‘Did you tidy up, Miss Priss?’ Cas snaps.
‘I’m naturally cleanliness-inclined. And get your boobs off my head. Can’t you put those things away?’ She shoulders her, half-heartedly.
‘Can’t help it. They got a mind of their own.’ Click. Click. Click. Next. Next. Next.
‘They should have a national flag and a constitution,’ Layla grumbles. ‘I really have to do my homework.’
‘What homework?’
‘History assignment. Belgian colonialism in the Congo.’
‘You picked that,’ Cas accuses. ‘No way Mr. Jeffries assigned that.’
‘I want to know about my history.’
‘I’m more worried about my present. And you’re only half African-American. Congo, my ass.’
‘Da-mn,’ Cas pauses. A man with architectural cheekbones is putting on makeup, thick glitter eye-shadow and fake lashes that curl up almost to his eyebrows.
‘Hey sweeties,’ he says, a little wistful. ‘I like the get-up. Want to keep me company while I get ready?’
‘Sorry, Ru Paul. We’re on the prowl,’ Cas says. Next.
‘She seemed cool.’
‘Yeah, okay. We’ll see if we can come back later. God knows you need makeover tips.’
And then Cas hits what she’s been looking for. Not so hard to find. Layla’s surprised it’s taken them this long. He’s been clicking through too, lying in bed with his shirt off. His face is wide open. Naked. Like the pale sausage hanging out of his jeans, only semi-erect. But he perks right up when he sees them.
‘Well hello there, soldier,’ Cas says in her best Lana del Rey purr.
‘Hi,’ he manages. They’ve watched quite a bit of porn. Layla has seen a lot of penises. But they’re still endlessly fascinating in their variety. Like messy rooms.
‘What’s with the masks?’ he says.
‘All the better to show you our tits,’ Cas says in that sultry put-on voice, and Layla has to stop herself from laughing out loud. ‘What’s your name, baby?’
‘Why?’ His hand is jerking up and down. His teeth are bared in a smile-grimace.
‘So I can scream it later when I’m thinking about you.’
‘Gavin,’ he says. ‘Now.’
‘Do it now?’ Cas cocks her head at Layla, exaggerating the gesture so the meaning still comes through, even with the mask, as if she can’t quite believe what she’s hearing. ‘You mean right now?’
‘Your tits,’ he gasps, his hand a blur. His cheap camera doesn’t have enough resolution to cope. ‘Show me …’
‘You first.’ Cas leans right into the camera, shrugging her shoulders together to amplify her cleavage.
‘What?’
‘Show me your tits.’
He slows down, uncertain. ‘You want me to …’
‘Show me your tits, baby.’ She leans in with a sexy little growl. ‘Show me that man nip. That makes me really hot. I bet you got tight little ones, like studs, am I right?’
‘What?’ he repeats. His hand slows.
‘Studs. Little shiny metal things on shoes and jackets?’ Layla adds helpfully. ‘Kind-of military fashion thing?’
Cas bumps her with her shoulder, telling her to cut it out, stick to the script. But Layla’s bored of the script. The petty humiliations Cas insists on.
‘Uh. What?’ Some of the blood flow seems to be rerouting back to his brain along with the realization that they’re not going to deliver.
‘You keep saying that,’ Cas mocks. ‘What. What. What. Am I not enun-ci-a-ting clearly enough for you? Don’t sweat it, big guy. Well, can’t really call you that, can I? Smaller-than-average guy. But hey, it’s not your fault you have a retarded-looking cock.’
‘Fuck you. Fuck you bitches.’ He tucks himself back into his pants, reaching for his mouse with the other hand to click away. But not before Cas manages to get in the last word.
‘Not with that thing, thanks. But don’t worry, Gavin, we’ve been recording this. You’re going viral tomorrow.’ It’s a blatant lie, but he doesn’t know that. He goggles like an asphyxiating fish. ‘No, wait—’
Cas shuts the window down and flops onto Layla’s bed, barely missing NyanCat, who opens one eye warily and then wraps her tail over her nose. ‘Oh my God, that was classic. Clas-sic. Right?’
‘Yeah, well,’ Layla shrugs. Then perks up with indignation: ‘And you can’t say “retarded”, Cas.’
‘C’mon, he had it coming, and please, bitch, it’s just a word.’ She rubs the cat on the top of her head with her knuckle. ‘Don’t you think so, Nyan, baby?’ She lifts the cat up and nuzzles her face. NyanCat treads the air, panicky, and then goes limp and submits, purring. Typical. Not even felines are immune to Cas’s sheer force of personality. ‘I know what will cheer you up,’ she says.
‘Watching a movie?’
‘Doing another one!’
‘Hello, homework?’
‘Doesn’t this count as sociology? Gender studies or something?’
‘Yeah, sure, I’m going to include it in my college application essay.’
‘You probably could, you know, if you put the right spin on it.’
‘I’m not some bag of dicks on SpinChat, Cas. You can’t play me.’
‘Hey, girls.’ Her mom creaks open the door.
‘Mom!’ Layla rips off the mask, which she knows only makes her look guilty. ‘You’re supposed to knock!’
‘So you can click away from the porn? LOL.’
Layla winces with genuine pain. ‘Oh God, Mom! No-one actually says that. What do you want?’
‘Hey, Ms. Versado.’ Her friend gives a cheery wave, still wearing her mask. She perks up around Layla’s mom like boys do around Cas’s chest. ‘We were rehearsing our lines.’
‘With masks?’
‘It helps us get into character. It’s a theater exercise,’ Cas says glibly.
‘I was going to offer you cocoa.’
‘Yeah, right, Mom. What do you really want?’
‘I need some help with my computer. And then I can bring you cocoa. If you’re actually doing your homework and not messing around on the Internet.’
‘What’s wrong this time?’
‘It’s not connecting. And the machines at work don’t.’
‘Don’t what? Finish the sentence, Mom.’
‘Work. They don’t work. You are in a mood tonight. Is it boy trouble? Because, you know, YOLO.’
‘Mom! God. Okay, I’m coming. Just please don’t speak any more.’ She shoves away from the desk. ‘No prank posting from my accounts, okay?’
‘Would I do that?’ Cas bats her eyelids. ‘Bye, Ms. Versado!’
Layla flings herself down at her mom’s laptop in the living room. ‘What’s wrong with it?’
‘I’m looking for pictures of dead bodies and all I’m getting is cartoons.’
‘Okay, there’s your problem. You had safe search on. Just type in your search again. What is it?’
‘Dead bodies plus animals.’
‘I am not typing that. What are you looking for specifically?’
Her mother sighs. ‘Unusual corpses that might have been reported in the last few years. Animal-human hybrids. Strange taxidermy projects in Michigan or surrounds.’
‘Is this the kid?’ Layla glances at the Nikon camera her mom uses to take her own crime-scene photos, the card reader plugged into the USB port.
‘It’s a case, Lay. Don’t ask questions.’
‘Don’t you have a police database for this?’
‘Sure,’ she says, dripping sarcasm. ‘As useful as always. I’ve put in a request to the Michigan Intelligence Center.’
‘And your fancy new computers?’ The new Public Safety Headquarters looks like it belongs in TechTown, all gray and blue concrete and glass, with a parking lot big enough to accommodate news vans. Inside there’s a proper reception area with comfy couches and glass cases of memorabilia and trophies, meeting rooms with AV facilities, a gym with TVs above the tread
mills, a real coffee machine – and the detectives’ desks in depressingly identical gray cubicles.
Layla feels almost nostalgic for the old precinct on Beaubien, where she’d hung out, sometimes doing her homework in the corner of her mom’s office with its wood paneling and dappled glass and big black filing cases and a computer that was only good for holding down paperwork. And, yeah, okay, revolting stained floors and the awful interrogation room the size of a broom closet, where people wrote messages on the walls like ‘Emmie, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean for this to happen, God is love, please God help me.’
She remembers how shocked she was, at thirteen, seeing a photo tacked up of a dead naked woman laid out like a starfish, the camera aiming right between her legs. Someone had written ‘Killer: Spongebob Squarepants?’ in ballpoint across the top of it. Her mom had pulled the picture off the noticeboard, the red thumbtacks popping out and rolling across the floor. ‘Sorry, beanie. Ignore it. Dumb cop humor.’
She knows all about that. She comes from a long, proud line on her dad’s side. Her great-grandpappy was a firefighter, his son was a sergeant, and then her dad turned traitor and went private security, even though it’s safer, better paid, with benefits. She knows she’s supposed to continue the family tradition because po-lice is in her blood, but as far as she’s concerned, it’s just testosterone. Like the mind-control parasites you get from cats. Toxoplasmosis. If life is all determined by chemical signals, hers are telling her to move on, little girl, right on out of Motor City. Anywhere but here. Anything but po-lice.
‘Our fancy network got a fancy virus,’ Gabi says. ‘Someone was downloading porn and it had a spartan or something.’
‘Trojan,’ Layla corrects automatically.
‘All Greek to me.’
‘Mom!’ Layla cringes.
‘The IT guys swear we’ll be back up tomorrow, but in the meantime …’
‘Can’t you just fire all the useless cops?’
‘There would be nobody left. Come on, beanie, you’re always telling me you can find anything on the Internet.’
‘It’s like the universe that way. Constantly expanding,’ Layla says. ‘But it’s mainly creeps and freaks, Mom, I’m warning you.’
‘I think my killer would exactly fit those criteria.’
She pulls up the search results. ‘Well, here we go. Animal-human hybrid corpses. It’s all yours.’
‘Great.’ Her mother puts on her glasses and squints at the screen. Island of Dr Moreau, the East River Monster, 25 Creepiest Real Science Experiments, that horrible mouse with the ear growing out of it, a two-headed squirrel in a dress and twirling a parasol, among 307,000 other results that get even weirder.
‘What is—?’ Gabi cocks her head. ‘Oh. Right. Is that supposed to be his tail or a tentacle?’
‘I’ll exclude furries and hentai in your search terms. Unless you think that’s going to be helpful?’
‘No. No I don’t think so.’
‘You’re going down a nasty rabid hole, Mom. Good luck.’
Layla nudges open her bedroom door with her hip, carrying black coffee for both of them, because cocoa is for little kids, to find her friend looking suspiciously thoughtful, scrolling through a forum with some very dubious gifs.
‘Hey, you’ll never believe what my mom just said – oh sweet baby Jesus, you had so better not be posting pictures of me to some bugfuckcrazy porn site.’
‘Depends,’ Cas grins. ‘Got any of you when you were ten?’
‘What the hell are you doing?’
‘Catfishing.’
‘We’re not doing that.’
‘But little SusieLee’s already got two messages.’
‘You need another hobby. Ideally one that involves making very finicky, time-consuming things to sell on Etsy.’
‘Like homemade tampons with girl power slogans?’
‘You are disgusting.’
‘You like it.’
‘Yeah,’ Layla admits. ‘Bitch.’
‘Slut.’
‘Love ya.’
‘I know.’
I dreamed I was a man.
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 11
Scar Tissue
The old bullet wound in the kid’s armpit gives Gabi something she can work with. Six hundred and forty-seven non-fatal shootings in Detroit last year. But the city’s not so soul-decayed that a six-year-old kid catching a stray bullet from a gang war doesn’t make the news. Not yet, anyway. It helps that the ambulance broke down en route and the officers on the scene had to drive the kid to the hospital in a patrol car. Five years ago, which meant it took some digging, but there is a trail of paperwork that leads right back to him.
His name is Daveyton Lafonte. Eleven years old. He has been missing since Friday afternoon. The parents filed a missing persons report with the 10th Precinct, who were not answering their phones when Gabi had Sparkles calling round to every police station yesterday. Blame it on bureaucratic failures, lack of resources, lack of funding, lack of giving a shit.
They drive up to the house in Ewald Circle with the bad tidings. It’s her and Bob Boyd, who is surprisingly good with grief (he credits the suit), and Sparkles, who is getting a crash course in terrible conversations you never want to have, but will, over and over again.
Gabi has found that small talk works like stepping stones to bridge the shock of the gap between ‘I’m sorry to inform you that your son has been killed. May we come in?’ and the brutality of ‘I need to ask you some questions’.
The hows that come in between. Skirting round the issue. Using technical terms. ‘Lateral bisection.’ ‘Possible hunting accident.’ ‘There was a dead animal on the scene.’ Testing them to see what they know, how they react, because the parents are suspects too. The paralysis of disbelief that she has to penetrate. The official script only gets you so far.
‘Do you have a recent picture of him?’ Gabi asks the parents as gently as she can. On the piano, next to a goofy candid shot of the boy peering through the grill of an oversized hockey helmet, and a school portrait, three-quarter profile, looking hopefully to a future he’ll never see, there’s a photograph of Daveyton with the disgraced former mayor, who is now doing jail time.
She picks it up. The kid looks worried by the attention, or maybe by Kwame Kilpatrick’s expression, brow furrowed, mouth open, speechifying. Maybe his kid instincts told him the mayor was a rotten, corrupt thug.
‘We were all real proud at the time,’ Mrs. Lafonte says, taking the frame out of Gabi’s hands and putting it back on the piano. She readjusts it, angling it just so. ‘He shook us all by the hand. Didn’t mean so much to Davey, though. He wanted to meet Steve Yzerman. Always loved the Red Wings. Kwame promised he’d set it up. He wanted to play hockey, but all that equipment is expensive.’
‘Mayor promised our boy wouldn’t get hurt again,’ Mr. Lafonte says. He is sitting bolt upright on a black leather recliner that’s not designed for it.
Mrs. Lafonte makes a strangled bird sound in her chest. She doesn’t seem aware of it, as if her body is something detached from her. Marcus looks down at his shoes, stricken. There’s a dreadful pause.
‘Can I get you some coffee?’ Daveyton’s mother asks, clutching at social ritual.
‘No, thank you.’ Jesus, she hates this part of the job. ‘Do you play?’ She indicates the piano.
‘Used to,’ Mrs. Lafonte says, grateful for the question. ‘I performed with the Detroit Symphony Orchestra once. But that was before the arthritis. Always hoped Davey would pick it up. But he was more interested in those little fighting critters. What are they called?’
‘Pokémon?’ Gabi suggests. ‘My daughter liked those.’ Layla was three or four, so they only caught the tail-end of it, but she remembers hustling her past the toy aisle. There were so many things they tried to control, her and William. It was easier when Layla was little. When they could simply change the channel on Barney. They had long debates about whether to let her play with Barbie or toy guns, a
nd why there wasn’t a police officer Barbie with a toy gun. But then Layla started developing her own tastes and opinions, and the whole world came rushing in at her, and there was nothing they could do to shield her from it.
‘Battle Beasts,’ her husband says, dully.
‘Battle Beasts! That’s it. You get the toys, but you’re supposed to have a fancy phone that they can interact with, to fight other kids. Are you sure you don’t want something to drink?’
‘This is too much,’ Mr. Lafonte says. ‘I can’t—’
‘The first few days are critical. Why don’t you point Officer Jones to the kitchen, and he can make us all some coffee. And maybe you could show us Daveyton’s room?’ They’re looking for signs of an unhappy home, the markers of violence, hidden doors, secret rooms, locked basements, the smell of blood or bleach.
‘No, no, I’ll make the coffee. I think I should keep busy, don’t you?’ Mrs. Lafonte flashes them a brittle smile. ‘You get on without me. I’ll be right back.’ But she drifts up the stairs leading up to the second floor. Marcus moves as if to go after her, to steer her toward the sunlight coming in the kitchen windows down the hall, but Gabi shakes her head. Leave her be.
‘Could we see his room?’ Gabi tries again.
‘Are you sure it’s our boy?’ Mr. Lafonte says, daring her to be wrong about this thing they have brought into the house.
‘You’ll need to identify him. I think maybe it should be you, Mr. Lafonte. No need to put your wife through that.’ She looks him in the eyes. ‘But yes, we’re sure.’
He lets go of hope like a helium balloon. It seems to have been the only thing holding him up. His shoulders hunch over and he tilts forward, his whole body crumpling. ‘We moved up here to get away from all that,’ he says. ‘After the shooting. It’s a good neighborhood. This isn’t supposed to happen in good neighborhoods.’
‘Bad things happen everywhere, Mr. Lafonte. Forgive me, but I have a list of routine questions I need to go through with you. You won’t like some of them.’
‘My son is dead, Detective—’
‘Versado,’ she fills in for him.
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