Acid Casuals

by Nicholas Blincoe

  Theresa only nodded.

  The travel agents was new, something Burgess had never dabbled with in the past. Now she was past her jetlag, Estela realised that this slight shift in his business empire must be significant. Burgess took everything he did seriously so she would have to look into it. She began by saying that it was difficult to imagine Yen working for a living. ‘He can’t have earned very much, the way he would steal from everybody.’

  Theresa said it was just his mild klepto streak. It was one way of putting it, like Burger King’s passing interest in beef or Héctor Barranco Garza’s flirtation with pharmaceuticals. Theresa insisted that Yen was sorted at the travel agents. Mostly because he could get cheap flights to Ibiza and Amsterdam, which is all he ever wanted out of life.

  ‘Last night, I heard you tell Junk that Yen was dealing, but it’s not true. Yen would have got the sack if he’d ever been busted. He said that Burgess was paranoid about drugs – because he was once such a criminal and he’s now trying to live it down.’

  Estela said, ‘I only just met Yen, but I don’ believe he could be so diligent, keeping his job by keeping his boss sweet.’

  Theresa put her half empty cup of tea on the floor. Estela had forgotten to stir it, or bring teaspoons. A thick granular syrup oozed about the bottom of the cup. It was God’s truth, Yen never dealt drugs: ‘Nearly, everyone deals a little. Or what the cops call dealing, buying more than they need and selling the extra on to a friend as a favour – but Yen didn’t even do that. He was always at the bottom of the food chain. Which only made him all the more keen to rush off to Amsterdam every possible weekend. If you don’t believe me, ask his friends. Half of them work for Burgess, too. They’ll tell you the same thing.’

  ‘I’ve met some of his friends.’

  ‘There are two called Cozy and Tom, another boy called Jules.’

  Estela nodded, Cozy and Tom she knew. She believed Jules was the one who claimed to be the reincarnation of a Dutch sailor. Could Burgess really only employ idiots, drug-hobbyists, the emotionally disturbed?

  Estela said, ‘Every travel agents I’ve ever seen, they employ young girls and dress them in air hostess drag. But I suppose Burgess still prefers boys.’

  ‘Burgess isn’t gay, is he?’

  ‘The worst kind,’ said Estela. ‘Like an American novelist, the kind that has to maintain one hundred per cent hetero integrity.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  Estela admitted that she did not know: ‘I never could work out what went on under the skin of John Burgess. I thought it was better that I did not try to find out. And I’ve known him for nearly twenty years.’

  ‘Since the time when he was Manchester’s biggest gangster?’

  Estela nodded.

  ‘And what were you, his Moll?’

  ‘No.’

  Estela must have let a half-beat slip because Theresa said. ‘But he was soft on you?’

  Estela let that hang; she remembered that St Paul had cursed softness ahead of theft and extortion. Instead, she picked up the cups and saucers and took them through to the kitchen where the radio was playing a wayward version of ‘Right On Time’. The news came on just as she finished stacking the plates in the sink. It led with Yen’s death, and the news that the Gravity would not reopen until further notice.

  Theresa was sat upright, listening, but that was the end of the item. The newscaster moved on to a piece about an attack on an Indian restaurant in Rusholme. The police believed that automatic weapons were involved and were appealing for witnesses.

  Theresa said, ‘Is that it?’

  ‘What did you expect, a minute’s silence?’

  Estela regretted her tone immediately she saw Theresa’s eyes. Soft tears were collecting against her lashes. Estela knew that she was growing too hard. She needed her pills back. She had to ask – ‘Yen stole some tablets from my handbag. Do you know what happened to them?’

  Theresa reached under a settee cushion and pulled out a bottle.

  ‘Yen had these with him in the club. I went back for them after he died. I thought it was better the cops didn’t find them.’

  Theresa took the bottle of Chicadol gratefully, her eyes cast heavenwards in thanks. Opening the child-proof cap, she could not believe how few were left.

  ‘He has taken all these?’

  ‘I guess so. I mean, there was no way I was going to have any. Whatever’s gone, he must have taken. Are they dangerous?’

  ‘Not to Yen. Not in his state. But the police surgeon might have a surprise.’

  Estela wondered how she could replace the bottle. If she could not persuade anyone to write a fresh prescription, she could hold up a pharmacist. She would have to find a new gun, first.

  Chapter Eleven

  Junk was beginning to think his tactics had been off. Burgess was determined to get hold of Theresa. Calling Bernard over on the in-house phone, he only pretended to cover the mouthpiece every time he bawled a new obscenity at Junk. Worse than plain insults, there were threats. Burgess said that if the girl was not bound and delivered sharpish then Junk was going to be looking at the bottom of the Rochdale Canal. Bernard would be on hand to make sure Junk didn’t think about swimming.

  ‘When you find her, bring her to the office – no, forget that, the cops might still be over at the club. Wait for me upstairs at the WARP.’

  Junk left in Bernard’s Lexus, wondering how he was going to avoid finding Theresa. Bernard’s solid stream of chat didn’t help him think, bludgeoning him and drowning out the Otis Redding CD from the Lexus’s trunk-mounted stereo. Otis worried he’d been loving too long. Bernard worried about City’s chances of stuffing Arsenal that afternoon. Junk hadn’t even known City were playing Arsenal.

  ‘You should be ashamed, John Quay, how do you think City are going to do if we don’t get behind them – we’re the old school; if we don’t show we’re loyal, who the fuck is?’

  Junk looked out through the windscreen, his eyes strictly forward. He had thrown off past loyalties just as he’d thrown off the evil come-downs between his speed binges. He was still around (where else would he go?), but he didn’t have two good eyes any more and if he ever caught sight of his reflection he was glad he didn’t see that same face staring back at him, a half-crazed ghost from the rough end of the seventies.

  Bernard said, ‘Remember how we met, at a game?’

  It was an away match: West Ham.

  ‘Those Cockney cunts chasing me all over the fucking show. I ducked behind a garden wall and there you were. John Quay. Trying to dig yourself a hole under the herbaceous border.’

  Junk remembered. Bernard had worn an outgrown suede head and a stripey Jackson 5 style tanktop but no shirt. White flab put the knit under stress.

  ‘Arse up, eh, John Quay? Run to ground in the fucking shrubbery. It looked like we were goners. Then Crossy and his lads came around the corner, full pelt. The fucking cavalry, the charge of the fucking black brigade. They saw what was happening and laid those bastards out. We jumped up and started giving it to them as well. Like they say: the victory was ours.’

  Bernard was nodding happily; his huge fat head bounced up and down.

  ‘I tell you,’ he said. ‘That Michael Cross could really fight, the black bastard. He and his boys made good bouncers, so long as they kept off the fucking spliff. Those were the fucking days, eh? Is Crossy still in prison?’

  Junk said, ‘No. He’s out, he’s living on Moss Side.’

  ‘I tell you, black football hooligans, it could only happen in Manchester, that’s all I can say. They fucking scared me, the way they laid into those Cockneys, and we were on the same side.’

  Junk wanted to put a brake on the nostalgia. He said, ‘We were on the same side then.’

  Bernard sucked on his teeth, an obscene squelch broke over his lips. ‘Well, yeah, of course. It was all right having a bunch of black hooligans hanging around in the early days, but when me and Burgess got serious we needed a team with more
discipline.’

  ‘Men who’d take orders.’

  ‘Yeah, I don’t mind admitting it. Loyalty is important. Those black bastards only ever listened to Crossy.’

  Otis Redding was sitting on the dock of the bay. Bernard let him have a moment’s peace, before he said what was on his mind: ‘What did Michael Cross get, three years?’

  ‘He served two, he got out last year.’ said Junk.

  ‘He was lucky.’

  ‘I don’t think he saw it that way.’

  ‘Fuck that. He was lucky. He was getting too old to be a hooligan, and he was better off in prison than on the streets. When his boys got busted on that extortion deal, every last one of them got a ten stretch. With Cross already inside, he got away with it. You say he’s out now but the rest of them won’t be out for seven years. Six years, easy.’

  ‘About that, I reckon.’

  ‘You sure Cross is out? I can’t say I’ve seen him around.’

  ‘He’s banned from City for life. And where else would you see him? You stick close to the Gravity, if you’re not at home in Knutsford. Michael Cross stays on Moss Side.’ Junk wasn’t sure whether to risk saying what was on his mind. He decided to say it anyway: ‘Why are you asking? Are you afraid of meeting up with him again?’

  Bernard looked at him sharply: ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘You know what I’m saying.’

  ‘It was just business. Cross and his boys got plenty of work elsewhere. At one point, they must have been doing the security at every other club in town, so why should they care about being cut out of the Gravity? They wouldn’t have been interested anyway – not once we’d decided the place was going to be clean. What those black bastards wanted, was clubs with more angles, more business opportunities.’

  ‘There was more to it than that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ admitted Bernard. ‘A bit more. But, it was down to that half-caste poof. I tell you, he was nothing but fucking trouble.’

  ‘Paul Sorel wasn’t half-caste. His mother was.’ Junk was thinking how the skinny boy with a natural tan had filled out over the past fifteen years.

  ‘Same difference. That poof caused so much fucking aggravation. I don’t know how much you know about it, but he got away with thousands.’

  Junk said, ‘I know about it.’

  He tried to sound confident. At least, he knew some things: some of it rumours, some of it he may have imagined. It was the year his psychoses were officially diagnosed and catalogued, so he guessed he was an unreliable observer. He had black holes large enough to drive a lorry through, he had lapses that could be colonised, coloured red and labelled The People’s Republic of China. But this wasn’t something he’d blanked on. It was Burgess who had pulled down the screens.

  Whatever happened between Burgess and Paul/Estela, they were the only two who knew for sure. Burgess wasn’t telling and Paul/Estela had vanished, along with a fortune taken straight from Burgess’s private pension fund.

  Perhaps five times over the past dozen years, certainly no more than that, Junk and Bernard had edged up to the subject – freaked by nerves, rattled, bottled, goosed and spooked. They had never compared notes, Bernard had always pulled back. The official story, the story with the Burgess stamp, said she had stolen it.

  Michael Cross said she hadn’t: it was money due, it was her compensation.

  Bernard’s body moved inside his Crombie great-coat. It might have been a shrug. Whatever it was, Bernard wasn’t going to open up. ‘Fuck the lot of them. Paul Sorel, Michael Cross, every fucking last one of them. I tell you, we were best rid of them. It was better to start the new club with a fresh team.’

  ‘With you in control.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bernard. ‘You got a problem with that, John Quay?’

  Bernard would know that Junk wouldn’t say either way – whether he had a problem or not. All Junk thought was that Michael Cross and his boys would never have broken into his flat, as Bernard’s had done. At least, Michael Cross wouldn’t have done it unless he had wanted to, for his own reasons. And if Michael claimed that Burgess’s money was taken in lieu of damages, weighed against some kind of rank atrocity, then Junk believed him. Why would he lie? It was Michael who lost out, telling a story like that against Burgess.

  Junk sat back in his seat. What would Bernard say if he could see Paul now? With the suave clothes, make-up, tit job; all of it paid for indirectly by Burgess. Junk could hear Bernard brag – that Paul, I had him once, he were all right.

  Junk smiled. There was one way to start trouble, he thought. Whether it would help was debatable but he had no way of keeping Theresa from Burgess. He could wind Bernard up. If Bernard got so mad he beat him senseless, it would at least save him from having to hunt Theresa down.

  ‘You know what I reckon?’ said Junk. ‘Burgess was more sorry to lose Paul than he was sorry to lose the money.’

  Bernard turned from the wheel and glared at Junk.

  ‘That’s a fucking lie.’

  ‘What do you think? Have you seen with him anyone – any women?’

  ‘Fuck off, John Quay. He’s just one of those that’s not interested, not everyone is interested in sex. What about you, for a start? Are you a poof? I haven’t seen you shagging anything either.’

  ‘If it comes to that, I’ve never seen you shagging anyone. But like I always thought, big lad, it’s just talk with you, isn’t it? What I reckon is, you and Burgess have an understanding. Burgess slips you a length of spam javelin and you fucking love it. I bet you call your boys around to watch Uncle Bernard taking it up the shitter.’

  Bernard slammed on the brakes, a man gone apoplectic at the wheel. He grabbed Junk with his left arm and pulled him across to the driver’s seat. Junk felt his spine was going to crack, he was so twisted inside his seatbelt. Bernard had hauled him halfway across the car, turning him around so his face was inches from Bernard’s own. He could see the shower of scars across Bernard’s nose, the deeper scar running across his eyebrow where someone had once smashed a bottle into razor-sharp splinters. He could see the black lines across the top of Bernard’s front teeth, at the point the false crowns met the gum. But he couldn’t hear what Bernard was saying as Bernard squeezed the blood out of his neck. It seemed to Junk that Bernard had managed to turn his neck all the way around. He felt like the cat in a Tom and Jerry cartoon, when Tom’s body is cork-screwed by the untalking dog. Bernard forced Junk head-first into the steering wheel, between the spokes and the rim. He began trying to turn the wheel with Junk’s head inside. Junk heard Otis singing ‘Try A Little Tenderness’ and all he could think was: this is ridiculous. It hurt less than being strangled – Junk believed that he could cope with this, and Bernard surely couldn’t think of a way of topping it.

  Forcing someone’s head into a Lexus steering wheel had to be a dead-end.

  ‘Take me around to that girl’s house, now.’

  Bernard had run out of steam. He pulled Junk’s head out of the wheel and threw him back on to the passenger seat.

  ‘And don’t fuck around, you fucking fucked-up fucking fuck-wit.’

  Junk gave in. He was still conscious, so what else could he do? They were already at the foot of Kingsway. Junk told Bernard to take the next right. Inside two minutes, they were parked outside a row of terraced houses. Theresa’s home stood in the middle.

  ‘That’s it?’ asked Bernard.

  Junk nodded: ‘Let’s go.’

  Bernard swung his fat legs out of his door and took four shoulder-swinging strides to Theresa’s front door. Junk kept behind him, pointing him right. ‘She’s called O’Donnell.’

  Bernard started banging on the door, hammering with the edge of his curled fist. Junk was thinking, Jesus, he could take the whole door down if he’s not careful. Bernard shouted ‘O’Donnell, O’Donnell’, as he smashed away at the door. There was no sound from inside. After thirty seconds, Bernard stooped to peer through the letterbox. Sitting back on huge haunches, his heavy chest presse
d up against the door, his stubby fingers poked through the narrow slit and flicked at the inside flap of the letterbox. It didn’t look as though Bernard had seen any sign of life, but he continued to shout.

  ‘O’Donnell.’

  Nothing. Bernard quit for a second.

  ‘What’s her Christian name?’ he asked, looking over to Junk.

  ‘Theresa.’

  Bernard stuck his fingers back through the letterbox:

  ‘Theresa O’Donnell, open this door now.’

  There was still nothing.

  Bernard straightened: ‘You try.’

  Junk stepped to the door and started hammering, yelling in the deepest voice he could register: ‘Miss O’Donnell, we know you’re in there.’

  A fat hand grabbed hold of his pony tail. Junk heard Bernard say ‘Shit, you bastard’ before his head smashed against the door, his forehead cracking against the iron letterbox. As he bounced and crumpled to the pavement, his nose welled up and burst with fresh blood.

  From street-level, Junk saw Bernard’s feet pounding away up the street to the ginnell and the narrow passageway that led to the back of the terraces. In half a minute, he heard screams. Bernard came crashing back through the passage pulling Theresa by her arm. Theresa tried to slow him down, digging her heels into the paving slabs but Bernard hardly broke his stride as he pulled her to his car. Taking her to the driver’s side, he opened the door with one hand and threw her across the front seats.

  The last Junk saw of them, lilting his smashed nose up off the pavement, was Bernard bundling Theresa’s legs up and following her into the car. Theresa was still upside down as the Lexus pulled away from the kerb. Junk thought that he could probably get to his feet, but why bother? He had fucked up, it was better to stay as he was.

  Theresa’s front door opened. Estela reached the edge of the pavement in time to see the Lexus disappear around the block opposite.