Patrick Quinlan - Smoked

“Bitch,” Kendrick said in that same hoarse voice. “Bitch.” Lola looked closer and saw he was crying. She thought about spitting on him, for old time’s sake, but she couldn’t even bring herself to do that. Everything had once again been stolen from her. She picked up her bag and continued on her way.

When she was half a block away, she turned around to see if Kendrick had managed to get up yet. He hadn’t. He was on all fours on the wide, glistening sidewalk. Like circling vultures, the two boys had moved in after she was gone. When a man was down, a man was down. The law of the jungle prevailed. They took turns kicking him and jumping up and down on his carcass.

From where she stood, their laughter was carried to her on the breeze. It was the laughter of childhood. In another time and place, two boys might laugh like that on their way down to the creek to go fishing.

It was time to go home.

Smoke arrived at the apartment knowing how late he was.

It was full dark. He parked his little Toyota half a block down from the apartment. He killed the headlights, then waited and watched. No one was moving on the street. TV lights flickered from homes on his left and his right. His sense of dread was so complete that he felt he might vomit. All along, he had made mistakes, and now it had probably cost Lola and Pamela their lives. He should have told Lola long ago about his life before now. Scratch that – he shouldn’t have become involved with Lola, or anyone.

A breeze kicked up and the trees along the street creaked and swayed. Shadows moved. A young couple, bundled up and leaning on each other, laughed together as they walked along the sidewalk.

He had killed the kid without thinking of the fallout. It had been an instinct. Kill the kid. Kill them all. Get away. But of course he hadn’t been able to kill them all. That big guy, Moss, it would be hard to kill a guy like that.

He should have let them take him in – maybe he could’ve escaped some other way. Lola’s death was a horrible price to pay for his own life.

He had been unable to go back to the apartment – the neighborhood was crawling with cops and firemen. His car was around the corner, so he had simply climbed in and driven off-you mention earlier that he had to go back and get his car. It’s a little confusing as written. He didn’t know when he would go back there. So the long and the short of it was he couldn’t pick up his guns. They were trapped in the apartment. In the old days, he had loathed guns, but over time he had made a certain peace with them. Since he had been on the run, he had kept three of them. Two, fully loaded, safeties off, hidden in the apartment, and one small two-shot derringer here in the car, tucked away under the driver’s seat.

At least he had the derringer – the Bond Arms Cowboy Defender. He held it in his big hand. Five inches long in total, with three-inch, over-under barrels. It was so small that it looked almost like a toy cigarette lighter. But it packed a wallop. It fired two. 45 rounds, and was fully loaded. The barrel was so short that the gun was useless except for the most up-close fighting. That’s why he kept it in the car. You couldn’t hit the side of a barn with it if the barn was more than ten yards away, but if somebody was sitting in the car with you, or standing right in front of you, you might just kill them. He thought of Moss again. He looked at the tiny Derringer in his hand.

Jesus.

He climbed out of the car and moved slowly toward the building, limping, gun palmed in his hand. He could palm the fucking thing, like they used to do to hide their cigarettes from adults when he was nine years old. Despite the chill of autumn in the air, beads of sweat ran down the back of his neck. He had incinerated their friend, so God only knew what they had done to his friends.

Unless, of course, they were still up there, laying in wait for him. He had called the apartment again, and had gotten only a busy signal, but that didn’t mean anything. They could be sitting there in the living room, waiting for him to walk in. Or lurking in the stairwell along the empty second floor.

Well, fuck it. If he was going down, he was going down shooting.

He reached the building. The old man was home downstairs, playing his violin. The haunting beauty of the music seemed to come from a world other than the one Smoke inhabited. Looking around, up and down the street, he entered the building.

Nobody was in the bottom hallway.

The overhead light was on. He reached up and smashed it out with the gun. The small crash of the bulb breaking didn’t disturb the violin in the least. Smoke ventured up the narrow stairs into the gloom of the second floor. He tried not to let the ancient wood creak. It was ridiculous. If they came now, he would be doomed. Then again better they come for him than kill Lola. He stopped trying to hide himself.

He reached the second floor landing, and hobbled along until he reached the bottom of the stairs to the third floor. He peered up. The door was closed. There was no sound up there. He climbed the stairs.

The door was unlocked. He walked in.

Nobody here.

He could feel the apartment’s emptiness. The light in the bathroom was on, throwing shadows through the living room. The coffee table in there had collapsed, as though someone had fallen on top of it. That was the only sign of struggle he could see.

He stood for a moment, holding his breath, looking and listening.

No sound, except from below. Far away, the strains of the violin.

He settled onto one of the dining room chairs. His breath came out in a long, low groan. Okay. He had come this far. Now he would take a moment, gather his emotions, and then search the rest of the apartment. If anyone was here, they were dead.

I’m so sorry, Lola.

The phone was on the floor. He stood, picked up the receiver, and placed it back in the cradle hanging on the kitchen wall.

It started ringing.

Smoke jumped so high he nearly banged his head against the low ceiling.

Two rings. Three rings. He stood and watched it ring. He picked it up just before the answering machine.

“Hello?”

“Dugan?” the voice said. It was Cruz. It had to be.

“Yes.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes.”

“Good. I was wondering when you were going to finally get there. That was some job you pulled with the kid. It’s not going to make this any easier on anybody.”

Smoke swallowed. “I understand that.”

The voice went on. “Your friend is here with us. Okay? Other than that, we don’t have much to talk about.”

“There’s no reason for her to be involved.”

“Well, sure, I agree with that. But you involved her. Okay?”

“Okay.”

The little man went on. “The other one, too. The roommate.”

“Was she here?”

“Oh, yeah.”

Smoke nearly choked. “Where is she now?”

Cruz said nothing. He didn’t even answer. Smoke had dealt with men like this for most of his life. They were fucking animals. They had no reason to keep Pamela alive. No reason at all.

“Where is she?” Smoke repeated.

“See if you can find her.”

Fuck.

“So it seems like the thing for you to do is to get moving. That place is going to get pretty hot by tomorrow, if not later tonight. I don’t think your friend here wants you to see that kind of heat, you know?”

Smoke knew. Sooner or later, the explosion at his apartment, combined with the death of the kid and Smoke’s disappearance, would lead the cops here to Lola’s place. In fact, sooner or later the cops were going to find out that there was no Smoke Dugan. Probably sooner rather than later. They were going to take some prints in that apartment and find out that Smoke Dugan was actually Walter O’Malley, convicted felon from thirty years ago. Shit. He needed some time before the police came down on him. The last thing he needed was to get picked up by the cops. Getting picked up by the cops was worse than getting picked up by Cruz. They’d kill Lola and then get him in jail.