Liquid Smoke (9 page)

“Mr. Braddock, I’ve got over two thousand employees working in my casinos,” he said. “I wish I knew them all by name, but I don’t.” “He’s in jail now.” Moffitt leaned back in his chair. “On death row,” I said. Moffitt still showed nothing.

Carter reached over to the edge of the desk and picked up a medium-sized crystal paper weight. It was shaped like a large egg, and it looked expensive. He turned it over in his hands, examining it.

Moffitt started to say something, then stopped.

“I’ve been told he worked for you,” I said.

“I can certainly check to see if that’s accurate,” Moffitt said, looking from me to Carter and back to me.

“Name doesn’t sound the least bit familiar?”

Moffitt shook his head. “No, I’m sorry. Like I said, two thousand is a big number. But I’ll be happy to have Human Resources check the name. I can have someone get you the information by tomorrow morning.” He paused. “Why is he facing execution?”

Carter tossed the paperweight up in the air and let it fall back into his hands. He threw it again, a little higher this time, and had to reach behind himself to make the catch.

Moffitt cleared his throat but said nothing.

“He killed two men,” I said.

Moffitt gave a small wince. “Wow.” “Yeah.”

Carter set the crystal egg back on the desk. Moffitt hesitated for a moment, then reached over and repositioned the egg a fraction of an inch.

He leaned back in his chair, looking more relaxed now. “Can I ask why you’d choose to work for someone like that?”

A loaded question if I’d ever heard one. But I wasn’t about to explain the complicated situation involving my father.

“I’m just checking into some things,” I said. “How about Landon Keene?”

Moffitt raised an eyebrow. “Another employee?”

“Yes.”

He thought about it, then shook his head. “Don’t recognize that name, either. But I’ll be happy to have my people research that as well.”

If he knew anything, he wasn’t going to give it up. And his act was so good, I wasn’t sure if it was an act.

“May I ask how my name came up?” he asked.

“Basic background checks,” I lied. “Employment history and things like that. Figured I’d start at the top. I’m just looking to get a few things corroborated.”

“Of course,” he said, seeming satisfied. “Well, as I said, it’s impossible for me to know the names of everyone who works here. But we keep diligent records. If either of them were employed here, we’ll be able to tell you exactly when they were here and what they did.” He opened a drawer, pulled out a card, and slid it across the desk.
Susan Hayward, Vice President of Human Resources
was printed on it, along with a phone number. “I’ll let Susan know you’ll be calling tomorrow morning. She’ll be able to give you your answers.”

It seemed like an invitation to leave. Carter and I stood. Moffitt came around the desk and walked us to the door.

He held out a hand. “I’m sorry again for the incident, Mr. Braddock.”

I shook his hand and smiled. “No problem.”

He and Carter shook hands.

“Come back and visit us anytime,” Moffitt said.

“Right,” Carter said.

We walked down the hallway to the elevator. No sign of Gus or Ross.

The bell above the elevator dinged, and we stepped in. “Guy’s a goddamn psychic,” Carter said.

“I’ll say,” I said, pushing the button for the lobby and watching the doors close. “Dude knew my last name even though I never gave it to him.”

“He was completely full of shit, right?” Carter asked as we stepped off the elevator and back into the casino. “Pretty close to completely.”

“He really expected us to believe those guys grabbed us down here and he didn’t know?”

“Two people fighting in the casino,” I said, looking around at the blinking lights and crowd of people. “They didn’t know who we were, they would’ve just thrown us out the door and told us to stay out.”

“Exactly.”

Maybe Moffitt had acted like he didn’t know the names I’d thrown at him, but he knew who we were and he had Gus and Ross bring us up to scare us off. We’d touched on something.

“What the hell’s wrong with that guy?” Carter said, nodding in the direction of the closest bank of slot machines.

A well-built guy about six feet tall, in black jeans and a horrible Hawaiian shirt, was in the face of a slightly smaller man. He had blond hair and a matching goatee, and he was stabbing his finger repeatedly in the man’s chest. The smaller man didn’t look scared, but he didn’t look all that happy, either. Embarrassed, maybe.

I couldn’t make out the conversation over the din of the room. The goateed guy crowded him a little more, bullying like a good bully. The smaller man finally took a step back, turned, and walked away.

The bully watched him go, then moved in our direction. “The fuck are you looking at?” he growled, taking a couple more steps.

“The ugliest shirt I’ve ever seen,” Carter said, leaning forward, staring in amazement. “Pelicans, hula girls, and ukuleles? Was the shirt covered in dog shit sold out?”

The guy’s face reddened, and he glanced down at his outfit. “You take that guy’s lunch money?” I asked. He jerked his head up and took a few more steps so that he was just a couple of feet from us now. “Excuse me?” “You’re excused,” I said.

He looked back and forth between me and Carter. We were both bigger than he was, but that didn’t seem to intimidate him.

“Why don’t you mind your own fucking business?” he said.

“Why don’t you show us how?” Carter said, grinning.

They stared at each other.

“Fuck off,” the guy finally said.

“That’s what I thought,” Carter said, still grinning.

The guy moved his gaze to me. His eyes were slate gray and there was a fading, jagged scar under the left one. His flat nose was a little crooked. I had a feeling he was used to mixing it up. Maybe even liked it.

I had put him in his thirties when I’d first seen him, but up close, I realized he was somewhere north of that. Years of starting fights might give you a nice physique, but you couldn’t hide the wear and tear on your face.

His eyes flickered, and I thought he was going to start with me.

But then the right side of his mouth curled into something between a smile and a grimace, and he chuckled. He spun on his heel and walked back into the circus of bells, slots, and noise. He went all the way through the gaming floor, turned left down a hallway, and disappeared, never looking back.

“This place is awesome,” Carter said.

“Let’s get out of here.”

We walked outside, the midday sunlight startling after the muted lighting inside.

I shaded my eyes with my hand. “Thanks for driving out here.”

“Nothing I like better than a drive out to the boonies with nothing to show for it,” Carter said. “No problem. What’s next?”

“I’m not sure,” I said.

And that was the truth. I didn’t know where to head next. We could go back up and strong-arm Moffitt, but I wasn’t sure that was a wise move. He knew something, but until I knew what it was, I couldn’t just walk in and kick his ass.

“Alright,” Carter said. “Call me when you do.”

“Hey,” I said, as he walked off. “Are we cool?”

He paused, thinking about it for a moment, his features silhouetted against the bright daylight. We had morphed back into our usual routine while we were in the casino, but it still felt like there was something hanging in the air between us.

“We’re getting there,” he said.

He headed off for his car, and I figured that was as fair of a response as I could expect.

I walked across the parking lot and got into the Jeep. Then I started it up and zig-zagged through the aisles, heading for the exit. As I passed the front entrance, I glanced at the giant glass doors and up higher at the top floor where Moffitt’s office was housed.

A figure in a window directly above the entrance caught my attention.

I hit the brakes, checked the mirror to make sure no one was behind me, then looked back up to the window. It was empty.

I let the Jeep idle for a moment and watched the window to see if anyone returned. It stayed empty.

Finally, I stepped on the gas and headed out of the lot, wondering what that goateed bully was doing staring down at me.

The next day, I decided on a different tact. I was frustrated at making little headway and learning virtually nothing about Simington. I knew there was one person who would be able to provide some information, and I had avoided her long enough.

I needed to talk with my mother.

Carolina Braddock and I had reached something resembling a truce for the previous few months. We talked a couple of times a month, had dinner or lunch at least once. I tried to be pleasant, and she tried not to be drunk. We hadn’t erased the discord of the past, but we seemed to be moving forward rather than stalled in the yesteryears.

As I pulled up in front of her house, the place I grew up in and sprinted from the day I was able, I reminded myself that this wasn’t a social call.

This would be business.

The house looked the same as it always did. Not great, not awful. Just indifferent. Patches of brown grass. Cracks in the driveway. Faded paint. Dusty windows. A garage door that never hit the ground squarely.

I stuck my finger on the doorbell and wondered if it would ever change.

Carolina appeared behind the screen door. “Noah,” she said. “This is unexpected.”

My antenna went up. “Pleasant surprise” would have meant she was happy to see me. “Unexpected” said to me that she was partially into a bottle. But this wasn’t a prearranged meeting, so our truce rules weren’t in play.

“Sorry,” I said. “I didn’t think to call. Can I come in for a minute?”

“Of course,” she said, pushing the screen open and letting me through.

The living room hadn’t changed a second since I’d been a kid. Same brown corduroy couch and loveseat. An old, cheap coffee table that sported faint crayon marks. Shag carpet that had moved from beige to dirty beige. An old console television against the wall. An attempt to freshen things up with the odor of Lysol.

My childhood tried a full-scale rush into my head, but I slammed the door.

“Sit, sit,” she said, moving the newspaper off the sofa.

She wore a faded blue sweatshirt and jeans. Her brownish-blond hair was pulled away from her face and back into a rubber band. She still looked ten years younger than her age.

“I wasn’t expecting company,” she said, straightening the magazines on the table. “So sorry it’s a mess.”

“It’s fine. I didn’t mean to barge in.”

“You’re never barging. Would you like something to drink?” In this house, that question always felt like a powder keg. “No, I’m good,” I said.

Carolina walked over to the Formica dining room table and picked up a half-empty plastic tumbler. Ice and what looked like lemonade. A slight misstep as she turned back around forced her to catch herself and regain her balance.

Not just lemonade.

She smiled and came back to the sofa, tumbler in hand. “So. How are you?”

“I’m okay,” I said, wondering if the lemonade contained vodka or gin. She loved them both. “You?”

She took a sip of the drink and smiled again. “Good. Really.”

Maybe we had agreed to a truce, but there was nothing we could do about the awkwardness of it all.

“I need to ask you about something,” I said.

She held the cup in both hands, her delicate fingers around it like a vice. “Alright.”

“Actually about someone.”

Her eyes were clear, interested in what I was saying. “Okay.” “Tell me about Russell Simington.”

Her fingers flinched on the big tumbler and anxiety filled the edges around her light blue eyes. She held the tumbler up to her mouth and took a long drink. She brought it down and set it on the table. She readjusted herself on the sofa cushion, her back ramrod straight.

“I haven’t heard that name in quite some time,” she said.

“I’d never heard it until a couple of days ago.”

She folded her hands together, then unfolded them, like she didn’t know what to do with them. I couldn’t blame her. I had just showed up and thrown his name out there. She had probably been wondering what she was going to have to drink with dinner.

“Is this about my never telling you about him?” she asked. “Because you never asked.”

“No, it’s not about that,” I said. “You’re right. I never asked because I didn’t care. I’m not sure that I do now. But a lawyer came to see me.”

Alarm flashed through her eyes. “A lawyer? Why? What does he want from you? He never wanted anything to do with us before.” “He’s in prison,” I said. “On death row.”

She processed that, her mouth a tight line. “Unfortunately, I can’t say I’m surprised. Russell always seemed headed for something like that.”

I moved back into the sofa, ready to let her talk. She cleared her throat and stared at the tumbler, but didn’t reach for it.

“We met in a bar,” she said, a sad smile forming on her face. “I’m sure that’s no great revelation for you. It was out in El Cajon somewhere. I was with friends, and he was shooting pool. We struck up a conversation. He was polite, funny, charming.”

I’d been in a few bars in El Cajon. I’d never seen anyone with those three qualities patronizing them. More like rough, violent, drunk. But I let her go on.

“We dated for a few months,” she said. “He was into some bad things. He didn’t work, but he always had money. There were always hideous-looking people coming to his apartment at all hours of the night.”

“Did you know what those bad things were?” I asked.

“No,” she said, glancing at me. “I didn’t ask. He had a temper, and it always felt like one of those questions that wasn’t possible. And I probably didn’t want to know. I was starting to fall in love with him.”

The image of Carolina and Russell together didn’t fit in my head. But maybe that was because I couldn’t picture him in any way other than behind that glass, in that jumpsuit.

“I got pregnant,” she said, running a hand over her hair. “At first, he seemed to care. He was attentive, we talked a little about the future. I was excited. I wanted a baby. Maybe needed one, to give me direction. I don’t know. Then he came over to my apartment one night. With a gun.” She paused, clearly remembering the moment. “I asked him what it was for and he told me that he needed it, that he couldn’t take any chances. Very vague, but adamant. I told him that if we were going to have a child, he couldn’t keep going like that, doing whatever he was doing. I didn’t want that around my child. We fought, and he left.” She chewed her bottom lip, hesitating. “I wasn’t always a mess, Noah. I’m not sure how or why it turned, but back then? I thought I could be a good parent.”