House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  Morgan’s already been questioned. They had a hard time of it, because she was totally off the wall. If she doesn’t calm down before they’re finished with Laura they’ll have to call in a doctor to sedate her.

  “You can go,” they tell her again, having already done so over an hour ago, after she gave her statement, such as it was, she was so incoherent. “Go where?” she cried.

  That was her problem. She’s free to go, they’d like her to leave, but she has nowhere to go: except for Laura and Frank she doesn’t know a soul in town.

  They sit in a small, windowless room. Laura, Calloway, the two cops. Slowly, with Calloway hand-holding her through the process, Laura regains enough of her composure to tell her story.

  She was conned, pure and simple. She joined the group near the end of the voyage, they never actually put in to any port, always anchoring well offshore. Morgan had been brought out in a small powerboat piloted by a local Mexican, with nothing but her one suitcase.

  Morgan told them the same thing.

  “Frank didn’t know about this,” Laura tells the police.

  “Why do you think that?” they ask, taking turns questioning her. There’s no good cop, bad cop, they’re both nice and polite.

  “Because I know Frank. It’s just not him. Rusty must have used Frank, loaded the dope while Frank wasn’t around. It has to be that way.”

  That had been Frank’s story, too. Whether it’s true or not—they think it’s bullshit but they’re not 100 percent certain—they both conclude pretty soon into their questioning of Laura that she wasn’t in on it. The other one, either. Dupes, both of them.

  “Frank would never do something like that,” Laura pleads with them. “He’d never put me in that kind of jeopardy.”

  Which, although the hard evidence points inescapably to the fact that Frank is dirty, is what the detectives have been forced to speculate on, too. That plus the other hard fact that these are no ordinary citizens they’re dealing with here, this is the Sparks family. This arrest could blow up in the department’s face if they get it wrong.

  “Thanks for your cooperation,” the detectives tell Laura, wrapping it up. “We’re sorry we had to pull you away from your party.”

  “That’s life,” Calloway answers for her, his way of telling them the family won’t make trouble if this doesn’t go any further.

  “Can I see him?” Laura asks. “Frank. I want to see him. Is he all right?”

  “He’s fine. You can’t see him. He’s in the men’s section of the county lockup, women aren’t allowed except family.”

  “When will he be arraigned?” Calloway asks. He’ll have to handle that. He won’t be Frank’s lawyer, since that would be a conflict of interest, but he’ll have to find one for him, a crackerjack.

  “Probably tomorrow morning. Check the court’s calendar.”

  “We’ll see you then.”

  They escort Laura and Calloway to the lobby. Miranda and Frederick are waiting, Miranda wearing a hole in the floor with her pacing. They weren’t allowed into the interrogation even though Miranda and the sheriff, Ralph Walker, are good friends, since she’s helped raise money for police projects through all kinds of charitable activities, has gone on several drive-arounds at night with both city police and county sheriffs, and has toured the county jail on numerous occasions; she’s even walked the cellblocks, where she got plenty of appreciative whistles and obscene catcalls.

  She’d managed to contact Ralph Walker on the phone. He was up in north county and hadn’t been able to help her: procedures have to be followed strictly, this was no small-potatoes deal here, her foreman is in jail and could be in serious trouble; if she wants to help she should be looking for a good lawyer for him (which had brought a snort of derision from Miranda); he dug his hole, Frank, he can figure his own way out.

  Laura says nothing, too numb to talk. God, this is bizarre. Frank’s in a cell somewhere, with other men, real criminals. Poor baby. She’ll take extra-good care of him when he gets out.

  Her parents flank her as they walk outside to the car. It’s nice to have them standing by her at a time like this. She’s glad to be who she is, instead of someone like that poor cow Morgan, who’s going to be thrown out onto the street on her ass, not knowing a soul in town. If for no other reason than common charity she should take Morgan in for the night, until Morgan can figure a way to go home. Her grandmother would do it in a heartbeat. But she won’t; she does not want any part of Morgan or any of this, not now, it’s too heavy to handle.

  Frank Bascomb sits hunched up in a corner of the common cell he’s sharing with a dozen or so other new arrestees, his back pressed up against the wall. They’re being housed temporarily in what is normally a day area, because all the regular cells are occupied. This condition is an emergency one, because there are strict limits, by law, as to how many prisoners the jail can hold; right now it’s over the limit. So, bright and early tomorrow morning the six superior court judges who are currently sitting will start ordering releases, to get the number of inmates down to where it’s legal. This means some very bad men who shouldn’t get out will, and others who pose no threat to society will stay locked up. It’s an imperfect system; no one pretends otherwise. That kind of self-denying bullshit is for the politicians.

  These other men in here with Frank had been booked and dumped in as one group, a few minutes before Frank’s arrival. When the police brought Frank in, they went at him in an extended interrogation, plus fingerprinting and mandatory strip-search—including the humiliation of some guard’s latex-gloved finger shoved up his ass (“normal procedure, pal, nothing personal”). Then, over an hour later, they initially placed him in a one-man medium-security cell, a level 3 (level 1 being the easiest, honor farm and trustees, and level 5 the hardest, hard-core evil fuckers), because although the crime he was arrested for is major, a man like Frank Bascomb isn’t considered dangerous to the guards or other inmates.

  This is a good sign, Frank hopes, trying to look on the bright side. Like most first-timers, he mistakenly thinks you are assigned to a particular level by the severity of your crime, as opposed to your profile. So he’s starting off on the wrong foot, assuming the sheriffs who run the jail don’t put someone they think is a hardened criminal in a group tank with a bunch of common drunks. Maybe this means they believe his story, which he had started chanting like a mantra from the moment the cops came down on them near the beach: that he didn’t know anything, that Rusty did it all on his own.

  And maybe the tooth fairy will fly down tonight and leave a dollar under his pillow.

  Fuck it. At least Rusty’s dead. He can’t say otherwise to Frank’s song-and-dance. The other guy, Rusty’s helper, he’s a good soldier, he’ll keep his mouth shut, because he knows what’ll happen if he doesn’t. The other guy is in another part of the jail somewhere—the cops segregated the two of them. Just keep your cool until tomorrow, my friend, until you can make bail and go live in Brazil for the rest of your life, an option Frank may have to reserve for himself if nothing else works.

  At least they’d have that—the bail, no matter how high it was set, and it would be high, that he knew. As soon as he was booked Frank had called his backer, the deep-pockets financial angel for this scam.

  You’ll be out by tomorrow morning, his backer had promised him. You’ll have the best lawyer, the best everything. Until then, don’t say anything to anybody.

  He knew all that was true, if for no other reason than to ensure that he kept his mouth shut. A lot of heavy people could come crashing down if Frank Bascomb started telling tales to the DA.

  “Hey, man,” a voice sings out from across the space. A lilting voice, mocking. The rhythms are Chicano.

  Frank glances up for a second, looks away quickly. Don’t acknowledge these assholes.

  “You got a smoke on you, man?”

  Just fucking ignore them. As if these clowns didn’t know smoking isn’t permitted in here, they take your cigarettes awa
y along with everything else you had on you.

  “Hey, man, what’re you, deaf or something?”

  Frank turns away.

  “Get the wax out of your ears, shithead. I ask you a question, man.”

  “I don’t smoke.” Like it fucking matters.

  “Not even grass?”

  They all laugh. They know how come he’s in here, the word seeps through like a virus.

  He turns to them. A pathetic-looking lot—clothes in shambles, hair matted, body stink their only aura.

  “Who wants to know?”

  Confront the fuckers head-on, let them know you have no fear.

  “Maybe you’re the one has the wax in his ears, whoever asked,” Frank says. “I don’t smoke, comprende?”

  “Sure, man. Whatever you say.”

  He’s a tall man, reed-thin. Impossible to tell how old; could be twenty-five, could be forty-five. The dark, sallow skin of the addict/alcoholic/headcase; unshaved face, hollow burning eyes. A long scar from one eyebrow up to the hairline, a permanent reminder of a past encounter with somebody’s straight razor.

  The others are of the same tribe, more or less. Men who sleep in one set of clothes a month at a time, who scrounge for dinner in dumpsters and sleep in the weeds down by the railroad tracks.

  “That’s what I say. Got a problem with it?”

  “You got the problem, man, not me. You’re the number-one guest in this hotel.” He laughs, a raspy, phlegmy croak.

  Frank glares at the man, daring him with his look to make a move. The man tries to hold the look but can’t; he turns away, as do the others, leaving Frank a healthy space: at heart they’re all cowards.

  He won’t sleep tonight, that’s for sure, not with all these freaks in here giving him the eye.

  He pushes up against the wall, feeling his back on the hard concrete. He can do without one night of sleep and still be sharp for tomorrow’s arraignment. That’s when the shit will really start hitting the fan.

  “Were you crazy? Were you out of your stupid mind? Are you really this stupid, Or is this something you picked up in college?”

  The party’s over at Frederick and Miranda’s. Everyone’s gone home, Frederick’s in bed, the servants have retired, no one’s around. Just Miranda and Laura, mother and daughter.

  They’re in the same study where earlier they’d talked to the police; an episode Miranda never, ever, wants to repeat. She paces the floor, a tiger in a cage, while Laura, curled up into herself, cowers on the couch, trembling uncontrollably, trying to become invisible, to escape this monumental wrath.

  “Why do you think we sent you clear across the country to the most expensive schools in the world?” Miranda thunders, building up a full head of steam. “So you could build a snowman in the winter? We didn’t want you at Santa Barbara High, hanging around all those baggy-pants eastside hoods. I keep hoping some of my toughness will rub off on you, but it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to. You’re a spoiled child of privilege—it’s your blessing and your curse.”

  “But I didn’t do anything!” Laura wails.

  “You didn’t do anything? What do you call what happened tonight?” she yells, her arm shooting out in the vague direction of town, of the jail.

  “It wasn’t my fault!”

  “I don’t give a damn about fault!” her mother thunders. “I’m talking about responsibility! You were there. On that boat. With a ton of marijuana on it. You were smoking marijuana on that boat, don’t lie to me, Laura, you were smoking on the boat along with all of the rest of them, what else were you doing, cocaine probably …”

  “I wasn’t doing coke …”

  “Because there wasn’t any, that’s got to be the only reason. You were on that boat, with Frank Bascomb, who I’ve warned you against a million times, I told you he’d use you. You think you’re so damn grown up but this proves you’re still a kid.”

  Laura doesn’t answer. She’s crying, wiping her nose with her forearm.

  “And you let these slimy bastards, these sons of bitches, you let them use our property to unload their goddamn drugs!”

  “I was trying to help them out. They took me on their cruise with them, I was just trying to be helpful.”

  “Well, you were that. You were definitely helpful. You almost helped yourself right into jail.”

  Her feet hurt. She kicks her shoes across the floor. That helps. Her head is pounding like a kettle drum.

  “Which could still happen,” Miranda adds, “I hope you realize that. I hope you realize the gravity of the situation you might find yourself in.”

  “What do you mean?” Laura asks, frightened by the statement.

  “What happens when they haul Frank up in front of a judge tomorrow, he’s going to be arraigned tomorrow, or the next day at the latest, and he says ‘Laura Sparks was my partner in this, she knew everything about it’?”

  “He won’t do that!”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s already said I wasn’t involved!”

  “That’s today. Tomorrow he’s going to get hit with the fact that he’s facing years and years in jail; but if he turns on you, if he says it was your idea, your money even, he can cut a deal. What do you think he’ll do then?”

  “But that’s not true!” Laura cries.

  “You may get a chance to tell the judge that,” her mother warns her. She collapses into a chair. “Jesus, what a mess.” She stares at her daughter, who is sitting across from her, shaking uncontrollably. “Between you and me—and I want the truth, Laura, no bullshitting—were you involved?”

  “I swear to God, no!”

  “You didn’t put up the money?”

  “God, no!”

  “And you didn’t know anything about it?”

  “I didn’t, Mommy, I swear to God!”

  “God, you’re stupid. You sure didn’t get that from me.”

  “Daddy isn’t stupid,” Laura says in a small, babyish voice.

  “No, he isn’t. You didn’t get it from him either, I know that for sure.”

  Miranda’s on her feet again. Sitting’s too passive, she needs to be up, she can think better on her feet.

  “As long as you’re clean we’ll get by this,” she declares.

  “Mom, I am, how can I convince you?” She’s retreated into herself, almost into a fetal position.

  Miranda stops, looks down at her daughter.

  “Okay, I believe you. I do believe you, I have to. Otherwise we have no future, not just you, all of us, the entire family. And that’s not a possibility.”

  “Thank you,” Laura whines. She stares up at her mother. “But I wish it was because you love me, not because of the family’s future.”

  “I do love you. That’s why I worry about our future. You’re our only child, you are our future.”

  “I know that.”

  “And you’ll never see Frank again.” A statement, not a question.

  “I’ll never see Frank again,” Laura vows.

  “Drive carefully,” Kate tells Cecil. “The streets are full of crazies tonight.”

  They’re standing in the potholed driveway, by his old Cadillac. Her own car, a ’74 low-rider 327 Camaro hardtop, pearl on purple with rolled velour upholstery, which she bought at a police auction years ago, is parked next to it. She calls it the Rooster, because it’s a tough and feisty little bird. She keeps a sleeping bag in the trunk, which she’ll roll out on the deck for herself.

  That they both drive big old American cars is a good sign, she thinks. If they’re compatible in this area, maybe they’ll be compatible in lots of ways.

  “Nice wheels,” Cecil tells her. “Don’t see many of these old muscle cars around anymore.”

  “I don’t have the heart to dump it,” she confesses. “It gets about four miles to the gallon if you’re coasting downhill, it would wind up in a junkyard. Be like putting an old pet to sleep. I’ll just keep it till it flat-out dies on me.”

  He glances east, toward
s the horizon. “Besides, it’s almost dawn. Fiesta’s officially over.”

  “I’ve kept you up way past your bedtime and you don’t have one damn thing to show for it.” Sexually, she means. The emotional stuff, she doesn’t know where that’s been going.

  “I’ve got no complaints.”

  He opens the car door.

  “One more for the road,” she says, spinning him back towards her.

  The kiss feels good. Better than good.

  “Now go.” She pushed him into the driver’s seat.

  “I don’t have your phone number.”

  “I don’t have yours, either.”

  He reaches into the glove box, rummages through what appears to be ten years’ worth of gum wrappers, auto registrations, grocery-store coupons, plus a shitload of other forgettable stuff, extracting in the midst of all that a dog-eared checkbook, from which he tears out a check and hands it to her.

  “Don’t spend it all in one place,” he drawls.

  “I need a pen.”

  He hands her one from off his visor. She tears the check in half, keeps the part with his vitals on it, writes her name and phone number on the back of the remaining half, hands it to him.

  “I’ll call you soon,” he promises. “Or you call me.”

  “You,” she says. She doesn’t want to push it; it was nice, but it’s only the one night. These things have a way of losing their glow when the morning light hits them.

  “Sleep well,” he tells her, with one last kiss of benediction on the forehead.

  She watches his taillights fade off down the driveway. You be careful, she warns herself. Just because you’ve had no “relationships,” to use the term in its broadest sense, since leaving Eric, that doesn’t mean you should shut yourself off from a better man.

  “You’re okay, as men go,” she says after him. “Hope you call.”

  Both the city police chief, Bert Jenkins, and the county sheriff, Ralph Walker, had taken the same vow: the violence that had erupted in town during the past few Fiesta celebrations wasn’t going to be repeated.

  Last year had been particularly gnarly. Two rival gangs up from Ventura had gotten into a dust-off right in the heart of State St., and when the shit had settled one teenage kid had been knifed to death, several people were seriously wounded, and the entire Fiesta raison d’être had been called into question. What had always been a celebration of the old Spanish heritage, bringing all the different ethnic and economic elements together more or less harmoniously, had evolved over the past decade into an excuse for roving gangs of kids who didn’t know what Fiesta was all about to band together, get drunk and high, and go looking for trouble, mainly along ethnic lines, with the major Hispanic gangs in particular visibly flaunting their colors.