Up in Smoke (3 page)

Lightning split the black sky in a spectacular forked display of dazzling light. He glimpsed outbuildings and a tractor shelter with huge round hay bales stacked out of the weather. Thunder rumbled. He wondered what it would be like to be a farmer. Owning land you had a responsibility toward, tilling, planting, tending, watching crops grow. Backbreaking, never-ending work, a high rate of serious or fatal accidents. Watching the weather. Is it changing, will it rain, will it stop raining? Investing your soul in acres of dirt. It was a bad time for farming. Farms were going under, people were leaving rural areas in droves. The number living below poverty level was 30 percent higher in rural areas than urban ones. Just as it happened with the decay of cities, crime was on the rise in rural areas, the heartland of this great nation, where children could grow and God and country were respected. Farmers were barely scraping by, most making less than ten thousand a year. They got second and third jobs and their wives and sometimes their children worked. Government money went to large corporate farms and the small farmer got left out.

At the barred gate, one guard dressed in rain gear came out of the hut while another stayed dry. Sean showed his credentials and said he had an appointment with Wakely Fromm. Since Sean had been out here several times, they let him through.

With a sedate speed, he drove the long mile to the house, a large two-story farm house, tan with white trim, a steep roof, lots of multipaned windows across the front, a front porch running the length of the house, a screened-in side porch on one end, large black walnut trees all around, bank of flood lights lighting up the place.

Coat over his head, Sean dashed to the porch, shook the coat, and pressed a thumb against the doorbell.

No response.

Somebody had to be here. There was a housekeeper, a cook, and one or two other people hired to look after the place, plus all the campaign staff. He knocked. Still no answer. Oh hell, Wakely must be at his own house and Sean had no idea where that was. Garrett's people kept that a secret.

Sean knocked again. “Wakely?”

“… the fuck?”

Ah, the man was in. “Open the door.”

A crash, glass shattering, and dead silence.

“Wakely?” Sean banged on the door. “Wakely!”

“The fuck you want?”

“Open the door, Wakely.”

More clatter, some fumbling at the knob and the door opened. “Crow! Go 'way!”

“It's Sean Donovan. Talk with you a minute?”

“The fuck for?”

Sean squeezed in past the wheelchair and closed the door behind him.

“Crow,” Wakely mumbled. “Talk to an old drunk? Put my life story inna paper? Fuck it. Where'sa bourbon?” Wakely pulled at the front of a red plaid bathrobe like a bottle might be hidden inside. His hair was mussed, his jaw unshaven, beard stubble mottled with gray. “How come you're not with the rest of the crows? Carrion crows always picking at his bones.” Wakely glared. “Love him! Like a brother! Death fires! Goddamn hero! Put that in your paper!”

Sean slipped out of his dripping coat, hung it on the doorknob, and moved from the entryway to the living room. Braided rug on the hardwood floor, enticing fire in the fireplace, television set tuned to a football game, dark gold-colored couch with brown pillows, bronze easy chairs.

Wakely rolled himself into the kitchen where the wheelchair crunched over shards of a dropped and shattered glass. A bottle lay on its side with the booze spilled around it.

“Fuckin' crows. Snooping snooping.” Wakely's face contorted with some inner pain and he took a swing at Sean that nearly threw him from the wheelchair. Sean stepped aside.

Wakely reached down to grab at the bottle and flopped on the floor like a sick elephant seal. He howled and pounded his head on the tile, his scrabbling fingers clutched at glass slivers and fumbled them to his mouth.

“Damn it, Wakely! Stop that!” Sean grabbed his hand and shook out the glass pieces. Small cuts on the man's palms, fortunately none on his face. “Let's get you off your nose and back on your ass.”

Holding him under the armpits, Sean hoisted him back in the chair. He was heavier than Sean expected, his upper body was barrel-shaped and muscular. The robe flapped open and his useless legs were exposed, fish-belly white, all bone and atrophied muscle.

“Oh hell, oh hell. S'too late.” Tears and snot leaked down Wakely's face. He smeared it around with a fist.

“S'never too late.” Sean grunted as he pulled Wakely straighter into the chair and arranged his bare bony feet on the footrest.

“Get it! 'Fore it spills!” Wakely jabbed a finger at the bottle.

It was pretty much too late for that, only about a half inch of bourbon hadn't run out when the bottle hit the floor.

“Damn crows, always pecking. Peck peck peck. Trying to find shit. Give it to me!” Sean handed him the empty bottle and he tipped the last drops into his mouth. “Make him look bad. Nothing to find.” He gave Sean a crafty look. “I know.”

“Know what?”

“Oh Christ, I've pissed myself.”

Not exactly true. Wakely had plastic tubing that drained into a plastic bag, but somehow in all the rolling around something had come loose. “Where is everybody?”

“Gone. Here all alone.” More tears.

“Where's the housekeeper and the guy who takes care of you?”

“Sent him out. Needed things. Bourbon. Ice. Don't think I need stuff, like everybody else?” Belligerence edged into Wakely's voice and Sean realized he might as well give it up. He was too late for conversation, Wakely had already consumed too much bourbon.

Playing nursemaid wasn't in his job description but Sean felt he couldn't leave the man this way. He refastened the plastic tubing as best he could and hoped somebody who knew what he was doing would be here soon. With a damp cloth from the bathroom, he cleaned the blood off Wakely's hands and examined the palms. Only scratches. He found a clean robe in what he assumed was Wakely's room because of the apparatus over the bed to assist getting in and out, wrestled Wakely into it, and got him in bed.

“Sorry,” Wakely muttered. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to be sorry about.” Sean dropped the soiled robe in the bathroom.

“Shows what you know. Talk, talk, talk. Tired of it. Thinks she knows.”

“Who?”

“Who the fuck you think? Gayle. At me, talk talk talk.”

“What did she talk about?” With a clean washcloth, Sean wiped Fromm's face.

Wakely slapped at his hands. “Horse's teeth. Fuckin' horse's teeth. Death fires.”

“What?”

The response was a gargled snore.

Sean shook him. “Wakely, what about horse's teeth?”

Wakely mumbled something Sean couldn't understand.

“What?”

“Bourbon. Other one broke.” Wakely slipped down into steady snoring.

So much for information. Sean was putting on his coat when the door opened and a muscular young man came in sheltering a bag of groceries under his raincoat. Murray, Wakely's minder. Sean told him Wakely had cut his hands and it might be a good idea to take a look at them.

6

When the doorbell rang, Susan was fumbling for candles, got one lit, and on her way to the living room stumbled over the cat who retaliated by digging claws into her ankle. She opened the door and stared in astonishment at the dark figure dripping water all over her porch. Wind blew the candle flame in a fast zig-zag dance that cast sinister shadows across his face.

“Sure and it's a terrible night, not fit for man nor beast. What kind of place is it you have here that throws God's great thunderbolts down on poor innocent travelers?”

“Sean?”

With a whoop, he threw his arms around her, lifted her, and whirled her in circles. He managed to squeeze her breath away, make her dizzy, and get her soaked before he set her down. She staggered as she found her balance.

“Is it the House of Usher we have then?” Her cousin Sean Patrick Donovan pulled off his wet shoes, dropped them by the door, and padded inside in his stocking feet.

“You can stop with the music hall Irishman bit.”

“Sure and it seems so fit. Jesus, it's blacker than a coal miner's lungs out there. And periodically a great sulfurous forked tail of lightning blazes through the night, such that even leprechauns take fright and scuttle back into the shadows.”

He cupped his cold wet hands around her head and looked deeply into her eyes. “And so, me darlin', tell me how you really are then.”

The tender concern threatened to bring tears. She kissed him. “What are you doing here?”

“Aren't you glad to see me?”

“Yes.” He was the cousin, out of all of them, that was closest, a surrogate brother. They'd been inseparable growing up, getting into trouble, exchanging secrets, squabbling and giving each other advice. She was so glad to see him, she could almost believe she'd conjured him up, except for the water he was shedding on her living room carpet.

“I'm with the Garrett campaign.” He shrugged off his trench coat and handed it to her.

“Ah.” Sean was a political writer for
NewsWorld.

She draped his coat over the shower door in the bathroom and when she returned, she said, “Without power, I can't even offer you a cup of coffee or some soup.”

“That is bad news.” He sat cross-legged, in front of the fireplace. In the semidark with the dancing flames fluttering light across his face, she could see that he looked drawn and tired, older. Ha, she probably looked older to him, too. It had been more than a year since they'd last seen each other.

“What's wrong?” she asked.

He looked at her, a long quiet look. “A couple of things,” he said finally. “I didn't like the way you sounded the last time we talked.”

Crossing her legs at the ankles, she lowered herself to the floor so she sat facing him. “What's the other?”

“She left me.”

Susan did a double take. “Lynn? What happened?” His marriage to Lynn had been a stormy one, but they'd always managed to stick together. She didn't like Lynn all that much and hadn't wanted Sean to marry her. Susan wasn't sure Lynn really loved Sean, not the way he deserved to be loved, and not the way he loved Lynn.

“She met somebody who stole her heart away,” Sean said.

“Who?”

“You don't happen to have any scotch, do you?”

“No, sorry. I do have some wine.”

“That'll do.”

In the kitchen, she poured a glass of white wine, hacked up some cheese, which she put on a plate with some crackers. She carried the wineglass and bottle in first, then went back for the plate of crackers and cheese. While she was gone, Sean had added wood to the fire and it blazed up, throwing off bright sparks.

She put the plate on the hearth and sat down beside him. “What happened with Lynn?”

He picked up the wineglass. “You're not drinking?”

“Problem at work. I need to stay clear thinking. Where's Hannah?”

“With Mom. A six-year-old didn't fit in with Lynn's plans.”

“Where'd she go?”

“That I'm not sure of. She went off with her karate instructor. I'll probably be hearing from her when the joy grows cold.”

She took both his hands and pressed them together between hers. “I'm so sorry, Sean. How are you?”

“To tell the truth, it's a bit of a relief. It's been a long time coming. I feel like I've been holding my breath all this time and now I can finally breathe again.” He raised her hands to his mouth, kissed the back of one, then the other. “I don't know how she ever came to marry me in the first place.”

“It must have been your face.” Susan put her hands on his cheeks. “She hadn't known you long enough to be struck by your scintillating personality. She was dazzled by the look of you. Without question, you have a strong and handsome face.”

“Are you listenin' to the girl, then? Sayin' it only as the two of us are alike as two roses on a stem.”

“This is true,” she said.

“Aye, but we can't help bein' beautiful, now can we darlin'? 'Tis ours to bear the terrible weight of it.” After topping off his glass, he set the bottle back on the hearth and leaned close to look into her face. Without the exaggerated accent and barely above a whisper, he said, “What's with
you,
kiddo?”

“I'm fine.”

“No, you're not, and you're worrying the hell out of me, so cough it up.”

A log settled in the fireplace and the momentary flare brightened his face and threw a shadow that made his blue eyes seem black.

“Nothing really. I've been a little down. No reason. Leaves are all turning colors, getting ready to fall.” She shrugged. “I feel—a little distant. Like I'm a step or two away from everything and—work”

“You, my darlin' girl, need—”

“A priest?”

He grinned. “So my mother would say. Since I'm not my mother and didn't go into the priesthood like she had her heart set on and slipped evermore from being her favorite son, I was going to say a good shrink.”

“Want to go together? We could save money. Each pay half.”

Thunder, loud as the boom of a cannon, startled them both.

“If that's the signal for the end of the world, I need another drink.” He refilled his glass.

“Relax. Just a little storm.” She liked them, pitch-black sky coming alive with jagged streaks of light, smell of ozone in the air, thunder rolling off to the ends of the earth. Almost never did such natural pyrotechnics happen in San Francisco. Rain, yes, but tepid in comparison. At least, she liked them when it wasn't tornado season, and she didn't have a woman out there in serious trouble with no way to get help to her.

Sean raised his glass. “To us, me darlin', may we survive the night and the doldrums.”