The night was warm—almost hot—perfumed with exhaust from the passing traffic. A police cruiser flew past, blowing through a yellow light just as it turned red, the darkness stuttering with blinding blue flashes.
“ . . . and I said over in England ‘pants’ means ‘underwear,’ and Sheryl said English people ought to use the right words for things, and I said if they use the wrong words, how come we go to school to study English instead of American?” Aisha was especially proud of this riposte, which she felt had properly put Sheryl Portis in her place, at the end of a long, wearying argument about whether or not British accents were real or just faked for movies.
“Mm-hm,” Colson said, waiting for the WALK light. At some point he had wrestled her backpack away from her and slung it over his own shoulder.
“Oh! Oh! That reminds me. Cole?”
“Mm-hm.”
“How long are you going to live in England?”
Aisha had England on the brain, had been thinking about the place all week, ever since she heard that Colson had sent an application to the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. He hadn’t heard back yet—wouldn’t hear back until spring—but he hadn’t bothered applying anywhere else, acted like he’d already been accepted, or at least wasn’t worried about being turned down.
“I don’t know. However long it takes to meet Jane Seymour.”
“Who’s Jane Seymour?”
“She Dr. Quinn, Medicine Woman. She also going to be my first wife. First of many.”
“Doesn’t she live out west? That’s where the show is set.”
“Naw. She from London.”
“What will you do if she doesn’t want to marry you?”
“Pour my sadness into my art. It’d be tough if she didn’t want me, but I’d just take all that heartache and use it to be the best Hamlet ever stalked the boards.”
“Is Hamlet black?”
“He is if I’m playing him. Come on. We going to run for it. I think the walk light is busted.”
They waited for an opening and beat feet across Mission, holding hands. As they slowed and stepped up onto the curb on the far side, they heard the ugly squall of a police siren, and another cruiser slammed past. Aisha started singing the reggae song that began every episode of Cops, hardly aware she was doing it. It was not at all uncommon for the police to kick up a racket this time of the night, booming along the streets with their disco lights pulsing and their sirens scaring the bejesus out of people. You never knew why or even wondered. It was like the hum of crickets, just another night sound.
As it happened, the police were crisscrossing the Black & Blue looking for a stolen Miata. Forty minutes before, out on the north edge of St. Possenti—where there were mansions with stucco walls and roofs of red Spanish tile—a couple had been followed into their house by a man in fatigues, wearing a woman’s stocking over his face. William Berry had been stabbed twice in the abdomen. His wife had been stabbed nineteen times in the back as she tried to run away. The assailant then calmly helped himself to her purple Hermès purse, the jewelry in the bedroom, their DVD player, and some admittedly pornographic DVDs. The man with the knife whistled while he took what he wanted and occasionally chatted to Bill Berry while the forty-two-year-old investment banker lay on the floor groaning. He complimented them on their interior decoration and particularly admired their drapes; he promised he would pray for both of them to recover. Cathy Berry did not, but Bill Berry was expected to survive, although he was in intensive care with a perforated large intestine. Bill had been coherent enough to report that the killer “sounded black” and smelled of alcohol. The Miata had been spotted by a crossing guard, entering the Black & Blue not twenty minutes before.
The lot spread out around Coastal Mercantile was pitched and cracked, the fissures badly sealed with scribbles of tar. The strip mall housed a check-cashing joint (open), a liquor store (open), a tobacconist’s (open), a dentist’s office (closed), a Baptist church called the Holy Renewal Experience (closed), a jobs office called Work Now Staffing (permanently closed), and a coin-op Laundromat that was open now, would be open at 3:00 A.M., and would probably continue to offer the use of its overpriced, underpowered washers and dryers right through the Rapture.
Colson slowed alongside an Econoline van with a desert scene painted on it and tugged on the handle of the driver’s-side door. Locked.
“What are you doing?” Aisha asked.
“This looks like the kind of van kidnappers drive,” Colson said. “I want to make sure there isn’t a girl tied up in the back.”
Aisha cupped her hands around her face and pressed her nose to the tinted bubble window. She didn’t see anyone tied up.
Satisfied that the van was locked and empty, they walked on. Soon they would pass around the corner of the building, down along one side of the Mercantile, over a fence, and into the Tangles: four acres of buttonwood, cabbage palms, anthills, and beer bottles.
Colson slowed again as they passed a blue Miata, too nice for Coastal Mercantile—black leather interior, glossy cherry dash. He tugged on the latch.
“Why’d you do that?”
“Had to make sure the lady locked her doors. Anyone who’d park a car like this in the Black & Blue don’t have the sense to look after their stuff.”
Aisha wished Colson would stop yanking on door handles. He didn’t worry about getting in trouble, so she had to worry for him.
“How do you know it’s a lady’s car?”
“ ’Cause a Miata look more like a lipstick than a car. They won’t even sell you a car like this if you’re a man, less you turn your balls in first.” They walked on.
“So after you marry Jane Seymour, when you going to come back to Florida so I can meet her?”
“You’ll come to me. Come to London. You can study dance same place I’m going to study being famous.”
“You’re studying acting.”
“Same thing.”
“Are you going to get a British accent while you’re there?”
“You bet. Pick one up in the gift shop at Buckingham Palace, first day I’m there,” he said, but in a distant, disinterested voice.
They were passing a battered Alfa Romeo, the driver’s-side door painted an ashy matte black, the rest of the car the too-bright yellow of Gatorade. CDs were scattered across the dashboard, a collection of reflective silver Frisbees. When Colson tested the driver’s-side door, it sprang open, one Romeo welcoming another.
“Oh, lookit,” he said. “Someone has not been putting safety first.”
Aisha kept walking, willing Colson to come with her. When she’d gone five steps, she dared to look around. Colson remained back by the Alfa Romeo, ducked down and leaning inside, a sight that gave her an ill feeling.
“Colson?” she asked. She meant to shout it, to say it like a scold—Aisha had a fine voice for scolding—but it came out in an unhappy waver.
He straightened up, looked back at her with blank eyes. He had her purple backpack balanced on his knee, half unzipped, and was rooting around inside.