Born Bad

by Marnie Riches

  He entered the salon – little more than somebody’s front room turned into a few chipped backwashes and those big round dryer helmets that the old ladies used. It smelled of cheap coconut shampoo and chemicals. She still hadn’t spotted him though. Until Marge Simpson stood back and eyed him suspiciously.

  ‘You!’ Now, she had spotted him. Gloria’s reflection collapsed into a portrait of almost grey-faced disappointment. ‘What do you want with me, boy? Can’t you see I’m getting my hair done?’ She sucked her teeth.

  Lev balled his fists and thumped them against his thighs, trying to bat away memories of him standing like this as a kid, wanting her to come home instead of spending all Saturday getting some elaborate up-do ready for church the following day.

  ‘I’ve got the money. At least, I think I’ve got the money for our Jay,’ he said.

  Gloria leaped out of her seat, red fabric billowing behind her like the caped crusader that she was; fighting a Holy War against her son with that old gold cross hanging over her ample bosom – a talisman to ward off his ungodliness. She grabbed him by the wrist and dragged him close to the backwashes, out of earshot of the hairdresser.

  ‘Don’t come in here, spouting your gangster nonsense, Leviticus Bell. I’m an upstanding member of this community. I don’t need your bad reputation rubbing off on me any more.’ Her voice was low and thick with disdain. ‘Those days were over when you chose those two-bit hoodlums over me.’

  Biting back the urge to call her a hypocrite, Lev breathed deeply. Tried to concentrate on the smells in that place. Hairspray. Old magazines. But there it was. His mother’s heavy floral perfume. Suffocating him. Usurping his own scent.

  ‘I thought you’d wanna know. I’m hoping to book a flight. I wondered if you’d come to Baltimore with us. To the hospital.’

  Gloria released her grip on his wrist. ‘What about that whore, Tiffany?’

  Lev looked down at his mother’s feet. Perched above dainty, prissy court shoes were swollen ankles attesting to the onset of rheumatoid arthritis, though Gloria had always been convinced she had the best legs in town. Like her gnarled hands, jazzed up with nice nails. They were cleaner’s hands, at odds with the smooth face and shapely figure of a much younger woman. Nothing was quite as it first appeared with Gloria Bell.

  ‘Tiff is next to useless. I’m not taking her. I wanna file for custody when Jay’s better. I wanna make things right for the kid. He’s everything to me and he deserves much, much better. I need your help, Mam. Please.’

  The words left a sour taste behind, which he tried and failed to swallow down.

  His mother merely looked over at the nonchalant hairdresser who stood, comb in hand. Blinked hard. Turned back to him and tutted. ‘Don’t come looking for me again, Leviticus.’

  ‘Old bastard,’ Lev muttered under his breath. Hands stuffed into his jogging bottom pockets, he kicked at a cola can that dared to roll across his path. Wished it was Gloria’s swollen shitty ankles.

  It took him over an hour to get back over his side of town to Tiffany’s dump. He needed to tell her what the score was. Break it to her as gently as possible that he was going to take over care of the boy. He was banking on her being relieved to hand over such an enormous responsibility that she had shouldered unwillingly, but he knew she would go fucking mental when she realised she would be losing a raft of benefits as a result.

  The bruised, brooding clouds that had threatened to burst all day crackled white with electricity. Rumbling with discontent. One drop. Then another drop. Unexpected and icy on Lev’s shorn scalp. More droplets, fat with ill intent, pocking the mid-grey asphalt with dark spreading circles like a malignant wet rash. Gathering momentum. The rain started to fall in earnest, now. Dampening Lev’s spirits, as it soaked through his thin jacket.

  He trudged through the narrow, potholed streets of the Sweeney Hall estate, past pocket wilderness gardens that grew broken cars and Staffordshire bull terriers, tied to ramshackle fencing, apoplectic that the heavens had dared to open. Past boarded-up windows; broken windows; dirty windows, behind which people led furtive, little lives, barely hidden by dirty nets.

  Thumbing through the news on his phone. Searching under Jack O’Brien, M1 House, assault, gangland. Anything he could think of. There was nothing. He didn’t realise until he was standing on the step that the door to Tiffany and Jay’s house was slightly ajar.

  ‘Tiff?’

  Shitty, smudgy fingermarks on the edge of the faded yellow undercoat that covered a well-used door. Lev pushed it open. Peered inside into the murk. The lounge curtains were shut. No sound of Jay, crying or otherwise. Lev’s heart hammered against his ribcage, all senses on fire. A strange top note above the usual smell of damp, old frying and stale alcohol. He tried to place it but failed.

  Advancing down the hall past a broken plastic trike, he peered into the kitchen on his left. The remnants of lunch were strewn across the small kitchen table like spoils of war. Empty otherwise. But he was drawn to the lounge. Why were the curtains shut? What were they concealing?

  ‘Tiff!’

  Tiffany lay sprawled across the sofa, an angry-looking hypodermic syringe hanging from the vein in the crook of her right arm. The colour in her face had all but gone. Lev slapped her cheek.

  ‘Tiff! Wake up!’

  Coughing, then, as his babymother stirred from her OD slumber. The cough sounded lumpy. Lev knew what was coming next. He turned her on her side. Vomit sprayed the back of the sofa.

  ‘Shit!’ he said, pulling the phone from his pocket.

  But there was no time to dial 999. Upstairs, a child’s shriek pierced the rancid air. Jay.

  Lev thundered up the stairs. Realised what that top note was, too slow, too late. Fish.

  He entered his son’s bedroom and there was Asaf Smolensky. Holding a writhing, screaming Jay in his left arm. Brandishing a boning knife in his slender right hand too close for comfort to Jay’s slender neck.

  ‘Hello, Leviticus,’ the Fish Man said. ‘I’ve had my eye on you. I think we need to have a little chat.’

  Chapter 17

  Conky

  ‘I want him to have the best,’ Frank said, wiping tears from already puffy eyes as he stared blankly at a pearlescent white coffin. ‘Gold for royalty, right?’ Forlornly, he pointed to the gilded handles and gold satin interior. Sniffed hard and dropped his head towards the tiled floor of the showroom. Tears, plopping onto his sneakers. ‘He was my best, best boy.’

  Conky put his arm stiffly around Frank’s heaving shoulders, wishing he could offer some measure of real comfort to the poor, wee, raggedy bastard.

  ‘I think gold’s grand. The boy would love it, so he would. Flashy little bastard always did love his bling.’ Issuing a hollow chuckle, he tried to jolly Frank along. But how in God’s name could you jolly along a man who had lost everything to the game? First his wife. Now, his only child. Frank had nothing. Nobody. Ten days in, and Paddy was still at the bottom of a beer glass somewhere, proclaiming war, feeling his nephew’s murder as some kind of personal affront. And here Conky was, as usual, tasked with picking up the pieces.

  ‘A good choice,’ the sombre salesman said, nodding sagely. A half-smile on his crooked face. Clasping his hands like some ecclesiastical charlatan in front of his priestly black suit.

  You could see the pound signs in the bastard’s eyes. Coffins. Cars. Cocaine. Greasy with snake-oil, whatever the actual product he might be selling, Conky assessed.

  ‘My friend here needs a little time out,’ he said, wanting to slap the disrespectful smile off the salesman’s face. He removed his sunglasses. Gestured with a sharp flick of the chunky arms that this wanker should disappear, pronto.

  He and Frank were alone, sitting on the edge of a graphite-coloured coffin with a pink interior. People were trudging by outside, glancing in before looking swiftly away, as if that showroom reminded them all too uncomfortably of their own mortality.

  ‘I’ll find who did it,’ Conky said softly.
‘I swear to God, Frank. Jack’s death won’t go unavenged.’

  Frank blew his nose on a piece of royal blue satin that Conky had torn from a sample book. Nodded. Shrugged. Hiccoughed when he spoke haltingly.

  ‘It was the Scousers, wasn’t it? That’s what Pad reckons. Copper told the papers it was gangland shit, and all.’

  ‘I’m not sure of anything just yet,’ Conky said. ‘Maybe it was someone from out of town. This was a frenzied stabbing. Not like anyone we know. Not a professional. It looked like the work of a kid with anger management issues. But the boss employs me for my variety of skills, and doing a bit of digging is in my job description, as you know. When I come down on a man like the vengeful God almighty, I want to make sure I’m taking out the right man.’

  Finally, Frank’s hiccoughing subsided. Just contemplative silence between them. Conky pictured the muscular shape of young Jack O’Brien, framed with ruffles of gold satin and makeup on his face to ensure he kept up appearances while lying in state. What a tragic waste. He suddenly felt old.

  ‘Good-looking lad, Jack,’ he said to Frank. ‘Successful too.’

  ‘Damn straight.’ Frank started to weep silently anew. ‘He was the best thing that ever happened to us. I feel robbed, man. Totally robbed. Everything I ever had that was worth owt has gone. And for what? Our Paddy reckons that someone was using my Jack to square up for a fight with him. To wind him up, like. A warning. All he ever sees is a dick-swinging competition with him in the middle. Paddy O’Brien. Mr Big Dick.’

  Standing abruptly, Frank began to march up and down the showroom, his skinny arms flailing. ‘I wish I’d never got involved in all this bullshit, Conky. I wish I’d stuck to my music and told our Pad to go fuck himself.’ He poked himself hard in the chest. ‘I killed our Jack. Me!’ Tears beaded in the corners of his eyes, though his face was twisted in apparent rage. ‘Because I got sucked into all this gangster crap of Paddy’s. And our Jack got sucked in too. My club being used to deal drugs out of. All them beatings in the back. Brothels full of little slags being trooped through my club to service Paddy’s “business associates”.’

  He framed the term with inverted commas – four fingers aloft and derision thick in his voice. ‘Shit sticks, Conk. I let Paddy’s shit stick to me like it sticks to everything, and now …’ His voice broke up like a phone with bad reception. His chin dimpled; lower lip trembling. He inhaled deeply, clearly struggling to gain some composure, but Frank’s breath came in ragged dry heaves, as though it were his lungs that had been punctured repeatedly, not Jack’s. His shrunken face, aged by another decade overnight, glistened with tears. ‘Now, I’ll never see my son again. Never.’

  Conky bade him sit. Made him a vending machine coffee. Sat beside him and patted his hand while he wept. Remembered the adoring crowds at M1 House, worshipping their bronzed musical demi-god. Mused that Frank was wiser than he knew.

  ‘Francis. You have a good understanding of shit’s adhesive qualities, alright. But did Jack have any enemies of his own? Had there been some altercation before the murder?’

  Frank blew the steam from his coffee. ‘Come again?’

  ‘Arguments? Did Jack get into a set-to with anyone that you can remember?’

  The salesman burst through the door from the back office to the showroom. Conky took off his glasses. Gave him The Eyes. The salesman withdrew sharpish.

  Nodding, Frank’s brow furrowed.

  ‘Yeah. As a matter of fact, he did. It wasn’t a row, as such. Silly bastard had been slagging some bird off on Facebook. He was like a dog with a bone. Had his statuses set to public and everything. It went viral.’

  ‘Viral what? You understand all that kids’ computer nonsense, do you?! A man of your age?’

  ‘Run a club, don’t I?’ Frank dug his hand into his jacket pocket and brought out his smartphone. Swiped through to show Conky a myriad of brightly coloured graphics. ‘I’ve got all the social media apps.’

  ‘I don’t even want to know what a fecking app is,’ Conky said, closing his eyes. ‘It’s an aberration. The unravelling of polite society, is what it is. And I remember your Jack taking one of those selfies practically every time he went for a shite, boasting about putting it on Twatter or whatever the fuck it’s called. But I digress. Tell me about the girl.’

  ‘Well, this was the last bird he should have been starting aggro with.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘Mia fucking Margulies, wasn’t it? Jonny’s daughter.’ Frank rubbed his eyes with his free hand. His sagging lids were bright red, closing over bloodshot sclera. His nose, glowing and bulbous. A thin, elastic man who looked like he had been stretched to his outer limits. ‘Our Jack had been knocking about with her. You know. I’ve seen her in the club before and I warned him that he was shitting on his own doorstep.’

  ‘Sleeping with the enemy,’ Conky said, nodding sagely.

  ‘Yeah. But you know our Jack. Any hole’s a goal.’ He chuckled but it was a hollow sound.

  ‘And Jack rejected her?’ Conky asked.

  Frank exhaled hard through pursed lips. ‘He humiliated her. I told him. “For Christ’s sake, man. Your Uncle Pad has just got into bed with her dad for ten mill. Give it a fucking rest.” But our Jack wasn’t having any. He says to us. He says … I don’t know. Summat about her texting him all the time and showing up to parties where she knew he’d be. He reckoned he had to be cruel to be kind because she just wasn’t getting the message.’ He raised his eyebrows in contemplation. ‘And then he apparently seen Mia the night before he was killed, when he had some new bird on the arm. Blanked her in a bar.’

  Conky visualised Mia Margulies in his mind’s eye, dressed up like a cheap whore. He had caught sight of the girl in the club during the winter, all over young Jack like a rash. Evidently her father Jonny hadn’t known his daughter was fraternising with an O’Brien, else they’d all have woken up with salmon’s heads in their beds. But come the spring, Jack – the nearest thing to a son of Paddy O’Brien – had systematically ridiculed this daughter of a rival crime boss until she was a laughing stock. Surely no coincidence, then, that the golden boy had been found dead the day after he had flaunted a new squeeze in front of her. Conky was pleased with this deduction.

  ‘What other qualities does shit have apart from its excellent adhesion, Francis?’ Conky asked Frank.

  ‘You what?’ Frank was open-mouthed. Eyes narrowed, trying to fathom what adhesion meant, in all likelihood.

  ‘What might a person do with shit when they’ve had the rise taken out of them in public by an ex-lover? The representative of a rival crime family, no less! But that person found themselves unable to wreak retribution directly …’

  ‘What?’

  ‘What would you do, if someone made life difficult for you, Frank, but the only recourse you had was to make life difficult for them in turn?’

  ‘I’d twat them one.’

  ‘No, Frank.’

  ‘I’d get you to twat them one.’

  ‘Possibly. But would you ask me directly or go complaining to my boss?’

  ‘Eh?’

  ‘Oh, Christ on a bike, Frank! You’d take a big spoon and you’d stir the shit up, for God’s sake.’ Conky slapped himself over the forehead. ‘Metaphors are lost on you!’

  Though Conky was fairly certain that Mia was somehow implicated in the murder, in his professional opinion, Jonny Margulies’ daughter was too slight in build to have done the deed herself.

  ‘I’ve got a theory about shit-stirring,’ he said to David Goodman, whilst cocking the safety on his handgun.

  The accountant was unable to speak with the barrel inserted all the way in his mouth like that. In fact, he was gagging. Conky pulled it out a way, amused by Goodman’s flaring nostrils.

  ‘I think if I was a wee girl with a grudge, I’d go to Daddy. That’s my theory. I’d light a fire under Daddy Dearest, so that he did my dirty work for me.’

  David Goodman, normally so smartly turned out in his
nice King Street accountant’s suit, pissed his pants. Conky looked disapprovingly at the dark stain that spread across the man’s crotch, leaking onto the wooden kitchen chair and forming a splish-splash puddle at his feet. He tutted.

  ‘Sure, you’re nothing like your mother-in-law,’ he said. ‘Maureen’s tough like a warrior. She’d never have let me get past the front door, let alone shove a gun in her big mouth. I respect strength in a woman.’

  The accountant tried to nod. Eyes clamped shut.

  ‘You’re going to tell me what you know,’ Conky said.

  More nodding. Small movements, given the physical limitations. But Conky could tell Goodman was malleable. Willing, in fact. He withdrew the weapon slowly.

  Goodman moaned. His voice was hoarse. He clutched at his neck.

  ‘I would have told you what I knew without the bloody gun down my throat, McFadden! For God’s sake! My wife will be home from school with the kids in ten minutes!’

  ‘You’d better make it snappy then.’

  He savoured the fear that evaporated from Goodman’s pores. He’d been able to smell it on him the moment he had started working for his mother-in-law. This was a limp dick, and the kind of men who lacked the requisite testicles to make it in a life of cut-throat crime were loose cannons. Good for exploiting for insider information but a grassing risk. Still, Conky found these regular visits kept Goodman in line, and it was a grand way of knowing what Margulies and Khan were up to.

  The young, spineless pen-pusher gulped and pressed slender fingers that hadn’t seen a day’s manual graft to his temples. ‘I overheard Maureen talking to Jonny.’

  ‘Oh? Do go on.’

  ‘In fact, I was listening in on the line. I rigged it up like you told me.’

  ‘And?’

  He took the glass of water from the kitchen table, raised it to his mouth with a shaking hand and drank deeply. ‘Well, Maureen had seen the report in the Manchester Evening News about Jack O’Brien’s murder. She was straight on the phone to Paddy, offering her condolences. Then, she was on the phone to Jonny, asking him if he was behind it.’