“I can’t find my sneakers.”
“You don’t need them,” he assures me.
The last thing I’m expecting is to be led out to the porch and presented with a large standing easel. But that’s what’s waiting for me on the far-left side. It has paint from past creations splattered on it all around the legs. It’s secondhand, which to me, makes it even better, having already lived another life.
“What’s that for?” I finally ask.
“It’s for painting,” Smoke says sarcastically, leaning against the door. “Thought you’d know that.”
“I got that much, but why is it here?” My feet don’t wait for his response. In fact, I’m already across the deck inspecting the materials by the time the question leaves my mouth.
Stretched canvas. Several bottles of Acrylic paint. Primary colors only with a larger bottle of white paint and wooden palate for mixing colors. There’s also a water dish already filled to the top on the side table and several rags in the holder connecting the two front legs. A dozen or so paint brushes of various sizes sit in a cylinder attached to the side of the easel.
“Do you paint?” I ask because even after our conversation, I can’t possibly believe this is all here for me.
“No,” Smoke answers with a small laugh. “But, you’re about as good at being bored as I am. Zelda told me you mentioned you’ve wanted to paint. Thought you might like to try.”
I don’t know what his endgame is here. All I know is that I want to be mad. I want to rage on him and tell him that trying to occupy my time until my death isn’t going to work. I want to tell him to shove this entire easel up his murdering ass, but another part of me is itching to give it a shot. Tears prick at my eyes, but I keep my back to Smoke. I won’t give him my fear, and I sure as hell won’t give him my joy.
I wonder if Dr. Ida ever wanted to both thank someone and stab them at the same time. “So, this is a bribe, so I’ll be less difficult? Because I don’t know if a few paints are going to do the trick.” When I’m sure the threat of tears is gone, I turn around and stop just in time to see the screen door flap shut.
Smoke’s the one gone now.
I turn back to the easel and run my hand over the blank canvas. I look out over the porch and close my eyes. I breathe in the fresh air. I observe the way the sunlight feels on my face. I open them again and I’m already popping the tops off the paints and mixing the colors until I get the results I want. I choose a brush, dip it in the water, and shake off the excess.
Then, I’m gone. I’m in another world. One without fear. Or ankle bombs. Or fathers who abandon their children, or men who’d rather take lives than save them. In this world, only I and the canvas exist.
For a very short time, I am free.
Smoke
I’ve been trying to get a hold of Griff with no fucking luck. I know he said he’d reach out to me but I need to know how much closer his people are to finding Frank. I close the phone and sigh.
I need to know how much time is left.
I go outside for a smoke. Frankie’s still at the easel, where she’s been for the last several hours. Her foot’s tapping to the beat of the song on the radio, and she’s singing along. Her voice isn’t that of an angel. It’s pretty fucking horrific, actually, but I find myself watching her anyway as she sways from side to side while painting away.
I don’t know what I expected her to paint or why. I didn’t give it all that much thought when I bought the damn thing from the art store in town. I just wanted to keep her occupied so she’d stop asking questions, stop wanting to tell me stories. Stop making me like her. Want her.
The problem is that she’s stopped making the effort, but I still find myself liking her.
Wanting her.
I light my smoke, and my foot brushes against a canvas drying in the sun on the top step. I crouch down and turn my head to get a better view of what it is. It’s a very large and very realistic looking eye. A blueish circle lines the bottom giving it the appearance of being tired.
Damn. She’s good. It isn’t just an eye either. Inside the pupil is where the real art begins. It’s a landscape of some sort. No, it’s here. The prison yard. Only, it’s different. The sky an apocalyptic-looking orange with brown clouds.
I stand up to take in the bigger picture. I take a drag of my cigarette and choke out a cough when I see the blood. The bodies strewn about what looks like a prison yard turned battlefield. In the very center is a man carrying a woman.
Holy shit. It’s me. It’s us.
More specifically, it’s me... carrying Frankie into Hell.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“Why do they call you Smoke?” I ask.
It’s late afternoon, and we’re sitting on the porch. We haven’t spoken in a long while and despite my anger I’m tired of the silence.
Smoke’s drinking whiskey straight from the bottle, and I’m reading a novel I found in a container in the guest bedroom. Or I should say I’m trying to read a novel. We’ve been out here for over an hour, and I’ve read the same paragraph a hundred times without yet understanding a single word. It’s hard to focus when all I can think about is his lips on mine. The way he rocked me against him.
The redhead.
Smoke pulls the cigar from his lips and holds it up before my mind can wander further and before my blush has a chance to reach my cheeks. He raises his eyebrow like the answer to my question about his name is obvious, but I can sense there’s more.
“No,” I say. “That can’t be it. If smoking cigars was the reason to call you Smoke then you would have already told me.” I think for another minute and decide to change tactics to find out what I want to know. “What’s your real name?”
“Smoke,” he answers around the cigar now back between his lips.
“Will you tell me if I guess?” I ask, deciding to ignore the obvious lie about his real name being Smoke.
“Sure,” he says. “I’ll play along. What you got?”
“Max?” I ask.
He shakes his head.
“Jerry?”
He rolls his eyes and gives me a look that says try harder.
“Tim? Killer? Sven?”
He scrunches his nose. “Those all sound like dogs,” Smoke scoffs, taking another puff of his cigar. He blows it out, clouding his features in puffs of white. “I’ll save you some trouble. It’s also not Fido, Spike, or Spot.”
“Well, all the other names I can think of are so…regular. So…boring. They wouldn’t suit you,” I tell him, although I could be here all night, and I still think I’ll never come up with something that does besides Smoke.
“I don’t know my real name,” he admits, flicking the ash at the end of his cigar into an empty beer bottle. “Some shit went down with my folks, and after that, I just couldn’t remember it. Still can’t.”
I’m taken aback and don’t know what to say to that. Thankfully, I don’t have to come up with something because he continues after taking a long pull from the bottle of whiskey. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“The first time I went to a group home, they wanted to know what to call me, and since I didn’t know my own name, they called me Johnny, for a while, anyway, but it didn’t stick.”
My heart stung for the child version of Smoke. Abandoned without so much as a name. And not JUST abandoned.
Thrown away.
Smoke clears his throat and looks out over the horizon. He seems almost peaceful here. Well, as peaceful as Smoke could be. His hard edges are still there but not so sharp I’d prick my finger on them if I stand too close.
“The kids there were cruel, especially the older ones. Those little shits thought they were better than me because they had it in their heads that their mom and pops were coming back for them someday.”
“But not you.”
Smoke put the cigar in his mouth. “No, not me. The running joke around the home was that my parents took one look at me after I was born then vanished into t
hin air. Gone. Poof.” He met my eyes. “Up in smoke.”
Smoke was right. Kids can be cruel. “So that’s why they call you Smoke?”
He nods. “Yeah, I figured it’s better than Johnny,” he says, taking another long puff of the cigar.
“Wise call.”
Smoke chuckles, and there wasn’t a single bit of malicious intent in the laughter. No mocking. No eye roll. No threat of punishment or manipulation. This laugh is genuine. Like this one single sound is the gateway through which all sexual things began. My body needs to chill the fuck out. “I don’t think anyone has ever called me wise before.”
“I’m not going to make a habit of it,” I say, and then the moment is lost, and we’re both silent. Both thinking the same thing. There isn’t time for a habit.
“I’m getting tired,” I lie. “I’m going to go inside.”
I stand up off the chair and head into the house. I pause at the doorway when he calls my name, and for a brief moment, my hopes rise, and I think he’s about to tell me that he’s changed his mind. That he’s found some way for us to both get out of this situation whole.
“What?” I ask my back still turned to him.
There’s another pause.
“Nothing, never mind,” he says, turning his head away.
My hopes fall along with my shoulders. I’m glad he can’t see the tears that instantly spring to my eyes. I keep my voice as steady as possible although I’m shaking inside.
“Nothing,” I repeat, pushing open the door. I shake my head. Now, I really am tired. Exhausted is more like it. “Funny, nothing, is exactly what I thought you’d say.”
I go back into the house, and the door slams behind me. I’m not surprised when I hear the door screech open and his heavy footsteps follow me into the bedroom where I’m already under the blankets with my back to him. He can’t even allow me to have one moment of peace to clear my head.
I hear his boots hit the floor, the jingle of his belt as he undresses and gets into bed beside me. It’s not even dark out yet.
He pushes the heat of his body against mine. He smells like cigars, whiskey, and soap, and it takes everything in me not to inhale deeply. Not like I have to. His scent is already imprinted into my brain, and I’ll remember it for the rest of my life.
However long that is.
Smoke wraps an arm around me, and I stiffen. His affection is just making it all worse.
“I wish I could hate you,” I whisper, feeling the world around me closing in more and more with each passing hour.
“Me, too,” he responds, his lips kissing the back of my head. “What do you want from me, Frankie?”
I’m not sure what he wants me to say. It’s not like it matters.
“Nothing,” I whisper, closing my eyes. “I want absolutely nothing from you.”
Chapter Thirty-Four
“You remind me of someone,” I say to the messy-haired man standing in the kitchen. Smoke had introduced him as Kevin before taking off to god only knows where. Maybe he’s creating another wooden bust of me to throw off the roof when I’m long gone.
“Actually, they call me Nine now,” he corrects after Smoke’s long gone. He smiles proudly. “And let me guess, I remind you of someone…from your dreams?” He wags his eyebrows suggestively.
Nine opens then slams every cabinet and drawer in the small kitchen in search of whatever it is he’s looking for to make his ‘world famous pasta sauce’. His words, not mine.
“Not quite,” I say.
Nine is big but not Smoke big. He’s leaner than Smoke, and a few inches shorter. He’s also about a decade or so younger from my guess, which makes him around my age.
There’s a newer-looking tattoo on the side of his neck depicting a bleeding heart with a knife stabbed through it. It’s gruesome but skillfully done, whoever created it is a true artist.
Nine’s smile is lopsided. His eyes bright. His eyelids naturally hooded. He’s chain-smoking cigarettes as he barrels his way through the kitchen as gracefully as one-footed duck.
It hits me who he reminds me of.
“I was thinking that you remind me of a friend of mine actually. His name was…is…Duke. His name is Duke.”
Nine puts out his cigarette under the tap and plucks a joint from behind his ear. “Duke? Is there a duchess?”
I smile because I can’t not smile at Nine. He’s attractive and witty and, unlike some people, warm. “Why Nine?” I ask.
He thinks for a few beats. “Because I once took out an entire gang with only a nine millimeter?”
I give him the universal look for ‘come on’, cocking my head and crossing my arms.
“I’m like a cat, and I’ve got nine lives?” He tries again.
I shake my head. “You’ll have to do better than that.”
“The truth is…” he leans in and whispers. “I can’t tell you the truth. If I tell ya, then I’ll have to kill ya.”
I wince.
“Fuck. Sorry about that. Wasn’t thinking. I’m kinda new to all this,” he apologizes. “I’m usually the tech guy, at least up until now, that is. I don’t know the whole story here, but from the look on your face, I realize that a happy ending may not be in the future.”
I’m normally the tech guy…
“No, but it’s alright,” I say. “In a way, it’s no one’s fault but my own.” I pause, an idea forming. “I know how you can make it up to me, though.”
“Do I want to know? Because I don’t know if you’ve seen Smoke,” Nine points a knife to the front door. “He might be a big scary as fuck dude, but what he’ll do to me is probably nothing compared to what I’ll have waiting for me back home if I let this all go to motherfucking shit. My brother and the guys he runs with would all take turns killing me. And then?” he shakes his head and shivers. He lowers his voice to a whisper. “And then they’d hand me over to the scariest one of them all…”
“Who?” I ask curiously,
“My sister in law,” Nine says, taking a drag from the joint and handing it out to me. I shake my head, needing to stay sharp if I’m going to get my way.
“It’s nothing big. Nothing that would bring down the wrath of those in charge. I just need a favor,” I raise my shoulders to my neck and look up at Nine with an exaggerated tight smile. I have to go about this carefully, make him think the outcome is his idea.
Nine starts chopping onions. A ton of them. Most of them don’t stay on the cutting board. Half of them fall to the floor and the other half fly from the knife as he chops with the joint dangling from his lips.
“I’m not taking the bomb off your leg,” he says without looking up from his onions. “I feel like that would be the beginning of the end. For both of us.”
“No, I mean, yeah, that would be swell, but that’s not what I want.”
He puts down the knife and leans forward. “Spill it.”
“I want to use your laptop,” I blurt, balling my fists and pressing them to my chin, looking up at him over my knuckles.
Nine rolls his eyes, continuing his chopping.
“Just for a few minutes!” I add.
“What makes you think I have a laptop with me? Or that I’d let you use it?” He swipes the chopped onions into the pan on the stove which sizzles. He brings the cutting board back to the island and begins on the mushrooms.
“Nine, you said you’re a tech guy.” I raise my hands to my chest. “Well, I’m a tech guy, too. And tech geeks like us don’t go anywhere without their laptops. Not if they can help it.”
Nine adds the mushrooms to the pan and gives them a stir. He grins and surrenders with a sigh, raising his hands in the air. “Okay, you got me. It’s in the van, but I can’t let you use it. Smoke would strangle me and that, my dear, is not my idea of a good time unless there’s a hot chick connected to the hands wrapped around my neck.”
“Can I ask you something?” I shove my laptop question to the side on a temporary hold.
“Shoot. But I don’t gua
rantee I can answer it,” Nine says.
“Why are you so loyal to him? To Smoke?”
“That’s easy. He saved my brother’s life,” Nine sucks off the tomato juice dripping down his hand.
“He did?” I’m taken aback. Way back. It’s the last thing I ever expected him to say.
“He sure as fuck did. He stopped some motherfucker from taking Preppy out in the hospital. I would never have met my brother if it weren’t for Smoke. Didn’t find him until recently. Wouldn’t have my nieces now and would never have met my nephew or my sister-in-law, who I fucking love, despite my earlier comment. Although, she can be scary as shit when it comes to protecting my brother and those kids. Even me. So, you see, I owe Smoke a lot more than babysitting you. That’s why as much as I’d like to help you, my hands are tied.”
“He was paid to rescue your brother?”
Nine shakes his head. “Nope. He was there. Saw Preppy was in trouble. Put the breaks on the whole thing.”
“Really,” I say, drawing out the word. “Smoke has friends? Well, I’ve met Rage and Zelda, but I kind of imagined them to be it.”
“I probably shouldn’t be answering that. Or anything.”
“How does answering that affect me or you watching me in any way? How can I use that against Smoke or better yet how can I possibly use that information to escape?” I raise my leg and set my foot on the counter, pointing to my ankle. “I’ve got a bomb on my leg. Remember?”
Nine sighs. “Fine. Yes, Smoke has friends. Or at least, he has people in his corner. That’s what I get when people talk about him anyway. He’s a legend over in Logan’s Beach. The people I know are loyal to him because over the years he’s been loyal to them. But he’s a loner. That’s pretty much all I know.”
I rest my chin on my fist. “Interesting. He makes it seem like he puts mountains between him and the rest of the world.”
Nine laughs and leans forward with his elbows on the counter. “He does. The thing is, my people, our mutual friends? They’re really fucking good climbers.”
I laugh and taste the sauce on the spoon he’s holding out to me. It’s so spicy I cough and choke. “How much red pepper flake did you put in there?” I ask, my mouth hanging open.
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