House of Smoke (38 page)

“This is Laura Sparks calling Kate Blanchard.” Her voice sounds urgent but not frightened. “I tried your pager but didn’t get a response. I have to talk to you immediately. Call me at home, 555-5538. Call no matter how late it is.”

Shit—is this never going to end?

Her pager is in her briefcase. She takes it out. It’s dead—the battery’s down, it must have happened within the last hour. She needs to pay better attention to details like that, that’s how you lose clients.

In this instance, though, she isn’t upset that she was forgetful, because she’s off this goddamned case. She told Laura that, clearly, firmly, and repeatedly. If she has half a brain in her head she’ll shine this call on until tomorrow morning.

Reluctantly, unable not to and hating herself for it, she picks up the phone and dials.

“Thank God you called!” Laura exclaims breathlessly even before Kate identifies herself. “I was afraid you were out for the evening. Your pager doesn’t work,” she adds peevishly.

“Yes, I know. I’m putting in a fresh battery even as we speak,” Kate answers, resisting the urge to answer Laura in kind. “What’s so urgent it can’t wait until tomorrow?”

“A woman called me. She has information that will help us out. She wants to talk to us about it right away. Tonight.” She’s jumping up and down over the phone she’s so excited.

“
You,
not
us
,” Kate corrects her.

Laura ignores Kate’s unsubtle differentiation. “I think she really knows something. A reporter develops a sense about these things.”

Yeah, right, Kate thinks. You’re a real reporter. And I sing backup for Bruce Springsteen. “I’m off this case, in case you’ve forgotten,” she firmly reminds Laura. “I don’t want to be involved anymore.”

Laura, at the other end of the line, is momentarily silenced by the vehemence of the response. Kate fills the space with her thoughts. She is off the case. And yet … she can’t put that evening with Miranda out of her mind. And there
is
something heavy going on in all this, and dammit, she
is
a detective, whose job is finding things out. Playing the devil’s advocate in her head, she thinks: if Miranda is involved—and there’s a decent chance she is—it could be devastating to Laura. Should she be the agent to open that Pandora’s box?

She tries to shake off her instincts. “I’m off this case,” she says again.

“I know,” Laura answers. “But can’t you just do this one thing?” she pleads. “I’m afraid to meet with this woman by myself.”

“That’s smart thinking. You should be.” You’d pee your little panties if you ever went through what I did, she thinks.

“Just this one thing,” Laura begs. “She heard about you,” she goes on, “from someone you talked to on the street.”

“How did she wrap you into it?” Kate asks.

“From my editorial.”

The conclusion is easy to draw: another leech, trolling for money.

“I promise I won’t bother you anymore if you do this,” Laura beseeches her. “Please.”

She’s off the case. She’s off the case. And not only that, she’s off the case.

“Okay,” she hears herself saying. “I’ll meet with her.”

“Oh, great, thank you so much!”

“Don’t thank me yet.” Did she actually say she would do it? Too late now. “Do you know how to get in touch with her?”

“Yes. She’s hanging around a pay phone downtown. She’s been waiting a long time,” Laura whines.

Kate ignores the tone of voice. That’s who Laura is—you deal with her, you get that as part of the package.

“She wants to meet someplace private” Laura adds. “She’s afraid of being seen with us.”

“That’s out of the question,” Kate tells Laura forcefully. “We meet with her in a well-lit public place or we don’t meet at all. I’m not setting myself up for an ambush, or you either.”

“But she might not, then.”

“The McDonald’s in Victoria Court,” Kate orders Laura. “In half an hour. There or nowhere. Call her and then call me back. I’ll wait five minutes, then I’m leaving.”

She hangs up before Laura can protest any further. If the woman is trying to set them up, and balks at this arrangement, she can walk away from it with her conscience clear. And if—unlikely as she thinks it is—the woman agrees, their exposure to getting hurt is low enough to be acceptable.

The phone rings. She glances at her watch. That was quick.

“She’ll meet with us,” Laura tells Kate. “She didn’t want to do it there, but I told her it was the only way.” She sounds proud of herself—that she stood up to somebody and made it stick.

“See you then.”

Kate drives home and changes: dark sweater, dark sweat pants, black lightweight jacket, black running shoes. Comfortable clothes, and hard to be seen in. They’re meeting in a place where they’ll be surrounded by people, but she still wants to be inconspicuous.

She’ll be extra-vigilant. If she gets the slightest whiff of anything wrong, she’ll abort the mission. She’s off the case—she has to remember that.

As she’s about to leave one cautionary thought jumps into her mind.

Her gun.

She takes the heavy S&W out from where she keeps it hidden on the top shelf of her bedroom closet, under a pile of old sweaters she hardly ever wears, and turns it over in her hand. A device made to kill people. Taking a handful of copper-tipped shells from the accompanying box, she loads the clip, slides the barrel to load one in the chamber, thumbs on the safety.

She’s never used it in real life, and she doesn’t plan on using it now; but it might provide some psychological comfort.

Lock and load. Ready. She shoves the gun into her jacket pocket.

She’s halfway out the door when the phone rings. She dashes back to catch it before the machine kicks in. Maybe it’s Laura, aborting the mission. Wouldn’t that be nice?

“Hello?” she answers.

“I’m glad I caught you in.” Cecil’s voice comes on the line.

“Oh.” Caught off-guard. “Hi.”

“Listen. About the other night …”

“It’s okay.”

“No, it isn’t. I’ve been worried about the way we left things. I want to talk to you about it. I like you too much to let any pettiness get in the way. I’m coming into town tonight. I can be there in less than an hour.”

God, how she wants to see him. “I can’t. Not right now.”

She feels him tense on the other end.

“Are you with someone else?”

“No,” she forces a laugh. “Absolutely not. I … I …” She can’t tell him what this is about. “I’m working, a case.” She laughs—it sounds tinny, phony. “Detectives are like doctors, we’re always on call. I’ll call you tomorrow morning, first thing. Promise.”

“Yeah.”

She hears the
click
as he hangs up.

One more bridge burnt. How long do you live like that until you wise up?

She locks up, walks outside to her car (taking a fast precautionary glance up and down the street to make sure she isn’t being watched), cranks the old engine to life, and heads towards her rendezvous with Laura; one eye on the street, the other on the rearview mirror.

She parks in the public lot behind Victoria Court. As she starts to get out she feels her automatic, hanging heavy in her jacket pocket.

She can’t take it into a public place. She doesn’t like carrying it anyway; a good detective doesn’t need a gun—if you’re in that deep, you fucked up.

She lays it in the trunk, securely wrapped in a beach towel, and double-checks that the car doors are locked.

The woman isn’t one of the whores she had talked to. Kate’s never seen this woman before; but she’s obviously a low-rent junkie like the others.

She’s young, younger than Laura, still in her teens, with a surly stance. Hispanic, with high Indian cheekbones. Her attire is vaguely punker-biker: black leather jacket with about ninety-eight zippers, baggy denims, ankle-high Doc Martens. She looks Kate up and down with a hard staring directness.

This girl is only a couple of years older than her older daughter. That jolts her.

They sit in a corner booth. Harsh, flat fluorescent lighting. A kid wearing a paper hat is mopping the floor. The girl has a cup of coffee in front of her. Kate and Laura aren’t eating or drinking.

There are no introductions. “You have serious information?” Kate queries the young whore, jumping in without preamble.

The girl nods. “I don’t want to talk here. It’s too open.” Fidgeting, staring around nervously, she turns to Laura. “I’m in deep shit anybody ever finds out I’m talking to you.”

“Anybody like who?” Kate asks.

The girl doesn’t answer. She blows on her coffee, scratches the side of her face, a nervous tic.

“You told me you had important information for us,” Laura says, trying to push things along. “What do you know?”

“You said there was a reward,” the girl comes back in reply, fixing her look at Kate. “Out there.” She points with her thumb like a hitchhiker.

“Maybe,” Kate answers evenly. “It depends on what you have to tell us.”

“You got the money on you?”

Laura starts to answer, but Kate puts a restraining hand on Laura’s arm.

“The money will be there, if you have information that can help us. But you’ll have to trust us. Tell us what you know, and then we’ll decide.”

“Yeah, right. Like I can really trust you.”

Kate’s heard a voice like this before. Two years ago, in Oakland, from the mouth of a girl whose father had a gun to her head.

The thought sends a shudder through her body. Laura and she should not be here, she thinks to herself. There’s something unhealthy in the air. She can almost smell it, it’s so palpable.

She turns to Laura. “We’re on a snipe hunt. Let’s go.” Her eyes rotate to stare into the girl’s.

The girl licks her lips, a dry gesture—there’s no saliva coming out. She’s hurting, Kate realizes. If she doesn’t get well soon she’s going to crash.

As if reading Kate’s mind, the girl starts weaving in her seat, her eyelids slowly opening and closing, like she’s fighting to stay awake.

“Shit! Don’t crash here,” Kate warns her.

“Don’t worry about me,” the girl says, her words slurring slightly. She reaches for her cup of coffee, which by now is tepid, but her hand is shaking too much to grasp it and she knocks the contents across the table, the lukewarm brown liquid spreading across the formica top.

Kate jumps up to avoid getting splashed. Laura isn’t quick enough—the coffee dribbles off the edge of the table onto her jeans.

“Outside,” Kate commands, grabbing the girl and jerking her to her feet. “Now.” She hands Laura a fistful of napkins. “Wipe yourself off.”

“These are going to stain,” Laura complains, dabbing at the front of her Calvins. “And I just bought them.”

“The price of doing business with scumbags,” Kate informs her. “Let’s go.” Holding the girl tightly at the bicep, she drags her out of the restaurant, Laura hard on her heels.

They stand on the edge of the sidewalk out back. The girl has sagged against the wall, is breathing deeply.

“You okay?” Kate asks.

The girl nods. “I needed some fresh air. It was stuffy in there.”

Kate waits a minute, until the girl’s breathing becomes deeper, more regular. Laura watches, still trying to wipe the stain from her jeans.

“Last chance,” Kate says. “What have you got?”

The girl pushes back against the wall. “I got to know you’ve got the money on you,” she insists. “I ain’t talking on the come.”

Laura steps forward. “I’ve got the money,” she tells the girl. “Trust me.

The girl snorts. “No fucking way. Show or no tell,” she says defiantly.

Kate starts to shake her head no, but Laura has already reached into her purse, is pulling out her wallet.

“Don’t!” Kate grabs Laura’s arm before she can take out the cash.

“I’m not going to give it to her,” Laura protests. “I’m just going to show her that I have it.”

Kate looks at the girl, whose eyes are focused on Laura’s purse. “This is getting out of hand,” she states. “Let’s call it a night.” She takes Laura’s arm. “She doesn’t have anything for us. It’s a shakedown, pure and simple.”

“Can’t we just hear what she has to say?” Laura pleads. “We’re already here,” she points out.

“So far she hasn’t said anything,” Kate reminds her. Then she sighs—this was a mistake from the get-go. Turning to the girl, her voice revealing her fatigue: “Okay. Last chance. What do you have to tell us?”

The girl stares hard at Kate. Then, suddenly, she looks away, over Kate’s shoulder.

Kate jerks around, looking out into the parking lot, scanning it quickly, searching for something that looks out of place.

Normal weeknight traffic. Nothing sinister, at least nothing obvious.

She turns back to the girl. “Somebody out there watching?” she asks. She was on edge before but now it’s taking over, she can feel the tingle starting to course through her body, sweat forming under her armpits.

“No,” the girl says fast, eyes darting, tongue licking at the corners of her lips like they’re dry to the bone. “I’m by myself. I told you I was,” she says to Laura. “When I called.”

Kate stares hard at the girl. There’s something dirty here, she can feel it, clear and strong. “Turn around,” she commands.

“What?”

“Turn around to the wall,” she barks; her old cop instincts kick in, and without waiting she’s grabbing the girl by her skinny upper arm and spinning her around, kicking her at the ankles, forcing her legs out in the spread-eagle position, bracing her firmly against the wall, pulling one arm behind the girl’s back in a hammerlock.

“What the hell are you …?”

“Shut up. Just shut up.”

Making sure she has a secure grip, Kate starts to pat her down with her free hand.

“Hey!” the girl protests. “What the fuck are you doing?”

Kate pulls up on the arm she’s got in the hammerlock, causing an outcry of pain.

“Hey! That hurts!”

Laura’s watching, her jaw slack, stunned by Kate’s rough, aggressive, and unexpected behavior.

“Why are you doing this to her?” she simpers. She looks around; a few people are watching them, but at a wary distance.

“To make sure she isn’t wearing a wire or a homing device,” Kate answers, letting go of the girl’s arm so she can continue the frisk down the girl’s cutoffs, snaking a finger inside of the top of the girl’s boots.