Tin City (29 page)

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Authors: David Housewright

Tags: #Mystery & Thriller

BOOK: Tin City
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Sykora squatted next to me.
“What do you see?” he whispered.
“Nothing. Wait …”
A large man suddenly appeared in the second window. He rubbed his face vigorously, stretched, moved forward out of sight. I swung the
binoculars to the front window. He appeared there, slowly moved to the front door, and leaned against it, looking out.
“Frank?” Sykora asked.
“Yes.”
Sykora moved toward the light. I grabbed his arm and pulled him back.
“Where are you going?”
“Pen’s in there.”
“So are guys with guns. Give it a minute.”
“What for?”
“I don’t see Brucie.”
Sykora shook my hand free, but I grabbed his arm again.
“Wait.”
Sykora stared at the cabin for a moment, then edged slowly back next to me.
“I’ll go through the front door. You cover me from the window.”
“Don’t be foolish,” I told him. “Look at the cabin. Look at how it’s elevated. Standing on the hill, I won’t be able to see above the windowsill, much less give you cover. Plus, we don’t know where your wife is yet—will she be in the line of fire? And we don’t know where Brucie is.”
“He’s in the cabin. Where else would he be?”
“Watching the road? Waiting in the dark to shoot us?”
“Frank isn’t smart enough for that.”
“Who says?”
“Listen. Are you listening?” Sykora was speaking with the intensity of a computer salesman hawking the latest hardware. “Frank won’t be expecting us. I know this guy. The most vulnerable mark is the one who’s been to the circus before. He figures he has experience, he figures he’s too smart to get clipped. That’s Frank.”
“Frank? Or us?”
“Are you afraid, McKenzie?”
“You bet your ass I am.”
“I’m not.”
“Then you’re an idiot. With all my misgivings about the FBI, I never thought they hired idiots.”
“Pen’s in there,” he said again.
“Probably. And for her sake, let’s get this right. C’mon. We don’t need to rush this. We can take our time. Watch and wait. See what moves.”
“No.”
“Yes. Patience, man. It’s a virtue.”
“Who told you that?”
“Mr. Mosley.”
“Fine,” Sykora said, but I knew he wasn’t fine.
Frank moved away from the door and retraced his steps past the front window and the side window before disappearing again from view. I trained the binoculars on the outside of the cabin and spent long, silent minutes sweeping the yard, hoping to see a shadow move. None did. A tiny hole opened in the clouds, allowing the full moon to light up the yard like a flare. I saw no one. Then the hole closed, and once again the cabin was seized in darkness.
I whispered, “There’s a stand of trees on the right. I’m going to move over there, see if I can get a better view of the cabin and the yard. Wait here.”
“Do you have your gun?” Sykora asked. He was gripping his own Glock with both hands.
I slipped the Beretta out of my holster, showed it to him.
“Good,” he said. “Cover me.”
“Wait.”
But Sykora was done with waiting. He was on his feet sprinting toward
the entrance to the cabin. I muttered a few obscenities and followed him.
Sykora ran quickly and didn’t halt until he hit the side of the cabin next to the door with his shoulder. I heard the thud twenty feet away. So did Frank. He popped to his feet. I had been right about the window—I could see only his head and the top of his shoulders. He was looking toward the door.
Sykora flung open the door and charged through it.
Frank’s shoulders hunched upward and his head slid to the side as if he were sighting down a rifle.
My shriek was loud and guttural, a variation on the word “no.”
Frank glanced my way just as I fired onetwothreefourfivesix rounds at him through the cabin wall. I saw his head spin, and then he dropped from sight.
I dashed to the front steps, up the steps, and through the door, my Beretta leading the way. The living room was cramped with ancient furniture, and fishing gear hung from nails hammered into the cheap wood paneling. Frank was lying on his side in the middle of it, clutching his belly with one hand and reaching for a sawed-off shotgun with the other. Sykora was kneeling on the floor in the far corner in front of Pen. He had set his Glock on a sofa and was hugging his wife. She was naked, her wrists and ankles bound to a wooden chair with duct tape.
Frank heaved himself forward a half inch and tried again for the sawed-off. I fell to my knees next to him, grabbed the barrel of the gun, and slid it across the floor to the screen door. It hit the door and wedged it open half a foot. I pivoted on my knees, the Beretta in front of me, searching for Brucie. He wasn’t there.
Frank looked at me like he was trying to remember my name.
“Fuckin’ McKenzie,” he said.
In the corner Sykora pressed his forehead against Pen’s and chanted her name. Her eyes were red. There was a slight bruise behind her left
eye, and the skin around the tape was red and raw. The severe light from the poorly shaded lamp on the table next to her caught her face, and for a moment I could see what she would look like when she was much older—still beautiful, with the kind of aristocratic grace that you gain only from conquering extreme adversity.
Pen said, “I’m okay, I’m okay. He didn’t hurt me—yet.”
The “yet” hung in the air like a threat.
I pointed the Beretta at Frank’s face.
Frank said, “I never touched her. Never laid a finger on her.”
“Where are her clothes?” I asked.
“Hey, now. There’s no harm in lookin’, is there?” He grinned like he couldn’t help himself.
I studied his face. There was an intelligence there, yet at the same time, he seemed a couple of steps removed from what you’d call normal.
I took up the slack on the trigger.
Frank’s eyes were wide, as if he were suddenly afraid to close them. His expression was unidentifiable. He said, “Don’t, now. Don’t. Don’t shoot me. You ain’t got any reason to shoot me. Girl’s okay. You can see. She’s right there.”
I glanced toward Pen. Sykora had freed one hand and was working on the other.
“Mr. Mosley,” I said.
“You mean the nigger? That’s what all this is about, ain’t it, McKenzie? That’s why you’re fuckin’ up my life. The nigger. Only I had nothin’ to do with him. I keep sayin’ so, but no one fuckin’ believes me.” I remembered that he had said that to Sykora over the phone when he
wasn’t
arguing for his life. “The lawyer’s wife? That wasn’t me, either. That was—you can’t get no fucking good help in Minnesota, I’m tellin’ ya. I told ’em just muss her up. But the boys, it was Danny and Brucie gettin’ outta hand.”
Brucie
.
Again I pivoted on my knees.
“Where is Bruce?”
“You can’t shoot me,” Frank said.
Sure I can,
I thought but didn’t say. First things first. I looked down at him.
“Where’s Bruce?”
He shrugged as if he had never heard the name before.
“Don’t make me ask again,” I told him.
Frank smiled. Smiled the same way Danny had smiled at the motel in Chanhassen. One of those smart-ass grins you see when a loudmouth poker player fills a straight flush with the last draw. And I knew. Knew even before I felt the barrel of the sawed-off brush the back of my neck.
“McKenzie,” Bruce said, making my name sound like an obscenity.
Sonuvabitch!
“Gotcha,” said Frank.
In the corner, Sykora lunged for his Glock.
“Don’t!” Frank shouted. He added, “Don’t do anything stupid,” in a lower voice when Sykora held himself up. “Don’t want the little lady hurt now, do we, Fed?”
Sykora looked at the Glock, his wife, back at the Glock. He raised his hands. Pen dropped her one free hand over her lap.
I glared at Sykora.
This is your fault,
my mind screamed.
The first two times were my fault, but this one is yours. Dammit. You just couldn’t wait, could you?
Frank worked himself into a sitting position.
“Okay,” he said.
He made a gimme motion with his hand. I handed him the Beretta. He glanced at it, handed it off to Bruce. Bruce slipped the gun into his pocket.
“You,” he said, looking at Sykora. “On your knees. Put the Glock on the floor. Slide it under the couch.” Sykora did what he was told, then
positioned himself so that he was kneeling directly between Pen and Brucie, shielding her naked body.
“You,” Frank said to me. “You just stay there on your knees.”
Frank pushed his great bulk up and off the floor with terrific effort. I suspected it would have been hard going even if he didn’t have a hole in his side. He crossed the room and sat in an overstuffed chair. I turned on my knees to face him. Sykora and Pen were now on my right. They would have had to run over me to get to the door located on my left and slightly behind me. Only it didn’t make much difference. Brucie moved to Frank’s side. He now had a clear line of fire at all of us, and with the sawed-off, accuracy wasn’t an issue. No one was going anywhere.
Frank picked at his wound.
“That hurts,” he said.
The cabin wall and his multiple layers of fat had reduced the impact of the 9mm slug. Instead of killing him, it had merely given him a bellyache. I couldn’t believe I had only hit him once out of six tries. I needed practice.
“I should have aimed higher,” I told him.
Brucie said, “He thinks he’s funny.”
“I noticed that,” said Frank.
“Let me kill him, Mr. Russo.”
“In a minute.”
Bruce changed his grip on the sawed-off. He pointed it at my head with one hand. The other hand he filled with the seven-inch stainless steel combat knife he had threatened me with before.
“I wanna cut ‘im. Make ’im cry like a little girl for what he did to Danny.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah. In a minute,” Frank insisted.
Brucie smiled.
I adjusted my position.
“Stop,” he said. “Put your hands behind your back.”
I did. Then I sank backward, sitting on my heels. Because of the angle, my body now blocked Brucie’s view. He couldn’t see my hands slowly working my pant leg up, reaching for the .25 Iver Johnson that was taped to my ankle.
Frank poked his wound some more. There was surprisingly little blood. What there was he licked off his fingers with his tongue.
“Whaddaya think, Penny? You want some?”
Pen gave him no sign of anything but her anger.
He winked at her.
“You know what? This is really going to work out nice. Much better than I thought. Right, Bruce?”
“Sure, Mr. Russo.”
“Uh-huh.” He pointed at Sykora. “I knew you’d be coming. A pretty wife like yours, you didn’t think I knew you’d be coming? True, I didn’t think you’d be bringing McKenzie. But c’mon. Who woulda thunk that?”
“Let Pen go,” Sykora said.
“I will, I will,” said Frank. “I said I would. How come no one ever believes me when I tell them shit?” Frank pointed again at Sykora. “I don’t suppose you brought my money with ya? No? I didn’t think so. But that’s okay. Doesn’t matter. Nothin’s changed. The deal’s the same. Tomorrow you’re gonna go get it for me. Just like I said before. Do that. Get the money, bring it back here, and you and the missus get away alive. Whaddaya say?”
“Just like that,” Sykora said. “I give you the money and Pen and I walk away?”
“Sure. Why not? I don’t hold a grudge.”
“What about McKenzie?”
“Fuck do you care as long as you get what you want?”
Everyone was looking at me now.
Frank grinned.
Pen said, “Jake?”
“Jake?” said Frank. “He tell you his name was Jake?”
“Yes,” said Pen.
“Then he’s a liar. Cuz he ain’t Jake. This here is McKenzie. McKenzie who shot me. McKenzie who’s been causing me nothin’ but trouble since I got to this lousy neck of the woods. Me, who ain’t never done nothin’ to him. Nothin’ at all. If I had, I’d say so.”
“Let me cut ’im,” Bruce said.
“Why not?” said Frank.
My father was a hunter. He tried to instill in me a hunter’s patience. It was a life lesson, he said, learning not to rush, learning how to wait for your shot. It was a lesson I had learned well. But it was now or never. I threw a look at Sykora. A second’s diversion. It was all I asked.

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