Madman on a Drum (Mac McKenzie #5)

There was nothing about her appearance that I didn’t like—riveting silver-blue eyes, short black hair, gentle curves that she refused to diet away. She looked like twenty million bucks. No, more. Enough to buy the Minnesota Vikings a decent backfield. I had known Nina Truhler for over two years. Yet there were still moments when I would look at her and feel my heart somersaulting in my chest as if I were seeing her for the first time. I liked to watch her; I was watching her now as she swirled and whirled behind the stick. To say she moved like a dancer would be a mere cliché and not a particularly accurate one. Her movements were more improvised than a dancer’s yet remained fluid and assured, as if they were infused with an unshakable confidence, as if she couldn’t imagine the possibility of stumbling or overreaching. Other men watched her as well. Nina was used to being stared at. It began when she was fifteen, and the only time it waned was during the third trimester of her pregnancy with Erica. I wasn’t used to it, though. The two guys at the end of the bar drinking beer, they were beginning to annoy me. I told Nina so when she found time to chat. “That’s sweet,” she said. Which annoyed me even more.

She planted her elbows on the bar and leaned forward. I thought she wanted a kiss. Instead, she asked, “Well? What happened?”

I told her the entire story. She interrupted only to say how deeply relieved she was to hear that Victoria was now safely home with her parents. Nina was smiling when I finished.

“You had a pleasant day, didn’t you?” she said.

“Did I?”

“Everything that happened, even getting shot at, you enjoyed it, you know you did.”

“That’s crazy.”

“The way you told the story, the way your face lit up while telling the story, it’s like customers that I’ve served who get a thrill out of reliving how they won the big game, or who want to buy rounds because they closed a big deal.”

“I didn’t enjoy it.”

“Then why did you do it?”

“I couldn’t refuse to help Victoria and the Dunstons.”

“Of course not. You know Victoria and care for her. But what about all the others?”

“What others?”

“The other people you’ve done favors for.”

I tried to explain; Nina cut me off.

“You’re always quick with an explanation, and it always makes sense—nearly always,” she said. “Still, you could just as easily find an excuse for not getting involved in other people’s problems. Couldn’t you?”

I took a sip of my drink.

“I’ve come to a conclusion,” Nina said. “You’re committed to lost and hopeless causes, not because you’re an idealist or a humanitarian or anything like that. It’s about pride; it’s about self-esteem. This Wild West– gunfighter, white-knight, Scarlet Pimpernel life that you’ve chosen, it allows you to prove that you matter.”

“Good try. Your Psych 101 professor would be proud. Except I don’t agree.”

“Explain it to me, then.”

“I just like to be useful.”

“Isn’t that what I just said?”

“You make it sound like it’s an ego thing.”

Nina laughed at me. “Oh, honey,” she said. “Of course it is.”

“No, it isn’t. I help people the way I do because it gives me a sense of accomplishment. It makes me feel that I haven’t wasted my day. Not because it makes me a superior being or something.”

“If that’s true, why not go back to the cops?”

“I’ve been too long going where I want, doing what I want, unaccountable to anyone. I’m not sure I’d be very good at taking orders, now.”

“Like you ever were.”

“Or doing things by the book. Besides, the other kids resent me for being so damn good-looking, not to mention rich. I doubt they’d let me play with them.”

Nina sighed like a stage actress playing to the upper balcony.

“Anyway,” I told her, “I don’t think you’d love me if I had a real job, if I worked eight-to-five.”

“Of course, I would.”

“Uh-huh.”

“You know I would.”

“Do you remember the first time we met?”

“You came into my place because you were following a woman who was involved in a gunrunning operation.”

“If I recall, you were very excited by it. You went all Sam Spade on me, explaining how you knew she was cheating on her husband.”

“Well, she was.”

“What I’m asking, would you have spent time with me, would you have even spoken to me, if I had told you I was an accountant?” She didn’t answer, so I asked, “Remember the second time we met, at the Minnesota Club?”

“That was the third time, but who’s counting?” Nina said.

“You pushed a guy down a flight of stairs.”

“He was reaching for a gun. He was going to shoot you.”

“Probably he wasn’t, but that’s not the point.”

“What is the point?”

“You smiled while he bounced on every step until he hit the bottom.”

“Well…”

“You were having fun.”