Crime

grasps that her fear isn’t for him.

Highway 41 slashes across the Everglades to Bologna, where it becomes a coastal road all the way up to Tampa. Despite the air conditioning in the car, Lennox’s hand greases the wheel’s leather covering. Trudi is getting further away and the kid next to him has fallen mute again, studying her cards. It seems a pattern: she cautiously raises her head above the parapet, then something in the present recalls the spoiled fruit of her own past, and the retreat into herself is unequivocal. No matter: he can play the long-ball game.

The Tamiami Trail, in its south-west Florida section, is a blemished conduit of shopping malls, fast-food outlets and used-car dealerships that alloy into the city of Bologna. Some rudimentary guide notes on the Florida atlas explain that while it was named after one Italian city it was modelled on another: the miracle that was Venice. The similarity was to the degree that both relied on an extensive canal system for transit. This carriage, though, is pretty much of the leisure variety in Bologna, FLA. Retirees and second-home recreational sailors enjoy the watery network, which surges out from back gardens with docked boats into the ten thousand islands and beyond to the Gulf of Mexico.

Lennox contemplates the well-marked roads that lead to planned communities with their guarded security gates, Bermuda-grass vistas and dredged lakes. The advertising agencies have invented pastoral and tropical names like Spring Meadow, Ocean Falls and Coral Reef, unconnected to any geographical reality. But to the retirees of the northern states with their unforgiving winters, the notion of a sanctuary in the sun would have Arcadian appeal on the glossy brochures and websites. So the developers razed bare the lush terrain and threw up their prefabricated house frames, attached the panels and the cinder block, the PVC and plasterboard. Then they wrapped the residences in high boundary walls, despite selling them on the promise that crime in the region was negligible. They’d invariably finish the job by sticking an Old Glory up a flagpole, to flutter in lax entitlement.

Lennox and Tianna drive towards the hub of the community, which is more established than most that have sprung up in south-west Florida. The houses vary in scale of wealth and grandeur, many surrounded by mature palm trees, mangroves and less tropical vegetation. The small downtown area has superior retail outlets clustered under wrought-iron balconies in two-storey buildings, modelled on older Southern towns like Savannah, Charleston and New Orleans. Further down towards the marina it again grows blander; armies of condominiums line the coarse grass verges and lawns. Lennox rolls down the window as they cruise the narrow streets in the sun, the green Volkswagen miscast among the big 4?4s and the swank convertibles that proliferate. The glitzy wealth on parade should preclude crime. Everyone seems to have money here, but people with money often want other things. The most seductive of all being the illusion that it isn’t just their money that sets them apart from the rest of humanity.

The road ends at a wall, with a gated entrance and sign above it: GROVE BEACH CLUB AND PRIVATE MARINA.

— This is it, Tianna says excitedly.

Lennox pulls into the parking lot outside a row of offices and shops. The marina is busy; most of the moored boats are gargantuan, with several pristine ones in adjacent broker’s yards. Tall new constructions of condo blocks tower over the harbour. One is a work-in-progress, scaffolded, with Hispanic workers in hard hats bouncing along the gangways.

The lot is busy. Just as they’ve secured a parking space and left the car, a black Porsche, driven by a red- shirted white man with blond hair and shades, attempts to pull out and instead reverses into a stationary pickup truck. His convertible suffers minor damage at the rear. Furious at his own carelessness, he gets out the car and starts shouting at the man in the truck. — You goddamn idiot! What in hell’s name… my car!

The reluctant recipient of his attentions is a small, stocky Latino man in a hard hat and construction-worker clothes, who makes a flabbergasted appeal. — But… but… you backed right into me!

— I did not – don’t you – what the hell – where do you work? That site over there? The thyroid cartilage in the white man’s larynx bubbles as he points across the inlet to the development under construction.

The builder looks to the rising apartment block and falls silent.

The white man casts his glance towards Lennox and Tianna, who have been watching the exchange. Lennox turns away. — Did you see that? Excuse me, sir? The man’s insistence grates and Lennox stops and faces him. — Did you witness that? His mouth open: a snide air of belligerence invoking someone else.

— I did. Lennox slowly scans the complainant, then glances at the construction worker. He removes his shades and hooks them into the neck of the Ramones shirt and stares harshly at the white guy. — And I’d strongly advise that you apologise to this gentleman. He nods towards the Hispanic builder.

The authority in Lennox’s voice takes the man aback. The dark patches in the armpits of his shirt ebb a millimetre outwards. The skin on his face, around his sunglasses, flushes a deeper shade of red. — But I—

— You’re out of order. I suggest you apologise or I’ll be compelled to take this further.

— Who the hell are you—

Lennox steps closer to the man, so that he can see his eyes wavering and watering, behind the tinted glass of his sunspecs. Ascertains the anger and the dogmatism are leaking from him. Now several onlookers are taking an interest. — I’m off duty. If you put me on duty, then it gets personal between you and me. A simple ‘I’m sorry’ to the gentleman and we walk away and get on with our lives. Or you can see where I’ll take it. What’s it to be?

The blond man looks at Lennox, then to the construction worker, who seems as embarrassed as he is. — I’m sorry… I guess I reversed… I just got this car the other week… this damn lot is always so busy…

— It’s okay, the construction guy says, palm upturning at Lennox in a discomforted gesture of acknowledgement, before he climbs back into his truck.

The white guy skulks into the convertible and drives off.

Lennox looks up at the sun, screws his eyes against the hazy heat and replaces his shades. Looks across the lot to Cunningham’s Lobster Bar; the social hub of the marina.

— You sure told that asshole, Tianna remarks appreciatively.

— That’s exactly what he was, Lennox says, a complicit grin on his face.

— Are you a cop? Back in Skatlin? Tianna interrogates him in some concern. — Was that what you meant by not being on duty?

— Worse than that, Lennox says, slipping back into lying detective mode, — I’m in insurance. That guy in the smart car was lucky. He could have been paying through the nose for years.

— Do you like your job?

A derailed pause. Back in Scotland working-class kids were generally encouraged – often with good reason – to say nothing to the police. It probably wouldn’t be that different in America, and Tianna knows what Dearing does for a living. — Aye, it’s okay, but I am on holiday and it’s good to get a break from it. He cuts himself off to avoid compounding his fabrications. — I’m thirsty. Want to get a drink? He thumbs at the bar-restaurant.

— But… Tianna turns and points to the harbour, — Chet’s boat’ll be jus round that corner there.

— My throat’s gaunny close up, he pleads.

— Sure thing, she smiles. — You got a sore throat, huh?

— Aye.

— Aye, Tianna sings, tossing back her hair. — Aye! I like it when you say ‘aye’. Say it again!

— Aye, Lennox shrugs and she giggles as they make their way across the lot.

His throat is sore and dry – it always is – but he wants to find out what she knows before he turns her over to Chet.

Inside the bar, the wealth hits them like ozone. Humanity had been brushed out of the equation, sucked like a fart into the extractor fan of an expensive hotel toilet. They take a seat. Tianna asks the waitress for a Diet Pepsi and Lennox follows suit, although he really wants a beer. We’re never having kids. I’ll go through the ceremony. I’ll build a nice home. But no kids.

He wonders how Trudi is doing back in Miami Beach. It already seems like days since he’s walked into this. But a terrible elation buzzes inside him, intensified by the encounter with the guy in the lot. Getting better: he’d handled it more satisfactorily than the conflict with the family at the gas station. Fuck it. It’s needed. It’s therapy. He’s starting to feel alive, like he did on the job back home, with that familiar taint of vengeful wrath in his mouth. Fuelling the sense that somebody is going to pay for the crime.