Crime (21 page)

— No, not me. Somebody else. I got a bit drunk last night. Met some people … this couple, and I went to a party at their apartment. These guys came by, one of them tried to mess with this kid. Her mother’s in some kind of trouble. Her boyfriend left, they fell out, and she wants me to take the kid to her uncle’s place. It’s about a two- to three-hour drive, and we’re on our way now. I hired a car.

— What?!

— I hired a car. I couldn’t leave the kid. She was all alone.

— But where’s the mother? And why are you involved? Listen, they have their own police across here, Ray. It’s nothing to do with you!

— I can’t leave the kid, Lennox protests. — I’m only dropping her off at her uncle’s.

The line was a trail of gunpowder, the receiver at his ear the explosive and her rising voice the approaching flame. — Who do you think you are? This has nothing to do with you.
I’m
something to do with you. I’m your fiancée! This is our holiday!

— There’s some dodgy shit going on here. I need tae make sure that this kid’s safe. He gazes in sudden urgency across the forecourt. Tianna is talking to a couple of young guys.
She looks like a wee lassie. She looks like a truck-stop hooker
.

—
You
need!
You
need! You’re havering shite! What the fuck! Don’t you hear yourself, Ray? Don’t you ever just stop for a few seconds and actually listen; listen to the crap that comes out of your mouth? Is this to be the pattern of our married life? Trudi
moans
miserably. — You can’t stop playing the policeman. What kind of an idiot are you?

Those fucking weasels
. One kid at the age of realising he’s not somebody’s property, a mutinous twist to his features. With him, an older boy, charged with the hormones of youth, looking for a hole to fill with his nagging self. — I have to go. Everything’s okay, he snaps. The two young guys. Talking to Tianna. They can’t see him watching them.

— Okay!? With you playing
Miami Vice
? Who the fuck do you think you are? Trudi hisses in loathing. — You stay out all night, getting up to fuck knows what –

— People are in trouble. That might not mean anything to you, but I don’t work for the fuckin lecky board, he roars, keeping his eyes on the girl.
Was she going to get in the car with those guys? Surely not!

— That’s right! Demean me and what I do! You self-important, pompous prick! All I wanted was to kick back and plan our wedding. I apologise for that, Ray. Sarcasm whips down the phone line. — I’m genuinely sorry.
Sorry
that I wanted a holiday with
my
fiancé. Sorry to be upset that he stayed out partying all night with some woman I don’t know and now has her
child
in tow. Sorry to be such a big fucking weirdo!

Tianna flirting, provocatively leaning back on the car bonnet like a model, as she flicks her hair. The older boy, stiff-faced: feet slow-dancing on the spot. The younger one: staring at her in open-mouthed awe. — Look Trudi, I –

In the hotel room, Trudi slams the phone down. Then she panics and wants to call him right back. Dials the desk to ask for the ring-back number.

Lennox smashes the receiver on to its hook and walks quickly across the forecourt. The youths take note, alarmed at the speed at which he advances towards them. — Guess what, Tianna? A dry rasp distorts his voice into a growl. — It was two–one for Hearts. At Tynecastle. Didnae get the scorers. But ah telt you that. Did I tell youse? Dinnae think so, he says, now right in the boys’ faces. — Ah didnae tell yis cause ah dinnae ken who the fuck youse are. Gaunny tell me?

— We was just talking, sir, the younger boy says, now just a nice kid. The senior one is harder; flinty eyes look sullenly at Lennox, gaining a sly confidence as an older couple approach. The man, he assumes it’s the boys’ father, is a brawny guy in a short-sleeved shirt and green khaki shorts. A growth on his face hints at a rough night. The mother is clad in a tight dress that shows a pregnant stomach. Her arms are big and flabby. — What’s goin on here? the man asks.

— Ask your boys, Lennox says. He sees dirt under the man’s fingernails. Feels something ring inside his brain.

— We was just talking, the nice kid repeats.

— Is that right?

— Don’t know what you’re getting all high and mighty about, mister. The man looks at Tianna. — You let your daughter dress like that? What age is she? Know what I think? I think you’d better haul your ass outta here before I call a cop. They put sons of bitches like you behind bars, ya know that?

— What –

Tianna blushes in embarrassment. — They were, I mean, we was all jus talking, like he said, and she nods to the young boy.

Lennox looks at the man, then at Tianna. He notices for the first time that she’s wearing make-up: eye stuff and lipstick. She doesn’t look like a ten-year-old. She must have put it on in the restroom. Outrage punctured, he takes a mental step back. — No harm in talking, eh? C’mon, honey, he looks to Tianna, — we can’t keep Uncle Chet waiting.

The couple regard him suspiciously as they walk back to the car. Lennox trembles inside every step of the way.
They’ll probably call the police and I’ll get done. I can’t be so stupid. Not with Dearing connected
. He thinks about the Edinburgh man, Kenny Richey, kept now for twenty years on death row in an Ohio prison, for a crime even the state acknowledge he couldn’t possibly have committed.
The legal system is as medieval here as anywhere, if you didn’t have money and connections and you fell foul of the power brokers. It had a colour, and that colour was green. There was Rodney King justice and O. J. Simpson justice
.

Oblivious to the sad, lonely ringing of the payphone, they get
back
into the car and Lennox hits the gas pedal, watching the outraged family recede in the rear-view mirror. They drive through residential blocks, broken up by parking lots and strip malls with low-yielding enterprises like cheap insurance brokerage, electrical repairs and pet supplies stores.

Taking a wrong turn north on 27th Avenue, they pass through a district full of black youths glowering in brooding menace from street corners, or the porches of fading homes. By instinct he understands their terrible anger; under economic and social quarantine in the ghetto, beset by this need to kick holes in a world so confining and unyielding.

— Try not to stop at no lights, Tianna urges, — I think this is Liberty City.

Complying as far as is possible, Lennox drives west, then south, then west again, as he asks Tianna, — Do you always dress like that?

Sour defiance tints her expression. — I suppose.

— Do the other girls at your school dress like that?

— Sure they do.

Lennox feels himself make a doubtful
moue
as the network of slip roads begins to fall away, the city thinning out. Tianna pulls something from her bag. They are cards: baseball cards. As she looks through them, he turns the radio back on.

A tinny, wiffling disco groove hisses out from the car speakers. He deft-tunes it, till the sound comes in stronger. The music infiltrates him, sparking his nerve-jangled body like the useless excitement of the cocaine rush. The beat sticking him between his ribs like a blade. Lennox feels like he is doing something illegal, and wonders whether or not he is. He struggles to control a sudden spasm on one side of his face. Craves the blunting edge of his pills. Wants to fast-forward to when the hangover will be gone and he’ll open up like a flower to suck in the world’s goodness.

Tianna knows she’s annoyed him, talking to those kids. The older one, she knew what he wanted.
But no way he could’ve made me, or tricked me or nothin. He was just a kid. And the Scotsman, this Bobby Ray, it was like he was jealous of him. Maybe if a girl could be a woman, then a man could be a boy
. She winds down the window,
tossing
back her hair in the breeze, resting the crook of her arm on its edge, wishing she had a cool pair of shades.

After a bit they pull into the parking lot of a large mall. — Why are we stopping here? Tianna asks.

— We get some new clothes for you.

— Awesome!

— I get to pick them, Lennox says, opening the door car, — or at least veto. You’re travelling with me, he says firmly, in response to her disgruntled pout.

Tianna gets out and slams the door shut. She looks at him from across the vehicle, squinting in the sun. The model pose again. — What do I get?

Her pitch is teasing in a way that makes him feel queasy as she moves towards him. — You get a milkshake. He points over at one of the franchises, an ice-cream parlour. — It says they do the best shake in Florida.

Tianna gyrates, sticking out and shaking her backside, proclaiming, —
I
do the best shake in Florida!

Lennox wants to laugh because the kid is funny. But she isn’t a pole dancer and it’s wrong for her to behave that way. He converts the nervous impulse to giggle into a frown.

She catches his evident distress. — Jeez, lighten up.

He goes to speak but can think of nothing to say. He is just a Scottish cop with a mental health problem and an uptight, controlling fiancée who needs his weakness so that she can play Mother Teresa once in a while. It doesn’t equip him for this. — I’d just like it if you covered yourself up a bit, that’s all.

— Why?

— Well, when people see lots of skin exposed, they react to that. You’re a bright girl, but people don’t see that. They just see skin. They don’t take you seriously, they don’t see you as a person … He hears the most extreme feminisms meet with the Taliban in his tone.

Tianna feels something punch her hard inside her chest.
Skin. That was it with Vince and Clemson, all of them. Skin
. She contemplates this simple mystery, eyes adroit and pained. — But you see me as a person?

The kid got it. The kid fucking knew
. For the first time Lennox senses that deep down inside, she has the stuff. Maybe he’s just seeing what he wants to see. — Aye, of course I do, he smiles, patting her lightly on the back, and quickly withdrawing his hand as if it’s touched hot coals.
How many grooming nonces start that way, with normal human contact, before shifting gear?

The mall is bland and sterile from the outside but, as its automatic doors swish open, its air-conditioned superiority to almost any equivalent in the UK is evident. The grime of Salford Shopping Centre, near where Stacey Earnshaw went missing, was a million miles from this brightly coloured mall of pastel oranges, lemons and salmon pinks. There was a record store, across from a rack of phones. Lennox gives Tianna two twenty-dollar bills. — I’ve got a call to make. You go over to that record store and get us some sounds for the drive.

— Awesome, Tianna says again, takes the bills and skips across the mall.

Lennox gets a hold of a phone book from the attendant at the information desk. There are numerous entries for the local offices of the police department under the City of Miami. He is going to see if he can get a reaction from Dearing, the cop who seems to be calling all the shots. He looks first at Allapattah 1888 NW 21st.
No
. He is so tired now, feeling the jet lag, the coke withdrawal. He wants his antidepressants as waves of panic hit him in irregular pulses. They have to be faced down, but sting his psyche like a bad curry would his gullet. He worries about driving in this condition with the kid. The receptionist tells him that no Lance Dearing works here. So he tries West Little Havana just because Flagler Steet, where the office is listed, sounds familiar. A female, Hispanic voice comes on the phone. — You try North Leel Havana. You find Lance there, she cheerfully informs him. He sees the entry and the address for North Little Havana.
Starry’s right about Robyn and her Riverside pretensions
. He calls the number and asks for Lance.

— Officer Lance Dearing, North Lil’ Havana Station. How can I help you?

Dearing’s voice creeps him out. But Lennox draws power from
his
revulsion, and braces himself. It’s time to turn up the heat. — You can pray for somebody to help
you
, Dearing. That’s all you can fuckin well do at this stage.

— Who the hell is …?

Lennox hears the realisation seep down the phone line. He’s comforted by the fact that Dearing is just a police officer, not a sergeant.
An expendable uniformed spastic. But he might be getting his arse covered by some dirty nonce further up the line
. Lennox recalls the swaggering typeface of Maroon Mayhem, and his threatening remarks to other posters on Kickback. Although he was obviously a retard who lived with his mother, Lennox finds himself aping his style. — I know you now, prick-face. I know who you are, where you live and where you work. Most importantly, I know
exactly
what you’re up to and who you’re up to it with. I’m going to take you right down, sunshine.

If Lance Dearing is fazed, his concealment skills are consummate. — Our Skarrish friend. Listen to me, Ray: you are in serious trouble. Let me tell you this: if you do not return that girl to the custody of her mother, a long-standing personal friend of mine, I’m going to issue an APB on you, charging you with the kidnap of a Florida minor. You do
not
want that, Raymond: trust me on this.

Nice, Lennox thinks. Professional tones. Letting me know the gravity of the situation, but at the same time the use of the Christian name to indicate friendship and acceptance. Attempting to isolate you while simultaneously presenting himself as your only ally. — I take it that means you’ll issue my description to all squad cars, he says.
Dearing might not be bluffing
.

— That is
exactly
what I’ll do. I’ve only refrained from taking this action so far as it would jus get Robyn and Tianna into more trouble with social services. Also, and I may be a damn fool, I believe that you got their best interests at heart. But let me tell you one thing, Ray: you are misguided and you will bring big trouble on yourself, and Robyn and that child, should you continue to keep her from her home.