House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  Her emotions are running away with her, she can feel them as palpably as she can feel her breathing. Don’t chicken out on your impulse. Life is short and maybe this can’t work, but maybe, she forces herself to acknowledge, I should try it. Isn’t that why she pulled up all her roots and hit the road, to start a new life, to expand her horizons, all that good shit the therapists back in Oakland, especially Dr. Whitcomb, harped on, over and over? To know how much strength, real inner courage, you have, and not to run away from it?

  Give it a shot, she pep-talks herself. You can handle any cowboy.

  To get to Desierto Cielo, the awesome (even by Montecito standards) mansion which is home to Laura’s parents, you drive clear to the top of Picacho Lane, taking a left turn off the road by the huge transported saguaro cactus onto a private driveway (after calling security via the phone box and being cleared to have the gate opened), which winds serpentlike another half-mile through several acres of gardens, both tended and wild, until the compound, consisting of the main house, two guesthouses, the pool and poolhouse (and some utility buildings), all of which have sweeping, heart-stopping views of the Pacific, comes into view.

  The party is a big, sprawling, outdoor gala, a couple hundred people, carefully selected and approved by Miranda Tayman Sparks, who has orchestrated this gala; even the special invitees of Miranda’s mother-in-law, the great dowager Dorothy Hawthorne Sparks, have to pass Miranda’s muster, although Miranda generally doesn’t sweat the small stuff when it comes to dealing with Dorothy—staying on the right side of her husband’s mother is something she learned to do years ago; even before she and Frederick were married she’d figured out the lay of the land.

  The guest list is a mixed bag of money, old and new, other classes of important people, artists; most of them guests of Frederick, Laura’s father, a fine amateur photographer and watercolorist, who is to many of this set a major patron; and a smattering of influential local leaders, like Sean Redbuck, Santa Barbara County’s Third District supervisor, a Santa Ynez rancher who’s one of the family’s good friends and allies.

  Few of these people (except the politicians, who have to) give a damn about the real Fiesta activities. That’s for ordinary people. They float above it all, rarely venturing down into the heart of the city during these five days.

  Miranda works the crowd, playing the charming and gracious hostess. She’s dressed in a Spanish-style skirt and blouse, with her hair piled up on her head. Twelve hours ago she was fucking a lover on the front porch of her family’s Santa Ynez Valley ranch house, biting his cheek so hard she almost drew blood. Now she flits from group to group, making sure everyone is having a good time, her uninhibited laughter ringing across the property.

  She spots Dorothy arriving fashionably late with some of her old friends. The old guard, she thinks with disdain, the dying breed. Miranda knows she is too down-home for her mother-in-law’s taste, too earthy. For all of Dorothy’s liberalism, her causes—homeless shelters, AIDS hospices, dozens of such do-gooder works—she’s still a Yankee WASP at heart: moderate, conservative, always self-effacing. She expects those around her to have those same qualities, and since Miranda doesn’t, never has, there’s always been tension between the two women, both powerful and headstrong.

  The most important component in their relationship, as much an element of their world as nitrogen or oxygen, is the bottom-line truth that Dorothy was born rich while Miranda married it, married Dorothy’s only child, something neither of them has ever been able to get beyond, because Dorothy has always, in a million subtle (and occasionally not-so-subtle) ways, played the caste card.

  Old money doesn’t matter much anymore, even in Montecito, everyone acknowledges that. What counts isn’t where you got your money but that you have it. Still, there is a certain cachet to having longtime Santa Barbara roots. Frederick, like his mother and grandfather and great-grandfather before him, is classic old California money, which they got the old-fashioned way—they stole it, like everyone else did back then. Their principal source of wealth is Pacific Land and Trust, one of the biggest ranching corporations in the state for over a hundred years. They also own an immense portfolio of commercial property up and down the state.

  Along with her husband’s money and her own unique beauty, Miranda has the other necessary pieces of the package: cunning, intelligence, and, most importantly, awesome ambition. It’s the ambition that’s always bothered her mother-in-law, and at the same time impressed her. That’s why, years ago, when her husband died, Dorothy made the critical decision to turn over the day-to-day financial operations of the family empire to Miranda rather than Frederick. Miranda has the drive, the energy, and the will. Frederick is too dreamy. Dorothy always loved that about him, while simultaneously fearing how it might affect the family’s fortunes.

  Frederick hadn’t protested when his mother had told him of her decision, which took him off the court as an important financial player for the rest of his life. He had other interests, he was happy to be relieved of the responsibility.

  Standing at the edge of the pond, Laura’s upset, still thinking of Frank staying behind with Morgan.

  “Are you okay?” her father asks as if reading her mind, handing her a glass of Perrier Jouët, tonight’s house pour.

  “Great.” She takes a sip. Shit, that’s good. There’s nothing like fine champagne, it’s as good as cocaine and it’s legal.

  “How was your cruise?” He hasn’t seen her all week until an hour ago, when she drove up, alone.

  “It was pretty great. You’d have appreciated it, Dad, especially some of the marine life. There were turtles swimming off Baja that must’ve been twenty feet across the backs of their shells.”

  “We’ll do it together sometime,” he smiles at her with that sweet smile of his.

  “You’d be much better company, Dad.”

  He kisses her on the forehead, moves on. She watches him go. God, she loves him. Such a good father—always has been. He was the one that was always there for her, much more than her mom; the sensitive one, who knew when she was hurting almost before she was conscious of her feelings surfacing, who helped her move from under her mother’s shadow and have her own life, even from early childhood. He had been happy his only child was a girl.

  Laura has his looks. Thin, slightly washed out. Frederick is a tall, angular, bespectacled man, always immaculately groomed; sporting a neatly trimmed Edwardian mustache and goatee, he bears a deliberately cultivated resemblance (relishing the comparison with delight on those rare occasions it’s recognized) to James Joyce, whose works, even Finnegans Wake, he’s carefully read; his old Modern Library edition of Ulysses is held together with duct tape it’s been thumbed through so many times, the intriguing and mystifying passages highlighted in yellow Briteliner, sitting prominently on one of the shelves of his huge library, the largest private library in the county, already willed to the Sparks Foundation after his death. Which is a good thing, because no one in this family would read them, not even his daughter, the burgeoning publisher.

  She sips more champagne, checks her watch. Frank will have some bullshit excuse and she’ll buy it, like she always does. Don’t bring that imbecile Morgan when you come. That’s all she asks.

  Frank drives the lead truck up the access road, taking his time as he navigates in the dark. Rusty follows closely in the other vehicle. They’ve rolled the windows all the way up, to avoid the dry dust being kicked up in their faces. At least the trucks are air-conditioned, Rusty thinks with begrudging gratitude. The shit he’s used to driving in Mexico, you’re lucky if it’s got a transmission and brakes that work.

  Rusty’s never been to this specific area before, and after tonight he never will be here again. His helper rides shotgun, with Morgan sandwiched between them, her firm leg pressed against his, the fingertips of her left hand resting lightly on his thigh, creating a tingle he has to disregard for the time being. Rusty’s good at separating business and pleasure—it’s one of the m
ain reasons he’s stayed clean as long as he has, in a line of work in which longevity is measured in months, not years.

  Both trucks are driving with their lights out, an extra measure of precaution in case anyone should accidentally spot them from the highway. Frank’s idea, which Rusty endorsed. Not a dumb guy, Frank. They’re all going to get well off this job.

  The procession stops as Frank jumps out to unlock the gate. Rusty half-watches, his mind wandering momentarily. It’s done now. Stash the load, hit the Biltmore (where he’s reserved a two-bedroom suite), shave, shower, go out into the world and have some fun. He’ll have to keep a tight rein on Morgan, that’s his only worry. She’s too dumb to know how to keep her mouth shut, not that she knows anything—she thought the stuff they were off-loading into the trucks was sailing gear, that the reason the truck lights are off is so no busybody will stop and hassle them, even though Frank is legal here. You can tell her anything, she’ll believe it. One of her nicer qualities. That and her performance in bed. She may be a dumb bitch, maybe the dimmest woman Rusty’s ever gone around with, but no one can say she isn’t a world-class piece of ass. What the hell, Rusty muses—we all have our pluses and minuses. At heart, Morgan’s just a sweet little San Gabriel Valley girl.

  The lights hit them from all directions, suddenly and without warning.

  “Step out of your vehicles and put your hands in the air where we can see them.” The voice, disembodied through a loudspeaker, cuts through the dark, the entire scene framed by half a dozen flashing lights mounted on the rooftops of police cars.

  They’re trapped under the halogen spots like flies stuck to honey. Fifty yards away traffic slows to a crawl on Highway 101, lookie-loos craning their necks in anticipation of something awful, a passel of road kill and twisted metal.

  “Exit your vehicles, please. No sudden movements.”

  This wasn’t supposed to happen, Rusty thinks, his mind suspended in time as he cuts the ignition and pulls the hand brake. There’s always that million-to-one possibility, but not this time, goddamnit. This was supposed to be a no-brainer.

  Judges have been handing down mandatory ten-to-twenty hard-time sentences for an ounce of acid, half a kilo of grass, ten grams of heroin or cocaine. They’re hauling three quarters of a ton of primo marijuana in these two trucks, worth three million or more on the street, enough for a dozen lifetimes of breaking rock in the hot sun.

  No way he’s going to be some big-dicked motherfucker’s sweetheart. Living in a cage, no surf, no sun, no air: impossible.

  He slides along the driver’s side of the cab, which is facing away from the cops, waiting for Morgan to exit, for their eyes to knee-jerk to her for just a second or two. That’s all he needs. Crouching low like a scorpion, edging his way towards the darkness.

  Now he’s running, he’s broken the edge of light, he’ll swim all the way to Santa Cruz Island if he has to.

  “Halt!” the voice is yelling at him over the loudspeaker.

  Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose. Which is the last out-of-left-field thought that goes through Rusty’s mind before the sharpshooter’s Steyr SSG P-II .308 explodes, driving a hole the size of a cashew in the back of his head and blowing out the entire front of his face upon exit.

  Kate chickens out and stops Cecil after he gets to second base. She wants to take her time, in case there’s something here, something more than glands. Timing is everything, an old detective once told her.

  He nuzzles the back of her neck, his tongue licking at her ear. The nerve runs in a direct line down to her vagina.

  “You’ve got nice lips, Kate,” he says in a low murmur. “Couch lips. Good for kissing.”

  “So do you,” she says back to him, too comfortable to come up with some snappy original repartee.

  It feels good, lying back into him, his arms around her. Let it be.

  “All in its own good time,” he says, as if reading her mind.

  “Right.”

  “I wouldn’t want you to think I’m an easy lay,” he continues.

  “Me, too,” she counters. “Because I’m not.”

  “I didn’t think so.”

  They dangle their feet in the pool. Above their heads, fireworks signifying the end of Fiesta explode in the sky. She lies on the cool deck on her back, watching the display, and the stars. It’s a clear night considering how hot it’s been.

  “Are you going to go back to those dance classes again?” he asks her.

  “I don’t know. Are you?”

  “If you are.”

  “We could be a team,” she says, feeling giddy and foolish. “We could go out on the road and give exhibitions at county fairs. I hear the fair up in Paso Robles is dying to have such an attraction.”

  “We’ll need a few more lessons first. To refine it down.” They roll into a hot embrace, wet legs locked together.

  “Where’s your beau?” Miranda teases Laura, sidling up to her with a ceviche-laden cracker in hand, slipping it into her daughter’s unaware mouth. Miranda doesn’t like it that Frank is dating Laura; he’s too old, too experienced. They’ve argued about it, she and Laura, she’s talked with Frank as well, privately; but she’s canny, she knows when to push and when not to. She knows she’ll have it her way sooner or later.

  “Securing the boat,” Laura answers. “Or cleaning up, I don’t know. He should’ve been here by now,” she adds, unable to stuff the anxiety about Frank, and possibly Frank and Morgan.

  “Why don’t you give him a call,” Miranda suggests, “motivate his sorry ass?” She talks street lingo sometimes, it’s part of her charm.

  And Miranda knows all about the anatomy of men like Frank Bascomb. They swarm her like drone bees in a honeycomb. Frank did himself, years ago—put it right on the line.

  “Any time you want,” he’d brazenly informed her. They were fence-riding together, up on the family ranch. He’d only come to work for them a short time before.

  “Don’t hold your breath,” she had answered coldly, making sure there was no mixed signal given. Maybe he’d heard something; she knew men talked about her. He was a handsome man, but that was the wrong approach to use with her. And he worked for her.

  He had smiled, like it was a matter of time. It was the smile that really ticked her off.

  “If you ever speak like that to me again,” she had warned him, “I’ll inform my husband. If you want to keep on working here, you’d best keep your mouth shut around me regarding anything personal.”

  Frank had been assistant foreman then. He’d taken her advice, and when Frederick had nominated him for ranch foreman after Clete Willis was forced into retirement, Miranda had had no objections. He was good at his job.

  “I will, good idea,” Laura responds too eagerly. “If he doesn’t show up in a couple minutes.”

  Miranda’s attention is momentarily diverted as her personal maid approaches, a look of concern on her face.

  “What is it, Izela?”

  “There’s two policemen drove up,” Izela answers.

  “Policemen? Don’t tell me somebody called in a complaint, for god-sakes. What do they want?”

  “They want to talk to Laura.”

  They gather in Frederick’s small study: Laura, Miranda, Frederick, the two county sheriff’s detectives, and Tom Calloway, the family’s lawyer, who’s here as a guest (which is fortunate), dressed for the occasion like one of Pancho Villa’s bandidos, including fake crossed bandoleers and a huge leather sombrero. The other guests don’t even know the police are here, since they’re detectives wearing regular street clothes.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Laura tells them. She’s verging on hysteria.

  “Let’s establish right now, is Laura a suspect in any of this?” Calloway asks, standing so he’s between her and them. He glances at Miranda and Frederick, to let them know he’s got this under control, or will shortly.

  “We don’t know yet,” one of the detectives tells him even
ly, “but we do need her to come down to the jail so we can ask her some questions.”

  “I don’t want to go to any jail!” Laura cries out.

  “Take it easy,” Calloway instructs her. “Just take it easy.” He rubs his palms together vigorously. “All right, we’ll come in tomorrow morning. I can clear my calendar,” he adds, both for the detectives’ benefit and for the Sparkses’, who are his most important clients.

  “We need to do it now,” the other detective informs him.

  “Why, if she isn’t a suspect?” Miranda asks, forcefully inserting herself into the discussion.

  “I’m handling this, Miranda. Please.” Calloway looks at her sharply.

  “But she hasn’t done anything wrong!” Miranda snaps, rising out of her chair. “You just can’t come into somebody’s house like this!”

  “If you want us to get a court order …” the first detective says, turning to confront her.

  “For what?” She moves a step towards him. She’s taking charge now—screw the pleasantries, this is her daughter.

  “We’ll come in, we’ll come in,” Calloway tells them. Turning to Laura: “It’s all right. I’ll come with you. I’ll be there. It’s nothing. Really.”

  “Am I under arrest or something?” Laura asks, almost unable to speak she’s so scared.

  “No,” the lead detective assures her. “We need information as soon as possible, that’s all. Right now. Tonight.” He pauses. “There shouldn’t be any reason to think you’re … involved … in any of this. Not now, anyway,” he adds with some gravity.

  The interrogation of Laura (because you can’t bullshit about it, that’s what it is) takes almost two hours. Morgan is at the jail when Laura and the others get there, she’s been there for hours, sitting alone in a corner of the lobby; she literally throws herself at Laura when Laura first arrives, she’s so out of her mind with fear. It takes a while for Laura to register the unbelievable information that Rusty is dead, shot while trying to escape, and that Frank is in custody downstairs, charged with possession of and conspiracy to sell almost a ton of marijuana.