Acid Casuals

by Nicholas Blincoe

  The policeman stopped playing dead. Leaping to his feet, he charged for the door and made it. Estela still could not see Burgess; but as she had not seen him, he could not have moved. He must be shell-shocked, hidden behind the bass bin.

  The policemen had made it to the street, probably praying, probably thanking whatever God, gods or spirits ruled their houses that they still had breath left to run. Bernard, large and heavy-footed, was the last unpredictable element. Estela came away from the balustrade. She pulled the magazine out of her gun and flung it aside, taking the fresh one from her bag.

  She expected to find Junk half-way along the gantry, sat in the lighting box, playing with the disco lights and enjoying the show. She found him dusted with speed, sprinkled with fairy light glitter, with a bullet in his head.

  Estela saw the wound only when she was already beside him. From the way he was sitting, by the marionette twitches of his hands on the lighting controls, she had already guessed that something was wrong. The Doctor Frankenstein pose – Oh Lord, What Have I Wrought? – waiting for the lightning to strike his home. His two glassy eyes were fixed outfront, rigid, almost on stalks. He was sat at the fighting controls, watching the entertainment unfold below through the glass front of the cabin. The bullet had entered his head around the bottom of his left ear. The exit wound spread from the back of the ear to the nape of the neck. He had lost a good quarter of the left hemisphere. Estela guessed that it was gone for good (who would go looking? Who would scoop it up?). She moved to his better side, whispered ‘John, John’ in his right ear, but he kept his eyes forward. If he was in pain, the only sign that she could see was the tight grimace on his lips. He could not speak – she was sure that he could not speak. Saliva had welled into a froggy amphetamine froth along the set line of his mouth.

  Estela took Junk’s hand and watched the scene below with him. The disco lights ran through changing patterns as Junk’s finger continued to dance across the controls. The dry-ice had cleared. Over on the stage, Burgess’s head appeared around a speaker cabinet. The shotgun followed, then the rest of him. He racked the gun, but let it lie in the crux of his left arm. He was fiddling in his pocket. When he brought out an envelope, Estela thought: What’s this? His last will and testament? He burrowed his nose into the envelope and came up powdered in white dust. Estela watched as Burgess plunged back into the packet of speed, aching for a little sulphate courage.

  It was clear that Burgess could not see Bernard, either. He was staring wild-eyed around the club, looking lost. The shotgun was back in his hands. He was prowling across the front of the stage like The Great White Hunter. If he had sense, he would run. There was nothing he could do while he stayed inside the club.

  Estela stroked the back of Junk’s hand. He had left the door off the latch for her. Had he also thought about her getaway? Behind a locked door in the cocktail bar was a flight of stairs. At the bottom she would find a firedoor. If Junk had opened the first door, she could kick open the firedoor and she was free.

  The Gravity backed on to the canal. She was supposed to escape along the towpath. It was too late to ask Junk for further directions. She patted his hand, stood, and took another look at Burgess. He was a sitting target, walking along the stage like that, his nose fizzing at the edges.

  Estela had never credited Bernard with the finesse to catch her from behind. He came on his tiptoes.

  ‘I had a woman with plastic tits, once. They were all right. They didn’t go so floppy when she was on her back, if you know what I mean.’

  He had surprised her. Her gun lay flat to the lighting desk, too far away to be useful. She said, ‘Hello, Bernard. What do we do now?’

  Walking through the door, his shoulders all but touched both sides of the door jamb. He knew that he had her, he could afford to take his time.

  ‘I guess old John Quay’s not so much of a threat, is he? That’s some fucking wound. You could put your fucking fist in there, if you’re into fucking fisting.’

  He poked at the wound with interest. The gun in his other hand was a Beretta, much like the one she should have been using. ‘Nice piece,’ she said.

  ‘It’s all right. Pretty accurate, I guess,’ he said. ‘I mean, I’m the only one who’s got a fucking result tonight. I doubt if Burgess could hit the side of a freight train, the state he’s in.’

  He pushed the Beretta up against her cheek.

  ‘We’d better be going, eh?’ he said. ‘Oh yeah, and if you could just hand over that huge fuck-off gun you’ve got there.’

  She picked up the Heckler & Koch and passed it over, before turning to walk out of the room ahead him. He had the Beretta at her back. He stopped her at the door. He told her – turn around.

  She was facing him. He pushed the Beretta under one tit while he felt at the other one.

  ‘Not bad. If I just rip away some of this cloth … tasty bit of lingerie, that.’

  He pulled the breast up over the top of the bra cup.

  ‘Not much of a nipple, is it. They’re never going to get rock, no matter how cold it gets. Nice aureole, though. Is that fake?’

  ‘Yes, the skin is treated and coloured.’

  ‘It looks natural. Did you finish the whole job, yet? Are you all woman?’

  ‘Not completely.’

  ‘You haven’t still got a dick, have you? Oh, don’t say that.’

  Estela did not say anything. Bernard slipped his hand under the front of her dress, pushing his hand between her legs as he pushed her backwards. She staggered. She had to open her legs to keep her balance. Bernard’s huge fat hand cradled the whole of her crotch.

  ‘There’s no dick, there. At least, I don’t think there is.’

  He felt around, carefully. ‘I’m not sure what there is, though. Plenty of padding – how much underwear have you got on?’

  ‘This is Manchester. It’s not stopped raining since I arrived. I don’ want to risk catching a chill.’

  ‘It feels like you’ve got on one of those body-stockings, besides a pair of tights and your panties. It’s a bit bulbous. I can’t make out your crack. Is that it?’

  He was grinding a finger into her groin. Hard enough to hurt. He was pushing at a spot that was never going to give.

  ‘What is it?’

  ‘I’m on the rag,’ Estela told him. He looked up at her in surprise.

  There was no time for him to ask more questions. Following a huge crash, the whole side of the building shook. Bernard was too startled to continue his abuse.

  He pushed his Beretta even harder into her ribs and tried to look down through flue window of the fighting booth. Estela felt the balcony shake, but could not see what was going on.

  Bernard twisted her by the neck: ‘Get down those fucking stairs.’

  Chapter Twenty Nine

  Amjad faced down the street. The Gravity stood to his right, looming over the canal-side in a Mancunian sulk. He knew he should get going. When he dropped Estela off, she had never said to wait. He knew that if he were going to hang around, he’d spend the night in police custody. He’d seen two cops enter, already. He watched as they slid through the side door, looking pleased with themselves. Five minutes later, they’d come out full tilt, running fit to burst. The sound of gunfire hung in the air long after they disappeared. Any second, a whole police battalion would surround the club. He should go while he still could. But he stayed, transfixed by the set of powerful headlights that came swinging towards him.

  The brewery truck had appeared from Deansgate, careering under the weight of a tankerful of Boddingtons. It was definitely hijacked. It was driven by a madman, going miles too fast. The truck jack-knifed in the middle of the road, the tanker rolling dangerously behind the cab.

  There was a steel-shuttered roll-door, almost two storeys high, built into the side of the club. Amjad watched as the truck rammed against it, the steel slats buckling at the first assault. The truck jolted backwards, rearing up on its giant tyres. In that second, Amjad recognised Mich
ael Cross. He was the driver. Sat around him, nothing but a set of motherfucker gangsters. The Taz-Man and his crew, armed to the fucking teeth.

  The wagon was thrown into reverse four, perhaps five, times – taking that many head-on collisions before it tore through the steel doors. To Amjad, only yards away in his Nissan, the sound and the din were deafening. The demolition of the steel shutters and the tearing of metal on metal were followed by automatic fire. The brewery truck trashed, smashed to fuck and shot to pieces.

  *

  Bernard kicked at her behind. Estela stumbled down the steps in her heels, still trying to re-dress, to fold her titties back inside her body-stocking. Another two crashes, and the whole of the Gravity shook. It could not be a bomb. It must be a juggernaut.

  Bernard’s hand in the small of her back sent her sprawling towards the dance floor. She slid face down across the wooden boards, picking up traces of broken glass that littered the floor and snagged her flesh. She kept her handbag tight.

  As she fell, she saw Burgess stumbling over towards the roll-door, aiming his shotgun. Bernard faced the doors head on, holding her Heckler & Koch. As the doors gave way, a diesel truck pounded through. Even from the floor, Estela could see that Michael Cross was driving. Beside him sat the Taz-Man, his jackboys riding shotgun inside the cab. She couldn’t see what kind of arms they carried. She had a Tech-9 in her bag, so Michael had better keep his head low. Everyone began firing as the truck roared towards her. She was still drawing her gun when Bernard went up, blown into confetti under a solid wall of gunfire. She ran.

  *

  The flashing blue lights were behind him, dancing in his rearview mirror. The sirens filled the air. The police were coming from all directions. Where the hulk of the truck stuck out from the twisted steel shutters, Amjad saw a figure trying to squeeze out. He watched as the man ducked beneath the undercarriage of the beer tanker. He started his car, moving slowly towards the running man but ready to speed off. As he recognised Michael Cross, he reached behind his seat to throw open the back door. He shouted: ‘Crossy, Crossy, get the fuck in here, man.’

  Michael Cross came across the road, tilting forward as he sprinted. He leapt, dived head-first into the car and Amjad rammed the pedal down to the Nissan’s floor. The blue lights filled the rearview mirror. If any one car was sent to chase him, he would lose the fucker, for sure. They would not have a licence number; all they could have seen were one more anonymous Nissan and its Paki driver. They could trail over Manchester from now until the end of the world, they wouldn’t catch him, he told himself. He hoped.

  Michael Cross had managed to turn himself around and slammed the passenger door shut. He had his eyes forward, to where another stream of police cars and wagons had appeared. The whole area swarmed with blue lights. Amjad tried to force down the rate of his breathing; keep it steady, keep it steady. His car passed alongside the police convoy. He held the Nissan to forty miles an hour, the police shot past without looking. He was safe, which he just could not fucking believe.

  ‘Amjad? It’s Amjad isn’t it?’

  ‘Yeah, Crossy. What the fuck was that?’

  ‘Hell. Hell-fucking-hell. Just this deafening, deafening … fucking bullets … I don’t know, a fucking war.’ Michael Cross was shaking, he didn’t even know how much.

  ‘What were you doing?’

  ‘Driving. I was driving the fuckers. One second, I was chilling in a club. Next, the Taz-Man’s holding a gun to my head and I’m hijacking a fucking wagon. Shit. Shit Shit. How many police?’

  Another convoy flooded the dual carriageway with dancing blue light and sirens. Princess Road seemed to disintegrate under the force of the noise.

  ‘How many? I don’t fucking know, Crossy.’ Amjad felt himself collapsing under the pressure to take it slowly, choking on his own adrenalin.

  ‘What happened in the club?’

  ‘It’s destroyed.’

  ‘Is anyone dead?’

  ‘Yeah, obviously, totally. As we smashed through the doors, Bernard was right in front of us. I saw him lifted into the air, knocked back about twenty feet, shot to pieces.’

  ‘What about Estela?’

  ‘I don’t know if she’s injured or dead, or what. Once we were through the doors. I just wanted to get out. The noise, the smoke, some lunatic was playing with the disco lights – it was fucking madness. I tell you, I was scared to fucking death.’

  ‘What about Burgess, then?’

  ‘Don’t know. But the place is trashed. He’s finished, if he’s still alive.’

  Amjad said, ‘Someone else should run that place. What I thought, I should tell my cousin about it.’

  ‘I could live with that. That would be a happy ending.’

  Chapter Thirty

  Synapses splice this scene. Fuck this shutter down, steel bases. The Junkmeister at the controls, in the house, in the place to be. Shredding these walls like they weren’t copacetic, crushing this hall without the aid of anaesthetic. Let the hells of hipperty ring, freedom got an AK. On the wing, on the scream, the windscreen blown out – is that friendly-fire? Reread those positions, grandmaster. The Junkster spies artillery on the downward flank, he greets the dervs with a barrage of halogen strobe and frosts the suckers. We have the technology to trace all elements with laser-accuracy, set the pin-spot to the mirror-ball and let the wheel of destiny dispose of each man according to his lights. The doors are open, come out blazing my jollies.

  We have no control over the following inserts. Truss meek ill me, the Junker knows what he sees. A container-truck of crack black firepower. Burned, bouncing and burning, faces them down. Perforated, he bites the wax. Blat Blat Blat. Line up the Blues with the Green and hit the canisters. Dry-ice this shot-down scene. The Junkster’s feeling jake.

  Chapter Thirty One

  Estela rested a compact minor against the sauce bottle and arranged her new wig. ‘This was a beautiful choice, Theresa. I always felt that I could be a blonde trapped in the body of a brunette.’

  Theresa was impatient: ‘Tell me what happened.’

  ‘As the police stormed through the side doors, Junk filled the club with dry-ice. There was nothing to see, but everyone carried on shooting. I slipped away.’

  ‘Was that planned?’

  ‘I don’ know, darling,’ Estela admitted that she had lost track of the plan some time ago.

  According to the tickets that Theresa had bought her, the train would leave in half an hour. It was cold in the station café but for the first time since she had arrived, the rain had stopped. Shafts of heavenly light pierced the clouds, selecting ornamental details on the facade of the Corn Exchange. Estela stopped tugging at the fringe of her new blonde wig and admired her last view.

  Theresa said, ‘You never had any intention of killing Burgess, had you?’

  The morning edition of the Evening News was spread out on the table between them. Beside the main story, an account of the siege at the Gravity between a drugs gang and the police, there was a boxed item on Burgess. The paper gave an account of his life story, speculated on his past drug links, and reported his arrest the previous night on drug and firearm charges. The photograph showed him in handcuffs as he was led away by DI Green. DI Green wore a flak jacket over a navy suit.

  ‘He raped you. Didn’t you want to kill him for that?’

  ‘He never tried to rape me. He said that he loved me. He paid Michael to break me out of prison. But what could I do? I was never attracted to him. He would beg me and beg me. On the night I escaped from the remand centre, Michael drove me to meet him. We found Burgess prowling around the offices of a broken-down club in Longsight, out of his mind on speed and vodka. He asked Michael to wait in the bar, saying that he needed to speak to me privately.

  ‘The second we were alone, he fell to his knees in front of me and held up his hands, as if he was praying. I remember he had tears in his eyes. He pleaded with me to let him suck me off. He told me that he would give me anything. I could have
thousands, if he could have my cock in his mouth.’

  ‘Did you let him?’

  ‘No. I tried to push him to one side, but only gently. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings. He started shouting and shouting. Michael Cross came running back into the room. He saw Burgess on his knees, pulling at the buttons on the fly of my jeans. I was still wearing prison uniform, a brown denim jacket and matching trousers. Burgess was in a fury now and almost screaming. I looked over at Michael, the shock on his face. I kicked Burgess over, then just stepped over him and walked away. Burgess lay on the floor screaming that he would kill me.

  ‘I made Michael drive me around to Burgess’s house. I knew it was over and I needed money, so I cleared out his safe. I took the money he had promised me. Then I took off for Brazil. That was fifteen years ago, and everyone believed that he had tried to rape me and that I had robbed him.’

  Theresa had one more question.

  ‘Yen saw those photographs of Burgess, in an envelope alongside the gun. You were arranging a hit on Burgess. That’s why you were here, isn’t it? Burgess was a money launderer and people wanted him dead.’

  ‘He was a money launderer, yes. All those bits of computer papers you gave me, I left them in Burgess’s office, along with a kilo of cocaine I stole off the Taz-Man. Once the police find all of that, then they will go through Burgess’s accounts and work out his links to the international cocaine game.

  ‘I was meant to have him killed, but there’s no need. He’ll go to prison, and I’ll leave him alone – no matter how attractive it sounds in fiction, I never liked men’s prisons.’