House of Smoke (43 page)

A (Miranda): “I assume it is because they are a socially responsible corporation that wants to improve the quality of life in this area, especially since they’re intimately involved, with their long-term oil extractions.”

Q: “Are there any strings attached?”

A (Miranda): “No.”

She elaborates: “For a long time, but particularly since the
Exxon Valdez
tragedy, the oil companies have been looking for ways to boost their image, especially in the area of marine life and the management of the sea in general. They’ve made a lot of money out of our ocean, and I emphasize the word ‘our’—your ocean and mine. So this is a way of giving something back. They didn’t tell me that, but that’s my guess.”

She’s asked how long the grant negotiations have been in motion.

“Not long,” she replies. “They called me after we declared our intention and asked how they could get involved. It evolved from there very quickly. They were completely open and aboveboard—a pleasure to deal with.”

The broken ribs hurt like hell but Kate is up and walking, first from her bed to the toilet and back, then down the hall to the nurses’ station. The nurses smile at her, and she smiles back.

“Just don’t tell any jokes when I’m around,” she cautions.

They laugh at that. She bites her lip so she won’t.

She’s been in this hospital for three weeks. Tomorrow she will be discharged. She and Cecil talked about that two nights before, during his daily visit.

“Stay at my place,” he said. “You can’t take care of yourself,” he logically pointed out.

“I don’t want to be a burden on you, especially when it’s your busiest time of the year.” She hates being dependent on anyone, especially when she cares about them.

“You’re an ornery one,” he observed.

“It’s my nature.”

“Think about it.”

She did. She had an internal debate, and she tried to keep self-pity out of it. Part of her feels she would be weak by accepting his offer; another part thinks she’s growing up, that by receiving a gift she’ll be allowed to give one back.

When he returned the next night she had decided to take him up on his offer. She would stay a couple of days up there and see how it was.

There’s a knock at her door.

“Come in.” She’s sitting in a chair in the corner of the room, thumbing through
The New Yorker
, the afternoon sunlight through the sheer cotton curtains dappling her face and shoulders. Her eyes are clearer, the color is coming back into her face. Her shattered cheek and broken nose, however, are covered with a protective mask.

Miranda Sparks enters. “Hello,” she says.

“Hello.” Kate is surprised. She doesn’t get up.

“I apologize for not coming earlier.” Miranda stands just inside the door frame.

“I didn’t expect you to come at all. You certainly didn’t have to. Thank you for those,” she adds, looking at the bureau against the wall, upon which sits a large bouquet of fresh-cut flowers. A bouquet from Frederick and Miranda Sparks has arrived every other day.

“You saved my daughter’s life.”

Now Kate rises—stiffly. “Come in. Would you like some juice? There’s some in the refrigerator,” she says, pointing to a small cube box in the corner.

“No, thanks.”

Kate thinks Miranda feels awkward; she isn’t in control of the situation. It gives her some small pleasure.

“I won’t stay long. I know how dreary it can be when people hang around your hospital room when all you want is to be left in peace and quiet.”

“I don’t mind.”

“I came to tell you if there’s anything I can do to help, anything at all …”

“I’m fine. Thank you.”

The sunlight pools in the center of the room where they stand on the small throw rug like two figures in a Vermeer painting.

“Anyone would have done what I did, under the circumstances,” Kate says, making her point again. “It wasn’t anything heroic.”

Miranda smiles. “If you insist.”

They haven’t come close to touching, not even to shaking hands. As Miranda turns to go, Kate says one more thing to her.

“I’m not working for Laura anymore on this,” she says. “In case you didn’t know. I’m done with it.”

“We all are, I hope to God.”

“I don’t know about anyone else. I just know about me. I’m putting it behind me and moving on with my life. I’m lucky to have one, and I’m going to start taking better care of it.”

“You should,” Miranda says gently, “after what you’ve been through.”

Kate shrugs. “Whatever. I’m quits with it, that’s what I wanted you to know.”

Miranda nods. “As I said, if there’s anything I … we … can do for you, anything at all—”

Kate cuts her off with a shake of the head. “I’m doing fine. I want to stop thinking about it. Everything about it,” she says with emphasis, to make her point, “and everybody.”

Miranda walks to the door. “Goodbye, then. I hope to see you again.”

“I don’t doubt we will. It’s a small town.”

She waits, standing in the center of the small room until Miranda takes the three steps that get her out. Then she sits back into the chair, sagging against its worn embrace, worn out from her brief, charged encounter with this woman who has to control everything and everybody.

She can walk fine but they take her out in a wheelchair anyway, it’s SOP. The nurse who is pushing her hums a tune from
Evita
, which has been running at the Lobero for a month.

“Glad to be going home?” she asks cheerfully.

“Glad to be getting out of here.”

“Boy, you think I don’t know what you mean? I love my work and I love the people here and the patients, too, but I am so happy to leave when my shift is over. This’ll drain you,” the nurse informs her. “You start thinking everybody in the world is a sick person, you start thinking you’re a sick person yourself even when there isn’t anything in the world wrong with you.”

Kate knows exactly what she means. It’s what a cop can come to feel—that everyone in the world is a bad person, a criminal, at least potentially, until you start thinking you’re a criminal yourself, when you aren’t. It all gets hard and certain and then you become the judge and jury and then all hell breaks loose.
Goddamn civilians
. If she heard that expression once when she was on the force she heard it a thousand times. She came to believe it herself. Deep down she still does—some of the time, anyway.

“We’ve got some paperwork for you to sign,” the nurse says as she wheels Kate into the accounting department. “Insurance forms. Won’t take long.”

She parks Kate’s wheelchair next to the counter. “Blanchard,” she tells the clerk. “Recovery 4. Checking out.”

The clerk pulls Kate’s file up on the computer. “It’s already been taken care of,” she informs Kate. “You don’t owe anything,” she adds as the computer prints out the bill.

What? “Let me see that.”

She stands out of her wheelchair and grabs for the document as it’s coming out of the printer. “Who paid this?” she demands.

The clerk types into her computer. “Mrs. Sparks. She came in here yesterday afternoon, said she’d been visiting with you, and wanted to clear your bill. She gave us a check.” She scans the machine for a moment. “It cleared this morning.”

If there’s anything I can do for you, anything at all …

Cecil is in the lobby, waiting for her. She’s glad to see him. Taking him up on his offer was the right move. She needs support now, a strong shoulder to lean on. If that makes her a defenseless little woman for the moment, fuck it. He looks great to her.

W
HEN FREDERICK SPARKS PLAYS
serious poker he plays privately, behind closed doors. He plays for a lot of money with other high rollers, some of whom are professionals. He is not; he is a passionate amateur. He has been gambling for decades, since he first caught the bug in college. The game is in a penthouse suite at one of the newest and most opulent hotels in Las Vegas. Down below, dozens of stories, on the huge football-field-sized floors in casinos up and down the Strip and in town, tens of thousands of people are throwing their money at the slots, the blackjack and craps tables, the roulette wheels. Lose five dollars here, win ten there. Lose five hundred there, win a thousand here. The house isn’t concerned with how much someone loses as long as he (or she; half the gamblers are women, especially at the slot machines) can cover the bet; but if someone starts winning big, especially at the card tables, they zero in on him or her via the surveillance cameras located in the ceiling—watching for card counters, or conspiracies between a gambler and a dealer. Anything suspicious, the offending player is quietly but firmly escorted from the table to a private meeting. Usually they leave the premises without further ado. Sometimes they need a little persuading; but one way or the other they don’t stay, and they don’t come back—the house keeps close watch to make sure of that, and they let all the other places in the city know, too.

None of that applies to men in the penthouse. They don’t cheat. It’s unnecessary—either they’re too good to have to or they’re too rich to worry about it, or both. And second, if anyone ever got caught cheating in one of these games, the consequences would be a hell of a lot worse than merely getting kicked out the door and told to stay out.

The living room of the penthouse is huge, at least two thousand square feet. A bank of windows lines one wall. From this perch you can see the lights of the Strip and the city glimmering far below, the suburbs beyond that, then the outskirts, and finally the endless stretches of desert.

There are six players in this game, all men in their late middle age. The deal passes clockwise around the table in turn. The dealer calls the game, draw or stud. The ante is one thousand dollars per hand, with no limits on the amounts of the bets. All the players have stacks of chips in front of them in various sizes and colors. Besides the players there are two hostesses provided by the hotel, both of them former
Penthouse
centerfolds, who are there to get the players anything they want, food or drink, compliments of the house. This is cherry duty—only the cream of the women who work for the casino pull it. Every two hours the players take a twenty-minute break, at which time they may, if they choose, ask the hostesses to provide other services as well. Nothing is denied, except drugs. All the players have smaller suites on this floor or the one directly below, also on the house.

The only other person in the room is a representative of the hotel. He’s there to make sure nothing goes wrong. These are all very wealthy men playing in this game, and their comfort and security is paramount.

The house serves as the bank. It takes a small percentage for doing so, and for providing the facilities and all the amenities. These men have accounts here, they’re good for whatever they need to be, that’s been established over the years. Some men, these six and many others, have been playing cards and gambling other ways in this and other Vegas hotels for decades. Some of them have lost tens of millions of dollars. One man who owned a professional sports franchise lost $85 million over ten years. Another, one of the most popular singers in the world, once lost four million in one night.

The men have been playing for several hours. Two of them have large stacks of chips piled in front of them. The other four don’t. Frederick is one of the latter group.

The dealer, a plump man named Easton, who is one of the biggest car dealers in the Pacific Northwest, is sitting two seats to Frederick’s right. Easton is a major-league gambler who wins more than he loses. Right now he’s winning big. The other winner is the man sitting to Frederick’s left. His name is Simpson, and he is a corporate lawyer out of New York.

“Stud poker,” Easton announces.

He deals the first card facedown in turn around the table. No one lifts to peek. Card number two follows, again facedown. Then the third card—up.

Easton surveys the table, calling the up card in front of each player. “Jack of hearts.” His voice is flat, no inflection. “Four of clubs. Seven of clubs. Queen of clubs. Ten of spades. And the dealer has a six of diamonds. Queen bets.”

Frederick has the four of clubs. He glances at his hole cards. One is the king of clubs. He has the makings of a club flush at this point, although there are already a lot of clubs showing. Still, worth finding out. He glances around at the others. They’re all concentrating on their hands and the cards in front of the other players.

The player showing the queen is Calvin Rogers. From Dallas, real estate. A tall rangy man, from mid-distance he looks like the actor James Coburn, especially with that thick head of long white hair. Frederick’s been playing in card games with Rogers for a dozen years. Win or lose, the man keeps coming back. Like all the others in this room.

“Five hundred,” Rogers says, throwing a chip into the pot. He has a distinct West Texas accent.

“See you,” says the man to his left, a diamond merchant from South Africa named Leewourk, who flies in once a month to play in these games. He tosses in a chip. The pile in front of him is getting low.

Easton throws in his chip without comment. The player to his left and Frederick’s right is Mark Taylor, the movie star. Of all the players in the game, he is the most fidgety. He looks at his hole card, at the pot, at his hole card again. Like Leewourk’s, his stack is in serious decline.

“Your play,” Easton nudges him.

Taylor looks at the cards one more time. Then he turns his second card facedown and pushes them away from him, towards the middle of the table. “I’ll sit this one out, thank you,” he says, flashing the smile that has enabled him to command ten million dollars a picture and a piece of the gross.

It comes to Frederick. Smiling slightly, he picks up a chip and tosses it on top of the others. “I’m in,” he says.

The fourth card is dealt, again faceup.

The ten of clubs to Frederick, giving him three clubs, two showing. Ace of hearts to Simpson, the player on his left. Rogers gets the king of spades. The next card is a three of diamonds, and Easton, the dealer, pulls an eight of spades.