Mr. Hooligan (30 page)

“That’s the least of my concerns. I’m here for Riley. You know, Candice, the only kind of delusion is self-delusion. I’m trying to answer this: Who is deluding themselves? You about Riley? Or Riley about you? Whichever way, the consequences, I hope you can foresee this, can be tragic.”

Now the wave crashed over her and she reached out and held on to her drink for support. There it was, the wicked truth.

“You’re troubled, I can see it.”

“Really?” Instantly regretting the weak sarcasm.

“If what I was saying wasn’t true, you would’ve gotten up and left. But you’re here, you’re sitting there because you want to hear this, and you
need
to hear it.”

“Hear what, Patricia?”

“Either you tell him or I tell him.”

“And you’ll tell him what?”

“Just about every blessed thing I know.”

A waiter was standing in the doorway. Candice twirled around and raised her glass. “Another one, please?” After he left, she said, without looking at Patricia, “I never thought I could love somebody like Riley. In fact, I don’t want to love him. I wish I could stop.” She shut her eyes briefly, then, “This road here,” tilting her chin at it. “Sometimes I run this route fast, past here and all the way up Marine Parade and Barrack Road, past Lindy’s, up Princess Margaret Drive, all the way home. I play this game with myself, I say, Okay, at the end of these four miles, I’ll feel different. I’ll get home, hop into the shower and step out washed clean, fresh and rededicated to my career, nothing will derail me. I’ll do the job I came here to do with such laser focus, it’ll be frightening. Then I can leave Belize, then I can get the hell out and back to my old self.”

Candice picked up the coaster and turned it around and around, Sister Pat watching her face intently.

“It never happens of course. When I finish the run, I feel good and clearheaded, like any other hard run, that’s it. It’s silly when you think about it, it’s like expecting to get up in the morning with a new brain.”

“You’re saying, or maybe it’s what I’m hearing, is that you came here as one person but somewhere along the way you fell in love and lost your direction.”

“I’d describe it, ‘Fell in love and became confused.’ I’m still on the same road.”

“Then let me help you find your way.” Sister Pat with a wry smile.

The waiter came, set the drink down, taking a moment to eye Candice’s legs before leaving.

“You speaking to me tonight, coming with this threat, that’s supposed to help me clarify things?”

“I love Riley, Candice. I can’t condone what he does sometimes, but I don’t want to see him go to prison either, so you’d think that the person who professes to love him and promises to be his wife one day would understand that I—knowing what I know—cannot sit by and watch him be betrayed and suffer, watch him be crushed. You’ve got to be kidding me, my dear, if you don’t understand that. So what else is there to talk about tonight? The stars? The barrier reef? Photography? Let’s subtract all that unnecessary stuff and examine what’s important—in other words, clarify.” Patricia pushed back her chair and stood up. “I’ve said what I’ve come to say. Now, I’ll leave it up to you.” She stared at Candice.

Candice wrapped her hands carefully around her glass. “He asked me to go away with him. He’s bought two tickets. I don’t know what he’s thinking, what he has planned. But he has two tickets. Antigua then St. Kitts.”

“I see,” Patricia said and put a hand on the railing, looking out at the water.

“Maybe this will be all over sooner than you expect.”

“By that you mean…?”

“I’ll think about what you said.” Candice drank a mouthful of whiskey and shut her eyes as she swallowed, stomach burning. “I’ll give it lots of thought. If I’m lost, what else do you expect me to say?”

CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

“I love you, you know I love you,” Riley said. “You’re my boy and hey, I’ll always love you, but you’ve got to listen to your mother. What? No, she said don’t touch it, that’s it, that’s final, son.… Oh, come on, Duncan, don’t say that.… No, I’m serious, that’s not nice.…” Riley smiled, holding the phone and listening to his son’s delightful Duncanisms. The living room window and the window to the porch behind him were open, the sounds of the street and a breeze flowing in. “Yeah, I
was
worried, your mother didn’t tell me Miguel needed eye surgery. So how are you liking it in Mérida? It’s big huh?”

“We walked around so much, my head hurts, Dad.”

“What? That doesn’t make any sense.”

Duncan laughed.

“What are you eating? It sounds crunchy.”

“Sliced apples. I’d dipping it in peanut butter. The way you eat it. Dad? Remember that place we went fishing that I told you I liked? We went with Mr. Harvey. By the airport?”

“The little clearing by the river? Sure, what about it?”

“When I get back, can we go there again?”

“But of course.”

“I want to ’cause the other night? I dreamed I caught a
huuuge
bonefish. I think I’m gonna hook one next time I go there.”

“You can’t catch bonefish in the river, but anyway, you’re gonna hook something, I know you will.”

Duncan crunched into an apple slice and began a wet spiel with his mouth full.

To sit back and listen again to the timbre of his son’s voice delighted Riley. His boy was getting so big. “You took what?… Oh, sure, assigned schoolwork … so you didn’t miss out, I understand. Well, that’s smart … I know, I know, we’ll go to the river when you get back, all right? I love you. Tell your mom I said hi, tell Miguel I said hang in there, okay? I love you, big boy.”

He hung up and stayed on the sofa, feeling giddy. The glass of iced Knob Creek in his hand was partly responsible, but considering the events of the last few days, he ought not to quibble with a pleasant mood.

He rose and fixed himself another small one, then went to the bathroom to check his wound, loosen the tape some, while the ice in the bourbon melted just so. He sipped it on the way to the bedroom, feeling the best he had in days, sleep floating up comfortably to embrace him soon. There was a pile of clothes on the bed, shirts folded in plastic bags on the floor, old shoes, a stack of paperback mysteries. He wondered what was keeping Turo, he should’ve been back about two hours ago. Any of this stuff that Turo didn’t want or whatever didn’t fit, he could still take and sell, or give to family or friends, Turo’s choice. Maybe Riley was impatient because he couldn’t wait to see Turo’s face when he gave all of this to him. Always a ghost of self-satisfaction hovering behind charity, wasn’t there? Riley sipped his bourbon, musing on that.

He had folded a pair of jeans he never used and was sticking them into a bag when he heard the van pulling up outside and the gate creaking open. Riley threw on a shirt and went out to the porch. He watched Turo drive up the tire tracks in the grass, turning, and the headlights beaming into the carport.

“How’d it go, how’d it go, tour guide extraordinaire?”

Turo stepped out, grinning. “Now
that
was a long day, Mistah James.” Immediately he started cleaning up, opening the back door and tossing out empty plastic bottles.

“So tell me,” Riley said.

“Mostly smooth,” Turo said and slid open a side door. He dragged the hand broom and dustpan from under a seat. “I think maybe it coulda gone smoother, I’d’ve been back earlier if they hadn’t started touching the beers.”

“Don’t tell me somebody got sick in there.”

“Nothing like that. Just a couple of them turned boisterous after they got illubricated.”

Riley sipped his drink. “Inebriated?”

“Yeah, that too. They couldn’t make up their mind which restaurant they wanted to stop at, one woman wanted Chinese, one man just wanted more beer, kinda nonstop like that for a spell.” Turo ducked into the van and started sweeping.

Riley told him he didn’t need to do that, but Turo blew him off. He told Riley that the tourists had dropped him forty bucks tip. Riley, on his way in, said well, well, come inside, he had a little something for him that might top that.

Riley tied up the plastic bags of clothes and brought them to the living room, hearing Turo whistling outside, doors slamming. He thought about how much he should pay him for the day. He got his wallet from the dresser drawer and removed two hundreds, thought it over and fingered out another hundred, ignoring the inner voice whispering the warnings of being too generous.

Turo knocked on the door then entered. “I can please borrow a garbage bag to put all these bottles in?”

Riley told him to get one from under the sink. Turo returned with it and stopped, looking at the bags of clothes on the sofa and by the door. “Going somewhere, Mistah James?”

“I might be. This is for you.” Riley handing him the three hundred, folded.

“Man,” Turo said, embarrassed, pushing the money in his pocket. “ ’Preciate this. This is a lot though.”

“Then give me back fifty.”

“No, it’s cool. Let bygones be bygones.” Turo grinning, cruising out the door.

Riley searched his closet for something else to give away. Outside, Turo was singing something so totally off-key it was painful to all life forms. Riley found two pairs of shoes, an old Timberland still in decent shape and a clean Nike. He dusted them off, hearing a motorcycle rumbling close by. He put the shoes in a bag, hearing Turo talking to somebody, a man saying something then another voice shouting, “No, that ain’t him,” and somebody yelped, then two gunshots split the air.

Riley threw himself on the floor by the bed. Time slowed way, way down, his cheek flat on the musty carpet, fingers gripping the bag, but it couldn’t have been more than a few seconds before he heard the motorcycle roaring off and the front door banging open, Turo saying in a choked voice, “Help help, Mistah James? Help me…”

Riley jumped up, ran into the living room and collided into Turo. The boy was cradling his left arm, blood soaked through his T-shirt sleeve. Riley said, “Let’s go, let’s go,” and led him into the bathroom, hit the vanity lights and stood him in front of the sink. Turo was saying, “They shot me, they shot me,” Riley saying, “It’s cool it’s cool, you’re okay,” soaking a washcloth with warm water, wringing it out a tad.

“Let’s take off this shirt, Turo,” and Riley helped him peel it off. Turo gritting his teeth all the way, chin up.

Blood flowed from a spot on his upper arm, just below the shoulder. Riley wiped the arm down with the washcloth, Turo flinching, a hand raised to stop Riley.

Riley said, “Well, okay.”

“Shit shit shit, I don’t want to look, man,” Turo shaking his head.

“You didn’t get shot.”

“Huh?”

The phone rang outside.

“You
almost
got shot. See that? Look, look at it, broke the skin but that’s all. It’s superficial, you’re going to live.” Riley wiped down the wound again.

“Grazed me? Grazed me, huh?”

Riley exhaled a long breath. He knew. He
knew.
He had questions to ask but he knew, the bullet that nicked this boy was meant for him. The fucking phone kept ringing.

He sat Turo in the living room and served him an ice-cold Guinness Extra Stout in a mug. He peered out the window, Candice’s house mostly in darkness—Candice had said she’d be on a photo shoot somewhere—but across the street neighbors stood on their porches pointing this way and that, some milling around outside a fence. The phone started up again, the caller refusing to get the message, so finally Riley grabbed it and said, “What’s up, Bill?”

Of course, it was interfering Bill Rivero from across the street, who else?—wanting to know did Riley hear that noise, sounded like gunshots. Was everything all right over there? Riley said yeah, he heard it, too, but didn’t know where it came from, and was everything all right over
there
?

Riley helped clean Turo’s arm with cotton swabs and alcohol and plastered a big bandage over it. He sat awhile and watched Turo sip the beer, uneasy. Riley got up, brought back a fresh T-shirt and another Guinness and poured it, Turo holding out the mug, hand steady. Time to have the talk.

After Turo spoke a bit, Riley said, “Two of them?”

“I seen them roll by the first time, so when they roll by again, I’m like, What they want? The guy that bust the shot, from the time I look in his face when he walked into the yard, I could see he was up to something.”

“Describe him.”

“Beefy, but not like fat, you know? Black dude, short dreads.”

“So he comes into the yard and what’s he say?”

“Didn’t say anything. Like he couldn’t see me good ’cause the driver’s door was open and I’m behind that wiping the side mirror, so when I step out, I’m like, ‘Can I help you?’ and he kinda look at me like I’m from Mars and that’s when I see the gun.”

“Nobody said anything? Nothing like, ‘That ain’t him’?”

“I don’t remember that. All I remember is, man, that’s when he bust the shot and I fucking started running, me one way, him the next.”

“So he runs, jumps back on the bike and they’re gone?”