in town, Charlie would know who he was or, if not, how to quickly find him.
Mac gave Wire the short background on Charlie as he drove to a twenty-four-hour gas station on Rice Street just north of the St. Paul capitol.
“Why are we going so far away from headquarters?” Wire asked.
“St. Paul is a big city, but not that big of a city. The farther away, the less likely someone sees me making or taking a call on a payphone. That stuff always looks a little suspicious.”
There were rules when calling Charlie.
Mac had to call from a payphone to a private number and leave a message with the service. Mac went through the routine and hung up.
“So what now?”
“We wait. Give it a minute or two.”
“Even at 4:30 in the morning?”
“Fat Charlie Boone Enterprises is a twenty-four seven operation,” Mac answered. “Someone is always working.”
Sure enough, three minutes later the payphone rang. “This is McRyan. I need to see the big man right away.”
“He can’t just call you?” Wire whispered.
Mac shook his head and put his hand over the mouthpiece, “Everything is face to face with Charlie.” He then took his hand off the receiver. “Twenty minutes? Okay. Tell him I will have a lady investigator with me… Yeah … Trust me, the old man will love her.” He hung up. “So now we drive over to north Minneapolis.”
“He couldn’t just tell you over the phone?”
Mac laughed. “Charlie doesn’t believe in phones, cellular or otherwise. He never let his street guys have a cell phone. Cell phones could be tracked, traced, hacked and monitored. Charlie is old school, like Paulie in Goodfellas. Everything is face to face with Charlie Boone.”
The two went inside the gas station and bought fresh tall coffees for themselves, two extra tall coffees and a bag with four bear claws and started on the trek to the north side of Minneapolis. Mac motored south on Rice Street and maneuvered his way to Interstate 94 and cruised west towards Minneapolis. As he turned a sharp bend to the left on 94 and took the long highway bridge crossing over the Mississippi River, he took in the impressive well lit downtown Minneapolis skyline.
“St. Paul and Minneapolis are so different,” Wire said as they crossed the bridge.
It often amazed Mac that downtown Minneapolis and St. Paul could only be a few miles apart yet be so different from one another. St. Paul was like an East Coast city, brick and mortar, working class, union, dirt on its elbows and knees, a name tag on the left upper chest. Minneapolis, by contrast, was all West Coast, tall glass towers with the beautiful people frequenting orchestras, playhouses and the sprawling restaurant and bar scene in a city, clean, trendy and stylish. One wasn’t more right than the other and each had its own distinct character. The two cities were just both so different yet separated by a thin ribbon of water.
Mac cruised around the south side of downtown, through the Lowry Tunnel and then north on Interstate 94 until he reached the West Broadway exit and then took a left down the north side of Minneapolis’s main artery.
“This looks a little more like it, at least like DC or Baltimore,” Wire noted as she took in West Broadway with the iron bars on the businesses, the occasional boarded up building and the dilapidated nature of the residential dwellings. While many of Minneapolis’s trouble spots had been the subject of revitalization in recent years, the north side remained largely ignored.
“The foreclosure crisis hit the north side especially hard,” Mac said. “It’s too bad, really. There are some really great old neighborhoods and classic houses in this part of town that could thrive again with a little TLC.”
Mac took a right on Penn Avenue and headed north five blocks and did a U-turn in the intersection with Lowry Avenue and pulled up in front of Charlie’s building. Two very large and very intimidating black men were waiting out front for Mac. Omar and Vincent were not to be trifled with. Both well over six feet, arms the size of most men’s thighs and menacing looks. Standing with their arms crossed, they conveyed one message: STAY AWAY.
The two were always in front of Charlie’s place when the great man was present. You’d have to be a fool to mess with these two. Vincent smiled and fist bumped Mac when he walked around the front of his Yukon with the extra coffees and the bag