The Vanishing Point

31

The kid was driving him crazy. Patience wasn’t Pete Matthews’ strong suit and he’d run out of road with the kid within a very short time of picking him up. In the car, he’d been a pain in the ass. Singing tunelessly along with Pete’s favourite road music. Whining that he needed to go to the bathroom. Complaining he was hungry. Crying because he was thirsty. How many demands could one kid have?

He’d never been happier to get back to the row house in Corktown. He’d shut the kid in the attic bedroom with a sandwich and a bottle of water and turned the TV on to keep him amused. With luck, he’d shut the fuck up and go to sleep. Pete hated the way the kid looked at him; that mixture of adoration and fear made him feel uncomfortable.

Pete was a man who was accustomed to getting his own way. In his working life, he’d developed all sorts of subtle mechanisms to make sure the final sound mix ended up the way he thought it should. Mostly, the artists he worked with believed all the best ideas were theirs, but he knew that a significant element of the production that listeners enjoyed had come from his input, his individual mix of skill, experience and imagination. Here in Detroit, he worked a lot with experienced session men who’d been around since before the artists they were working with had been born. Those musicians knew they were in the hands of a true pro and they responded to Pete with enthusiasm. They never gave him any trouble.

It was the young bloods who thought they knew best, and sometimes it took a while for Pete to drag them round to his way of thinking. If they didn’t agree with him, he went ahead and did it his way and pretended it was what they’d asked for. Most of them were too ignorant of the finer points of production to know any better. It simply took time and persistence.

He grabbed a beer from the fridge and fixed himself a sandwich. He loved American food. Wafer-thin ham, egg salad and Cheez Whiz on rye toast. Beautiful. Before he sat down at the table to eat, he stepped into the hallway and listened. He could hear the distant chatter of the TV, but that was all. The kid wasn’t crying, which was what counted. The last thing he wanted was the neighbours calling the cops to complain about a screaming child.

He went back to his beer and sandwich and contemplated his options. He had another week’s work here in Detroit, then he was due to fly back to the UK. He had unfinished business with Stephanie and he wanted it sorted out sooner rather than later.

Pete had been at a loss for some time over Stephanie. He couldn’t work out why she hadn’t come back to him. She belonged with him. He was devoted to her. Nobody could love her the way he did. He’d offered her everything a woman could want and still she denied herself. But now the kid was in the picture, he was sure she’d see things differently. You needed two people to take proper care of a kid. She must realise that now.

OK, he’d resented Jimmy when he’d first been born, but that was because Stephanie was spending so much time and energy on that slapper Scarlett and her bastard. Time she should have been devoting to him and their relationship. All his mates agreed. Her place was in her own home, not out in that bloody plastic palace in the middle of Essex, helping out with a kid whose own father was too busy with his parasite DJ career to be bothered taking responsibility. Early on, he’d driven out there to take a look at it. Just out of curiosity. It wasn’t hard to find, and it was every bit as ugly as he’d expected. He couldn’t understand how a woman with as much taste as Stephanie could abide being there.

But things were different now. OK, it wouldn’t be the same as having his own son. That would come later, once they were settled down as a ready-made family. But he could bring Jimmy up properly. Show him what it was to be a man. The kid had been over-indulged from birth. He’d been cuddled and soothed instead of disciplined. And what was the result? He was a spoilt cry-baby. But Pete would soon change that. Teach him to be a little man. Strong and resilient. Stephanie would be proud when she saw how he could take responsibility for giving a boy manly guidance. He could see them in years to come, the boy knowing his place and showing he knew the way to behave.

He’d taken the first step by building a connection with Jimmy that was based on discipline and doing as he was told. Back when the Scarlett Harlot had still been alive, Pete had volunteered at the kid’s nursery school. They’d been delighted by this charming man who turned up once a week with various musicians dedicated to working with the children. The kids made noise on a variety of instruments, which Pete painstakingly recorded then engineered into something approximating music. He posted the end results on YouTube, where adoring parents could indulge in the fantasy that little Orlando and Keira were fast-tracking towards the Young Musician of the Year.

And the teacher’s pet was little Jimmy Higgins. Actually, he did seem to have a bit more of an idea than most of the kids. Probably because he’d been exposed to loud rhythmic music from an early age, thanks to his useless waster father. Pete fed that green shoot and made Jimmy push himself to try harder. It had been gratifying to watch the kid learn about carrot and stick. Maybe, once he’d got Stephanie sorted out, he could make something of the kid as a musician.

His fantasy was shattered by a faint, thin wail from above. Pete slapped his palm hard on the table then took off up the stairs. His hand was itching to deliver a hard slap. The kid had to learn, after all.