TWIN CITIES NOIR
Edited by Steven Horwitz and Julie Schaper
For Sylvia—olehasholiem
INTRODUCTION
Tales of Two Cities
Murder and mayhem are probably not the first things that come to mind when most people think of the Twin Cities of Minneapolis and St. Paul.
What comes to mind may be snow emergencies and sub-zero temperatures; Eugene McCarthy, Paul Wellstone, and Jesse “the body” Ventura; Dylan, Prince, and The Replacements; the Guthrie, Theatre de la June Lune, and Heart of the Beast; The Walker, St. Paul Cathedral, and The Mall of America; Mary Tyler Moore, Tiny Tim, and F. Scott Fitzgerald; Lake Harriet, Lake Como, maybe even Lake Wobegone, which, depending upon who you talk to, may or may not be real.
But not crime.
Everyone here has an opinion about what makes the cities different from each other and what ties them together. A type of social shorthand has developed over the years. Minneapolis is hip and St. Paul is working class. St. Paul is the political capital, Minneapolis is the cultural capital. St. Paul was built by timber money and Minneapolis from grain. There is some truth in these generalizations but the people who live here know it’s not as simple as that and it never has been.
You don’t have to look hard to find the darker underside.
St. Paul was originally called Pig’s Eye’s Landing and was named after Pig’s Eye Parrant—trapper, moonshiner, and proprietor of the most popular drinking establishment on the Mississippi. Traders, river rats, missionaries, soldiers, land speculators, fur trappers, and Indian agents congregated in his establishment and made their deals. When Minnesota became a territory in 1849, the town leaders, realizing that a place called Pig’s Eye might not inspire civic confidence, change the name to St. Paul, after the largest church in the city. The following verse appeared in the paper shortly after:
St. Paul was a haven for cons on the lam in the 1920s and ’30s. Bad guys across the country knew about the O’Connor system. A criminal could come to St. Paul, check in with police chief John O’Connor, and walk the streets openly, as long as he or she promised to stay clean. Ma Barker, Creepy Alvin Karpis, Baby Face Nelson, and Machine Gun Kelley spent time in the cities. The system fell apart in the early ’30s, about the time that Dillinger shot his way out of his Summit Avenue apartment.
Across the river, Minneapolis has its own sordid story. By the turn of the twentieth century it was considered one of the most crooked cities in the nation. Mayor Albert Alonzo Ames, with the assistance of the chief of police, his brother Fred, ran a city so corrupt that according to Lincoln Steffans its “deliberateness, invention, and avarice has never been equaled.”
As recently as the mid-’90s, Minneapolis was called “Murderopolis” due to a rash of killings that occurred over a long hot summer.
Every city has its share of crime, but what makes the Twin Cities unique may be that we have more than our share of good writers to chronicle it. They are homegrown and they know the territory—how the cities look from the inside, out. Some have built reputations on crime fiction, others are playing with the genre for the first time, but all of them have a strong sense of this place and its people.
Bruce Rubenstein, Gary Bush, and Larry Millett illuminate the past—the Irish cops, politics, radicals, and mob guys.
David Housewright, K.J. Erickson, and Mary Sharratt observe cultures colliding and the combustion that friction can cause. Pete Hautman and Judith Guest show us how amusingly dangerous life in the cities can be. Quinton Skinner, William Kent Krueger, and Ellen Hart illustrate what we’re all capable of when lives are on the line.
In these fifteen original stories we see representations of the past, the present, and perhaps even a glimpse of the future. Maybe as importantly, we see who we are—Midwesterners, Minnesotans, and residents of the Twin Cities. We hope you enjoy reading these stories as much as we enjoyed putting this collection together.
Julie Schaper & Steve Horwitz
March 2006
St. Paul, Minnesota
MAI-NU’S WINDOW
by David Housewright
Frogtown (St. Paul)
Benito Hernandez did not know when Mai-Nu began leaving her window shade up. Probably when the late August heat had first arrived—dog days in Minnesota. It was past 10:30 p.m. yet the temperature was eighty-six degrees Fahrenheit in Benito’s bedroom and his windows, too, were wide open and his shades up. Just as they were in most of the houses in his neighborhood. That was one way to tell the rich from the poor in the Land of 10,000 Lakes. The ones who could afford central air, all their windows were closed.
The window faced Benito’s room. Through it he could see most of Mai-Nu’s living room as well as a sliver of her bedroom. Mai-Nu was in her living room now, sitting on a rust-colored sofa, her bare feet resting on an imitation wood coffee table. She was stripped down to a white, sleeveless scoop-neck T and panties. What little fresh air that seeped through the window screen was pushed around by an electric fan that swung slowly in a half circle and droned monotonously. It didn’t offer much relief. Benito could see strands of raven-black hair plastered to Mai-Nu’s forehead and a trickle of sweat running down between her breasts. Next to her on the sofa were a bowl of melting ice, a half-gallon carton of orange juice, and a liter of Phillips vodka. She was reading a book while she drank. Occasionally, she would mark passages in the book with a yellow highlighter.
Less than five yards separated their houses and sometimes Benito could hear Mai-Nu’s voice; could hear the music she played and the TV programs she watched. Sometimes he felt he could almost reach out and touch her. It was something he wanted very much to do. Touch her. But she was twenty-three, a student at William Mitchell Law School—it was a law book that she was reading. Benito was sixteen and about to begin his junior year in high school. She was Hmong. He was Puerto Rican.
Still, Benito was convinced Mai-Nu was the most beautiful woman he had ever known. A long feminine neck, softly molded moon face, alluring oval eyes, pale flesh that glistened with perspiration—she was forever wrestling with her long, thick hair and often she would tie it back in a ponytail as she had that night. Watching her made him feel tumescent, made his body tingle with sexual electricity, even though the few times he had actually seen her naked were so fleeting as to be more illusion than fact. Often he would imagine the two of them together. Just as often he would berate himself for this. It was wrong, it was stupid, it was asqueroso!Yet when night fell, he would hide himself in the corner of his bedroom and watch, the door locked, the lights off, telling his parents that he was doing homework or listening to music.
Mai-Nu mixed a drink, her second by Benito’s count, and padded in the direction of her tiny kitchen. She was out of sight for a few moments, causing Benito alarm, as it always did when she slipped from view. When Mai-Nu returned, she was carrying a plate of leftover pork stew with corn bread topping. The meal had been a gift from Juanita Hernandez. Benito’s mother was always doing that, making far too much food then parceling it out to her neighbors. She had brought over a platter of carne y pollowhen Mai-Nu first arrived as a house-warming gift. Benito had accompanied her and was soon put to work helping Mai-Nu move in.