by Mark Dawson
The wound had been neatly stitched with a surgeon’s knot, sealing the two edges of the incision. Milton pressed gently on it and a little fluid leaked out between the sutures. Milton unwrapped an antiseptic wipe and cleaned the wound, then applied a fresh dressing. He cleaned up, put his shirt on and buttoned it up, and went back outside.
There was a PA on the coach, and the driver had been playing Christmas songs ever since they had left London: ‘Santa Baby,’ ‘The First Noel,’ ‘Baby, It’s Cold Outside.’ It was nice—comfortable—and Milton had even found himself tapping his feet as some of the other passengers joined in. He made his way back up the aisle. Elijah and Sharon were sitting in a pair of seats near the front of the coach, and Milton had a seat to himself on the other side of the aisle. He lowered himself down, moving slowly, wincing as his shoulder touched the back of the seat.
“You okay?” Sharon asked him.
Elijah caught Milton’s eye.
“Slept on it,” he explained. “Aches and pains. One of the problems about getting old.”
“You’re not old,” Sharon said.
“Yes, he is,” Elijah said.
Milton looked across the aisle at the young man, who was smiling ever so slightly.
“This bus probably doesn’t help,” Sharron said. “The seats aren’t the most comfortable.”
“You won’t be travelling on busses much longer,” Milton said.
“We had return tickets,” Sharron said. “I didn’t bring Elijah up to be wasteful.”
Elijah rolled his eyes.
They hadn’t told Sharon what had happened in the garage. Milton had left the decision as to what they would say to Elijah, and he had decided that there was no point in worrying her unnecessarily. Milton had imposed what he had thought was right on the young man before, and that hadn’t gone so well for him. This time, he had decided that he would step back; Elijah was an adult now, and what happened next was his decision. Milton might not have agreed with his choice—he didn’t—but it was his choice to make.
Milton exhaled and looked out of the window. The National Express coach had set off from Victoria coach station at half three, and now, at just before eight, they were approaching Chesterfield.
It had been a long day.
Milton had given thought to whether the police would have been able to put Elijah at the scene of the murders. Ziggy had checked for CCTV at the club and had found nothing to show him and Tiffany Brown leaving together. It did not appear that there were any witnesses who might have seen them, and Elijah had been taken away from the club in the boot of the car. The garages were not overlooked by neighbours, so the events that had taken place inside would not have been noticed, either. The only person who would have been able to put Elijah at the scene of the crime was Tiffany, and she would have had to compromise herself in order to do so. Milton needed to ensure that he was in the clear, too, and had taken the gun with his prints on it and had disposed of it.
Ziggy had found the initial reports that had been filed by the investigating officers who had had their Christmases ruined by the discovery of the four dead men in the Woodford garage, and they had—prompted by the discovery of the cannabis farm—concluded that they had been murdered thanks to a local drug feud.
There was no reference to Tiffany being at the scene; Milton assumed that she had fled. The woman had been interviewed at her home late on Christmas Day and had, according to the reports, been convincing in her grief. No, Tiffany said, she had no idea why her brother was in the garage, and she could not identify the bodies of the three young men who had been found next to him. It didn’t take the police long: Solomon Brown, Rowmando Silcott, Tyrone Godwin and Shaquille Abora were confirmed as the dead men, their affiliation with the London Fields Boys was established, and they were marked down as just four more victims of London’s postcode war.
Hicks had taken Milton and Elijah back to London. Pinky had taken and destroyed Elijah’s phone, so Milton had texted Sharon to say that he was with her son and that the two of them had settled their differences. He told her that Elijah had lost his phone, and that he had asked Milton to tell her that he had gone back to the hotel. Milton didn’t say anything else—Sharon would have assumed that her son was with a girl—and she had evidently believed it. Milton didn’t like lying to her, but it was what Elijah wanted, and he could see that his motives were pure.
The coach slowed down as they approached the station.
“Another twenty-five minutes and we’ll be home,” Sharon said. “I hope you’re not expecting too much.”
“He doesn’t care, Mum,” Elijah said.
“It’s very kind of you to invite me,” Milton said.
“What else was I going to do? It’s Christmas. You’re not spending it on your own.”
“It wouldn’t have been the first time,” Milton said.
“Well, not this year. I’ve got food in the fridge. You had a Caribbean Christmas dinner before?”
“Never.”
“Turkey, ham, pastelles, macaroni pie,” she said.
“You got calallo?” Elijah said.
“John won’t know what that is.”
“Like collard greens,” Milton said.
“How’d you know that?”
“I’ve travelled a bit,” Milton said, allowing himself a smile.
“And duchess potatoes, Mum,” Elijah said. “Please say you’ve got duchess potatoes.”
“We’re not going to eat until midnight if I have to do duchess potatoes.”
Milton turned away from the two of them and looked out of the window again. Snow had been falling throughout their journey, with more of it the farther north that they had travelled. The pavements around the coach station had been cleared, but several inches had settled on the cars that had been parked next to the depot. Milton saw his reflection in the glass and closed his eyes. He would have been happy to spend the day in his hotel room, waiting to take the next flight back to Tenerife, but he had wanted to make sure that Elijah and Sharon returned home without any further incident.
That was what he told himself, anyway. Elijah had suggested he spend a couple of days with them, and Sharon had quickly agreed; Milton had not been able to say no.
The brakes wheezed as the driver angled the bus into the bay and disgorged the passengers who were finishing their journeys here. Milton reached into his bag, took out his phone, and slipped his AirPods into his ears. He scrolled through his playlists, found his Bauhaus albums, and hit play. The coach jerked into motion again as the driver backed out of the bay. Milton listened to Peter Murphy’s rich baritone and closed his eyes.
Bright Lights
A John Milton Thriller
Part I
1
John Milton settled himself into the black bucket seat. The vinyl had cooked in the California sunlight and was warm through the already damp cloth of his shirt. He put the key into the ignition and turned it. The engine rumbled to life.
The owner of the lot opened the passenger door and leaned in. “Well?”
Milton ignored him, listening to the growl, the burble and pop from the exhaust.
“Well?” the man repeated. “What you think?”
Milton allowed himself a smile. He could feel the rumble of the engine through the chassis and the bucket seat. “She sounds good.”
“‘Good?’ You been smoking, man? Please—just listen to it. That’s the original in there. Ram Air III cam, roller rockers, Edelbrock intake with Holley carb…”
The man went on, listing the improvements that he had made. Electric choke. Dual snorkel air cleaner with chrome lid. Milton tuned him out, dabbed his foot on the gas and felt and heard the engine respond. It felt alive—primal—and Milton couldn’t help but think how much fun it would be to take the car out onto a quiet desert road and bury the pedal. Fun? The prospect was intoxicating.
“So,” the man was saying, “when you say she sounds good, what you meant to say was…?”
“Al
l right,” Milton conceded. “Better than good.”
Milton assumed that the man’s name was Sam. A vinyl banner with SAM’S CUSTOM MUSCLE CARS had been draped over the lot’s entrance, and the man’s denim overall bore a patch with HI – I’M SAM across his left breast. Milton couldn’t decide whether that was ironic or authentic. The man was short, with a head of unruly black curls and a stocky build. His overalls were stained and, somewhat incongruously, he wore rubber flip-flops on his feet and had a half-smoked cigarette tucked behind his right ear.
The lot, in Oakland, was as scruffy as its owner. Milton would not usually have chosen a place like this to make a significant purchase, but he had something special in mind, and the Craigslist ad had suggested—a little dishonestly, as it had turned out—that this would be a private sale. Never mind. He was here now, and the car was exactly what he had in mind. At least that part of the ad was correct: it had described the car as a prime 1969 GTO, and it was.
Sam smiled as Milton ran his fingers against the rough stitching of the leather-trimmed steering wheel. “Want to take her for a quick spin?”
Milton said that he did. He waited for Sam to get in next to him before releasing the emergency brake and nudging down on the gas, rolling the car out of the lot and onto the street.
“She’s not perfect,” Sam said, “but she’s solid. Won’t let you down.”
Milton smiled, thinking that sounded like a description that he might put on himself.
The lot was on Twenty-Sixth Street. Sam directed him until he was on the John B. Williams Freeway, heading north towards the interchange with the 580. He turned to the east and followed the MacArthur Freeway.
“Go on,” Sam said. “Give her a little juice.”
Milton pressed down on the gas and pushed the speed up to forty and then fifty. The steering wheel was tight, the Cooper radials stuck to the road, and the rumble beneath the hood did indeed sound new.
“You said you did the rebuild yourself?” Milton asked.
“Yeah. Took me six months.” Sam shrugged. “Took the engine apart, replaced what needed to be replaced, then put it back together again. You got—”
Milton sensed he was about to start listing components again, and cut in. “It’ll get me to Las Vegas? Across the desert?”
“It’ll get you to New York if you want, man. Guaranteed. Something goes wrong, bring it back. I’ll be here.”
Sam pointed to an exit ramp and Milton took it, following Broadway to the south and then hooking back onto Twenty-Sixth. Milton drove back to the lot and reversed the car back into its space. He got out and walked around it again. The paint was Cortez Silver that had been sanded and wheeled until it was as slick as glass. The vinyl top was in good condition; there was a Judge rear spoiler, new weatherstripping and window felts; and the tinted windshield was free of chips or any other imperfections.
“New,” Sam noted, rapping his knuckles against the glass. “I was gonna restore the interior, maybe put in a new radio, trick it out a little more. But here you are.”
Milton didn’t care about the interior or the radio. “I like it.”
“You can drive her away today,” Sam said, rubbing his chin.
“How much?”
“Thirty.”
“Fifteen.”
“Don’t be crazy.”
Milton stared at him.
“Twenty-five.”
Milton stared at him some more. “Fifteen.”
“Twenty-three, and that’s as low as I’m going.”
“Sixteen.”
“I can’t do sixteen, man.”
Milton said nothing.
“Can you think of a better way to get to Vegas?”
Milton shrugged. “I was going to get a Greyhound.”
“The fucking Greyhound,” Sam repeated with mock incredulity. “You’re killing me. Twenty.”
“Seventeen.” Milton stared at Sam for a long moment until the man had to look away.
The air went out of him. “Fine,” Sam said. “You got it. Seventeen.”
“Excellent. Cash all right with you?”
“Cash would be perfect.”
Milton opened his satchel and took out the money. He decided not to mention that it was dirty. He had liberated it from a dealer in LA who had been foolish enough to try to sell his goods to the son of a woman Milton had met at the early morning AA meeting in Pasadena. The woman had shared about how her inability to save her boy from his addictions was leading her back to the bottle. Milton had listened quietly, not saying a word, but had taken her aside when they went to the café on Fremont for breakfast afterwards. He’d asked her for the bare minimum—the dealer’s name and where he did his business—and then had gone to fix the problem.
The dealer was an emaciated crackhead, foul-smelling but with a vermin cunning that glinted in his eyes. Milton delivered a stern rebuke and, when the dealer had called his bluff—had actually threatened him—Milton had underlined his warning by breaking three of the man’s fingers and putting enough torque on his wrist to very nearly break that, too. They had reached an accommodation after that, but Milton had still taken his stash.
He counted out the seventeen grand and handed it over. Sam took it into his office and returned with a receipt.
“You decide to do the interior, bring it back to me,” Sam told him. “Give you a discount and I promise no one will make it look better.”
Milton nodded. “I will. Keys?”
“Seventeen. Jesus, man. You’re killing me.” He made a show of his reluctance to hand them over, but, as Milton readied another icy glare, he tossed them across.
Milton caught them. “Thanks,” he said. “One more thing.”
“Yeah?”
“There’s a cassette deck in the car, right?”
“A Kraco. Would’ve been an eight-track out of the factory, but whoever owned it before must’ve got it fitted.”
“Don’t suppose you got any tapes?”
“Wait there.”
Sam went back into the office and came out again with a small cardboard shoebox.
“Haven’t played these in years,” he said.
Milton took the box and removed the lid. He saw a selection of cassettes. There were albums by the Beach Boys, the Righteous Brothers, Dionne Warwick, The Foundations, The Animals and others.
“How much for the box?”
“You think I want to negotiate with you again?” he said. “You can have ’em.”
2
Milton headed under the freeway on Fourteenth and turned onto Market, the engine of the GTO rumbling as if in remonstration that it was not being given the proper workout that it deserved. Milton thought of the long drive ahead of him and smiled; it had suddenly become a lot more interesting than might otherwise have been the case. He would have taken a Greyhound, but driving himself in a car like this would be a pleasure.
This trip was a little last minute, but perhaps more exciting because of that. He had been in London for a month when he had seen a news story on the BBC website. The talented young boxer Mustafa Muhammad had attracted the attention of promoters in the United States, and, when a fighter on the undercard of the upcoming world championship fight at Mandalay Bay had pulled out due to injury, Muhammad had been installed as his replacement. Milton knew Muhammad as Elijah Warriner, a youngster whom he had tried to help in the immediate aftermath of his renunciation of his government work.
Milton was a fan of boxing and had realised that he could combine a trip to see the bout with his long-cherished dream of taking a classic American muscle car on a cross-country road trip. He had persuaded himself that this was the perfect occasion to do that. He would start in San Francisco and buy a car, and then he would drive to the east coast, stopping in Vegas along the way.
He had arrived a few days earlier and had taken a room at El Capitan in San Francisco. He had stayed there before, months ago, when he had foolishly thought that he might be able to make a life for himself in the Bay area.
He had been holding down two jobs—delivering ice and driving a cab—and had even found himself a woman before he had been embroiled in a series of murders after a girl whom he had driven to a party had disappeared. He had been on the run from the Group then, but the events of the succeeding months—most notably the death of Control—had removed the threat to his future prosperity that his discovery would have entailed.
He had enjoyed his time in the city. He had visited the tourist sights, walking for miles up and down the hills until his legs burned. He had attended a meeting every day, subconsciously hoping that he might bump into Eva, the woman with whom he had spent time before. He’d asked around, eventually discovering that she had taken a job with Netflix in New York. That was probably for the best; the last time they had met, she had been kidnapped in an attempt to put pressure on him. He told himself that there was no reason why she would want to see him again, and had put the notion out of his head.
His wandering had been interrupted while he had taken care of the errant son and the drug dealer, but now he had nothing else to do. The fight was in two days. He would go to the hotel and check out and then start the long drive and see where it took him.
Milton had just crossed the Bay Bridge and was driving southwest towards the Mission District when he saw an elevated billboard at the side of the highway. It was bright red with a picture of an old man in a Stetson standing next to a steer, his hand resting between the beast’s horns. The headline proclaimed THIS IS NO BULL.
Milton couldn’t stop looking at it and, as the sign rushed at him, he noticed a glare of red out of the corner of his eye. He turned back to the road and saw that the cars in front had slowed down to a crawl. He stamped on the brakes and brought the car to a stop with just a few feet to spare.
