A Hard Ticket Home (22 page)

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Authors: David Housewright

Tags: #Fiction, #Mystery & Detective, #Hard-Boiled, #Private Investigators

BOOK: A Hard Ticket Home
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The light from the refrigerator stung my eyes. I had thought a glass of milk might help relieve the throbbing in my head and settle my queasy stomach. Yeah, right. It was so cold my brain froze—I damn near passed out on my tile floor. Eventually, I made my way upstairs, the house lights off, moving by touch and habit alone. I removed my jacket, shoes, and gun, but stripping off the rest of my wet clothes didn’t seem worth the effort.
Later that night I found myself wide awake, shuddering at the thunder and lightning and high wind that shook the trees outside the window. I was surprised but not fearful when a young woman with golden hair crept silently into my bedroom, her white gown shimmering with a light that seemed to come from within. She sat on the edge of my mattress and patted my hands that were holding the blankets tight to my throat. I couldn’t make out her face. She told me not to be afraid, that the storm wouldn’t harm me, that she wouldn’t allow it. She told me my trials would soon be over. She said she was proud of me. I asked her name. In reply she bent to kiss me. As our lips touched I awoke with a start to find that my room was empty and the night was still.
To this day, I don’t know if it was Jamie Bruder’s apparition that had appeared to me, or my mother’s.
The mid-morning sun was streaming through the bedroom windows as I stood naked in front of the full-length mirror, inspecting the damage inflicted by Devanter, furious that I had allowed him to toss me around like a lawn dart.
“It’s not the size of the dog in a fight that matters, it’s the size of the fight in the dog,” I said out loud, which was still another of the lessons my father had attempted to teach me. Standing there, examining the bruises that spotted my body like an ugly connect-the-dots puzzle, I decided Dad was full of it. I also vowed that no one would ever beat on me like that again.
Everything hurt—my spine, my hip, both shoulders, neck, my head especially. The cut under my hairline wasn’t nearly as bad as I had originally thought, only an inch long and not very deep. I doubted it would leave a scar. I also was surprised that no black-and-blue splotches marred my face. Since the other bruises would be easily concealed under
clothes, I was starting to think that, all things considered, I looked pretty good. Until my eyes wandered to the other places on my body where errors in judgment had left their mark—a scar on my thigh, another at the point of my shoulder, the nickel-size spot above my right ear where hair will never grow again. Maybe Kirsten was right. Maybe I should try to get a job with the Minnesota Opera Company.
I spent a long time in the bathroom cleaning myself up. I tried not to think. Thinking gave me a headache. So did tossing corn to the ducks. The mere act of wheeling my recyclables to the curb caused my entire body to tremble with pain, my back especially. I went for a walk. I was afraid if I sat down I wouldn’t have the strength to get up again.
I strolled through St. Anthony Park like I didn’t have a care in the world, like people weren’t trying to kill me. I made my way east, past Murray Junior High School, to the St. Paul campus of the University of Minnesota and south to a small park filled with children and young mothers who eschewed the just-put-your-kids-in-daycare work ethic currently popular in the land. I watched the mothers watching their children and thought of Jamie.
No, don’t do that,
I admonished myself.
Don’t think.
To divert my attention, I turned north, found a tennis court, and stopped to watch a pair of college kids. But that only made me feel old as well as out of shape. I meandered to the corner. As the traffic light switched to yellow, I heard the hard acceleration of a vehicle. I glanced up and saw a black van shooting through the intersection just as the yellow went red. It wasn’t even a Chevy, yet I was on the ground just the same, hiding my head behind the light pole.
“This is going to stop,” I vowed.
 
 
I hurried home and changed into my work clothes—Nikes, blue jeans, white shirt with button-down collar, sport coat, and Beretta. I popped a
couple of aspirins and installed myself in the office. I spread my notes across my desk—the ones I had addressed to Bobby Dunston and the others in the event of my sudden departure from this earth—and studied them as I sipped my coffee. Who killed Jamie Carlson Bruder? And Katherine Katzmark? And Napoleon Cook? And David Bruder? Why were the Family Boyz trying to kill me? So many questions. So few answers.
I put some Rolling Stones on the CD player and decided they were too distracting, I couldn’t concentrate. I replaced them with Bill Evans, whose mellow piano more closely fit my mood. I fired up my PC and searched the file on my hard drive. Nothing. I studied my notes some more. I played with the facts I had gathered, rolled them into a ball, bounced them on the floor and off the walls before smoothing them out again. After a couple of hours I realized that I kept coming back to the same thing. My business card. The one I had given Jamie. The one the Minneapolis cops found on Cook. How did he get it? Did Jamie give it to him? Why would she do that? Maybe she didn’t. I had left the card on the patio table. Jamie said that her husband was bringing a business associate home for drinks—around the pool! Maybe Cook found it there. Maybe he palmed it. Palmed it because it proved that Jamie was talking to someone she shouldn’t be …
A knock at the door. I was careful when I answered it. A courier with a special delivery. The courier was legit. I hid the gun behind my back as I signed for the package, an outsize envelope. I opened the envelope and found a hand-addressed, gilt-edged invitation to the Northern Lights Entrepreneur’s Club Ball. The names of the eight founding members were listed on the inside in alphabetical order. And at last, I understood.
 
 
“McKenzie, a pleasure to hear from you,” Charlotte Belloti said when she answered the telephone.
“I hope I’m not disturbing you.”
“No, but that certainly can be arranged.” Her giggle had a sort of sad ring to it this time around, or maybe it was the way I heard it. I wondered for a moment if Charlotte knew that her husband was cheating on her.
“As it turns out, I’m going to the Entrepreneur’s Ball after all. I was wondering if I would see you there.”
“Yes, I’ll be there,” she told me.
“How about your husband? Is he still in Russia?”
“As a matter of fact, I just spoke to him not ten minutes ago. He’s in Montreal with these ex-commie Russian capitalists—at least that’s what he calls them. He said he won’t be home until late, late, late tonight, sometime after the ball, anyway. So, you lucky dog, I’ll be all yours.”
“There’s a thought,” I said, and Charlotte giggled some more.
 
 
Thirty minutes later I found Merci Cole. She was dressed in the same white and black outfit, sitting on the same stool at the same bar and conversing with the same bartender as the evening I had first met her. Only the ice in her rum and Coke was different.
She swore between clenched teeth as I approached.
“What do you want?”
“You.”
“David’s dead.” Her tone accused me.
“I know.”
“You bastard.”
“Cut it out.”
“He went to you for help.”
“How do you know?”
“Just keep away from me.”
“Stop it.”
“I said get away from me.”
“You heard the lady,” the bartender said.
“This is a private conversation, okay, pal?”
“Beat it, chump.”
“Don’t mess with me today,” I told him. “I’m in a real bad mood.”
“I got this for your mood.” He reached under the bar and came up with a miniature baseball bat, the kind the vendors hawk at the Metrodome during Twins games. I didn’t wait to see whose autograph was on it. I yanked the Beretta from its holster—I’d be damned if I’d let someone hit me again—and slapped it down hard on the bartop. The noise startled him. The bartender dropped the bat and backed away, waving his hands in front of him like he was saying no to a second helping of pie.
Merci stared at me, trembling with anger.
“I think I know who killed Jamie and David and all the others and I think I know why,” I told her. “I need you to help me put them on the spot.”
“Who?”
“I’ll explain that later. Right now—look, you’re a businesswoman. You work for money. I’ll pay you one hundred dollars an hour. What time is it?” I looked for a clock. “Three-thirty? Start now and go until—call it midnight. Nine hundred bucks. Make it an even thousand. Plus, I’ll pay all expenses.”
“What expenses?”
“Gown, shoes, getting your hair done—we’ll have to hurry. We’re going to a fancy dress ball.”
“Why?”
“Because that’s where the bad guys are. Are you in?”
“I don’t know,” Merci said.
“I’m going to get those sonsuvbitches. Are you in?”
“I need to make a phone call first.”
“Call whoever you like.”
Merci went quickly to the pay phone attached to the wall between the two rest rooms. She returned five minutes later.
“I have my own gown,” she told me. “With matching shoes and bag. It used to belong to Jamie. She gave it to me after TC was born.”
 
 
Merci shouted at me through the door of what used to be my father’s bedroom.
“Why are we doing this?”
“You’ll see,” I told her as I fumbled with my black bow tie. What was I going to say? I’m using you for bait?
“You know, I never wore this dress before,” she called out. I could relate. I had worn my double-breasted tuxedo only a half dozen times in the past five years—most of those times with Kirsten. I had never learned how to tie a bow tie and instead used one of those pre-tied jobs with a strap that winds around your collar and hooks under your throat.
I shoved the Beretta .380 into the holster under my left arm then slipped the tuxedo jacket over it.
“What time do we need to be there?”
Ahh, damn. This was no good. I couldn’t use her, hooker or no, not like this. I went to the door. Rapped on it gently with a knuckle.
“Yes?”
I rested my head on the closed door while I explained what I thought I knew and why we were going to the party. I concluded by telling Merci, “It could be dangerous. Probably will be. Eight people have been killed already. If you want out, I’ll pay the grand I owe you and we’ll call it a night.”
Merci didn’t answer. I called her name.
“Come in.”
I opened the door cautiously. Merci was on the far side of the room, staring at a woman in the full-length mirror. The woman staring back
was modeling a long gown of iridescent raspberry lace that hugged her curves from shoulders to ankles. Long sleeves, scoop neckline, a thigh-high side slit that caused my heart to skip several beats. Merci tugged gently at the fabric.
“It’s a little snug,” she said.
“Works for me,” I admitted.
“I’m pretty, aren’t I? I’m a pretty girl.”
“More than pretty.”
“I’m as pretty as Jamie was.”
I saw it then. And wondered why I hadn’t seen it before.
She spun around to face me. “My life should have been so different than the one I’m living. Jamie understood that. Better than anyone. She wanted me to have the life I had been cheated out of but it wasn’t hers to give.” Her voice cracked and a sob escaped her throat. Merci turned away from me, but only for a few moments. When she turned back her voice was steady and her eyes were clear.
I thought of Stacy and said, “Let’s rethink this.”
“No, let’s not.” In case I wanted to argue, she added, “When do we leave?”
“I thought we’d have dinner first and arrive fashionably late.”
 
 
Animal rights activists were chanting slogans outside the entrance to the Minnesota Club in downtown St. Paul where the region’s best and brightest entrepreneurs had gone to celebrate themselves. It was an interesting performance. Minnesota protesters are way too nice to attack fur wearers with spray paint and plastic bags filled with blood. Here they’re usually content with polite heckling. “Get a flea collar.”
The entrepreneurs taunted back. “Get a life.”
“Do you know how many animals died to make your coat?”
“Do you know how many animals died to make your lunch?”
All in all, everyone was having a wonderful time.
Beyond the protesters was a long line of limousines, some white, some silver, most black—a few of them actually parked legally. Devanter was leaning against the fender of one, cupping an unfiltered cigarette in his left hand, shaking his head at the southeast-Asian drivers who congregated around a limo identical to his half a block up. He was muttering loudly to himself.
“You believe it? The gooks in this state. You’d think a good Minnesota winter’d send ’em back to the paddies.”
When he saw us he dropped the smoke and took a step backward. Only it wasn’t me who startled him. He was staring at Merci.
Merci turned her head to look at him as we passed by. Devanter tried to say something but nothing came out. We left him standing there, his mouth hanging open.
 
 
The Minnesota Club was built in 1915 and remains one of the oldest structures in downtown St. Paul. It used to be an exclusive hideaway where rich old men would go to decide the future of the city and state over a snifter of brandy and a good cigar. Rumor had it that in the twenties the members maintained a tunnel that led to the back door of Nina Clifford’s elegant and terribly expensive bordello barely a block away. Personally, I believe the rumor to be true. Especially since a portrait identified as that of the lady in question—a black-haired beauty in a silver-gray dress—hangs prominently on the wall of the club’s main bar. And then there’s the plaque attached to a red-brown brick salvaged from the ruins of Clifford’s brothel that reads, “This brick from Nina Clifford’s house is presented to the Gentlemen of the Minnesota Club for their great interest in historic buildings.”

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