I feel very, very naive all of a sudden. I don’t feel angry, I feel ashamed. One time in school, I was seven, dreaming, contentedly picking my nose. The teacher pointed this out and the whole class turned to look. I was caught, bang to rights, finger up hooter, but too paralysed with shame and fear to move it. The whole class jeered and laughed and thanked God it wasn’t them.
‘I would have thought a smart boy like you would have worked this out on his own,’ says Eddy.
‘Can I have that tape?’
‘I’ve already done you a copy.’
‘When was this recorded?’
‘Sunday night, live at the Café Royal.’
Rich tastes. Some poor fucker’s paying their bill with his liberty. He hands me the tape.
‘And before I forget, here’s your hotel-room key. Mister Troop locked up for you.’
He hands me the key.
‘Anyway, must fly. Got to get home, have the wash and brush-up. Going to the opera tonight. Do you like opera, son?’
‘Dunno. The closest I ever got was Freddie Mercury.’ I ain’t really in the mood to chat about opera.
‘Damnation of Faust tonight, about three-and-a-half hours too long. Man sells his soul to the devil but it ends in tears, these arrangements usually do. I might even see your German fascist friends there.’
‘Why?’
‘Oh no, of course not, what am I like, I’m only getting my Wagners mixed up with my Berliozs. Now, do you need some cab fare or can I drop you somewhere?’
‘I think you’ve already dropped me on my head.’
The Simple Life
One time, a guy who was a friend of a friend sent us out two VOs, visiting orders, for us to come up and see him while he was doing a five stretch – for what, I can’t remember. It’s really bad manners or poor protocol not to go and see someone if they’ve gone to the trouble of sending you out the VO. I couldn’t even try and slip outta it. My pal, I know for a fact, would’ve thought I was a right cunt if I even tried, cos the VO could have gone to someone who would’ve used it. We went up to see the guy, brought him up a joey of bits and pieces.
This guy who’s inside, Colin, is in good form considering his circumstances, quite chipper, and he’s telling us he’s cracked it in here, mate. He’s renting out a hard-core porn book by the night in exchange for Mars Bars and bits of puff. I was making about two grand a week clear at the time, had just come back from a week in Barbados and was having a scene, a singalong, with twin sisters, so I couldn’t see what all the fuss was about. Soon, I’m thinking, that book’s gonna fall apart through wear and tear, it’s gonna get too sticky to rent out or someone’s gonna decide not to give it back and you either got to say something or you look like a complete joe, a cunt, in front of everyone and then people really start taking libs and you can’t decide to give these guys a wide or move to another part of town.
That’s the idea of prison. It snaps your spirit quick or it grinds it down slowly until you start to think ‘This is a bitta all right’ cos you’ve got a Mars Bar and a bitta puff the size of your thumbnail. Very Buddhist, I’m sure Mrs Edward Ryder would agree, but the flip side of that is someone giving you a perceived snide look while you empty your piss-pot one morning is on a par with having your house repossessed or burnt to the ground on the out. It’s all about fuckin with your perception. It curtails your horizons cos you may not see the horizon from the day you go in till the day you come out. You’re lucky if you see the sky for an hour a day. This Colin says to me and my mate that he’s looking forward to getting a move to a softer nick.
‘When’s that then, Col?’
‘’Bout two years.’
Great, ain’t it.
Morty, for all his fuck ’em attitude, spends every waking moment dodging the very thought of being weighed off big-time. He likes to tell stories about being in the boob and how they had such a giggle but he ain’t in any hurry to get back. Morty will tell yer about how he was glad to be banged up with a bitta puff and a good history book at eight o’clock on a Saturday night and Mort’s a very intelligent man who’s had his perception fucked with big-time. Some guys, when they’re out, spend all their time reminiscing about being in and, no doubt, when they’re in, all they go on about is being on the out. Mobbed-up guys getting put down for shifting powders watch straight-goers coming in after them for murder, kicking someone to death in a pub brawl or strangling the wife, and getting their parole before them. How fucked up is that, geezers getting lifed-off doing less bird? I asked this guy who’d done a massive lump if he ever thought of escaping, making one. ‘Everyone fuckin does,’ he says, ‘for the first five years.’
The Prison Service have thought about it too and you can end up sitting in a cosy cell in some purpose-built, brand-new nick, about a quarter of a mile from the outside fence and with about ten other electric fences in between. No open nicks for you either, son, kilos of Class A chemicals means years on Category A wings.
Getting a five, and with a drop of jam-roll getting out in three, is as much as I can get my head round but the thought of getting a twelve chills my blood on a hot summer’s day. Twelve years ago I was seventeen and life was good, very good. If I think about all the good stuff that’s happened since, all my hard work getting my money-pot together, and think it’s all going down the drain, I shit myself. We’re talking a decade of Tammy-and-the-like deprivation here but being stuck with the kinda sweet, sweet memories, rolling round and round the canister, that could drive a geezer permanently insane. One million in various enterprises, spread around, plugged up tight but Jimmy could, if he got the right bits of paper and the right little team round him, divert it in his direction. He’s given it plenty of thought, I suspect, after getting his financial arse kicked round the yard by the Chechens. Life for murder or twelve to be going on with, yer shuffles yer pack and yer picks yer card.
I’m trying to get from east to west in a taxi down Oxford Street but one side the road’s been dug up so the traffic’s moving at a snail’s pace. I’m distracted from my problems by two guys racing down the street. Sometimes the cab’s overtaking them and sometimes the two guys are overtaking the cab. It’s not a running race or anything like that. They’re paraffins, tramps, and they’re both dead psychotic and the idea of this game is to rummage in each and every single litter bin along the road. How long is Oxford Street? Two-and-a-half miles. And what you gonna find? The carelessly discarded tiara? The lobster dinner for two? No. What you’re gonna find is a shit-load of half-eaten fast food that was dog shit in the first place plus a loada yesterday’s papers along with all the debris of everyday living. Between each bin they break into a half-trot half-Olympic walk like they’re desperately trying to disguise the fact that they’re racing to their opponent, like it ain’t happening.
The cab pulls away and I leave the two tramps behind. It occurs to me that some people, like those two back there, have got a simple life. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they’ve got an easy life, but nothing’s complicated. No traitorous overlords, no shape-shifting money launderers, no cut-you-to-pieces German posses, no bent cozzers or straight cozzers come to that, no bushwhacking here-we-go tourists to blow over the house of cards. You know who you can trust – nobody – and zero’s a nice round number. Nobody’s driving you mad, cos you got no plans, no ambitions, no responsibilities, no nothing, sweet fuck all, in fact, and the only thing to get excited about, to have a care about, to fight about, is the daily beat up and down Oxford Street, in and out the bins to see what new rubbish there is today.
Back in my room at the Churchill at five-fifteen, no messages or any signs of disturbance, I order the omelette I was gonna have at half-ten this morning. I pour a brandy from the mini-bar and drink it on my empty stomach in one big hit. It’s like a karate chop on the back of the neck. I lay back on the bed, no TV, no light. I can hear the early evening rush-hour traffic down below. I need a good rethink.
Long time ago I was driving through lanes, not un
like the part of the world Pepi’s Barn’s in, Public Enemy’s ‘Rebel Without a Pause’ pumping outta the stereo, with a pal of mine whose folks were top villains. We were going out to this Hawaiian disco affair in this country club. I had a couple of ounces, ballsed-up, to deliver and collect waiting readies on. The place was gonna be smashed alive with fit, scantily clad, gamey Richards. Life was good.
‘Can I give you a bitta advice, brov?’ says my pal, lighting a sensi spliff.
‘Go ahead, brov,’ I say.
I got the feeling that it’s gonna be the kinda advice that’s been handed down from his old lag grandfather to his father to him, he had that kinda pedigree. He gave it the pointy finger and pronounced every word like it was scripture.
‘Be just as careful about what you allow other people to tell you as you would about what you tell other people. Yeah? Understand?’
‘Yeah. I get yer.’
‘And, obviously, I know this don’t apply to you, it ain’t your thing,’ he laughs, ‘but if you ever have to kill someone, yer don’t tell a livin soul.’
Friday You Gotta Go
You can buy latex surgical gloves in a high street chemist’s, one pound seventy-five for ten. Wear two pairs, just in case. You don’t want any powder hangin about on your hands. I don’t know who you’re talkin to in that fuckin mirror, you soppy vain cunt, he won’t help yer, you’re on yer own. Learn to get angry, son. Get outta this poncified bunhouse, the Churchill, get home, get your tool, be a man. Jimmy’s gonna take your fuckin liberty. Leave the mobile there as well. Necessary evil, mobile phones, but it’s voluntary electronic tagging. No mad ski-masks like some Seamus off the Falls Road. Get changed, nothing flash. Cut the sleeves offa oner those black jumpers with a carving knife. Make holes in ’em, to see through, stupid. Everyone thinks you’re a bittova lightweight, don’t wanna get your soft hands dirty, but it’ll be our secret. Go home and get the shooter and the keys to the Rover. It’s still parked up in Soho. Keep the room at the Churchill.
Oxford Street, chocka-block, first stop. Buy some big old chunky black-rimmed sunglasses that go dark in sunlight. Learn from a master, Mister Troop. Have a line, if you must. Put that brandy in the plastic water bottle, have a double when the time comes. Don’t be getting steamboats and sloppy. Keep this quiet, don’t know who’s in the snore with the Other People. You do it on your own and only you will ever know. Buy big socks, woollen ones, divvy hiking boots, size-and-a-half too big, put a pair of socks over them, we don’t wanna be leaving footie prints all over. In Selfridges, buy gloves, two pairs, driving ones. Don’t get paranoid. Nobody’s looking at you, pal. Buy a hat, little peaked affair, like old codgers wear, kids wear ’em back to front. Let them put it in a bag but walk outside and put it on. You’re looking like someone else already. Go into another chemist further along, buy some binliners, will definitely come in handy, and your latex gloves, got a dirty job on? Yer not wrong. Do you think these birds on the check-out are paying you any attention? No barcode, you don’t exist. Admiring yourself in the shop windows, are yer? Think anyone notices yer?
Get the motor. Drive out to Acton. Know what I’m looking for, nice light industrial estate, once heard some wank-stain estate agent saying the place was full of them. Stop and buy a street atlas, have a little drive about. This looks good. Loads of big industrial bins, dumpsters. There’s lots of old oil drums catching rain water from the drainpipes. Nobody’s gonna be looking in this part of town, seven miles away. There’s a little park, full of black crows shrieking, manure over the rose beds, that’s the spot. The charlie does the old appetite right in, get a nourishment drink, get a couple for the car. Find a hardware store, wire cutters, heavy tape, hacksaw, dark boilersuit, it’ll come in more than handy. Find a garden centre, buy a soil shovel for bedding out plants from the glasshouse. Back to the park, stash it up in some bushes by the roses. Get my bearing by the skyline and trees. Be able to find that? Sure?
On the North Circular Road, round to Finchley. Off the dual carriageway and head north to Totteridge, bittova daylight reconnaissance. Totteridge Village welcomes careful drivers. Very nice part of town, a village on the outskirts of the city. The houses and cottages all higgledy-piggledy, tucked away off the road, down narrow lanes, cross open fields. Where’s High Trees? Don’t wanna be asking Postman Pat so he can have a day out up the Bailey. Could never find someone’s house out here. You could very easily be a recluse out here. That’s why people live out here, yer soppy cunt. That’s why Dewey lived out here, now Jimmy fuckinsuper-grassingcunt Price. Eddy gave yer the massive clue, didn’t he. ‘He wrecked that High Trees.’ Maybe you’re doing Eddy’s dirty laundry so he can crack on, do his Russian bagwash. He weaved it in his act very nicely. If I wasn’t cute with a capital kay, wouldn’t have spotted it.
High Trees, fuck me, of course, look for some high trees, you fuckin doughnut. There, five in a row about five hundred yards away. Where’s that map, along that lane and fuckin hell, this is it, High Trees right in front of me. No Jag out front. Have a little nose-up. Go around the back, park up, have a creep about. Back fence, old rusty barbed wire, could use replacing, Jimmy Boy, job for the weekend, cutters, clip, over. Brittle twigs underfoot. House hundred feet away. Burglar alarm, no surprise there. Dog bowls on the patio, big dog bowls, no surprise there either, two very big dog bowls, large red sink bowl for drinking water. French windows, steps down to manicured lawns, clipped flower beds, going into rambling, wild, wooded area. Plenty of cover but noisy shingle paths. Tall firs around the side of the lawn with the bottom branches lapping onto the grass. Kids could make camps under there. Heart’s beating up a tempo, a didgy little rumba numba.
House looks empty. The dogs have started to bark. They’re the key, son. He’s either gotta walk ’em or turn the alarms off, send them out for a quick shit. You on it? You understand? Come back in the night. Go and check your tools.
Drive back towards town. Park up, pay and display off Hampstead High Street. Walk on Hampstead Heath. Find a secluded spot, latex gloves on, aim at tree. Trigger. Dooff. Shooter’s working all right, tree splinters, leaves a hole as big as yer fist. This fucker’s got a naughty kick to it, best use both hands, sweetheart, as the bishop said to the rent boy. Time to kill. Getting didgy now. More traffic on the roads. Kill more time. I want empty roads on the way out. More coke, nip of Andy Pandy, my mouth is always dry nowadays, frothy spit. Drive for an hour, then bang! time’s right. I’m impatient all of a sudden. Back to Totteridge, everything quiet, misty cos it’s high up. Tot-ter-RIDGE, it’s high up, you dummy, course it fuckin is. Couple of people walking dogs. Jag out front. Park up off-road, in a narrow lane by a barred gate. Reverse in, might be in a hurry on the way back. Slip round the back of the Price residence. Pullover sleeve over head, boilersuit on, buttoned right up, latex gloves, two pairs, driving gloves over the top, small brandy bottle in one pocket, water bottle in other, divvy hiking boots on, socks over the top, clownish. Sit and wait this side of the fence. Wait an hour. Dew on deck. Quarter to ten. Hear the dogs, big dogs? Rottweilers, barking out in the garden. Over fence, into the undergrowth. Itch all over, can feel my own heartbeat, hear my own heartbeat getting faster and faster, louder and louder. I need the dogs over here, in the dark, two-onto-one on the lawn, no chance, they’d rip me apart. Ain’t no kamikaze mission. I’m going back alive.
Eyes adjust to the dark. I can see lights flooding up the side of the house. I wanna sit still and move at the same time. Can only breathe in the top of my lungs. I try and take a deep breath, sounds deafening. It stays stuck in my throat. I wanna cough. On tiptoe I see Jimmy watering the lawn and flower beds with a green hose. Two dogs, huge fuckers, big target. He’s in a white towelling dressing gown. I come down, stumble, crack a large twig. Fuck! Dogs start barking, running in my direction, bandits at twelve o’clock. Final briefing: You may only get one shot at each. Make it count. You’re doing this for the next twelve years of liberty. Don’t fuck about. They’ve got the scent. They’re ch
arging into the trees. I make myself as small, still as poss. Both hands, remember, both fuckin hands. Rocky One comes galloping through the bushes, snarling, slobbering, fast. One time, I’m upright. Both hands. Finger on trigger. He sees me, he stops, split second, tries to change direction from his skid, aims to lunge. I aim. Nice doggie, big doggie, trigger, dooff, no side of head, doggie. Fuckin ‘ell. Cartridge case goes up, into the undergrowth. Someone’s tossed a twopence coin. Rocky Two’s tailed his mate in. Two seconds behind. Keep it together. The rest of your life, remember, the next halfa second, don’t fuck it up. Aim. Give him two, one for luck. Trigger, dooff, trigger, dooff. This is a fuckin tool. These fuckin dumdums are the bomb. The first shot hits Rocky Two in the fuselage blowing a big hole. The second hits him in mid-air. The side of his head bursts open. Dead meat when he lands near my feet. Hear the bullet, and the skull disintegrates on impact. The silence has got me even more alert. I thought I was alert before. There’s always another level. Got a film of sweat all over me, a puddle in the base of my back. This exact time last week I was counting the six-and-a-half gee I’d got from Jeremy the Swell. I can hear Jimmy calling out to the dogs, whistling. I move out through the wood to my left, but edging in towards the house, closer to James. I can see Jimmy holding the hose absent-mindedly, preoccupied, worried about the hounds. I can hear anxiety in his voice, nice to hear. The mist from the spray is making a rainbow in the floodlight beam. Ain’t so fuckin big without your fuckin dogs, are yer, cunt? You was gonna send me away for a twelve. In cold blood, you cunt. Nick my loot while I fuckin stewed in pissy nicks, the length and breadth of England cos you, yer arrogant cunt, got rumped by cunts from a country you can’t pronounce. Keep it together, son. He could have had a whisper, have a little handgun tucked in the robe. Don’t be even thinking about walking up to him, shooting him in the face, starting chase scenes, no slapstick! Keep the shit together, son. You’re doing well. You’ve done the hard part, doing the dogs. Use a bittov stealth, lovely word that, stealth, who said that? Can’t remember, couldn’t be important. Keep edging over, one-man pincer movement style, closer all the time. The noise from that hose is well handy. Quick, crawl under the overhang of the tallest, widest fir tree. Now I can see you, Jimmy Boy, out in the light, but you can’t see me, I’m all cosy in the dark, Jimbo. Shame your pal Albie ain’t popped round for a drink and a chin-wag. We coulda done him as well. Can’t start doing cozzers, son, it ain’t on. Oh, ain’t it now. If Jimmy had give him my name on Sunday, on that tape, he’d be going as well, no danger. Slow down. Fuckin ‘ell, you’re getting a taste for this, ain’t yer. Jimmy’s still shouting to the dogs. The soil under my tree’s like fine dark powder, never seen water, brown like smack, ‘Brown rather than white’, judges don’t like scag. Could you do a twelve? Do it standing on me head. How come he can’t hear my heart, my breathing, is he fuckin Mutt ‘n’ Jeff, the old grass? Wonder how he got to hear so much if he’s deaf. Let him go into the wood a bit. Go and have a fuckin look for your dogs, you selfish bastard. They died trying to defend you, fuckin ingrate. Biting the inside of my bottom lip. If I don’t stop I’m gonna draw blood. Rolling my fingers, open and shut, clammy fist in the latex. Creep closer. Now closer still. I can see Jimmy’s maroon-leather bedroom slippers, his milky white legs. He’s studying the garden and the woods, frowning. He’s concerned, the dogs have just disappeared, into thin air. I move behind the trunk of the tree but the evergreen overhang gives me protection. I’ve got you ready-eyed, Mister Jim. You’re in my sights. The hose is making a puddle on the lawn. He’s standing like he’s gonna fight off any invaders with it. He’s edging into my tree but with his back to me, scanning into the darkness. Come to me, Daddyo. The hiss of the hose is like the hiss on the tape. Slow motion now. This is a gift, somebody up there likes me. Don’t fuck it up. You wanna say anything to him? Fuckin ‘ell. JUST SHOOT THE CUNT!! Let’s get outta here, for fuck’s sake. You sure you ain’t got nuffin to say? Don’t fuckin wind me up, just do it. Revenge or sentiment has no place in murder. I can feel my heartbeat at the bottom of my front bottom teeth. I’m Ninja. You’re losing it big-time, you mean. Upright, and creep the three long paces across the dusty space beneath the branches. One, steady myself, Two, there’s no air in my lungs, Three, but I’m totally alive. Jimmy’s oblivious, surveying the wrong horizon, the wrong tree-line. His back’s to me now, I could kick his arse. The tiny branches must be tickling his calfs. Do it, for fuck’s sake. I’m so close I can smell the cigar smoke on his gown. He’s just come out the bath, smell the sickly sweet aftershave, on a promise? I can hear him breathing deeply. Fuck’s sake, he’s there! Do it! This feels powerful. You’re on, son. I raise my tool, stroke his earlobe, tender, like a lover. Tickles for a micro-second. He turns with a shriek.
Layer Cake Page 27
