Suddenly, from behind, Heavy clasps my shoulder with his meaty hand and presses the cold barrel of his pistol against the base of my skull. I get the message—don’t move—and I don’t. I just sit there and say the Lord’s Prayer in my mind.
We come to a stop in a leaf-canopied clearing where a broken-down old cabin stands, roof covered with moss, and there next to my beautiful baby-blue Lincoln Continental stand Dude #1 and Tattoo. Son of a bitch, am I a schmuck! Tattoo steps up to the passenger side and opens the door, covering me with my own gun, and I hear the key alarm bong as Curtis and Heavy get out of the car. I stand up and shake my head.
“You ain’t gonna get away with this,” I say, as Heavy pushes me toward the back side of the cabin.
Curtis sneers at me. “You’re such a blowhard, Davy. I’ve been sitting in that bar listening to your bullshit for so long I can’t wait to hit the off button. But you’re gonna talk right up to the end, aren’t you?”
“You can make this personal if you want, Curtis. But I ain’t gonna tell you the combination to the box. It’ll take you a year to get it open, and when Benno finds out he’s gonna skin you motherfuckers alive.”
“I already have the combination,” he says with a velvety satisfaction in his voice. “And what makes you think Benno doesn’t already know what we’re up to?”
“Shit,” I whisper.
“That’s right,” Curtis says. “Benno didn’t give you no lunch break.” He steps away and tells Heavy, “Pop this jerk so I can get to work. I got deliveries to make.”
It’s all clear to me now. “Go ahead and take the fucking job, Curtis. I’m sick of it anyway. And by the way, the fringe benefits suck.”
Heavy pushes the gun against the back of my head and squeezes the trigger. Ah, what the hell, it was worth it—that’s one hell of a chili dog.
Acknowledgments
Thanks go out to all our bookselling friends, especially Pat Frovarp and Gary Shulze, Jeff Hatfield, Lyle Starkloff, Hans Weyandt, and Tom Bielenberg. Thanks also to Johnny Temple for giving us the opportunity, and to Johanna Ingalls for being Johanna Ingalls. And thanks to the Twin Cities writing community for their generosity and trust. If it weren’t for you, there would only be an introduction.
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS:
GARY BUSH recently finished a novel featuring private detective Max Coppersmith. He is currently working on a second Coppersmith novel and researching a historical mystery. His short fiction has appeared in Flesh and Blood Volume 3, Fedora 2, Small Crimes, and MXB Magazine. Bush lives in Minneapolis with his wife Stacey.
K.J. ERICKSON writes the Marshall Bahr mystery series, set in the Twin Cities. The fourth title in the series, Alone at Night, won a 2005 Minnesota Book Award.
CHRIS EVERHEART , a Minnesota native, is a fiction and screen writer. He has worked in film and advertising in Minneapolis, where he lives with his wife and stepson.
JUDITH GUEST has lived since 1976 in Edina, Minnesota, where she has been gathering lots of material, which could take another thirty years to be disseminated. She is the author of five books, including Killing Time in St. Cloud and The Tarnished Eye. She has one husband, three sons, and three daughters-in-law, plus seven of the best grandchildren known to man (or woman).
PETE HAUTMAN has written novels for both adults and teens. His poker-themed crime novels Drawing Dead and The Mortal Nuts were selected as New York Times Book Review Notable Books. His latest novel, Invisible, is about model railroads, pyromania, friendship, and window-peeping. Hautman lives with novelist and poet Mary Logue in Golden Valley, Minnesota, and Stockholm, Wisconsin.
ELLEN HART, five-time winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Best Lesbian Mystery and two-time winner of the Minnesota Book Award for Best Crime Fiction, has written twenty-one mystery novels in two long-running series, all set in the Twin Cities. She teaches crime writing at the Loft Literary Center, the largest independent writing community in the nation, and lives in Minneapolis with her partner of twenty-eight years.
STEVEN HORWITZ has worked in publishing for twenty-five years. He lives with his wife and two dogs in St. Paul, Minnesota.
DAVID HOUSEWRIGHT is a former newspaper reporter and advertising copywriter, who was born, raised, educated, played hockey, discovered girls, and currently lives in St. Paul. He is the author of several Twin Cities–based novels, including Dearly Departed, A Hard Ticket Home, Pretty Girl Gone, Dead Boyfriends, Penance, which won an Edgar Award for Best First Novel, and Practice to Deceive, which earned the Minnesota Book Award.
WILLIAM KENT KRUEGER writes the award-winning Cork O’Connor mystery series set in Minnesota’s great Northwoods. With his wife and family, he lives in St. Paul, a wonderfully noir city that he dearly loves.
MARY LOGUE was born and bred in the Twin Cities. A poet and writer, she has strayed occasionally, but always manages to find her way back home. A new book of poetry, Meticulous Attachment, and a new Claire Watkins mystery, Poison Heart, were published in 2005. She lives with Pete Hautman on both sides of the Mississippi.
LARRY MILLETT is a Minneapolis native who spent much of his career as a writer, reporter, and editor for the St. Paul Pioneer Press. He is the author of four works of nonfiction, including Lost Twin Cities and Twin Cities Then and Now, as well as five mystery novels in which Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson travel to turn-of-the-century Minnesota to solve cases at the behest of railroad tycoon James J. Hill. He currently lives with his wife and two children in St. Paul.
BRUCE RUBENSTEIN is a crime writer who grew up in the Twin Cities and knows a great deal about the events, places, and people upon which his tale is based. He’s written many crime stories, and recently published a book, Greed, Rage and Love Gone Wrong (University of Minnesota Press). His wife is his inspiration because of her constant demands for more money.
JULIE SCHAPER has been a Twin Cities resident for eleven years. She lives with her husband and two dogs in the Merriam Park neighborhood of St. Paul.
MARY SHARRATT grew up in the Twin Cities and currently lives in a dark satanic mill town in Lancashire, England. A Minnesota Book Award finalist and winner of the 2005 WILLA Literary Award for Contemporary Fiction, she is the author of the novels Summit Avenue, The Real Minerva, and The Vanishing Point, and coeditor of Bitchlit, a fiction anthology celebrating female antiheroes.
