Smoked

  One car was parked in front of the low-slung motel office, a slab of concrete with a flickering fluorescent sign mounted on top: Country Home - besides that, the place was deserted.? There wasn't a single other car.? A series of about twenty small, rustic cabins surrounded the office in a rough semi-circle.? The semi-circle served as the dirt parking lot.? Just outside the circle was an in-ground swimming pool behind a green fence, long closed this time of year.?

  Moss pulled up and Cruz climbed out into the brisk, chilly air.? He walked into the sparsely furnished office.? An old man, tall and gaunt, watched television behind the counter.? With his hair swooped back and his pale skin, he looked like a vampire.? He glanced up at Cruz without much interest.? "Hmmm," he said.? "You got lucky.? I was just about to close the place up and head on home."

  Cruz avoided eye contact, pretending to examine the paperwork on the counter.? "Kind of quiet, huh?"

  The old man sighed.? "Well, the season's over, you know.? The local kids come in because they want some place to fuck, but I won't rent to 'em.? I just keep her going because I don't head down to Florida myself until December first.? We get a couple real customers in now and again.? People like yourself, wandering around like peas at the bottom of a can."

  "Well, that's fine," Cruz said.? "I'm traveling with a friend, so I'll take two separate cottages, if you don't mind."?

  "I don't mind at all.? We got units B and D all ready.? Both of them have kitchenettes, and both have their own space heater."

  "Well, that should be cozy."

  The old man raised a bony finger in warning.? "They're electric space heaters and they get very hot, so I caution you not to leave them on overnight, or let them get too close to the bed."

  "Wouldn't want to burn down one of your cottages," Cruz said.

  "Oh, you can burn it down if you want.? I'm insured.? I'm more worried that you'll burn it down with yourself asleep inside of it."

  Cruz didn't answer.? He was already tired of the old man.

  "And do me a favor, eh?? If you have to smoke, step outside the cabin before you do.? There's no smoking in these cabins."???

  Cruz nodded and went back to where Moss waited by the car.? He handed Moss his key and Moss moved the car across the lot to the front doors of the cabins.? They were going to make a show of going to their separate cottages and loading a few things inside. They had to open the trunk to do so.? There were a couple of duffel bags in there left over from the car's previous owner - they would make decent props for the luggage transfer. "Ready?" Cruz said, inserting the key in the trunk lock.?

  The trunk was pointed away from the motel office, about fifty yards across the compound from there.? Moss stood by the trunk, gun in hand but pointed down, waiting.?

  Cruz took his own gun out, not to show the girls, but in case Moss did anything.? You never knew.? You just never knew.? Even this staying in the same motel compound together, Cruz didn't like it.? It meant a restless night of half-sleep, waiting for Moss to come in the window.?

  Cruz opened the trunk.

  As soon as the lid opened, Moss pointed the gun into the face of the girl inside.? Lola's face, not the other girl.? She was still bound, but her eyes said she was calm.? They didn't have the bugged-out look, like the eyes of so many other people who had ended up locked inside of car trunks over the years.? Like the eyes of the other girl.?

  "You move a muscle, you try to scream or make any noise, I will kill you right away," Moss said quietly.? The calm eyes watched him.? "And if I kill you, then I'm gonna have to kill that old man in the office.? You don't want me to do that, do you?"?

  Cruz registered no emotion there.? They would have to keep a watchful eye on her.?

  "I think I'm going to have to throw a scare into the little lady," Moss said.? "Maybe later, she and I will do a little dance together."

  "How are you going to do that," Cruz said, "after she beat your ass?"? He was tired of Moss, too.? He was tired of the whole fucking business.? Just then, he was thinking how nice it might be to snuff Moss, take the girls, and make a run for Canada.? Leave Smoke Dugan or whatever the hell he wanted to call himself, right where he was.? Maybe the girls would like Cruz, and if so, he would take them across the border.? If not, he would just kick them out of the car twenty or thirty miles from the nearest town in the middle of the night.? He wouldn't even kill them.? Cruz just didn't seem to have much stomach for killing anymore.? Moss, he could kill.? But the girls?? For what?

  For the money?? Please.? It had never been for the money, not for years and years.? Maybe at the beginning, sure, but not any longer.? Whatever it had been for, it seemed to be over now.

  But it could never be over, it seemed.

  "I think I'll find a way," Moss said.?

  Cruz could feel Moss's eyes boring into him as he reached in and pulled the suitcases out of the car.? He dropped them on the ground, slammed the trunk lid, then looked up at Moss.? How much emotion could a man like Moss actually experience?

  "Come on, man.? It was only a joke."

  Moss wanted the girl.? Cruz knew this - saw it in his eyes back in the apartment.? He also knew that the more Moss entertained himself with the girl, the less likely he would be to come creeping into Cruz's shack in the middle of the night.? Cruz briefly considered giving the girl over to him, just to get a good night's sleep.

  Fuck it, that wasn't going to happen, either.?

  "I think you two will be very happy together," Cruz said, then picked up his bag, and one eye still on Moss, walked sideways toward his cottage.?

  An hour more passed before the old man finally went home.? He stopped by Cruz's cottage before he did.? He was wearing a crumpled fedora, with a feather in the hat band.? He was a dapper old vampire, if nothing else.

  ?"Well, I'm gonna get on home to the wife," he said.? "She's got arthritis something terrible, so I like to get home to her as soon as I can.? You fellows are going to be on your own out here.? There's a problem with the pay phone here in the court, but I assume you have a cell phone."

  "We do," Cruz said.? This dad act the old man did had worn thin before it began.

  "Good.? One last thing.? The office has an alarm that goes right to the State Police barracks down the road.? There's nothing of value in the office anyway, so there's no sense in trying to bust in there.? The troopers would arrive two minutes later, if you see what I mean."

  Cruz nodded.? "That would be bad."

  "Bad indeed.? The soda machine by the office still has a few cans in there.? I'll be back at 6:30 in the morning.? I trust you won't need anything more before then."

  "I trust we won't."

  "Good night, then," the old man said, and tipped his hat.

  "Good night," Cruz said.

  When the old man had gone, and his taillights had disappeared down the road, Cruz and Moss converged out by the car.? They had both been watching and thinking the same thing.? They opened the trunk again, same way as before.

  The girls were still awake, still watchful.? The two men reached in, Cruz getting Lola's arms, Moss wrapping his arms around the bottom of her legs.? They lifted her out and placed her on her feet.? Then they walked her into Cruz's cottage.? Cruz held her lightly, so she could maintain her balance, but she didn't seem to need his help.?

  ?

  * * *

  ?

  They tied her to the bed.

  She lay on her back, tied as though she were nailed to a cross.? Her arms reached out on either side of her, the wrists firmly secured to the bed posts.? Her legs were still tied together, and reached down to the bottom of the bed, where ropes secured her ankles to the bottom bed posts.? So her legs were at once tied together and immobilized from moving.? They gagged her mouth with a strip of rag.

  What was intriguing to Moss, the girl who had been so tough earlier in the evening had made no attempt at resisting them.

  When they were done tying her, he and Cruz looked down at the work they had done.? Moss noticed Cruz still held th
at big gun in his hand.? He was still waiting for Moss to make some kind of move on him.? Dumb fuck.? It was a bad sign.

  The two of them stepped out of the cottage and into the parking lot.?

  "All right," Cruz said.? "I've gotta go check in with New York."

  "Why don't you just use my cell phone?" Moss said, as if he didn't know.?

  "Cut the shit, Moss.? You know I can't.? I've already burned it on this operation by calling Dugan's girlfriend's place.? Anyway, you don't call Big Vito on a cell phone.? Especially when there's a problem.? I gotta go use a pay phone.? You use a pay phone in this situation."

  "Well, good luck finding one," Moss said.? Cruz was playing with fire, talking like that.? When this job was over, Moss was gonna ask around, see how connected this little fucker was.? If he wasn't connected well enough, Moss was gonna drop his narrow ass into the East River.?

  Cruz stopped.? He looked into Moss eyes.? Now he was trying to play that mean killer look with Moss.? The eyes.? Sure, there was something to it, but Moss wasn't buying it.? It was all he could do to keep from slapping the guy's face. ?

  "Look, Moss.? Do me a favor, all right?? When I'm gone?" he gestured into the cottage.? "Don't fuck with the program, all right?"?

  Moss grinned.? "What's that supposed to mean?"

  "I mean, we're giving her back tomorrow, right?? So don't fuck with her.? You upset her, and it fucks up the trade in the morning, if it fucks up the deal, you're going to have to answer to me."

  "Who we giving her back to?"

  "Herself.? We're giving her back to herself."

  "So whaddya want me to do, boss?? Keep an eye on her?"

  "Yeah.? That'll work.? I'll be gone fifteen minutes.? You think you can last that long?"

  "And what about the skinny one?"

  "I'm gonna take her with me."

  "Yeah?? Why's that?"

  Cruz shrugged.? "We don't really need her, right?? If I leave her here, something might happen to her."

  "And you wouldn't want that, would you?"

  "No."

  Moss watched as Cruz pulled the second girl out of the trunk, then got in the car, started it, and drove slowly out of the compound.? As soon as the taillights disappeared, Moss got out his own cell phone and went into the cabin.? He dialed a number in New York.? Fuck it, the phone was dirty.? They changed these phone numbers in New York like every week.? He wasn't going to sweat it.???

  While the phone rang, he looked down at the girl on the bed.? She wasn't going anywhere.? He went back outside into the darkness of the compound.?

  A voice answered the call.? It was that gravelly voice.? Big Vito, the guy who ran the show.? "Yeah?"

  Moss kept his voice low.? Not that it mattered.? The girl would be dead tomorrow, and the nearest other person was probably ten miles away.? Cruz was fucking crazy.? Giving her back to herself.? They were going to have to kill both these girls.? If Cruz didn't know that, Moss couldn't understand how he had survived in this business all this time.

  "Jacobs calling," he said.? "I been homesick for years."?

  "Go ahead, kid."

  Moss thought for a second.? How could he best sum up the operation he had witnessed, had been a part of for the past thirty six hours??

  "Well?" the voice said.

  "It's a gigantic fuck up.? It's the biggest fuck up I ever saw."

  "Tell me."

  "Right now?"

  "It's clean.? Tell me."

  So Moss told him.???

  After ten minutes of listening, Vito signed off.? The phone went dead.? Moss looked at its glowing number pad in the darkness of the fall night, forest shimmering with fog all around him.? It was a big mess.? It was a big mess that Cruz had made.? Moss turned the phone off and went back inside.???

  ?

  * * *?

  ?

  Hal and Darren had parked the Cadillac among some junked out heaps in a used car lot a little way down the road.? From where they were parked, they had a perfect view of the bottom of the road out of the compound.?

  Twenty minutes before, they had watched the old man cruise out of the compound, turn left and head sedately back toward the highway, his big boat of a Lincoln, a new one, a rival for the Cadillac.?

  Just now, they had seen the Taurus come down as well.? It cruised past, headed in the same direction as the Lincoln.? Hal and Darren hunkered down behind the dashboard and watched the car go past.? It was easy to see that there were two people in the car, and neither one was the football linebacker they had seen earlier.? The little man was driving, and sitting in the passenger seat was the other girl, not Lola.

  "What the hell is going on?" Hal whispered.???

  "What do you think?" Darren said.? It was a standard part of their strategizing.? Darren would ask Hal what he thought, and Hal would sum up the situation for him.

  "I think he left the big guy in there with Lola.? Now he's gone out to get something, whether it's food or whatever, I don't know.? But it probably means we don't have much time."

  "So what do we do?"

  Hal smiled.? "We cruise up there, nice and quiet, half way up the hill say.? Then we walk the rest of the way, take care of business with whoever's left, and then we get what we came for."

  "You sure you want to go for all that?" Darren said.

  "Kid, this is the kind of thing I live for.? You stick with me.? It's going to come off smooth as glass, I promise you that."

  ?

  * * *??

  ?

  Dead inside, Smoke Dugan went to the land of the dead.

  He went shopping.

  He drove his Tercel slowly through the city, thinking about what he would need, and where he might find these items after five o'clock in Portland, Maine.? The fact was, he wouldn't find them in Portland.? When the workers left the downtown buildings, the city closed up shop.???

  But the city was ringed with suburbs, and these suburbs were choked with mega-stores.? Indeed, according to maps he had found at the library, and by all accounts he had heard from locals old enough to know, the furthest reaches of South Portland had been rolling pasture for cattle farms not thirty years before.? Now, the approach to the airport on Western Avenue was packed with strip malls, all you can eat buffets, big box stores, and the Maine Mall, one million square feet of department stores, electronics stores, toy stores, jewelry stores, fast-food restaurants, fat people and teenage girls in tight pants.?

  That's where he headed.

  You can buy anything you want in America, if you know what you're looking for.? Smoke's shopping list included, among other things: cellophane, laundry soap, a bag of clothespins, a bag of plastic eyedroppers, some copper wire, a cigarette lighter, a soldering iron, two dry cell batteries, two electrical igniters, two bags of ice, a hot tub thermometer, an electric hot plate, an eyeglass repair kit, wire cutters, four glass beakers, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, glycerin, a numeric pager - the kind people used before cell phones appeared everywhere - and a cell phone.? He purchased service accounts for both the pager and the cell phone.? He bought all of these things in a kind of a daze, moving from store to store, driving from monster indoor mall to strip mall to mega-store.? He traveled from Radio Shack to a small hobby shop, to the Home Depot to Wal-Mart to an independent hardware store that had survived by specializing in stocking those things you just couldn't get anywhere else.? He stopped in at a store where parents oohed and ahhhed over all the science toys they could buy for their little future Nobel prize winners.? He finished up at a store that cashed checks, sold phone cards, issued auto loans and auto insurance, even served as a travel agent and sold concert tickets.? The overhead lights in this store were much too bright.? The walls were orange.? There were three upright video games at the back of the store, like in a video arcade, each of them contributing its own electronic cacophony.? It was a harsh environment in which to do any kind of business.? Here he bought the cell phone and the pager.?

  The kid behind the counter had slicked hair and
acne all over his face.? He had a prominent Adam's apple that bobbed when he spoke.? He explained the cell phone plan to Smoke in extravagant detail - how many minutes, at what times, to where, and for how much money every month.

  Smoke glazed over.

  It didn't matter.? None of it mattered.? He wouldn't need the phone after tomorrow.?

  "Name," the kid said.

  Smoke looked at him.? He raised an eyebrow, not sure if it was a question or an answer.

  "Your name?" the kid repeated.

  "Oh.? Fillmore.? Barry Fillmore."

  Barry Fillmore was Smoke's third and last available identity.? Fillmore lived with James Dugan.? He had a social security number, two credit cards and a driver's license issued in New Hampshire.? Every month, Smoke purchased one or two items in Fillmore's name, just to keep the accounts current.? If he lived, Smoke knew he would be shopping for new identities soon.?

  When he finished his shopping, Smoke drove the Tercel back into the city, looking for a Catholic church that was open.? It was only a little after nine o'clock, but they were all closed, the doors locked against him.? Every single church he pulled up to.? He didn't know when that had happened.? When he was a kid, even when he was a young man, one of the things the churches prided themselves on was that they stayed open around the clock.? It could be two in the morning - if you suddenly decided you needed to pray to God, you could walk up to any church and let yourself right in.? You could settle into any pew in the deep silence and darkness of a church at night, you could dig all those stained glass windows and the flickering candles up at the front, and you could let ol' God know exactly what was on your mind.? You could tell Him all about the department store job you had pulled an hour ago.? And you could explain how you would give some of that money - ten percent, say - to the poor and starving in Appalachia or Bangladesh or Africa, to the widows, to the orphans, if only He let you off the Almighty hook and kept the lawmen off your trail.

  And it would work.? Time and time again, those little after-hour church house bargaining sessions would work out just fine.

  Well, not anymore.? Nowadays, it seemed God closed up shop at night.

  It was just as well.?

  A long time had passed since he and God were on speaking terms.

  ?

  * * *

  ??

  Cruz drove through the darkened lanes of Maine in autumn, looking for a pay phone.? It took him about ten minutes of driving around to find one.?