Smoke

by Lisa Unger

  “What’s up, Dylan? What’s going on?”

  She did care about him. He had been her husband for four years. He was the father of her child. And in the three years since their divorce, they’d been slowly and haltingly approaching friendship. They’d both done a lot of growing up.

  He took the opener from the drawer by the sink and popped the top off his bottle.

  “I killed someone last night,” he said, his jaw tensing. He closed the refrigerator and they were in semi-darkness with only the light from the living room shining.

  “Our buyer got made and we had to go in fast. I killed a sixteen-year-old kid. He turned a MAC M10 on us, I guess thinking he’d shoot his way out; he could have killed us all.”

  “I didn’t hear about it,” she said, standing and moving toward him. She could see the weight of it on him.

  “It was a good shooting,” he said, taking a long draw on the beer and leaning against the counter. She moved near him and put a hand on his arm.

  “I’m being investigated, of course,” he said with a slow shrug. “But I know I had no choice. Still… when I fired, I only saw that gun. When he was down, all I could see was this skinny kid lying there, bleeding out. He didn’t even have any hair on his face.”

  She didn’t say anything, just waited for him to go on.

  “He knew he was going to die,” said Dylan quietly. “He was scared.”

  He stared at the kitchen wall as if it were all playing out for him there. His face was expressionless and pale but she could see the hand that held his beer shaking just slightly. In her years on the job, Jesamyn had only drawn her weapon twice and never fired it in the line of duty. Dylan worked buy-and-bust up in the South Bronx. It was one of the riskiest possible details. A cop goes undercover to buy drugs from dealers and once the purchase is made, a team moves in and makes the collar. Two cops had died last year in his precinct. But if you did your time, it was two years to a gold shield, something Dylan wanted badly. He envied Jesamyn’s quick rise to detective and it was one of the things that had contributed to the end of their marriage.

  “I just thought about Ben and you all night last night,” he said, lowering his eyes to her face. “While I was in the station, waiting for my PBA rep-I just had a lot of time to think. I watched the life drain from someone. It just left him so easily and when he was dead, there was like this shuddering and he was just gone. There was no mistaking it, you know, that life had left.”

  He rubbed his eyes like he was trying to wipe the memory from them. Jesamyn stayed silent; she was stunned. She’d never heard him talk the way he was talking or look the way he looked. So sad and lost.

  “I looked around and there were all these drugs on the table. And this gun in his hand. He had all this jewelry on and these expensive sneakers and leather coat. And it all just seemed so pointless. Like I’d taken this life because of all this stuff.”

  He didn’t say anything else but searched her face like he was looking for something he needed there. She moved into him, wrapped her arms around him. He put the beer down and held onto her as tightly as he ever had in their years together. She felt the magnetic draw of their sexual chemistry and the pull of his connection to her heart.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, looking up at him. “Are you okay?”

  “I will be. I just needed to see him, you know? And you. I needed to remember what was real.”

  She pulled away from him and walked into the living room. She needed to get away from him. She wanted to comfort him but it was too easy to get pulled into his universe, to let that familiarity and desire draw her back into his thrall. She sat on the couch and curled her legs up. He sat across from her.

  “Don’t worry,” he said. “I’m not going to put the moves on you tonight, Jez. I just need to be here awhile, okay.”

  She nodded and felt a wash of relief laced with disappointment.

  “Okay,” she said, getting up with a nod. She walked to the hall closet and withdrew a blanket and pillows, brought them back to the couch. She stood beside Dylan and put a hand on his strong shoulder, touched the back of his neck. The urge to care for him was as strong as it had ever been.

  “You can stay here tonight if you want, Dylan,” she said. “On the couch. Just be gone when he gets up, okay? I don’t want him to get confused.”

  “Thanks, Jez,” he said looking up to her and taking her hand. “I never deserved you. Don’t think I don’t know that.”

  She smiled, kissed him on the top of the head. “We’ve both made mistakes.”

  Beware the man who thinks he doesn’t deserve you, her mother had famously warned. He knows himself better than you do.

  It wasn’t even an hour before she saw him standing in her doorway. She didn’t stop him as he entered her room and closed the door.

  “I’m sorry,” he said, sitting beside her. She moved easily into his arms and in the next moment, his lips were on her. There was something desperate about the way he kissed her and something primal within her responded to him the way she always had. Stupid, stupid, stupid, she chastised herself. But he felt too damn good to turn away. His soft, warm skin, the strong, defined muscles in his chest, her loneliness, her love for the man who had given her Benjamin, all of these elements formed a powerful alchemy that she could never resist.

  He’d drifted off after making love to Katrina; it wasn’t like him. He didn’t like to linger at her place, but she’d let him sleep awhile. When he opened his eyes, she lay beside him on her side, propped up on her elbow. A blue light glowed in her window from the sign for an all-night livery cab company across the street. Her perfectly round breasts with rosebud nipples defied gravity, her thick, honey-colored hair draped over her slender shoulder and neck. The shadows from outside, the swaying branches of a tree, a passing car, drifted over her face and body, the wall behind her. She was so beautiful he could almost imagine loving her.

  “You want to stay?” she asked.

  “No,” he said, sitting up. “Thanks.” He smiled at her and touched her arm.

  “You can, you know,” she said, holding onto his hand for a second. “I don’t have anyone else tonight.”

  He looked at her; the expression on her face was open, sincere. She was young; he wasn’t sure how young. He’d never asked. He guessed in her early twenties. He wondered for a moment what it would be like to stay in her arms, to wake up beside her.

  “I should go,” he said and rose, pulling on his boxers.

  He saw her nod and get up, wrap herself in a purple silk robe. “I like it when you’re here, Mateo. I feel safe,” she said. “I know you’re a good man.”

  He thought her standards must be pretty low, but he was not cruel enough to say it even as a joke. “No one has the right to hurt you, Katrina,” he said, turning to look at her. “If anyone does, or even threatens, you let me know.”

  She smiled at him. “See what I mean,” she said. She walked over to the mirror and took a brush from the vanity there. She ran it through her hair.

  “No one hurts me.” She gazed at him in the mirror with heavy-lidded eyes. “Don’t worry, Mateo.”

  He watched her ass. It was perfect. Heart-shaped and soft as a down pillow. The sight of it beneath the purple silk made him go hard again. He turned away as he buttoned his shirt so she wouldn’t see.

  When he was dressed, he walked over to her with two hundred-dollar bills folded in half.

  “It’s too much, Mateo,” she said with a pout and a shake of her head. Her hair flipped prettily as her tiny hands, soft and carefully manicured, reached for the cash.

  “Take it. Please,” he said, giving her a soft kiss on the mouth. It was a dance that they did. Somehow she knew he needed her to act like he didn’t have to pay. Maybe all men who came to see her needed that. But she had a way of making him feel like she wanted him there. He spent a lot of time wondering if she was sincere or not. He’d never been with a woman in this way before. He’d never paid for it. There were things about
it that he liked. There were things about it that he hated. But he kept coming back.

  At the door, she kissed him again and they both pretended that they didn’t hear her cell phone ring in her purse. On the stairs, he heard the tinkle of her laughter like ice cubes in a glass at a party to which he hadn’t been invited. He pretended it didn’t bother him as he got into his car where his own cell phone was ringing.

  “What are you doing up?” he answered, seeing Jez’s number on the caller ID. It was nearly one in the morning.

  “I wanted to tell you about something I saw on the news before I forgot. Did you hear about a weird shooting in Riverdale on Halloween?”

  “Sounds vaguely familiar. It was a hoax though, wasn’t it?”

  “I guess. Maybe,” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “But I saw this item on the news that the police are looking for information. I thought we could at least get some info, a description of the woman who was supposedly shot.”

  “Good idea. I’ll check it out tomorrow. Why are you whispering?” he asked. He knew the layout of her apartment. Even with Ben asleep, she wouldn’t have to whisper to avoid waking him. She didn’t answer him.

  “Oh, Jez. For Christ’s sake,” he said with a groan.

  “He shot someone last night. He wanted to see Ben.”

  Matt had heard a cop shot some kid in the Bronx last night but he hadn’t made the connection. He wasn’t surprised. Dylan always was a cocked fist looking for a jaw, a drawn gun waiting for an excuse. It had only been a matter of time before he killed someone.

  “Was it good?”

  “Yeah, he says it was good. But he’ll have some time on his hands while they investigate.”

  “And he’ll be looking to spend it with you.”

  “With Ben,” she said firmly.

  He bit his tongue. There was no point in lecturing. Dylan Breslow was a habit Jesamyn couldn’t break. It never ceased to amaze him when good, smart, beautiful women fell for the men who were guaranteed to hurt them again and again. At least she’d gotten as far as divorcing him. Now it seemed it was just a matter of learning not to sleep with him every time he showed up at her place.

  “I gotta go,” she said. “See you tomorrow.”

  “Good-night, Jez.”

  Seven

  I don’t know the address,” said Dax, looking at the photocopy of Michele LaForge’s driver’s license under the bright track lighting in his kitchen. “But that doesn’t mean anything.”

  He hefted his weight onto one of the bar stools that stood in front of the counter. Lydia could tell by the way he had been standing that his injury was hurting him. She didn’t say anything. It made him mad when she did. But it was hard to see Dax struggling physically, like watching a dog with three legs. It just seemed so wrong; especially since Lydia blamed herself and knew Jeffrey felt a similar burden of guilt.

  “Everything’s always about the two of you,” Dax had said when they’d tried to apologize. “The Lydia and Jeffrey Show, twenty-four-hour drama and mayhem. It’s not your fault. It’s my fault. It’s not even my fault. It’s Jed McIntyre’s fault. And that goddamn midget.”

  She realized she was staring at him and averted her eyes when he raised his eyes from the paper in his hand. “She looks a little freaky, if you ask me,” said Dax.

  “That was her two years ago,” said Lydia. “This is her now.” She handed him the picture she’d taken from Lily’s wall.

  “Big improvement,” said Dax. “Wow. What did she do anyway? Why are you so interested in her?”

  They told him about Lily and Mickey Samuels, about Mariah, a.k.a. Michele LaForge. Dax glanced at the photograph of Mickey and Mariah.

  “You can’t trust a woman who looks that good,” said Dax with a shake of his head, handing the picture back to Lydia.

  “That is insulting on so many levels, I can’t even begin to address them,” she said, snapping the photo from his hand.

  “What?” he said, pulling wide innocent eyes. “Why?”

  “Well, what are you saying?” she asked, leaning toward him on the counter. “That I’m ugly or that I’m not trustworthy?”

  He smiled at her in the obnoxious way he had when he was baiting her. “Why do you have to take everything so personally?”

  She rolled her eyes and moved over toward Jeffrey, looked over his shoulder at the screen.

  “Anyway,” said Dax, “my point is: did she have anything to gain from Mickey’s death or Lily’s disappearance?”

  Lydia shrugged. “She’d only been dating Mickey for a short time, so I doubt he wrote her into his will. It’s my sense that she and Lily didn’t get along but I don’t see where she’d have anything to gain by Lily disappearing.”

  Jeffrey was looking at her. “Maybe it’s possible that they put their differences aside and were working together to try to find out what happened to Mickey. Maybe neither of them believed he’d killed himself. That would explain her giving Lily a lift to the bank. Maybe they’ve gone off together, following some kind of lead.”

  “But Jasmine mentioned that Mariah didn’t even come to Mickey’s funeral. They’d broken up.”

  Jeffrey nodded. She could see him shifting the pieces around in his mind.

  “Maybe,” said Dax, “she was taking advantage of Lily’s vulnerable state, manipulating her in some way.”

  “What? To take her money?” asked Lydia. She answered her own question. “Maybe.”

  The world was full of all kinds of predators. Lydia looked at the picture of Mickey and Mariah. Where before Mariah had just seemed somewhat off-putting with her coquettish smile and knowing eyes, now Lydia saw malice in her.

  “Well, let’s see if we can’t find Ms. LaForge and see what she has to say,” said Jeffrey, turning around the screen and showing the map to her last known address.

  ***

  Give it to me,” whispered Lydia. It had been her habit for most of the fifteen years they’d known each other to lean over his shoulder and give him advice on whatever it was he was doing and then try to take over. Tonight it was picking a lock on a wooden gate. Jeffrey found this simultaneously annoying and lovable, like so many of her personality quirks.

  “I got it,” said Jeffrey, working at the lock with the tools he’d brought in the inside pocket of his coat.

  The night was cold and dark with no moonlight, no stars visible in the sky; a streetlamp above them was browned out, glowing an eerie orange but casting no light.

  “Can you even see?” she asked, trying to nudge him out of the way.

  “Excuse me,” he said, nudging her back. “I was doing this when you were still in grade school.” The lock to the wooden gate snapped open as if to emphasize his point. Behind it was a high, narrow set of stairs that led into a deeper darkness.

  Jeffrey led the way up the stairs as Lydia closed the gate behind them. The night was hushed, only the distant rush of cars on the Henry Hudson to the west of them and Broadway to the east was audible, just barely. And the occasional squeal of the 1/9 train coming to a stop in the railroad yards below them.

  The steep stone staircase was overrun with weeds and in terrible disrepair, making their progress upward difficult and treacherous. At the top there was another door. The wood was decayed, looked as if it might have been painted red at one point. A notice had been pasted there. It read menacingly: CONDEMNED: THIS STRUCTURE HAS BEEN DECLARED UNSAFE AND UNINHABITABLE BY THE CITY OF NEW YORK. TRESPASSING IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED. VIOLATORS WILL BE PROSECUTED.

  “You don’t think that means us, do you?” asked Lydia.

  “Nah,” answered Jeffrey. He was about to go to work on the lock when Lydia pushed on the door and it opened slowly, emitting a high-pitched squeak.

  They stepped onto a floor that felt soft beneath their feet; a smell of mold and rot was strong. Lydia pulled a small flashlight from her pocket and shone the powerful beam into the darkness. Some small dark forms skittered away from the light and she shuddered. The room was
narrow and bare, wood floors, stone walls, a fireplace centered on the supporting wall. Two large windows at the back of the narrow space looked out into a thick of trees. They walked the space and found a narrow staircase toward the back of the building leading up to a second level. It looked old. It smelled old. It felt old.

  “What is this place?” Jeffrey asked. The layer of dust, the sheer aura of abandonment told Jeffrey that no one had lived there for years.

  “She used a fake address for her driver’s license?” said Lydia.

  They walked up the narrow flight of stairs, Jeffrey leading the way and testing his weight carefully on each step as they wound into the darkness of the upper level. At the top they entered an almost identical room to the one downstairs. It was empty as well, clean and Spartan. From the window, he could see the Range Rover on the street where Dax was sitting, waiting for them and keeping watch on the entrance. He’d looked dejected when they’d left him behind in the car, like the last kid to get picked for the stickball game. But they all knew he wasn’t in any condition to come along.

  Jeffrey could feel Lydia’s disappointment as she swung the beam of the flashlight around the barren room. They both smelled a dead end.

  “Is this all there is to this place?” she said. He didn’t really think she was expecting an answer so he didn’t give one. Her voice echoed against the stone, sounding hollow and sad.

  The phone in his pocket vibrated. He withdrew it and answered.

  “Someone’s coming. He parked down the street and came up on foot; I didn’t see him at first,” said Dax. “Shit. He’s in the gate. Scary-looking dude.”

  Jeff hung up and killed the flashlight. A second later, they heard footsteps downstairs. Firm and purposeful, they crossed the span of the downstairs room. Male, medium build, Jeffrey surmised. Expecting to hear someone climb the stairs, he drew the Glock he carried at his waist. He and Lydia retreated quickly and quietly to the separate far dark corners of the space, and waited. He felt the adrenaline start to pump.