Cross Country Murder Song (7 page)

He'd overdone it one night. Sometimes when he'd take a delivery it would be a simple exchange of one envelope for another. Other times he'd be invited in and, much like the first time he met the actor, be asked to hang out, share the cocaine he'd brought and have a drink. It was hard to say no. Firstly, he didn't want to alienate the client (and sometimes it would be a producer or actor he admired) and after the first hit he'd taken at the actor's house he almost always wanted a top-up.

The palatial white house he drove up to was beyond large gates and a grand circular driveway. It was so bright in the sun that it looked burnished. Two huge marble columns stood impassively either side of the heavy twin doors, one of which was ajar revealing a black-and-white checked hallway and a staircase that he could imagine Fred Astaire dancing down. The producer was playing cards with some friends out at the back of the house on a sundeck beneath a large Sol beer umbrella; it looked incongruously cheap given the grandeur of the house. The view, even by the standard of the vistas he'd experienced the last few months, was breathtaking. They were so high up he felt dizzy, the city was like a glistening speck below them, the struts beneath the sundeck the only thing keeping them from falling into the valley below. He swayed slightly and wondered if it was vertigo. The producer shook his hand firmly and asked him to sit. Like the actor he dumped the contents of the envelope onto the table and his friends laughed and cheered. Rolled-up bills were quickly produced and he was invited to dip in with the rest of them. Someone he vaguely recognised from an old TV show he'd watched as a kid handed him a beer and clapped him on the shoulder. Hours later, at the producer's insistence, he was racing down the valley, jumpy at every intersection, back to the actor's house to replenish their supply. The producer had a party that night and now had the creeping fear that the coke he'd ordered wasn't going to be enough.

He worried that he was going too fast and then that to overcompensate that he was going too slow. He checked his rearview mirror assiduously for cops, but it was quiet up here, the only real danger he faced was the sudden curves in the road that encouraged him to race into the sky.

The actor, who was still in his robe, was delighted to see him.

He likes you, he jabbered, wagging a finger at him; I knew the customers would like you, that's why I gave you the job. You're personable, like me. They were both strung out, sniffing heavily and pinching their noses; the actor kept touching his cheek, unsure if the numbness was in his face or fingertips. The drive back up and along the valley wall was like a dream, the cooling air rigid and unresisting as it coursed through the open windows of the car. The producer's house had started to hum with life like he imagined Gatsby's mansion once had and then he remembered that Gatsby was a character in a book and he laughed stupidly.

He came to the next morning in the back seat of his car, his nose was full and there was a grey residue under his nails and on his teeth. He sat up and then lay quickly back down again as his stomach churned and something came loose behind his eyes. He checked his watch and groaned at the time, forced himself to sit up and pulled himself into the front seat. The producer's house stood almost solemnly behind him, both doors now wide open, a lone girl in a sheer-looking cocktail dress sitting cross legged on the rim of the fountain that was the centrepiece at the heart of the circular drive. It had been flowing last night, but was now as still as if the sun had burnt it out. He imagined his racing heart was louder than the radio as he put the car into gear and started to roll slowly down the hill. He reached into the glove compartment and felt about, glancing up occasionally at the road unfurling before him. He found what he had been looking for, an envelope that still had to be delivered later that day. He placed it onto the seat next to him and pulled over, scooped some of the contents onto his nail and quickly thrust it into his nose. His forehead was damp and his hair clung to it, he pushed it back and felt revulsion when he realised how heavily he was sweating. He pulled slowly out into the road and picked his way down the hill, intermittently dabbing at the envelope as he tried to stabilise his equilibrium and stop himself from throwing up. He felt parched. He pulled over at the first store he found and bought a bottle of water which he gulped down at the counter much to the astonishment of the teenage boy who was working there. He must have looked wild. He knew the water was cascading over his chin and chest but his thirst was insatiable. He slammed the plastic bottle onto the counter top with a wide-eyed grin and thanked the boy a little too loudly before he left. He stood outside and noticed the police that were parked across the road from the store. He clambered into his car, keeping one hesitant and fearful eye across the street. He pulled away from the store and ran quite slowly into a car that was coming the other way. He'd forgotten to secure his seat belt and cracked his head sedately, almost methodically, against the windscreen. He sat back with a dazed thud and by the time he'd turned around to the passenger seat there were the policemen looking in through the open window at him, a young officer already had the envelope and its spilt contents in his hands.

He wouldn't give the actor up and so for the first two years of his sentence he found himself in a maximum-security unit in southern California. He refused to meet anyone's eye and did his best to melt into the walls and between the bars when any of the gang members who made up the majority of the prison's population passed him. He ended up sharing a cell with a convicted murderer the other prisoners had christened Cornflakes, though never to his face. That gave him a degree of respect among the other inmates: sharing a cell with a murderer had earnt him points in a scoring system he didn't understand.

I don't know how you can bear it, someone said to him while they were taking their exercise time. The differing gang factions dominated large swathes of the yard, eyeing each other murderously, but those that chose to just exist and stay small tended to congregate at the back wall beneath the two armed observation towers. Very little trouble ever started there. He squinted at the other prisoner; he didn't know what he meant.

Cornflakes, he said, killed his wife and little girl, gutted them both. When the police found him he was squatting naked over the daughter eating cornflakes out of her guts with a spoon. You didn't know? The other prisoner looked at him with incredulity.

Man, we thought you had balls of steel to sleep in a bunk underneath that guy night after night.

Someone like that shouldn't be in here, he said, and he knew his voice was shaking. Shouldn't he be in a psychiatric unit or something? The other prisoner shrugged. Don't knock it, the prisoner said. In one way or another he's looking out for you in here.

And that's how it was until they moved him up to a facility near Chicago twenty-five months later. Its lower security rating was reflected in the prisoners themselves. There were still flare-ups, sudden outbursts of violence, but like him, a lot of the inmates had come from much tougher places and now quietly revelled in the relative calm that none of them wished to shatter.

The second bus had left the station carrying the young couple with it. They'd exited through the door heading east with imploring eyes, hands clutched tightly around one another. He could only wish them well as they paused at the bus door. Then they were sealed in and carried off along a road to who knew where. He checked his watch as the bus driver waved him aboard and took a window seat near the back. He thought he recognised some of the countryside around here, but it had been so long since he'd seen it he could never be sure. He was heading north from Chicago and had no idea about what he might do next, but he had some money in his pocket and knew that even a dingy motel room would seem like luxury after where he'd spent the better part of a decade. The bus pulled into a gas station that doubled up as a convenience store with a large separate washroom out by the back. They could have been anywhere, but he knew they were somewhere outside of Milwaukee, heading away from it he thought. He saw something in the off ramps and the sloping highway to his right that he couldn't discern but he knew. He felt the memories rekindling within him, he remembered being young and driving around with his friends, out of the suburbs and dangerously fast along these roads, smoking cigarettes and worrying their dreams down. I'm going to move out to the coast, he told them a hundred times as the streetlights reflected off their roof and the dark streets passed by in hazy blocks.

He suddenly wanted a cigarette, and even though he hadn't smoked one in years he felt a tingle of excitement and guilt at the idea of unwrapping a pack and tapping it hard on his hand and lighting up, just like he had felt at fifteen. He walked into the store and picked up the first packet he saw, a yellow box of Natural American Spirit cigarettes. There was a man standing by the counter that instantly set him on edge; he was asking the girl serving him for directions. He moved forward and offered him a cigarette.

Where you going? he asked the man and instantly wished he hadn't.

There were men he'd met in prison, dangerous men whom even the guards were wary of. Not just the gang-bangers, but the ones serving the hundred-year jail terms, those to whom time was meaningless because a hundred years may as well be a thousand years and the only certainty in their lives was that eventually they were going to die in their cell. Those men had tortured and raped before finally killing, they were the men who'd killed again once they were inside. The man asking directions was one of those men, he was sure of it. He checked to see if he recognised him from his time in jail, but if it wasn't that, then it was the cruel air he exuded, the bleak, dead centre to him. He wouldn't have been surprised to see the man pull out a gun and shoot the girl behind the counter in the face. The man was impassive, brooding.

West, said the man.

In spite of himself, in spite of the cloud of fear that was expanding in his stomach, he found that he was smiling. His voice started to break.

No you're not, he said, and waited for the man to strike him, but instead he turned on his heel, exited the store and got in his car. He exhaled noisily as the car started to pull away and then felt his stomach tighten again as it pulled in adjacent to the washroom and the driver disappeared inside.

You okay? he asked the girl behind the counter and she nodded, perplexed by his concern. He paid for his cigarettes and walked slowly towards the washroom. The bus he'd travelled in on was idling softly behind him, the bus driver calling all passengers back onboard. He walked back towards the bus, grabbed his bag from the overhead rack and jumped back off, the driver – whose name tag said he was Mal – told him they didn't do refunds.

He walked across the forecourt and past the store and stood close to the washroom door and listened. He could hear the man talking to himself; he sounded like he was holding up his end of a conversation. A loud hey suddenly came through the door and he stepped back in spite of himself, like a boy who had been caught eavesdropping. There was someone else's voice then, he was sure, then the banging of a door and someone was shouting and he charged in.

The scenario surprised him; someone who looked like a latter-day Johnny Cash was barrelling out of the toilet stall, he was shouting and waving a gun around while the man – this vision of evil – cowered in the corner by the open door, his hands over his face. The Cash lookalike was thrusting the gun at him, jabbing the short barrel at his head and shouting incomprehensibly.

You freak, you fucking freak, he kept saying, pushing the gun into the soft flesh at the back of the man's neck.

He got hold of the man and pulled him out of the washroom by the back of his belt and spun him around, causing him to land on his knees in the gravel. The short grey man let out a throaty roar and ran towards him. They collided in the doorway and stood there wrestling for a moment, their hands reaching up for the gun. They came careering out, falling backwards and then the gun went off with a sharp crack and both men threw themselves apart and curled up into terrified huddles on the floor, the weapon suddenly small, still and mute between them.

He looked up and imagined he saw the man waving at him, but then he was gone in a slamming of doors and a squealing of tyres.

He rolled over onto his back and sighed heavily; in the distance he could hear sirens wailing as the patrol cars neared. He wondered how long it would be before he'd see the unbroken sky again.