Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 124, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 757 & 758, September/October 2004

Cigarettes by Michael Z. Lewin

Most of author Michael Z. Lewin’s twenty-odd books are set in Indianapolis, where he grew up, and feature either police detective Leroy Powder or private eye Albert Samson. But since 1971 the author has lived in England, and a few years ago he decided to create a series set in his adopted country and in the town in which he currently lives, Bath. EQMM will have a story in that series, about a family P.I. business employing three generations, later this year.

I should stop smoking. I’m sure I should. I know I should. Smoking is bad. And it can lead to bad things.

On the other hand, there is a good side to smoking, especially these days. It’s a social thing. And that’s it. Smoking is social, and I don’t just mean lighting up and sharing a cig after you-know-what.

Smoking has always been social, associated with parties, drinking, fun. But these days there’s a new dimension. I’m talking about the way all us smokers gather in doorways outside office buildings and factories, the places where we’re sent now we’re banned from the insides. So those of us who persist, who resist, who continue, we’re all bound to bond. When you’re huddling together from the cold, you make friends.

And together we have common cause to complain. Fat people aren’t sent out to eat. Idiots don’t have to go make their dumb mistakes in the rain. Parents aren’t sent to the bike shed with the bore-the-knickers-off-you pictures of their bloody children. I’ve known people who pretended to be smokers just to get away from all that.

Yeah, we’re social on the doorstep, in ways the people left inside just aren’t. That’s what I find. I mean, I haven’t done, like, the kind of research you read about in the papers, but it’s my experience, and I’m not special or different, I’m just ordinary. So I bet it’s true.

There’s other things that follow from us being on the doorsteps. I mean, we’re out there at times when before everybody — us included — was inside. I won’t go so far as to say I think we’re healthier than our work mates because of the fresh air we get, but if some clever clogs did research that said so, it wouldn’t knock me down with a feather. And another thing is we see things that didn’t used to get seen, you know? We’re bound to, aren’t we? Being as how we’re out there looking around when nobody used to. So that’s the thing with smoking — there’s cons, but there’s also pros.

I work at Evening Eye, a fair-size factory for the Marston Trading Estate — we have thirty-eight of us on the production side. I don’t know what Evening Eye made when Jake, the owner, first picked the name. That was back when the factory was in the town center, and before my time. But you have to be flexible to keep a business above water these days, what with the market ups and downs and all the new technological stuff. You have to be ready to respond to the market. Jake says so, and it makes sense. Whatever he made back then, now we make handbags. Not lumpy, everyday bags a housewife will chuck all and sundry into. We’re upmarket, us. We make evening accessories for the posh and famous. Not Posh herself yet, but lots of other rich people, some of them so posh I’ve never even heard of them.

Our bags are finest quality, made from the best materials. A third of our output is filling special orders, but we do bread-and-butter top gear, too, sold in high-tone catalogues and in places like Harrods. Not like Harrods. In Harrods. Well, you know what I mean.

All of it, even the catalogue stuff, is handcrafted. It sells for a bomb. We’re in the haute fashion industry, so it ought to.

Evie says back when we were in town Jake didn’t let us smoke on the factory floor either, because of the combustibility of stuff like the silks and velvets. But back then you could smoke in the canteen, no problem. Out here he doesn’t even have a canteen. A sandwich wagon parks down the street every day in front of the double-glazing place. If you don’t bring your own, that’s where you get your grub. Unless you’re one of them that goes off-site for lunch every day. I say them, but I mean only the one who does that on a regular basis, from the thirty-eight of us on the floor.

Evie says Jake moved the business during really hard years when lots of companies were going under. He survived by selling the town site, moving to the unit in the trading estate, and using the cash difference to retool. Committed to Evening Eye, is Jake. It’s his life and soul, anybody can see that. It doesn’t make him likable, but we respect him for it. And the business is still here, even if the thirty-eight of us used to be ninety-six of us when he was in town, according to Evie.

Evie used to be a smoker, like me. She tried to stop half a dozen times, and then all of a sudden it worked. She doesn’t know why. There aren’t nearly so many smokers now as there used to be, only three now, among the thirty-eight. But we three nowadays get together on the doorstep with the mattress makers from across the road and the double-glazing people and the carpets man and the something-to-do-with-cars people. All the smokers of this section of the estate smoke together. And we have a good laugh. As I said, in some ways it’s more social than it’s ever been.

Which is just as well, because back inside, at work, it’s less social than it used to be. Jake has never been an easygoing guy, but now he’s being Monster Boss. That’s because he’s discovered that somebody’s nicking.

What’s missing is from our catalogue bags. I don’t have the list of what’s gone, but I’ve seen Jake wave it around. It seems the thieving began when he went on holiday last June. That’s four — no, I tell a lie — that’s three and a half months ago. Not many bags — we don’t mass produce them — but enough to notice, obviously. Not enough to make a serious dent in profits, but enough to make a serious dent in Jake’s mood. He’s been on a rampage all week. Eight days — eight work days — since he discovered it.

Now, this week, he’s put in a new policy. Each day when we leave work we’re all going to be searched. Someone will look in our bags — a bit ironic, that — and even check our persons. Evie’s in charge. She’s been around so long, Jake trusts her.

Not all the girls do, mind. “Who’s going to search Evie?” one of them asked when Jake announced the new policy last Friday so we’d have the weekend to think about it. But she didn’t ask very loud and Jake didn’t answer. That was Sandra who asked. Bit of a rebel, Sandra. She’s one of the ones they suspect, I think.

I don’t mind if Evie searches me. She can pat me down all she likes, so long as she doesn’t tickle.

Sandra is not the number-one suspect, though. The girls have another prime candidate. Linda. And the reason is that Linda is the one who goes off-site for lunch every day. Well, almost every day. You can tell ahead which days, because ahead of time — when we break for elevenses — Linda calls for a cab.

Yep, a cab. You see her make the call on her mobile. And then you see the cab pull up at one. And then a couple of minutes to two she’s back — by cab again. Where does she go? some ask. How can she afford it? most ask.

Especially now. Now somebody’s nicking.

They also don’t like Linda much because she isn’t social. She’s not a smoker — that goes without saying — but she doesn’t mix much over coffees and teas, either. Keeps herself to herself. Hasn’t been here all that long. All Evie knows about her is that she’s married to a Tarmac layer and they have a kiddy at school. Even when she doesn’t go off on her taxi ride at lunchtime she doesn’t hang out with the girls. Keeps herself to herself. Reads. Books. Well, no wonder they’re suspicious of her.

I reckon — though Evie’s never said — I reckon that the whole search thing at the end of the day is just a way to justify searching Linda’s bag — and her person, if necessary. I think they have to search everybody in order to search the one they suspect.

Poor cow, Linda, I don’t think she even knows they suspect her. She does her job, keeps herself to herself, thinks she’s all right. Lost in her own world. Doesn’t notice anything she doesn’t have to notice — you know the type. She’s not social. If you’re social, you’re interested in what your work mates are up to. Okay, maybe not to the extent of keeping track of every new tooth of every baby in every family — especially if you’re not lumbered with kids yourself and have no bloody plans to be. Gee, who could I be describing here?

And I also think that Jake and Evie figure that even if they don’t catch anybody in flagrante delicto, at least the searches will put an end to the nicking.

I’m sure Jake would sorely love to catch somebody — I know men like Jake. Well, he’s a man, so he’s like the others, isn’t he? He hates the idea that somebody’s putting something over on him. He says it’s because he thinks of us as one big family at Evening Eye. He says anybody robbing him is robbing us all. But the truth is, he doesn’t like some woman — because it’s all women here, except for him — he doesn’t like the idea of some woman cocking two fingers at him.

They’re all the same, these guys. Guys in charge of women. I ought to know. I’ve known enough.

And I know something else. Jake is not going to catch Linda out. He can wait all day to pounce, search her big pouchy bag and her bouncy bra. Even look inside one of her books to see if the pages have been carved out.

Do you know why?

It’s because what they think is the evidence against her isn’t. They ask, How can she afford all those cabs? She must go off in the taxi three, four times a week, and then back again. Who on earth at Evening Eye has money for that? And if she does, where does she get it from?

I wouldn’t put it past Jake to follow Linda around out of hours, to try to find where she sells the bags she supposedly nicks. Try to catch her going to a market and approaching a fashion trader who’ll give her a tenth what they retail for in Harrods, and she’ll be grateful for it.

But he can follow her all day and all night.

If he wants to know about Linda, what he ought to do is take up smoking. He ought to come out on the doorstep where I go and see what I see while I’m out there.

I told you, smokers these days, we see things that other people don’t. If Jake was to come out with me on the doorstep, and pay attention, he’d see Linda come out three or four times a week to her waiting taxi. And he’d see her arrive back at work at two minutes to two. Regular as clockwork.

But what he’d also see is that it’s always the same taxi. Linda’s shagging the taxi driver. Obvious. To anybody who cares to look. If any money’s changing hands, it isn’t coming out of Linda’s purse. That’s what Jake would see if he came out to socialize with the smokers.

But I very much hope he doesn’t. If he was to start hanging out with us smokers it would put a serious cramp in my style. That’s because it’s me who is taking the occasional bag, and passing it over to Molly from the double-glazing at break times for her to sell to her mate on the market.

She gets a tenth what they sell for in Harrods. So I get a twentieth. But that’s fine with me. Every little bit helps. Not least because they’re bloody expensive these days, cigarettes.