish wasn’t good enough to translate. The hombre must have understood his meaning, though, because he froze, his fingers scant inches from the butt of the .45. Slowly he stood up and folded his arms across his chest.
Herzog still hadn’t moved.
“What I’m trying to say, Alejandro,” I said. “May I call you Alejandro? What I’m trying to say is that I’m not your problem here. I’m just the guy who’s trying to explain your problem.”
“What’s my problem?”
“Your problem is that you made a deal with that dipshit Randy Bignell-Sax. I mean, why would you want to work with some rich dick doesn’t know which end is up, some thirty-year-old who’s still got snot coming out of his nose, pretending he’s a gangster? You had to know that sooner or later he was going to fuck up. It was as inevitable as the sun rising in the east. Instead of taking the loss in stride—every business has its ups and downs, am I right? Instead of dealing with it, though, what did you do? You cut him, man. What? Did you think that would scare him? Well, it did. Scared him to death. Only when rich assholes like Randy get scared, they go running to Mommy and Daddy. And what did they do when they discovered that their baby had been led astray by a bunch of immigrants? They started making phone calls.
“It ain’t white privilege, pal. It’s all about green privilege. You got a lot of green, you got a lot of friends who are happy to do your biddin’. Randy’s folks, they know people who know people who know people like me who’ll take care of their issues for a price. They want this one, meaning you, to go away with a minimum amount of muss and fuss.”
“Pendejo habla demasiado,” the hombre said.
I pointed at him but spoke to Reyes.
“Did he really just call me an asshole?” I said. “Did he really say I talk too much?” I turned my eyes back on the hombre. “Fuck you, pal.”
“Nicholas,” Reyes said. “We have business to discuss.”
I liked it that Reyes used Dyson’s first name. It meant he was attempting to defuse the situation. But Dyson wouldn’t let it go.
“I don’t like you, asshole,” he said. “I might decide to have words with you.”
The hombre took a fleeting look down at the Hi-Point in the grass at his feet. The other members of Reyes’s crew glanced nervously at each other and shifted their weight. Herzog remained still.
“Nicholas,” Reyes said.
“Yeah, yeah. Where was I? Oh, yeah. I’m here to say you’re done with Randy. You’re done with Salsa Girl. You’re gonna have t’ find a different way to bring your product across the border because you won’t be using the Salsa Girl trucks.”
“That would be very inconvenient.”
“Nobody gives a shit, Alejandro. I’m just telling you—this ain’t me, remember. I’m just delivering the message. The message is move on.”
“Move on? Just like that?” Reyes pounded his chest. “What am I supposed to do now? How am I supposed to meet the demands of my customers?”
“You could go into a different line of work.”
“Listen to him,” Reyes told his hombre. To me he said, “You’re not solving my problem.”
“Solving your problem isn’t our line,” I said.
“We deal in lead, friend,” Herzog said.
Both Reyes and I looked up at him. Herzog shrugged imperceptibly.
“Isn’t that a line from a movie?” Reyes said.
Steve McQueen to Eli Wallach in The Magnificent Seven, the original film, not the remake, my inner voice said. Damn, Herzy.
“I don’t care what you do,” I said aloud. “But just so you know, the next phone call Randy’s mommy and daddy make, they won’t be making it to me. It’ll be to Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Finnegan. The man’s a prick, believe me. I’ve had dealings with him. Worse, he’s a prick with political ambitions. With the Bignells financing his run, you don’t think he’d love to get his name out there by launching a joint task force to take down the illegal Mexicans bringing drugs, bringing crime, into the country? C’mon, you read the news. This is pure gold for a right-wing nut-job politician—prove he’s tough on crime. Finnegan will come after you with the biggest army and the most noise he can possibly muster. Randy’s name—I promise you, it’ll never even be mentioned. And his partner, fuck, she still doesn’t know what’s going on.
“In the meantime, you’ve also got the Red Dragons to deal with. I heard they’re lookin’ to have a conversation with you, too, because you’ve been cuttin’ into their OxyContin trade. What do you think they’re gonna say when they find you?”
“I have no issues with the Dragons.”
“Yeah, that’s probably gonna change if you don’t listen to reason. Look, Alejandro. I’m not threatening you. Maybe you’re afraid of the Feds and the Dragons; maybe you’re not. Maybe you think you can push back at Randy and his family, threaten to hang a drug rap on the kid or somethin’ if they don’t give up, give out, give in. ’Course, sooner or later the partner will be dragged into it, and who knows, she might be opposed to lettin’ you use her business to mule your shit. Hell, she might even be an honest woman. In any case, you gotta admit, if you don’t back off, pretty soon doing business in the Twin Cities—man, it’s gonna become such a bitch. And this after years of having it nice and easy, too. Personally, I’d take the easy way out. But that’s just me. All right? That’s all I have to say, all I was asked to say. You do what you think is best. Now, let’s part friends. You go your way and I’ll go mine, and good luck to you.”
“What about my product?”
“Your four keys of heroin. I forgot about that for a sec. Here’s the thing, my instructions are to hang on to it until everyone’s satisfied that you’re playing nice with all the other children. Call it an incentive. ’Course, you might decide to call the bluff and keep trying to use Salsa Girl, in which case your other shipments will be disappearing, too. I have no use for your product, so I’ll probably unload it somewhere. Maybe the Dragons’ll take it off my hands. So there’s that.”
“Patrón,” the hombre said, “I do not believe him. I do not trust him.” He spoke English because he wanted me to know what he was saying.
I stood up and stepped near enough to smell his breath.
“Believe what you like. I don’t care.” I held my closed fist out at my side and opened it as if mimicking a mic drop. “I’m out.”
“Hijo de mil putas,” the hombre said. “This is not over, yet.”
McKenzie probably would have smiled and walked away; certainly he would not have shown much anger at being called the son of a thousand whores. Hell, he might even have laughed at the silliness of it all. Dyson, though, was never one to let an insult go unchallenged. I smiled benignly, slowly reached down for the hombre’s Hi-Point, and came up quickly, smashing him in the jaw with the butt.
“How ’bout now?” I said.
I hit him again.
And again.
“Is it over now?”
And again.
“How ’bout now?”
Reyes jumped to his feet and yelled something in Spanish. Three red dots centered on his chest.
The men standing in the semicircle reached for their weapons.
I hit the hombre yet again, knocking him to the ground. I took the business end of the .45 and shoved it into his ruined mouth. He gagged on the barrel. Blood flowed down his cheeks and puddled on the ground. His eyes were wide with fear. He brought his hands up to pull the gun from his mouth. I gripped his throat with my free hand and pressed a knee against his chest. Instead of slowing me down, the stabbing pain in my shoulder just spurred me on.
“Is it over now?” I said.
A lot of men were shouting. I heard only one voice clearly.
“Dyson.” It was Herzog calling my name, Dyson’s name. I looked up at him. “We done here?”
I released the hombre’s throat, lifted my knee from his chest, and pulled the gun out of his mouth. He rolled onto his side and began coughing and spitting blood.
What the hell is wrong with you? my inner voice asked.
I stepped away from the hombre. The other six Mexican bandits were pointing their weapons at me. I turned to Reyes. The dots were still centered on his chest.
I dropped the Hi-Point at my feet and raised my hands high enough so that everyone could see that they were empty.
“Can’t we all just get along?” I said.
Reyes spread his hands wide as if he were wondering the same thing.
* * *
The sun had set and the air had turned chilly by the time Herzog and I returned to the SUVs. His men were already there and speaking quietly. They stopped talking when we approached. I paid them and thanked them for their time. They drove off. I gave Herzog his ten thousand. He dropped it into his trunk as if it were something he didn’t want to embrace for too long. I put the sling back on and slipped my arm through it; my shoulder hurt almost as much as when I had first injured it. I took my time climbing into the passenger seat of Herzog’s SUV. He drove us back to Minneapolis.
“That worked out pretty well considerin’ you nearly got us killed,” Herzog said.
I sat back against the seat. The gym bag, now $25,000 lighter, was on my lap; the Taurus, Dyson’s IDs, and Randy’s flip-phone were tucked inside it. My eyes were closed. I made a point of breathing through my nose.
“It wasn’t me,” I said. “It was Dyson.”
“Crazy fucker, you ask me.”
“He does have his moments.”
“You know, there’s somethin’ the whaddaya-call psychologist told me once when I was inside that I’ve been thinkin’ on ever since. He said, We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be.”
“Kurt Vonnegut.”
“Who?”
“Kurt Vonnegut. He said it first.”
“Whatever, man. It’s good advice.”
Herzog was right, only I didn’t say. I didn’t speak another word.
* * *
Herzog drove to the surface lot near Chopper’s building where I had parked my Mustang. I thanked him for his help and told him that dinner was still a thing we would do as soon as his, Chopper’s, and my schedules could be reconciled. He told me about a joint in Fridley called Crooners that he wanted to give a try; said it was supposed to have good music. I told him that would work as I slipped out of his SUV. He said something then that kind of threw me—“I worry about you, McKenzie.”
If a man like Herzy is concerned about the things you do, maybe it’s time for you to start reassessing your life’s choices, my inner voice said.
“I’m good,” I said aloud.
“If you say so.”
Herzog drove away, leaving me standing alone next to my car, the gym bag gripped in my hand, my arm pressed against my side to help alleviate the ache in my shoulder. The lights of Target Field illuminated the downtown Minneapolis skyline, but mostly the harsh light flowed upward and didn’t reach the lot where I was standing. Still, I was close enough to the baseball stadium that I could hear the crowd cheer for, well, I hoped it was for a member of the Twins organization doing something right for a change and not the Red Sox. I hated the Red Sox, at least for the duration of the home stand. In a few days I’d start hating the Toronto Blue Jays.
A glance at my watch told me that the Twins were probably playing the fifth, possibly sixth inning by now. I wondered if Salsa Girl and Ian were enjoying themselves.
You need to talk to her, my inner voice reminded me. The sooner the better.
Tomorrow, I told myself. I didn’t want to intrude on Erin’s date.
I opened the Mustang, tossed the gym bag on the passenger seat, climbed in, and drove off.
I didn’t learn about the Acura that was following me until later.
* * *
The call came five minutes after I entered the condominium. I almost didn’t go home, debating with myself whether it would be better to drive to Rickie’s instead, have a drink or two or three while listening to some tunes. The emotional residue of my visit with Alejandro Reyes and his hombre was still clinging to me, though, and I didn’t want it to rub off on anyone else, especially Nina.
I answered the phone. Jones—or was it Smith?—said, “McKenzie, you’ll want to come down and take a look at this.”
A few minutes later, I was standing in front of the security desk. Both Smith and Jones were seated behind it, their chairs facing the TV monitors.
“When did you two start working nights?” I asked.
“We’re working a double shift so we can get tomorrow off for the ball game,” Smith said. “Come around here and take a look.”
I circled the desk until I was standing behind their chairs and looking at the TV screens. My first thought—Coyle and his blue Camry had returned.
Smith hit a button, and the center screen was filled with my Mustang.
“This is you a few minutes ago,” Smith said. “Now watch.”
I did, watching myself driving down the street, signaling for a right turn, entering the driveway leading to the opening of the underground parking garage, and disappearing inside.
So what? my inner voice asked.
Smith’s hand came up and he pointed at an image of a black Acura following behind my Mustang, slowing as it passed the driveway, speeding up until it reached the intersection, hanging a U-turn, coming back, and parking across the street at a meter with an unobstructed view of the garage doors.
Oh.
“It gets better,” Jones said.
He hit a few more buttons, and I was treated to the sight of my Mustang doing the exact same thing as before, only this time it was in broad daylight.
“This was you arriving at about—well, exactly four sixteen P.M. today,” Jones said.
You were coming home after finding the heroin in the Salsa Girl prep room, my inner voice reminded me.
“Okay,” I said aloud.
“Now, this is you leaving again ten minutes later.”
Jones tapped a few more buttons, and I saw myself driving away from the garage, also in daylight, and proceeding to the intersection, where I executed a rolling stop before making a right turn.
On your way to Chopper’s place.
“Here,” Smith said. He was pointing at the Acura again as it pulled out of its parking space and began trailing me.
“Dammit.”
“Someone is following you,” Jones said.
“I can see that.”
“We probably wouldn’t have noticed ourselves except that we’ve been paying close attention ever since you asked us to keep an eye out for the Toyota the other day,” Smith said.
“I appreciate this,” I said.
“We ran the footage back ever further, and we discovered that the Acura first arrived at the building at exactly two seventeen P.M. today,” Smith said. “We figure the surveillance didn’t start until then. The Acura parked where he parked and didn’t move an inch until you left at”—he glanced at his timetable—“four twenty-eight.”
I reviewed my movements in my head: I left for Salsa Girl Salsa at approximately eight that morning, stayed there until about one thirty, came home, received Alice Pfeifer’s phone call a short time later, drove to her apartment, went back to Salsa Girl to remove the heroin at about three thirty, and came back here. That’s when the Acura picked me up. It knew nothing about my movements before I drove to Chopper’s.
Could he have followed you to West St. Paul? my inner voice asked.
I didn’t think so. Herzog and I had been pretty careful; we would have known if we were being tailed. Besides, we didn’t take the Mustang. Instead, we left in Herzog’s SUV; it had been parked behind Chopper’s building in an employees-only lot. If the Acura was sitting on the Mustang, the driver wouldn’t have seen us leave. So whoever was following me knew only that I drove to Chopper’s building, went inside, and later returned to the parking lot. ’Course, he would have seen Herzog dropping me off; probably the driver would have been pissed that I had managed to slip away without him knowing. Just as probably he would have taken down Herzy’s license plate number.
He’s not going to like it when you tell him, my inner voice said.
“About that,” I said aloud.
“What?” Smith said.
“Did you get the Acura’s license plate number?”
“Of course.”
“You realize that we’re not supposed to run it, though,” Jones said. “The Department of Public Safety has been clamping down ever since it lost a million-dollar settlement to that woman who sued after she learned that over a hundred guys had accessed her info at one time or another for no better reason than to learn her name and marital status.”
“She was a babe,” Smith said.
“It’s okay,” I said. “I know a guy who owes me one.”
“So do we,” Jones said. “We’re just messing with you, McKenzie. Fishing for another big tip.”
“What do you have?”
“Not much, I’m afraid. The Acura is a rental. It’s assigned to an agency near the airport. We gave them a call, but the rental agency refused to put a driver in the car for us.”
“Something about privacy rights and court orders,” Smith said. “Silly stuff like that.”
So now what? my inner voice asked.
I was pretty sure it wasn’t Alejandro Reyes. He hadn’t even known that I existed until I called him at about six forty-five, and anyway, he knew me as Dyson. And Dyson didn’t live in a high-rise condominium in downtown Minneapolis with his beautiful girlfriend.
That left Greg Schroeder and his minions, except—Greg wasn’t following me, he was following Salsa Girl.
Which brings us back to the original question—what now?
I could confront the Acura’s driver the way I had braced Darren Coyle, only the way the day was going, I didn’t want to press my luck. Besides, my shoulder was killing me.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “what would you normally do under these circumstances—you see someone spying on one of your tenants, whom you’ve been sworn to protect?”
“Actually, we’re paid to protect the building,” Jones said.
“Whatever.”
“Why, McKenzie,” Smith said, “we’d call the police.”
* * *
While we waited for one of Minneapolis’s finest, I went upstairs, popped the top off three bottles of Summit Ale, and brought them back to the security desk. We sipped the beer while we watched the officer at work.
He pulled his squad behind the Acura, the squad’s bright lights illuminating the inside of the car. He approached the vehicle cautiously, just as he had been trained. The driver unrolled his window; I noticed that he kept both hands on the steering wheel while he spoke to the officer.
He’s done this before, my inner voice said.
The officer asked for the driver’s ID and insurance information. It was given freely. The officer returned to his vehicle and called it in. The driver remained in the Acura and watched the officer through his rearview mirror. Minutes passed. The officer returned to the driver and restored the driver’s possessions. More words were exchanged. The officer returned to his cruiser. The driver started his Acura, signaled, and pulled away from the parking space into the street. We watched him on the TV monitor as he turned left onto Washington Avenue and disappeared into the traffic.
“He may come back,” I said, “but not in the Acura. Probably he’ll also try to find a perch outside the range of your cameras.”
“We’ll pass word to the other shifts to watch for him,” Jones said.
A moment later, the Minneapolis police officer entered the building’s foyer. Smith was quick to take our beers and place them out of sight.
“Good evening,” Jones said.
“Good evening,” the officer replied.
“What’s his story?” Smith asked.
The officer spoke freely even though I was standing behind the desk; no doubt I looked like an authority figure to him, with my arm folded across my sling.
“Asshole’s from Chicago,” he said. “His name is Levi Chandler. That mean anything to you?”
We all shook our heads.
“I checked and he’s not in the system, so I don’t know. He claimed he was lost and that he was waiting for a friend to call and tell him where to go.”
“I’d like to tell him where to go,” Jones said.
“It’s bullshit,” the officer said. “No law against that, though. I shooed him away, but that don’t mean he’s going to stay away.”
“We were thinking the same thing,” Smith said.
“Keep an eye out. What else can I say?”
“We will,” said Jones. “Thanks, Officer.”
“Have a beer on me.”
Smith took a Summit out from behind the desk and saluted the officer with it. Jones and I did the same as the officer left the building and returned to his vehicle. We watched him drive away through the big windows.
Now what? my inner voice asked yet again.
If I see Chandler again, I’ll attempt to have a conversation with him, I told myself. Hopefully, it will be as uneventful as the one he had with the officer. In the meantime …
“I appreciate everything you’ve done for me, guys,” I said.
“We appreciate the beer,” Smith said.
“If I find anything lying around in the corridor, I’ll be sure to bring it to the lost and found.”
“You know,” Jones said, “Billy Joel is coming to town.”
“As it turns out, I know a guy.”
I left them after that and took the elevator to my condominium. On the way my inner voice asked, Who did you piss off in Chicago?