From the Tales of Saint Anthony, the Johnny Holiday Mysteries
These short stories follow the lives of people who populate the fictional city of Saint Anthony (Minneapolis, Minnesota), and make their appearance in the first Johnny Holiday novel, The...
Kenny Babineau kept watch over the darkened store, standing at the entrance with a baseball bat, beneath the rain-soaked awning.
Kenny had taken swift action when a thunder-bolt shook the building, turning his knees to jelly and knocked the power out. He put the cash from the register in the safe, barred the backdoor and went outside to watch what was taking place on the street.
A crowd had gathered around the body of a dead-boy in front of the Round-up; none of the gawkers seemed to be bothered by the downpour. Traffic was still coming down Lake Street in both directions, headlights cut through the sheets of water, taillights flashing red in the rain splatter, rolling east and west along the strip.
The citizens of St. Anthony have an endless appetite for the carnal delights, Kenny thought as he watched the flashy sedans pull-up to the side of the street where they exchanged dollars with the dealers from brown bags filled with dope, or to give a girl the opportunity to jump in the vehicle with them, or a boy or even all three.
What happens in the dark stays in the dark, was the saying on Lake Street. The hard working Lutherans of Minnesota could pass six nights a week in a delirious stupor six, then show up to church on Sunday morning for the ritual of confession and forgiveness of sins.
Tonight all the car lights were magnified by trillions of tiny drops water, filling the sky, falling hard and gathering into streams and puddles.
The storm started early and it had been a long night already. The baseball game had been cancelled and there was nothing on the radio to listen to; Now that the power was out, Kenny would stay at the store to ensure that no-one would break in.
An hour after the power went out, the rain began to lighten...though it never stopped.
Eventually a couple of squad car from the fifth precinct pulled up across the street to control the crowd, and the police got out to take statements. Soon after, the Medical Examiner's wagon arrived.
There was nothing unusual about seeing that on Lake Street.
One of the streetwalkers, a sickly looking blonde girl fresh off the boat, told him that the boy who worked behind the bar had been struck by lightning after a brawl with Karl Thorrson.
That didn't make any sense to Kenny.
Karl Thorrson was the new crime boss on Lake Street and over the whole city. He was a massive hulk of a man; no one would step into a fight with him unless they had a death wish...even if they didn't know who he was, Kenny thought as he tried to recall the exact moment when the lightning struck across the street.
At that instant there was a drunk standing in the doorway blocking his view: a tall, broad-shouldered-young-drunk, who he had just sold a fifth of Rye to, obscured his line of sight and then suddenly ran off a few seconds after the kid dropped dead across the street.
Several minutes after that, the lightning struck once again...this time it the thunder shook everything, and the power went out as far down the strip as Kenny could see.
Kenny stood on his stop watching the water stream down the sidewalk. As the deluge began to lighten, the gutters began to drain and the overflow from the storm cleared the sidewalk in front of his store.
It was August in St. Anthony
Apart from the fact that the Karl Thorrson had been personally involved in a dust-up, and he was unhappy to have missed it, as far as Kenny Babineau was concerned it was just another stormy night on East Lake.
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