The collection is copyright Jay Stringer 2012, except for the cover photograph, which is copyright Coqui. The photograph is used under a creative commons licence; any part of the image may be adapted, reprinted or modified with attribution to the original photographer. Neither the collection or the stories contained may adapted, reprinted, or sold without the express written permission of the author. Bullet For Bauser first appeared in Crime Factory 3.5, and was reprinted in The Mammoth Book Of Best British Crime, Volume 9. Father’s Day was originally printed in Collateral Damage from Needle Publishing and Do Some Damage.
FAITHLESS STREET
Contents
Forewarned-3
A Bullet For Bauser-7
First Steps-16
Father’s Day-27
The Lost Profits-51
Forewarned
I have sat down to write this introduction several times. If I spend any more time on it, the introduction will have taken longer to prepare than most of the stories that follow it. Most attempts have started with the line, “If you can’t write crime fiction set in the Midlands, then you can’t write crime fiction,”
Quite a bold leading statement, no? Let’s for the moment forget that I’m stealing it, and that it was something Reed Farrel Coleman said about Brooklyn. Reed has written seven fine Moe Prager mysteries that make his case for him, but I hold it as true about the region I come from. As I write this I’m researching a third crime novel and seeing that unemployment in the United Kingdom has hit 3 million. The same data is showing me the top five areas for unemployment, and three of them are in the Midlands.
Sadly we are a people used to this kind of thing. When the global economy nosedived it felt like the rest of the world was playing catch up with us. A region built on coalmines, factories, mills and refineries. A population roughly the same size as Scotland left behind by Thatcher, politics, the media and the economy. Our problems read like a greatest hits package of crime fiction; Poverty, unemployment, racial tension, immigration, corruption, drugs, gangs.
But I’m not here to preach at you, and I’m sure you’re not here to feel lectured. All of these issues bubble away at the back of my brain, and researching them informs the stories that I write, but they’re still meant to be entertainment above all else. I like to say that I write Social Pulp Fiction, which really means that the story stands or falls by that last word.
This collection gives you a peek into several of the lives that go into the novel Old Gold. Some of them are based on real people, some of them may be pointing towards issues that I want to talk about, but they’re all fiction and they’re all meant to draw you into that drama.
A Bullet For Bauser gives us a teenage boy struggling for his identity. First Steps shows a young woman at a crossroads between the life she expected to have and the one that’s before her. Father’s Day is the clearest preparation for Old Gold, featuring the same protagonist and main voice as the novel. The Lost Profits is a bit of fun, a piece of flash fiction that grew a little to large for its form. The events of this last story lead straight into the opening of the novel, and there’s another Easter egg buried away in there for those who spot it.
There are two ways you can read this collection. Well, there are any number of ways you can read it, I suppose, including standing on your head or under water. Whichever way you choose, just make sure you remember to breathe. What I meant to say is that there are two suggested running orders. The first is the one on the contents page. Arranged in that order, the collection is loosely chronological and builds towards Old Gold in a way that will make sense as you read the book. You’ll be heading into it with a background on many of the characters and an awareness of many of the events that have formed them.
The second way is more patient. There are certain points in the novel when you could pause and read a story, almost like a flashback scene on a directors cut DVD. This takes a little more work than the straight-up chronological reading, but I think it adds an interesting dimension to reading the novel For those who are tempted to try this approach, I’m presenting the alternative running order, along with the point in Old Gold when you could read it.
The Lost Profits- Read this right before you start OLD GOLD
A Bullet For Bauser- Read this when you finish Chapter Five
First Steps- Read this when you finish Chapter Thirteen
Father’s Day-Read This When you finish Chapter Twenty Seven
It’s all now you see. Yesterday won’t be over until tomorrow and tomorrow began ten thousand years ago.
-Chick Mallison
A Bullet For Bauser
“Is that-?”
“Yes.”
“For real?”
“Yes.”
“Fuuuuuck.”
“Uh huh.”
Bauser looked at the cold steel in his hand. Funny, he thought it would be heavier. He’d always imagined holding a gun would be like holding a cannon, a real sign that you had some fucking strength in you.
He’d held an air pistol once, at his best mate Dex’s house after school. He’d shot Dex in the balls and he’d walked with a limp for six months. Thing was, that air pistol was pretty much the same weight as this gun. His little brother Marcus was staring at the gun as if it was the greatest thing he’d ever seen. Bauser had never heard Marcus swear before. He cuffed him round the ear proudly.
“Listen to you, swearing like Granny.”
“I’m a man now, just like you.”
Bauser laughed. Marcus was only a week past twelve years old. Which put him two weeks past the eighth anniversary of their daddy walking out. Stood there in second-hand pyjamas, a faded power ranger on the belly, and swearing with pride.
“Is that right? When you going to start working for a living, then?”
Marcus smiled and pulled a face. When he was younger, that had been the face he pulled if he didn’t like the food he was given, now it just made do for anytime he wanted to be funny.
“Workings for looooosers.” Marcus stretched it out in a high whine. “I never seen granny working, and she’s always got money for magazines and shit.”
“Shit? You’re really getting the hang of these words. You been watching my DVD’s?”
Marcus rolled his eyes.
“Nah. I get the words from school, man. I only watch your DVD’s if I want to see boobies.” He paused while his big brother gave him a high five. “But one thing I wanna know? What’s a clit?”
Bauser blushed and looked at the floor. Then at the wall. Then at everything else in the room other than his brother.
“I, uh, I dunno.”
“Granny didn’t know neither.” Marcus shook his head. Then his eyes fell to the gun again and his face lit up once more. “Why you got a gun, Eric?”
Bauser tucked the gun into the waistline of his jeans at the small of his back. He usually wore them a size up, but he needed the waistband to be tight today so he’d worn an old pair. He flinched when his brother used his first name.
“Cuz today’s a big day for me.” He checked himself out in the mirror to make sure the gun was concealed. “I’m getting promoted.”
**
He stopped in the kitchen to kiss him mum on the cheek before going out.
She was stirring a pot while trying to stop something under the grill from turning to charcoal. From the living room Bauser’s granny was shouting in a running commentary in her Caribbean lilt. Bauser and his mum shared a laugh at the old woman’s rantings.
“Where you off to?”
“Doing overtime at work. They say they’re gonna teach me to drive the forklift.”
His mum smiled at him with a sad tilt to her mouth. She didn’t call him
a liar. She didn’t need to.
“You’ll stay for breakfast first though?”
“Nah, can’t. I’ll be late if I don’t get off now. I’ll get a pot noodle or something, don’t worry about it.”
“I saw Dex at the supermarket last night, he was asking about you. You don’t spend any time with him anymore?”
“Nah, he’s with a bad lot. Gotta keep my head in the work, you know?”
Dex was working at the warehouse that Bauser was pretending to work at. He was on the straight and boring, and Bauser had new friends now.
“Mwah.” His mum kissed him on the forehead and waited until he returned the sentiment on her cheek, then turned back to her cooking.
“Don’t work to hard Eric.” She said.
“Mum, don’t go calling me that. That’s his name, I don’t want it.”
Bauser had almost made it through the living room before his granny caught him. She was settled in her usual arm chair, directly in front of the telly and below a photograph of her husband. She rose out of her chair in a mass of flailing arms and legs, making a funny squealing noise at the thought of not getting a kiss. He gave her a hug and a kiss on the cheek, and then made it out the door before any more family members appeared to molest him.
**
On the tram ride into town, he could feel the lump against his back. A sweat was trickling down there, sticking between the metal and his skin. This never seemed to be a problem in the films. Not once had he seen a character pull out a concealed weapon and then have to wipe the sweat off before using it.
The conductor was someone he knew from school. Tony or Timmy, something like that. One of those faceless kids he used to steal lunch money off. Look at him now in his cheap blue blazer, tie buttoned up as if he was proud of it. Faceless Timmy saw Bauser but left him alone. The schoolyard never left some people. It would have been a free journey if some old lady hadn’t taken offence at the idea and pointed Bauser out to the conductor again.
He wanted to say, oi bitch, I got a gun. Shut the fuck up. He wanted to say a lot, but words had never been his thing. And after today, he wouldn’t need them. He wouldn’t be riding the tram to work, he’d get picked up any time he wanted.
After today, if he needed bullets for the gun, he’d be able to get them. The Mann brothers would let him have all the ammunition he needed.
The tram station in the city centre was in front of the police station. Bauser caught a thrill. His spine tingled and his shoulders felt a hundred feet wide as he stood and looked up at the front door. For the first time, he started to feel a little bit of weight in the metal he was carrying.
**
Two men frisked Bauser at the door before letting him into the restaurant.
Later on it would be full of drunken football fans and students, but right now it was a playing host to a board meeting. The tables in the middle of the room had been pushed to one side, clearing a space for them all to stand. The stereo was already playing the generic Indian music that would fill the room later on. Bauser suppressed a smile.
They were all there. Both Mann brothers, Gav and Channy. They had to be there to give their approval. Teek and Marvin, the guy’s who called the shots on the streets. Pepsi and Latisha, the two team leaders who had recommended Bauser. They all greeted him with smiles when he walked in, hand shakes and backslaps, a hug from Latisha. The talking seemed to have already been done.
“So you ready to step up?” Channy Mann looked Bauser up and down as he spoke. “You think you’re ready to run a team?”
“Hell yeah.”
His confidence was only about fifty percent bravado. The rest was naivety. But the Mann brothers seemed to like his answer. Channy continued.
“How long have you been with us now?”
“Four years.”
“Started young.”
“He aye never missed a count.” Marv spoke up. “Never called in sick. Kept his mouth shut when the police pulled him.”
“Yeah.” Gav smiled and looked Bauser up and down as if he was sizing up a pit-bull. “I think you are. You’re bursting for it.”
Bauser nodded, hoping he looked cool and relaxed but his heart was breaking out of his chest.
“This means, you get arrested? We’ll get you bail and a good lawyer. You don’t have to carry that on your own. You need to go anywhere? You get a man to drive you. You need anything? They can fetch it for you.”
Bauser was liking this. It sounded like being a king.
“But, and we tell you this now, you’re the man we come to. One of your boys fucks up? You carry that. You put your fingers in the till? Marv and Teek here will fuck you up.”
“Totally, man. I’d never do you guys like that.”
Channy nodded his head toward the door at the back of the room. Letisha tapped Bauser on the shoulder and motioned for him to follow and she and Pepsi headed over to the door. It led to the kitchen at the back of the building. It was spotless and smelled of cleaning fluids. Aside from a ratty old sofa against the wall, it was the very model of a well run kitchen. Letisha and Pepsi slouched down into the sofa, but Bauser stayed on his feet.
“They’re talking about me, right?”
“Yup.”
“They like me though, right? I mean, they wouldn’t have me here if they wasn’t going to give me the job, right?”
Letisha shrugged and Pepsi started replying to a text message on his phone.
“What if they change their minds?”
Pepsi didn’t take his eyes off the phone, “probably kill you.”
They let Bauser hang there for a moment feeling his heart stop until they started laughing. Letisha stuck out her hand and Pepsi slapped it. Bauser kicked them both in the shins.
The laughter stopped when Marv stepped into the kitchen and shut the door again after him. He was a quiet man and stillness seemed to settle in around him wherever he was.
“There’s a problem.” He said it in a low voice, and the room seemed to suck in around his words and drain the air away.
“Wha-?”
He pulled a gun out from the folds of his hoodie. It was Bauser’s gun, the one that had been taken off him at the door.
“Did you get this from Sukhi?”
“Nah, some guy in West Brom.”
“Let me tell you, it worries us. Kids come into this wanting to play gangsta? They don’t last very long. What made you get a gun?”
“I thought that was how it worked. I seen Pepsi carries a gun and, you know, I thought that all you team leaders did?”
Marv stared off into space for a moment, lining things up in his mind. Then he nodded and smiled down at the gun.
“I trust you, son. That’s why we’re promoting you.” Bauser’s face lit up and he was about to speak but Marv continued. “But a gun? That’s something else. This aye Birmingham. Bullets are expensive, man. You only carry if we say so, and you’re not there yet.”
He turned the gun over in his hand.
“Nice. Sweaty though. You nervous today, huh?”
Bauser shrugged.
“Its okay, you can admit it. We’re all nervous the first time. To be honest, it’s always there, just a little bit. You put it behind your back, right? Don’t do that. You got a hoodie?”
Bauser nodded. He had lots of hoodies. He’d always liked them, and when the men on TV started saying hoodies were evil, he’d liked them even more.
“Cool. Wear ones with big pockets, like mine. You can carry a gun in front of you and it don’t have to get wet. Or in your hood, unless there’s police around. A good trick? Carry it in your sleeve a couple of times, let people see it. Then always keep your right hand covered by your sleeve and people will think you’ve always got it.” He held up a bullet and slipped it into the cartridge. “I want you to prove yourself before you carry, and that’s going to take time. But lets see if you’ve got what it takes.”
He turned in the direction of the kitchen door and pushed through. Bauser followed. The Mann
brothers had left, and in the centre of the room was a man tied to a chair. He was doing his best to shout, but the sock that they’d forced down his throat meant it was coming out as a choking sound.
He was old and tired, and his face was swollen from a beating. Through the swelling though, Bauser could still recognise him.
He was the face from pictures on his mum’s dressing table, and half remembered trips to the cinema and McDonalds. He was a name on a birthday card every few years. His name was Eric, and he was Bauser’s father. Marv handed him the gun.
“Your old man here’s been running up a tab that he never intended to pay. We was going to let you talk him round, but this is a better way. All yours.”
Marv went and stood by the kitchen door. Bauser felt his gut turn and try to climb its way out through his ass. His feet were made of lead. The gun in his hand felt real now, it was a serious fucking cannon. He looked down at it, at the way it shined in the dim light, and at how the outside world fell away when he stared at the metal.
His father’s eyes were wide as golf balls, bloodshot and terrified. He was shaking his head and the chocking sounds now sounded pleading rather than angry. As the gun came into view, he twisted and toppled the chair, and began trying to wriggle his way to the front door. It was a pathetic sight, and he didn’t have the energy to move too far. Bauser just stood and watched for a moment, waiting until the old man gave up before he knelt and pressed the gun against his temple. The smell of warm piss filled the room, followed by one last whimper.
This felt fucking amazing.
Bauser’s finger tightened against the trigger and he closed his eyes for a moment. When he opened them and looked back down, he noticed just how much his father resembled Marcus.
“Fuck you.” He said into the old mans ear.
He got to his feet and walked over to stand with his boss.
“Why didn’t you shoot him?” Marvin said.
“Like you said, bullets are expensive.”
Eoin Miller 01 - Faithless Street Page 1
