Secondhand Smoke

by Karen E. Olson

  “Is this the fianceé?” Madame Shara asked, her eyes peering into my face. “Ah, no, I’m wrong.”

  No shit, Sherlock.

  “You are very troubled,” she continued. I remembered the gun in my bag, and that I didn’t want to use it.

  I shook my head and pushed my way through the next set of doors behind Vinny, hoping she’d go into her own little space and leave me alone. But it was my lucky day. She followed us into Vinny’s office and started peeling off the scarves. Vinny still hadn’t said anything, like, go away, which I was hoping he’d do. He just had a faintly amused look on his face as he dropped the mail on his desk.

  “I can help you, my dear.”

  I pulled my coat tight around me. “We’re pretty busy,” I said, looking at Vinny and pleading for help. But he had gone behind his desk and was booting up his computer.

  Madame Shara took my hand and started leading me out the door. “We’ll be back in a minute,” she said over her shoulder to Vinny, who merely nodded. I couldn’t break away from her grasp.

  Madame Shara led me up the stairs and into her “office.” She actually had a crystal ball. A crystal ball on a red table in the middle of the room, which smelled like incense and honey. The walls were covered with red and purple sheer fabric with yellow and green beads that shimmered when she turned on a muted lamp.

  “Take off your coat,” she said, and it was not a suggestion.

  I figured I was in for the long haul; Vinny hadn’t come to get me, and what the hell else did I have to do today but talk to some nut? It wasn’t like I had a job to do or anything.

  She made me sit across from her at the red table, the crystal ball between us.

  “Does that thing work?” I asked, and in a second it lit up like the fucking Fourth of July.

  Madame Shara had a small smile on her lips. “You’re a skeptic.”

  I snorted. “Okay, so tell me my future. Tell me what you think I want to know.”

  “What you want to know is different from what will happen,” she said in a deep voice.

  What the hell did that mean?

  “You are very troubled,” she said again.

  And who wasn’t?

  “There are three men,” she said.

  Three?

  “One of them you have known a long time,” she said, her voice barely a whisper. “And one only a very short time. The third has been your lover.”

  Vinny had been talking out of school. He’d been telling this woman stuff about me. He was obviously the man I’d known for a short time; Tom was the lover. But who was the third man?

  “Ah, you’re curious,” she said.

  “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Curiosity has always been your strength.”

  Okay, so Vinny must have told her I was a reporter.

  “But it will not help you this time. It is there, in black and white for you. But you must figure out the puzzle before you can see the whole picture.”

  This lady was a fucking whack job. I hoped she wasn’t going to charge me for this little session. Maybe I’d let Vinny pay for it, since he hadn’t done anything to get me out of this.

  “He cares about you, more than even he knows. He will come to you. But you must be ready.” Maybe Vinny took his mind-reading lessons from Madame Shara. “Once you find him, it will be over. But you will have been betrayed, and forgiveness is difficult.”

  Madame Shara leaned forward, her pointy nose practically touching the crystal ball.

  “Don’t let your feelings for him cloud the truth. He is guilty, and the sooner you see that, the sooner you can begin to love him again.” She leaned even farther, and a spark from the crystal ball shot up and bounced off her nose. She jumped up, her eyes wild with pain, but didn’t break her stare.

  “Go home and lock the door. They’re after you,” she whispered.

  Chapter 23

  I don’t even remember leaving the room, but I was holding my coat as I slammed Vinny’s office door shut behind me.

  He looked up, laughing. “What the hell happened up there?”

  He looked so damn normal; I couldn’t admit the woman had spooked me. “She’s insane,” was all I said as I plopped down on the couch next to the desk.

  “Are you afraid it’s catching?”

  “Can you tell me why we’re here? If you can’t, then take me home.” I hugged my coat and noticed that the hole had gotten larger and I’d left a trail of feathers across the floor.

  “This was just a pit stop. We have to go,” Vinny said, standing and putting on his leather jacket.

  I was trying to close up the hole, but to no avail. Vinny suddenly was beside me, a roll of tape in his hand. “Use this.” I pulled off a piece and stuck it over the hole. I moved the fabric around a little. Seemed to work. I put on the coat and didn’t notice any feathers escaping. “Thanks,” I said, following him back out. I left a wide berth in the hallway, just in case Madame Shara wanted to come back out and reel me in again. But there was no sound from upstairs.

  The SUV heated up fairly quickly, and Vinny still hadn’t said a word.

  “What did she say to you?” he finally asked, chuckling. “She got to you, didn’t she. She can do that. Once she told me that I’d end up working for the FBI because I’d go broke working for myself.”

  “She wasn’t that specific with me.” I looked out the window.

  “So, what did she say? Don’t keep me in suspense.”

  I took a deep breath. “She just told me that someone would betray me and I’d have to forgive him.” I paused. “Did you ever tell her about me?”

  He laughed. “Why the hell would I do that? She’s one of those people you can’t encourage with any sort of contact whatsoever, otherwise she’d be in your face all the time. When I see her, I just lock my office door and tell her I’m busy.”

  “So you don’t know if . . .” I had to stop myself. It sounded too crazy even to ask.

  “Don’t know if what?” He wasn’t really paying attention to me; his eyes were darting back and forth from his rearview mirror to the road in front of him.

  “Nothing.”

  “Come on, Annie, you don’t really believe her mumbo jumbo, do you?”

  “She seemed to know a little bit about me, and I certainly didn’t say anything.”

  Vinny thought a minute. “You know, Cobb Doyle is pretty friendly with her, which makes sense in a weird sort of way. They’re both odd ducks. Anyway, Cobb knows about you, maybe he said something.”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “What else did she say?” He turned down a side street and then came back around, doing a perfect U-turn.

  “She said someone’s after me and I should go home and lock the door.”

  He laughed out loud.

  “Fuck you,” I said loudly. “Where are we going, anyway?”

  We were back in front of his office on Trumbull Street, but instead of stopping, we headed toward Interstate 91. Within minutes we were on the highway and going over the Q-Bridge, which stretched over the Quinnipiac River. Its official name was the Pearl Harbor Memorial Bridge, but no one ever called it that. If we put that in a story, most people scratched their heads and said, “What bridge?” It had always been the Q-Bridge, and it would be that forever.

  “I don’t think anyone is following us,” Vinny said quietly, more to himself than to me. So that was what all that street maneuvering had been all about.

  We got off on Woodward Avenue in the Annex. I was having serious déjà vu. This was where I’d followed Vinny the other day.

  Vinny turned down a side street to our left and then turned again. He pulled up in front of the familiar small Cape, its yellow paint faded by too much sunshine and rain. He opened his door. “We’re here,” he announced.

  “The cops have already been here,” I said as I scrambled out, following him up the front steps. “My father’s not here. So why are we?”

  At that moment, Dominic Gaudio came out on
the landing, his red plaid flannel shirt and khakis making him appear just like someone’s grandfather and not a well-known mobster. When he looked up at me, he grinned, his teeth flapping against his gums.

  “So nice to see you again, dear,” he said.

  Vinny and I stepped into the house, into a wall of hot air that slapped me in the face.

  “I’ve got coffee on,” Dominic Gaudio said, and disappeared into another room.

  “This is a wild goose chase,” I whispered to Vinny.

  Before he could respond, Dominic Gaudio came back into the room with a tray full of steaming cups. I took one and sipped. This was no Maxwell House, that was for sure. The liquid warmed my mouth and throat, its milky taste touched by a hint of cinnamon.

  “This is delicious, Mr. Gaudio,” I said.

  “Please call me Dom. There’s no need to be formal here.” His eyes twinkled, and I could see the young man inside the old one. He turned to Vinny. “I know why you’re here, but I’m not sure I can help you.”

  Vinny grinned. “Sure you can. It’s whether you want to or not.”

  Dom laughed. “You’re just like your old man. But the kitchen was too hot for you, you needed more action? Private detective, what do you want to do that for? Your father has a wonderful restaurant and no son to take over when he retires.”

  “I don’t have to tell you about wanting more action,” Vinny said.

  Dom opened a box that sat on the table and pulled out two cigars. I wrinkled my nose, and he caught me and smiled. “My dear Anne, these are Cubans. Their aroma is nothing like you have ever experienced.” He handed one to Vinny, and they both lit up.

  He was right. I didn’t even give a damn about the secondhand smoke. But how the hell did he get Cuban cigars?

  Oh, yeah, right. Dominic Gaudio could get anything, anytime. The man was a fucking magician.

  And I was sitting on his couch, drinking his coffee and listening to him bullshit with Vinny about the Red Sox.

  Why were we here? I glanced around the room, taking in the sepia pictures on the mantel, the lace draped over the armrests on the sofa and chairs, the collection of Hummels in the glass cabinet in the corner.

  My eye caught something outside, and I craned my neck to look out at the street. A dark car was crawling along, the driver invisible.

  “Vinny,” I said quietly, cocking my head toward the window.

  Vinny didn’t even turn around.

  “They come by every now and then to make sure the old man’s still alive,” Dom said. “They still have hope.” He laughed, his cheeks dimpled.

  Shit, I liked the guy. I remembered all the stories about him, and I still liked him. What sort of journalist was I?

  Oh, yeah, one who was dodging the FBI. Just like Dom. Well, not exactly.

  “I know where he is,” Dom was saying, “but I’m uncomfortable telling you.”

  “It’s for his own good,” Vinny argued. “The longer he hides, the more guilty he looks. And Annie and I know he didn’t do anything.”

  So Dom knew where my father was. No surprise there.

  “I know that, too, but if you leave here, that car out there is going to follow you, because everyone who leaves here gets followed. And they’re after you, too, right now.”

  “Listen, Vinny, let’s just leave. We can come back later.” I stood up, Madame Shara’s warning echoing in my head.

  A loud crash rang through my ears, and I felt my body jerk back as Vinny dove underneath me, bringing me to the floor. “What the fuck,” I whispered.

  Dom was next to us, and we huddled on the rug, glass from the broken window covering us and everything else.

  “Have they ever done that before?” Vinny asked Dom, who shook his head.

  “First time.”

  “What happened?” I asked, although I didn’t really need an answer. I’d heard gunshots before, and that window hadn’t broken on its own. “Who the hell did that?”

  Neither Dom nor Vinny said anything. I started moving my leg. “Can we get up now?” I asked.

  Vinny shook his head. “Whoever it is didn’t leave yet,” he said, and I noticed for the first time that there was a gun in his hand.

  There was one in Dom’s hand, too. Where the hell did those come from? I saw my purse sitting on the couch. If it had been within reach, we could all be armed. But I was better off this way, since I’d never actually fired a gun outside the shooting range.

  I heard footsteps coming up the front steps, heavy, boot-clad feet. I wished Dom hadn’t put out as much rock salt as he had; if he hadn’t, maybe the guy would’ve slipped and fallen on the concrete.

  “Annie, on the count of three, we’re getting up and running down the hall toward the bedrooms.” Vinny’s voice was low, hurried. “You up for this?”

  Did I have a choice? The footsteps were almost to the top of the steps.

  “One, two, three!”

  Vinny, Dom, and I scrambled to our feet, glass crunching under our boots, and we shot through the dining room and toward the back of the house. Another bullet crashed through the dining room window as we ran, and I ducked into the first room I saw, which was the bathroom. Vinny and Dom bounded in after me. Vinny looked around quickly, then said quietly, “Get in the tub.”

  Seemed like a good idea to me, too. So I stepped in, hoping the tiles would protect me if someone decided to shoot through the wall.

  I don’t think I took a breath the entire time.

  I brought my hand up to my face and started to brush my hair back, but Vinny’s hand stopped me.

  “Don’t touch it,” he said. “You’re covered in glass.”

  I saw then that he, too, and Dom were shimmering because of the slivers of glass on them. The two of them were perched by the door, their guns pointed out into the hall. The footsteps had stopped somewhere in the living room.

  Vinny peered around the door, and I heard another shot, then another. I sank into the tub, my arms around my chest.

  That’s when I heard the sirens. They were faint at first, I could barely hear them, but they got louder and louder. The footsteps started again, but they were getting quieter and quieter.

  “Jesus, he’s going to get away,” Vinny muttered, and he ran into the hall, his gun leading the way. Dirty Harry didn’t have anything on him. His footsteps got quieter, too, as he ran through the house.

  The sirens were now screaming through my ears. I looked up at Dom, who had a bored look on his face.

  “This sort of shit happen here all the time?” I asked.

  “Had to be the guy next door who called the cops,” Dom said. “He never knows when to mind his own business.” He held out his hand to me and helped me out of the tub. I left little glass shavings behind.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got a cleaning woman,” Dom said as we went back out into the hall. I saw he’d brushed off his own head and shoulders.

  Vinny was standing on the front porch, talking to two uniformed cops. His hair still shone with glass, but his gun was gone, stashed somewhere on his person, I was sure.

  “Mustang,” I heard Vinny said. That’s right, that was the kind of car it was. I wasn’t very good about identifying cars. They all looked alike to me.

  I recognized one of the cops. It was Ronald Berger, the cop who’d responded to Pete Amato’s accident. He saw me, his eyes wide with surprise. “What the hell are you doing here?” he asked through the hole in the window.

  I shrugged. “I always like a good party.”

  Dom started chuckling.

  “Don’t encourage her,” Berger said. “She’s in a shitload of trouble.”

  I frowned. “I am?”

  “Don’t tell me you don’t know the FBI’s been asking questions about you, your father’s wanted for questioning, and now this.”

  So it’d been a bad day. I had a lot of those.

  Berger turned back to Vinny. “You don’t have a license plate number, there isn’t even any proof anyone else was here. The
old man’s got a gun. Sure he didn’t shoot the window out himself?”

  “If you got some crime scene guys here, you’d find out that the window was shot from the outside in, not the inside out. And it’s too cold for anyone to go outside to shoot in the window when it could be done easily and comfortably from that chair over there.” Vinny pointed to the Barcalounger across from us. When he moved, some of the glass shavings flittered to the ground like snow.

  “I don’t like your attitude,” Berger said.

  Oh, Christ, we were all going to end up in jail.

  “Are you going to charge anyone with anything?” I asked.

  Berger and his partner took a long look around, at the broken window, at the scattered glass shavings on Vinny and Dom and me, at the gun in Dom’s hand. They looked at each other and sighed. “We could charge you with breach of peace,” Berger said, “but this is too crazy to try to explain.” He paused. “But we have to file a report.”

  It took about half an hour, with each of us telling the story of the unknown assailant who escaped. Berger was very matter-of-fact about it and told me when I asked that I could pick up a copy of the report in the morning. He shook Dom’s hand, scowled at Vinny, and went back outside, stepping over the debris from the window.

  I saw the neighbor across the street run to the cops as they climbed back into their patrol car. He argued for a few minutes, but then the cops drove away. The neighbor glared up at the house.

  “I gotta call someone to come over and get this patched up quick,” Dom said. “Think it’s going to snow again.” He went into the kitchen to make his call.

  Vinny started picking glass out of my hair again. “You’re covered in this.”

  “So are you.”

  “You know, this is all your fault.”

  “Mine?”

  “You should’ve gone home and locked the doors like Madame Shara said to.”

  I frowned at Vinny. “You’re lucky I’m still talking to you after that. . . .”

  My voice trailed off as I heard something else, something muffled, coming from behind a door just a few feet down the hall. Vinny put his hand to his lips and pulled his gun out from under his jacket. He took two steps toward the door, which had started to open.