Hari Kunzru - Gods Without Men

He went to the room for a beer and flopped back down on the lounger. A few minutes later, two more cops turned up, a man and a woman, with Jaz’s wife in tow. He was pleased to see her and waved, forgetting he didn’t actually know her except through Jaz’s description. She gave him a strange look — more blank than puzzled — and disappeared into their room.

He decided against eating any peyote.

Jaz’s wife came out, sort of leaning on the woman. The manager hurried out of the office and threw her arms round her. All this was happening over by the office, and Nicky couldn’t hear what they were saying, but it looked like she was really spazzing out. He hated stress at the best of times, and hearing about really dark stuff — war-dark, news-channel-dark — tended to trigger a desire to self-medicate. He’d once tried to explain to a reporter about the three-day bender he’d gone on after the invasion of Iraq. It hadn’t been a protest exactly. More a nervous reaction.

The cops left with Mrs. Jaz. He decided to find out what was going on. Leaving his towel on the lounger, he went over to the office and knocked on the rattly screen door.

“Hello? Hello?”

The manager came out from the back. She looked a wreck.

“Sorry to bother you, but is everything OK?”

“Sure ain’t. It’s that couple and their little boy. He’s lost somewhere out near Pinnacle Rocks. They’re searching for him now.” She lit a cigarette. “Police, Park Rangers, they’re all out. Parents turned their back and he was gone.”

Standing there in his swim shorts with the air conditioner blowing down on his neck, Nicky felt cold and damp. Jaz’s kid. Christ. He was about to thank the woman and go back to the pool when a gravelly voice spoke through the screen door.

“Dawn? You in there?”

He turned to find himself face-to-face with the cop in the cowboy hat. He was a middle-aged man, whose large doughy face was set on top of a surprisingly thin body, as if two totally separate physical types had been mashed together to create him. Between the bristly mustache and the aviator sunglasses, he might as well have been wearing a mask.

“Afternoon, son.”

For a moment, Nicky caught his own twin reflections in the mirrored lenses.

The cop scanned his tattoos and curled his lip in distaste. Nicky crossed his arms self-protectively over his narrow chest. He felt naked, talking to a man who had so many accessories — a hat and shades and a badge and a big black leather belt with pouches and cuffs and a baton and a holstered gun — when he had none. Dawn leaned on the counter and jabbed her cigarette in his direction.

“Tom, gentleman here was just asking about the kid.”

He turned to Nicky. “That a fact? Deputy Sheriff Loosemore, San Bernardino County. And you are?”

“Nicky Capaldi.”

“Where you from, son?”

“London. England.”

“I know where London is. Went there couple years back. Can’t say as I cared for it. What happened to your leg?”

“I fell over onto a cactus.”

“Looks infected.”

“It was just an accident.”

“So what about the kid?”

“What’s happened to him?”

“You tell me.”

“Sorry?”

“You have any dealings with the child?”

“Dealings?”

“You talk to him? Dawn says you had him in your room.”

“He doesn’t talk, as such. I gave him and his dad a lift to the Burger King last night. Jaz’s missus’d gone off with the car.”

“The mother had the car.”

“I told you about that,” put in Dawn. “I ran into her at Mulligan’s Lounge, making nice to the boys.”

Jaz couldn’t be too pleased. He didn’t seem like a bloke who’d be overly flexible about that sort of thing. “Do you think someone took him?” he asked. “I hope nothing bad’s happened. He’s a sweet kid.”

The sheriff looked him up and down again. “So you like kids, son?”

“Sure,” he replied carefully. There seemed to be an atmosphere in the room.

“That so? Got any?”

“No.”

“I got three.”

“That’s nice.”

“Two girls and a boy. I’d hate like hell to see anything happen to them. Now, you’re telling me you got friendly with Mr. Matahari and his son last night?”

“Mr. Mat — uh, I didn’t catch the name. Like I said, they needed to go and get food, so I gave them a lift.”

“He was real intimate with the boy,” interjected Dawn. “I was kind of surprised. Kid’s shy.”

What was her game? All hair and fag and green eyeshadow. “He’s autistic,” he explained, throwing her a poisonous look. “It’s a condition. His dad was glad he was responding to someone.”

“And you responded to him too, I expect. Sweet kid like that.”

The sheriff took off his sunglasses. His eyes were small and pale and bedded, top and bottom, in dark puffy pouches, like maggots on spoiled meat. Nicky suddenly had a very clear vision of the downside of his situation. He made a silent vow to get rid of Noah’s gun. And the drugs. And then to enter rehab. Or a monastery. Whatever it took to get away from those maggoty eyes.

“Bit parky in here, what with the air-conditioning. I’ll just go get a shirt.”

“Hold up a minute. I got a few more questions.”

“I’ll come straight back.”

The sheriff turned to Dawn. “Where’s his room?”

“Number five, middle of the block.”

“All right, son, I’ll walk over with you.”

“No need, honest.”

“Just lead the way.”

The twenty paces to his room felt like a trek across open country. He was pretty sure he’d stashed the drugs, but where was the gun? It was possible that he’d been mucking about with it while watching a Bogart movie. There’d definitely been gunplay in that movie. It could be lying there on the bed. He opened the door gingerly. Nothing obvious. The sheriff stood in the doorway while he found his jeans and a T-shirt. If he went into the bathroom to change out of his swimming shorts, the guy might look through his stuff. He undid the string and stood with his thumbs inside the waistband.

“Do you mind?”

“You go right ahead.”

Reluctantly he turned his scrawny buttocks towards the sheriff, who lit a cigarette.

“Tell me, son, you in a gang?”

“No, a band. Musician.”

“You one of them white rappers?”

“No.”

“I see. You probably feel happier now you got your pants on. Less nervous, I expect.”

Another cop came over and said something to the sheriff, who stepped outside, holding up a hand in Nicky’s direction as if to freeze him in place.

The sheriff stepped back in. “Now, son, looks like I got to be elsewhere, but if you’d be so kind as to give your particulars to the deputy here, no doubt I’ll see you later. I’d much appreciate it if you didn’t go anywhere until I say so. You may be able to help us out.”

Without waiting for an answer, he strode off. The deputy, a young Hispanic woman with a braid and the same reflective sunglasses as her boss, took out her notebook.

“Mind showing me some ID, sir?”

He found his wallet on top of the TV. She peered at his driver’s license and handed it back, a quizzical smile on her face.

“Should I know you? You look kind of familiar.”

A helicopter swept overhead, the roar of its rotors filling in for his response.

Twenty minutes and an autograph later, he was on his own again. He flushed the peyote down the toilet, drew the curtains, put the chain on the door and sat against the foot of the bed, smoking and watching a local news channel’s eye-in-the-sky feed of the desert. A scatter of parked cars. A straggly line of deputies sweeping the area.

The situation was fucked up.