Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  “What do you want?”

  I spun around and glanced up. A granite block of a man with the blond curly hair of a Botticelli angel was staring down at me.

  “I’m looking for someone.” And I showed him Bethany’s picture.

  “You her mother?”

  “No. I’ve been hired to find her.”

  “What’s she done?”

  “She’s a runaway.” I was yelling to make myself heard. “Have you seen her?”

  “These kids all look the same to me.”

  “Mind if I look around?”

  “As long as you don’t cause any problems—no.”

  I nodded and started walking through the place. The kids ignored me, pretending I wasn’t there. When I tried to show them Bethany’s picture, they all shook their heads and averted their eyes. There were lots of kids that looked like Bethany—maybe she was even there—but between the lighting and the constant motion, it was difficult to tell. I found a relatively quiet corner and stood there and watched. After about ten minutes my eyes and ears adjusted, and I spotted Bethany leaning against the wall, sipping something out of a paper cup and watching the band. She looked lonely standing there by herself.

  “Bethany?” I said once I’d worked my way over to her.

  She shot me a glance and started moving away. I grabbed her arm, which in retrospect was a mistake.

  “Let me go!” she cried.

  “I just want to talk to you.”

  She tried to wiggle out of my grasp. “You’re hurting me.”

  I tightened my grip. “Your parents want you to come home.”

  “Tell them to screw themselves.”

  “Bethany... please... all I want to do—”

  “Get away from me!” she screamed.

  By now we’d begun to attract a considerable amount of attention.

  “She’s trying to kidnap me!” Bethany yelled. “Help, help!”

  Suddenly, we were surrounded. Everyone was yelling things like “Let her go” and “Leave her alone.”

  The next thing I knew, my feet had left the floor. “I warned you about creating a disturbance,” Granite Guy said as he deposited me outside.

  I called Bethany’s parents from the parking lot and told them to come down. Hopefully, they could talk some sense into their child. I waited around till they showed half an hour later, and then I went home. The phone rang about two minutes after I walked through the door.

  It was Bethany’s dad. He just wanted to let me know they’d lost her. She’d jumped out of the family car and run off again. He sounded furious, and I didn’t blame him.

  The next day, I kept my appointment with Pat Humphrey. She lived in Strathmore, one of the last upscale areas left in the city of Syracuse. The area has a Fort Apache feel, since it sits like a citadel looking down over Onondaga Park, grandly ignoring the slums that are creeping up on all sides of it. It has streets with pretty French names, lilac bushes in the front yards, and houses made of quarried stone and stucco, parquet floors, oak doors, cove molding, and mullioned windows, houses made by craftsmen who expected them to last for a hundred years instead of twenty.

  The cottage Pat Humphrey lived in looked as if it had been built during the Arts and Crafts Movement era. Small and tidy, the outside was painted a teal blue, and the windowsills, a deep matte red. The pillars supporting the wide front-porch roof were made of quarried stone. A rocking chair and three weathered Adirondack chairs faced out to the street. It was easy to imagine myself sitting there, drinking a tall iced coffee, smoking a cigarette, and listening to the cicadas. Alongside the house a stunted perennial border of coneflowers, shasta daisies, and black-eyed Susans, decorative grasses, and deep purple petunias struggled in the afternoon heat.

  I checked one last time to make sure the voice-activated tape recorder in my backpack was working, then got out of my car and rang the bell. A moment later, Pat Humphrey came to the door. She didn’t look the way I’d expected her to, but then I hadn’t expected her to live in a place like this, either. I thought I’d be meeting someone who favored ethnic dresses and wore sandals and large, dangling earrings, someone like Amy. Instead, Pat Humphrey was cool, unwrinkled, and in control. Just looking at her made me feel hot, sweaty, and dirty.

  Tall and thin, she wore her carefully tailored short sleeve beige linen blouse and slacks well. She had a long, narrow nose, eyes set a shade too far apart, and a mouth that looked as if it didn’t get to smile too much. Her hair was an indeterminate shade of blond. Straight, it came to right below her ears and was cut in the sort of style that looks as if it’s easy to do and actually takes hours in front of the mirror with a brush and blow-dryer to accomplish.

  The diamond studs she had on were large enough to be noticed but small enough to be tasteful. But for all the care Pat Humphrey had taken with her appearance, she couldn’t completely conceal the rough red patches across her cheeks and on her chin. Then I noticed she had similar patches on her wrists and arms. Little pinpricks of dried blood marked where’d she’d been scratching. Eczema, I’d be willing to bet. One of my cousins had had it. The doctor had told him it was caused by stress.

  “Come in,” she told me, casting a somewhat jaundiced eye on my wrinkled black linen short skirt and bubblegum pink T-shirt. “I should have told you to wear neutral colors. Vivid ones can interfere with reception.”

  “Now I know why my TV isn’t working too well,” I quipped as I stepped inside.

  Pat Humphrey smiled politely.

  The house was pleasantly cool. I caught a faint aroma of sandalwood. Everything in it, from the hardwood oak floor to the diamond-leaded windowpanes, sparkled. The walls of the small vestibule I was standing in were covered in an expensive, textured, wheat-colored paper, which contrasted nicely with the ocher-colored living-room walls. The pictures on them, mostly landscapes, looked like original oils and watercolors. The worn nut-brown leather Chesterfield sofa and club chair sat on a fair-sized Oriental rug. A bouquet of baby’s-breath, sunflowers, and daisies sat in a polished copper vase in front of the fireplace. The mantel, painted white, was covered with photos and ceramic candlesticks.

  “Very nice,” I said. The place dripped with good taste, the kind it takes a fair amount of money and knowledge to accomplish.

  Pat Humphrey nodded her head graciously. “Most of the furniture is my grandmother’s. This”—she indicated the lamp to the right of the sofa—“is a real Tiffany. The table under it is a signed Stickley.” Pat tucked a strand of blonde hair behind her ear.

  “We’re talking what? Maybe fifty to sixty thousand dollars?” I posited, realizing I’d spoken out loud. “My mother was in the trade for a while,” I explained.

  “People say I should sell this stuff and invest the money, but having it here makes me feel closer to Gran.”

  I made a noncommittal sound. I had no reason to believe Humphrey was lying about where she’d gotten the stuff, but she didn’t strike me as the sentimental type, either.

  “I guess I’ve been fortunate,” Pat Humphrey added as she led me into the dining room and sat me down at the table in the center.

  Maybe. Or maybe she’d made her own luck. I positioned my backpack on the table, close to where she was sitting. “No pets?”

  Pat Humphrey spread her fingers out and studied her carefully manicured nails. “I find them a distraction. I need quiet.”

  She certainly had that. Aside from the whir of the overhead fan, the only other sound I could hear was the swish of the dishwasher running. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched a metallic green beetle march its way over the fringe of an old Herez and onto the floor. When it got to the leg of the sideboard, it stopped and waved its feelers around for a few minutes, wondering what to do.

  “How did you get into this line of work?” I asked her as the beetle began its climb.

  “I’ve always had the ability. From the time I was a little girl. I’d get these flashes. My grandmother had them, too, so I guess you could say I inherite
d it. This is a way to use my ability for good.” Pat Humphrey clasped her hands together and cocked her head slightly to one side. “Tell me, how can I help you?”

  “I thought you’d know.”

  Pat Humphrey frowned a little. The gesture brought out the furrows between her eyes. “I have lots of other clients who need to see me. If you think this is a joke...”

  “Not at all,” I hastened to reassure her, after which I proceeded to give her the story I’d decided upon when I’d phoned. “I’m worried about my German shepherd, Duke. He’s not eating well. He looks different. Not right. I was hoping you could tell me what’s the matter.”

  “Have you taken him to a vet?”

  My respect for her went up a notch. “Of course.” I allowed my voice to grow indignant. “He’s had all sorts of blood work done. Nothing’s shown up.”

  “I see. When was he born?”

  “August of last year.”

  “So that would make him a Leo,” Pat Humphrey mused aloud as I watched the beetle clamber over a carved wooden rose.

  “Does it matter?”

  “Of course it does. Let’s get started, shall we?” And with that she closed her eyes.

  Her face grew slack; her breathing became shallow. The only discernible movement was the occasional flicker of an eyelid. It was a good act. I wondered how long she’d be able to keep it up. Probably for a while. It seemed as if she’d had plenty of practice. I checked my watch. Two minutes later, I checked my watch again. Five more minutes and I began to get antsy.

  I got up. Pat Humphrey didn’t move. Probably because she was on another plane, a spiritual one, chatting away with her spirit guide. Right. I restrained myself from snapping my fingers in front of her face or sticking my tongue out or any of the other ten-year-old maneuvers I wanted to perform. After all, I was just here to see the show and make a report, and it seemed to me the report I was going to make was pretty conclusive.

  Instead, I went into the kitchen, got myself a drink of water, and came back into the dining room. Pat Humphrey was still in her trance, and the beetle was on top of the sideboard. He looked as if he didn’t know where to go. It was probably tough living in a psychic’s house, with all that spiritual energy flowing around you. Of course, in ancient Egypt beetles were holy, so maybe he was used to this kind of thing. I was about to pick him up and take him outside, anyway, when Pat Humphrey’s eyelids fluttered and she opened her eyes.

  She gave a slight cough. I sat back down and waited to hear what she had to say. Her face looked drawn. A delicate trace of sweat was visible over her upper lip. As she wiped it away, I noticed there was a slight tremor in her hand. The woman really did put on an excellent performance. I’d give her that. Suddenly, she began to talk. Her voice sounded weary. But, hey, I get tired when I fly to New York City and back.

  “Your dog, Duke, is surrounded by a field of negative energy. It is impinging on his ability to heal himself. If you want him to get better, you must work on your own negative emotions and those in your immediate environment. You must become more positive. The universe is a vast sea. Whatever you throw out comes back to you.”

  “What should I do for him?” I asked, trying to get her to say more about my nonexistent pet.

  “Duke wants you to know that he needs your support,” Pat Humphrey continued. “He is in pain.”

  “What kind?”

  “In his hind legs. He needs to sleep off the floor.”

  Considering he was a German shepherd and most shepherds have hip problems, that wasn’t too hard a guess.

  “Also,” Humphrey continued, “I sense he has a problem in the area of his liver. The food you are giving him is rife with negative karma. You must change it. If you do these things, he will begin to heal.”

  Since most commercial dog food is made with ground-up animal by-products, that wasn’t too surprising, either. That’s why I don’t feed it to my dog Zsa Zsa. But then Zsa Zsa doesn’t eat dog food. Of any kind. Out of the corner of my eye, I watched the beetle pause on the edge of the sideboard. He wavered for a few seconds, then plunged over the edge. He landed on his back and stayed there, legs frantically waving. Finally, he managed to right himself and scurry under the side-board.

  I was trying to spot him when Pat Humphrey pushed herself away from the table and stood up. I redirected my attention to her.

  “And now, if you’ll excuse me, I must lie down for a few minutes. I hope I was helpful.”

  “Oh, you were,” I assured her. After all, any animal could benefit from the advice she’d given me. Feed your dog healthful food, be nice to it, and cut down on the fighting around the house. I hoped she was giving Hillary’s mother more detailed readings for the money she was getting.

  “Good.” Pat Humphrey clasped my hands in hers. Her palms were dry and cool. “Tell me if Duke begins to feel better.”

  “I will,” I promised.

  I started for the door. I was thinking that all I had to do was run a background check on Pat Humphrey and give Hillary Cisco the tape of this meeting along with my report and I’d be done with the job when Pat Humphrey called out to me.

  “Wait,” she said.

  I turned.

  “Do you have a cat called James?”

  “Yes, I do. Why?”

  Pat Humphrey licked her lower lip. “Because he’s locked in somewhere and can’t get out. Somewhere dark. Somewhere without windows.”

  I felt the hairs on the back of my neck go up. “A van?”

  “I can’t tell. It’s too dark.”

  I was having my bedroom painted. The guy doing it owned a covered truck. I glanced at my watch. It was four-thirty. John said he’d be done and out of my house around now. Could James have jumped into the truck and gotten himself locked in? It was possible. He’d done something like that a couple of years ago.

  She held up a finger as I began to speak. “There’s something else. Something about a person... a man. His name starts with an M...”

  “Murphy,” I blurted out.

  Pat Humphrey shook her head. “I don’t know. I’m sorry. I’ve lost it now.” She looked genuinely upset.

  She wasn’t half as upset as I was.

  Chapter Four

  I watched George—who was what? My boyfriend? My sometime live-in?—take a long pull from his bottle of beer and listened to the dull click of glass on glass as he put the bottle back on the table. It was a little after ten in the evening, and we were having a nightcap in my backyard—it was too hot in the house—and discussing the day’s events.

  “If it had been me, I would have handcuffed that little shit to the door of the car,” he observed.

  I swatted at a fly and inhaled the sweet scent of nicotiana wafting from my garden. A sliver of a new moon hung uncertainly in the night sky. “Now, that’s a constructive suggestion.”

  “Hey, at least what’s her name...”

  “Bethany...”

  “Whatever. Wouldn’t be out on the streets roaming around now.”

  “She’s probably sleeping in the basement of one of her friend’s houses.”

  George yawned and put his arms over his head and stretched. “God, I’m glad I don’t work juvie anymore. You can’t imagine how nice it is not to have to deal with that kind of stuff.”

  “I bet the kids on the street are glad, too.”

  “Har. Har.” He made a dismissive gesture with his hand. “So what now?”

  “Her parents want me to keep looking.”

  “She’s just lucky she’s not my kid, that’s all I can say.”

  “What would you do?”

  “I’d put her in a friggin’ all-girls Catholic boarding school like my aunt did with her daughters.”

  We both lapsed into silence. I was thinking about how George still sounded like a cop even though he was off the force when my phone rang.

  “Aren’t you going to get it?” George asked.

  “No. Let the machine pick it up.” It had been a long day, and I didn’t
want to talk to anyone now.

  A shaft of light from my kitchen illuminated the planes on George’s face as he leaned over, took the tape of my session with Pat Humphrey out of the recorder, and tossed it to me. I missed, and it landed in my lap.

  “You want my opinion on this?”

  “I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”

  He ran a finger around the mouth of his bottle. “You don’t believe this Humphrey woman is for real, do you?” he asked.

  “Of course not,” I lied as Zsa Zsa chased a moth around the deck. She snapped at it, missed, and snapped again. She hadn’t caught one yet. “I’m just asking for your explanation of the last part of the session.”

  “For openers, she obviously recognized you.”

  “I hope not. If she did, why didn’t she say so? Why did she go along with it?”

  George shrugged. “I don’t know. Go ask her. But that’s the only reasonable answer.” He spoke quickly, compressing the words together, the way he did when he was talking about something he didn’t want to. The fact that discussing Murphy still upset him endeared him to me. “That’s how she knew.”

  I studied the glowing white petals of the nicotiana languidly drooping in the darkness instead. A giant moth, attracted by the lamp in my kitchen window, was fluttering its wings against the glass.

  “The paper covered his death,” George added. “Remember?”

  How could I forget? Although, God knows, I would like to. I took a sip of my scotch and tried not to think about that time. “All right, maybe she did know who I was,” I conceded, tracking a pair of yellow-green eyes that had materialized out of the bushes and would, I knew, shortly metamorphose into my cat. All black, he was practically invisible at night. In the Middle Ages they would have called him a familiar and consigned him to the flames. With my red hair and my big mouth, I probably wouldn’t have been far behind.