Crime (29 page)

Tianna sits on the bed, still gripping her bag. — I’m sorry, Ray, she says wretchedly. — You been real good to me. Her eyes go watery before they rapidly fuse in panic. — You won’t tell Momma?

Lennox looks at her. — You were wrong to do what you did, but I’m accepting your apology. I won’t be saying anything to anybody.

— Like it’s our secret?

Secrets between adults and children: nonce currency again
. Lennox bristles. — Like I said, it’s between the two of us. You did a bad thing, but you were big enough to apologise, so I’m being big enough to accept your apology, end of story.

Tianna sets the bag down on the bed. She forces a strained, kindly smile at him. — See, Ray … when he, when Vince, when he touched me and kissed me n stuff … it didn’t feel right, y’know?

Lennox nods tightly.

— It felt all kinda dirty. But I thought that if I got to do it with somebody I liked, then it would feel right. Like it wouldn’t be dirty, like things wouldn’t be all weird.

— No. It’s
meant
to feel all strange and nasty, because you’re too young, Lennox states. — Good things’ll happen to you, but they’ll happen when you’re ready for them. Don’t let them take your childhood away. He thinks of himself at roughly her age, with Les Brodie, pushing his bike into that dark tunnel.

— There ain’t nuthin wrong with bein a kid, she says, halfway between a declaration and a question.

— Of course not. Not if you are. That’s the point of it, he says. — We start off as babies, we like certain things. You wouldn’t expect a baby to like catfish or chocolate malt or
Beauty and the Geek
, would you?

Tianna’s mouth forms a smile as she nods in agreement.

— But there’s nothing wrong with being a baby if that’s what you are. Then we grow into kids, we like different things. Then into adults, and it’s different things again. He watches her nod in understanding. — This Uncle Chet, can you tell me a bit about him?

— He’s my mum’s … she begins, before conceding, — … friend. He’s a friend. His granddaughter Amy is my friend. She’s real nice. Chet ain’t my real uncle. But he’s been good to us. He ain’t like Vince.

— Who’s Vince?

— I don’t like to talk about him to nobody, she says, then looks pointedly at him, adding, — only to Nooshka.

She knows that I’ve been going through her stuff. Or at least she thinks I might have and she’s covering all bases
. — Who’s Nooshka? he asks coolly, in spite of the sinking feeling in his gut.

Tianna regards him cautiously before replying. — My best friend.

— She at school with you?

She shakes her head.

— A different school?

Tianna slumps back on to the bed, looking up at the ceiling fan. — I guess so. She’s just always there when I need her most. I can write her bout things.

— Like a pen pal?

She seems not to hear him, as if mesmerised by the circling fan. When she finally speaks it’s in a flat but sing-songy voice, as if she’s going through the ritual of a game she’s bored with. — You know, when I write her, things ain’t so bad after. You know, when things don’t go well and you ain’t got nobody to talk to. I can talk to Momma sometimes, but only bout certain things.

— Did you ever tell your mum about Vince?

She twists round till she is prone on the bed, then props herself on her elbows. Her front teeth push down on her bottom lip. Then she looks at him and nods slowly.

— What happened? Lennox asks, fighting to keep his voice from slipping into cop-interrogation mode.

Tianna sits up and pulls her knees towards her, holding her shins tightly. She lets her hair tumble in front of her face. After falling silent for a spell, when she finds a voice, it’s small and haunted, belonging to a younger child. — The first time I told Momma bout him, she just started to cry. Then she got real pissed at me. Said that I was wrong, and now there’s anger in her voice, — that I was a bad girl. I was jus jealous and tryin to stop her bein happy. So I couldn’t talk to Momma none. She loved those guys, I guess she needed them to love her, a bizarre, almost sanguine authority now seeping into her tones.

Them
. Unease slithers under Lennox’s skin.

— What was he like, this Vince? Lennox feels his voice assume that disembodied characteristic, like it’s another self, separating from a common physical source.

That mechanism has served him well in distancing himself from unpleasantness on the job; she’s deploying a version of it too. — Vince was real nice at first. He and Momma met on the computer. He used to treat her real good, and first he treat me good too. He told me that he loved my momma. Then he told me that I was
a
special girl and that he loved me too. Sometimes he would buy me things or take me out to a movie. It had to be our secret as Momma would yell and think that he was spoilin me. These were the best times, she says, actually glowing in the memory. — I used to call him Pappy. He liked that, but he told me never to say it in front of Momma. Then one day he said he had to confess that he loved me more than anyone, even Momma. Said he didn’t like showin it too much in front of her in case it caused her hurt. Sometimes when we was out together, at a diner, if a waitress asked, ‘Is that your little girl?’ he would smile and look at me and say, ‘It sure is.’ It felt so good and I would have done anything for Pappy Vince. There are dark shadows under her eyes, though it’s probably just the light.

Please stop
…

Lennox can’t bear to hear Tianna’s words. Yet he can’t protest; his own voice rendered silent in his starched trachea. Needs her to talk and wants her to stop. Sitting still in the green chair, paralysed, in a seemingly oxygen-free room, all he can do is wait for her to continue.

Holiday
…

— Then he got us playin the secret games. Hide-and-seek, catch-and-chase. He started giving me kisses. Different to the ones he gave me before. Wet kisses that went on a long time, with his big tongue in my mouth. It didn’t feel right and I didn’t like the way he changed, her face creases in pain, — became all serious, like he was in a trance. Not like Pappy Vince at all. And the only way I could make him come back was to touch him; touch his boy parts until what he called the bad stuff came. Then he was fine again. But then he got to doin different things … like man and woman things.

Different things
…

Wedding
…

— Then I guess Momma got sad with Pappy Vince and wanted to move. That’s when we went to Jacksonville and she met Clemson and then we came here and met Starry and Johnnie and Lance. Her eyes suddenly bulge in rage. — I hate them, Ray! I hate them all!

Lennox has listened impassively, his guts and mind churning. Clemson. He can’t ask. He finds his voice. — You don’t need to tell me any more just now.

— Ray?

— What is it?

— Can I get a hug? she asks, standing up and moving towards him.

— Course you can, princess. Lennox rises and takes the child in his arms. Wants to tell her that he’ll make sure nothing can hurt her but then elects to remain silent. How many beasts had said that before?

Beasts like Mr Confectioner. They know all the weaknesses
.

Even when I had him in custody. Interrogated him
.

I interrogated him: that smirking, evil, arrogant, nonce cunt. I should have crushed him, hurt him, made him feel like he’d made them feel
.

— Oww, you’re kinda squashing me.

Lennox’s mind shoots out from that interrogation room, crosses an ocean and thuds into his skull like an arrow. He lets go of the girl he has in his arms. — Sorry … He steps back.

She forces a grim smile as she rubs her shoulder.

He looks awkwardly at her. — Listen, Tianna, I’d really like you to be a bridesmaid, at my wedding back in Scotland. Would you do that for me? He gulps in horror at his own words. He’s overstepped the mark with the kid, now he’s bribing her.
Just like them. Just like the dirty nonces
.

— That would be awesome! she shouts, dancing ecstatically on the spot. — I get to wear a dress, right?

— Yeah … I mean … if it’s okay with your mum.

— And go in a plane?

— Aye. He tries to calculate the cost of a plane fare in September.

She puts her hand up and they give each other the high-five. — Aye! she mimics. — You’re the coolest, Ray Lennox.

I’m no the coolest but I’m no like them, Lennox thinks.
I’ll never, ever be like them
. He hopes she’s never had that perspective of him. But it’s how the motel clerk views him that’s pressing: he’s disinclined to hang about and arouse suspicion. Each time his body threatens to relax, the enormity of the situation spears Lennox
in
the chest; he’s a thirty-something man in a motel in a strange country with a young girl, who isn’t his daughter. They check out at around nine forty.

Looking at his face in the car mirror, he notices a bit of grey coming in at the temples where the hair is growing back. Trudi had warned him about shaving it so closely. But he’s oddly elated. There he was, depressed, lonely and hung-over in a strange place, without his medication and possibly more vulnerable than he’d ever been in his life. Well, almost. And with someone who trusted him, his sex drive returning as the pharmaceutical administrations ran down. He knew, though, that he would rather have cut off his dick than put it near Tianna or any other child. Ironically, her inappropriate and sad behaviour has helped him. Helped to show him that no matter how far he’d fallen he had a line below which he’d never submerge. The bar wasn’t raised very high. But it was there. Now he has to help her. He can raise it by helping her.

He finds himself contemplating some of the men he knows; men he calls friends, a few who had been abusive in relationships, others who’d went with prostitutes, who’d flown out to places like Prague and Kiev and Bangkok for sex holidays. What would they have done if they’d been in his shoes?

A sudden deluge of inky darkness smothers the light in seconds, followed by a crackling yellow vein in the sky ahead. Then an explosion of thunder rumbles in his ears, causing him to start and click on the headlights. Now the rain’s thrashing down, beating a frantic, dread tattoo on the roof of the car. The wipers can’t keep up; Lennox is about to pull over in desperation when it stops like a faucet being turned off, and the pinky-blue sky reappears.

There’s no telling when Chet’s boat will come in, but it might not be for a while. Breakfast is on the agenda, and the 107 Intersection delivers them to yet another suburban mall full of fast-food outlets. The International House of Pancakes is Tianna’s breakfast choice, Lennox agreeing that it seems the least offensive of the franchise hell village they pull into.

The waitress approaches, a middle-aged, portly Latina woman, brisk and efficient. — Can I take your order?

— I’d like orange juice, two eggs over easy with hash browns,
bacon
and some coffee, Lennox says with a tight smile and a glaze in his eyes. The woman has given him the horn. He looks at her strong thighs and wonders what rubbish might spill from his lips if he were between them.

— You gat it, the waitress snaps sassily, scenting something in his aura. — What about you, Miss? She turns to Tianna.

— I’ll have the same.

The waitress departs, soon to return with two big pint glasses of orange juice. — Enjoy, she threatens.

Lennox does. He has never tasted orange juice like it. The Florida sunshine explodes in his taste buds and a small glass would never have been enough. The food is a mass of congealed, saturated gunge; it’s standard obesity fodder and he picks at it. — They don’t do freshly ground pepper in the States, just this powdery stuff. There’s no spicy food culture here.

— Stop complaining, Ray Lennox, Tianna says, the use of his full name reminding him of Trudi, — at least your Skarrish cold sounds better!

Lennox succumbs to a grin. It’s good to see her happy, to find the kid back after the twisted nymphet of last night and the troubled old soul of earlier this morning. — The Florida sunshine is working its magic, he says, rising. — Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to visit the boys’ room.

As he departs, he wonders exactly how much she knows. How many ‘Scottish colds’ has Robyn suffered from over the years?

Inside the men’s room: sink, toilet and urinal with plastic grate in it emblazoned with the slogan
SAY NO TO DRUGS
. Now people could line up and piss on the message. His urine is looking clearer; free from the drugs prescribed by self and others. The action of peeing, though, has made him realise he needs a more extensive toilet, so he sits down on the pan, finally relieved to be able to execute that business. He reads some graffiti above the toilet-paper dispenser:

HERE I SIT, CHEEKS A’ FLEXIN,

GIVIN BIRTH TO ANOTHER TEXAN.

He feels satisfaction tighten his lips as they leave the diner and get back on to the road. They pass a pickup truck with a yellow ribbon and a ‘Honk If You Support Our Troops’ sticker.

— Ain’tcha gonna honk? Tianna asks, as sunlight showers like sulphur grains across her face.

— No. What business have American and British troops got being in Iraq? I haven’t seen any Iraqi troops in our countries, dropping bombs on us, he says.

Tianna contemplates this for a few seconds. Then she looks evenly at Lennox and says, — I guess it’s jus plain wrong to interfere with somebody smaller than you, jus cause you’re bigger and stronger than them … and can try and trick em with words.

— Yes, he replies, feeling himself croaking up again. So he glances to the window at a banner fluttering outside a church:
NO HIGH LIKE THE MOST HIGH
.

His eyes are drawn upwards to more white fluffy clouds in the pale blue sky. Lennox’s sinuses are clearing. His hangover is definitely receding. The long sleep has helped him. He doesn’t crave cocaine any more, or even a drink. The sun is doing it all for him.

They listen to a country station as they pass a long strip of used-car dealerships on the way back to Bologna. Once more Brad Paisley’s ‘Alcohol’ comes on the radio.