Where There's Smoke (5 page)

Red’s eyes widened. Andre’s death lay unspoken between them.

Ross nodded. “Yeah, so get your ass in there, make them comfortable, I’ve got a couple of calls to make and then I’ll be in. Five minutes, tops.”

“Okay, damn. I can only imagine what they’ve done.” He walked out the office muttering.

Ross placed a call to his contact at the prison. “Harley? This is Ross Stemple. Remember that favor? I need to call it in.”

Chapter 5

The conference room was packed, tension high, adrenaline flowing. It reminded Red of a gang meeting he’d been invited to once. He didn’t join and he never went to anything remotely close again. When he walked in, the noise stopped. Walking to the front of the room, he wondered what he should say to these guys.

“Hey, I understand we need to get together and talk about a few things. While we’re waiting for Ross, who’s on the phone, I just want to thank each of you for being concerned about the situation here.”

“What situation would that be, Red?” Jeff Malloy, one of his brick masons, asked. “We’ve heard everything from the company’s on the brink of financial ruin to someone’s trying to set y’all up for murder to Smoke being kidnapped. Hell, I came to get some information about the jobs I’m assigned starting next week. I get here and now I’m hearing all types of bullshit. Tell me straight, what’s going on?” A loud smattering of agreements rose.

Red nodded, watching the door. Ross and Smoke normally handled this. He wiped the moisture from his palms and looked at the men he’d worked alongside the past five or more years. They’d seen each other through some tough times. Besides, none of them were his enemy. He relaxed; he knew these guys.

“It’s true; someone’s trying to destroy the company. We’re not sure why, other than jealousy. Some names of ex-employees came up and we’re looking into it.”

“Yeah, I heard Cameron and Andre were involved in some way,” one of the men called out. There were murmurs and head nods. Obviously, Andre’s death wasn’t public knowledge yet, and Cameron was at his brother’s mansion in Pennsylvania.

“Listen.” His voice rose to get everyone’s attention. “We’re like family here. Ross and Smoke are my brothers by choice. A lot of you’ve made close friendships with people working here. That’s cool. Let me address the first point. The company’s not in danger money-wise, not at this point. However, there is a rogue company using our name and building piss-ass quality homes. I’m gonna be honest with you, if we don’t nail this thing down, bad publicity
will
impact the bottom line. Yesterday’s awards don’t mean shit. People are not going to ask us to work for them if they think we’ve messed up work recently.” He paused, letting that nugget settle. “About the murder thing, I don’t know what to say other than we didn’t kill anybody.” There was a smattering of laughter. “The cops are looking into it. I’ll get back to you on that one.” Heads nodded, a lot of faces frowned and more were surprised.

A man stood. “I’ve been working here for eight years, I’d just gotten out the program over at Thumb and Ross gave me a chance,” Jamie said. His face was tight with anger. “We worked six, seven days a week to make deadlines. Didn’t have no warehouse, nobody gave us credit, had to stop in the middle of the job and go buy plywood, or materials. We did whatever it took to make this work.” He glanced at some of the men sitting in the room, a confused look on his face.

“Ya know damn well, no one wants to help an ex-con, but we were able to get contracts, one house at a time as word got round about the good job we did. Now you’re telling me some muthafucker’s out there saying he’s
us
? And messing up
our
name?”

Red’s chest expanded in pride. Ross had been right, as usual. This talk was necessary. These men had been in the trenches with them, took pride in their work. Of course they’d need to be included to some extent. Leaning against the end of the large conference table, he nodded, and stared at Jamie.

“Yeah, that’s what they’re doing.”

“What are we doing to shut them down?” one of the men asked.

“I’m sorry. I can’t get into that right now, but trust me, we’re on it.” Red looked around the room, some of the expressions were skeptical, others relieved.

“Look, Red,” Carlos said from his seat in the back. “You’re so angry about this bullshit, you’re almost levitating. We need you and Ross to let us help keep the company going strong. Bottom line is this: Something happens to one of you three, the company’s crippled. Something happens to two of you, the company collapses.”

Red stared at the man, weighing the merits of Carlos’s words and realized he wouldn’t work the company without his partners.

“I suspect this is going to get ugly, especially if Smoke doesn’t walk through these doors pretty soon. I’m on his team, and personally I’m offended that someone’s stepped to him, period.”

Carlos let the cat out the bag. Smoke was missing. Now the men all knew. Red watched the faces to gauge the mood of the room from that revelation. That they accepted Carlos’s words without challenging its truth indicated how tightly knit this group was.

“Here’s the deal,” Carlos continued. “If I take matters into my own hands, I risk one family, mine. That’s heavy, and I’m aware of the repercussions. But if you or Ross risks yourselves, look around you.” He waved at the men seated nearby. “Look at all the families that’d be impacted. Ain’t no Lone Ranger in this bullshit. We all got an interest and y’all need to understand where
we’re
comin from.”

Red nodded, his face and neck hot. Twice in less than an hour they’d been warned not to get caught doing something to endanger the company.
Poster boys, my ass
. He hadn’t thought beyond his anger and these men saw it. More importantly, they called him on it. Damn.

“I appreciate the reminder and warning. Y’all know how I am. I kick out first and
then
think it through. I’m working on it. Notice I’m standing here talking and listening to you, instead of burning a few places down.” Laughter erupted in the room.

“On a serious note, if anyone has any information regarding what I said, hang around, let’s talk. Otherwise, we’ll see the rest of you next week for work. Vacation’s over lazy bones, get outta here.” The atmosphere in the room changed, as men grouped together laughing, talking, slapping one another’s back in camaraderie. A few made their way to him and others grouped around Ross at the back of the room. Red hadn’t noticed him come in.

After the bulk of employees left, four men remained with Red and Ross—Jamie, Carlos, Tank and Joe. Ross waved him over, a serious expression on his face. He shook hands with each of the men, giving Carlos an extra squeeze. The man had called him out and was on point, he appreciated it.

“Go ahead, Tank.” Ross nodded at the olive complexioned tall man who looked the opposite of his name.

“I told Ross, that I have a man watching Particle Apartments. One of the men who lurked around the warehouse lives around there. He left town. Whenever he returns he’ll be picked up. If he takes longer than 48 hours, his closest relative will be picked up and questioned.” He looked at Red. “I understand they hung out at that pool hall. Some men have been watching that as well and discovered the other man has a girlfriend. She’s been picked up. Unfortunately she doesn’t know much other than he had a job out of town and should be back today or tomorrow.”

Red glanced at Ross. “Names?”

“I have them here,” Ross said watching Tank. “I don’t want to get involved with big guns. Once you tangle with them, they own you.” Red suspected Tank knew something about Andre’s recent demise.

“You don’t know anybody or anything. Like my man here said.” He nodded at Carlos. “I weighed the shit. Ain’t got no kids, no wife, but I got connections. Family. This happened without you knowing or approving. I just hope it don’t cost me my job.”

Ross laughed. “Naw, not even close.” They bumped fists and slid palms. “Joe?”

“Nothing quite as hands-on as my friend, Tank,” Joe chuckled. “The wife wanted to take the short cut and I saw that skinny girl who used to work here heading into a warehouse off Highway 24 past the airport. It struck me strange since most of those buildings are boarded up and scheduled for demolition. Someone held the door open for her. I craned my neck to look back but couldn’t see the name of the building. I drove past there on my way here. There’s no name out front, but here’s a sketch of where it’s at.” He handed Ross the paper.

Red’s heart raced. If he couldn’t find Smoke, he could search for the assholes out to destroy them. Time was not their friend, next week they had contracts to fulfill. The foundation crew would head out in a day or so. Fist balled, he wanted action.

“Thanks, man, we’ll check into this.” Ross placed the paper in his pocket after glancing at him. His patience was perilously close to depletion. None of the men moved.

“What do you want us to do now?” Jamie asked looking between both men. Ross looked at Red and then at the men.

“I suppose if I asked you to go home and enjoy the rest of your vacation, you’d ignore me, huh?”

“Yeah,” Tank said, the other men crossed their arms with
no bullshit allowed
expressions on their faces.

Ross sighed, and looked at his watch. “Okay, someone needs to go to the campus and look at the outside cameras to see what happened to Smoke.” No one said anything.

Ross smiled. “So we all want to go to that warehouse, huh?”

“Hell, yeah,” Jamie said.

“Yeah,” Carlos and Joe echoed.

“I’m
going
to the warehouse,” Tank said.

Red stared at Ross and nodded. “Okay, let’s head to the campus; look at the cameras to verify what happened Saturday and then we’ll hit the warehouse.”

“I need to make a quick stop and then I’ll meet you guys there,” Tank said.

Ross stared at him. The man didn’t blink. At that moment, Ross was positive Tank had been involved with Andre’s death. They’d worked together all these years and he’d never noticed that stillness in the man before. Like a cobra before it struck, fast, hard, and deadly. Tank’s record didn’t include murder or manslaughter, but that might simply mean the man had never been caught.

“You’re on my team, Tank. I’m gonna be pissed if you’re not at work next week. Don’t do nothing that’ll prevent you from showing up on time.” That was the closest he could say on the matter. All of these men were grown and he understood none asked his permission. They'd do what they felt was necessary. Honor was a tricky thing and he needed to be careful, everyone handled their code of ethics in the way that made sense to them.

“I’m good at what I do.” He looked at Joe. “I’ll wait across the street for you guys.”

“I wanna ride with you,” Carlos said walking over to Tank. “We’ll watch and wait for you guys.”

“Actually, I planned to follow Tank and wait outside until Red and Ross got there. It won’t look good if too many of us showed up at campus security,” Joe said. Jamie nodded and moved to the side with the other men.

“So all of you planned to head to the warehouse. I guess we should be honored you invited us.” Red shook his head.

“Now that you mention it,” Joe said. “It might be better if y’all didn’t come. We can check it out and call you if there’s anything there dealing with the company.”

“Hell, no,” Ross growled, body tensed. “Nobody goes inside until Red and I get there. If he doesn’t tear something or someone soon, he’ll explode.”

“I’m not the only one,” Red muttered as they left the building.

Chapter 6

A bomb of silence exploded in the small room. Smoke wondered if they’d expected him to lie. He didn’t and wouldn’t. Not about something so easily proven. He didn’t advertise his past, but he didn’t shrink from it either. It had shaped him into the man he was right now.

Earlier when the man questioning him had stormed into the room, he’d seemed like some hulking giant. Either there was a remnant of drugs in his system or he had a latent fever, because now that they were sitting eye level they were similar in height and size. The man’s hair was cut close to his head, as was his beard. The tan tee shirt stretched the seams.

Idly, he wondered if his host had spent time in prison. Since nobody volunteered the information when the subject opened, it’d be rude to push that door. He let the moment slide, waiting. Tension gripped his shoulders. He couldn't relax. Ball in their court, the next move was theirs.

The man sat back in the chair, staring soberly at him. “So these ex-con partners of yours,” he asked waving his hand. “You think will come after my associate and me?” The question surprised Smoke.

He snorted. “They don’t know about you. Right about now, they’re searching, turning over clues trying to find me.”

“How can you be so sure?” The man squinted through the smoke from his cigarette.

“It’s what I’d be doing.” Smoke declined the offer of a cigarette and tapped the tabletop. “So, can I make a call? I just need to let them know I’m alive.” His heartbeat increased at the pleading sound in his voice. For some reason hearing his partner’s voices again seemed to be his sole focus. It was as if this nightmare would be tolerable as long as he made that reconnection.

The man blew the smoke out the side of his mouth, glanced over Smoke’s head and then returned to his gaze. “Here’s the deal.” He leaned forward, grimacing. “The job my associate was working on went sour. One of the women found dead in bed with you was the assignment. We were supposed to observe the woman and report to our client if the woman serviced any other men. Unfortunately, the man who engaged our firm played a nasty trick and it backfired on him. He never expected cameras or photos, as a matter a fact he explicitly requested this assignment be without the use of electronics.”

Smoke nodded, wondering when he’d get the phone. He shuddered to think what Red and Julio were up to. Ross wouldn’t be much better. All of them were fraying around the edges and needed to chill. The pressures continued to pile, as each owner was associated with a murder. Damn, he’d hit the daily double with two dead women.