House of Smoke by JF Freedman

As soon as he was booked Frank had called his backer, the deep-pockets financial angel for this scam.
    You’ll be out by tomorrow morning, his backer had promised him. You’ll have the best lawyer, the best everything. Until then, don’t say anything to anybody.
    He knew all that was true, if for no other reason than to ensure that he kept his mouth shut. A lot of heavy people could come crashing down if Frank Bascomb started telling tales to the DA.
    “Hey, man,” a voice sings out from across the space. A lilting voice, mocking. The rhythms are Chicano.
    Frank glances up for a second, looks away quickly. Don’t acknowledge these assholes.
    “You got a smoke on you, man?”
    Just fucking ignore them. As if these clowns didn’t know smoking isn’t permitted in here, they take your cigarettes away along with everything else you had on you.
    “Hey, man, what’re you, deaf or something?”
    Frank turns away.
    “Get the wax out of your ears, shithead. I ask you a question, man.”
    “I don’t smoke.” Like it fucking matters.
    “Not even grass?”
    They all laugh. They know how come he’s in here, the word seeps through like a virus.
    He turns to them. A pathetic-looking lot—clothes in shambles, hair matted, body stink their only aura.
    “Who wants to know?”
    Confront the fuckers head-on, let them know you have no fear.
    “Maybe you’re the one has the wax in his ears, whoever asked,” Frank says. “I don’t smoke, comprende ?”
    “Sure, man. Whatever you say.”
    He’s a tall man, reed-thin. Impossible to tell how old; could be twenty-five, could be forty-five. The dark, sallow skin of the addict/alcoholic/headcase; unshaved face, hollow burning eyes. A long scar from one eyebrow up to the hairline, a permanent reminder of a past encounter with somebody’s straight razor.
    The others are of the same tribe, more or less. Men who sleep in one set of clothes a month at a time, who scrounge for dinner in dumpsters and sleep in the weeds down by the railroad tracks.
    “That’s what I say. Got a problem with it?”
    “You got the problem, man, not me. You’re the number-one guest in this hotel.” He laughs, a raspy, phlegmy croak.
    Frank glares at the man, daring him with his look to make a move. The man tries to hold the look but can’t; he turns away, as do the others, leaving Frank a healthy space: at heart they’re all cowards.
    He won’t sleep tonight, that’s for sure, not with all these freaks in here giving him the eye.
    He pushes up against the wall, feeling his back on the hard concrete. He can do without one night of sleep and still be sharp for tomorrow’s arraignment. That’s when the shit will really start hitting the fan.
    “Were you crazy? Were you out of your stupid mind? Are you really this stupid, Or is this something you picked up in college?”
    The party’s over at Frederick and Miranda’s. Everyone’s gone home, Frederick’s in bed, the servants have retired, no one’s around. Just Miranda and Laura, mother and daughter.
    They’re in the same study where earlier they’d talked to the police; an episode Miranda never, ever , wants to repeat. She paces the floor, a tiger in a cage, while Laura, curled up into herself, cowers on the couch, trembling uncontrollably, trying to become invisible, to escape this monumental wrath.
    “Why do you think we sent you clear across the country to the most expensive schools in the world?” Miranda thunders, building up a full head of steam. “So you could build a snowman in the winter? We didn’t want you at Santa Barbara High, hanging around all those baggy-pants eastside hoods. I keep hoping some of my toughness will rub off on you, but it doesn’t look like it’s ever going to. You’re a spoiled child of privilege—it’s your blessing and your curse.”
    “But I didn’t do anything!” Laura wails.
    “You didn’t do anything? What do you call what happened tonight?” she yells, her arm shooting out in the vague