House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  She goes to the window, peels the curtain back a nervous inch, looks out. There’s nothing there—but it’s so still it’s scary.

  Pressing on.

  In the corner of the room stands an old open-top pine breakfront with photos and other family memorabilia on it. Pictures of the Sparks family, trophies from riding competitions. Nothing of Miranda, she notices.

  Interesting stuff, but this isn’t the time to leisurely study pictures.

  She opens the first drawer. It’s crammed full of photo albums, cheap souvenirs from family vacations, personal things that have value only for the people who own them. Not what she’s looking for.

  The middle drawer has more of the same.

  Maybe she miscalculated. Maybe what she’s looking for isn’t here. It’s back at Miranda’s office in town, or in a vault somewhere, where prying eyes can’t get to it.

  She pulls at the bottom drawer. It doesn’t come out.

  Shit, she thinks, another goddamn lock to pick. This is getting on her nerves; her nerves are getting too much for her to handle is the truth of it.

  She squats on her haunches, checks it out. “Sonofabitch!” she curses out loud: it’s an old skeleton-key lock. The worst fucking kind.

  Her picks won’t work on this lock—it’s too old. She’ll have to open this sucker the old-fashioned way, if she can, which is iffy, even professional locksmiths have a hard time with these old skeleton-key locks.

  She scrounges around on Miranda’s desktop, finds a box of paper clips. Metal, thank God, people more and more are using plastic-coated clips—if that’s all there had been she’d be up shit’s creek. She opens two clips so that they’re more or less one straight line.

  Her penlight is clenched between her teeth, shining on the burnished keyhole. She inserts the clips into the keyhole, starts trying to get a purchase on the cylindrical tumblers. Patience, girl, patience. She’s starting to sweat in earnest now, major flop-sweat, she can feel water gathering in her armpits, running down her sides. She never sweats—“A lady never sweats,” another of her mother’s sayings, she perspires lightly at most.

  She must not be a lady anymore, because she’s sweating like a pig. It itches; she scratches her armpits and the sides of her ribs with one hand, keeping the tension inside the lock with the other.

  “Come on, goddamnit,” she whispers between clenched teeth.

  Is it moving? She can’t tell. She leans closer, looking at the crack between the drawer and the frame above it, turning her head so the light shines in the crack, trying to see the bolt, whether it’s moving or not.

  Not yet. Don’t quit.

  She glances at her watch. She’s been working this for ten minutes. It could take another ten, or twenty. Or she might not get it at all.

  Five more minutes. Then she’ll jimmy the fucker, if she can find something to pry it with. The tolerances between the drawer and frame are pretty tight, it would take a thin screwdriver to force this drawer.

  Five more minutes. If she can’t open it by then, she’ll give up.

  Patiently, patiently, sweating steadily, she works the paper clip in the lock.

  Outside, a gust of wind knocks a loose board against the side of the house, causing her to stiffen, her body almost jumps, if she had moved suddenly she would have lost her purchase inside the lock and would have had to start all over again, and she doesn’t have the time or the guts to start over.

  Somehow, her hands remain steady—they’ve taken on a life of their own.

  She feels something starting to move. Are the tumblers turning? She turns her head crooked again, squinting through the crack, trying to see the bolt.

  It’s moving. She can see it.

  Easy now, easy. Like talking to a fractious child. Yeah, baby, that’s good, she can feel the bolt turning.

  The drawer slides open. She falls back on her ass for a moment, catching her breath.

  The drawer is set up as a file cabinet, legal-size, with tabs on the tops of file folders. She starts reading the labels. Land deals. Her pulse quickens.

  She pulls out a thick file that is labeled “San Francisco.” Flips through the pages. Deeds of trust, bills of sale, tax notices, all the paper trail of ownership.

  Where is it? she thinks.

  Bay Area Holding Company. It leaps out at her.

  She stuffs the entire file in her day pack, continues looking through the drawer.

  The last file folder in the drawer is the newest. Rainier Oil, typed in neat letters on the edge.

  Carefully, as if it might be connected to a detonating device, she pulls it out.

  The folder contains a bound document. Stamped on the front cover is a warning—CONFIDENTIAL—and a number under it. Like in the CIA, she thinks, and as important.

  She opens it up. It’s a contract between Rainier Oil Corporation of America, Inc., and Miranda Sparks et al. of Santa Barbara, California.

  She flips through it, to the final page. There are places for signatures. One side for Miranda Sparks, president of the Sparks Foundation. On the other side, a name is typed in the space where the representative for Rainier Oil NA, Inc., will sign.

  The name is Blake Hopkins.

  Blake Hopkins. The oil honcho, Miranda’s secret lover.

  Pay dirt. She feels her pulse rate going up like a skyrocket.

  It’s time to bail out of here. Stuffing the oil company documents in her backpack, she turns off her flashlight, reopens the curtains as they were before. Then she retraces her steps through the house and lets herself out the same door she entered, locking the doorknob from the inside. Fuck the dead bolt, that’ll take some time and she’s already overspent her allotted time, in the karmic sense. By the time anyone finds out it isn’t locked and the place has been broken into, this will all be over.

  She walks back down the road to her car, still hiding in the shadows, waving to the cows, the only witnesses to her triumph, as they stare unblinkingly back at her.

  She hadn’t realized how much she missed him.

  Cecil opens the front door as she gets out of her car. He’s standing under the lintel, framed by soft light from inside.

  “Hello, stranger,” he says, warmly but warily.

  “Hello your own self.” She has to look up, she’d forgotten how tall he is.

  “Out pretty late,” he remarks. She had called him a few minutes ago from her car phone, just down the road.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t realize,” she lies. It’s a white lie, it was acceptable.

  “I don’t mind. I’m glad you called. I’ve missed you, Kate.”

  “I’ve missed you, too, Cecil.” She pushes up against him. Hug me, please.

  He pulls her close. “Yeah,” he says softly into her hair.

  “Me, too.”

  “Been busy, huh?” He holds her at arm’s length, looks at her face. “You’re healing up good.”

  “I don’t feel that,” she says. “I can’t hardly look at myself anymore.”

  “You look good to me, babe.”

  Babe. A term of endearment. Finally, from someone. This is a good one: she’d forgotten. You don’t throw them back in, and you don’t treat them casually, either. She’s going to make it up to him, if he still wants her when it’s all over and everything’s come out in the wash.

  “You’re good for my ego … and other things, too.”

  “That’s what I’m here for,” he says.

  She feels shy around him all of a sudden, leaning against him in the nighttime darkness, lit by a single bulb over the entry to his house. They haven’t seen each other for weeks, she had deliberately avoided him, she didn’t want anyone to see her for a long time, especially a man she’s attracted to, and then there was the stuff with her kids and the stuff down south and all this shit around her life.

  “Come on in.” He looks past her to her car. “Do you want to stay the night? Can you?”

  “Yes.”

  Her overnight bag, which she always carries for s
ituations such as this, is in the trunk of her car, along with the documents from Saperstein. She’s dying to show the stuff to Cecil; he’d understand, he knows these players. And she strongly wants a partner—not an ear like Carl, but a real partner, someone who will help her in a real, physical way. So she isn’t all alone.

  But she doesn’t show him what she has or ask him to help—not yet, not until it’s over. Deep down, she wants to keep this to herself. She knows that. It’s her fight, she has to do it herself. That’s the way she is, even if it means putting herself in jeopardy, like when she went with Laura and the whore and didn’t have backup, or when she went alone to see Wes. Or just now, a mile from his doorstep.

  First things first. She takes his hand and leads him into the house, to his bedroom.

  “Please make love to me,” she says, her voice unsteady, pulling his face down to hers and kissing him on the mouth, hard.

  They are still asleep in each other’s arms when first light comes, before sunrise. Quietly, so as not to awaken him, she slips out of bed and dresses in the living room.

  Forgive me for what I’m about to do, she asks him silently. It’s not because I don’t care about you. It’s who I am, and what I have to do. And then she promises him that once she does this one thing she’ll be faithful to him for as long as. …

  “Leaving?” he asks from the doorway. He is naked, his cock at half-mast, morning erection.

  “I didn’t want to wake you.”

  “In a hurry?” There’s an edge to his voice which he doesn’t bother trying to conceal.

  Evasively: “I have something I have to do this morning.”

  He looks at her. “When are you going to let me in?”

  Her first impulse is to say “What do you mean?” but they’d both know that would be bullshit. “Soon,” she tells him instead. “It won’t be long.”

  He shakes his head. “That doesn’t cut it, Kate.”

  She doesn’t want to leave. She wants to get back in bed with him and stay there all day. But she can’t. “It’s the best I can do right now, Cecil.”

  “You’re using me,” he tells her.

  “I don’t want to.”

  “Then don’t. Be real, okay? That’s all I ask.”

  “I want to. I …”

  “No. You want this to be easy, without paying all the dues. At least with me.”

  That stings. “That’s not true,” she protests.

  “It isn’t? You don’t seem to have a problem banging on my door any hour of the night and asking to be taken in when you need comforting. But relationships are a two-way street,” he adds pointedly.

  “I’m sorry if I disturbed you,” she says stiffly.

  “Bullshit you are,” he replies. “Last night wasn’t the first time, in case you’ve forgotten. How about when you’d been over to see Miranda and you came storming in here accusing me of being unfaithful to you because I’d slept with someone years before I even met you? You can be a little irrational, Kate. And more than a little selfish.”

  She feels flushed, her breathing is rapid, shallow, her pulse is racing. “I’ve gone through hell,” she manages to say, trying as best she can to defend herself.

  “I know,” he answers. “And I’ve tried to be there for you. I’ve wanted to be,” he goes on, his voice rising in pain and frustration. “That’s all I’ve asked. That I can be here for you. That you stop hiding behind that damn wall of yours.” He crosses to her, takes her hands in his. “Let me in, for godsakes. Whatever it is you’re doing, you can’t do it alone. No one can.”

  If it were only that simple.

  “I will,” she promises. “Just give me a little time. Please.”

  “How much?” he asks. “And when?”

  “As soon as I can,” she promises him again.

  He nods, staring at her, his expression flat, almost a mask. “Don’t take forever.”

  21

  HOUSE OF SMOKE

  KATE DRIVES HIGHWAY 154 over the pass. It’s still early morning—a few minutes before seven—so there isn’t much commuter traffic into Santa Barbara yet. She calls Laura from her car phone, waking her up, which is what she wants, she wants to catch the girl unawares, when her mind is not yet functioning clearly.

  Kate’s own mind is racing, trying to sort out her feelings towards Cecil, and where that’s going. But she can’t let that affect her, not now. What she’s doing with the Sparks family needs every ounce of her concentration and energy.

  Laura’s voice is heavy with sleep. “Hello?” she mumbles into the receiver.

  “It’s Kate,” she tells Laura. “Are you alone?”

  “Huh?” Not fully awake, she’d been up late partying, her brain right now is mush.

  “Are you alone?” Kate repeats. “Can we talk?”

  “Yeah, I’m alone.” Her voice is becoming clearer. “Where have you been?” she asks. “I’ve been trying to reach you.”

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve found out who had Frank Bascomb killed,” Kate says, her voice flat and calm, “and why.”

  “What? …How do you …?”

  “I’ll get back to you later,” Kate tells her. “After I finish up something I have to do.” Before she hangs up, she cautions Laura: “Don’t tell anybody about this. Nobody. I’ll call you later.” She already checked to make sure she had Laura’s office and cell-phone numbers. “Stay where I can get in touch with you.”

  Then she hangs up.

  She waits on making the next call until later in the morning, when she can be reasonably sure that Miranda Sparks has gotten to work.

  Celeste, Miranda’s secretary, answers the phone. She listens for a moment, then tells Kate: “I’m sorry, Mrs. Sparks is in a meeting and will be tied up the rest of the morning.”

  “This is Mr. Hopkins’s office calling,” Kate tells her, keeping her voice neutral and nondescriptive. “This call is urgent.”

  “One moment,” Celeste answers, her voice immediately deferential.

  Miranda comes on the line. “Yes?” She listens—a short time, less than thirty seconds. “Who is this?” she asks, keeping her voice calm, mindful she has people in the room with her. Her mind is racing at the information she’s being given. “Who is this?” she asks again—this time to a dial tone.

  She hangs up. “An emergency,” she explains brusquely to the people in the room. “I have to go.”

  She dashes out without further explanation. Then she drives over County Highway 154 as fast as she can go, to the ranch.

  Reaching the cutoff, Miranda’s Mercedes 500 haul-asses down the pitted private road, throwing up dust and gravel as she stands on the brakes and fishtails to a stop in front of the ranch house. She runs up the steps of the front porch to the door.

  She pauses for a moment before unlocking it: looking around, as if suspecting she’s under surveillance.

  There’s nothing out there—nothing she can see. There’s a chill in the air, the sky is clear, white-blue. No clouds.

  She digs in her purse for the keys to the front door. Throwing the dead bolt, a look of surprise and fear comes over her face as she realizes it’s already unlocked. Quickly she tests the doorknob—that’s firm, at least. Whoever was here last forgot to lock it. She suspects it was Frederick, he’s so damn careless. There’s valuable stuff inside, priceless heirlooms, family mementos that can’t be replaced at any price. Not that he ever seems to care—he’s always had everything, so he assumes he always will. A stupid, dangerous assumption—which is why she must be on her toes at all times, forever vigilant.

  She unlocks the door and rushes inside, throwing her coat onto a chair as she hurries through the living room into the den, to the old pine breakfront, which is almost as old as the house itself, glancing at the open top cluttered with the memorabilia of her husband’s family’s life.

  Most of the pictures are of Laura as a young girl astride a horse, decked out in western tack. There are a couple of Frederick when he was his daughter’s
age, also on a horse. The resemblance between them is noticeable. And some older pictures (even one of Dorothy as a young girl with her father), going back almost to the turn of the century.

  There are no pictures of her. She is not of this family’s blood. A member by invitation only.

  She hunches down in front of it, her tight skirt riding halfway up her thighs, takes out an old-fashioned skeleton key from her purse that matches the opening, turns it, pulls the drawer open, and pulls out the Rainier file.

  It’s empty. There’s nothing inside.

  “Oh, Jesus,” she says softly. She can feel her stomach churning, turning to fire, taste the bile surging up into her throat and mouth. Gagging and swallowing to keep from vomiting all over herself, she starts tearing through the other files in the cabinet—maybe it was misplaced, put in the wrong file. It had to be.

  “Looking for this?”

  Miranda spins so violently she smashes against the open drawer, losing her balance and falling ungracefully to the floor.

  Kate stands in the doorway, staring down at Miranda. She’s changed her clothes. Now she is wearing an old Oakland Raiders varsity jacket over her sweater and jeans. Her day pack is slung over her shoulder. One hand holds a thick manila envelope. “The Rainier Oil file, I presume?” she asks in a clear, strong voice, holding it up for Miranda to see.

  Miranda stares at her, almost as if she can’t be there. She manages to rise to her knees, then to her feet.

  “That was you?” she finally says. “That called me?”

  Kate nods—a short, tight nod. “Yeah,” she answers. “That was me.” She pauses. “You had to know that.”

  The two women stare at each other. Miranda looks away first.

  “Sit down,” Kate orders her. “I don’t think you should hear what I’m going to tell you standing up.”

  Miranda crosses the room and slumps into the seat behind her desk. Kate remains standing, the old wooden desk a protective barrier between them. So this is where ambition gets you, she thinks, when you don’t have a moral base to fall back on. It’s something she needs to remember, in her own life.