Twin Cities Noir
A
LSO IN THE
A
KASHIC
N
OIR
S
ERIES
:
Brooklyn Noir
, edited by Tim McLoughlin
D.C. Noir
, edited by George Pelecanos
Manhattan Noir
, edited by Lawrence Block
Baltimore Noir,
edited by Laura Lippman
Dublin Noir,
edited by Ken Bruen
Chicago Noir,
edited by Neal Pollack
San Francisco Noir,
edited by Peter Maravelis
Brooklyn Noir 2: The Classics,
edited by Tim McLoughlin
F
ORTHCOMING
:
Los Angeles Noir,
edited by Denise Hamilton
London Noir,
edited by Cathi Unsworth
Wall Street Noir
, edited by Peter Spiegelman
Miami Noir
, edited by Les Standiford
Havana Noir
, edited by Achy Obejas
Bronx Noir
, edited by S.J. Rozan
New Orleans Noir
, edited by Julie Smith
This collection is comprised of works of fiction. All names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the authors’ imaginations. Any resemblance to real events or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Series concept by Tim McLoughlin and Johnny Temple
Twin Cities map by Sohrab Habibion
Published by Akashic Books
© 2006 Akashic Books
ePUB ISBN-13: 978-1-936-07053-4
ISBN-13: 978-1-888451-97-9
ISBN-10: 1-888451-97-1
Library of Congress Control Number: 2005934823
All rights reserved
Akashic Books
PO Box 1456
New York, NY 10009
For Sylvia—
olehasholiem
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.
T
ABLE OF
C
ONTENTS
D
AVID
H
OUSEWRIGHT
Frogtown
Mai-Nu’s Window
(St. Paul)
B
RUCE
R
UBENSTEIN
North End
Smoke Got in My Eyes
(St. Paul)
K.J. E
RICKSON
Near North
Noir Neige
(Minneapolis)
W
ILLIAM
K
ENT
K
RUEGER
West Side
Bums
(St. Paul)
E
LLEN
H
ART
Uptown
Blind Sided
(Minneapolis)
B
RAD
Z
ELLAR
Columbia Heights
Better Luck Next Time
(Minneapolis)
M
ARY
S
HARRATT
Cedar-Riverside
Taking the Bullets Out
(Minneapolis)
P
ETE
H
AUTMAN
Linden Hills
The Guy
(Minneapolis)
L
ARRY
M
ILLETT
West 7th-Fort Road
The Brewer’s Son
(St. Paul)
Q
UINTON
S
KINNER
Downtown
Loophole
(Minneapolis)
S
TEVE
T
HAYER
Duluth
Hi, I’m God
(Up North)
J
UDITH
G
UEST
Edina
Eminent Domain
(Minneapolis)
M
ARY
L
OGUE
Kenwood
Blasted
(Minneapolis)
G
ARY
B
USH
Summit-University
If You Harm Us
(St. Paul)
C
HRIS
E
VERHEART
Downtown
Chili Dog
(St. Paul)
T
ALES OF
T
WO
C
ITIES
M
urder 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:
Pig’s Eye, converted thou shalt be like Saul.
Thy name henceforth shall be St. Paul.
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.