House of Smoke (26 page)

N
IGHT, NINE O’CLOCK. KATE
sits in her office going over some notes, a half-eaten order of kung pao chicken coagulating in a cardboard container on the corner of her desk. This afternoon she spent three grueling hours interviewing a client for Paul Larson, a lawyer she works with who specializes in personal injury cases. It was hard, tedious work that left her drained.

She finishes typing her notes into the computer, backs it up, turns the machine off. She’ll print the report out in the morning, walk it over to Paul’s office. Dumping the remains of her dinner in the trash basket under her desk, she starts turning off the lights.

The telephone rings. Once, twice, three times. She debates with herself whether or not she should pick it up; she’s done with work for today, all she wants now is to pick up a cold bottle of wine, drive up to her hiding place above the city, and soak the grime away in the pool.

The call could be Cecil. She snatches the phone from the cradle a second before the machine would pick up. Hopefully: “Hello?”

“Is this Detective Blanchard?” It’s a man’s voice, unknown to her; slightly Latino-accented, soft, breathy.

“Who’s calling?” she asks cautiously.

“I heard you’re looking for some men.”

She holds the receiver away from her mouth for a moment, so he won’t hear the sharp exhale.

“What men are you talking about?” she parries.

“You know.”

“I do?”

“You been out on the street looking for them, ain’t you?”

“I’ve been talking to people, yes.”

“Well …”

She waits. Nothing more. “Yes?”

“The men that were in the jail. With that dope dealer that killed himself. You’re looking for those men … aren’t you?”

She closes her eyes, nods silently. “Yes,” she says into the phone. “I’m looking for them.”

She stands on the corner of Soledad and Indio Muerto, the heart of the barrio. It’s dark out, quiet. Her car is parked down the block.

The street is quiet, empty. She’s dressed for fast, easy movement—jeans, running shoes, a comfortable light jacket over a T-shirt. She carries her wallet in the jacket pocket. She didn’t bring her purse, or anything else. She was instructed not to.

“You’ll be picked up in an hour,” the voice on the telephone had told her. “Be alone, and unarmed.”

She glances at her watch. It’s been an hour, a little more. Where are they? She crosses her arms, uncrosses them, jams her hands into her back pants pockets. She doesn’t like standing out here alone: this is not a good area for a single woman to be at night, especially—she doesn’t like thinking this, but it’s a reality—a single Anglo woman. She’s a sitting target standing out here. A lot of bad shit happens in this neighborhood.

A black Infiniti Q45 comes cruising down the street, heading her way. The car pulls up to the curb in front of her.

She tenses.

The driver is a young Chicano, dressed in the standard uniform—white T-shirt, baggy khakis. Slicked-back hair. Big, muscular. He looks at her through the window, his face impassive. A second man, about the first one’s age, similarly dressed, is riding shotgun. Smaller than the driver, bone-lean. Much meaner-looking.

In the backseat, alone, sits the older hooker Kate had talked to on the street. She’s nervous, hyper, a bundle of twitches. Probably overdue for a fix, Kate guesses.

“This her?” shotgun asks the hooker.

“Yes.” Her voice is low. Her face is drained of color, the smell of fear is on her. Kate sees that at first glance.

He steps out of the car, looking her up and down, a quick, brutal appraisal.

“Let me have your jacket,” he says.

She takes off her jacket, hands it to him. He removes the wallet, rifles through it, checks out there’s nothing in the other pockets, puts the wallet back in the pocket he took it from, drapes the jacket on the roof of the car. The first man sits behind the wheel, watching stolidly.

“Turn around. Legs spread, arms out.”

“I’m not armed. As you requested.” She doesn’t want him touching her.

“Wire.”

“No recorder, either. I’m clean.”

The choice is not hers. “Do as I tell you,” he persists politely.

She turns her back to him, spreading her legs shoulder-width, arms ninety degrees from her body, stiffening involuntarily as he squats and begins patting her down, starting with her legs, moving up her body, sides, back, front. He knows how to do it—the way it’s been done many times, she’s sure, to him.

He hands her jacket over. She puts it on.

“Get in,” the man commands.

She stands on the curb, hesitating a moment. Anything could happen; no one knows she’s doing this. She’s a single woman, she comes and goes, answering to no one.

She opens the back door and gets in. The hooker slides against the opposite door, as far from Kate as she can get. The car pulls away in a smooth surge of power. Three blocks down it turns left on Milpas, heading towards the freeway.

They drive south on 101, a careful five miles over the speed limit. The traffic is sparse. The radio is turned on low to a Spanish-music station. Out of Santa Barbara they travel, past Montecito, Summerland, Carpinteria, crossing the county line at Rincon. The moon, three-quarters full, illuminates the low-breaking ocean waves, the lapping whitecaps etched with a phosphorescent glow, spreading out from the shoreline for several hundred yards.

No one talks. Kate stares out the windows as they glide past Rincon to her right and the small town of La Conchita to her left, then past the funky Cliff House motel, the highway a black winding ribbon paralleling the train tracks.

Where are they taking me? she wonders. More importantly—what have I gotten myself into?

They turn off onto California 1 at Oxnard, cruise down Oxnard Blvd. As they pass 5th St., 6th St., 7th St., the signage on the stores becomes increasingly, then completely, Spanish. Kate has only been in this area once. She and a Chicana friend who grew up around here, who now works in Goleta as a social worker, drove down for Mexican food. “The best Mexican food in the state,” the friend had boasted, and it was true: great, great food. You have to be from the area to know about it, or be introduced by someone who is. She had been the only non-Latino in the place.

The driver hangs a right onto a residential street. Small stucco houses, closely spaced on both sides, well-groomed vest-pocket front yards, many of them fenced with chain link. Rottweilers stare out through the links at anything passing close.

They park in front of a house in the middle of the block, a bungalow like the others around it. The grass has been recently cut, the edges trimmed. A large weeping willow overhangs the house, the branches brushing the roof. Inside, a few lights are on.

The two men get out. The driver walks around the car to Kate’s side, opens her door.

“Come with us,” the shotgun passenger tells her, getting out on his side. He looks over at the woman crouched low in the backseat. “Stay put,” he orders her.

Kate follows them up the path to the front door. The man who rode shotgun unlocks it with a key, ushers Kate in with a nod, then closes the door behind the three of them, double-bolting it.

The small living room is empty, but the television in the corner is on to an informational, the sound muted. The furniture, ordinary pieces, looks familiar to her. Her home in Oakland was furnished very much like this.

“Follow me.” Again the order comes from the man who’s done all the talking—it’s obvious to her that he’s more important than the driver. The driver is muscle. This one is more than that.

The driver guards the front door as the other man leads Kate through the house.

The kitchen is all the way in the back. A big room, larger than the living room, with the family room adjoining it—a built-on, garage conversion; a good, professional job.

Two men are seated at a table in the breakfast nook. They stand as she enters, a polite gesture. They’re older than the two that brought her; she guesses one of them to be in his mid-thirties, the other in his late twenties, although it’s hard to tell. They’ve led a hard life, that’s clear to see—much of it behind the bars of state prisons, she’d bet. They have the look of the con. She saw that look a lot when she was in law enforcement.

“Have a seat,” the older of them says to her, in a voice that, while polite enough, is used to being obeyed without question. To the man who led her in: “Wait in the other room.”

Shotgun-seat turns on his heel and leaves. He’s not important enough to remain for their conversation; this she understands immediately. There is a hierarchy here—the two men in this room are at the top.

She sits down as she was instructed. The two men sit opposite her, chairs turned backwards, their heavily muscled forearms resting on the seat backs. Both fix her with a strong, unwavering gaze.

“Coffee?” the man who told her to sit down asks. He gestures to a Mr. Coffee machine sitting on the kitchen counter, the “on” light glowing.

“No, thanks.” She doesn’t know how long this will take, she doesn’t want to have to use their bathroom.

No offer of anything stronger.

“You’re a private detective.” Again, the same man asking the question. He’s going to do all the talking, she assumes.

“That’s right.”

“You got a state license?”

“Yes.”

He nods. “Interesting job for a woman.”

“Beats waitressing.”

“Not too many of you, are there?”

A little bit of cat-and-mouse going on here. Establishing territories, boundaries.

“No,” she answers. She’s going to give him what’s necessary, nothing more.

“You work out of Santa Barbara, then?”

“Yes.”

“You live there?”

He can find out where she lives simply by looking in the phone book.

“Yes.”

“Most of your work … is it in Santa Barbara?”

“Almost all of it,” she answers. “I’m a one-person firm, I don’t have the resources to spread out.”

He nods, letting that settle in.

The second man hasn’t blinked. His look is right into her eyes.

“You good at what you do?” her questioner continues.

“I get the job done. My clients don’t have any complaints.”

“That’s good to hear.”

Why? she wonders.

“I appreciate professionalism,” he explains, as if reading her mind.

“I do too,” she says.

“It’s good we got that established.” He leans forward slightly, locking into eye contact with her. His partner maintains his posture. His eyes have not left her face the entire time she’s been in the kitchen.

She makes an assessment from her gut: he’s the one to worry about, the one you don’t ever want to turn your back to. He’s the one who will have no compassion, about anything.

“One thing about a professional,” the one doing the talking continues. “They know when to walk away from a losing hand.”

“I don’t play cards.”

“This thing you’re doing … looking for these men? That were in the same jail cell with that dope freak that killed himself?”

“I’m looking for someone who knows what happened to him, that’s right.” Don’t back down, you can’t back down from this.

“Don’t.”

She’s glad she didn’t take them up on the offer of coffee. Her leg begins to twitch under the table, involuntarily. She pushes down on her thigh with her palm to still it.

“I’d like to leave now,” she says, amazed at the audacity in her voice.

“You can leave any time you want. We’ll take you right back to where we picked you up, no
problema
. But hear me out first.”

She looks from one man to the other. “I’m listening.”

“You’re a smart woman. I can tell that just by being here with you for five minutes. I got good instincts for that.”

She breathes slowly, deeply, concentrating on her breathing. “I’ll take that as a compliment,” she allows.

“It is. One thing a smart woman knows, a smart woman detective especially, is when she’s in over her head. And right now, lady, you are in over your head.”

“How do you know that?”

His eyes flash.

Be careful, she warns herself, don’t push him too far. Listen to him, let him do the talking.

“I know shit you’ll never know,” he says, his voice low, barely audible. “This little investigation of yours, it’s much bigger than you realize, lady. You are out of your league. A lot.”

They said she could leave whenever she wanted to. If she asked to leave now, she doesn’t know if they’d let her. Either way, she’s afraid to try—that she hates herself for having that fear is of small consolation in the moment.

The man gets up from the table, walks to the end of the kitchen counter. He opens a black leather briefcase and takes out a manila envelope.

“Take this,” he tells her as he sits back down, sliding the envelope across the table to her.

She opens the clasp, looks inside. The envelope is full of money, crisp bills in bank wrappings.

“That’s twenty thousand dollars,” he says. “Count it if you don’t want to take my word. I won’t be offended.”

Her hands are shaking. She doesn’t try to hide it from them.

“I can’t take this.” She pushes the envelope back to their side of the table.

“You earned this. It’s yours.”

She shakes her head. “I can’t do this. I wish you had never shown this to me.”

“These men you’re looking for,” he says. “They can never be found. Never. Do you understand that?”

She doesn’t answer.

“Do you?”

“I don’t know.”

“Whatever happened … the jail, whatever … that is over and buried. It should stay that way.”

“You mean somebody wants it to stay that way. Enough to offer me twenty thousand dollars.” And scare the shit out of me, she thinks.

“It should stay that way,” he says again.

She nods. “You asked me to listen to you. I did. Now I want to go.”

She gets up. Her legs feel like bags of water; for a moment she’s afraid she’s going to collapse, but she manages to steady herself.

The man’s eyes narrow. “You’re not taking this money?” he asks in surprise. “It’s untraceable,” he adds, in case she mistook the content of the offer.