What Doesn't Kill Us--A McKenzie Novel by David Housewright (most read books txt) 📗

suppose it was only a couple of minutes before I heard the siren. The cop car siren. All of a sudden the sidewalk was filled with people. One of them called the cop a dirty name. I don’t know why. He was just trying to help.”

Gafford gave Nancy’s hands a shake and stood up.

“You’re a good person,” he said.

“No, I’m not.”

“You are what you do and you did good.”

“Should I be honest, Detective Gifford?”

“Gafford.”

“Forgive me. Detective Gafford. I’ll be honest. I came here tonight to get laid. I would have done McKenzie if he had let me, the way he smiled and said, ‘Good evening.’ My husband left me for a sweet young thing that worked as an intern in his office and for the past six months I’ve been sitting around the house feeling sorry for myself, telling myself that I’m old and ugly and no one wants me. Finally, I decided to prove that it wasn’t true. Or maybe that it was. That’s why I came down here. Alone. To Rice Street. I don’t know how I got up the nerve. Then I saw him, McKenzie. I saw him standing outside the club, this good-looking man who smiled and stared at me exactly the way I wanted to be stared at. Now look at me. I look hideous.”

“No, you don’t,” Gafford said.

Nancy’s eyes met his.

“My dress is ruined.”

“Like I said, I know McKenzie. If he pulls through, I’m going to tell him about you. I bet he buys you a new dress.”

“Is he married, do you know?”

“Yes.”

“Oh.”

“But I’m not.”

“Ooh.”

Before he left his house in Merriam Park, Bobby made a phone call. It was received by Nina Truhler. She was sitting behind her desk in her office at Rickie’s, the jazz club she had named after her daughter Erica, and doing something with her computer. She answered the phone without bothering to check the caller ID.

“Rickie’s,” she said.

“Nina, it’s Bobby.”

Something in his voice made her stand up.

“What is it?” she said.

“Hang on to yourself, honey—McKenzie’s been shot.”

“Shot?”

“Yes. He’s…”

“Is he dead?”

“No. No, Nina. He’s going to be fine.”

“Is that a promise?”

“He’s at Regions Hospital. I’m heading over right now.”

“I’ll see you there.”

Nina hung up her phone and stared at it for a few beats before forcing herself to move. Dammit, Nina’s inner voice said. Four months. We’ve been married for four lousy months, not even four months, and he does this to me?

Yet she reserved most of her anger for Bobby.

“You sonuvabitch,” she said aloud. “You didn’t promise.”

Thaddeus Coleman was an entrepreneur. He was currently managing a ticket-scalping operation out of an office in a converted warehouse with a view of Target Field, where the Twins played baseball in downtown Minneapolis. When I first met him, though, back when I was with the SPPD, Coleman 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 drifted to the next trendy hot spot. Afterward, he dealt drugs around Fuller and Farrington. 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 Daddy’s SUV. I busted Coleman for that—representing and selling a controlled substance, whether it’s an actual drug or not, is a felony. Only, the judge threw the case out. I blamed the prosecutor.

While the court might have been lenient with Coleman, though, the Red Dragons not so much. They objected to his activities on what they considered to be their turf, and pumped two rounds into his spine as a way to express their displeasure, thus the wheelchair that he was now sitting in and the nickname he became widely known by—Chopper. 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 Chopper wheeled himself out of the hospital in a stolen chair, we discovered the bodies of three Red Dragons under the swings at a park near St. Paul College of Technology. We could never prove 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. Still, innocent until proven guilty is what the law says.

Chopper was sitting at his desk, and reviewing the latest computer gadgetry that would help him circumvent the online security systems employed by ticket sellers and allow him to buy bundles of the best seats in the house for whatever concerts and sporting events promised him a hefty ROI. His head came up when he heard my name.

“Go back,” he said.

“Huh?”

“Go back, go back.”

Herzog was relaxing in a leather lounger and pointing a remote at a flat-screen TV. He had been channel surfing, one of his favorite occupations, landing on one channel before moving to the next and the next, sometimes watching for a few minutes, sometimes only for a second or two, entertaining himself for hours. Chopper had taught himself to block out the distraction, except he had heard someone say, “McKenzie.”

“Go back,” he said again.

Herzog flicked the channels until he landed on a local TV reporter named Kelly Bressandes who was looking into the lens of a camera as if it were the best friend she ever had. She was wearing a tight sweater so her male audience would know that she had curves. I’d had dealings with her in the past. Believe me, she could be wearing a burlap sack and the world would know that she had curves.

“The third shooting in St. Paul in the past week,” she said. “Rushmore McKenzie remains in critical condition in Regions Hospital. Barry?”

The camera moved from Kelly’s face to that of her co-anchor, who began talking about a health care initiative that was being argued in the state legislature.

“See if he’s on any of the other news programs,” Chopper said.

Herzog