back in the hotel room, then Keith Goodwin at the NA and all the good work he’d done. Was it good work? Now he’ll flush it all away. Britney’s face: cold, blue and bruised. Mr Confectioner’s sickening gloat. He’ll flush it all away.
The line obliterates them and Lennox emerges striding on to the dance floor like a colossus, jaw protruding. Starry and Robyn are dancing, and he moves easily with them, sleazy and invincible. The other dancers, they can feel his power, his radiant contempt for them. They shrink away like the pygmies they are. He painlessly recalls his infidelities of the past, which wrecked things for him and Trudi the first time around; each conquest a trinket on a charm bracelet of fool’s gold, every single one of them executed when he felt
exactly
like this.
Why is he doing this, he asks, apart from the drive of the cocaine? His fiancée is back at the hotel, or so he assumes. Lennox is always beset with the notion that the big event, the real party, is happening somewhere else. His radar – that distressed feeling under his skin – tells him that this is the case. Then he realises that he is a cop and that the big party is
always
happening somewhere else, namely in civvy street. And if he finds it, his role is not to join in, but to break it up. Now, though, for these two weeks, he is a civilian. And it’s good here.
The world’s crumbling around us and thank fuck there’s people just too new or plain stupid to climb on that dance floor, and act as if the party’s just begun
.
Starry sweeps her hair back and meets his predator’s glance with hard, flinty eyes of her own. — We’re gonna go back to Robyn’s. She looks to her friend.
— You’re invited, Robyn says. — Come over and have some more blow?
By blow he assumes that she means coke, rather than marijuana, which he hates. — Okay. Whereabouts? he shouts above the beat.
— I live over in Miami.
— I thought this
was
Miami.
— No, this is Miami
Beach
, silly, Robyn playfully scolds. — Miami is across the causeway.
— Right. He recalls how both Trudi and then Ginger had explained it all to him.
They head outside, buzzing from the coke. Lennox goes to flag down a cab, but Starry stops him. — Here’s a bus, she says, nodding to the approaching vehicle. — Cheaper.
This time he pays the proper money. The bus is full of drunks: the ubiquitous mobile theatre of late-night public transport. They find seats at the back, Lennox at the window with Robyn by his side, Starry in front of them. She’s conversing in Spanish with somebody on her cell. Robyn looks agitated, this soon starting to infect Lennox. The bus has no windows at the back, which adds to his unease. It’s unnatural; not to be able to see where you’ve come from.
— Who were you talking to? Robyn asks suspiciously as her friend finishes the call.
— Just some friends from the diner, Starry cossets Robyn, rubbing her friend’s neck, while she expatiates about her workplace hassles. — That Mano, he’s such an asshole …
After courting the coastline, the vehicle suddenly veers, crossing a stretch of water on a long bridge and comes into what Lennox thinks must be Miami proper. Starry’s nail scrapes at some glitter that’s stuck to the bus windows, before she realises it’s outside. The docks come into view with the towering cranes, then the freight tankers. But most impressive are the cruise ships, about a dozen of them, like floating apartment blocks, grandiose yet still dwarfed by the big towers of downtown Miami, massive sentinels guarding the harbour. Lennox is impressed, as the coke pounds his head, making him strong. His teeth grind harshly. He wants those mysterious yellow lights that glisten on the water across that filthy, slithering, black bay. Wants to become part of it all: away from the sunlight and the spotless, white, perfect brides.
6
Party
THROUGH A MURKY shroud of near darkness illuminated only by a peppering of lights
The line obliterates them and Lennox emerges striding on to the dance floor like a colossus, jaw protruding. Starry and Robyn are dancing, and he moves easily with them, sleazy and invincible. The other dancers, they can feel his power, his radiant contempt for them. They shrink away like the pygmies they are. He painlessly recalls his infidelities of the past, which wrecked things for him and Trudi the first time around; each conquest a trinket on a charm bracelet of fool’s gold, every single one of them executed when he felt
exactly
like this.
Why is he doing this, he asks, apart from the drive of the cocaine? His fiancée is back at the hotel, or so he assumes. Lennox is always beset with the notion that the big event, the real party, is happening somewhere else. His radar – that distressed feeling under his skin – tells him that this is the case. Then he realises that he is a cop and that the big party is
always
happening somewhere else, namely in civvy street. And if he finds it, his role is not to join in, but to break it up. Now, though, for these two weeks, he is a civilian. And it’s good here.
The world’s crumbling around us and thank fuck there’s people just too new or plain stupid to climb on that dance floor, and act as if the party’s just begun
.
Starry sweeps her hair back and meets his predator’s glance with hard, flinty eyes of her own. — We’re gonna go back to Robyn’s. She looks to her friend.
— You’re invited, Robyn says. — Come over and have some more blow?
By blow he assumes that she means coke, rather than marijuana, which he hates. — Okay. Whereabouts? he shouts above the beat.
— I live over in Miami.
— I thought this
was
Miami.
— No, this is Miami
Beach
, silly, Robyn playfully scolds. — Miami is across the causeway.
— Right. He recalls how both Trudi and then Ginger had explained it all to him.
They head outside, buzzing from the coke. Lennox goes to flag down a cab, but Starry stops him. — Here’s a bus, she says, nodding to the approaching vehicle. — Cheaper.
This time he pays the proper money. The bus is full of drunks: the ubiquitous mobile theatre of late-night public transport. They find seats at the back, Lennox at the window with Robyn by his side, Starry in front of them. She’s conversing in Spanish with somebody on her cell. Robyn looks agitated, this soon starting to infect Lennox. The bus has no windows at the back, which adds to his unease. It’s unnatural; not to be able to see where you’ve come from.
— Who were you talking to? Robyn asks suspiciously as her friend finishes the call.
— Just some friends from the diner, Starry cossets Robyn, rubbing her friend’s neck, while she expatiates about her workplace hassles. — That Mano, he’s such an asshole …
After courting the coastline, the vehicle suddenly veers, crossing a stretch of water on a long bridge and comes into what Lennox thinks must be Miami proper. Starry’s nail scrapes at some glitter that’s stuck to the bus windows, before she realises it’s outside. The docks come into view with the towering cranes, then the freight tankers. But most impressive are the cruise ships, about a dozen of them, like floating apartment blocks, grandiose yet still dwarfed by the big towers of downtown Miami, massive sentinels guarding the harbour. Lennox is impressed, as the coke pounds his head, making him strong. His teeth grind harshly. He wants those mysterious yellow lights that glisten on the water across that filthy, slithering, black bay. Wants to become part of it all: away from the sunlight and the spotless, white, perfect brides.
6
Party
THROUGH A MURKY shroud of near darkness illuminated only by a peppering of lights
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