House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  “Nice to meet you, Kate.”

  “Let’s form a big circle, people.” Gloria, the female half of the dance team, claps her hands to get everyone’s attention, “men on the inside, ladies to their right. No, hon, you’re a boy this time, remember? Like this.” She stands in the center, joining hands with Ron. “Quick-quick slow-slow, quick-quick slow-slow, quick-quick slow-slow, quick-quick slow-slow. That’s all there is to it.”

  She nods to the band, four elderly men who have been sitting patiently on the sidelines holding their respective banjo, fiddle, guitar, and dobro.

  “Watch us one time, then you all can try it.”

  Frank Bascomb leans against the mast, shading his eyes against the sun, which is parked on the horizon, taking its own sweet time to set. Enough of this bullshit waiting around, he thinks, as he turns to Rusty. “Let’s get started.”

  Rusty glances to the west. The sun’s sitting there, on top of the water, stubbornly refusing to sink out of sight.

  “Still light out,” Rusty comments.

  “Not for long,” Frank answers back. “We’ll be fumbling around in the dark with this shit—I don’t want to trip on a rope and lose a hundred grand overboard.”

  Rusty licks the side of his lip, as if tasting that option.

  “Security’s gone home? For sure?”

  “I told you. More than once.” Frank wants out of here. This has been a long time coming; years of letting friends of his use the Sparks family dock, always for legitimate reasons, with the same excuse to the family—the harbor’s too crowded. They’re not crazy about his cavalier attitude regarding their property, but they let it slide, because Frank Bascomb is the best ranch manager on the central coast. So he gets a big head at times, doesn’t always remember the distinction between employee and employer. They can live with that. He gets the job done, that’s their bottom line with Frank.

  Now it’s his turn. One time for all the chips: a million large, his share after cutting Rusty his piece (an equitable quarter-million) and splitting with his secret partner, the moneybags who fronted the buy. Their deal is equal, fifty-fifty after the money recoups the investment. This is Frank’s fuck-you money, his freedom. No more ass kissing, to anyone.

  Get the shit off the boat pronto and into the pickups, drive the pickups to San Marcos Self-Storage, the garage unit he rented before they set sail. Then a shower and Miranda Sparks’s bash.

  Rusty takes another squint at the sun.

  “Okay,” he concedes. “We can get started now.” He calls to his partner, the other sailor. “Come on down below, let’s start hauling this shit up top.”

  2

  DEAD MEN TELL NO TALES

  “ARE WE HAVING FUN yet?” the younger man mockingly asks, ineffectively wiping the sweat off his face with the front of the sodden T-shirt which lies heavy across his body, so wet he could wring a cupful of water out of it. He’s a good fifty pounds overweight, he’s been warned to cut down on the excesses or he could be a statistic before he’s forty.

  “Three degrees to the right,” his partner calls out, ignoring the sarcasm. This partner, almost a generation the lard-ass’s elder, has a washboard stomach and the same military flattop he acquired in the Marines forty years before. Nothing impure ever touches his lips, not even decaf coffee. It’s rumored that his shit truly doesn’t stink.

  The surveyor standing downhill, who had asked the question, moves his pole slightly.

  “Two more degrees.”

  The pole moves to the right again, a fractional motion.

  “Stake that.”

  “It’s getting too dark to see,” the downhill man complains as he pounds a numbered wooden stick into the ground with a five-pound sledgehammer. “Let’s bag it now and come back tomorrow.”

  The lead surveyor, who is known for his obstinacy, shakes his head. “We’re behind already, the company needs to hand in this report to the planning commission by Tuesday, and we have the whole other side of the range to do yet, which’ll take all day tomorrow. We only have to set two more coordinates, we can do it. Anyway, you’re on overtime, so quit your bitching.” He squints into his transit. “43 degrees, 12 minutes,” he mutters to himself, marking the figures in his log. He shoulders his tripod and starts moving further west across the plateau.

  The reasons for this survey are unknown to those doing the work in the field. This happens all the time, for numerous purposes: the Southern Pacific Railroad wants to add a spur for which the state must buy or condemn private lands through the doctrine of eminent domain; a developer wants to build a retirement community; whatever. The information these two surveyors compile will become part of a 30-page supplement to a 350-page document that will be one piece of a paper blizzard that will take years to compile and will be read, in total, by no one.

  “You see that?”

  “Where?”

  “Down there.”

  “It’s a sailboat.”

  “I know that. What are they doing?”

  “I don’t know. Taking stuff off.”

  The lead surveyor takes up his field glasses, Bausch & Lomb 10 x 42 Armored Elites that cost upwards of seven hundred dollars and are rated one of the best compact field glasses in the world for long-range work like birding in wide-open spaces (an extravagance for someone in his income bracket, but it’s his one true passion), adjusts the eyepiece screw to the left to compensate for his nearsightedness, and looks down at the dock.

  “What’re you looking at?” the other man asks.

  The lead man doesn’t answer; he keeps staring down.

  “If there’s a chick down there lying naked on the deck I want to see it, too.”

  “Shut up for a minute.”

  They can see the boat clearly, but they can’t be seen; the trees and growth hide them from sight. Still, the surveyor cups a hand over the top of the binoculars to make sure the sliver of sun that hasn’t fallen below the horizon doesn’t reflect off the lenses and reveal their position.

  “Take a look,” he says finally, handing the glasses over.

  The second man readjusts the focus. He searches around, looking for the dock, then spots it.

  “Yeah, I see what you mean,” he says, smiling. “They’re huge.”

  “Give your cock a rest. Do these people look familiar to you?”

  “How the hell should I know?” The other one laughs. “No shit, with a set like that she ought to be in Penthouse.”

  “You asshole,” the lead man growls, pulling the glasses off the other’s face.

  “Come on, man, lighten up. It’s a private dock, it’s none of our business.” He starts to put the glasses to his face again, to get another look at Morgan.

  “That’s my point. Those people down there are trespassing.”

  His companion laughs, a donkeylike bray. “You’re paranoid, man. It’s probably friends or relatives.”

  The lead surveyor, more angry than impatient, shakes his head.

  “The Sparkses don’t know anything about this, I guarantee you. Someone’s using their dock. Those people were sitting there on that boat for over an hour, doing nothing, like they were waiting for it to get dark. So they wouldn’t be spotted,” he adds ominously.

  “They were?” the second man says. “So what?”

  The lead surveyor squints, looking down. “So it’s suspicious, is what. I spotted them an hour ago, when we were on the other side of the ridge. They were sitting there, drinking beer and hanging out.”

  “That’s what rich people who own yachts do.”

  The lead surveyor shakes his head, the head shake of an experienced hand who knows trouble when he sees it.

  “Those aren’t rich people,” he pronounces, snapping off a judgment. “Rich people don’t look like that. That’s a contract crew. There’s supposed to be security on this property. Falstaff Security’s supposed to have men patrolling this property twenty-four hours a day. Where the hell are they?”

  “In town having a brew like everyb
ody else.” The other spits, exasperated. “Who the fuck knows or cares? Come on, let’s finish up and go back. I don’t want to miss the last night of Fiesta, my old lady’s already pissed that I had to work this late.”

  “This is the Sparkses’ private dock,” the first man says, stubbornly. “Those people shouldn’t be here.” He pulls a cellular telephone out of his tool belt, dials a number.

  “This here’s Ron Ortega, I’m a contract surveyor. Listen up—I’m doing some surveying for you folks,” he says into the phone. “No, not the ranch, the beach property,” he barks impatiently. “It looks to me like somebody’s using the Sparkses’ private dock who shouldn’t be.” He listens for a minute, then frowns. “Because they’re off-loading some suspicious-looking packages, that’s why?” Another moment of impatient listening. “I thought somebody ought to know, that’s all.”

  He punches End.

  “They’ll call Falstaff—maybe.” It’s like no one’s supposed to work during Fiesta, he thinks sourly.

  “You’ve done your good deed for the day,” the second man says, hoisting the transit. “If we’re going to finish, let’s do it, otherwise I’m out of here. There’s a cold margarita with my name on it sitting on the bar at the Tee-Off.”

  He starts marching across the top of the ridge. Ron Ortega glances down at the dock once more, then with a final spit into the dry dust follows him across the crest of the hill.

  Cecil Shugrue stands on the deck at the edge of the dark swimming pool, looking down at the city lights far below them.

  “This is very beautiful,” he remarks. “Peaceful.”

  Kate nods, coming up behind him with an opened beer in each hand from the stash she keeps in an Igloo behind the old pump house.

  “How’d you ever find this old place?” he marvels. He’s the first person, man or woman, she’s ever brought to her secret place.

  “Finding things other people can’t is what I do,” she tells him. “All the way back to Girl Scouts, I always won the most badges.”

  “You must be damn good at what you do,” he praises her. “I’ll take you back-country with me anytime.”

  She flushes. “It gives me privacy when I need it,” she says, feeling sheepish for no reason except her pride. “I live down there,” she adds, pointing vaguely towards the east side of the city, an area which is eighty percent Hispanic. “In an apartment.”

  He smiles at her. He’s a good six inches taller than her in his cowboy boots.

  “Nice to have a private place to run away to,” he comments.

  She ducks her head so he won’t notice that her face is flushing, even though it’s dark out here, the only light the stars over their heads. She’s attracted to him, that’s undeniable, and he’s a nice guy, too, at least on first impression. She thinks she would like to get to know him.

  When they’d had their fill of dance lessons (he wasn’t lying, he was a clumsy dancer; but willing), an internal debate started inside of her—to bring him up here or not, or to go to his place if he asked her, which he didn’t, she could tell in the first ten seconds he wasn’t going to, for whatever reason. They’d stood outside, a breeze coming up from the ocean cooling them, it was welcome after the sweat-producing dancing (sweaty because new, and his proximity to her), they just stood there for a minute or so, neither saying a word. He seemed comfortable with the silence; she wasn’t—something wanted to happen.

  “I’m Fiestaed out,” she said by way of a start. She had to say something.

  “I know what you mean,” he replied. They watched the procession moving up and down the street, kids six wide, drinking beer in defiance of the law and passing cigarettes around. It depressed her when she saw kids smoking, even though she had at their age, younger even. “When I was a kid I was down every night,” he adds, “all day and night. Now part of one night fills the bill.”

  So he’s local. She’s lived here long enough to know that’s a big deal. People talk about being third generation, sixth generation. If you’ve got old Santa Barbara blood you have a special place in the hierarchy.

  “I don’t live in town,” he said then, taking the initiative, “otherwise I’d ask you over for a drink, ’cause I’ve seen all I need to.”

  That was enough of a break in the ice to let her make a move.

  “I know this place up Mission Canyon,” she told him, “my secret garden. It’s up near the top, across from the Botanical Gardens. It’s not that far,” she added with more haste than she would have liked; she didn’t want to appear anxious.

  “I’ll follow you.”

  He walked her to her car, then she drove him to where he had parked his, an old Cadillac from the ’60’s, the kind back home she’d always associated with pimps. It hadn’t been washed for a while.

  “I love standing up here on clear nights like this and looking down at the city and the water and everything,” she says now, as she turns toward the ocean to get a better look. “I can fantasize that I own it all.”

  The only things of value she owns outright are her car and her computer. The rest she left behind.

  He’s moved closer to her, his arm touching hers. It feels like a deliberate touch, but she’s not certain.

  “How long have you lived here?” he asks. “In Santa Barbara, I mean.”

  “A year and a half, approximately.” She moves some hair off her face that the wind’s blown over. “Before that I lived up north. Bay Area.”

  “I love San Francisco,” he says. “San Francisco and New Orleans, those are my two favorite cities.”

  “I lived in Oakland,” she states to him.

  “Um.” He pauses. Then, slightly embarrassed (her self-conscious reading of him): “I don’t know Oakland, actually. Berkeley, a little. I can find my way to the Cal campus and Chez Panisse, that’s about it.”

  She knows Chez Panisse by reputation; it’s famous. She’s never eaten there.

  He has calluses on his hands; his fingernails are cracked. She thought he was a workingman.

  “I was born in Oakland. I lived there my entire life, until under two years ago.”

  Now he takes a good look at her. Whatever he thought she was, she isn’t—she knows that’s what he’s thinking.

  “Jack London was from Oakland,” he says diplomatically. “I’m a big fan of his, I’ve read everything he’s ever written.”

  Nice try, fellow, she thinks, fighting the knee-jerk hostility and resentment towards his attitude. He meant no harm, but still she feels the sting of his initial reaction, even though that’s not his fault. Anyway, she’s the pot calling his kettle black, because she isn’t living there anymore, either (although because of very different circumstances). Look at his good stuff, girl, she reminds herself. He’s a literate, attractive guy from Santa Barbara, one of the world’s true garden spots, with enough rough edges on him so that there’s an edginess, a sexy element of danger. And he certainly has class, if he frequents the places he so casually mentioned. He’s about as far away from the men she’s known in her life as she could get, she reflects. Certainly a step up. Except for his balls, which he obviously has—the way he carries himself, the way he can comfortably joke about himself, not take himself too seriously. All the men she’s seriously known in her life have been ballsy, and most of them were dangerous; in most cases, especially with Eric, way too dangerous. Ballsiness was never the problem. It was how the men in her life used it that was always wrong.

  “Maybe sometime if we ever find ourselves together up there you could show me around,” he says. “It’s an area of California I should know more about, being the native son that I am.”

  “I’d like to.” She feels the flush rising on her neck again. That infers a next time, the possibility of a relationship. She’s standing here with a guy she doesn’t know from Adam, three hours ago she was positive she didn’t want a “relationship,” whatever that means to her today, and yet she’s thinking about showing him around her hometown. She wants the possibility to be a
vailable, so she can decide.

  “And I could show you some of what’s around here. Seeing’s how you’re new and all.” He looks at her again. “You find things, huh? What does that mean?”

  “It means that I’m a detective,” she says, taking a hit from her Tecate.

  “A detective?” He’s openly incredulous.

  “Yeah. Detective. As in private investigator. Sometimes I’m called a dick.”

  He laughs at her.

  “I know. It’s funny. When I first started out I called myself a dick in training, which really cracked people up. Now the training’s over, so I’m just a plain, regular dick.”

  “How’d you get to be a detective?” he presses.

  “I was a cop. It just sort of happened. Everybody’s got to make a living.”

  “In Oakland? That’s where you were a cop?”

  “That’s right.” They’re always fascinated when they find out what she does. It gives men a sexual charge or something; this one’s no exception.

  “Let’s talk about something else, okay? Anyway, I’m the one with the job asks questions.”

  “Sorry,” he says. “Didn’t mean to pry. It’s interesting. I’ve never met a woman detective before, not a private one.”

  “We’re few and far between.”

  She’s a woman, a person. A detective is what she does, not who she is. Not anymore, she doesn’t have that cop mindset anymore. Thank God. She doesn’t want to be an “object” of any kind, detective or otherwise. She walked out of that life, she had the courage to take over her life, stop that from being her work, instead of her, whatever she, Kate Blanchard, is. She’s in command, she isn’t about to give that up, not to anyone, certainly not to some cowboy named Cecil who finds what she does interesting. Find me interesting. The who, not the what.

  Maybe finding her interesting is too much to ask. It could imply a closeness beyond this guy’s capabilities. Maybe there’s another woman. Which would be why he threw out the lame excuse about not asking her over because he lives out of town. And not just any woman, that would never do. No; a specific woman: a wife. Kids. A white picket fence, roses.