Blowing Smoke (21 page)

Paul reached for his pen. I gave him Geoff's, Hillary's, Amy's, and Louis's names. “See what you come up with.”

“You got money for this?” he asked as he jotted them down.

I showed him the deposit slip for Rose Taylor's cash.

He whistled. “That's rather a departure from the usual low-life scum you deal with.”

“Charming as always.”

He winked again. “That's why the ladies love me. I'll give you a jingle when I have something. And listen, my offer about working with me, it still stands.”

“I'll bear that in mind. And Paul . . .” He looked up. “You're working the thirties-gumshoe bit a little too hard.”

 

 

On the way back to the store I stopped at George's house and knocked on his door. I wanted to see how he was doing after the other night. Not well, I decided when he came outside. His eyes were bloodshot, and his clothes, a stained T-shirt and a dirty pair of shorts, looked as if he'd slept in them. He needed a shave, and I wasn't sure, but I thought I smelled the faint odor of alcohol coming off him.

“I'm working,” he told me when he saw me. He had a withdrawn expression on his face.

“Can't I come in for a few minutes?”

George glanced at his watch. “I'm sorry. I haven't got the time. Is there anything else?”

“So now we're doing polite?”

“Robin, what is it?” And he tapped his fingers on his thighs while he waited for me to complete my sentence.

“I think we should talk about what happened with Sinclair.”

“Let's not.” George's expression hardened even more. “There nothing to discuss. I lost my temper, I punched him. End of story. Hopefully, he wouldn't file assault charges.”

“George . . .”

He lifted a hand. “Stop.”

“But . . .”

“No. I don't like who I am when I'm with people like Sinclair; I don't like what I become. That's why I quit the force. So I wouldn't have to deal with this kind of thing. I'm happy where I am now, studying history. I enjoy going to the library and teaching my classes. The other night . . . It just swept everything away, and I was back on the street again.

“I don't want that.” Then he added, “Although, I'd rather be dealing with the crackheads on the corner than with the group you are currently mixed up with. At least with them you know where you stand.” And with that he went inside and left me standing in the heat.

I had a lump in my throat all the way to the store.

L
ater that evening, I went to hear Hillary sing in a North Side bar called Quotations. The full moon's reddish tinge and the clarity of the air gave the streets the feel of a Rousseau painting. A gust of wind had kicked up, and I was watching a sheet of newspaper dancing across the pavement when Paul called me on my cell phone.

“Darlin',” he said, his voice sounding slurred from too much drink. I heard the plaint of country western playing in the background. “I got the info you wanted.”

“Where are you?”

He giggled and told me what he'd found out. But aside from the fact that Geoff had been a tennis pro before he met Rose and had two DWI arrests and that Hillary also had a DWI in her past, he hadn't been able to turn up too much of interest.

“You wanna join me? Keep old Paulie company? We could look together.”

“I don't do country western.” And I pressed the OFF switch. As long as I was on the phone, I tried George again, but either he wasn't in or he wasn't answering. “You'd better start talking to me,” I told his machine as I turned onto North State Street. Then I turned off my cell and considered what I was about to do.

Hillary and I hadn't parted well the last time we'd spoken. She'd accused me of betraying her to her mother. Even though I hadn't, I could see her point of view. I wondered what she'd say to me now, especially in light of what had happened recently, as I parked in front of Quotations.

Located in a working-class neighborhood, the club faced the backside of Saint Joe's, offering an extensive view of the hospital's concrete wall. It had been in existence for a little over six months. If the number of people sitting at the bar was any indication, getting through months number seven and eight was going to be somewhat iffy.

I'd been told that the owner was a twenty-four-year-old college dropout called Little Johnny Q. He'd picked up his nickname to distinguish him from the four other Johnnies in his Cazenovia elementary-school class. The only son of a former county district attorney, he'd flunked out of Cornell due to his penchant for alcohol and weed, at which point he'd gone down to the city, kicked around, and come back after deciding he wanted to be Syracuse's new impresario.

His father, who was not exactly poor, had come up with the backing, and the kid had bought an old neighborhood bar, gutted the place, and decked it out in classic Soho industrial style. Quotations had a long, gleaming steel bar, a raised dance floor, exposed wires and pipes, and wall studs that would rip your sweater if you got too close—as well as lighting so dark you'd have to light a match to read the menu. And that, of course, was the problem. Johnny Q had put a trendy club in a neighborhood where the restaurants had never stopped serving mashed potatoes, iceberg lettuce, and Spanish rice. People that lived here not only didn't get “it” but didn't want to, and from what I could see, the place wasn't drawing anyone from the other side of town. It was Thursday night, traditionally a night to hit the clubs, and this one was three-quarters empty.

I paid my entrance fee, got my hand stamped, and walked inside. Hillary was up on the small stage making like Billie Holiday to a handful of chattering people who weren't paying attention but should have. Because the lady was good. I was surprised at how good. Somehow I'd thought she'd be strictly amateur, one of those karaoke wanna-bes, but she had a real edge to her. She could have sung in any club in New York City and come out okay.

Despite the heat, Hillary was wearing a long-sleeved black cotton sweater over a white tank top and a tight black rayon skirt that was slit up to her thigh and made her look even thinner than she already was. Her black hair formed a lank curtain around her face, and her eye makeup was smudged under her eyes, giving her face a bruised quality. She was leaning against the piano, her eyelids half-closed, her hands clasped around the mike, swaying very gently from side to side, seemingly oblivious to the whirring of the ceiling fan above her.

She gave off the feeling that she was singing to herself and that I'd wandered into someplace private, someplace I wasn't supposed to be. Her voice was rich, with a vibrato that she could turn on and off. And then suddenly it was over. The piano player stopped playing. Hillary opened her eyes, replaced the microphone on the stand, and abruptly walked off the stage without glancing at the audience or giving them a chance to applaud. The piano player, who looked as if he worked as an actuary in an insurance agency in his button-down short-sleeve shirt, got up, gave an abrupt little bow, and followed Hillary down the two steps and into the back.

I shook off the seeds of sadness her song had planted in me, walked over to the bar, and ordered a Sierra Nevada Pale Ale from the bartender. A good-looking guy in an aging-hippie kind of way, he was broad-shouldered, stood a little over six feet, and sported a suntan and a long gray ponytail, but there was a vacancy around the eyes that didn't inspire confidence. When he put my glass down in front of me, I asked him when Hillary was going to be singing again.

He shrugged. “You got me. Sometimes she does two or three sets a night. Sometimes she just packs it up and goes home. It all depends on her mood. And the audience.” He pursed his mouth as he took stock of the room. “Tonight I have the feeling she's going to go home early.”

“She's good.”

“If you like that kind of music.” He stifled a yawn and glanced at his watch. “Myself, I prefer listening to something a little more upbeat.” His eyes drifted off, following a girl in tight white pants, a tank top, and mules who'd just gotten up.

“I need to speak to her.”

“Hillary?”

“Who else are we talking about?” I took a sip of the Pale Ale and made a face. “This is stale,” I said, pushing the stein back toward him.

He took a sip. “Tastes all right to me.”

“I wouldn't brag about that if I were you.”

“So you want something else or what?” the bartender asked, dumping the beer down the drain without taking his eyes off the girl as she sashayed across the floor.

“What's your name?”

“Russell.” He said this with his eyes still firmly fixed on the girl's ass.

“Okay, Russell. What I want is to speak to Hillary.”

“You the person she's waiting for?”

I lied and told him I was.

He watched the girl take a left into a hallway and disappear from view before turning back to me. “That's funny,” he replied, plastering a smirk on his face. “Hilly said she was waiting for a guy.”

I slid a twenty across the bar. “Sex-change operations can do wonderful things these days.”

He slipped the bill into his pocket as a man signaled to him from the other side of the bar. “She's in her dressing room. That's two doors down from the bathroom. Tell her Russell said he's still waiting. She'll know what I mean.”

“Tell her yourself.” And I left.

 

 

If the bar area was dark, the hallway was even darker. The only light came from wall sconces decked out in dark-red-and-purple shades. The first time through I miscounted the doors, because what I thought was the third door turned out to be the bathroom, while the door after that was an office. Outlined in a halo of bright light, I caught a glimpse of a young, well-dressed guy and a couple of Hispanics in cutoff jeans and stained sweatshirts arguing. They stopped when they saw me. We stared at each other for a few seconds. Then I apologized, shut the door, and retraced my steps. The second time I got it right.

The door to Hillary's dressing room was slightly ajar. I pushed it open and walked in. The place was stifling. Windowless, it smelled of sweat, talcum powder, nail-polish remover, and smoke. I noticed a fan sitting unused over in the corner. Looking around, I got a quick impression of a sofa with ripped cushions shoved against the far wall, a chair piled high with clothes, a grime-stained rug with its pattern long since worn away, and urine-colored paint on the walls. Hillary was sitting in front of her dressing table. Her head was bent down. She was holding a nail file and considering the nails on her left hand.

The door creaked when I closed it.

“What the hell took you so long?” Hillary asked without looking up.

“I've been asking myself the same question.”

Hillary's head shot up. She dropped the nail file and quickly shoved something lying on her dressing table underneath a crumpled-up towel. “What are you doing here?” she demanded, swiveling around to face me.

“You invited me to hear you sing.” I found myself staring at Hillary's shoulder blades. They protruded from her skin, as fragile as a wren's wing. “I really enjoyed you out there. Have you recorded anything?”

“A couple of CDs under a local label. They never went anywhere.” She cocked her head. Her hair fell over one side of her face. She pushed it back behind her ear. “So that's why you're here? To tell me how much you liked hearing me sing?”

“Among other reasons.”

She looked at me uncertainly, not sure of what was coming next, then slipped into her best Emily Post manner. “Well, thanks for coming. It was nice of you to tell me, and now that you have, I'd like you to go. I'm tired, and I need to rest before I go on again.”

“This will just take a few minutes. It's about Pat Humphrey.”

Hillary stuck her jaw out. “Whatever I had to say about her, I've already said to the police.”

“Say it to me.”

Hillary stared at me for a moment. “Who sent you? Ryan? My mother?” She searched my face. “It was my mother, wasn't it?”

“Yes, it was.”

“Well, screw her. I don't have to talk to you.”

“She's worried about you.”

Hillary snorted. “That would be a first.” She turned her back on me. I could see her reflection in the looking glass mounted on her dressing table. “You have to go.”

“After we've talked.”

Her hand moved toward the towel and back again. “No. Leave now.” Her voice had grown higher. I noticed her hands were trembling. “This is my dressing room. Do I have to call Security?”

As I watched her, suddenly everything fell into place. Her extreme thinness. The way she was always wearing long-sleeved shirts and sweaters when everyone else was stripped down to tube tops and shorts. I cursed myself for not having seen it sooner, but then you usually only see what you're looking for.

“What are you doing?” Hillary demanded, turning toward me as I crossed the room. “I told you to leave.”

“Show me what's under that towel.” I pointed to the dressing table.

“You're crazy.” Hillary's eyes widened.

“Maybe. Maybe not.” I leaned over.

Hillary grabbed my wrist as I reached for the towel. “How dare you?”

I shrugged her off easily; her grip was as insubstantial as a bracelet of dandelion flowers, but she was on me again like a leech. “Get out of here,” she shrieked as I disentangled myself and threw her back in her chair.

She jumped up and grabbed the nail file she'd been using as I raised the edge of the towel. A set of works—a syringe, a length of rubber tubing, the whole schmear—was sitting on a little lacquered tray.

“Can't get away from the Chinese motif, can you?” I told her as a starburst of pain went off.

I looked down. I saw blood on my arm. Then I saw the red-stained nail file Hillary was holding. I wrenched it out of her hand, grasped both of her shoulders, and shook her.

“Are you crazy?”

“You have no right,” Hillary was screaming when the door banged open and someone said, “What the hell is going on here? I can hear you down the hall.”

Hillary and I both turned at the same time. The guy I'd seen in the office was standing in the doorway. He appeared larger than he had when he was sitting down. A tribal tattoo ringed his neck.

“Nothing, Johnny,” Hillary whined, taking her seat and surreptitiously lowering the edge of the towel. “Nothing is going on.”

He glared at both of us. “There better not be. I don't need that kind of shit in here. I've warned you before.” Then he looked me up and down. “Who the hell are you?”

“An old friend.”

His brow furrowed. “So if you're an old friend, how come you're fighting?”

Hillary threw me a pleading look.

“We were just arguing over a pocketbook.” I gave him my best smile. “It's one of those women things.”

It was an embarrassingly bad story, but Johnny must have decided I wasn't worth bothering with because he grunted and turned his attention back to Hillary. “I don't want any more crap from you.”

“You won't get any.”

“I'm doing you a favor letting you be here at all.”

“I know,” Hillary whispered, and she hung her head.

Johnny looked from one to the other of us and back again. He jerked his chin at me. “I hear any more and you're out and she”—he pointed to Hillary—“never sings here again. Got it? Got it?” he repeated when I didn't answer immediately.

“Like crystal,” I said.

“So, how long have you been shooting up?” I asked Hillary when he left the room.

“I'm not.”

“And I raise roses for a living.” I took a tissue out of the box on the dresser and pressed it against the cut on my arm and watched the blood form a pretty design on the thin white paper. It took two more tissues before I stanched the bleeding.

“It's my friend's stuff. Really,” she protested as I threw the bloodstained Kleenex into the trash can.