“No hospitals!” Vivian called out, having been listening in on the conversation.
“Can she and I take my car, and follow you to the station?” Lancelot asked. “I just bought my Grand Prix, and I’d sure like to have it in new condition for at least another week or so.”
“Sure,” Williams’ partner, who had Rodriguez on his name tag, agreed.
“Thanks,” Lancelot said, and rejoined Vivian near the curb. “You could be hurt internally. Why not stay overnight at the hospital?”
“I’m fine,” Vivian insisted with her new nasal accent. “Even my nose feels okay, considering. That guy on the sidewalk’s dead?”
Lancelot nodded.
“What’s the cops’ plan…arrest you?” Vivian asked in disgust.
“Hey, none of that,” Lancelot cautioned, looking around to see if any police were within earshot, but they were all busy loading the ambulatory suspects, and interviewing the people in the crowd. “Show some respect. A man died. They have to ask us some questions. We’re not being held separately, so the police probably believe our version.”
“They’d have to be retarded not to. Okay…okay,” Vivian replied with a chuckle occasioned by her seeing Lancelot’s grim look at her remark concerning the police intelligence quotient. “You were really something. I bet you killed that guy on purpose.”
Lancelot smiled. “You did pretty well yourself. I’m glad only one of them had a gun, or there would have been more than just one dead gang-banger. Sorry I didn’t get here sooner.”
Chapter Six: Uneven Justice
Sirens heralded the arrival of an ambulance. The driver pulled up very near where they stood. Forty-five minutes later, Lancelot and Vivian were following the police to the precinct station. It was an uncomfortable silence. Lancelot kept glancing over at Vivian. Her resemblance to the Lady Vivian made his heart and mind race. Finally, the girl held up her hands in a questioning gesture of exasperation.
“What!”
“Sorry,” Lancelot grinned. “You just look so much like a woman I once knew, it’s rather disconcerting. Your eyes are a mirror image of hers. Do you remember anything about why you needed to find me?”
“I was hoping you could tell me,” Vivian replied, as she leaned back with the icepack the EMT had given her. “You’re too young to have known my mom.”
“Your father’s last name was Camlann?”
“No, my mom changed it to Camlann to hide from my dad. He started visiting needle city every night after she had me.”
“Needle city?”
“You know…shooting up,” Vivian explained, giving Lancelot a look similar to one she might have shot at him had he just flown in from Mars. “We moved out here to California, and stayed with Mom’s aunt. My aunt passed away when I was almost two years old, and Mom started dancing at the clubs to make ends meet. Pretty soon, she was on the pipe, and child services took me away from her when the neighbors found me wondering around on the street. It was foster care after that.”
“Do you know how your mom picked out Camlann?”
“She saw it in a movie or something, and liked the sound of it,” Vivian said with a shrug. “What I’d like to know is where she came up with the name Vivian. I guess it’s better than Moonbeam, or Zappa.”
“So you really don’t have any memory of your time with her or your Dad?”
“Not really,” Vivian admitted. “We heard from a friend back where we used to live that my Dad kicked it at about the same time Aunt Mary died. I did hunt down my mom after I started dreaming of a big dork named James Lancelot Benwick.”
“Big dork?”
“Big scary guy?” Vivian offered.
“Whatever,” Lancelot waved her off dismissively. “I am entranced that you would dream of me.”
“Pretty weird, huh?”
“Maybe not.”
“Do you know something I don’t?” Vivian asked, turning toward Lancelot.
“Yeah, I probably do,” Lancelot answered seriously. “It’s a long story – one I’m not sure you’re ready to hear yet.”
“Try me,” Vivian remarked, sitting up in her seat again as she battled an uneasy feeling.
“I can’t,” Lancelot answered seriously. “We have to have a point of reference, and we don’t. Believe me, Vivian, I’d love to solve the mystery for you, but any explanation I give you now would make even less sense than the dreams. Give me a little time to think about this, and then, I promise you, we’ll figure out the details together.”
“Where will I stay? I don’t have the money to-”
“Oh come on,” Lancelot cut her off with a laugh. “You can stay with me while we figure out what I have to do with your life. Besides, the cops won’t let you leave until this incident with your friends at the terminal gets resolved. I have plenty of room at my house.”
“How old are you?” Vivian asked suddenly. “I learned you were in the Marine Corps a long time, but you look as if you’re not much older than I am, except for the scars.”
“I’m thirty-four,” Lancelot answered. “I joined the Corps when I was seventeen.”
“Bullshit!” Vivian retorted. “Ain’t no way you’re thirty-four. What’s your real age?”
“Do the math. You know how long I’ve been a Marine. Did you think I joined when I was five?” Lancelot reminded her carefully, unsure how far this role reversal should go.
Vivian started to reply, and then shut up. She looked out her window instead. After a few minutes of silence, she spoke quietly, reaching over to run her hand over Lancelot’s shoulder.
“I’m sorry. I think all this weirdness is finally getting to me. I’ll stay with you if you don’t mind putting up with me.”
“You’ve had a rough time of it so far. We have some space in which to hash this out.”
“Will your neighbors think you’re some kind of pervert with me showing up at your house?” Vivian asked.
“You look twenty-one. The age of consent is eighteen, so I don’t see a problem,” Lancelot replied. “Besides, I just bought the house last year before I went overseas, and I’ve only been living there the last week since my discharge. For reasons I’d rather not go into, right now, we’ll just allow the neighbors to think what they want.”
Lancelot parked the Pontiac in the first space he saw near the precinct.
“This is going to be a bitch,” Vivian sighed.
“Yeah, but if they hadn’t believed us, or hadn’t had corroborating witnesses, we’d have been separated and brought over here in handcuffs,” Lancelot pointed out. “They’ll separate us inside. Stick to the truth about everything. The police will think you’re nuts, but they won’t be able to trip you up on anything.”
“Okay,” Vivian agreed, opening her door. “See you on the other side, big boy.”
“I take it you’ve dealt with the police before?”
“Oh, yeah,” Vivian muttered as Lancelot caught up with her.
* * *
Three hours later, as Lancelot sat in an interrogation room, the door opened. The police detective, a man named Robinson, who had questioned him earlier, walked in with a folder. Twice as bulky, and a few inches shorter than Lancelot, the ebony-skinned Robinson sat down and smiled at the man sitting across the table.
“Well, the Marines verified your background. With all the shit you’ve seen, you look like a kid,” Robinson said. “You own a nice house up in Piedmont, which you paid cash for.”
“I didn’t pay cash, sir,” Lancelot broke in quickly. “My father left me a good deal of money, and everything I earned in the Marine Corps went into the fund. I always planned on living in this area. I was saving for it. I got a good deal on the house because of the dive in real estate prices last year.”
“I didn’t mean it to sound as if I were accusing you of selling crack to get it,” Robinson stated, nodding his head in understanding. “I wish I’d saved up, the same as you, when I left the Marines after the first Gulf War. I noticed you joined up for
that one.”
“It was my reason. Plus, the Marines run in my family,” Lancelot responded.
“So what’s your secret, Benwick?” Robinson asked with a grin. “I’m only a couple years older than you, and I look twenty older.”
“I stayed in and you got out,” Lancelot shrugged, grinning back.
“What do you plan for the young girl?”
“Let her have a room at my place until we find out if something in my family’s past is tied into Vivian’s,” Lancelot answered truthfully. “Are you having any luck putting together what happened at the terminal?”
“Some, but nothing from the gang-bangers,” Robinson replied. “You killed one of them, and you’re white. So that means they’ll want to frame it as some innocent interaction you overreacted to.”
“They?”
“Our press around here,” Robinson continued. “It helps that we have pictures of Ms. Camlann’s injuries. We also have eyewitness reports. Throw in you being a decorated war hero, and we can probably kick you loose today.”
“Don’t forget the little detail about the guy I killed – the one who reached for a gun,” Lancelot added.
“I know, I know.” Robinson held up his hands in placatory fashion. “I’m trying to educate you on how the press will try and spin this. Instead of a parade and the key to the city, the press will put you into a white sheet and hood because the gang-bangers were black.”
“I’m listening,” Lancelot said, getting a bad feeling as to where this conversation was heading. “Please don’t tell me that with all the witnesses and pictures you want to make a deal.”
“I’m not going to lie to you,” Robinson retorted with some frustration. “If it were up to me, I’d send them all up to stoney lonesome for five to ten. It would save dozens of lives and tens of thousands in property damages if I could pull it off. The DA doesn’t want to prosecute the surviving gang members. Ms. Camlann said she’d go along with whatever you decided.”
“It has occurred to you and the DA that those assholes will be looking for us, hasn’t it?” Lancelot stated, his fists clenching in front of him.
“Yeah, it has,” Robinson spoke barely above a whisper, pushing the folder he had carried into the room over to Lancelot. “These are the guys you tangled with today. It’s the best I can do. If the DA finds out I gave this to you, he’ll probably send me to prison.”
“Remember the days when police were allowed to be police?” Lancelot remarked scathingly as he took the folder.
“Neither of us has been around that long,” Robinson noted, holding out his hand. “Do we have a deal? If we don’t, let me know now.”
Lancelot gripped Robinson’s hand in his, and then stood up. “We have a deal. Straight up, brother: you aren’t filming this session, hoping I’ll go on a rampage, and then you’ll collect me later if I survive, are you?”
“Nope. I’m giving you options.”
“Vivian and I could be excellent witnesses on the stand if your DA would get some balls,” Lancelot said, as Robinson stood up and gestured to the door. “Doing it this way could get a lot of people killed.”
“We’re warning those shitheads that if anything happens to either you or Ms. Camlann, they will be the first ones picked up.”
“What the hell makes you think they’ll come in person?” Lancelot asked. “What if Vivian and I go to the press, and demand that these guys get prosecuted? Would your DA do the job then?”
“You can try it, but you and Ms. Camlann will quickly become the most famous people in California,” Robinson said, handing Lancelot his card. “Give me a heads-up if you decide to go that route. Call me if you need me for anything, and I’ll do what I can.”
“I’ve never been involved in anything like this before,” Lancelot said truthfully. “I’ll play it as you ask, but for everyone involved, I hope these guys go home and forget this ever happened. This is why there’s so much rage around. People see the cops not doing the job, and the gangbangers running the damn city.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, Benwick,” Robinson replied. “If you think you’re frustrated, it’s ten times as bad on this side of the badge. Ever think about being a cop?”
“I don’t think I have the right mental outlook,” Lancelot replied. “At least in the Marines, we get to shoot back. They put you guys in prison if you shoot back.”
“I remember them trying to put Marines in prison for shooting back, too,” Robinson retorted, chuckling. “Hell, now that I think about it, we probably have more open rules of engagement than you guys.”
“Crap,” Lancelot said, shaking his head in disgust, “you’re right. We did have a few incidents over there where the press found us guilty on the evidence provided by the enemy. You guys have a tough job, but it’ll eat you alive, if the only thing you get to do constantly is bring the body bags to the scene.”
“Just make sure I don’t have to bag you and Ms. Camlann,” Robinson said, moving aside for Lancelot to exit. “I’ll see you out.”
* * *
“Do you think he went for it?”
Robinson looked out at Lancelot and Vivian, who were walking toward their car after being escorted out, and then at his partner. “Maybe, but I wouldn’t count on it. He tried threatening to tell the press, but backed off when I told him how much publicity he and the girl would get. You read the guy’s record. It didn’t sound as if he thought I was helping him out. It’s pretty tough selling the politically correct version of this.”
Robinson’s partner, a thin-featured, pasty-complexioned man of forty with Nielson on his nametag, shrugged and motioned Robinson away from the doorway.
“We’re following the DA’s lead, Ed. He wants nothing to do with anything controversial right now: no press, no complaints, and no perceived racial rifts.”
“Deke, if Benwick gets pushed, he ain’t going to take a poll, or call us for permission to defend himself. That guy’s dangerous. Two gang-bangers sat down and waited for us rather than take him on. He killed one of them with a single kick to the face. Did he look upset to you?”
“We’re screwed, if anyone finds out you gave him that folder.”
“Listen, pal,” Robinson retorted angrily, “we’re losing control out there. If we can’t prosecute gang-bangers for attacking teen-aged girls in broad daylight at a bus terminal, we’re screwed anyway. Not giving him the file after the DA’s wait-and-see bullshit would have been the same thing as siding with the gang-bangers.”
“Keep your voice down,” Deke Nielson urged, looking around. “Let’s do it the DA’s way, and see if this all blows over.”
* * *
“What’s wrong?” Vivian asked, after she had been riding with Lancelot in silence for five minutes. “We’re in trouble, aren’t we?”
Lancelot smiled without looking over. “The good news is that they let us go without complications. The bad news is that they let the gang-bangers who attacked you go free without complications. The cops make deals now on behalf of the DA, for political expediency.”
“What are we going to do?”
“Go to my place, and get you settled in. We’ll have some time before they find out where I live. If you’d like, I can give you money to go away for awhile. We can catch up at a later date about our ties to the past. This may get dangerous.”
“Why don’t we both go away?” Vivian asked.
“I don’t do that,” Lancelot stated quietly.
“Cut the macho crap, Jim. These guys can do a drive-by anytime they start tracking you,” Vivian reasoned. “You could be the reincarnation of Rambo and Bruce Lee, but unless you have an invisible force field, these guys can ride up alongside one day and kill you deader than dog shit.”
“Very colorful,” Lancelot laughed. “Anyway, they can’t kill me. I’ll try and explain. In the meantime, I’m hoping we can find out what your connection with me is.”
“Then you really think there’s a connection?”
“No question about
it,” Lancelot replied seriously. “We’ll need some time to figure it out. I’m not sure why we have to figure it out…but that’s another story, which we’ll discuss at the house.”
“I hate mysteries.”
“You are a mystery.”
“You’re a pervert. Julie told me you spanked her,” Vivian said, turning to point an accusing finger at Lancelot. “Bad Benwick…bad.”
“Julie told you I spanked her?” Lancelot asked, glancing over at Vivian with some surprise. “How the hell did you ever get Julie to tell you that?”
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