Crime Page 18

  — Aye. Eh, yeah.

  — Back in Skatlin?

  — Naw, eh, she’s here in Miami. He nods to the magazine on her lap. — We’re getting married later this year.

  Tianna falls silent and seems to think about this for a while. Then after a bit she asks, — What’s she like?

  — She’s nice, Lennox says, instantly feeling the tameness of his response. He’s put her through so much, and here he is, speeding away from her with a kid he hardly knows.

  Tianna stares at him in vigilance. — You ain’t, like, one of Momma’s boyfriends?

  — No, he says emphatically, as a vision of Robyn’s caterpillar bush and her hand in his trousers, jerking him, almost makes him squirm, — we’re just friends.

  That seems to cheer the kid up. — I kinda like you, Ray, she says with a toothy grin.

  — I like you, Lennox smiles, looking ahead, suddenly aware that he does. Then his body stiffens as he feels the girl’s arms wrapping round his torso in a reckless hug. Registering his agitation, she immediately retreats, finding his hand simultaneously pushing her back into her seat. — Don’t do that, Lennox snaps, adding, — I’m driving!

  He grips the wheel tightly with his right hand, feeling the small fractured bones dig into his tendons as Tianna sits back in her seat, eyes glowing. She gets the baseball cards back out from her bag.

  Lennox realises that he fears this child; fears her physical proximity, the damage she could inflict upon him now that she senses her power. He’s frequently observed the calculating tyrant emerge from those who’ve undergone unfair victimisation; all he can do is try and keep her intelligence and humanity to the fore.

  The radio plays ‘Angel of the Morning’ and Lennox snatches at the dial. It settles on a hip-hop urban rhythms channel, where the presenter squeals: ‘This is Beyoncé with the big titties.’

  Tianna laughs as Lennox cringes and hits the dial again. As he drives he can feel her evaluating gaze on him. The silence continues, but as they approach a commercialised Indian village, Lennox pulls up. He needs to get out and stretch. Stiffness and languor have been nibbling at him. He puts on the new Red Sox hat, fiddling with the strap, unable to get it as comfortable as the last one. Sees a sign advertising swamp tours. They had been talking about alligators and he’s never seen one, nor has Tianna. It was crazy, a kid living in Florida. Another hour’s stop would do no harm. Tianna leans forward to put the magazine above the dashboard, and Lennox sees his hot breath bending the thin hairs on her wrist. He gets out the car, aware as he rises that his shirt is stuck to his back like a second skin. He gives a shrug and tries to free it, then accepts the futility of it all. He extends his gnarled limbs, letting the lavish sun spray him. — Let’s have a look at those alligators, he smiles, clocking her widening eyes, waiting for her to say ‘awesome’ again, and she doesn’t disappoint him.

  They book a ride on a swamp cruiser: an outboard-motored launch with a wire-mesh cage around the seated passenger area that’s both foreboding and reassuring. Apart from the skinny, wild-eyed guide, whom they sit opposite, so close Lennox can feel their knees touch, there are two elderly women and two young couples, one with a toddler. The engine splutters into action and the boat pulls away as the guide, who has introduced himself as Four Rivers, warns: — Keep them fingers inside the cage if you want em back!

  As they splutter on to the mangrove swamps, Tianna is impressed by the ubiquity of alligators of all sizes. Some cruise by like drifting logs with only their eyes above the waterline, others lie partially submerged in the shallows. Most bask on the banked mudflats under the mangrove trees, looking quietly sinister. — This is sooo neat! she squeals in delight.

  Lennox isn’t too sure about the alligators. Especially when they pass a group of larger ones. These fat, grinning creatures look as contented and conspiring as veteran football hooligans relaxing under the parasols of continental cafés. They aren’t going dart around in search of prey. They’ll wait patiently for the opportunity to arise, before ruthlessly striking. No wonder Lacoste is such a popular thug brand, he considers.

  Then a long, throaty, trumpeting sound accosts their ears. Picking up on their disquiet, Four Rivers smiles. — That’s a gator.

  — I didn’t know they made noises like that, Tianna says, surprised at the mammal-like resonance.

  — I gotta say it’s pretty rare durin the day. But when it gets dark out here on the swamp, you can hear em good enough, callin to each other in the night. I wouldn’t recommend anybody comin out here then, the guide says, and starts telling outlandishly scary stories about the reptiles. His close proximity and spooky eyes have been unnerving Lennox, who feels there’s something not quite right about him. It’s his voice; it seems a fusion of different accents he can’t place, that and the fact that he’s taking a particular interest in Tianna. — What about you, young lady, never seen a live gator before today? And I don’t mean in no zoo, I’m talking bout the wild.

  — Well, I didn’t see it cause I was sleepin in the back, but my momma was drivin out along the highway and we almost hit one. Momma said he crawled back on to the verge along the banks into the swamp. We stopped the car, but didn’t get out.

  Four Rivers’ laugh exposes a mouthful of rotten teeth and Lennox can smell alcohol on his breath. It makes him think of Scotland and work. — Well, that was mighty wise. Cause gators can grow up to seventeen feet long and over short distances they move as fast as a lion and –

  — Seventeen feet, eh? Lennox cuts in. — Have you ever seen one that big here?

  — Close on it. Saw one critter, must’ve have been about fifteen feet long, the guileful Four Rivers beams. — So where you from, sir?

  That familiar paralysis come over Lennox; what to say when abroad. Scottish? British? European? — I’m from Scotland, in the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in the European Community, he says, taken aback at his own pomposity.

  — Well, Brin or Skatlin, or whatever you call it, now that’s jus a tiny little island, and you sure won’t see no wild animals of any size over there, Four Rivers mockingly dismisses him, encouraging some tourists to join in.

  — Yeah. It’s not so big in land mass compared to the USA, Lennox concedes. — Mind you, when I was in Egypt along the banks of the Nile, we saw crocodiles that made your alligators look like fish bait.

  Some chuckles emanate from the group. They are evidently enjoying the joust, especially Tianna. — Crocodiles are bigger than alligators then, huh, Ray?

  — An alligator, as our friend here has stated, Lennox luxuriantly stretches out in the sun as he nods to Four Rivers, who now regards him in brooding silence, — can grow up to seventeen feet. But a crocodile can grow over thirty foot long, twice the size of this boat.

  Lennox realises he’s feeling good now, still so tired, but nice tired, as the hangover is receding. He hasn’t vibed with Four Rivers, but has no qualms about this; reasoning that if he liked everybody from a race of once-proud warriors who stank of drink, he’d never have made a single arrest back home. But he can’t believe that he’s pathetically competing with him for Tianna’s attention.

  As the launch pulls up to the small jetty, Lennox freezes. A police car is waiting, with two cops and three sharp-suited Native Americans in attendance. One of the men points at him, and he feels Tianna grabbing his arm in panic. They share a missed heartbeat till both twig that it’s the guide they’re after. Four Rivers bows his head, and is led away by the two officers, who deposit him in the back of the squad car.

  Relief dripping from him as he watches it depart, Lennox quizzes one of the suited men, who informs him that Four Rivers had no permit to operate that launch, and was trespassing on the reservation.

  — He’s not from the Miccosukee tribe, then?

  The man snorts dismissively. — He’s not even Native American, he’s just some crazy Irishman who won the boat in a poker game.

  Lennox and Tianna’s eyes meet; they settle their nerves with
a shared chuckle.

  They get lunch at the restaurant adjoining the Indian village. Lennox loves the fried catfish, clarty bottom-feeders like prawns, but there was something about that taste. They’d do a fair turn in Scotland, and he imagines it served at the chippy, with plantain and sweet potato: a good cultural exchange for the mince-pie supper. They follow this with some ice cream and Lennox knocks down a double espresso before the road beckons.

  Tianna seems happier. Tells him about Mobile, Alabama. How it’s a miniature New Orleans. As she speaks, her voice grows more Southern. She admits that she misses her old school and her friends. After a spell she becomes contemplative and reads more Perfect Bride.

  On one page, a well-dressed groom has his arm around his betrothed. In his joyous expression she can see Vince, and feel that phantom recharge of desperation to prolong his supreme bursts of tenderness, but the transformation to the puppet face lodges in her mind’s eye and she’s thinking about what she had to do to bring the nice Vince back. She’d always pleaded with him that she didn’t like it. That it didn’t feel good. Well, someday it will, honey, he’d reassured her. It’s all new to you, baby, you just need to get used to it, to get used to being a woman. Then later he’d have his arm round Momma, and she’d be starin up at him all lovin and he’d be grinnin at us both like nothin else had happened.

  — Look, a voice in her ear, and Ray, Scottish Bobby-Ray, is pointing to a large white crane and then many more in the swamp by the side of the road. Then he stops the car to see some alligators in the waterway behind the highway fence, a whole bunch of them, even more than they’d seen from the boat. Again they are all different sizes, and basking or lying on the banks under the mangroves. Tianna watches him take off his shades and squint at the sun. She’d really wanted a pair, but he’d been good to her with the clothes n all, and she didn’t want to take advantage.

  The vegetation, thinned out and browned off since Miami’s outskirts, has grown denser and lusher by the time they get to Big Cypress National Preserve. — This was where Tarzan was filmed, Tianna says.

  — Aye?

  — Yup. The first Tarzan, the guy from Europe who got the job cause he could yodel.

  — Johnny Weissmuller? Lennox says in surprise. He and Trudi are both film buffs and Friends of the Filmhouse Cinema in Edinburgh. Cinemas are sacred temples to him: places of cultural worship. A picture house is the one place that he can just sit in, totally relaxed and engrossed, no matter how bad the film, and not feel the pull of the pub. Sometimes he’ll go to three screenings in one evening, often drifting off into a light slumber, where the soundtrack merges with his thoughts and dreams, occasionally creating a potent, transcendental remix of narrative, sound and image that’s more satisfying than the movie in question.

  — I guess so.

  It’s bizarre, a kid her age knowing this sort of stuff. — How do you know all this? About Johnny Weissmuller?

  — Uncle Chet told me. He knows everything about Florida.

  Lennox mulls this over. He wonders how much this Chet guy knows about Robyn. About her drug problems and her disappearance. Or about Starry. Or Lance Dearing and Johnnie. It helps him to think of Chet as a benign force, and he sees an image of his own father. Recalls watching the old man joking with his grandsons when he brought them back home from some museum visit. He’d imagined that being the recipient of that easy, loving kindness was the preserve of him, his sister Jackie and his brother Stuart. For an instant or two he hated Jackie’s young usurpers.

  — There, look! Tianna shouts, as the first city road signs appear before them:

  Bologna 32

  Punta Gorda 76

  Lennox feels the kiss of solace. They’d done it, crossed the state: the Atlantic Ocean to the Gulf of Mexico. Florida always looks as if it’s about the same size as the UK on the maps, but it feels smaller. He starts to relax. Lets the exhaustion ease out of his shoulders. Driving in America’s a piece of piss, when you get used to it. The roads are bigger, better and, best of all, straight. He’ll check that this Chet guy is on the level. Then he’ll call Trudi, apologise for his behaviour and head right back.

  The need to know what has happened to Robyn nags at him. But that’s Chet’s department; he’s more than fulfilled his obligation. Thanks to him, this wee Tianna was now safe from scum like Johnnie and that Lance character. And he’ll find a way to get at those bastards. There are international contacts in the law enforcement world and he’ll put the word out. There are always ways and means.

  That song has come on again: Brad Paisley’s ‘Alcohol’. Now they’re crooning along to it together. He’s a little disturbed by that knowing way she chants the lyrics. It isn’t right for a young girl. But she isnae a bad kid. She’s funny and clever and she’s got spirit and you can take to her. She deserves better.

  Tianna is fascinated with Trudi’s magazine. — Will you get married in a castle? How neat would that be!

  — It’s awfay dear.

  — It is so dear, she says, picking him up wrong. — Madonna, she got married in a castle in Skatlin.

  — Aye. Somewhere in the Highlands, Lennox confirms. It was to an English guy who made crime films. Lennox had gone to see one. He’d liked it. It was nonsense of course, like most crime in fiction and on television, but it kept the action moving along. It entertained.

  Is crime essential, he ponders, in order to provide such diverting extravaganza? Where would we be without human frailties? Hollywood would be fucked. Perhaps we owe the gangster and the criminal a lot. By supplying the crime they created demand. For security guards, cops, screws, lawyers, builders, administrators, technicians, politicians, writers, actors, directors. Where would we be without them?

  He can’t think of the castle’s name though. — It’s a big castle. Up by Perth or somewhere. They have loads of dos there.

  — Is it near where you live?

  He wonders about that. A three-hour drive? Yes and no. Is Muirhouse near Barnton? Yes and no. — Kind of.

  Now Tianna is explaining baseball to him. Takes a notebook from her bag and draws the diamond, elucidating it all with care and patience. Innings: the top and bottom of. Pitchers, hitters and fielders. Four balls. Three strikes. Loading the bases. Home runs. The bullpen. She likes the Braves from Atlanta, Georgia, because they are the nearest Major League team to Alabama.

  She shows him the cards. Lennox sees that they are not valuable, all modern reissues with their 1992 Kitemark. Scots Bobby. Mickey Mantle. Joe DiMaggio. Babe Ruth. Reggie Jackson. Willie Mays. Most of them probably dead before she was even thought of. But the names mean little to Lennox outside of the movies. He seems to remember that Marilyn Monroe fucked one of them. DiMaggio. That’s it, the Simon and Garfunkel song. She also shagged the likes of JFK and Arthur Miller. Was she a gold-digger, attracted to powerful men, or a trophy shag for rich sleazebags? Or was it, as the feature writers might gush, the devastating mutual attraction of the charismatic, which both parties were powerless to resist?

  — Yeah, I reckon you oughta get married in a castle, Tianna is persisting. — That would be awesome.

  Lennox plays with the thought: him in full Highland dress, Trudi in what else but bridal white. Brides all seem the same to him though, especially when they have their hair scraped back; that stern, graven-imaged look. He doesn’t want Trudi like that. She could say something with her hair pinned back that would cut him ten times more deeply than the exact same words would with it down and flowing. He’d read an article in Perfect Bride stating that the average British bride weighs nine pounds above her normal weight at the wedding. The conventional wisdom of the boozer; they starve themselves to look great in the wedding pictures, then pig out on the honeymoon and engage in a lifelong battle against obesity. Not so, apparently. Pre-wedding nerves encourage overeating so they go into the ring overweight. This sounds true: it explains the number of bloaters in the Evening News pictures. — I dunno. It’s a funny thing, Lennox considers, pursing his lips, — Trud
i, my girlfriend … my fiancée, he corrects himself, — she wants a big wedding. I’d rather spend the money on a good holiday, you know, a honeymoon.

  — Will you try and make a baby on your honeymoon? Tianna’s searching knowingness stings then nauseates him. She’s just a wee lassie, teasing you. Skin tingling, he looks back to the road. A silver car overtakes them, slows down. It was the second or third time. — That’s the sort of thing that the two people involved talk about. It’s not for public discussion. His tone is haughty and he can hear his sister in it.

  Tianna is puzzled by his response. — But people do talk about it. Brad Pitt told everybody that Angelina Jolie is having their baby.

  — That’s Hollywood stars, but. They want to tell everybody everything because the publicity is like a drug … like candy to them. They need it. A lot of people are into it now, but then they find that it’s too much like candy: it makes them sick afterwards, he reflects, looking at the silver car ahead. Fucking prick. Where was the cunt going?

  Tianna turns away and runs a brush through her mane. Scraping it back she secures it with an elasticated band. It feels soft in her fingers, so different from Clemson’s; that hair that grew like spines on his moist skin. Her flesh crawls in recollection of the touch of his putrid lips. Then trembling up in the roof space, ladder pulled to her, and him shouting: Where the fuck you gone, you lil’ whore, her momma asleep downstairs, with the sedatives he’d given her. Thinking that it was better to go down and get it over with than live with that fear.

  12

  Bologna

  TRUDI SIPS AT her bitter coffee as she watches a grinning couple on the television, in workout gear, slowly cat-flexing with two large docile domestic felines. The idea is that this practice gives busy professionals the chance to combine fitness maintenance with quality pet time. The woman has the ginger cat’s chest supported on one outstretched palm, her other hand under its belly. She raises the animal in slow, rhythmic, repetitive motions. — Twenty on this side, twenty on the other, she says.