I Love My Smith and Wesson

by David Bowker

  * * *

  That night, Lol’s nerves were in an uproar. He couldn’t concentrate on a TV program without jumping at the slightest noise. Each tick or creak launched him into a bloody fantasy that always ended the same way.

  First he was kneeling on the floor, pleading for his life.

  A gun to the back of his head.

  Then blood and brains fountained out of his forehead.

  The temptation to phone Chef was powerful, but Lol clung to one indelible fact. Twice he had crossed Rawhead’s path. Twice his life had been spared.

  In the Priesthood, Lol had only ever been the driver. Not a getaway driver or the man who drove people to Rawhead. Just a chauffeur to Malcolm Priest, his mother, and the poodle. And perhaps this was why he’d survived. He was no soldier. He was a civilian.

  But if Lol were to tell Chef that Rawhead was back, he would become an informer. And informers, regardless of their civilian status, usually died.

  Lol went to bed at ten o’clock, hoping to wipe out the bad memories of the day with sleep. But he did not sleep. He lay in his bed in the darkened flat, alert to every sound in the night. Every time a car passed in the street outside, a comet of light shot across his bedroom wall.

  He could hear the TV in the flat next door, the solemn self-important drone of some journalist reporting from a war zone.

  Outside, a front door opened. Milk bottles clinked. Someone called to a cat.

  A plane passed overhead.

  A train rattled over the distant railway bridge.

  It sounded as if everyone in the world was wide awake except him.

  Lol lay on his back, sweating and fretting and shaking.

  Finally the neighborhood went quiet. Lol dozed. He was awoken by a soft jolt. He half-opened his eyes and raised his head from the pillow. He could see the outline of a head. Someone was sitting on the bed.

  A man’s voice said, “We didn’t finish our conversation.”

  Please, Lord, let this be a dream.

  He spoke again. “You mentioned fifty thousand.”

  Then Lol knew it was real. That Rawhead had returned, along with the stench of death and decay.

  “The reward money,” said Lol.

  “What reward money?”

  “Malcolm Priest Junior put a price on your head. Fifty thousand for information leading to your death or capture.”

  “Why?”

  “He thinks you killed his father.”

  “I didn’t touch his father.”

  “I know. He thinks you did. I’m surprised you don’t know this. I thought it was common knowledge.”

  “I’ve been away. I’ve got a lot of catching up to do.” There was a silence. “So the face you saw today. You think that could have been some kind of bounty hunter?”

  “Yes.”

  “Who does my job now? Do you know?”

  “Pardon?”

  “Don’t play games with me or I’ll get very angry.”

  Lol started to cough. “Chef doesn’t tell me things like that.”

  “I didn’t ask you what Chef had told you,” said the voice in the dark. “I asked you what you know.”

  Lol swallowed hard. “All I can tell you is what I’ve heard. It’s just a name. That’s all I’ve got.”

  “Go on.”

  “The Spirit. Short for ‘The Spirit of Darkness.’”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I don’t know,” said Lol. If it came to that, what does “Rawhead” mean?

  “It means that people who upset me tend to die.” Lol started in surprise. Now the monster was reading his mind. “If you tell anyone you’ve seen me,” said Rawhead gently, “I’ll kill you and all your family. Do you doubt that?”

  “Not … not at all.”

  With infinite slowness, the shadow by the bed backed away, inch by inch, until it appeared to melt into the wall. Lol heard no footsteps. No doors opening and closing. Yet the bad smell lingered. It was a long time before he found the courage to sit up in bed and fumble for the switch of his bedside lamp.

  When the light came on, the first thing Lol saw was the white decomposing head with its blind protruding eyes. The head was perched on the mattress at the foot of the bed. It was wearing his trilby hat.

  Three

  Then stay, dear love, for, tho’ thou run from me,

  Run ne’er so fast, run ne’er so fast, yet I will follow thee.

  —ANONYMOUS

  In daylight, Rawhead rolled down his window and inched slowly past the club where Little Malc held court. He was driving a black BMW, not a conspicuous car in this part of the city.

  It was late morning. Somebody nearby was frying garlic with onions. The snow in the street was turning to gray slush in the mild sunlight. Little Malc’s club was a huge converted warehouse near the river with a lot of opaque glass around the entrance and the word DIVA in lights on the wall above. A large delivery van was parked outside the door. A fat man with curly hair was helping the van driver to unload cardboard boxes.

  Rawhead drove round the block and came back, still cruising, peering around with a furrowed brow like he was lost. This time, he glimpsed a round-faced guy of about forty, wearing jeans and a conservative short-sleeved shirt. Rawhead recognized him immediately as Malcolm Priest Junior, known to friends and associates as Little Malc. Rawhead had never met Little Malc in person. But he had seen him on TV recently, raising money for the Malcolm Priest Sunny Bunny Trust, a holiday fund for sick children that Little Malc had started in his father’s memory.

  Little Malc was chatting amiably to the van driver, who passed him a clipboard and a pen. The fat guy with the curly hair was nowhere in sight. Little Malc looked up, noticed Rawhead. There was absolutely no interest in the glance. A split second later Little Malc returned his attention to the form, slamming a full stop after his signature as if he was hurling a spear.

  As a broker might say, it was a wonderful opportunity. The street was empty. In another twenty seconds the situation would have changed. The van driver would be sitting in his cab, lazily consulting his itinerary or sending his wife an urgent text message: “I am sitting in a van.” Little Malc would be back inside the dark club.

  The Ruger Super Blackhawk tucked into Rawhead’s belt held six .44 Magnum rounds. Two for Little Malc, one for the driver. Rawhead estimated that it would have taken ten seconds to stride across the road, kill both men, gun down the first idiots to come running, and drive away.

  But something didn’t feel right. Rawhead worked alone, outside the law, and he relied upon instinct at all times. That was how he managed to pass through doors unseen, to sense when it was possible to take a life easily, alone and unobserved. His instinct, his finely tuned killer instinct, told him to retreat.

  He parked the BMW near the Science Museum and walked down to Mick Hucknall’s bar. The winter sun was still shining, failing completely to penetrate the damp shade by the canal. But Rawhead ordered some coffee and pizza and waited at an outside table, the collar of his overcoat high around his ears.

  Rawhead had come to know Manchester without loving it. He knew its churches, its graveyards, and its dripping arches.

  It was a dark city, darker than the circles around Myra Hindley’s eyes.

  Its paving stones were spattered with the gore of many beatings. Once you accepted this, that Manchester was a vile goddess who demanded sacrifice, you could kill and run. And the city would hide you, fold and conceal you in her stinking black skirts, while the sirens howled for your blood.

  Manchester was getting fancier, but all the designer stores and little cosmopolitan coffee shops in the world couldn’t erase the stench of a place that had grown rich on blood and child labor.

  It was true that infants no longer worked in its factories, not officially. Now they robbed, shot up junk, and traded their arses in the slums of Ardwick, Moss Side, and Hulme. The center of the city, with its galleries, theaters, and windows full of baubles, was like a pacemaker attached to a
failing, diseased heart, a middle-class oasis in a centuries-old desert of darkness, ignorance, and want.

  The coffee and food arrived, delivered by a charming blond woman who gave him a full twenty-eight-tooth smile. “It’s turned into quite a nice day, really,” she said. “Enjoy your meal.”

  Rawhead nodded sullenly, making her flustered, so that she spilled his coffee. While she went back to get him a replacement, two men sat down at a neighboring table. They were studying the menu. Rawhead stared at them for a few seconds before realizing that one of them was Little Malc, now wearing a thick jacket. The other guy was a little nervous type with steel-rimmed glasses.

  Rawhead had been asking around. Little Malc had indeed put a price on his head, £50,000 for information leading to his capture or death. This singular act of foolishness had created something of a rift between Little Malc and Chef. Having experienced firsthand the carnage inflicted by Rawhead, Chef had no wish to visit further damage upon the Priesthood by antagonizing a madman. That was the story and Rawhead believed it.

  During his years as the Priesthood’s number one hit man, Rawhead had come to know Chef as cautious and thoughtful.

  As for Little Malc, Rawhead knew next to nothing about him.

  The little man with the glasses went into the bar to order. Little Malc was now sitting alone at his table, a faint smile on his mouth as he watched a squabble between a squirrel and a pigeon. Rawhead couldn’t believe it. Little Malc was either incredibly brave or naive to the point of madness. After offering a reward for information leading to the capture of Manchester’s most prolific killer, he was sitting in a public place in broad daylight without any protection or any apparent sense of danger.

  Rawhead took out the Ruger and flicked off the safety catch. Then he raised the gun over the level of the table and pointed it calmly at Little Malc’s head. He felt absolutely no emotion as his finger closed around the trigger. A man this stupid would be fortunate to die so humanely. You cannot put a price on the head of the Lord High Executioner and expect to live.

  In Rawhead’s mind, it was already done. He could already hear the shattering roar of the Magnum, always louder than expected. He could see Little Malc’s head bursting like a melon, and the bright cascade of blood and brains springing high into the air. One for Little Malc. One for Malc’s friend as he came running out to see what had happened. One for the waitress who had seen the killer’s face.

  Yet still Rawhead hesitated.

  The squirrel leaped at the pigeon, snatched the bread from its mouth, and darted away. Little Malc threw back his head and laughed. Little Malc’s friend walked out of the bar and Rawhead thrust the gun out of sight, just as Little Malc turned to Rawhead and grinned. “Did you see that? Did you see that fucking squirrel? He’d been after that bread for the last five minutes…”

  Rawhead smiled back. Little Malc looked like a milder, less vicious version of his father. He was in his early forties. His teeth were nicely capped; his thinning hair was combed forward unconvincingly. Although Little Malc was built like his hatchet-wielding father, his face was softer and somehow innocent-looking. He turned his attention to the man with glasses, who had brought two beers in tall glasses. Little Malc chinked glasses and drank.

  Rawhead slipped his gun back into his belt. He ate his food slowly and in silence, already planning his next move.

  * * *

  Rawhead was living where no one would think to look for him, lodging with a nice old lady in a leafy suburban street in Sale. His landlady’s name was Mrs. Mary Munley. She was slightly deaf and, because she was arthritic, she never went upstairs. Rawhead had the first floor to himself.

  Mrs. Munley liked company, so Rawhead would play cards with her. He called her Mrs. Munley and she called him Victor. The names Rawhead invented for himself always had a horror connection—Victor was Frankenstein’s Christian name. With Mrs. Munley’s permission, Rawhead used the tools in her late husband’s workshop. He repaid her by driving her to the doctor every Tuesday for her physiotherapy. Afterward he took her to the supermarket for her weekly shop.

  Mrs. Munley was under the impression that Rawhead worked for a security firm, guarding buildings and people at short notice, hence the odd, unpredictable hours he worked. Sometimes he stayed out all night. She was a good sleeper and was rarely aware of his nocturnal arrivals and departures. She and the neighbors found Victor to be quiet, even mysterious, but pleasant enough.

  If he was home, she liked to cook him a meal. Something warming and simple, like shepherd’s pie. That was what she cooked him tonight, when he came home from not shooting Little Malc. They ate together, Rawhead and the nice old lady, sitting at a table in the tiny dining room. Rawhead had a huge plate of food; Mrs. Munley had a child’s portion on a saucer. On a bookcase by the window stood framed photographs of the grandchildren she never saw. Her son and daughter lived in Australia.

  “You should get yourself a young lady, Victor,” said Mrs. Munley. “You’re nice-looking enough. How old are you now?”

  Rawhead looked at her coldly, but she didn’t seem to notice. “Thirty-four,” he said finally.

  She read his lips. “Thirty-four? That’s not old. But it’s not young, either. You should have settled down by now.”

  “I’ve never been able to find the right woman,” confessed Rawhead.

  The kettle had boiled. She wandered off into the kitchen. “What kind of girl are you looking for?”

  “A woman who knows when to lie down and when to shut her mouth,” he replied, knowing she couldn’t hear him.

  “What was that?” she said from the kitchen.

  “An honest woman, who will never pretend that she knows better than me. A wise woman, who, when I’m tired of her, will have the good grace to leave before I’m forced to hit her with a shovel and bury her in a lonely place.”

  “It’s no good, Victor.” Mrs. Munley shouted back. “I can’t hear a word.”

  * * *

  That night at eleven, Rawhead drove into Manchester. He parked the car at the far end of Water Street and squirted shaving foam over his registration plates. Then he slipped on a woolly hat and ski goggles and walked back to Little Malc’s club. Two bouncers stood on the door. From behind them came the repetitive boom of dance music. One of the doormen was the fat guy with the curly hair Rawhead had seen earlier. The other was a little Scottish guy with swollen knuckles and a horribly flattened face.

  “Where do you think you’re going?” said the Scot, holding his hand out so that Rawhead walked into it.

  “In there,” said Rawhead.

  “Not dressed like that,” said the fat guy, glancing rapidly up and down the street.

  “But these goggles cost more than your suit,” protested Rawhead.

  The Scot pointed to a sign on the wall. “See that? ‘Dress code: smart casual.’ No way are you smart. Now fuck off before I smack your legs.”

  “But I’m a special guest of Little Mike’s,” said Rawhead.

  The bouncers exchanged smirking glances.

  “Little ‘Mike,’ eh? You’re no special guest of nobody,” said the Scot. “Now do what the man says while you’ve still got teeth.”

  “Did you realize you’re supposed to call me sir?”

  “You fucking what?” said Fats.

  “I’m a member of the public. And even if you refuse me admission, you’re still meant to call me sir.”

  “Do you know what I love most about knuckle dusters?” said the Scot to no one in particular. “The way you can hear the crack as they split open a fella’s jaw.”

  “Mmm, yummy,” agreed Fats.

  “That’s a bit unfair,” said Rawhead, addressing the Scot. “I’ll have you know I give a lot of money to your charity.”

  “What fucking charity?”

  “The Jimmy Krankie Benevolent Society for Little Scottish Spastics.”

  Before Rawhead had finished speaking, the Scot took a direct swipe at his face. Rawhead stepped back, caught his wri
st, and yanked him down the step. While the Scot was still struggling, Rawhead hit him once in the mouth. The Scot went down, shaking his head as if in repeated denial.

  The fat man charged and caught Rawhead off guard with a surprisingly fast right to the gut. Rawhead blocked the follow-through and butted the fat man in the exact center of his angry red face. The fat man lost his balance, slipped, and landed on his back, gasping for breath.

  Rawhead started to walk away. Spluttering threats and fragments of teeth, the little Celt ran after him. Rawhead glanced back, saw something flashing in the Scot’s right hand. Rawhead never found out what it was. Unhurriedly, ignoring an approaching taxi, Rawhead unfastened his jacket, withdrew the Ruger Blackhawk, aimed at the ground in front of him, and fired. The Scot ran right into the bullet, which penetrated the instep of his right foot.

  Roaring in pain and fury, the diminutive doorman hopped sideways, fell off the curb, and landed in the path of the taxi. He bounced off the bonnet and landed in the road. The taxi driver braked and swerved and ran over him again.

  A woman in the taxi screamed. Rawhead walked on briskly, stepping aside so as not to collide with two teenage boys who came sprinting past him in their eagerness to inspect the damage. The way they were running, you’d think they’d never seen an accident before.

  Four

  But if you want me, if you do need me,

  Who waits, at the terrible door, but I?

  —“THE TERRIBLE DOOR” HAROLD MONRO (1879–1932)

  At two minutes past eight, the big man with the long, melancholy face opened his heavy-lidded eyes. Every night, in his dreams, he was John Stavri, a little Greek immigrant boy. But when he awoke he was always Chef, leader of the Priesthood, the most powerful gang in Manchester.

  He was in Malcolm Priest’s bedroom in Malcolm Priest’s large, comfortable house in Knutsford. As usual, Chef had slept alone, his long, large-boned frame filling the queen-size bed. There was a knock on the door. Then the door opened and in walked the Philosopher, one of Chef’s most loyal men. The Philosopher bore Chef’s breakfast on a tray: orange juice, porridge, a pot of tea, butter, and toast. Normally, the Philosopher would have left the tray on the bedside table.