Blowing Smoke

by Barbara Block

  I went back to studying Hillary. She was ignoring everyone. She closed her eyes, flung her head back, and opened her mouth. The notes from “Can’t Help Lovin’ That Man of Mine” floated out into the air.

  As my gaze roamed around the room, I caught sight of Debbie Wright.

  She was standing in the hallway, beckoning to me.

  When she realized I’d seen her, she shrank back against the wall.

  I told Johnny I was going to the bathroom and went to see what she wanted.

  Chapter Twenty-seven

  As I neared her, Debbie grabbed me and pulled me farther down into the hallway, away from everyone’s line of sight. “I shouldn’t be doing this,” she said, looking over her shoulder.

  “Doing what?”

  “Telling you this, but that drink Johnny gave you. Don’t have any more of it. It’s doctored.” She kept shifting her head to study the main room, then turned back to look at me.

  “With what?” I asked, even though I thought I already knew.

  “Roofies.”

  What else? This generation’s Mickey Finn. A new wrinkle on chloral hydrate. Christened the date-rape drug by the media. The scourge of college campuses. The reason there are signs in university bars telling people to take their drinks with them. Short for Rohypnol. Featured in Time magazine. Colorless, odorless, tasteless. Dissolves easily. Originally used in surgery. Ingested, it makes you compliant but blocks all memory of what has happened.

  I studied Debbie’s face. She’d changed her hair color to purple. In the dim light it made her look like one of the living dead, but I suppose that was the general idea. “How do you know?”

  “Because I heard Johnny talking to Louis. Louis didn’t want to have anything to do with it.”

  “But he didn’t stop it, either. Legally, that means he’s liable as well.”

  Debbie bit her lip.

  A couple of thoughts surfaced while I watched Debbie fiddle with her necklace. Like why was Johnny doing this? I was almost certain he’d believed me when I’d told him I was joking about investigating his bar. And even if I weren’t, why call attention to yourself? Why not just give me my drinks and hustle me out? And then there was Debbie, virtually implicating her boyfriend in this little scenario.

  “I don’t get your reason for telling me this.”

  Debbie twisted a piece of her hair around her finger and turned her toes in till she was standing pigeon-toed, making her look like a baby vampire. “Because Manuel likes you,” she said. “And I want to do something that puts me in good with him.”

  “Really?” I ticked off the points I was making on my fingers. “Number one, I didn’t think he was your type, and number two, aren’t you already seeing someone?”

  She canned the little-girl act. “Okay. If you really want to know, Bethany’s dad, he’s talking about having me arrested. I just thought that maybe you could put in a good word for me. I’m doing that quid bro”—she waved her hand—“that latin thing.”

  “You mean quid pro quo? Why don’t you ask Hillary for a recommendation?”

  Debbie tittered.

  “After all, she’s one of your satisfied customers, isn’t she?”

  Debbie ducked her head and began chewing on one of her cuticles. “That’s not what I meant.”

  “I know.”

  The more I thought about it, the less I trusted her. “You’re putting me on about the drink, aren’t you? Is there anything in it?”

  “I was just trying to help you, but if you feel that way . . .” Her voice drifted off. She went to leave, but I latched onto her wrist. “Let me go,” she demanded, trying to pull away.

  “Tell me.”

  “It could have happened,” she whined as she tried to peel my fingers off.

  “But it hasn’t. Has it? Has it?” I insisted.

  Debbie didn’t say anything.

  “That’s what I thought. What are you? A pathological liar?”

  Her eyes blazed. “Don’t pull that number on me. At least I’m not lying to myself.” This time she managed to yank her arm away from me. “Which is more than I can say for you.”

  “Save your rap for someone who cares.”

  “Fine. But you think you’re doing good by finding Bethany. Being the good guy and all the rest of that pathetic stuff. Well, you aren’t. You should have left her alone. She was better off with her friends than that family of hers.”

  “That is not true.” I was about to say something else when a door opened. The light spilled out, and one of the men that I’d seen in the office earlier with Johnny stepped into the hallway.

  “Que pasa? ” he demanded.

  “Nothing,” I replied as Debbie took off down the hall. “Nothing at all.” As I looked at him, I realized I’d seen him before, and then, after a few seconds, I remembered where. “You’re one of Sinclair’s goons aren’t you?”

  “Sinclair. Who is this Sinclair?”

  “You escorted me to my car.”

  He made a shooing motion with his hands. “You better go back. This area is for employees only. It’s not safe to be here.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  The man moved forward. “Did you hear what I just said?”

  “Yeah, I heard.” Suddenly, his English was okay. But instead of doing what he’d requested, I went through the nearest door, mostly because it was so obvious he wanted me out of there.

  Eight Hispanics turned away from the television program they were watching when I came in.

  “I told you not to go in there,” Sinclair’s man said as he dragged me back into the hallway.

  Someone got up and closed the door, but I’d seen enough. The cramped room with the dirt-streaked walls. The coffee table littered with soda bottles and Styrofoam coffee cups. The television playing a Spanish station. The fear on the men’s faces when they saw me.

  “Sinclair said you were trouble,” the man growled.

  Suddenly he was holding a knife to the base of my throat. A big one. Not that it would have mattered if it had been smaller. The results would be the same. In this case, size doesn’t make a difference. I wondered where the hell he’d been hiding the knife, although that didn’t matter, either. I had an overwhelming urge to swallow. I suppressed it.

  “He said you’d be back.” He stuck his face close to mine. I could see the cyst on the side of his cheek.

  And that’s when it struck me. “Sinclair told you I was an INS agent, didn’t he?”

  “I’m not going to let you harm my friends.”

  “You’re the one with the knife.”

  Now everything made sense. Sinclair’s attitude, the paucity of guests at his place, the way I’d gotten escorted off his property. Sinclair was running undocumented workers through the Center for Enlightened Self-Awareness, an easy enough thing to do considering the center’s location between Kingston, Ontario, and the United States. Smuggling has always been big around that neck of the woods, right from Depression days, when they’d smuggled liquor in from Canada. Today the traffic leans toward dope, cigarettes, and illegal immigrants, although most of the traffic comes through farther north.

  “Think about it. Do I look like INS to you?” I asked him. “Would I come in here like this if I were? Would I be that dumb? I don’t think so.”

  The guy hesitated. The point of the knife receded slightly.

  “Come on. What’s your name?”

  “Estevez . . .”

  “Okay, Estevez, put the knife down before you hurt me and get yourself into serious trouble. My identification is in my backpack. I’m not here for you or your friends. I’m here to ask questions about a woman named Pat Humphrey. Go on, look,” I urged.

  I held my breath and waited while he made up his mind.

  “Bueno,” he finally said.

  Thank God. He had gone through most of my stuff when he turned to me. “Who is this?” he asked.

  I realized he was holding the picture of Dorita and her children in his hand. “
I don’t know.” As I explained, Estevez sucked the air in through the gap in his front teeth.

  “Can I keep this?” he asked when I was done.

  “Sure.” I reached over and scribbled my phone number on the bottom of it. “Call me if you find anything out.”

  He nodded. Then, before I could say anything else, Johnny Q was walking toward us. His cologne preceded him by a good ten feet or so. “What’s going on here?” he demanded.

  “Nothing. Your friend and I were just having a little chat.”

  Johnny Q nodded at Estevez. “Go on. Get out of here. Tell Russ we need some more glasses.”

  Estevez nodded and left.

  “He’s a little on the slow side,” Johnny Q said to me. “But he mops a mean floor.”

  “I bet he does. Probably for free.”

  “Would you care to elaborate?”

  I picked up my backpack and fished around for my cigarettes. I felt an urgent need for one at the moment. “You’re Sinclair’s partner, aren’t you?”

  Johnny raised his eyebrows. “Sinclair? Who is Sinclair?”

  “The Reverend Ascending Moon.”

  “I’m supposed to know this name?”

  “You should,” I said to Johnny after I’d lit a Camel and taken a puff.

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “You and he are running undocumented workers through Wolfe Island. Sinclair brings them in from Canada, and you let them stay here, before they go off to do whatever. Like work in the restaurants downtown. Pick apples. Garden. Go down to Long Island.”

  Johnny chuckled. “You have a good imagination. You should be writing fiction.”

  I pointed to the door I’d opened. “Who are those guys in there?”

  “’They’re friends of Estevez—not that it’s any business of yours. I’m just doing them a favor by letting them hang out here a little while. They drink a little beer. Play a couple of hands of cards. Watch the fights. You have a problem with that?”

  “You’re a nice guy.”

  “Yes, I am. Since when is being nice illegal?”

  “I’d be willing to bet that most of the guys in that room don’t have a green card.”

  Johnny shrugged. “I wouldn’t know. I never asked. It would be rude. What am I supposed to do? Check and see if everyone who comes in here has one? Where are we? In Russia?”

  I took another puff of my cigarette and stubbed it out. My throat felt raw, and it was only making it worse. “I don’t believe you.”

  “Like I give a shit.”

  “You should. I’m sure if the authorities went over your books they’d find some interesting things.”

  “Like the fact that I’m losing money?”

  “That’s why you don’t care if this place turns a profit or not. It’s just a cover.”

  “Think whatever you want.”

  I moved closer to him. “Well, this is what I’m thinking. I’m thinking that somehow or other Pat Humphrey found out about this operation and was going to report it. Which is why one of you guys shot her.”

  “Hey, hey, hey.” Johnny adjusted his belt. He looked flustered for the first time. “Just slow it down. I didn’t kill anyone. I’m a vegetarian, for God’s sake.”

  “A vegetarian? There you go.” I put my hands out palms upward. “A first-rate defense.”

  “I don’t kill things. I don’t believe in it.”

  “Does your father know you’re a vegetarian?”

  “Leave my father out of this.”

  “I’m not sure that’s going to be possible.”

  “It had better be. I’m serious about that.”

  “Or you’ll what?”

  “Trust me, you don’t want to push this.” Johnny ran his hand through his hair. “I’m telling you for the last time, these guys are friends of Estevez. I’m doing them a favor letting them hang out here.”

  “Favor? That’s an interesting turn of phrase.” I flicked my cigarette on the floor and ground it out. “So now you’re a humanitarian? An upstanding member of the community? The last of the good guys?”

  “You’re goddamned right I am. The people in that room are legal.”

  “How do you know? You just told me you weren’t sure.”

  “Fuck you.” Johnny shook a finger at me. “But even if they weren’t—so what. You know what their lives are like back home? Why do you think they come here? At least here they can earn a living. They can send money to their families back home.”

  “Washing dishes and taking out trash.”

  “It’s better than nothing.”

  “Not always.” I thought about the way Raul had looked when I’d found him on the road. His skin so hot and dry. His lips cracked. His cough. “Sometimes people don’t pay them for their work. Sometimes they don’t have enough to feed themselves or to see a doctor if they get sick.”

  “Hey. I’m sorry if that’s the case, but that has nothing to do with me.”

  “How much of a percentage are you taking off?”

  “Me? I already told you I’m not getting anything.”

  “I don’t believe you. I don’t think the INS will, either,” I added.

  “Go ahead. Call them if you want. But before you make a fool out of yourself, go talk to Sinclair. Talk to the woman he got the house from. She knows.”

  “Rose Taylor?”

  “No. Her daughter. Amy.”

  “How does she fit in?”

  “Find out for yourself.”

  “I think you’re lying.”

  Johnny shrugged. “I don’t care. Believe what you want. And by the way, don’t come in here again. You’re not welcome.”

  “I can live with that,” I told him. As I watched Johnny stride back to his office, it occurred to me that he was going to call Sinclair and that I didn’t want him to do that before I got to speak to the reverend first.

  Johnny was so involved in his own thoughts that I don’t think he heard me following him. I don’t think he heard me come in the door. He didn’t hear me when he picked up the phone on his desk and began punching in the numbers.

  “What the hell?” he said as the phone went dead on him.

  Which is when he turned and saw me with the cord that I’d yanked out of the phone jack in my hand.

  I smiled sweetly. “I understand the phone company is having a problem these days with their maintenance, which is why so many people are going cellular. Or is it digital? I always get those two confused.”

  Johnny started toward me. “You are going to be very, very sorry you did that.”

  “Maybe. Maybe not.” And I brought up my other hand, the one that was holding the canister of mace I always carry with me. It wouldn’t injure Johnny, but it would make him very, very unhappy for a short amount of time.

  “Fuck you.” But now he was moving away from, not toward, me.

  If he’d been the tough guy he wanted to be, he would have charged me and taken his chances, but he wasn’t. He was a pampered middle-class brat, used to his comfort, afraid of pain. I told him to get into the closet.

  “They said you were crazy,” he told me as he backed up toward it.

  “And they were right.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Give myself a little time. Now open the door and step inside.”

  “No.” He planted his feet on the floor and folded his arms across his chest. “I’m not taking another step.”

  “If you don’t think I’ll spray you with this, you’re seriously mistaken.”

  Johnny Q hesitated.

  “Your eyes are going to burn. Your skin is going to feel as if it’s on fire. You’re going to wish someone would take a gun and shoot you.”

  “I don’t believe you.”

  “That you’ll feel that way or that I’ll do it to you?”

  “That you’ll do it to me.”

  “Because I’m a woman? Don’t bet on it, buster. Actually I have to be nastier than your average guy. Otherwise no one will t
ake me seriously.”

  Johnny didn’t say anything. I could see he was trying to decide if I would or I wouldn’t.

  “Fine,” I said. “If that’s the way you want it.” I started to depress my finger.

  “I’m going,” he said, and went inside the closet.

  I moved a couple of steps closer, but not close enough so that he could grab me. “Now shut the door.”

  “You’re a dead woman,” he said as he did.

  I reached over and clicked the lock. “Maybe, but not today.” Then I took his desk chair and jammed it underneath the lock.

  “Light . . .” he growled as I removed his phone from his desk and stuffed it in my backpack.

  “Relax,” I told him. “Maybe you should take this opportunity as a gift to think about your direction in life.”

  I ignored the stream of obscenities that were coming out of the closet, found a piece of paper and a marker, and printed out “Gone for the Evening.” I studied my writing for a moment, decided it looked good, then taped the sign to Johnny’s office door and walked back inside.

  “I’m leaving now,” I told him. “Sleep tight. Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” And I locked the door and left.

  On my way out, I stopped at the bar to talk to Russell. As I did, I noticed that Louis and Debbie had left already.

  “I have a message from your boss. He said to tell you he had to leave. He wants you to close up.”

  Russell wiped his hands on the towel he’d slung across his shoulder. “What happened?”

  I shrugged. “I’m not sure. He didn’t say. Some kind of emergency.”

  “Typical,” Russell muttered, and he started wiping down the bar.

  As I left Quotations, I started having second thoughts about the wisdom of what I’d just done. But it was too late. It was a fait accompli.

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  As the Wolfe Islander III clanked away from the pier, I stared down at the water, so different now from the other night. Now the waves were lapping peacefully against the boat’s hull instead of trying to rip the boards from the boat frame. I breathed in the air, the hint of pine, the smell of fish and diesel oil, and studied the stars overhead. At two o’clock in the morning the last ferry out of Kingston was almost empty, the only people on it sleepy-eyed and tipsy from their night in the bars.