Should Have Looked Away (7 page)

TWELVE

Mitchell Breed remembered
coming here as a child. Leaning on the blue metal railing, he looked up at the Ferris wheel. Screams of delight and mock terror came from every seat, from guys as well as girls. He shook his head: in his day, which was not that long ago, dudes didn’t make a sound up there. It was just the chicks. You could well get beaten up if you showed any signs of being scared.

Unless you were a kid.

He could recall sitting up top of the Wonder Wheel with his mother. The wheel had come to a halt to allow riders to get off and on, and the seat gently swayed in the breeze. His mother was laughing loudly; he was silent, maybe feeling a little nauseous on account of the height and swaying.

Mitch’s family - he and his older brother and their parents – were frequent visitors here. Once a month or so, his father would announce on Saturday evening, ‘Let’s hit Coney Island in the morning,’ and first thing, after stopping off for bagels for breakfast, they would head for the subway and take the D Train to Brooklyn. They would spend the whole day there, going on the same rides every time, and leaving at five-thirty exactly every time.

Those days were long gone; in fact, Mitch could not remember the last time he came down here.

He was surprised that his meeting was going to be held here of all places. So public, so out in the open. Unless they were all going to share a booth in the ghost train. He looked around: was there still a ghost train? He could remember being on one somewhere. Once with his brother, and a couple of times with a girl. He couldn’t remember if it was the same girl. He remembered riding round in the dark, arm round her shoulders. They were being subjected to loud screams and manic laughter, passing through cobwebs and God knows what else. He could also remember trying to show her what his middle finger could do. She had other ideas, although he recollected it took her a while to object.

He threw his cigarette into the water; it might not have been here, anyway.

He sighed in frustration. On his way here he had a feeling the others would be late. Walt always was, but at least he expected the boss to be on time. After all, Mitch had taken the afternoon off to get down here.

His phone rang. It was Walt. Short for Walter. An old fashioned name - anachronistic, as their High School teacher had said - and given to him by his mother who said he was conceived on a Space Mountain car on a trip to Orlando. She then had to explain the relevance of that to his name.

‘Hey, man. Wassup? Where the fuck are you?’

‘Same as you - on the boardwalk, only I’m by the Cyclone.’

Mitch looked up the boardwalk. It was not exactly crowded, but there was a steady flow of people - couples, young families, kids who ought to have been at school – walking back and forth. Some were holding red or blue helium balloons, some of the kids had toffee apples or cotton candy, and further up, between a small group of beach huts on the sand and the giant Cyclone roller coaster, he could see Walt. He waited a few moments to see if Walt was going to walk down to meet him, then cursed and sauntered up to him. They touched fists as they met.

‘How long you been here, man?’ Mitch asked. ‘Thought you wasn’t coming.’

‘It’s cool, man. I’ve been here ages. Saw you down there playing with yourself a while back.’

‘Then why the -’ Mitch decided not to take the bait. Squinting in the bright sunshine he looked up at the rollercoaster as a car full of screaming day trippers sped by. ‘Looks like we’re not the only ones who are late,’ he said.

‘You mean our man?’ Walt asked. He pulled his hood tighter over his head.

‘Yeah,’ muttered Mitch. He looked down at a couple of kids who were walking past munching giant boxes of popcorn. ‘Come on,’ he said to Walt. ‘Let’s go down to Footprint’s. I’m hungry.’

They both headed down the boardwalk to the Surf Avenue café. Walt stood outside and stared at the menu in the window.

‘Man, you gotta be fuckin’ kiddin’,’ he exclaimed. ‘At these fuckin’ prices!’

Mitch read the menu. ‘See what you mean.’ He pointed to a kiosk at the corner of Surf and 16
th
. ‘Let’s get a hot dog.’

They both bought a $3 dog, Mitch’s covered in onions and ketchup, Walt’s in mustard.

‘Don’t understand,’ Mitch said through a mouthful of sausage. ‘We used to come down here regular when I was a kid; used to go there back then.’

‘Maybe your old man had more money than you do now.’

‘Maybe.’ Mitch grabbed a napkin from the little stainless steel table standing by the kiosk and wiped ketchup from his mouth.

‘You wanna know something?’ Walt mumbled, also with a mouthful of food. ‘He’s already here, watching us. I know it.’

‘Bullshit. He’s just late.’

‘Well, I ain’t going to be hanging -’ Walt stopped as Mitch’s phone rang.

The display on his phone read a number Mitch recognized. ‘It’s him,’ he said, stabbing a finger at the green button.

‘Yeah?’ he said into the phone. ‘Okay. See you there in ten.’ Hanging up he said to Walt, ‘He wants to meet us outside the MCU Park.’ He put the remainder of his hotdog in his mouth and tossed the napkin, aiming at the trashcan by the little table. He missed and it landed on the ground, but Mitch made no effort to pick it up.

‘Jesus, why over there?’

‘Quit complainin’, willya? Come on, let’s get it over with.’

MCU Park is the shared home of the Brooklyn Cyclones and Brooklyn Bolts, since it was constructed at the turn of the century. The Cyclones are a baseball team, the Bolts football.  The site was originally home to an amusement park which closed in 1964 amid the deterioration of Coney Island and of the subway routes which lead there. Part of a regeneration of the area, the park broke ground on 22
nd
August 2000, and opened 25
th
June the following year.  Such was its popularity one thousand extra seats were added three weeks after opening, the original 6,500 being nowhere near enough.

Mitch and Walt stopped by the grey metal gates at the entrance to the park. Neither had ever been inside, neither having any interest in baseball.  Mitch was not a sporty guy, being more interested in computer games; Walt managed to drag himself away from his consul a couple of years back to watch a soccer game, and had since proclaimed himself to be a follower of New York City FC, although had never even ventured near the Yankee Stadium. ‘Showy mother,’ was Mitch’s assessment of Walt’s periodic pretensions. Above where they stood was a light blue circular sign,
gate 4
printed in dark blue. A gardener was mowing the circle of grass separating them from the parking lot entrance.

‘Thanks for coming, guys,’ said a voice from behind them. They both whirled round. ‘Been here long?’

‘No, Mr Kelly,’ Walt lied. ‘Just got here.’

‘Me too. Let’s sit down.’ He led Mitch and Walt over to a bench. The rear of the bench was covered with an advertisement for the Cyclones. He sat down next to them, next to Walt. Mitch sat the other side.

‘I didn’t ask you to kill him,’ Kelly said.

They both looked at Kelly in shock. ‘No way,’ Mitch cried. ‘No fucking way. He was alive when we left him.’

‘Keep your voice down,’ Kelly said. ‘Get a grip. He might not have been dead when you left him, but he was when the police arrived.’

‘How – how do you know all this?’ stammered Walt.

Kelly sat back, head looking forward. ‘I read the newspapers. You could try that. Reading, I mean. Funny thing is, it didn’t make the TV news.’

‘Where does this leave us?’ Mitch asked, his calmness surprising both of them.

‘Where does it leave
you
? I just hope you made sure you didn’t get picked up by the mall security cameras. And there were no witnesses.’ He looked round at them. ‘There weren’t any? Nobody else using the john?’

‘No.’

‘You’re sure?’

‘I told you - no-one else.’

‘Nobody taking a dump?’

‘Nobody.’ Mitch looked at Walt. ‘Nobody, right.’

Walt nodded. ‘That’s right. Nobody.’

Kelly said, ‘Let’s hope you’re right. For your sakes. Now, to business: did he have it? Did you get it?’

‘No.’

‘He didn’t have it, or you didn’t get it? Which?’

‘He didn’t have it.’

Kelly looked ahead. ‘Damn the son of a bitch.’

‘So where now, Mr Kelly?’ Walt asked.

‘I’ll have to see. I’ll be in touch.’ He stood up to go.

Mitch put his hand out.

‘What?’ Kelly asked.

Mitch said nothing; put his hand out further.

‘All right,’ Kelly said, pulling his wallet from a back pocket. He took out a small wad. ‘Here: a hundred each. Would have been two fifty had you gotten it.’

Mitch and Walt counted their five $20 bills.

‘I’ll be in touch.’ Kelly swirled round and strode off. He had gone about thirty feet when he stopped and turned round. ‘By the way, the prices at Footprint’s are way out of your league.’ Laughing, he turned round again and walked off.

‘Son of a bitch! I told you he was watching us.’

‘Chill out, man,’ said Mitch. ‘About that anyway.’

‘But the guy died! What’re we gonna do now?’

‘We’re going to stay calm. Neither of us has a rap sheet -’

‘
You
don’t.’

‘Say what?’

‘I got a record. Small one. Did a few months in juvy some years back.’

‘Shit, man. Why didn’t you say?’

‘Statute of Limitations, man.’

‘That’s a crock.’

‘Hey, we were careful, so careful, weren’t we?’

‘You’d better hope we were.’

‘But the guy died.’

‘All the more reason not to lose our wads. You gotta stay calm, Walt.’

‘Why didn’t you tell Kelly about the other guy in the john?’

‘For one thing, I don’t want him to think we fucked up in there. Second, what if he did have it on him, and we just didn’t get time to get it off him?  That guy had plenty of time to search him.’

‘You think he has it?’

‘We need to find out. If he don’t got it, and we can’t find it, then we’re both fucked.’

THIRTEEN

‘
For God’s sake
, Will; just leave it,’ Chrissy said quietly as she pressed hard on a pan of potatoes with a masher, trying hard not to let Jake and Louise overhear their conversation.

Will leaned against the cupboard next to the stove. ‘Just think about it, though: that card, or whatever it was, was probably what those guys were looking for.’

‘And killed him for, remember?’

‘I don’t buy that. Sure he died, but it wasn’t murder. Not first degree, anyway.’

‘Does it matter?’ Now Chrissy was dishing out the mashed potato, her metal spatula crashing onto the plates.

‘Of course it damn well…  We can’t talk about it now; the kids are listening.’

The kids probably weren’t listening. Jake was sitting at the kitchen table, but was listening to something on a set of earphones and was playing a game or messaging on his phone. Louise was engrossed in a video on YouTube: some schoolgirls were acting out their own version of Hansel and Gretel.

Will opened his mouth to argue, but the look on Chrissy’s face convinced him to park this conversation until later.

‘Devices off!’ Chrissy called out as she served the food. As always there was little or no response, so she took the tablet away from Louise while Will pulled the wires from Jake’s ears and took away the phone.

‘You know the rules,’ Will said to the kids’ protests. ‘You can finish your conversation and your movie after we’ve eaten.’

Jake stared down at the plate. ‘What is it?’

‘What does it look like?’ Will asked.

Jake slowly shrugged. ‘I guess…’

‘It’s meatloaf,’ Chrissy snapped. ‘And the white stuff is potato. You know, a vegetable.’

‘Can’t we go to Donald’s?’ Jake moaned.

‘Yeah, right,’ Chrissy said. ‘Really healthy.’

Jake thought a moment. ‘The fries are made of potato, aren’t they? You know a vegetable.’

Will knew that Chrissy was in no mood to argue. ‘Just eat it, Jake. There’s nothing else.’

Jake gasped. ‘Oh, whatever,’ and picked up his fork.

‘What about you, Loulou?’ Will asked his daughter.

Louise nodded, her cheeks full.

‘So what did we all do at school today?’ Will asked, trying to change the subject.

‘We had a story about hunting a bear,’ Louise said. ‘And then we all sang
Five Little Monkeys
.’

‘Was that fun?’ Will asked. Louise nodded eagerly.

Chrissy asked, ‘What else did you do?’

Louise pulled a face. ‘Er…I think that was it.’

‘What about you?’ he asked Jake.

‘Just stuff.’

‘Just stuff,’ Will repeated.

‘What kind of stuff?’ Chrissy asked, impatiently. ‘Math, English, IT?’

‘Yeah, that sort of stuff.’

Chrissy sighed in exasperation and carried on eating. Will said nothing; it was quite clear this conversation was going nowhere.

‘What did you do today, Daddy?’ Louise asked after a while.

Will looked up. ‘I did lots of things. I did some work on my computer. I talked to some people on the telephone, and I went out to look at a condo on 105
th
Street.’

‘Did you see Uncle Dan?’

‘Yes, I did for a while. He wasn’t in the office in the morning, though.’ Will looked over at Chrissy. ‘What about you, Mommy? What did you do today?’

Chrissy made a gasping noise. ‘Why does it matter what I did today?’

‘She wants to know.’

‘Just stuff, that’s all.’

‘Just like Jake, you mean?’ Will laughed. ‘What kind of stuff?’

Chrissy glared at Will.

‘You were at home all day,’ Will added. ‘Loulou asked what you did.’

Chrissy said impatiently, ‘Just cleaning and tidying. Are we okay on this?’

‘Sure. We’re all okay, I guess.’

Nobody said anything else for the rest of the meal.

After an ice cream dessert, Jake disappeared to his room and Chrissy gave Louise her bath while Will cleared up the kitchen.

‘She ready for bed?’ Will asked when Chrissy came back downstairs thirty minutes later.

Chrissy pottered about wiping surfaces. ‘She’s in bed. I’ve kissed her good night. She wants you to read her a story tonight. Says it’s your turn.’

Will sighed. ‘Okay. I’ll finish off here once I’ve done.’

His daughter’s choice of story was the fairy story
Princess and the Pea
. Will was about three-quarters of the way through the story when he could see she had fallen asleep. He stopped reading, tucked her in, kissed her on the forehead, switched off her bedside lamp, and slowly closed her door behind him. He looked back as he closed the door, her room bathed in a faint orange glow from the night light.  He stepped across the hall to Jake’s room, pausing with his hand on the door knob. Then he turned around and went back downstairs.

Chrissy was in the kitchen making coffee. ‘Is she asleep?’

‘Went off before I could finish the story. Out like a light.’

‘What’s Jake up to? Surely he’s not asleep?’

‘No, he’s just in his room,’ Will answered slowly.

‘You mean he’s in there jacking off?’

Will was taken aback. ‘Well, yes. Kind of.’

‘Well, either he is or he isn’t.’

Will felt a little uncomfortable, as if he had been caught. ‘Sounds like he is.’

‘He’s been doing that for a while. Haven’t you noticed before?’

‘Er – possibly. He is thirteen, after all.’

Chrissy poured two mugs of coffee and passed one to Will. ‘Were you doing that when you were his age?’

‘Don’t remember. It was so long ago. How long have you known? About Jake, I mean.’

‘A while. I noticed when I did his laundry. Do you think he’s watching some porn or something?’

‘I didn’t hear any other sounds. He’s probably online.’

‘That’s what I’m afraid of. Will, we ought to be checking where he goes on the internet, what he does.’

Will sat down at the kitchen table, swirling his coffee. ‘In case some sixty year old creep’s grooming him?’

Chrissy shrugged and sat across the table. ‘Maybe. Or maybe he’s grooming some eight year old.’

‘That’s sick. You’re being ridiculous.’

‘I’m not. How do you know what he’s up to in there?’

Will nodded. Chrissy was right. ‘Yeah. I’ll talk to him.’

‘That’ll make a difference,’ said Chrissy sarcastically. ‘Maybe I’ll check his browsing history while he’s at school.’

‘Do you know his passwords?’

She sighed and shook her head. ‘You can install filters, or something, can’t you?’

‘Guess so, but he’s going to be able to get past them. Maybe the school could help, give advice.’

Chrissy said, ‘Yeah, maybe,’ then went quiet.

‘Look, he’s a good kid, really. Let me talk to him first. One of those father and son conversations. Like my old man did with me.’

Chrissy smiled. ‘I bet that was interesting.’

Will laughed. ‘Yeah, he brought in a couple of girlie magazines and a pack of condoms. I don’t know who was more uncomfortable, him or me.’

‘And did it do any good?’

‘Not a bit.’ He laughed. ‘Jake probably knows more about it than I do.’

Chrissy sipped her drink. ‘I hope not. Not at thirteen.’

‘Anyway,’ Will said. ‘Why were you so pissed off at dinner?’

‘I wasn’t.’

‘Yes you were. You had a face like a paddled ass.’

‘Did I? Why do you think? All that crap about the guy in the men’s room.’

‘I’m just curious, that’s all.’

‘About what? You overheard a mugging that went wrong.’

‘No, it was more than that. They must have followed him in there, and they were looking for something. They ran out of time, that’s all.’

‘And you got all this by listening in the stall? With our daughter?’

‘Listen: I was almost shitting myself, more about her than what was going on outside. That’s why I’m so curious.’

‘Nosy, you mean. Will, you’re the biggest buttinski I’ve ever known.’ Chrissy got up and put her empty cup in the sink. ‘Talking of laundry, I have loads to iron.’

In a second, Will was away from the table and standing behind her. Saying nothing, he turned her round to face him. Then leaned down to kiss her. She responded gently. Will put his hands on her waist and lifted her up so she was sitting on the kitchen work surface.

‘Will,’ she said quietly, ‘we can’t do it here.’

‘Why not? Louise is fast asleep and Jake’s got his hands full.’

‘But what if -’

‘We’ll be quiet,’ Will said, unfastening her zipper and tugging at her jeans top.

‘And quick,’ she said, raising herself slightly to assist him. She was constantly looking over Will’s shoulder. ‘Promise me something, then.’

‘Anything,’ he breathed as she did the same with his clothing. ‘Promise what?’

‘That’s you’ll forget all this stuff about the guy in the restroom. We’ve been through enough, what with the break-in last night.’

‘Promise.’ Kissing her, he moved her slightly towards him and parted her legs. When Will entered her, Chrissy wrapped her arms around him, still looking over his shoulder. As they moved in unison, silently and in the knowledge that this encounter had to be brief, they both knew that Will had no intention of keeping his promise.