Питер Робинсон - No Cure for Love

When they reached him, Maria grasped his elbow and said, “Mitch Cameron?”

Cameron shook her hand off. “Yeah, I’m Cameron,” he yelled without turning around. “Just back off a minute, bitch. Can’t you see I’m busy right now?”

But the tension between the two kids had dwindled away by now. They’d passed the flare-up point and hadn’t caught fire. The girl looked disappointed.

Maria pulled out her wallet and flipped her badge right in front of Cameron’s face. “I think these kids can manage without you for a while, Mitch. Detective Maria Hernandez, LAPD. And my colleague here, Detective Arvo Hughes. We’d like to talk to you.”

Before either Maria or Arvo could see what was coming, Cameron sucker-punched Maria and she went down on her knees with blood pouring down her chin. That drew a gasp from the crowd. Then Cameron took off over the dance floor with the galaxies swirling over him and a couple of Romulan warships casting their shadows across his path. He cut a swathe through the dancers, pushing people aside left and right. Arvo bent to see if Maria was okay and she waved him away. He headed after Cameron.

Cameron was fast, but the crowd between him and the door was thick and it slowed him down. By the time Arvo took after him, he had already cleared a path between the dancers, some of whom were still picking themselves up off the floor looking confused. The music throbbed all around them and the lights went on spinning. Arvo could feel the sweat trickling down his forehead and neck. It was beginning to sting his eyes and he rubbed it from his eyebrows as he ran. He glanced back and saw Maria was behind him now, not more than twenty feet away. She gestured for him to keep chasing.

Cameron broke through the last cluster of dancers and skidded across the few feet of empty space to the door. He was heading for the front exit. Arvo was only about fifteen feet behind him now, Maria maybe thirty.

Cameron collided with a couple of kids walking into the club, but he regained his balance immediately and pushed the front door open. Arvo could almost reach out and grab a fistful of his T-shirt by now, but the heavy door swung back hard and blocked his path for a moment.

Cameron shot out into the street, right into the doorman with the shaved head. The man hardly flinched, and when Arvo and Maria came out a split-second later, panting for breath, he held Cameron up by the ponytail and said, “Take him, why don’t you. I never did like the slimy little cocksucker.” Cameron’s mouth was bloody, and Arvo saw him spit a tooth-fragment on the sidewalk. The bouncer shrugged, raised his eyebrows and spread his hands, dropping Cameron at their feet.

Joe came out of the front door, gun out. “What the fuck’s going on?” he asked. “Couple of kids came running out the back door saying there was some real heavy shit going down inside.” Arvo told him what had happened.

Maria leaned against the car holding a white handkerchief to her mouth. It was already stained red with blood. Joe cuffed Cameron and bundled him into the back of the car. Arvo and Maria got in the front. Arvo put his hand on her shoulder. “Okay?”

She nodded, took the handkerchief away and looked at it. “I’m fine. Bastard split my lip is all. More mess than damage.”

Cameron, who sat twisted forward because of the cuffs, said nothing as they drove to Parker Center. He just kept on staring straight ahead at the taillights on Wilshire, with a creepy smile on his face, and only God knew what he was thinking or seeing.

On first impression, Arvo thought, Mitch Cameron wasn’t much different from the white trash he’d arrested any number of times back in Detroit. He had the look of someone who knew how to handle being pushed around. And whatever you said or did to him, it didn’t touch him emotionally because it was nothing in comparison to what he had suffered growing up.

However well he had been treated at the foster home in Eureka, you didn’t have to be told to know that Cameron had endured a deprived and abusive childhood before that. It was in his every sullen, obedient movement, the way he bent with the flow; it was in the smug, cynical smile he wore on his face. Cameron wasn’t afraid. He wasn’t even angry. The habit of abuse had inured him to such feelings of weakness.

No matter what indignities the system piled on him, much worse had been done. And he had done worse himself. Out on the streets, he would be every bit as cruel and vicious as whoever had abused him as a child, yet in captivity he took to the handcuffs, the punches and the shoves just as naturally and as meekly as he would take to the shackles and prison routine. You couldn’t touch him; he could no longer feel a thing. In a way, it gave him power. And it made him a supreme manipulator.

It also made him arrogant as hell, which is how they hoped to get him to talk without a lawyer present telling him to shut up every time he opened his mouth. That and the felony rap hanging over his head for assaulting a police officer. But Arvo sensed he wasn’t the type to respond to threats and plea-bargains. No, if it was going to happen, it was going to happen because Cameron wouldn’t be able to contain himself, because he wouldn’t be able to resist showing off.

He looked relaxed and comfortable in the molded orange plastic chair: legs crossed, hands clasped loosely on his lap, mouth cleaned up. Too comfortable, Arvo thought.

The interview room had no windows; the walls were drab olive, not repainted in about five years; and the only furniture consisted of one table, bolted to the floor, and several chairs. The door was closed and the place was stuffy. Arvo leaned against the wall; Maria stood beside him, arms folded across her chest. Their turn would come later.

Joe started. “Mitch,” he said. “You don’t mind if I call you Mitch, do you?”

“Call me what you want, man.”

“Do you prefer Mitchell?”

“Mitch is fine. Mind if I smoke?”

“Sorry,” said Joe. “This building’s a smoke-free environment. Want a toothpick to chew on? I find it helps.”

Cameron laughed and took a toothpick. “Shit. The whole of California’s a fucking smoke-free environment.”

“Ain’t that the truth,” said Joe, with a smile. “Never mind, you’ll have plenty of time to smoke in San Quentin, Mitch.”

Cameron ignored the jibe and glanced at his watch. “Look, boys and girls, can we cut the crapola and just get on with it, huh? When this is over, I’ve got to go and see if I’ve still got a job left after that stunt you guys pulled at the club.”

“Ever heard of a kid called John Heimar?”

“Nope.”

“He worked the Boulevard.”

“Not my scene, man.”

“You trying to tell me you’re not gay, Mitch?”

Cameron leaned forward. His eyes hardened. “If I was gay, I can’t see that it would be any of your business. A little homophobic, are we, Detective? It’s not politically correct, you know.” He sat back and examined his fingernails. “Besides, an attitude like yours usually indicates latent homosexual desires, did you know that? Is that your problem, Detective? Not been sucking enough cock lately? Or been sucking too much?”

“Cut the amateur psychology, Mitch. I’m not impressed. John Heimar and what happened to him is my business.”

Cameron rested his hands on the table, palms down, and sat up straight, his eyes fixed on Joe. “Okay,” he said. “I don’t know who these other two cops are, but you told me you’re a big shot from Robbery-Homicide. So let me guess: this kid was robbed and killed? Right? And I’m supposed to have done it, right? But you haven’t got enough evidence to charge me with it yet, so you come up with some bullshit felony rap and hope to drag a confession out of me? Am I on the right track, Detective? This is why you’ve probably lost me my job?”