He counted, but didn’t fire the fifth time. The Lexus had turned itself around and was fast disappearing. Behind his head, Junk heard clapping. He turned; the dismounted riders who were not clapping him were cheering. Junk stared half-vacantly around the group. About a quarter of them were holding guns. The boy he had taken the pistol from was right behind him, neither clapping nor cheering but keeping steady eyes on Junk. Junk switched the pistol from his right hand – where he had held it like a gun – to his left. Now he held it like a gift, offering it back to its owner.
Junk said: ‘Er, thanks.’
The boy looked at his gun: ‘That’ll cost you.’ The boy stared him out: ‘Fifty quid in damages to the bike, three-fifty if you want to keep the gun.’
Chapter Twenty
The newscaster paused, hand on her ear, listening to something that remained inaudible to her viewers. Her eyes refocused within the screen as she said: ‘We can now take you to the scene of today’s shooting in Moss Side.’
As the TV woman spoke, the pub emptied. By the time the channel had switched from the newsroom to the outside broadcast unit, the Croner Hotel was near deserted. The missing people resurfaced within the frame of the television, laughing towards the camera and throwing hand signals. Standing within a semi-circle of gawping youths, a woman with a microphone ran down the known facts to this latest Gunchester incident.
‘At four-thirty p.m., here in Moss Side, a high-speed two-car chase ended in a hail of gunfire. A late-model, charcoal-grey BMW abruptly turned the tables on the executive class Toyota that had dogged its tail for three calamity-packed miles. According to information now in the hands of police, the BMW swerved to a halt at this very spot, outside the Croner Hotel, effectively blocking the path of the Toyota. In a dramatic twist the hunted became the hunter as gunmen in the BMW opened fire on the Toyota, without mercy and at point-blank range.
‘The police are appealing for further witnesses to this latest instalment in the blossoming romance between Manchester gangs and their guns. At the moment, there is no confirmation of mortalities. Nor is there any certainty about the identity or the whereabouts of the group who carried out this lightning automotive attack. Both they and their BMW have disappeared into the unforthcoming shadows of Moss Side.’
Theresa had told Cozy to park in the carpark behind the Croner Hotel. As far as she knew, the Marina was still there. She didn’t know what the nonsense about a BMW meant.
As the pub emptied, Cozy took advantage of the space at the bar. He was buying the third round of drinks that were supposed to ease their nerves. Junk gave him the money, peeling the notes off the same fat roll he had used to pay off the boy with the gun. Theresa didn’t know how he came to have so much money. But there were other things she couldn’t get her head round: either Junk’s heroics or the adulation he got when he limped into the hotel. The men, mostly boys, who gathered around to shake his hand didn’t leave him alone until the camera crew arrived.
Junk had barely spoken, then or later. Theresa helped him into the women’s toilet and cleaned up his wounds but he still looked a mess. He had the same black eye he’d had before he flung himself from the Marina. His black eye matched her own. Now he also had massive grazing across half his face and his clothes were ripped down the left side of his body, exposing more grazes, road-burn and other scars. Theresa managed to pick out most of the gravel embedded in his flesh – she could not do much about the rest of the damage.
Cozy returned with a tray of drinks. He’d seen the news report and wanted to know why Bernard hadn’t identified them.
Junk didn’t seem to hear the question. Theresa wondered whether the fall from the car or the crack of gunfire had affected him. After the shooting, he’d paid the boy and begun an autistic hunt for his scattered videos. There were so many, and no longer anything to put them in. The bin-liner was in tatters, drifting aimlessly on the road like the twisted embers of burnt paper that float above bonfires. Theresa could not stop him, so tried to help. She threw as many cassettes into the back of the Marina as she could. The onlookers stole most of the rest. Theresa let them. She knew what the tapes meant to Junk but all she wanted at that moment was for them to disappear.
When the sirens started, she realised the tapes would have been evidence if Junk had left them in the road. By the time the Marina was parked and she and Junk were sat in the pool room of the Croner Hotel; nothing but Bernard’s word could link them to the shooting.
‘Why didn’t Bernard identify us, Junk?’ she asked.
Junk looked up, blanking on the question with a shrug.
‘Will we get away with it?’
Junk said, ‘Who knows. There were no witnesses.’
There had been twenty, thirty witnesses before the sirens started. But when Theresa had next looked around, they were gone. Those on bikes still seemed to be circling the car, but the circles were moving further away, the shock-waves from the shooting carrying them off in widening ripples.
*
The TV reporter signed off, the outside broadcast unit had finished filming. The studio-based woman delivered on an earlier promise and gave an update on the identity of the driver of the Japanese car.
‘… named as Bernard Chadwick, head of security at the city-centre nightclub, the Gravity. Police refuse to speculate on a link between this attack and an incident that ended with the death of a young Manchester clubgoer at the Gravity last night. We can confirm that John Burgess, the owner of the club, is currently helping the police with their inquiries.’
Somewhere, a television camera was trained on Bernard’s Lexus. Images of the car were flashed on to the screen. Close-ups of the roof showed a puncture in the metal where a bullet had partially penetrated the top of the car. The paintwork was grooved with long gashes, presumably the places where bullets had been deflected. The camera turned to the fractured windscreen. A lingering look inside the car failed to show bloodmarks, corpses – anything but tiny diamonds of glass.
The TV woman began to give the wider picture but had to struggle against the noise of people drifting back into the Croner Hotel.
‘Today’s incident in Moss Side is the third instance of gun-play in the past twenty-four hours. Although the police have so far refused to comment, speculation centres on Manchester’s exploding drug problem.’
Junk could see the attractions of an exploding drug. He sucked at his brandy and ginger ale while he watched a series of camera-heads flick up on the screen for an impromptu vox pop.
‘The police should have a curfew … they shouldn’t be on the streets after, say, ten-thirty.’
‘Do I think the police should be armed? Yeah, I think they should be armed. The police have to be able to maintain the violence on the streets.’
*
Returning gang members took up their seats around Junk, congratulating him again on the show he put up: the car chase, the shooting, it was mighty.
‘Like Wesley Snipes, guy. I tell you, you were sweet. Top fucking action.’
Junk nodded; yeah, thanks.
One of them said, ‘I know you, man. You’re the Junkmeister. I’d heard these stories about you but I didn’t fucking believe them till now. You’re a monster fucking psychopath.’
Junk shook his head; no, no.
The boy wouldn’t leave it. ‘What I heard, you used to walk into clubs with a gat and take on every fucking comer. Blasting the fucking ceiling.’
Junk shook his head. ‘I don’t remember.’
Theresa looked over at him: what was this Junkmeister stuff? He was no longer as freakishly silent as earlier. He was still deeply spooky. When he screamed at Cozy to throw a handbrake turn, all she remembered was the blast of air as he launched himself out of the car. The next she knew, he was stalking Bernard’s car with a gun in his hand. She could still see the way his arm spasmed with every shot. She had suspected Junk of many things but if anyone had asked, she would have diagnosed a more clinical, prozac-saturated and mundane psychosis.
>
‘I don’t remember that stuff.’ Junk was shaking his head: I can’t help you son.
The boy flashed him a shit-eating grin. ‘Fuck. Keep taking the medication, man.’
He threw Junk a courtesy salute and turned to Theresa. ‘You don’t look too good. How d’you get the eye?’
The boy was solicitous, with a considered pout. ‘Maybe you got concussion. You want to have a rest back at my place. Maybe check out some pain-killers from supplies while me and my brother look after you.’
Theresa said, ‘Somehow, I don’t think so.’ But she looked over at the boy’s friend. A younger model, startlingly similar with the same high forehead and deep dimples but maybe sixteen years old to his eighteen. Perhaps he really was his brother, literally, they looked so much alike.
The boy said, ‘Don’t worry, you’ll be safe.’
The younger one smiled; he didn’t look safe. Sure of himself, maybe. Like his brother.
Theresa gave them both a slow nod: really? Thanks but absolutely no chance.
The boy read the signs. ‘You want to walk round looking like that, you got no shame, girl.’
‘Excuse me.’ She leant past him, excluding him with the gesture and with the blunt side of her shoulder. She asked Junk if he knew where she might find Estela later.
Junk said, ‘Later? You should try the Passenger Club. She’ll be with a man called Michael Cross.’
The boy pushed his way into the circle again, ‘Hey, what do you want with an old fuck like Michael Cross?’
He had lost his dimples, his pout reduced to a sneer. ‘Because if you see him, you tell him that I’m looking at a photo of his babymother – and she’s wearing nothing but a big fat smile. You got it?’
Junk was giving the boy a look so sidelong it was two dimensional. ‘Who told you that shit about me shooting off a gun in a club? … Was that Michael Cross?’
The boy wasn’t saying anything.
Junk turned from the boy to his little brother. Weighing them together, he said, ‘Michael’s your father, isn’t he?’
‘Yeah, biological, like the fucking washing powder. But I’ve got nothing to say to him.’
‘What’s he told you?’
‘What could he fucking tell me? I should get off the streets. Do time for kicking heads at soccer matches instead. What else? That I shouldn’t touch drugs – unless it’s selling dope. The man’s full of shit. You know it.’
‘Me?’
‘Yeah. You’ve got the right idea. Do the fucking deal, whatever it is. You’ve not gone soft.’
‘I’m not dealing,’ said Junk, sounding surprised. Or was it wary?
‘Whatever you say, man. If you say you’re not dealing, you’re not dealing. I’ve not seen you with the brothers. I’ve not seen the deals going down. I’ve seen nothing.’
‘I’m not dealing.’ Junk repeated himself.
‘Sweet. Who is? I’m down with the Taz-Man and his posse and none of us are dealing. So what else did my old man say? All those stories about amphetamines. A guy ended up with full-blown psychosis. Who was that? When his nose and teeth couldn’t take it any more, he started cranking the shit. He’d even shoot-up in his eyeball. Who do you reckon that was?’
Theresa knew this story, but she had never believed it was true. Perhaps it was; Junk did not deny it. He only returned the boy’s stare.
‘I didn’t have to shoot speed into my eyes.’
‘So why do it?’
The boy was leaning forward, Theresa leant alongside him. She also wanted to know.
‘Everyone needs a gimmick. Like you with your gun.’
The boy opened his jacket: ‘You’re fucking tripping. I ain’t armed.’
‘I’ve still got one eye, I saw you pissing around with some kind of cowboy pistol out in the street.’
‘While you were doing your demolition-man bit?’ The boy gave the words a deliberate spin. ‘Some guy might have passed a piece over. For all they knew, we might have had to shoot your mad white arse. You were flailing around, letting off shots in all fucking directions. It would have been a public service to put you down. Shoot out the one light you got in your fucked junky skull.’
‘If you shot me, you’d better hope I went down, Alter you’d pulled the trigger, you’d need both hands to help you crawl away.’
‘If I shot you, you’d go down, man.’
Theresa knew the boy wished he didn’t sound so petulant. Junk was relaxed, he was the one who looked like the dealer. Is that what he did? Is that how he had always had money for tapes and video equipment, why he had an encyclopaedic bankroll? Junk’s good eye had glazed to frosty glass with that dead pusher’s look. He listened as the boy threatened to shoot him and just nodded, asking if that was all he needed: just the one shot?
‘You think you could keep from shaking long enough?’
‘Like this?’ The boy’s hand came up from under the table. He had a pistol firm in his grip, the barrel only inches from Junk’s nose.
Junk whistled, ‘That’s fast. Me, I’m a lot slower.’ He stared the boy down as he reached around the back of his waistband.
‘What the fuck you doing. You want a bullet in your fucking head?’
Junk had to squirm around in his chair before he brought his hand up, holding his pistol in a clumsy grip. But he never took his eye off the boy.
‘Put the gat on the fucking table, man.’
‘Later.’ Junk took his time levelling at the boy’s head.
Theresa was between them, looking sideways at two overlapping barrels, pointing straight at two noses. Ahead of her, the face of the boy’s kid brother was freeze-framed. He couldn’t have looked worse if the guns were aimed at him. She couldn’t move.
Junk said, ‘Your dad’s a fuck-up, and I’m a dealer? Is that what you’re saying? And you weren’t impressed by the way I saw off the Lexus earlier. Is that right?’
Theresa felt five fingers flutter on to her leg and grip her thigh: Cozy. She heard his breath catching in asthmatic gulps. Ahead of her, the kid brother wasn’t even breathing.
Junk’s voice kept to the same pitch. ‘So the next time I do it, I should throw in a somersault, maybe put in a half-twist as I come flying out the car.’
She could count off the beats on Cozy’s heart. But when the boy spoke, she could practically hear the grin.
‘That might work. It would have got a round of applause.’
The tension was gone. As soon as she was able to break her gaze, she saw Junk’s gun lying on the table. The boy laid his own next to it.
‘My dad always said you were good value, if anyone wanted weird entertainment.’
Junk smiled. ‘Did he say anything else?’
‘About you, or what?’
‘About a boy called Paul?’
‘Paul Sorel. Yeah, I heard he was a batty boy, but he was also a friend of my dad’s.’
‘What else?’ Junk sounded almost desperate. ‘What did your dad say about John Burgess and Paul Sorel?’
‘One thing. Paul was pulled out of prison, but he had to go see Burgess. When he got there, Burgess tried to rape him. Dad said one day Paul would come back and kill the bastard.’
Chapter Twenty One
Michael was already changed, legs apart in a corner of the gym, reaching down his calves until his outstretched fingers clamped on to his ankles. Estela stood in the doorway of the women’s changing room and watched as he warmed and stretched his muscles, his buttocks riding high in the air.
This was Blue’s Corner, one of two gyms on Moss Side. The other was run on slow municipal money but ran to a moderate swimming pool, a couple of squash courts and a weekly aerobic class. Blue’s Corner had nothing but a ring, a rack of tarnished weights and a few home-stuffed bags hanging from hooks. The hall might have been large enough for fifty aerobickers if the ring was dismantled, the bags slung off their hooks. But it would never happen. Blue’s was a more single-minded place: it dealt only with fighters, although not exclusivel
y boxers.
Michael Cross would have preferred to take Estela to the municipal sports centre. He lost the argument. She made him confess: Blue’s Corner had a women’s changing room, and women weren’t unknown there. True, the changing room was small, nothing but an afterthought. But when they arrived, two other women were working out. Both teenagers, both of them Thai boxers.
The Thai boxers were taking turns side-swiping a bag with roundhouse kicks, one holding it steady while the other let fly. Over by the weights, an elderly Ukrainian, huge and bulbous, stood over a youngster and spotted him through a series of bench presses. Estela recognised the old man from 1970s Saturday afternoon wrestling specials, broadcast from Preston and used as fillers during the summer lulls at the end of the football season. Back then, he had worn a gold lamé leotard and spangly tights, making him look like a fat drag queen after a night entertaining dockers. But his opponents had looked the same so no one ever commented.
There were no mirrors in the gym’s main hall but Estela had looked herself over in the cracked shaving mirror tacked up by the shower in her changing room. The lycra one-piece that Michael had taken out of Josette’s wardrobe almost fitted her. Where it rode up her crack, she hid the damage beneath a pair of jogging trousers. Like the training shoes on her size-nine feet, the trousers belonged to Michael.
A group of men jolted through the swing doors at the bottom of the gym, all four wearing similar outdoor clothes, all in black. They had a leader, a short-set brother with tramlines across his hair and a bubbling shaving rash gnawing at his neck. He strode the length of the hall, giving the two girls a swaggering ballsy curtsey but passing straight by everyone else. A couple of his boys were less chill. They grinned over at the Ukrainian, who saluted them, and stopped when they reached Michael, putting their sportsbags on the floor to swap hand-slaps. From where she stood, Estela heard Michael greet them by name and ask, ‘How’s it going?’ The boys laughed, ‘Business is kicking, know what I mean?’
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