Secondhand Smoke

by Karen E. Olson

  “Where do you think Pete is?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.” I could see the worry etched into his forehead. “I don’t want to leave you here alone.”

  Any other time I might think that was a maneuver to stay, but I knew better. “Don’t worry about me. Tom said someone would be watching the building.” I went to the window and looked down at the cop car parked in front of my building.

  Vinny came up behind me. I could feel him, and he wasn’t even touching me.

  “Will you be okay?” I asked, turning to face him.

  He smiled, but I could still see his concern. “I’ve got a gun, remember?”

  I could smell his aftershave. He had to leave. “Call me in the morning,” I said.

  “I remember you in high school,” he said quietly.

  “Really?” I asked.

  “I bet you don’t remember me.”

  “Sure I do.” Somewhere in the recesses of my memories, I saw him, an armload full of books, passing me in the hall.

  Vinny chuckled. “I was a geek.”

  I smiled. “Yeah.”

  “And you, well, you . . .” His voice trailed off as he put his hand on my cheek. It was warm.

  “So you had a crush on me?” I asked quietly.

  “Yeah, yeah, I guess so.”

  “I wish I’d known.”

  “You know now.”

  “But it might be too late.”

  He smiled and let his hand fall. “It’s never too late.” He grabbed his jacket from the chair and shrugged into it. “I have a lot of work to do. I’ve got a fast modem. I’d be waiting hours for stuff to come up on your computer.”

  After he left, I turned to stare at my empty apartment. I peered into my refrigerator and saw I had no beer left. I’d have to get to the supermarket tomorrow. I went into the bedroom and put my pajama bottoms back on, grabbed the comforter, went into the living room, and switched on the TV.

  I fell asleep watching some stupid movie on HBO with Brad Pitt.

  THE SOUNDS OF GUNSHOTS rang through my head, and I lurched forward, my heart pounding. The TV was still on, and now it was an Al Pacino flick. Sunlight streamed through my windows and danced against my face, causing me to squint at the clock on the VCR: 8:00 A.M. The longest fucking day I’d ever lived had been followed by the shortest fucking night. And now I had to get myself put together, because Mickey Hayward was going to be arraigned and I’d be damned if I missed that.

  The sunlight somehow made life seem a little more livable again. So did the long hot shower. As I pulled on a pair of wool slacks and a turtleneck, I wondered if Vinny had been successful with his computer. I itched to call him, but he might be sleeping now, and I didn’t want to wake him. His day had been as long as mine.

  He’d probably show at the arraignment, anyway.

  The phone rang as I was putting on my coat.

  “I need to see you.” It was my father.

  “I’m heading to court, Mickey’s arraignment,” I said.

  “I need to see you,” he repeated, and I stopped digging in my pockets for my gloves. There was something funny about his voice.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Are you?”

  “Sure.” I glanced out the window and saw that the cop car was still there. “I’ve got the cops watching me.”

  “Lose them,” he said. “I need to see you.”

  I glanced at the clock. I didn’t have a helluva lot of time, but it sounded urgent. “Okay. Where?”

  “You can’t lead the cops here.”

  “I know, I know.” Although I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to ditch them.

  “Remember when you were a kid and you were scared, and we had hot chocolate and I said it would make you invincible?”

  “Like Wonder Woman.” If the FBI was listening in somehow, they would have no fucking clue. But I did. I remembered it as if it were yesterday.

  “I’m where you lost the pink laces.” Still pretty cryptic, but I knew just where to go.

  “I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

  Now I had to get rid of the cop. Tom wouldn’t like that, but he wasn’t liking much these days, so I didn’t feel too bad about it.

  As I bounded down the stairs, I met Amber on the landing. Her puffy coat could rival mine.

  She stared at me coldly. “Have any meat today?” she practically hissed.

  I remembered the chicken and lamb at Tandoor and almost smiled, but somehow it didn’t seem like it would go over that well. “How’s the picketing?”

  She sighed. “They’re gone now anyway, killed in cold blood. But at least we got the TV stations out. Maybe that’ll stop even more suffering.”

  I tried to wrap my head around what she was saying, but it was so stupid, it was hard. “I don’t know that this’ll keep people from eating chicken, Amber,” I said quietly.

  Her eyes lit up with anger. “It’s not just eating chicken, Annie.” Her voice rose with each word. “It’s how they’ve exploited those poor harmless creatures.” She turned on her heel and went out the front door and down the steps.

  This poultry business had gotten way out of hand.

  “You’ve been upsetting her.” Walter the Pit Bull was coming up on my ass. Great.

  “She’s too sensitive,” I tried, but Walter glared.

  “You should try being polite.” He swept past me.

  I’d thought about moving a lot more lately, and maybe it was time. Maybe I needed to find a house, one that I could have all to myself and not have to worry about pesky neighbors.

  I waited a few minutes before I went down the steps, since I didn’t want any more confrontations. I needed to go meet my dad.

  I walked up to the cruiser and smiled at the cop at the wheel. Usually they traveled in twos, but I guess Tom didn’t think this job would take more than one. “Hi,” I said. “I have to go to court, Mickey Hayward’s arraignment.”

  The cop smiled back. I didn’t know him, he must be new. “I’ll follow you there.”

  I shook my head. “No, you really don’t have to. It’s daylight, I’m getting right into my car, you can watch me, but I think I can make it to the courthouse okay on my own. You’ve been here all night, right?”

  The cop shook his head. “I’m not supposed to leave you until my relief gets here.”

  “When’s that?”

  He glanced at his watch. “He’s late.”

  “Why don’t you call him, tell him I’m at the courthouse and he can catch me there.” This could give me a little window of opportunity. “Then you can head home and get some sleep. This must have been pretty boring for you.”

  He was struggling with this, but I could see I was winning out. “Okay, sure. I’ll have him wait for you there.”

  I smiled again, thanked him for a job well done, and went to my car. Surprise, surprise, it turned over right away, despite the cold. I’d thought about getting a new car, but these old Hondas just keep going. It seemed silly to invest in a new car and payments when this one was just fine and had been paid off for five years now.

  I pulled away from the curb and waved at the cop, who headed in the opposite direction. I put in a Rolling Stones tape and started singing along.

  When the song was over, I was halfway there. And my thoughts pushed the music aside as I remembered that day so long ago, when I was about seven and my dad took me ice skating. I wasn’t very good. But my dad had taken me out and gotten me new skates; they were white with bright pink laces. While my dad was renting a pair for himself, he left me alone on the bench. Big mistake. I was a scrawny kid, and quickly a band of bigger girls sat down a little too close to me, jostling me and teasing me about my pink laces.

  Before I knew it, the laces were out of the skates and the girls were laughing as they ran out of the building and into the parking lot.

  I can still remember the puzzled look on my dad’s face. His eyes followed mine into the far parking lot, and he sighed as he sat next to m
e.

  “I’m sorry,” he said quietly.

  He unlaced his rental skates and put the laces into mine, and he hobbled out onto the ice in his dress shoes, holding my hand as I tried to steady myself on the slippery surface. Afterward, he took me to the diner for hot chocolate and told me that it was going to make me stronger, that I would be like Wonder Woman someday, that I would be big enough not to take shit from anyone.

  Okay, so it was a silly story. But it was something I’d never forgotten, and every once in a while I did feel like Wonder Woman.

  I pulled into the parking lot at the Ralph Walker Ice Rink on State Street, glancing around for any telltale cop cars or a black Cadillac, but I didn’t see any. I pulled way in the back of the lot and got out. The rink was outside, but it had a big red roof. My dad was leaning against the back side corner.

  “Hey, Dad, what’s up?” I asked.

  But before he could answer, a battered blue pickup truck careened through the parking lot and slid toward us. Pete Amato threw open the door, a gun in his hand. “I had a feeling you’d lead me to him,” he snarled at me.

  Chapter 27

  My father grabbed my arm and dragged me around to the entrance of the rink. I heard some shots as we turned the corner, crouching behind the four-foot wooden wall. I didn’t think it would deflect any bullets, and neither did my dad, because he yanked a metal chair next to us and slid it on the ice in front of us, giving us a little more protection. My father moved to our side of the entrance, pulling out a gun and pointing it in Pete’s general direction, then firing off some return shots.

  On reflex, I shouted, “Jesus, Pete, what the hell are you doing?”

  “I didn’t want to hurt you, too, Annie.” Pete’s bodyless voice floated from somewhere to our right. He was crouched below the wall like we were. “But your father killed my father. You should know that. He has to pay for that.”

  I turned and raised my eyebrows at my father, hoping he could clear this up.

  That’s when I saw the blood on the ice.

  I looked myself over, but it wasn’t me. But before I could ask my father if he was hurt, I heard footsteps going around the rink. All Pete had to do was stand up and we were goddamn sitting ducks. I crab-walked over to my father, trying not to slide too much—the ice was fucking cold and hard—and took my father’s arm. He saw what I was doing and we turned the corner, so now we were on the outside of the rink, below the wall. If Pete stood up now, he wouldn’t see us.

  “You have to get out of here,” my father said gruffly, and I could see a red stain spreading across the white shirt under his overcoat.

  “I can’t leave you here alone.” I was barely aware I was speaking. All I could see was the blood and my dad’s face, suddenly very gray and old.

  “Where the hell is he?” I muttered. My heart was pounding so hard, I could barely hear myself.

  “You can’t see him?” My father’s voice was urgent, and I could hear the pain he was in, which pushed me past my fear for a second.

  “Why the hell did he do this?” I asked.

  My father coughed, a wet sound that made me look at him more carefully. The stain was a little thicker, and who knew where he was bleeding from?

  But before he could answer me, I heard tires on gravel. I glanced behind me to see a black Cadillac moving into the parking lot. Fuck.

  My father saw it at the same time. “Get out of here,” he said, more urgently this time, his hand jerking upward toward my head.

  But I froze as I watched the car move past us and out of sight around the back of the rink. Where Pete was. Where my father had pointed with his index finger, probably hoping that I hadn’t noticed.

  “Go now, Annie,” my father repeated huskily.

  But I couldn’t move. A lump rose in my throat and my chest constricted as I huddled against the side of the ice rink. I didn’t want to know what was going on back there, even though I could hear car doors slam, pounding feet on hard ground, then a grunt as something landed on the ice.

  I buried my head in my knees as I tried to flatten myself even further against the wall of the rink. I heard more grunts, a hoarse scream, some scuffling, more car doors slamming. Then the car moved swiftly past us.

  But it wasn’t over. There were footsteps near us; someone was running. I didn’t lift my head. I didn’t want to see anything or anyone, then I wouldn’t be lying when I told the cops that I didn’t know what had happened.

  Another car door, an engine roared and gravel spat out from under the tires as a vehicle squealed out of the lot. I looked up. Pete’s truck was gone.

  My father groaned and tossed a cell phone toward me with one hand, the other still gripping his gun. “Call 911,” he growled.

  I crawled on the cold ice toward the phone, picked it up, and dialed. When the dispatcher answered, I told her we needed an ambulance, there was a shooting.

  After I hung up, my father dropped the gun and his hand clutched my wrist. “No one else was here, Annie.” His eyes were cold, dark, and I nodded. I’d had to face too many things about my father in the last few days. Things that I’d suspected through the years, but things I’d hoped weren’t true.

  “Did you do it?” I hated asking him, but I had to. “Did you really kill Sal like Pete said?”

  His eyes flickered with pain. “No, Annie, I didn’t. I don’t know who killed Sal.”

  “Where are they taking Pete?” I whispered.

  “Who?” he asked, and I knew I wouldn’t get anything out of him on that score. It really was like no one had been there, that ghosts had carted Pete Amato off in a black Cadillac. But then he surprised me. “Pete killed LeeAnn.”

  “Vinny and I thought of that, but we didn’t know why.”

  “They had an affair. LeeAnn found out about Pete’s gambling problem and that he’d been stealing from his father’s operation to cover his debts. Problem was, most of the money he was taking didn’t belong to him or Sal.”

  So Pete, not LeeAnn, had been taking the protection money.

  Dad’s face was tight and drawn. “Sal didn’t need LeeAnn to tell him what was going on. He’d noticed less money coming in from the chickens, and when he heard about Pete’s problem, it made sense to him. He tried talking to him, but Pete wouldn’t listen. Sal knew if the wrong people found out what Pete was doing, they’d kill him.”

  Shit.

  “Sal called me, wanted to see if I could help. He took out that loan to cover the debt. But before I could get out here, Pete told LeeAnn their relationship was over. He didn’t think it was a big deal, it had run its course, but LeeAnn took it hard and she threatened to rat him out if he left her.” His voice was getting raspier, but he didn’t stop. “They were both drunk, and Pete knew he was a dead man if she opened her mouth. LeeAnn was on the inside. He didn’t think he had any choice but to kill her.

  “But as soon as he did, he knew he’d fucked up. He went home and woke Sal up, admitted everything. It was Sal’s idea to torch the place, frame Mickey. Sal told him to hang loose, pretend like nothing had happened, his debt would be covered.”

  “But what about Sal? Why did he disappear?”

  My father took a deep breath and coughed once before answering. “He wanted to deflect any guilt from Pete. Hell, he’s his son. I would’ve done the same for you.”

  But I wouldn’t have killed anyone.

  “Sal called me that morning. That’s why I came out so soon. Dom and I were going to have a sit-down with the New York representative, intervene on Sal’s behalf, try to settle everything.”

  I didn’t want to know all that.

  I could hear sirens somewhere in the distance.

  “But then Sal was murdered.” His voice was barely audible. “I knew that Pete thought I was sent here to get the money and to kill Sal. That’s why he came after us at Dom’s yesterday, because he thinks I killed his father and I was after him next.”

  “Christ, this is all my fault. He followed me here.” I remembered
how Vinny had said I’d make a lousy private detective. No kidding.

  “This isn’t your fault.”

  “Why did you leave your fingerprints in that house?”

  He smiled weakly. “Dom and I were heading over there to clean up the joint when we heard the cops were there. Some fucking kid saw Sal there. Put two and two together.”

  “Whose house was it?”

  “A friend’s. He keeps it for anyone who needs it.”

  I wasn’t going to go there.

  “So why was Sal at the restaurant that day, the day he was killed?” I asked.

  My father shook his head. “Jesus, he was so stubborn. He’d moved the chickens to the basement in the house, since he knew the restaurant would be closed on Thanksgiving and too cold for them with the weather the way it’s been. But he knew it was all over after the fire, after LeeAnn, and the restaurant was going to be razed, so he told me he was going to take the chickens to the restaurant to kill them.”

  “He killed the chickens?”

  My father shrugged automatically, and I could see the pain sweep through his eyes. “The birds were just a moneymaker. Hell, we all raised chickens in the neighborhood when we were kids, we’d all slaughtered them when we needed to. It wasn’t a big deal for Sal, and it was all over anyway. He didn’t have any real attachment to those birds. They were just a reminder of what could go wrong.”

  He moved slightly, and his eyes closed, his breathing got shallower. Hell, I needed to keep him talking. “So why did you want to meet me?”

  He opened his eyes, grimaced, and clenched his teeth. But he answered me. “We heard about what happened at Sal’s last night.”

  When Dick and I got shot at.

  “Do you know who it was?” I asked.

  My father’s eyes rested on mine, and I could see him mentally struggling with something. “Pete was supposed to settle his debt last night. He’d sent his mother to the DeLucias and was waiting for the meet last night when you showed up unexpectedly. He panicked, thought he’d try to scare you off.”