No matter.? Cruz felt good - well laid, well rested, well fed.?
Today was the day.
He took a pleasant moment to survey his surroundings.? The courtyard was green with the dense tropical plants grown there to give the place ambience.? A few people sprawled about in white chaise lounges near the pool, chatting and sunning themselves.? The air was heavy, the sun was bright and hot, and the sounds of conversation were muted.? No children ran around, laughing and shouting.? This was a place for adults.? The St. Therese was a stately old place that had been a whorehouse before the turn of the century.? It sat at the edge of the French Quarter, on busy North Rampart Street, across from Louis Armstrong Park, but no sound came in from the street.
It was fitting, Cruz noted, that he was sitting in an old whorehouse, and right across from him at the table, enjoying her breakfast in the splendid late morning sunshine, was a high priced whore.? She was Brazilian, this sexy girl, and had deep bronze skin and blonde hair.? The combination turned Cruz on to no end.? That and the red mini dress she wore that barely covered her succulent ass.? He was going to have to take her back up to the room again before the morning was over, that much was clear.?
He liked the girl, mostly.? It was her looks that did it for him.? He was trying to see past the other thing.?
The other thing was her brain. ?
He had never met such a highly-educated whore in his life.? It didn't seem to flow, this being a whore and at the same time, knowing so much.?
She spoke four languages.? Portuguese, Spanish, English and French.? English was her weakest language, beyond doubt.? As a teenager, she told him, she had gone on study exchange programs to both Paris and Caracas, Venezuela.? After studying in Paris, she had taken three months and bummed around Europe, traveling as far to the east as Istanbul.?
Where did the whoring come in?? That's what he was wondering.? What role did that play in this whole thing?? She couldn't be very much older than 20.? What did she do?? Come back from Europe and decide the best thing to do was become a whore?
She had studied art and architecture.? They were practically one and the same, she told him.? She expounded on the architectural style of the hotel they were in, all the while scarfing down her Eggs Benedict with Canadian bacon.? She told him about the paintings hanging on the walls of his suite.? One was a bad knock-off of Van Gogh's style.? One was a bad knock-off of Andrew Wyeth's style.
"You know a lot," he said, as the waiter poured him more coffee.? The waiter did not look at him or make any gesture or sign.? "Such a beautiful girl, and smart too."
She smiled at him.? "How you talk."
Her smile lit up her beauty light a thousand-watt lamp.? Cruz sighed at the majesty and mystery of the world.? Things were never what they seemed.? He glanced at his watch again.? It would be just another minute.?
"Will you excuse me just one moment?" he said.? "I have to take a call."
The girl shrugged.? She would.? She wouldn't.? She indicated as much.?
Cruz glided to the bank of old fashioned phone booths at the back of the restaurant.? Real phone booths, with real doors and real privacy.? He slid into the middle one, the one with the sign on it that said "Out of Order."
He perched on the wooden seat that folded out from the wall.?
The phone rang and Cruz grabbed it.
"Yeah?"
A man's voice came on.? "We checked the paper today.? Still nothing."
It was a deep, gravelly voice.? The voice didn't introduce itself, but in his mind Cruz could see the man it belonged to right away.? Crag-faced, like that cartoon hero from the Fantastic Four way back when - the one made of stone.? Big Vito, a man who would never say his own name.?
Cruz knew what he was talking about.? They were monitoring the internet version of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.? They had read it the past four days, waiting for word.? His employers were not patient men, and sometimes that grated on him.
"It took me a couple of days to set it up.? I had to check everything out first.? But I'm happy to say it's all ready to go.? It's gonna happen tonight."
"Tonight?"
"That's right."
"Good.? We need you back here as soon as possible.? We got a little something for you to take care of up north."
"North?" Cruz said.
"Yeah, like New England."??
"Great.? You gonna fly me straight up there?"
"No.? We need you back here first."
"All right.? It's your dime."
"So everything will be done by tonight?"
"Tonight," Cruz agreed.
"Good enough."? There was a pause.? "Listen, how's the girl?"
Across the restaurant, Cruz could see her, still at the table.? She was examining something along the hem of her skirt.? It gave him a flash of panty.
"She's great.? Very smart."
"Smart?"
"Smart."
"Uh, okay.? How's the suite?"
"Couldn't be better.? Richly appointed furnishings.? Views of the French Quarter.? 24-hour concierge."
"All right, then.? We got a new service and I just wanted to make sure everything worked out."
"It's great," Cruz said.?
"Then get it done, will ya?? We'll see you soon."
Cruz returned to the table.? It was shaping up to be a hot and sticky day.? The girl was finishing her fruit cocktail.? For the life of him, he couldn't remember her name.? Did it matter?
"What do you say?" he said.? "Let's go to the room, eh?? I got a busy day today and I want to fuck you some more before I send you home."
She slurped a cherry down, then licked the glass cup with her tongue.?
"Good," she said.? "More money for me."?
They went upstairs.
?
* * *
?
"That bitch," Darren Pelletier said.?
His voice had taken on a nasal pitch because of the cotton wadding stuffed up his nose.? A white plaster splint made an A-shape across its bridge.? Both his eyes were black, and the whole package together made him look somewhat like a raccoon.
"You know I'm gonna make her pay, right?"
Hal Morgan didn't say a word.? He just sat in the living room of his ramshackle three-bedroom house in Auburn, Maine, thirty miles north of Portland.? He let his friend ramble on.? Hal's hair hung loose and he pushed it out of his eyes.? Mr. Shaggy, he often called himself when the young ladies asked.? He held his first beer of the morning, a can of Budweiser.? It was ice cold and felt good in his hand.? He sipped it quietly while reviewing his menu of options.
They didn't look good.
He gazed out the front picture window.? He lived just down the road from the Lost Valley ski resort.? In fact, he could see the small mountain - little more than a hill really - from right here on the sofa.? He watched that mountain now, the bald ski runs bathed in morning sunlight, reds and oranges of fall mixed in with the evergreens along the edges of the trails.
Soon, another six weeks at most, the hill would be covered in snow.? From his living room, he could watch the skiers glide down.? Then, before he knew it, the scene would change yet again.? The seasons passed faster and faster as he grew older.? He was almost forty years old now, and it seemed like on Monday he would glance up that hill in green and sunny summertime, and on Tuesday a howling wind would blow powdery snow from the top of it.??
Closer to home, his neighborhood sprawled out in what he liked to think of as the mountain's shadow.? It was a quiet neighborhood of small saltbox and ranch-style houses, not quite suburban, not quite rural.? The neighborhood itself looked like it was leaning toward suburban - what with the houses just ten or twenty yards apart.? But the pickup trucks with the gun racks and the sagging condition of some of the homes said the people were leaning toward rural.
He sipped his beer and watched Darren.?
Darren sat sprawled in an easy chair.? His shirt was off, revealing his well-muscled upper body.? His sandy blonde hair was slicke
d back.? He was drinking a beer, smoking a cigarette, sulking, touching the plaster the emergency room doctor had put across his nose, cursing to himself, and looking over his various bruises all at the same time.
Mr. Blue Eyes.?
The moniker fit him perfectly.? Nobody had eyes that were bluer than Mr. Blue Eyes.? He had eyes of pale blue - like the sky, like a Caribbean lagoon.? You could fall into his eyes, they were so blue.? In fact, Hal knew that Darren wore contact lenses to give his eyes that color.? There was nothing wrong with his eyes that needed correction - except their color: they were actually brown.??
Darren had slept in the spare bedroom because he didn't want to go home to his wife after the beating he took.? Darren often slept in the spare bedroom.? Sometimes he slept in there with the girls from photo shoots they did - a lot of the girls weren't nearly as resistant as Lola to modeling with Darren.? Sometimes he slept in there alone.? Beating or no, Darren rarely wanted to go home to his wife.
"Gonna eat that bitch alive next time," he said, almost to himself.? He took a deep drag from his cigarette.? "Yes sir, next time I surely am gonna do it to her."
Hal smiled.? "We'll have to put a paper bag over your head, but okay."
Darren's handsome face winced as he gingerly rubbed a large purplish blot on the side of his thick neck.? He smiled around the cigarette.? "Man, she got me good right here."? The bruise looked like an octopus imbedded in his neck, trying to push its way out through the skin.? It looked like somebody had hit him there with a baseball bat.?
"Oh yeah, that's the worst of it," Hal said.? "What'd she do there?"
"Kicked me as I was falling."? Darren took a big slurp of his beer.? "Or maybe it was after I was down."? The two men glanced at each other for a moment, and burst out laughing.? It was funny, if you looked at it the right way.? Last night had been the worst screw-up they had experienced in their new careers.? A couple of girls had almost escaped, at times, and one had even pulled a gun, which they talked her into dropping.? But none so far had busted out with this Bruce Lee shit.? That was the one thing they hadn't expected.
Hal took a sip of his Budweiser as the laughter subsided.? "Kid, we got our asses kicked by a little girl."
"We sure did, partner."
They lapsed into silence, and Hal looked around the room.?
He had inherited this house from his mother years before, and there was no doubt he had let the place go to hell.? It was in need of a woman's touch, maybe.? The furniture was old, the window blinds were moving toward ratty, the rugs were threadbare, and bordered scuffed wooden floors that had long since needed resurfacing.? The kitchen cabinets were old - they had probably been put in during the 1940's.? Ditto the stove, although it still worked well.? The refrigerator was only two years old, but that was because the last one had broken.? Outside, the lawn did whatever the hell if wanted.? Right now, in mid-October, it was long and going toward brown, slowly dying.? Bits of paper and other assorted flying garbage had embedded itself here and there on the grass.? Beneath the grass, especially near the rickety front porch, were empty beer cans that Hal and Darren had chucked while sitting on the porch and bullshitting.?
If the house looked bad, Hal could take comfort in the fact that it looked no worse than any of the other houses in the area.? A lot of people in that neighborhood were struggling.? Hal could also take some comfort in the fact that he was not struggling.? In fact, with the free house and the little bit of money he had squirreled away over the years, and the new business he and Darren had been working these past eleven months, Hal felt like he was doing just fine, thank you.
Right out of high school, Hal had gone in the military.? For four years, he had seen his chunk of the world.? He went to Louisiana, to the Philippines, to South Korea, to Germany.? On leave he checked out Southeast Asia and lots of Europe.? What did he learn from all that traveling?? Apart from the eye-opening food choices, he learned there are whores wherever you go.? Some are a little more expensive than others, but in general, they're all pretty cheap if you get the right ones.? Sometimes it's out of the goodness of your heart that you pay them all - he learned that one, too.
But these photo-shoot girls were the best.
Hal had a guy down in Florida who could sell anything Hal could shoot.? In fact, the guy wanted more all the time.? Especially these modeling agency interview shoots.? People went nuts for it, and the girls lined right up to participate.? Hal put up these ads, these flyers, looking for women and men.? When men called, he ignored them.? He didn't want men.? He wanted girls.?
Saying he wanted men made the girls think he really was planning on a calendar shoot, or a catalog shoot.? When they found out otherwise, they didn't usually complain.? Instead, they went limp.? They obeyed.? It was like, "You want me to take my clothes off?? Uh, okay.? You want me to put that in my mouth?? Uh, okay."? Girls were passive.? It was in their nature.
Hell, maybe they even liked it.
After each shoot, he'd send them out with a "We'll call you if we need you," or "We'll send you a check."? He hadn't sent anyone a check yet, and nobody had complained.? What were they going to say?? Some of the girls really did seem to enjoy themselves.? He figured the rest of them just tried to put it out of their minds.???
In case of any future trouble, Hal took precautions.? He moved the office around all the time, taking short leases.? He had changed the name of the business three times so far.?? When he transferred the video from the Mini-DV tape to the computer, he always edited his own and Darren's faces out of the movie.?
Then he would upload it to a secure web site the guy in Florida kept for submissions.? Like magic, the guy would send back money.? It was fun, and they were starting to make a very decent living.? But this whole episode with Lola, it could jeopardize everything.?
"I don't know if you're just talking trash or not," Hal said.? "But we do have to go back down there and talk to Ms. Lola."
"Yeah?? Why's that?"
"She took the digital tapes, kid.? We're on there.? A brawl like that, you can hardly say she was begging for it, then changed her mind later.? She decides to go to the cops, how much more evidence are they gonna need?? We need to get those tapes back."
Darren shrugged.? He blew a smoke ring.? "I got no problem with seeing her again.? I'll look forward to it.? You know how to find her?"
"Well, she filled out that release with her address.? I still have it."
Now Darren smiled.? His lumpy raccoon eyes glittered.? He flexed his chest and his shoulder muscles.? "Like I said, I'm gonna put a hurtin' on that girl.? I'm gonna split her wide open.? And you know what?? She's gonna like it."?
?
* * *
?
They're coming to get you.?
The thought came to Smoke Dugan unbidden.? It interrupted every quiet moment, ruining even the best of times.? The more he tried to ignore it, the more he sent it back to where it came from, the more forcefully it resurfaced the next time.? It was paranoid.? It was stupid.? But there it was - some part of him was convinced that they had found him.
He sat in his favorite outdoor chair, trying and failing to enjoy the early afternoon sun and the slight autumn chill in the air.? The chair was a metal patio chair set before an ornate iron table in his backyard.? The chair had three brothers, although rarely did anyone join him at that table.?
Normally, he would have no problem enjoying the day.
The setting was perfect.? It was fall and all around the neighborhood, the trees were turning.? He wore a pair of baggy workpants and a bright blue Carraig Don wool sweater.? He had just clipped, and now held in his gnarled hands a small Romeo y Julieta cigar.? It came from the Dominican Republic, not Havana.? In his present circumstances, Havana cigars were not easy to come by.? That was all right. In the meantime, these Dominicans did a good job.? He held the stogie to his nose and inhaled.? It smelled sweet.
He had a bottle of Concha y Toro in front of him, a heart-healthy and tasty Cabernet Sauvignon
from Chile.? Here in Maine, the vagaries - some might call it the corruption - of the wine industry meant he couldn't get the New York Long Island wines he had once favored.? So now he experimented with the stuff from abroad, and much of it was to his liking.? He had a bit of the red wine in his sparkling glass, which itself was imported Waterford crystal.? Lola always cringed when she saw him using the crystal - how could he drink his everyday wine from such an expensive glass?
"Quality," he would say, "makes it taste better."???
Nearby, Lorena Hidalgo was working in her garden.? The whole backyard, except for the stone patio where Smoke now sat, the small grave plot with the tiny headstone that said, "Butch - One Smart Dog," and the work shed in the very back, was Lorena's garden.? It was some fantastic garden.? Smoke sometimes sat back there and marveled at it.? It had tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, hot peppers and herbs.? It had all the easy stuff.? It also had carrots and cabbage and sure enough, she was growing a few pumpkins as well.
"Hey Lorena," Smoke said.? "Do me a favor and don't go in the shed, okay?? I'm working on something in there."
Lorena looked up and made a face.? "You know I never go in there.? That is your place."? She went back to her gardening.???
?Lorena was a miracle and a menace rolled into one.? She was an older lady from Guatemala.? They had met a few months after Smoke had moved into the basement apartment of this house.? He was sitting in the backyard at this same table, which had come with the apartment, skimming through a text on generating wind power.? The backyard was a mess, and although he had toyed with the idea of clearing it, he hadn't made any move yet.? At first, he hadn't trusted his new surroundings and was ready to leave at a moment's notice.? But after a while - for instance, after he buried that smart dog Butch - Smoke began to settle in.? By the time Lorena called to him over the fence, he had decided to forget about the backyard and focus on making himself a little workshop in the old disused shed way at the back of the yard.?
He closed his eyes and imagined the yard the day she had first shown up, in late March some three and a half years before.? It was overgrown in places by high grasses and thick brush.? In other places it was shallow mud from melting snow.? Snow that hadn't melted sat in clumps here and there.? A ripped plastic bag from Shaw's supermarket hung like a flag at the top of a bramble.? Three cases of empty Pabst Blue Ribbon bottles crouched by the door - reminders of the previous tenant.? A rusty shovel and hoe leaned against the fence - the very tools Smoke had used to lay ol' Butch to rest.?
Smoked Page 3
