‘Can you turn the volume down?’
‘Sure.’ She seemed to enjoy the shows just as much without the sound. ‘There are a lot of adverts, aren’t there? I mean, they even put them between the end of the programme and the closing credits.’
I looked at her and tried out a sympathetic smile, but she was back watching TV again. I knew what she needed; she needed a period of calm, reflective mourning. The problem was, we couldn’t afford that luxury. We had to keep moving.
I was making a phone call. Somewhere in Texas, I got an answering machine. I decided to leave a message.
‘Spike, it’s Mike West. I’m here on a brief trip. This is just to warn you I have another shopping list. I’ll be there in a couple of days, all being well.’ I didn’t leave a contact number.
‘Spike?’ Bel said.
‘That’s his name.’
She went back to her TV stupor. A little later she fell asleep, lying on the bed, her head propped up on the pillows. The remote was still in her hand.
I felt a little better, though my nose was stuffy. I went out and walked around. My brain told me it was the middle of the night, but in Boston it was mid-evening. I found a bar with the usual shamrocks on the wall and draught Guinness. Everyone was watching a baseball game on the large-screen TV. There was a newspaper folded on the bar, so I read that and sipped my drink. Drive-by shootings had gone out of fashion; either that or become so prolific they weren’t news any more. News so often was fashion. Car-jackings were still news, but it had to be a particularly nice model of car to make a story.
Gun stories were everywhere. People were trying to ban them, and the National Rifle Association was giving back as good as it got. Only now even the President was pro-legislation to curb gun ownership, and a few states had made it an offence for minors to carry handguns. I had to read that sentence twice. In some cities, it turned out, one in five kids took a gun to school with them, along with their books and lunch-box. I closed the paper and finished my drink.
I knew what Spike would say: Welcome to gun heaven. The barman was asking me if I wanted another, and I did want another. He took a fresh glass from the chiller and poured lager into it, only here it was called beer, and dark beer — proper beer — existed only sparsely, usually in trendy bars near colleges. I couldn’t remember how easy it was to buy beer in Boston. I didn’t know whether off-licences existed and were licensed to sell at night. Legislation differed from state to state, along with rates of tax and just about everything else. There were no off-licences, for example, they were called package stores and were government run. At least, that seemed right when I thought it. But my brain was shutting down transmissions for the night. I was trying to think about anything but Bel. In seeing her grief, I was face to face with a victim. I’d killed so many people... I’d always been able to think of them without humanising them. But they were drifting around me now like ghosts.
I drank my drink and left. There was a beer advert pinned to the door of the bar as I opened it. It read, THIS IS AS GOOD AS IT GETS.
I thought about that on the way back to the hotel.
Next morning we went to the Amtrak Station and took a train to New York. Bel got her window seat and became a child again. She was actually well prepared for some aspects of ‘the American experience’, since back in the UK she watched so much American TV. She knew what sidewalk and jaywalking meant. She knew a taxi was a ‘cab’, and that chips were ‘fries’ while crisps were ‛chips’. She even knew what Amtrak was, and squeezed my arm as, nearing the end of the trip, she started to catch glimpses of the Manhattan skyline behind the dowdier skyline of the endless suburbs. Upstate New York had just been countryside, and she could see countryside anywhere. She couldn’t always see Manhattan.
Our hotel in Boston was part of a chain, and I’d already reserved a room at their Manhattan sister. We queued for a bone-shaker yellow cab and tried not to let it damage our internal organs. The hotel was on Seventh and 42nd Street. Outside, spare-change hustlers were being told where to get off by merchants trying to sell cheap trinkets, scarves and umbrellas. The sun was hazy overhead. More men shuffled around or stood in doorways, oblivious to the traffic and pedestrians speeding past. I practically had to push Bel through the hotel door.
The reception area was like a war zone. A coach party had just arrived and were checking in, while another consignment of tourists attempted to check out. The two groups had converged, one telling the other useful tips and places of interest. We took our luggage through to the restaurant.
‘Two coffees, please,’ I told the waitress.
‘You want coffee?’
‘Please.’
‘Anything with that?’
‘Just milk for me,’ said Bel. The waitress looked at her.
‘Nothing to eat, thanks,’ I told her. She moved off.
‘Remember,’ I said to Bel, ‘we’re only here the one night, so don’t start going tourist on me. If you want to see around, fine, I’ll do my bit of business and we can go sightseeing together. What do you fancy: museums, galleries, shopping, a show, the World Trade Center?’
‘I want to take a horse and carriage around Central Park.’
So we took a ride around Central Park.
But first, there was my business. My safe deposit box was held in discreet but well-protected premises on Park Avenue South, just north of Union Square. I telephoned beforehand and told them I’d be coming. Bel insisted that we walk it, either that or take the subway. We did both, walking a few blocks and then catching a train.
At Liddle Trusts & Investments, we had to press a door buzzer, which brought a security guard to the door. I told him who I was and we were ushered inside, where my passport was checked, my identity confirmed, and we were led into a chamber not unlike the one in Knightsbridge. Bel had to wait here, while the assistant and I went to the vault. It took two keys, his and mine, to open my safe. He pulled out the drawer and handed it to me. I carried it back through to the chamber and placed it on the table.
‘What’s inside?’ Bel asked.
The drawer had a hinged top flap, which I lifted. I pulled out a large wad of dollar bills, fifties and twenties. Bel took the money and whistled softly. I next lifted out a folded money-belt.
‘Here,’ I said, ‘start putting the money into this.’
‘Yes, sir. What else have you got?’
‘Just these.’
The box was empty, and I held in my hand a bunch of fake American documents. There was a passport, social security card, medical card, various state gun and driving licences, and a few other items of ID. Bel looked at them.
‘Michael West,’ she said.
‘From now on, that’s who I am, but don’t worry about it, you won’t have any trouble.’ I smiled. ‘My friends still call me Michael.’
She packed some cash into the belt. ‘No guns or anything? I was expecting at the very least a pistol.’
‘Later,’ I said.
‘How much later?’
I looked at her. ‘Not much.’
‘Good.’
I sat down beside her. I could see that Manhattan’s charms had failed to take her mind off the fact of Max’s murder. I took her hands in mine.
‘Bel, why don’t you stay here?’
‘You think I’d be safer?’
‘You could do some sightseeing, have a bit of a break. You’ve been through a lot.’
Her face reddened. ‘How dare you say that! Somebody killed my father, and I want to look them in the face. Don’t think you can leave me behind, Michael, because you can’t. And if you try it, I’ll scream your name from the chimney-pots, so help me.’