Blowing Smoke (7 page)

“And what firm is that?” I asked as I rose to my feet.

Ryan named one of the big ones, the kind that routinely did work for corporations. “Naturally, your compensation would be in line with what we pay our other operatives.”

“Do you buy everyone off this easily?”

Ryan glared at me. “I find your remark extremely offensive.”

“And I find your attitude offensive, so I guess that makes us even.”

Ryan opened his mouth to say something else, but Rose put her hand up, and he closed his mouth, clasped his hands behind his back, and moved off to the left. The cat began rubbing the side of its head against Rose Taylor's arms. “I won't have you going around questioning people about her.”

“Is there something you're afraid I'll find out?”

Rose Taylor's eyes assessed me as if I were a piece of meat she was getting ready to eat. “At the very least my children could have chosen a professional.”

I could feel my cheeks redden. I told her I'd show myself out.

She nodded distractedly, her attention having shifted from me to Sheba. When I left, she and her lawyer had their heads bent together, quietly conferring, confident, I was sure, that they'd taken care of the problem—me. And why shouldn't they? After all, that's what they were used to. They summoned, they demanded, they offered a little crumb from their table, and people scurried to do what was asked of them.

As I walked through the hallway, my footsteps echoing on the marble tile, all I could think of was what it would be like growing up with Rose as my mother, someone who always wanted her own way and was prepared to do anything to get it. It wouldn't be Brady Bunch time, that was for sure. Rose could have yelled at me. She hadn't. Instead, she tried to enlist my sympathies, to sweet talk me around to her point of view. That kind of thing is harder to fight. Much more insidious.

I was wondering how much of what Rose Taylor had told me about her children was true as I stepped outside into the heat. Most of it, I was willing to wager. I took a deep breath and put my sunglasses back on. The air was soupy with humidity. Two seconds and my T-shirt was sticking to my back. God, did I wish it would rain. It kept threatening to but didn't.

The weather made me want to head to the mall and stay there, along with the rest of the population of Syracuse. This global-warming thing definitely sucked. Why hadn't I bought an air conditioner for my bedroom when I could have? Now there were none left in the entire city. Or at least none that I'd been able to find. I was on three waiting lists, at three different stores, and nary a one of them had called.

As I walked to my car, I found my eyes drifting toward the pool. It was a classic, kidney-shaped, with white chaise longues around it. The water was so blue. I was imagining myself in it, thinking how nice it would be to just jump in clothes and all when I noticed two figures standing very close together.

One was a small redhead in a bikini. The other one was Rose Taylor's husband.

They both looked as if they were having a very good time.

Very good indeed.

I
was more than halfway to the pool before Geoff and the redhead realized anyone was there. They were so engrossed in each other, they probably wouldn't have seen me until I tapped them on the shoulders if a little white bichon frise with a red bow stuck between its ears hadn't come tearing out at me, yapping its head off.

I grinned and waved at Geoff as he turned toward the noise. His face froze for an instant. Then he recovered and put on the smile I'd seen in the store that morning.

“Nice place you've got,” I commented as I walked toward them.

The bichon frise continued growling, retreating as I advanced. Since the dog weighed ten pounds, if that, I didn't pay it much mind.

“Maurice,” the woman called as Geoff took a hasty step away from her. “Behave yourself.”

Maurice wagged his tail, barked at me again to show he had matters in hand, then, duty done, scurried to the safety of his mistress's feet.

“He's shy,” she explained, scooping the dog up in her arms and rearranging his bow.

I nodded to Geoff. “I see your business wasn't that press-ting.”

“The people I had to call weren't in,” he mumbled, digging a hole in the grass with his toe.

“Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?”

He reached for his shirt, which was hanging on the back of one of the chaise longues. With it off, I could see that he had a good start on a potbelly.

“This is Shana Driscoll, Rose's nurse.”

I extended my hand, and she put the dog down and shook it.

“Irish?” I guessed.

“From outside of Dublin.” She had a slight brogue. “Could it be me name that gives me away?”

Geoffrey stepped between us. “Shana has been with us since Rose's stroke.”

I stepped around him. “Your wife doesn't seem as if she'd need a nurse.”

Shana smiled. She was pretty in a girl-next-door kind of way, with her blue eyes, white skin, and freckles. “She likes to pretend she doesn't, but actually she still needs help getting dressed and putting on her makeup. She's a very gallant lady, Mrs. Taylor is. She's working very hard to get all her faculties back.”

“I bet she is.”

Geoff shot me a glance.

“I mean, who wouldn't,” I replied as I watched the bichon frise start trotting down a heavily landscaped path that led away from the pool.

“Maurice,” Shana called. “Come back. Mommy will be with you in a moment.”

But the dog kept going. As if it were going home.

“You live here?”

She looked at Geoff, seeking guidance, but he was avoiding her eyes. She looked back at me and squared her shoulders. “Why, yes. In the cottage around back. It was a grand gesture, Mrs. Taylor offering the use of that little house to me. It used to be the groundskeeper's, but now she hires out. It's hard finding a place close by that will let me keep Maurice. I'm so lucky. Mrs. Taylor lets me use the pool and the tennis courts.”

“How convenient.”

“She's a generous lady.”

Possibly more generous than she knows, I thought.

“Really,” Shana protested in the face of my silence. “She is. I know some people don't think so, but she's a dear.”

“Shana and I were planning Rose's birthday party,” Geoffrey explained before I could say anything else.

“We want it to be a surprise,” Shana added.

I took my hair out of its rubber band, pulled it back, and redid my ponytail before replying. It's weather like this that makes me want to cut it all off. “Rose doesn't strike me as someone who likes surprises.”

Shana frowned. “It's true she's been going on about not wanting a party, but I think she's just blathering. Everyone likes a cake and candles.”

Not when you're in your seventies and your husband is twenty-five or thirty years younger. I was about to say something to that effect when Geoffrey took me by my elbow and steered me around. I glanced down at his hand. He removed it and started buttoning his shirt instead.

“Here,” he said. “Let me walk you to your car.”

“By all means. I wouldn't want you to be remiss in your duties as a host.”

Geoff didn't reply, but by the way he was clenching his jaw muscles, I figured it wasn't because he didn't want to. He was remarkably thin-skinned, given his living circumstances.

We skirted a large bed of roses. There must have been twenty different varieties, each one neatly pruned and labeled. For someone who'd just told me she didn't like them, Rose Taylor certainly had a fair number of specimens in evidence. I reached over, plucked a small yellow blossom, and held it to my nose.

“Hybrids aren't perfumed,” Geoff informed me.

I lifted my head up. “You know about roses?”

“Enough to get by.”

“It's funny, but when I first saw you, I wouldn't have pegged you as that kind of guy.”

Geoff gave me a sidelong glance. “What kind of guy is that?”

“The kind that likes roses.”

“And why is that?”

“Because roses are old-fashioned. You seem like a—”

“Let's just drop the subject, shall we?”

“What subject? Your horticultural expertise?” I took another couple of steps. The grass smelled so sweet, I wanted to lie down and bury my face in it. “Fine. Here's a different question. How did you get this gig, anyway? It seems to me you have a pretty cushy deal going on even if you do have to run a few errands now and then.”

Geoff stopped and grabbed hold of my arm. Hard.

“If you don't mind.” I shook his hand off. “I can do without the black-and-blue marks.”

“I don't expect someone like you to understand this, but I love my wife.” This from between gritted teeth.

“Someone like me?”

“A prying, low-life sleaze.”

“Prying, low-life sleaze?” I repeated. “That's a little harsh, don't you think?”

He scowled and shoved his face closer to mine. “What I think is, I'm tired of your insinuations. Understand?”

“Oh, I understand. What I'm wondering is whether your wife would understand if she saw you and Shana together.” And with that I turned and walked toward my car.

Even though I'd parked it in the shade, I could feel the heat inside lapping at my arms and chest when I opened my car's door. The steering wheel was hot to the touch. I was thinking that the next car I bought would definitely have air conditioning while I started it up and drove around the driveway. As I headed for the main road, I caught a glimpse of Geoff in the rearview mirror. He was standing where I'd left him, watching me. I waved good-bye. For some reason, he didn't wave back.

 

 

I inhaled the hospital odors of fear and antiseptic as I walked down the corridor toward Raul Montenegro's room. Raul Montenegro was the name I'd given to the guy I'd picked up on the road. It had popped into my head on the way over. Somehow it seemed to fit him. I wanted to ask him if he liked it, but I couldn't. His room was empty. The beds were made up, blankets taut with expectation, waiting for the next person to inhabit them. A whey-faced man wearing a loosely tied bathrobe and slippers, eyes trained on the floor, shuffled by me down the corridor.

“Excuse me,” I said to him. “Do you know what happened to the man in this room?”

He shook his head and shuffled on, his world shrunk to the few inches of linoleum in front of him.

Right.

I knocked on the door across the hall. A woman told me to come in. She was sitting in a chair, crocheting an afghan square. In the bed beside her lay a stick of a man hooked up to a welter of machinery. I asked her about Raul.

“Are you a relative?”

“A friend,” I lied as I watched her fingers work, feeding the wool into the pattern.

“I'm sorry, dear, but he went to his reward this afternoon. Around three-thirty” But she didn't seem sorry at all. Just weary. She glanced at the motionless man lying in the bed, assessing him, while her fingers flew “It happens to us all sooner or later. Sometimes sooner is better.”

I'm not sure why Raul's death upset me. After all, I didn't even know the man. Maybe because it seemed a shame that he had to die alone, surrounded by strangers. The elevator doors opened with a whooshing noise, and I stepped inside. It was crowded with departing visitors. No one talked. Everyone faced straight ahead and looked at the numbers on the floors. In the back someone was crying quietly. Everyone pretended they didn't hear it. It was a relief when the doors opened and we disgorged into the lobby. I took Raul's picture out of my backpack and looked at it. So much for giving it back.

I stopped at a trash can near the door, but I couldn't bring myself to throw it away. I examined it again. The man in the photo looked as if he were a younger, healthier version of Raul. I wondered if the woman in the snapshot was his wife, the child his child?

“All right, Dorita, whoever you are,” I murmured. “I'm not promising anything, but I'll see what I can do.”

I was slipping the photo in my backpack when my cell phone rang. I thought it was going to be Hillary screaming about my meeting with her mother. I knew I should have alerted her first before going over there. But it wasn't. It was Calli telling me she wouldn't be able to meet me at B&N tonight. Something had come up. And I knew who that something was. Richard. Calli's taste in men was awful, but this one was the worst yet. He was a boozer and womanizer who grew grass on the side. But of course Calli was going to save him—just as she was going to save the man who had taken her to California and dumped her or the one who had a thing about having sex with women over twenty-five.

“You are such a moron,” I told her.

“I know. I know.”

“Call me and tell me what happens.”

“Of course. Talk to you soon.” And Calli hung up.

God, I thought as I walked out of the hospital, what is wrong with us? Why can't we ever hook up with nice men? I knew there were some out there. Somewhere. And then my thoughts drifted back to Raul. Had he been a nice man? I thought I'd call Paul in the morning and see if anyone had reported someone missing. Not that I thought that would be the case. Especially if he was an undocumented worker. It would probably be a good idea to make time to visit the trailer park Arthur Peterson had bitched about. Maybe there was someone there who knew who Raul really was.

 

 

By the time I got back to Noah's Ark, Tim had already closed it up and left. I said hello to Zsa Zsa and fed her a couple of doggie cookies; then I called Hillary and Pat Humphrey. Neither one was in. I left messages on both their machines while I looked over the messages Tim had left for me. There were five all together—two from distributors wanting money and three from people wanting me to get them snakes. I was thinking about who I knew that was breeding emerald tree boas when Manuel walked through the door.

It had been about a month since I'd last seen him, and he didn't look good. More like a stray cat that's been hanging out in the woods for too long. Always on the thin side, he was now verging on emaciated. Plus he had rings under his eyes, and his skin, normally light brown, was grayish. He'd cut his dark hair Caesar style and was sporting a pair of long sideburns, both of which only served to underline the gauntness of his face.

“Hey, Robin. How's it goin'?” he asked as he yanked his baggies up.

I don't know why all the kids insist on wearing clothes that are four sizes too big for them, but then I guess that's what our parents said about what we wore.

“Not bad.” I reached for a cigarette as Zsa Zsa came dashing out from behind the counter and started rubbing up against Manuel's ankles.

“You been a good girl?” he crooned to her as he squatted down and began to rub her rump. “You miss me?”

She groaned with pleasure. The months Manuel had stayed in my house, she'd slept in his bed at night, curled up beside him. They'd made a cute couple, though Manuel hadn't appreciated the observation. After about five minutes, Manuel straightened up and turned his head. Now that he was closer, I could see that the lower side of his mouth looked like a rotten melon.

I pointed at the bruise. “Nice. What happened?”

He shrugged, reflexively touching the damaged side of his face. “Just a fight.” Then he reached over, grabbed six of the small toy mice I keep in a box by the register, and began juggling them. “Think I can keep all of them up in the air?”

“Sure. How's your dad these days?”

“Haven't seen him,” Manuel said, concentrating too hard on the toy mice. “Why are you asking?”

I wanted to say: I'm asking because I think your father gave you that bruise; I'm asking because I want to know how much longer this is going to go on; I'm asking because I care. But I didn't. The last time I'd tried, Manuel had turned around and headed out the door. If one of Manuel's friends hadn't let it slip that Manuel's father slammed him around, I never would have known. He'd never said anything. Even when I flat out asked him.

I'd seen Manuel's father once. He was a big man. Way bigger than Manuel. If it were up to me, he'd be in jail. But Manuel protected him. He took the beatings when they came, then vacated the premises, waiting a week or sometimes more until his father left the house before he returned. Fortunately, his dad wasn't around much anymore.

I was wondering whether I should call social services, anyway, when Manuel lost his rhythm and two of the mice dropped on the counter. “Guess I need more practice,” he said, putting all of them back in the box. “Tim here?”