Acid Casuals

by Nicholas Blincoe

  ‘Nice one, Junk,’ she said. ‘You brought Bernard right to the door.’

  Junk said, ‘I thought Theresa would think it was the bailiffs, come to get her poll tax arrears. I thought she would just run out the back. No one uses the front door.’

  ‘I recognised Bernard’s voice anyway. I was ahead of Theresa, through her back gate, when a fist came from nowhere and cracked me on the ear. When Bernard grabbed Theresa, I was still lying in the yard, wondering what had hit me.’

  ‘Bernard didn’t recognise you?’ asked Junk.

  ‘No,’ said Estela. ‘If he had done, he would not have dared lay a hand on me. The next time I meet him though, he’ll know. It is going to be the last thing he ever knows, believe me.’

  Chapter Twelve

  ‘So Burgess has kidnapped Theresa. What does he really have on her? You say he has no pictures of her actually pulling the trigger.’

  Junk said: ‘He could hurt her. Bernard could kill her, or worse. I’m responsible, I told Burgess that she could link him with Yen’s death.’

  Junk explained how his reasoning had worked, when he made up the huge story about Yen being a drug dealer and convinced Burgess that his death would lead to greater trouble.

  ‘I was winging it. Trying to think of a way to keep her out of the hands of the cops. I told Burgess that I bought all of his own cocaine off Yen.’

  ‘She has nothing to worry about, believe me.’ Estela smoothly, soothingly, poured out the tea. She had managed to persuade Junk to get off the pavement and come into the house.

  Junk wasn’t listening: ‘Bernard’s taken Theresa to the bar. If I get over there – I could be there before Burgess arrives.’

  Estela said, ‘Leave it. You have other things to do. I need a gun – you have to help me get one.’

  ‘What do I know about guns?’

  ‘You used to know something about guns. I remember you waving a pistol in a club once, screaming that you were going to blow everyone away if they don’ switch off the music and leave your head alone.’

  ‘I don’t remember that.’

  ‘It was during your blue period.’

  ‘What would I be doing with a gun? If I’d had one in those days, I would have shot myself – not anyone else.’

  ‘Maybe you have a stronger life-instinct than you think. You came through the seventies just fine. I have to say, I was surprised to see you. I thought you would be dead for certain.’

  ‘Sometimes I can’t believe I’m still alive. Then I catch sight of myself – I’m not alive. This is someone different.’

  ‘When you talk like that, the more I begin to think you’ve lost the plot. I once read that incidences of schizophrenia are highest amongst young urban black males. You are neither black nor young – statistically you are not due for another schizo-episode. But if you are, you can wait until I find a gun.’

  ‘Are you schizo?’ asked Junk.

  Estela looked aghast: ‘No.’

  ‘That’s good. I was only asking, anyway,’ said Junk. He drank his tea, and after a while began to think: ‘You don’t need me to get you a gun. Michael Cross is still living on Moss Side. If I give you the address – you can go see him and I’ll find Theresa.’

  ‘Michael Cross. I thought he’d spend his whole life in prison if he don’ leave Manchester.’

  ‘He’s been inside, now he’s out. Everyone else in his crew is still banged up.’

  Estela took on a wistful look. It seemed to Junk, everyone was getting on a nostalgia trip. She said, ‘I’d like to see Michael. Okay, phone me a taxi – I’ll let you go after Theresa.’

  *

  Amjad took the call from his uncle. He had been sitting at the back of the radio room for an hour – and every single person who stopped by had asked him what he thought about the windows being blown out of Jabhar’s restaurant. He’d been on the shift, then, and the night had been dead; he’d not had a call for over an hour. That’s how come he saw the car pull up opposite his uncle’s cab company in Rusholme, right outside Jab’s curry house. Two black lads jumped out of the car and started shooting. Amjad remembered one having trouble with his gun. Before he managed to get a good grip on it with both hands, he was spraying bullets in all directions. His gun arm jerking up and down, his body shaking like a spastic rattling an electric fence. Still, they managed to shoot out the windows at Jab’s and totally wrecked the inside.

  Amjad went over later and had a look at the damage. By then the cops were picking through the debris and asking for witnesses. They didn’t find a single one. Amjad played dumb to the police but that didn’t work on the other drivers, his uncle’s family or his little brother and all of his idiot friends.

  What did Amjad reckon? He was fucked if he knew, that’s what he said when anyone asked. He just repeated for the hundredth time what he’d seen. Most of the other drivers, his uncle too, were wondering if they’d get drawn into any trouble. No one fancied messing around with machine guns. It’s not a war, said Amjad. There’s no reason to go thinking that the cab company will get shot up. His younger brother was the one who thought they should get serious; they should show that they weren’t going to get fucked over by anyone. If the gangs over on Moss Side are packing Uzis, then they’d get Uzis too. There were a lot more fucking guns in Karachi than any of the blacks could get off their Yardie heroes, no matter how much they were ready to pay. Amjad slapped his little brother over the head, ‘Who said they’d got Uzis? I was the only one who saw anything. You live in a fucking dream, you dick.’

  Everyone knew that Jab’s windows had been blown out because Jab’s uncle was hiking up the price of heroin. Amjad wasn’t going to get drawn into any drug gang stuff. As far as he knew, Jab wasn’t involved either. Just because Jab’s uncle ate at his curry house, now and again, Jab’s whole investment goes up in gunfire. And dickheads like Amjad’s little brother wanted to get involved. He was glad to take the call and get out of the shop.

  Amjad pulled up outside a terrace in Levenshulme and sounded his horn. He was adjusting his rearview mirror when he saw the skinny white man come out of an alley, further up the terrace. Amjad knew the man, recognised his squint and the scrawny pony tail at the back of his head. A real skinny cunt; Amjad reckoned he’d got that way from sampling too many of the drugs he was dealing. He had a druggy name. Amjad couldn’t remember it, but he never remembered any of those stupid street names. His little brother wanted everyone to call him something dumb – something with numbers in it instead of words, like six-pack or seven-up.

  The black gangster who’d shot up Jab’s place had a really stupid name: The Tasmanian. That was close enough. Amjad never forgot a face, but had difficulty with any name that didn’t mean something. Or worse, a name that meant something, but only something stupid. Amjad knew of kids who were calling themselves after stuff in the supermarket: Radion Automatic, Pepsi, Vimto. The Tasmanian was named after a cartoon character, Amjad remembered that. It wasn’t such an inappropriate name. The way he’d stood outside Jab’s restaurant, spraying a ton of bullets into the place, he probably thought he was in a cartoon.

  Amjad watched the skinny man edge around a couple of cars and pass by the taxi without looking. Amjad noticed everything; this man only seemed to see one thing at a time. The way he stared, he had a habit of concentrating on one little spot at a time. Then he would jump or twitch as he noticed the next little spot right beside it. That might come from the drugs or from having only one eye. The last time Amjad had seen him he was with the Tasmanian, stood outside the Moss Side gym, buying or selling something wrapped up in a package. When the Tasmanian poked a hole in the package with a knife and tasted whatever stuck to the tip, Amjad knew it was a powder. When the Tasmanian offered his knife over, the skinny man had refused. Maybe he wasn’t on drugs any more but he must have gone through a ton of the stuff to have ended up such a mess.

  Two minutes later, the woman poked her head out of the same alley. She stopped short of the pavement, keeping
under the shelter of the two terraces. It was raining and she wanted to make sure the taxi was there before she risked wetting her hair. The last time Amjad saw her, she’d been wearing a scarf. He sounded his horn, she stepped over briskly in her high heels. As she got into the back of the cab, she gave an address off the Alexandra Park Estate.

  Two nights back, he’d not been able to work out what she was. He’d not believed that she was American. Now he wondered if she was black. She was definitely the same woman, whatever. And the boy she’d had with her, he was definitely the one whose picture was on the front page of the Manchester Evening News – an italicised blurb gave out that he was dead.

  Amjad didn’t know whether to let on. If she was a friend of that skinny man, maybe she also knew the motherfucker who shot up Jab’s restaurant. If he was tactful, maybe he’d learn something. It was a habit, collecting information, but it was rarely useful. Anyway, he’d had a bellyful of trouble for one night. With Jab’s restaurant and this boy’s death both happening on the same night, the whole Gunchester thing would be blown up again. The town would be swarming with television people and journalists, like it was a few months back. He decided to keep quiet.

  Taking the route through the estate in Fallowfield, he passed close by City’s stadium. The unlit floodlights scratched at the rain-heavy clouds out of boredom. Amjad pulled another rear-mirror look at the woman. She was certainly something. He decided he would say something after all.

  ‘You’re American, aren’t you? Where you from?’

  It was pretty safe. She didn’t sound American, but what would he know. He had a cousin in New York and he knew there were all kinds of Americans. Maybe he should go over and visit the family, although his cousin was a fourth cousin, now he came to think about it.

  ‘South America. My mother came from Surinam,’ said Estela. Odd, she had told the cabbie the truth. It felt as though she was picking up an old conversation.

  Amjad said, ‘Sorry, love, I’ve never heard of it. Is that where you live?’

  ‘I travel around quite a bit.’ Estela realised why he looked familiar. She had been so out of it the other night, but that was certainly when she had seen him. She had him placed and, catching his eyes in the Nissan’s mirror, he had her, too. She told him to pull over: now.

  Amjad pulled on to the kerb. Estela asked his name.

  ‘Why do you want to know?’

  ‘Why don’ you want to tell me?’

  Amjad reached over to the passenger seat, underneath his jacket.

  ‘Don’ move.’ Estela’s voice had turned hard.

  ‘I was just getting the paper,’ said Amjad. What was this? It was more like a film than real life. Did everyone have guns on their minds? Amjad took the newspaper from off the passenger seat and handed it over to Estela. She could see the front page for herself: ‘Double-Barrelled, Two Gun Battles in One Night’. The page was split in half down the centre: Yen’s photograph was on the left, a near-demolished shopfront was pictured on the right.

  ‘Nice photograph; what does it say underneath?’ asked Estela.

  ‘Can’t you read English?’

  ‘I can read. I wanted to know if you had read it.’

  ‘I’ve not had chance,’ said Amjad. ‘To tell the truth, I were more bothered about the other story. I know the owner of the restaurant.’

  Estela could see that it used to be a restaurant, if she looked hard enough at the creased picture. She skipped over the curry house story to read that the only witnesses to Yen’s death were a DJ employed at the Gravity and a Brazilian tourist. What was this rubbish? She was not a witness. She had been a passer-by, that was all. She should sue. She tossed the paper back to Amjad.

  ‘Poor boy,’ she said. Amjad nodded.

  After a moment’s silence, Amjad relented. He introduced himself, Estela held out her hand and they shook. ‘Estela. Hello.’

  ‘What are you doing in Moss Side?’ asked Amjad.

  ‘I have to look someone up.’

  ‘Who?’

  Estela was not sure whether she should say. She had an address, although Junk had not been too specific. He had given her the name of a block and told her to ask around. She envisioned an afternoon trailing around cafés, pool halls, gyms, she didn’t know how many other places. She might have to spend all afternoon with this cabbie – unless she decided to walk. She could at least tell Amjad who he was supposed to be looking for. There was a time when everyone knew who Michael Cross was.

  ‘Michael Cross,’ Amjad repeated. ‘What do you want to see him for?’

  ‘It’s personal,’ said Estela. Then felt stupid, it only made the whole thing seem stranger – the beautifully presented tourist hunting Moss Side for an ageing gangsta. She tried to turn the interrogation around.

  ‘What do you know about Michael Cross?’

  ‘He used to run a gang called the Western Union. But that was years ago – before this kind of stuff…’

  Amjad prodded at the Manchester Evening News, pointing at the trashed shopfront, Jabhar’s curry house.

  ‘…But they all ended up in prison. Michael Cross was sent down first, after he was caught fighting at a soccer match. Once he was inside, the Western Union started losing their contracts. They worked security all over town but the club owners were under pressure not to use them.Æ

  ‘Who from?’

  Amjad shrugged. ‘Pressure. Who knows? Anyone who’s got a stake in the town’s nightlife. The problem was, no one in Manchester dared take a contract away from the Western Union. So what the club owners did, they brought in a security firm from Liverpool. They reckoned that coming from so far away, they wouldn’t be scared of Crossy’s boys. It worked, for a while.

  ‘No one in the Western Union gang knew where these new bouncers lived. They couldn’t go round their homes and threaten them. But with Michael Cross inside, they reckoned they were losing face if they didn’t hit back hard. So, what they do, they took it to the clubs. One place, they had this man on the floor, making him suck off the barrel of a gun. They smashed half his teeth in. Another place, they kick in the firedoors at the back and walk straight through the dancers and everything, firing guns into the ceiling. They wanted to show that they had the bottle to go anywhere.

  ‘All that happened, seven clubs had to close before the police did anything. When the police got them, finally, they wound up with ten years a piece.’

  ‘But not Michael Cross?’

  ‘No. He’s out. He still lives in Moss Side but doesn’t run gangs any more. I heard he hangs out at the Croner Hotel.’

  ‘How do you know that?’ Estela didn’t think that the times had changed so much. Some of the Pakis might have broken with the Koran enough to go drinking, but she couldn’t believe that they hung out in Alexandra Park at the Croner Hotel.

  ‘I work sixteen hours a day, driving around South Manchester. I end up knowing these things.’

  Estela thought it sounded odd. If Michael Cross spent all day in the Croner Hotel – he must be selling dope or something. What else could he do? She guessed that’s why Amjad knew him. All she said was: ‘We’ll try there, then.’

  Chapter Thirteen

  Amjad stopped outside the Croner Hotel and told Estela she was sure to find Michael Cross inside. Estela asked him to wait. If Michael was there, she’d be right out to pay him. ‘No offence,’ he said, ‘I trust you.’ But he wasn’t hanging around. Not today, not when things had got so heavy recently. Amjad told her: ‘Dead cert, Michael Cross would be there, no worries.’ Estela stayed in the back of Amjad’s Nissan for a while to watch the boys in pin-rolls and puffa jackets cruise up and down the road on their mountain bikes. Every time one passed the cab, he would look down – half-interested because his job depended upon him remaining aware. Otherwise, every one of them looked indifferent. They pushed their pedals around in long slow movements, standing up from their seats and scanning the streets in equally long and slow circular movements. They looked like some kind of super-evolved
bird that had given up its wings for the bicycle. Black herons with their heads cocked against the breeze.

  Estela paid and thanked Amjad – see you around — and entered through the side door, the entrance that Amjad had pointed out for her. Sweet clouds of dope hung frozen under the pool table lights. Waiting until her eyes grew acclimatised to the heavy fug, Estela stepped out.

  It did not take her long to find Michael Cross. He was stood by one of the two pool tables in the shadows to the rear of the Croner Hotel. Running around the three walls of the pool area was a shelf built to hold the players’ drinks. Michael was leaning against it, at ease, his elbows braced against the shelf-edge and his feet slightly apart on the floor. Estela wasn’t fooled. She saw a body that could straighten and sprint in a moment. He had kept himself in shape over the past years. A different shape to her, he was barely changed. Maybe a few more lines, enough to prove age carries experience. The dreads were new, but Michael Cross had always been wise to fashions. The short, un-rasta locks were woven flat to the top of the crown until they burst out like a comet tail behind his head – as though he were locked in a cartoonish hyper-drive. In motion, even when he was sagging against a pool room wall.

  Walking towards him, a white boy cut across her path and reached Michael first. She heard the boy ask for an eighth. Michael reached under the shelf and came up with a knife that must have been stuck blade-first into the shelf’s underside. Taking a black stick of resin from his pocket, he cut a sliver from one end and pushed it towards the boy with a wink. Michael pocketed the note and few coins the boy offered, nodding thanks as the boy shuffled away. It was only then he saw Estela. She could have laughed, he was so intent on cool seduction.

  ‘Where’re you going to, honey, because I tell you, I want to come along for the ride.’

  Michael Cross had a lazy grin, breaking open on to a band of white between his full purple lips. Like an orthodonist’s dream, framed by tear-drop dimples.