Crime

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 cafes. 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.