After my meeting with Harry and Bullert at the Columbia Golf Course three days ago—actually, it was four, now—I went to Rickie’s, the jazz joint in St. Paul that Nina Truhler named after her daughter, Erica. It was midafternoon, and the after-work happy-hour crowd had yet to arrive, although Nina’s waitstaff was ready to receive them. A few of the waitresses called my name, and I felt a little like Norm in the Cheers reruns when I entered the comfortable downstairs lounge; the jazz was played in a performance area at the top of a spiral staircase that was never opened before 6:00 P.M. In the past five years I had never received a tab for anything that I had ordered in Rickie’s, yet I always left a tip at least equal to the purchase price for whoever served me; thus I tended to be one of Nina’s most popular boyfriends.
Jenness Crawford, Nina’s assistant manager, was behind the bar. Before I had a chance to say a word, she poured a Summit Ale, my favorite beer brewed in St. Paul, my hometown, thank you very much, and set the glass in front of me.
“You’re going to make some young man a wonderful wife,” I said.
“Young man?” she asked.
I looked into her eyes, and she smiled demurely.
“I didn’t know you were gay,” I said. “No one tells me anything.”
“Let’s just say I’m keeping my options open. I’ll tell Nina you’re here.”
I watched the woman as she made her way around the bar and into Nina’s small office. I had known Jenness for years and just now learned that she played for both teams—which is why I worked as an unlicensed private investigator. Who the hell would give me a license?
A pair of cheaters was perched on Nina’s narrow nose when she emerged from her office. In the past, she would have hidden them from prying eyes for vanity’s sake. She had given up the deceit at about the same time her daughter had enrolled at Tulane University. It was a concession not to age, however, but to maturity—there is a difference, trust me on this. Beyond that, she looked as lovely to me as the day she had graduated from college. I had seen photos.
“How did you play?” she asked.
Before I answered, I leaned across the bar and kissed her on the lips.
“Lousy,” I said. “I beat Harry by six strokes, though, and that’s the main thing. Do you know what that SOB wanted me to do?”
“Give him mulligans? I know you hate that.”
“He wanted me to go undercover.”
I proceeded to give her a verbatim account of our conversation despite Harry’s claim that I could keep a secret. He knew me. He knew Nina. If he thought I wasn’t going to tell her everything, he was crazy. Afterward, she set her hand on top of mine and I felt a jolt of electricity that shot up my arm, through my chest, and straight down into my nether regions. She often had that effect on me.
“What?” I asked.
“Have you talked to Bobby Dunston?” she asked. “What did he say?”
“I haven’t spoken to Bobby, but he’s a commander in the Major Crimes and Investigations Division of the St. Paul Police Department, and I know exactly what he would tell me.”
“You should talk to him. G. K. Bonalay, too.”
“My lawyer?”
“And to that TV journalist you like so much.”
“Kelly Bressandes?”
“Tell them everything you told me.”
“Why would I do that?”
“Just in case.”
“Nina, I don’t think you heard me. I am not going to do this.”
“Before you go—”
“Before I go? Do you actually want me to risk life and limb on some fool’s errand?”
“No, but that’s never stopped you before. McKenzie, it’s been months since you’ve done anything silly. You’re due.”
“I can’t believe you said that.”
Nina propped her elbows on top of the bar and rested her face in her hands. She had the most startling silver-blue eyes I had ever seen, framed by jet black hair. When I first met her, the hair was short; then she grew it to shoulder-length; now it was short again, and I still didn’t know which way I liked it best.
“Do you know how long I’ve been a bartender?” she asked.
“Since you were eleven?”
“Close. Do you know what I’ve learned in all those years?”
“To never pour beer into a frosted mug, because it creates condensation that dilutes it?”
“I’ve learned how to read people.”
“You think you can read me?”
“Like a book, McKenzie. A graphic novel. Lots of pictures, little exposition.”
“I am not going to do this job.”
She smiled some more, smiled to the point of laughter, and gestured with her head toward the door. I spun on my stool in time to watch Harry, Chad Bullert, and a tall man dressed in one of the most expensive tailored suits I had ever seen walk into Rickie’s.
“Tell them that,” Nina said.
“I’ll need a table,” I said. “Not a booth. I want to be able to get up and walk away in a hurry.”
“Oh, McKenzie. You’re not going to walk away.”
I had every intention of doing just that, though, if for no better reason than to demonstrate to Nina that I was captain of my ship, master of my domain, lord of my castle. Unfortunately, it didn’t work out that way.
The tall, well-dressed man was introduced to me as Assistant U.S. Attorney James R. Finnegan. As I shook his hand I said, “I bet your friends call you Finny.”
He seemed astonished by the assumption. “No,” he said. “They don’t.” Then, “You have an interesting file.”
“I have a file?” I asked.
“Of course you do. I read that you’ve been involved in gunrunning before. That’s how you met Chad and Harry.”
I looked at Harry. “Does everybody call you that now?”