Pretty Girl Gone (7 page)

After a full minute of playing the slow, melodic music, Nina’s left hand began to beat out a hard rhythm. The dancers looked up at her in anticipation. People who weren’t listening suddenly were. DeNucci and a few of the other musicians gathered next to the stage. I was sure I heard Abby Hunter exclaim, “Bring it, girl.” Nina brought it. After establishing the baseline with her left hand, her right abandoned Bach’s sweet sound for something much grittier—Jay McShann’s bluesy “My Chile.” When she squeezed as much out of the song as she wanted, Nina segued without pause into “Cow Cow Blues” by Meade Lux Lewis. Soon a few of the musicians joined her on stage—she had percussion, a bass keeping time for her, and Abby Hunter’s violin lending unexpected shadings to the melody she riffed. The floor began to fill, yet the people didn’t dance so much as they swayed and hopped to the sound Nina was laying down. At the edge of the sunken floor, I clapped my hands in delight.

Nina dropped out and let Abby take four choruses. When she came back she was playing Otis Spann’s hard-driving “Spann’s Stomp.” I
wasn’t all that surprised that the other musicians were able to follow her so well. Unlike most rockers, jazz musicians know how to listen to each other. Still, how was she going to get out of this? I wondered. Nina must have had a plan because she said something to Abby, who relayed her message to the bass and drummer. After three more choruses, Abby dropped out with a flourish, followed by the drummer. That left Nina and the bass talking to each other, one taking the lead, then the other, and when Nina nodded, the bass dropped out and she retreated to the
Goldberg,
ending it with her right hand playing Bach and her left hand pounding out a blues rhythm.

A moment of silence was followed by loud applause. Nina waved at the audience, curtsied elaborately, and waved some more. She crossed the stage, stopping only to shake hands and to hug Abby. DeNucci returned to the stage, took up the microphone, and pointed at her.

“Miss Nina Truhler,” he said, and the audience applauded louder.

“We’ll be right back,” DeNucci added.

Nina shook some more hands while I watched from my spot at the edge of the floor. There was a lump in my stomach that floated up through my chest and lodged in my throat, making speech impossible. It wasn’t a hard lump, but soft and squishy, and it seemed to vibrate, causing my body to hum like a tuning fork. I recognized it for what it was. Pride. I was proud of Nina Truhler.

I continued to watch her. She gave me a half wave and a smile and I grinned in return. After a few moments, she detached herself from her admirers and attempted to make her way along the perimeter of the sunken floor to where I stood. However, before she could reach me, she was stopped by still another fan.

John Allen Barrett offered his hand and Nina shook it casually. Barrett said something and Nina laughed. Nina said something in reply and Barrett laughed. A moment of panic seized me, I don’t know why. The e-mail accused him of being a murderer but it couldn’t possibly be true, so why should I worry that he was chatting with my girl? Nina waved
me over and I joined them, hoping none of the trepidation I felt had touched my face.

“Mac,” said Nina, as she slid a hand behind my neck. “Allow me to introduce Governor Barrett. Governor, this is Rushmore McKenzie.”

“I’ve heard that name,” Barrett said. “You’re an old friend of Lindsey’s.”

“I am.”

“There’s a story she told me about your name.” He turned toward Nina as if for confirmation. “He was conceived at a motel in the shadow of the Rushmore Monument when his parents took a vacation through the Badlands.”

She said, “But it could have been worse.”

“It could have been Deadwood,” they both said in unison.

“I definitely need new material,” I told them.

“It’s a pleasure to finally meet you, Rushmore.”

“Thank you.”

“Just call him McKenzie,” Nina said. “He doesn’t like Rushmore.”

“Who can blame him?”

Everyone seemed to be having a wonderful time at my expense.

“It
is
good to meet you,” Barrett said. “Lindsey said you were one of her most trusted friends from the neighborhood.” He took my hand and gazed directly into my eyes, and in that instant I felt as though John Allen Barrett had attended this ridiculous, self-indulgent ball for the sole purpose of meeting me. I couldn’t explain it. Or why I felt a pang of jealousy when he released my hand and directed his attention to Nina.

“What you played reminded me of the blues you’d hear in Chicago,” Barrett said, as if he was continuing a conversation already in progress.

“Some of it was,” Nina said. “Otis Spann and Meade Lux Lewis were from Chicago. Lewis used to play boogie-woogie piano at rent parties when he was a kid and Spann probably did, too. The first bluesman I played, though—Jay McShann—he came out of Kansas City in the thirties. Charlie Parker used to be one of his sidemen.”

“I didn’t know that.” Barrett spoke in a way that made me believe that freely admitting ignorance didn’t faze him a bit. It was a small thing, yet filled with courage, and suddenly Barrett seemed less wealthy, less intimidating, less like the improbable icon I had been researching all afternoon.

“I presume you play professionally,” Barrett told Nina.

“Goodness no,” said Nina.

“Yes,” said I.

“I used to play a bit when I was a kid,” Nina added. “Not so much anymore.”

“What do you do now?” asked Barrett.

“I have my own club.”

“Really? Where?”

“Rickie’s on Cathedral Hill in St. Paul.”

“I’ve been there,” Barrett insisted. “It has two levels, a kind of lounge on the first floor and a restaurant on the second.”

“That’s right,” said Nina. “You should come again. We’ll take good care of you.”

“I have an idea. I have a radio program for an hour on WCCO Friday mornings. I’m going to give you a call—not this week, but the next. We’ll talk about your club on the air.”

“That would be wonderful.”

Barrett smiled at Nina like a doting father praising his child. I watched him smile. His unexpected interest in Nina reminded me of something—a sentence, a phrase, a fragment of words that I had heard or read when I was younger. Except it stayed tantalizingly out of reach and I gave up the struggle for it, and then there it was, a line of Wordsworth from a long-ago English Lit class:

That best portion of a good man’s life; His little, nameless, unremembered acts Of kindness and of love . . .

“Jack,” said Lindsey.

She had appeared behind Nina and crossed in front of her to reach Barrett. She wore the regal and slightly forced smile of a homecoming queen and if she felt any anxiety over seeing her husband conversing with Nina and me, there was no sign of it that I could detect.

Barrett’s eyelids pricked up like an animal’s ears when he heard his wife’s voice, and he reached for her the way a child might reach for a butterfly. He took her hand, nodded toward me, and announced, “Look who I found.”

“McKenzie,” Lindsey said and kissed my cheek. “But I saw him first. We danced together earlier.”

“Yes, I noticed,” Barrett said. “Danced awfully close, I thought.” To me, he added, “You’ll be getting a call from the Minnesota Department of Revenue in the morning.”

“Hey,” I said. “Look at the time. We should be going.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Nina told me. “We’re going to dance.”

“Forgive me,” said Barrett. “Lindsey, this is Nina Truhler.”

“Nina, I enjoyed your performance very much,” Lindsey told her as they shook hands.

“Thank you,” said Nina.

“What a lovely gown.”

“You’re very kind.”

“I’m also very tired,” said Lindsey. “Excuse me, but we’re heading home.”

“We are?” said Barrett.

“Jack,” Lindsey said. “You made me promise to drag you home before midnight no matter how much fun you were having.”

“Why would I do that?”

“Because you’re flying to Washington in the morning.”

“Don’t worry about it. Let’s dance.”

Lindsey turned to Nina and me.

“You kids,” she said. “I bet you could dance until they rolled up the floor, go out for a nightcap, maybe a moonlit walk . . .”

“Hummida, hummida,” I said.

“And still get up at the crack of dawn and be fresh as a daisy.” She turned back to her husband. “Remember when you could do that?”

“Are you calling me old?”

Lindsey crossed her arms over her chest.

Barrett sighed. “Message received,” he said. “Good night, Nina. McKenzie. And hey,” he added, looking first at Nina and then glancing at me, “do the right thing.”

I felt my body stiffen at the phrase and then go soft as I watched John and Lindsey Barrett disappear down the corridor beyond the bandstand.
It can’t be,
my trusted voice announced.
There is just no way.
Followed by,
What the hell is going on?

“Mac, are you okay?”

I took Nina’s arm and pulled her close. She rested her head against my shoulder.

“Mac?”

“I’m okay. A little dizzy. I had some bad chardonnay before.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

The orchestra returned to the stage and Nina asked, “Would you care to dance?”

“Yes,” I told her.

And we did, until they rolled up the floor.

At 1:15
A.M.
it was actually warmer in the parking lot of the International Market Square than it had been when we arrived, such was the weather in Minnesota. My arm was around Nina’s waist and her arm was curled around mine, and we walked slowly and silently as lovers do
toward my Audi. We had arrived late, so the car was parked in the farthest, darkest corner of the lot. The lot had been plowed down to the asphalt and the heels of Nina’s boots made nice clicking sounds as we walked.

I was escorting Nina to the passenger door, car keys in hand, when a voice called out.

“McKenzie.”

We stopped in front of the car. I edged Nina behind me, shielding her with my body.

“Who is it?”

“Is that your girl? Nice.” The voice came from out of the darkness between the two SUVs parked directly in front of me. It was masculine. Disguised. Unsettling.

“What do you want?”

“To give you a warning. To give you
both
a warning.”

“What’s that?”

“There is nowhere you can run that I can’t follow. There is nowhere you can hide that I can’t find you.”

“You’re telling me this—why?” I moved my thumb over the key chain.

“Barrett cannot be allowed to run for the U.S. Senate.”

“Why not?”

“Because I said so.”

I pressed the red panic button on my key chain. Immediately, a loud, piercing alarm reverberated across the parking lot. The Audi’s headlights flashed on and off, illuminating the space between the two cars. The man standing there brought his arm up to guard his face. It wasn’t necessary. His face was encased in sheer nylon and I couldn’t make out his features. He screamed an obscenity and started running in the opposite direction. He was wearing a brown leather coat instead of the blue jacket worn by my assailant on the skyway. I watched him hit the street, turn right, and disappear down the block.

I wonder who he works for?

I turned around and embraced Nina. I searched her face for a suggestion of fear or anger, but there was none.

She said, “Governor Barrett is running for the Senate?” over the noise of the car alarm.

“Shhh. It’s supposed to be a secret.”

Nina had nothing to say during the drive home, which I took as a bad sign. It meant she wanted to have a
serious
conversation and was just waiting for the right moment to begin. I pulled into her driveway and put the Audi into park, letting the engine idle.

“Would you like to stay the night?” Nina asked.

“Isn’t Erica home?”

“Yes.”

“Then, no.”

“I have to think Rickie knows we’re sleeping together.”

“Maybe so, but that’s a lot different then seeing me in her mother’s bed when she’s getting ready for school. It’s tough enough raising a teenage daughter, teaching her the things she needs to know, without explaining that. Besides, it’s like what my dad used to say. ‘The best lesson is a good example.’ ”

Nina leaned across the seat and kissed me.

“I knew you were going to say that,” she said.

“That’s because I’ve said it before.”

“I like constancy in my men.”

“I have to tell you, that dress you’re wearing makes me consider the virtues of inconstancy, if you get my meaning.”

“I take that as a compliment.”

“Please do.”

“How long have we been together, Mac? Fourteen, fifteen months?”

“Closer to sixteen.”

“In all that time, we’ve never discussed the M word.”

“Do you want to discuss it now?”

“Do you?”

“You’re the one who brought it up.”

“We make a terrific couple.”

“You said that earlier.”

“But I don’t want to get married.”

“You don’t want to marry me?”

“I didn’t say that. I said—I’ve been married. It wasn’t fun. Even now I think about it and my hands begin to tremble. Look.”

Nina held her hand flat in front of me and it was trembling.

“I’m not your ex-husband,” I reminded her. “It wouldn’t be the same.”

“I know but—Listen, you don’t want to get married, either.”

“I don’t?”

“No. I don’t
need
to be married. I’ve been married and I learned the hard way that I can be happy without a ring on my finger. You’re the same way.”

“I am?”

“Most men, they
need
to be married. They need someone to take care of them. When they’re kids, they have their mothers. When they get older, they find wives. That’s why when a man and women get divorced, the man usually remarries within a year or something like that. It’s because they can’t be alone. They can’t take care of themselves. My ex-husband—Well, enough about that. But you, McKenzie. Your mother died when you were very young, so you and your dad, you guys took care of yourselves and did a pretty nice job of it, too, if you ask me. You’re the best cook I know who doesn’t do it for a living. You don’t
need
to be married.”