Ahead of us a bus lurches to a halt and schoolchildren of various ages get off. I notice a pair of teenaged girls, one model tall, the other short, stout and brunette, walking along the footpath.
Ruiz steps out of the car.
“How’s it going, ladies?”
They both smile and say hello, but keep their distance.
“Can I ask you a question?”
“Sure,” says the taller girl. She has a blue school bag with neon stickers.
“The bus that comes through here—does it run on Sunday mornings?”
“Every hour.”
Ruiz takes out his notebook and jots something down. “I’m just doing a little detective work,” he explains. “Two girls went missing from this spot a few years ago. Do you remember the Bingham Girls?”
“Everybody knows about them,” says the brunette, taking a few steps and looking into the car. “Are you really detectives?”
“Working a case.”
“Piper Hadley was a really good runner,” says the tall girl.
“Did you go to the same school?”
“No.”
“What about Natasha McBain?”
“She was just, like, you know…”
“I don’t.”
Eye-rolling. “She had, like, this reputation of being a slag.”
“A wannabe-dot-com,” adds the brunette.
Ruiz glances at me, already tired of talking to the girls.
“My dad thinks they’re, like, dead,” says the tall one.
“Is like dead the same as being really dead?” asks Ruiz.
They look at him blankly.
Further along the road I notice a familiar-looking Vauxhall Cavalier slow and pull over. Tinted windows. Fat tires. Two-up. Toby Kroger and Craig Gould emerge. Gould is wearing stylized baggy pants, a leather jacket and an oversized T-shirt like he’s an LA gangbanger an ocean away from home. Kroger has on the same cotton hoodie and battered jeans that I saw him in two days ago.
“Afternoon, ladies,” he says, grabbing the crotch of his jeans. “Are these old pervs hassling you?”
The taller girl giggles. The brunette stands with one foot behind the other, pushing her breasts forward.
Opening the car door, I join Ruiz on the footpath.
“You know these clowns?” he asks.
“The local yoof.”
Kroger tugs at his hood, pulling it over the brim of his baseball cap.
“I like your hoodie,” says Ruiz. “Justin Bieber wears one just like that.”
The girls are giggling.
Kroger takes a moment to formulate a response, peeling back his lips to show splinters of gold in his teeth.
“Two girls were kidnapped around here, so when we see two old guys putting the hard word on local girls, we get concerned.” He winks at Gould and then at the brunette. “We’re like guardian angels.”
“Oh, that’s so sweet,” says Ruiz. “They’re angels. I don’t see any wings. You know what they say about angels with small wings?”
Kroger’s eyes seem to click open and his feet are set before he swings. His fist bounces off the side of Ruiz’s head. That was his one half-chance. Before he can set himself again, he’s doubled over with a fist deep in his stomach and no air in his lungs.
With the minimum of fuss, Ruiz twists Kroger’s arm behind his back. A shirt button pops loose and rolls into the gutter where it spins like a bottle top.
I don’t see Gould’s arm move. He punches me hard in the side of the face and I fall against the car, bouncing onto my backside. My jaw is simultaneously numb and on fire.
Ruiz pulls me up. He’s still holding Kroger and nearby Gould has curled up on the pavement, shielding his head.
“A hundred thousand sperm and you guys were the fittest. It makes you start to question Darwin’s theories, doesn’t it? Survival of the fittest. Natural selection.” Then he addresses the girls. “Maybe you should run along now. Careful how you go.”
They leave quickly, short skirts swinging against their thighs.
“This is assault,” whines Kroger.
“I didn’t throw the first punch.”
Gould is still lying on the ground, moaning slightly, his teeth like a row of dirty pebbles.
Ruiz speaks next. “We can play this one of two ways, lads. We can call the police, take statements, lay charges, meet up again in court… or you can run off home.”
Kroger and Gould look at each other. Ruiz makes a buzzer sound. “Time’s up.”
He walks away and opens the car door.
“Try not to let your minds wander, lads. They’re too small to be out on their own.”
If a broken mirror can bring
seven years of bad luck, what’s the penance for breaking someone’s body? On the scale of sins, how do you measure something like that? How many Hail Marys and Our Fathers?