A Hard Ticket Home (Twin Cities P.I. Mac McKenzie Novels) by David Housewright

Author:David Housewright [Housewright, David]
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Publisher: St. Martin's Press
Published: 2004-05-03T20:00:00+00:00

I left the parking lot but didn’t go far, idling on Penn Avenue where I could get a clear view of the front door to the community center with my binoculars. Cook didn’t come out right away and I speculated that he was making a phone call. Despite the cool air, the sun beat hard through my windows and I began to feel sweat on my back.

At about six-thirty-five, Napoleon Cook left the building and walked to his own car, a black Porsche. The vanity license plate read IMCUKN. It took me a while to figure it out. I’m Cookin’? He paid an extra hundred bucks for that? Still, I admired the vehicle. I followed it onto I-494, staying eight lengths back and to his right as we went east toward St. Paul at ten miles above the speed limit. We followed I-494 until it became West 7th Street, continued east to Lexington, went north, turned east on Summit, then north again on Dale Street, stopping for a light at Selby Avenue, not far from a restaurant where August Wilson wrote some of his plays and a bar where Scott and Zelda used to party. We hung a right. Too many turns, I told myself. Cook should have made me long ago, but apparently he wasn’t paying attention.

Cook drove Selby until he reached the parking lot adjacent to Rickie’s, a jazz club that was developing a nice reputation for displaying gifted performers on their way up—Diana Krall had played there early in her career, but I had missed it. Minneapolis may have had the best rock, but by far St. Paul had the best jazz in the Twin Cities—Artists’ Quarter, Brilliant Corners, Blues Saloon, a new joint called Fhima’s. I had frequented them all, yet I had neglected Rickie’s because the name reminded me of Rick’s Café Americain in the movie Casablanca. I’m not a big fan of retro.

I gave Cook a two-minute head start and followed him inside. Rickie’s was lightly populated—I had caught the seam between the one-drink-before-I-go-home and the let’s-get-dressed-and-go-out-tonight crowds. When I didn’t see him downstairs, I went upstairs. A dozen steps past the door, a spiral staircase with red carpet and a shiny brass railing led to a comfortable second-floor dining and performance area. I peeked just above the landing. An elevated stage was set against the far wall, a baby grand and several microphone stands sitting unattended in the center. A couple dozen small, round tables were arranged immediately in front of the stage and a second ring of larger square tables covered with white linen and set for dinner were strategically placed beyond them. About a dozen booths and another bar lined the remaining three walls. Cook was leaning into a booth in the corner, bussing the cheek of a woman with raven hair. Even from a distance the woman looked expensive. I retreated downstairs.

To my delight, the decor was about as far away from Casablanca as it could get. In fact, the first floor of Rickie’s reminded me of a coffee house.

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