Wolf Hour

29 Feeling Minnesota, October 2016

Kay entered the almost empty sports bar, saw the mustard-yellow coat and slipped onto the bar stool next to him.

‘Sorry,’ she said.

‘For what?’

‘For letting them run you off like that.’

‘Not your fault. SWAT make the rules when they’re leading the operation.’

‘I could have protested, but it wasn’t the time or the place.’

‘Agreed. Don’t think about it. You made sure they listened to me about the fan.’

‘They should have listened to you and gone in immediately.’

Bob took a sip of his whisky and nodded in the direction of the news broadcast on the screen behind the bar. ‘Rick there has just explained to the viewers that the MPD managed to lose the murder suspect Tomás Gomez while they had him surrounded in a public restroom.’

Kay groaned. ‘Guess I need a drink too.’

Bob signalled to the bartender. ‘A Johnnie Walker for the lady.’

The bartender repeated his trick of grabbing the bottle without looking.

‘Not bad, eh?’ said Bob.

‘He must’ve practised,’ said Kay and waited impatiently for the glass in front of her to be filled.

‘Apropos,’ said Bob. ‘I’ve been thinking about what O’Rourke said about how it almost seems as though Gomez has had some kind of training.’

‘What about it?’ said Kay.

‘Gomez is strong and supple. He got up into that shaft where O’Rourke needed two guys to help him up. And so quietly that no one else noticed anything. Before he dropped down into the yard he must have been hanging by his fingertips, pulled himself up again and used his head to snap the fan back into place. Not something you or I could have managed. And not O’Rourke either, even though he’s in good shape.’

‘Well, some people are just stronger than others,’ said Kay. She emptied her drink, nodded to the bartender and pointed at the glass.

‘I think Gomez has planned this whole thing very carefully. He’s been working out with precisely this end in mind. And just the same way both murders were carefully planned, this last little game of his was planned too.’

‘You think so?’

‘Don’t you see? That it’s just a little bit too much of a coincidence he ends up in a restroom where the ventilation shaft leads out into an empty backyard. That the fan is just high enough up on the wall for it not to be welded in as a precaution against somebody breaking in that way but low enough to make it possible to drop down from, provided you have training in how to fall, like a paratrooper. Maybe he had the foresight to place something on the ground to break his fall, some kind of mat or something.’

‘Where are you going with this? That we should be looking for Tomás Gomez among elite soldiers or police officers?’

Bob took the vibrating phone out of his jacket pocket and checked the display.

‘More Walker,’ he said as he tapped the keypad and took the call. ‘Good evening, chief.’

‘Oz,’ rumbled Superintendent Walker. ‘Did you see that item on KSTP?’

‘Should I have?’

‘It was broadcast live and you were on it, Oz.’

‘Well, then of course I haven’t seen it.’

‘Of course?’ snorted the superintendent.

‘You said yourself, chief, it went out live and I was too busy being on it.’

‘I mean, have you seen it afterward? It’s all over the internet.’

‘Honestly, chief, I did not know it was an interview, she sneaked up on me.’

‘What the hell were you even doing at Track Plaza? You’re suspended, Oz! And you were drunk, dammit.’

‘I had a Johnnie Walker to deal with, chief. I drank it. I drink. I’m suspended, dammit.’

In the ensuing silence Bob listened to the superintendent’s puffing. The next time Walker spoke he had lowered the volume but not the intensity:

‘I want you to stay well clear of this case, Oz. Do you hear me?’

‘Aye aye, chief. I promise. Starting now. Got to go.’ Bob hung up.

‘What does he want you to start on?’ asked Kay.

‘Finding Gomez,’ said Bob as he put the glass to his mouth.

Kay looked at him, eyebrows raised.

‘We close at ten,’ said the bartender. ‘The whole centre does.’

‘OK,’ said Bob. ‘Give us another two each and we’ll be happy.’

‘By the way,’ said Kay, ‘there was something left inside that bubble wrap.’ She pulled a sheet of paper from her pocket and opened it out.

‘A target,’ said Bob.

‘From a rifle range, you think?’

‘A four-hundred-yard rifle target.’

‘Oh?’

‘You can tell from the dimensions. Professionally made too. Krüger.’ Bob pointed to the producer’s name, printed vertically but discreetly in the bottom corner.

‘Wouldn’t have thought someone who hated guns as much as you would know so much about shooting,’ said Kay.

‘There’s a lot people don’t know about me, Kay. I’m an enigma.’ Bob held the two glasses in front of him, one in each hand, and took a sip from each in quick succession, without getting a laugh.

‘No,’ said Kay. ‘You’re just One-Night Bob, nothing too mysterious about that.’

The corners of Bob’s mouth rose in a smile. ‘My cousin called me Rundbrenner Bob.’

She looked uncomprehendingly at him.

‘It’s a Norwegian expression. It means someone who screws around. A rundbrenner is a big wood-burning stove. One that spreads its warmth around to a lot of people. You get it?’

‘But you can’t spread warmth, Bob. Because there’s nothing burning inside you.’

‘No?’

‘It’s dark and cold in there, isn’t that right?’

‘I’m looking Chicago,’ sang Bob as he raised his glass in a salute, ‘and feeling Minnesota.’

‘What’s that?’

‘You’re not a grunge fan? So tell me about Chicago.’

‘Chicago?’ She emptied her glass. ‘I spent most of my time in Englewood and that’s not the Chicago you want to hear about.’

‘Yes I damn well do.’

‘No. I saw my mother...’ She closed her eyes and sighed. ‘Forget it.’

‘Forget it?’

‘It’s just the booze talking. Time I was getting home to feed the cat.’

‘Come on, Myers, I’m sensing a crack in your armour here.’

Kay looked at the last glass in front of her. It was still full.

‘My dad ran off before I was born,’ she said. ‘Nothing unusual about that in Englewood. Or that he was just another victim of the crack epidemic. What was special was that he would come home and rob my mother when he needed money. Because my mother had two jobs, she actually managed to put some aside for my sister and me to get an education. After the third time he broke in, beat my mother up and stole from us, she bought a gun. All she had to do was go into a store, fill out a few simple forms and she left carrying a weapon. I know you hate guns, but I tell you, when my sister and me were sleeping there in my mother’s bed and she had that pistol underneath the pillow, we all felt safer. And that’s a safety you middle-class liberals know nothing about because it’s just something you take for granted. But for three girls in Englewood the gun was the great equaliser. It meant we didn’t have to be helpless victims and let someone terrorise us because he was physically stronger. It didn’t stop my mother from crying inside, but that gun changed our daily lives. Not a shot was ever fired from it, but it made us that little bit safer, we slept better, we could go to school and get ourselves an education. And I know the statistics that show what guns can do to a society like Englewood in the long run. But I’m being honest, you don’t care a damn about the long run when your life is about surviving one night at a time.’

In silence Bob raised his glass to Kay, but she shook her head, she had to drive and she was pretty sure she was already skirting the limit.

By the time they left the bar, Bob was unsteady on his feet.

‘My car’s over at Southdale,’ he said to Kay as she got into her Ford, ‘and I need to clear my head anyway.’

‘Bob,’ said Kay, ‘you’re too drunk to drive and you shouldn’t be out at this time. Let me drive you home.’

‘Thanks, sweetie, but it’s OK. Your cat awaits, and they have buses here.’

It began to rain as Bob was waiting for the bus. The young couple also waiting checked on a phone and told the other three at the stop that the police had cancelled all public transport until further notice because an armed suspect was believed to be loose in the area. Bob groaned and started to walk. It was too far to walk all the way home to Phillips, but he ought to be able to make it as far as Dinkytown, and from there he could pick up a bus outside Bernie’s Bar.

Maybe take a last drink there.

Maybe.

A drink and someone to talk to.

Liza.

God knows why he kept thinking about a woman with a limp who showed no interest in him and gave him nothing but sarcastic comments. Was this the level he had sunk to? On the other hand, there was something about the way she combined an acute bullshit detector with black humour, and what he suspected was a warm heart. Of course, he could have been mistaken. But he wanted to know. Not that she needed a guy like him, she knew that well enough, she’d told him straight out. Maybe it was this simple, that you start wanting someone you don’t really want once you see she doesn’t want you. Like two losers underbidding each other until one ends up a winner. Bob laughed and saw a couple of heads turn in his direction and realised he was still drunk. And wet. Soaking wet. The cashmere coat hung on him like some drowned furry animal. He passed a store window where the lights were out for the night and pressed his face to the glass. It looked like a forest at dusk, when all the creatures come out. And far inside he saw light coming from a door that was ajar. Bob hammered on the store door, long and hard, until finally the door back there opened and a man walked to the front of the store and unlocked the door. Mike Lunde took off his glasses and gave Bob an anxious look.

‘Detective Oz?’

‘Tomás Gomez shot and killed a man just a few hours ago.’

‘Oh no.’ Mike Lunde’s face twisted into a grimace, as though the information caused him physical pain.

‘It’s on the news,’ said Bob.

‘I’ve been working non-stop on the Labrador since I closed the store — it has to be ready by Saturday. Have you caught him?’

‘No,’ said Bob. ‘We think he’s on foot, so we’re looking for him here in downtown. I’d like to come in, in case he tries to hide out here.’

‘I doubt whether you’re on the job, Detective Oz.’

‘You do?’

‘You’re drunk.’

Bob opened his mouth, expecting some plausible explanation of his predicament to emerge. But it didn’t. He shrugged.

Mike Lunde sighed. ‘How about a cup of coffee?’