Crime

his temples. Lennox looks to Tianna, sitting silently beside him, the cards in her hand. — Did Chet ever mess around with you?

— No. She shakes her head, then frowns in tortuous bewilderment. — I don’t reckon so, but I jus cain’t figure it out, I felt all kinda weird bein on that boat.

— Well, you’re okay now. Lennox paints a stretched smile over his angst. — It’s good that you found that card, the one your dad left you.

Her gaze seems to cast him as just another collaborator against her, but her anger isn’t for him, it’s the precursor to another revelation. — My daddy didn’t leave me no cards.

— Oh.

— I never knew him. He left Momma way before I was born. That’s if they was ever really together in the first place. I found them cards in the roof space at this place we stayed at in Jacksonville. I used to go up there to get away from… she can barely say the word, —… Clemson.

Clemson. Who is this fucker—

Lennox feels his words freeze in the now infinite void between thought and speech. By the time he finds his voice Tianna’s resumed talking, her tone now high and hopeful. — But I kind of felt that he would like baseball and they sorta make me feel part of him. I guess that’s crazy, huh?

— No, says Lennox, — not at all. He remembers collecting Esso World Cup coins as a boy, his dad helping him. Looking at the sad lower lip of the American girl, he experiences a moment drenched in such pathos that it might have choked him had he not snatched an insistent breath. — Who’s Clemson?

— Tiger Clemson; his real name’s Jimmy, Tianna says, her eyes charged with an electric ferocity. — He was Momma’s boyfriend. He was always nice to her but real mean to me. I was real scared of him. He knew all about me… with Vince. Said that’s just how I was like; that a man could smell it on me. She suddenly gasps in terrified panic. — When he did it to me, he used to say that this was what I was put on God’s earth for. That he was doing me a favour, givin me a head start on all the other girls. But he was different to Vince; I know he didn’t care nuthin for me. So it was easier to just think about other stuff, n let him do what he wanted. But he hurt me sometimes. Sometimes he made me bleed. He’d wait till Momma was asleep with her pills, then come for me. Told me if I said anything to Momma she would believe him n not me. Cause I know what you was up to before, he’d tell me. I used to run up to the roof space, hide away from him.

Lennox has slowed down and pulled off an asphalt exit that segues on to a concrete flatland, designed as a parking lot, but which has remained customless, plant life breaking through its cracked surface. He’s stopped for his own sake as well as hers. His stinging hands still grip the wheel as the blood pounds in his ears. — How did he know? About what Vince did to you?

— I dunno… the girl shrugs. — Used to say that he knew girls like me, the type I was. That he could tell a mile away I was no virgin. That was what he said.

Bile scours his innards.

— Is it true, Ray? Can men jus tell what you’re like? Is that what I am? Her eyes bulge in desperation.

Lennox grips her hands softly. — No. No, they can’t. Listen to me, I think you’ve been really unlucky and you’ve met some very, very bad people. You’ve done nothing wrong. You’re a nice girl. They’re the ones who’ve done wrong and they’ll pay for that. I promise you. Do you understand what I’m saying? He looks into her eyes.

— Yes.

— Okay, Lennox says, and starts up the motor.

Tianna.

She should be waking up on Christmas mornings in a house like Jackie’s to presents and—

Lennox can’t believe that he’s having hopes for this girl’s future, unlikely dreams. He plays comforting scenarios in his head, only to reprimand himself that they are foolish: miles away from how she’ll probably end up. The balance of probability. But that’s the trouble with dreams: they willnae fucking shift. And the more vivid they get, the more action they compel.

As he thinks of his own future and Trudi, an abrupt spasm flares in his chest: he realises that he’s left the copy of Perfect Bride on Chet’s boat. — You didn’t pick up that bridal mag, did you?

— No, Tianna says in concern, — I guess I left it downstairs. Was it important?

— Nah, I can get another copy, he says evenly, but he’s unable to stop his molars reflexively cracking together. Trudi had filled out some attached coupons. The address. They have her address.

It will mean nothing. But the thought taints him. Let them try anything back in Edinburgh, he grinds his teeth harder, galvanising himself with scenarios of violence until he genuinely relishes the prospect. Then his displaced, protective glance falls back on Tianna as they pull up outside a gas station with a phone box.

Lennox searches for the phone card in his pockets, can’t find it and curses, then his fingers mine for some change, eyes set in peripheral sweep for the approaching calamity of Lance Dearing. Logic tells Lennox that it’s unlikely to the point of impossible that their paths could cross by chance on the road, at a place like this. Paranoia, the stronger force, is simultaneously informing him of its inevitability.

The quarters tumble from his greasy hands, rattling into the machine. When Lennox estimates they’ve reached the requisite critical mass, his stiff finger punches the metal keys. A gruff voice scratches down the other end of the line: — Eddie Rogers.

— It’s Ray. I need a favour. You and Dolores, he says, reasoning it would be easier to leave Tianna with a woman. He tries to steady the map his sweaty fingerprints have smudged up. — Can you meet me at the truck stop on Exit 49 on Interstate 75?

— That’s right on the Everglades, Ginger’s voice goes high, — at the Miccosukee Indian Reservation. But why do you–

— Reservations are for yuppies and Indians, remember? I need a favour, Lennox repeats.

Ginger purses a long breath of static into his ear. — Okay. I can be there in an hour and a half. Trudi called and told me you’ve gotten into bother. You need to get a fuckin grip, son. You think this is CSF: Miami?

Lennox exhales a small gasp at Ginger’s joke, then tells him, — I hear ye. But just be there. Dinnae let me down, Ginger.

A silence grows in Lennox’s head. Then its puncturing feels sharp enough to perforate his eardrums. — I won’t, Ginger snarls, — and for the last fuckin time it’s Eddie!

— Right, Eddie, Lennox says, the name like sour fruit in his mouth. — It’s appreciated, mate.

— Okay, I’m leaving right now. Screw the fuckin nut, Raymie, he warns and hangs up.

On his return Tianna sits puffy-faced in the car, eye-whites pink with blood where she’s been rubbing at them. Lennox thinks about saying something, but nothing comes to mind, so he elects to let it ride. He sparks up the engine and they leave the station.

They approach the toll at the start of Interstate 75. A sign indicates that Miami is 127 miles away, Fort Lauderdale 124. The rendezvous point at Exit 49 seems about halfway, so they should get there around the same time as Ginger. Lennox regards the toll clerk, a small, black man with a grey beard, who has his name on a badge above the title LABORER.

— Bastards, Lennox says as he pulls away, then he apologises to Tianna, — I mean, they know people get that they aren’t the CEO of the toll company. Why do they have to rub their faces in it?

Tianna looks back at the man, then at Lennox. — You’re a really nice guy, Ray, I mean, doing this for me, n all. She pauses, then asks, — Why are you helping me?

— We’re mates, Lennox shrugs, — buddies, he qualifies.

— But you don’t even know me really.

— I know enough to realise that you need a friend right now. He points to the radio. — And I need a tune.

Taking the hint, Tianna grabs the dial and twists it on to a disco station. A gutsy, pumping remix of Sister Sledge’s ‘Lost in Music’ rocks the Volkswagen. The line caught in a trap, no turnin back causes them to look at each other in grim synchronicity.