Mr. Hooligan (2 page)

“So you say now.”

“I’m serious. That’s Mr. Long Time over there?”

A tall skinny-legged man was coming out of a shop swinging a pack of bread. Riley leaned out the window and hollered, “Yo, get off your hands, Long Time.”

Long Time flashed him the finger as they rolled by.

That tickled Harvey.

Riley said, “Pull over, pull over.”

They parked on the side and Riley poked his head out the window. Long Time had stopped. Riley said, “Man, get your ass over here, man.”

Long Time loped up, self-consciously. “Yo, Riley, I don’t got no cash right now. I’ll catch you later this week maybe.”

“Two hundred and ten dollars, Long Time. Three weeks. What the fuck, brother? Look, don’t come to the bar tonight if you don’t have my money. Skip tonight. But you better scrape up some change soon, I’m done tired a this waiting.”

Long Time nodded, looking away. “I know, I know…”

“Let’s go,” Riley said to Harvey, and they peeled back onto the street.

Coming up to a house on the corner of Calle Al Mar, Harvey slowed down. “Okay, Mr. Picky, tell me what you think.”

A cocoa brown young woman in shorts that revealed the corners of ample cheeks was walking up the stairs. Harvey tooted the horn and she turned around. Harvey twiddled his fingers and the girl grinned and sauntered into the house. Harvey said, “God
damn.
”

“All right, I must admit, you’re beginning to show some taste. She was very nice.”

They rolled past the house, Harvey still peering up, a couple of cars cutting around and zipping by.

“No, that’s not her. My one lives across the street there, but her car’s not in the yard,” and he floored it. “But I think I want to get to know her neighbor. Oh, my gentle Jesus.”

They hit Cinderella Plaza, Riley explaining to him how they’d still manage the bar together if he left, and that was a major “if” since, first of all, Candice had to say yes. Harvey had his doubts, saying would Riley hand over the keys to the place he’d dreamt of owning for years, just like that? Could Riley really trust that he and Gert would run the bar to his satisfaction, especially Gert? Harvey said, “ ’Cause you know how you and Gertrude butt heads all the time.”

Riley said, “It could happen. We’ll keep talking, but listen,” tapping his watch, “we’re late, I’ve got to meet Sister Pat at Caribbean Hospital, too, so let’s move it.”

That’s all Harvey needed to hear, speed freak that he could be, banking a hard right onto Freetown Road and zooming past bicyclists and parked cars clogging the narrow street.

“All right, you don’t need to get crazy.”

Harvey slowed down a little. “The old Ford’s still got it.” He pushed the clutch and tried to downshift but it resisted, gears grinding.

“Yeah, but the driver’s got no skills.”

Harvey cursed, located the gears and picked up speed. “Natty Dread rides again!”

They were coming up on a crowded intersection, a little girl dashing across the road, cars waiting at stop signs on both corners. A bunch of people milling outside the donut shop. Harvey eased off the gas, downshifted.

A woman and a young boy were riding bikes, the woman on the outside. A few yards ahead on the other side, a man walking a dog was chatting with a woman. Kids outside the donut shop were horsing around, pushing each other, one of them running onto the street, scampering back, and Riley, about to take a sip, lowered his beer, to wait until Harvey navigated this cluster fuck, the streets seeming extra narrow and Harvey going twenty miles per hour too fast.

A car at a stop sign nosed out and Harvey steered left to avoid it, then after that everything happened in a second. A basketball from the technical college court flew over the fence, bounced high off the sidewalk and onto the street, startling the boy on the bike, who toppled, knocking the lady off balance. She fell, Harvey swerved left, heading straight for parked cars, someone shouted, people scurried out of the way, Harvey cranking the wheel right, mashing the brake and
thump,
the truck slammed into something. Riley flew into the windshield, beer bottle leaping into the air. He heard and felt his head hit the glass and sensed that he was blacking out, hearing voices and a woman screaming.…

*   *   *

When he came to—how long he’d been out he didn’t know—he heard shouting. Saw the spiderweb crack in the windshield, felt wet all over. He swiped his face, no blood. He looked down, shirt soaked with beer. Where was Harvey? CDs were scattered across the floor. He opened the door, stumbled out, steadied himself till his head stopped swimming.

“Oh shit,” a man said.

A woman shouted, “They killed Miss Solomon, oh Lawd, they killed Miss Solomon.”

Kids came running from the donut shop, shirtless guys from the basketball court, drivers leaving their cars.

The pickup was stopped at an angle in the middle of the street, blocking traffic. Riley noticed Harvey’s door was wide open. Holding on, he walked to the front of the truck and saw people crouching, a woman standing amid them, hand over mouth, crying. Beyond them, Harvey was hunched over, hands on knees, saying, “Oh but fuck, oh but fuck…”

Riley stumbled again, and the woman kept saying, “They killed Miss Solomon. They killed her!”

More people joined the crowd on the street. Bicyclists stopped and looked on. Car horns blared.

Standing at the front of the truck, Riley saw blood on the asphalt, near the left front wheel, but he couldn’t be sure and didn’t want to venture farther, wasn’t prepared for more evidence just yet. A man in a tie and a woman were crouched over administering to someone on the ground, and that damn annoying woman in the middle of the crowd kept squawking, “Poor Miss Solomon, she never had a chance. Never had a chance.”

Traffic was backed up in both directions, and a driver behind the truck caught Riley’s eyes and hollered, “Move that shit out the way, man.”

But Riley didn’t snap to until he spied the police Land Rover up the road inching forward, parting the crowd. He slipped around to his door, reached in and got the two beer bottles off the floor, swept the beer puddles out with a hand. As sneaky as he could, he walked holding the bottles close and low in front, dropped them in the high grass by the open drain, knowing somebody was probably seeing this but he couldn’t give a shit right now.

A policeman had gotten out of the Land Rover in the middle of the street and was walking toward the scene.

The weed. Oh, man. He dug the Ziploc out of his pocket and balled it tight in a fist. Looked around, acting real cool, saw no one’s eyes on him, and underhanded the thing into the grass. He stepped away, thinking about how to explain his beer-smelling shirt if the cops questioned him.

Because they were already talking to Harvey. The crowd was melting away, then the man crouching in the street rose holding the limp body of a blue-gray dog and carried it to the side.

Riley moved to the front of the truck and saw nothing on the street but the bloodstains, people leaving, cars squeezing by, and Harvey coming over saying, “Cops said I better pull to the edge of the road.”

Riley said, “But…” and moved out of Harvey’s way. He watched Harvey park streetside and traffic began flowing again. Harvey rejoined him, wearing a cheesy grin. “I was sweating bullets for a couple minutes, I can’t lie.”

Riley stuffed his hands in his pockets and watched the man in the tie lay the dog gently in a car trunk and shut it. His muscles slackened with relief. “Miss Solomon,” he said.

“Miss Solomon,” Harvey said, nodding.

They exchanged a glance and fell apart laughing, pure relief, Riley holding a hand to his head, Harvey saying, “All right, stop, stop, I have to talk to the police now,” and trying in vain to stop. He drew a deep breath and set his face serious, but as soon as Riley looked his way, he collapsed into snorting laughter. Riley said, “Oh, Lawd, they killed Miss Solomon, they killed her,” shaking his head at how scared he’d been a minute ago. Not that he didn’t like dogs, but he’d take this any day.

Harvey said, “Lemme go, hear? You’ll get me in more trouble,” and crossed the street to where the policeman stood talking to the dog owner.

Walking to the truck, Riley crunched something underfoot and looked down—the Bob Marley
Legend
CD cover. How the hell did that fall out? He picked it up. The CD was cracked down the middle. Farther along, he came across an Elvis Costello that was salvageable. He gathered the CDs from the truck floor and stacked them into the disarray on the seat that Harvey favored, the man genetically incapable of understanding the concept of organization.

Riley sat in the truck and watched the policeman talking to Harvey and the dog owner, a stoutish, middle-aged business type—dress slacks, long sleeves, dress shoes. Not like he and Harvey, T-shirt and jeans. The policeman left, and Harvey and the businessman kept talking, the man not seeming too upset. They exchanged pieces of paper, and Riley remembered the bag of Breeze.

The bottles were there in the grass where he’d dropped them. He scanned the area farther out, close to the drain. Nothing. He saw Harvey waiting for a break in the traffic so as to cross the street and saw the businessman get into his car, and that’s when he noticed the license plate, a government plate. So the man worked for the government.

Harvey sidled up. “What you looking for, last of your senses?”

“The kali, man. I coulda sworn I pitched it over there.”

“You threw the weed out? Is it because they killed Miss Solomon?”

Riley said, “Maaan,” and went back to searching.

“It was a pretty dog though. I feel bad.”

“Tell me about it.” Riley hopped over the drain onto the sidewalk for a different vantage, checking between tufts of grass, toeing scraps of paper and cans aside. “Healthy dog, too. You could see it was well taken care of. Which kinda has me wondering how come the owner didn’t look too pissed. Was he pissed?”

Harvey shrugged. “Couldn’t tell. Dude kept it all quiet and official. That’s not it?” pointing at the ground, to Riley’s left.

“That’s grass, Harvey.”

“Isn’t it grass you looking for?” and he slapped his thigh. “Man, I kill me.”

“And Miss Solomon, too.”

Harvey shook his head. “You’re a cold son of a bitch, Riley.” He went to the truck. “Forget that shit and let’s get … Wait, check this out.”

Riley turned to see what he was looking at. Two teenagers on a bike, one standing on the rear-wheel step nuts with hands on the other’s shoulders, were casting backward glances, riding away on the sidewalk.

Harvey said, “You think…?”

“I
know.
” Riley cupped his hands around his mouth. “Yo! Yo, come back here and pay for that.”

The boy on the back grinned and said something to the pilot, who pumped the pedals faster.

Riley waved them off. “Screw it,” and leaped over the drain onto the street and headed for the truck. They got in and Riley buckled up, prompting a questioning look from Harvey.

“With you behind the wheel, I should get a helmet too. Let’s hit it, we’re late.” He groaned. “Man, what an expensive day.”

Harvey started up and the truck roared onto the street.

Riley said, “See what I’m talking about? You just cut somebody off.”

“They were going too slow. Not my fault they can’t keep up with traffic.”

“What an expensive day.”

“You keep saying that.”

“Know how much that kali cost me?”

“Boys went down a street up here. Want to go after them?”

“Forget it, they’re long gone. Oh, by the way, the
Legend
is dead.”

“What?”

Riley lifted the crushed Bob Marley cover in one hand and a half of the CD in the other.

Harvey hit the steering wheel. “Aw man, how the hell…?”

Riley tossed the stuff on the seat and looked out the window, feeling the wind on his face, smelling the beer rising off his shirt. “Expensive day.”

“I
loved
that CD, man.”

Riley smiled at him. “Oh, Lawd, they killed the legend. They killed him!”

Harvey was honestly irritated, scrunching his brow, face reddening. “Man, that’s not even funny.”

Which made Riley laugh even more.

CHAPTER THREE

Sitting by Roger’s bed at Caribbean Hospital, Patricia continued with the story of Riley James.

“He used to live in an old clapboard house by the river,” she said, “a house with peeling paint, rusting zinc roof, not much different from other houses in that area. His mother was a terrible drunk. She was a secretary at St. Catherine Academy when I was there. So imagine this little brown boy sitting by the window overlooking the river, waiting for her to come home from the bar down the street. Waiting for her or his father, who rarely came home. The man was a hustler, you see, a bushman, he smuggled Mayan artifacts, contraband, anything of value that can be taken from the land. A hunter, a carouser, a womanizer. The rumor used to be that he had families all over the country. So, anyway, soon Riley was fifteen, and the streets and his alcoholic mother had done the job of raising him, and let me tell you, the results were mixed. At St. John’s—yes, he went to your school, Roger—he’s known as a bad egg. His expulsion was so entirely predictable, the only surprise was that he lasted till his senior year.”