Crime

table.

— We have to go, he gasps, counting out some bills.

— What about Momma? Tianna asks, making Lennox briefly think of his own mother.

— Your mum’s not well, but she’s gonna be okay. He rests his hands on the counter, shoulders heaving. He is rewarded by a suspicious glance from Mano that reminds him of a scene from some movie. — We have to go now, go and see Chet, he emphasises, picking up the magazine and heading to the register. He pays the clerk and ushers Tianna towards the door. — You have to tell me about those two guys who came by last night. Johnnie and Lance.

— I don’t wanna talk about them. She turns her head in rapid, emphatic movements. — I don’t like them!

— Who are they? he persists. — Have they tried to hurt you before?

The girl’s line of vision shoots past him, her eyes wide with the expectation of impending trauma. She’s gone somewhere and he needs her here. Gently but firmly, he grips her shoulders and she meets his gaze. — I know you’ve heard this bullshit line before in your life and I absolutely guarantee that you’ll hear it again. But now it’s time to believe: trust me.

A spark ignites in her as she glances over his shoulder again. — Quick. She takes him by the arm and leads him through the doors to the restrooms. Following her, he steals a look across the crowded diner. At the other door Lance Dearing has walked in and is scanning the joint. Their eyes meet and Dearing’s brows knot, his bottom lip curling. Guessing that the man would have the balls or the desperation to shoot him dead in a packed diner, then claim he abducted a Florida minor, Lennox lets the sprung door snap shut behind them.

Tianna evidently knew that the restrooms also led to the restaurant extension, the back of which empties out on to a parking lot. They move swiftly across the space, which contains only a few cars and a skip. The terror of a marksman’s bullet in his back pulls him inwards in expectation of impact. His head swivels to Tianna but she’s keeping an even, measured stride with him as they run on to another road. Again, he glances back for signs of Dearing, but there’s nothing. Rather than give chase by foot, he’d be back in his car, trying to track them down. The main road opens back on to one more set of neighbourhood side streets cut into blocks, and they steal down one. To Lennox they seem featureless in their uniformity, as they move swiftly, looking back for pursuing vehicles. It’s hotter now and heavier after the effort he’s expended in this flight from Dearing. The sun spreads across the back of his head and neck, his brain numb and oxygen-deprived as they slow to a trot and then a walk, mute with fear and breathlessness, just waiting to be apprehended.

Yet nothing happens as they continue to trek in zoned-out quiescence, glad of the meagre cover of the trees sprouting from street and garden, affording at least some shelter from both sunlight and passing eyes.

Tianna is thinking about the boys on the school bus. She didn’t mind them calling her a slut. They said the same to the white-socked Catholic Latinas in the plaid school dresses, even when they came out of church. That old stucco one with the crude stained glass, colour weakened by constant sun spitting through the palm leaves. Tianna had even thought about going in there, wondering if other girls had shared her fate, and if they’d found peace inside. But her momma had no time for it, for the dirty old pious-faced men in frocks and bad shoes. The only men she didn’t have time for. Now she’s looking at the tall Scotsman – Bobby, she’ll call him, after Baseball Bobby from Scotland – but he’s talking to himself like a real crazy asshole, his eyes bulging: a loony man for sure. She hears him saying something weird under his breath, about needing to keep walkin, about kids, about how he always has to look after kids, and just who in hell’s name does he think he is, this Scottish creep who knows jack about her. Walkin was always Mobile. Doesn’t he know that?!

One thought in Lennox’s head: I am the uncomfortable silence. Yet he must have been mumbling, delirious in the heat, effort and drugs comedown, maybe said something about needing to walk.

Because now Tianna is shouting at him. At first he can’t hear her, only a noise as uniform as silence. He has to stop, to consciously tune in.

—… and I like to walk and I ain’t no kid, she declares violently, her face creasing in anger, — so don’t you be treatin me like one!

— Right, he says, humbled. They walk silently on for what seems an age, distrustful of each other and 7th Street they’ve emerged back on to, blinking like chain-gang fugitives in the desert. Every cruising police car makes Lennox’s heart pound. The magazine beats in stronger cadence against his thigh.

Gamekeeper turned poacher.

He feels that people are watching him. Dress, bearing, skin tone, he doesn’t fit in here. Perhaps it’s the girl; her slow angel eyes tracking him in his grim mission of mercy. The air thickens in the heat and the glossy magazine sweats in his hand. They seem to be the lone pedestrians: this white man and this young girl. It strikes him then that he can’t even tell from Tianna’s features and colouring anything about her father’s ethnicity. He could conceivably have been black, Asian, white or Latin. He thinks of the golfer Tiger Woods: a new model American. Tries to mentally Photoshop Robyn out of her daughter and see what’s left, but still no compelling image presents itself. The only thing that comes distastefully to his mind is Robyn’s pubic hair.

In Britney’s neighbourhood nobody would have noticed us. Their wars in that scheme were against the Bosnian refugee who was rehoused by the council, or the quiet model-railway enthusiast who lived alone. Or the moonlighting house painter. Maybe the nippy cow who got the last packet of beefburgers from the corner store and the slimy Paki bastard who sold them to her. Or the burly thug who kicked in the door and grabbed the telly and stereo while the scrawny, cadaverous sheriff officer waved the warrant in their bemused faces. Or the guilt-ridden pisshead of a husband who blew another month’s rent on drink and horses. Their wars were with each other and were all-consuming; born out of underemployment, poverty and frustration. Meanwhile, a real monster had slipped undetected through their midst.

Mr Confectioner would never have been casing an affluent middle-class district, with its busybodies and its neighbourhood watches quick to call the police about the white van parked in their street.

Then a sports stadium – a jubilant sight for a Scotsman – bears imposingly in front of them. Tianna tells him it’s the Orange Bowl. Heading towards it, they come upon another short and shabby strip mall. But at this one sits a taxi, and its sign indicates that it’s ready for hire.

In the stifling cab, paranoia has taken a couple of layers of skin from him. Lennox is now determined to keep the girl away from Dearing, Johnnie and Starry; she’s in danger from these people and Robyn can’t protect her. But maybe this Chet guy could. The problem is that she’s gone into a strop. So he shows the cab driver the address. The man speaks poor English and doesn’t know where it is. He explains that he is from Nicaragua. — No from here, he keeps saying.

I’m stuck with retarded people who don’t know this country, Tianna is thinking, but Bobby Scotsman’s trying to help her, to get her to Chet’s, so she relents. — It’s pretty far away.

Lennox first sinks at her words, then feels a spike of elation. It’s the first time she’s volunteered anything. — How far? Out of the state?

— No, it’s in Florida. By the sea, but kinda right across the big freeway.

Lennox considers the airport: the car-hire concessions. It isn’t too far. They head out there, as he tries to gather his thoughts. His head spins. He has no antidepressants. He is scared. Think like a cop, he tells himself, trying to put his scrambled brain back into order. His eyes are full of the phantom grit of sleeplessness and his head throbs.

Lance Dearing. Think like a cop. How did he think? What was his game?

It makes sense that Dearing’s a cop. The armlock is a standard polis move the world over. The voice: full of easy authority.

Lennox knows that he ought to have suspected straight away. Even if it was the first time he’d been the recipient of the lock, the fact he didn’t twig tells him just how ill-equipped he is for this.

Tianna’s lips quiver. — Are we runnin away from the po-leece, or jus Lance?

A good question. — Just Lance, he ventures. — Your mum wanted me to take you to Chet’s, not leave you with anybody else. So I don’t care if he’s a cop; that’s what I’m going to do.

That seems to placate her, so Lennox converses in broken English with the driver who confirms what he’s suspected about the lot of the Miami cabbie. — No way I work nights. I have family. My boss he too goddamn mean to get bulletproof glass fitted!