Blue Smoke

morning.
    Even with the map he’d printed off the Internet, he’d made a couple of wrong turns. His own fault, he admitted, shifting to find comfort behind the wheel after four hours in the car.
    Getting old, he mused. Old and creaky. His eyes weren’t as good for driving at night—and when the hell had that happened?
    Used to be he could work forty-eight hours straight on a couple of catnaps and coffee. Used to be he had work that could keep him going two days straight, he reminded himself. Those days were gone.
    Retirement wasn’t a reward at the end of a well-run career, not in his mind. In his mind it was a void surrounded by endless dull hours, haunted by memories of the work.
    It was probably foolish to have driven all this way, but Reena had come to him, asked for help. That was a hell of a lot more to him than a gold watch and a pension.
    Still, his eyes were gritty from the strain by the time he found the right street, and his head was aching when he searched out a parking lot.

    The walk from the lot to the address he had on Pastorelli worked out the kinks in his legs, but did nothing for the dull pain in his lower back. Sweat clung to him like a second skin. He stopped at a Korean grocer’s, bought a bottle of water and a pack of Excedrin. He downed two on the sidewalk, watched a hooker on the corner come to terms with a john and slide into his car. Wanting to avoid the others still hawking their wares, he cut across the street.
    Pastorelli’s building was a low-rise, its bricks scarred and smoked from time and generations of exhaust. His name was printed beside a first-floor apartment. John pushed buttons for third- and fourth-floor apartments, then opened the door when some cooperative soul buzzed him in.
    If the air outside had been a steam bath, inside was a closed box baked in a high oven. The headache traveled from the back of his eyes up into his skull.
    He could hear the TV through Pastorelli’s door clearly enough to make out some dialogue. He recognized Law & Order, and had the sudden, uncomfortable flash that if he hadn’t taken this impulsive trip north, he’d be sitting alone in a darkened room watching the same damn thing.
    If it was Pastorelli watching justice climb the slippery rope of the law, he sure as hell hadn’t been in Maryland playing with fire ninety minutes before.
    He balled his fist, thumped the side of it on the door.
    He’d thumped a second, then a third time before the door creaked open on the chain.
    Wouldn’t have recognized you, Joe, he thought. Would’ve passed you on the street without a glance. The tough, handsome face had devolved into a hollow-eyed, jaundiced skull with skin bagging at the jowls as if it had melted off the bone and pooled there.
    He smelled cigarettes and beer, with something soft, like rotted fruit, underlying it.
    “What the hell you want?”
    “Want to talk to you, Joe. I’m John Minger, from Baltimore.”
    “Baltimore.” A dim light bloomed in those sunken eyes. “Joey sent you?”

    “Yeah, you could say that.”
    The door shut, the chain rattled. “He send money?” Pastorelli asked when he opened the door. “He’s supposed to send some money.”
    “Not this time.”
    A couple of fans stirred the stale heat and spread the smell of smoke and beer, and that underlying stench.
    John recognized it now. Not just old man, not just old, sick man. It was old, dying man.
    A black leather recliner sat like a man in a tuxedo at a homeless shelter. The rickety TV tray beside it held a can of Miller, an overflowing ashtray, the remote for the TV that looked as shiny and out of place as the recliner. With them were bottles of medication.
    A sofa held together by dust and duct tape was pushed against the wall. The counters in the kitchenette were spotted with grease and layered with boxes from various takeout and deliveries. John could see the menu for the last few days had included Chinese, pizza, Subway.
    A roach strolled across the pizza box, obviously at home.
    “How do you know Joey?” Pastorelli demanded.
    “You don’t remember me, Joe? Why don’t we sit down?”
    The man looked like he needed to, John thought. He wasn’t sure how he managed to move the bag of bones he’d become without rattling. John took the single chair—a metal folding type—and pulled it opposite the recliner.
    “Joey’s supposed to send money. I gotta have money, pay the rent.” He sat, picked up a pack of cigarettes. John watched the bony