Hound Dog

by Richard Blandford

  I unlock the front door and lead them up the stairs. We enter the flat, and I watch as one goon shuts the door, and the other pushes an armchair in front of it. I realise that I’ve been completely encircled. No one seems to be smiling. Johnny’s sniffing the air.

  ‘So who wants tea?’ I ask.

  Chapter 31

  Johnny smacks me in the mouth, very, very hard. I fall backwards on the floor, as my mouth fills with blood.

  ‘Nobody wants any fucking tea!’ he shouts. ‘Where is she, you little shit? I know she’s been here, I can smell her!’

  It takes me a while to get my jaw to work, but after making a strange bleating noise that I’ve never made before, eventually I manage a few words, although my diction is far from clear. ‘I nnon’ know wha you mean whonny…’ is how it comes out.

  ‘Don’t fucking mess me about. Tell me where she is before I kill you, you fucking. Ungrateful. Little. Scab.’ Each word is punctuated with a kick to my chest. Now my breathing resembles the neighing of a donkey. Strangely, the urge to share with Johnny the purity of my love for Coreen has entirely left me.

  A goon has been scouting round the flat. He comes in from the bedroom. ‘Johnny, there’s a wardrobe full of her clothes in there.’

  Johnny slams his foot into my groin. ‘Tell me where she is, now!’

  I really want to answer his question by now. But of course, I don’t know where she is. So I have to make something up. ‘Nnivernnoo. Nee’s nonng ne Nivernnoo.’

  ‘What the fuck’s he saying?’

  ‘Nnivernoo. Ing Nivernoo noonay.’

  ‘Johnny,’ says Dave, ‘I think he’s saying Liverpool.’

  I nod my head. ‘Nivernoo! Nivernoo!’

  ‘You fucking liar! Now where is she?’ He kicks me in the stomach and I scream. It takes a good few minutes for me to be stop the involuntary noises long enough to be able to speak. ‘Liv-er-nool,’ I say softly, ‘She’s in Liv-er-nool all nay.’

  ‘When does she get back?’ says Johnny, much calmer now.

  ‘Non’t know, sorwy.’

  ‘Don’t fucking mess me about! What time will she be back? How’s she getting back, bus? Train?’

  ‘Nrain! Nrain nis evening!’

  ‘What time train?’

  ‘Awoun alf-seven.’ It must have already gone six.

  He turns to his goons. ‘OK, we’re going down the station, see if he’s telling the truth. Eddie, you and your man stay here. You can do what you like to him except kill him. I’ll do that myself later, once I’ve found the slut.’ He stands over me, his foot resting on my face. ‘You hear that, my son? Your number’s come up. Now don’t you look at me like that, it’s your own stupid fault. I liked you, Elvis, but you had to go and take the piss, didn’t yer? Now I’ll have to make you eat your own eyes or whatever it is I’m meant to fucking do to people. Yum yum.’ He raises his foot. It looks like he’s about to stamp on my head, and I prepare for my brains to fly out of my ears, but instead he just taps me on the chin with the toe of his boot. ‘Later,’ he says, with a wink and a point. Then he and his men are out the door. I hear them drive away. I’m alone with Dave and Eddie.

  ‘Dave, take his clothes off, please,’ says Eddie. It was inevitable, obviously: I’m going to be buggered one last time by Eddie, then I’m going to die. Dave does as he’s told, and peels the bloody shirt from me, and yanks away my trousers, pants and socks.

  ‘Dave, fetch my bag please. Now open it up, take it out, put it on him, that’s right.’ It’s hard to turn my head enough to be able to see what he’s doing but I manage to look up as he towers over me, holding, and I recognise it instantly, an Elvis outfit, the most ridiculous white jumpsuit type from the last of the Vegas years. Of course, I realise, it’s the one Fatboy wore on the night of Johnny’s party. Eddie must have kept it as some kind of trophy. Dave rolls me on my back and packs my legs into the trousers, then holds me up to pull them round my waist. They’re way too big of course, and I have to hold them to keep them from falling down, which they do briefly, when he puts the jacket on me. I can’t stand up without Dave holding me, and I fall down a few times when he has to let go. I crouch on the floor as he puts the cape on my shoulders and the scarf round my neck.

  ‘OK,’ says Eddie when most of the outfit has been put on me, except for the wig and shoes, ‘leave him on the ground. Now why don’t you pop out for a bit, go get yourself some supper?’

  ‘No, it’s OK. I’ll stay, just in case you need help.’

  ‘Go, young David. That’s an order, my good man.’

  ‘Right. I’ll come back in an hour or so, shall I?’

  ‘That will be more than sufficient for what I have to do, thank you.’

  ‘OK, um, see you in a bit then.’ He waves at me on the way out.

  Eddie crouches beside me, and strokes my hair. ‘You used to be so beautiful,’ he says gently. He kisses my forehead with what appears to be affection. ‘Not now, now you’re old and fat like me. But if I squint, I can just about make out the beautiful boy you used to be. And that’s enough.’ He picks up the wig and rests it on my head. ‘I crown thee Elvis, the King of Rock ’n’ Roll.’ He stands and begins to pace the room. I stay crouched on the floor, partly because I know I’m meant to, and partly to avoid the pain that moving creates.

  ‘I’m sorry, Eddie,’ I say, ‘I know I messed up.’

  ‘Yes, yes, you did, you did,’ he replies, ‘but to be honest I’m not really interested in what you did to Johnny’s bit of fluff. But the fact that you did it gives me the opportunity to do something I’ve wanted to do for all of these past few months that we’ve been reacquainted. You see, I’m dying, and as you know, I’m going to die lonely and unloved. So, here at the end of my life, the only thing I can say about it is that for the vast majority of it, I was always powerful. It was a very rare occasion for anybody to get one over on me, and if they did, I made sure that they paid. Even in prison, as you no doubt remember, it was me that ran the place. And now, when I look back on a life characterised by the physical and psychological domination of my fellow man, of all those who I have bullied, beaten and buggered, the one person who I think of most fondly is you. Elvis, you have a very special place in my heart. You are truly my favourite victim of my destructive desire. I think it’s even fair to say that in my own way, I love you.’

  ‘I’m flattered.’

  ‘No, you’re not, you’re repulsed. But that’s understandable. I’m faintly repulsed by you, what with the state you’ve let yourself get into. But that’s not what this is about, no, not at all.’ He crouches next to me, places his hands underneath my jacket, and runs them up and down my bare skin. ‘No, this is all about… In the twelfth century, Gerald of Wales observed a pagan ceremony in Ireland, in which the leader of the tribe engaged in sexual intercourse with a horse, then killed it and fed it to his tribe. The Christian Gerald saw this as evidence of the utter sexual depravity of the Irish pagans. But what he failed to understand was that the point of the ritual was not sex, but power. By conquering the animal with his penis, the leader was also symbolically conquering the forces of nature that the horse represented. And so, here we have a similar situation.’ He moves round behind me, and runs his hands down over my arse. ‘I don’t find you particularly sexually desirable any more. Nevertheless, I am about to give you the buggering of your life, because I need to feel it again, I need to feel my power over you utterly, just once more, before I die.’ He places me in position, pulls down my oversized Elvistrousers, and I hear him unbuckle himself behind me. ‘Now, be a good boy and sing “Hound Dog” for me.’

  He jabs it in with one thrust, and it hurts like it never hurt before. I’m too busy crying out to sing anything, but he doesn’t seem bothered. He pummels fast and hard, and I recall a dream I must have had not too long ago, where I was in a very similar situation, but the cock was a drill, ripping my flesh apart. It feels like that’s precisely what he’s doing now. And then, without coming, he stops. He stops an
d keeps still, breathing heavily.

  ‘Oh, this isn’t what I want at all,’ he says, like a disappointed schoolboy.

  I hear him buckle up, and I turn round to see him resting his back on the foot of the sofa.

  ‘Um, pull your trousers up, and come over here, would you?’ he says.

  I hitch up the trousers, and feel the white polyester stick to my backside, with blood no doubt. I manage to get my body to move over to where he is, and place myself next to him. There he wraps his arm around me and cradles me like a baby.

  ‘Would you… hold me for a minute?’ he says, and I put my arms round him too, and we sit there in quiet for some time. I even rock him a bit, which in that moment it occurs to me is something I’ve never done for any of my kids. ‘Thank you,’ he says finally.

  ‘That’s OK.’

  ‘It’s just… that… I don’t want to be on my own when it happens.’

  He pulls up his trouser leg and reveals a pistol, perhaps the same one he used to kill Gay and Fat Elvis with. ‘I’d stand back if I were you,’ he says.

  I pull away as he stares into the barrel. He fires.

  My first instinct is to get away, but I can barely stand, and I don’t get halfway across the room before I trip over my Elvistrousers and fall flat on my face. I can’t get up again. And lying there, for I don’t know how many minutes, sprayed in Eddie’s brains and wearing a white Elvis outfit coated in my own blood, of all people, I think of Em. I think of her losing the one she loved, and having no comprehension of why it even happened. It’s a great big wrong that resounds through the universe. Going through this ordeal with Johnny and Eddie was meant to act as punishment for what I did to Buddy, but I feel no less guilty than I did before. It was just more of the same old thing, a few more links in that stupid chain. It doesn’t help Em any, and I’m still carrying the weight. I know I have to set both of us free. And so I call the police.

  I tell them I wish to report a suicide, and confess to a murder. No, I didn’t kill the person whose suicide I’m reporting, they killed themselves. That’s why it’s a suicide. I’m the Cambridgeshire Elvis killer. I killed Buddy Holly. No, I’m not having a laugh. They nearly hang up on me, but I finally convince them to send officers round to the flat. Then there is nothing for it but to wait.

  Almost immediately, there’s a banging on the door. I can’t imagine the police would have got here this quickly. Which means it could be Johnny, and if it is, then I’m a dead man. ‘Wh—who is it?’ I ask.

  ‘It’s Dave.’ Thank fuck for that.

  ‘Dave, I can’t open the door. I’m on the floor.’

  ‘Where’s Eddie, Elvis?’

  ‘Eddie’s dead. He shot himself.’

  ‘Fucking hell.’ Immediately, Dave hammers at the door with his shoulder. After a few blows, it flies off its hinges. He runs in, jumps over me, and stands over Eddie’s body. ‘You didn’t do this?’

  ‘Ah, no. Look, Dave, you’ve got to get away. The police are on their way here.’

  ‘The police, shit. OK, I’ll break into a car and get us out of here. Hang tight, OK?’

  ‘No, I’m staying here. I’m turning myself in.’

  Dave looks at me incredulously. ‘Don’t be daft, man. I can get us both out of here, away from the police as well as Johnny.’

  ‘Dave,’ I say, ‘I can’t run any more. I don’t even want to. Now get your arse in gear or you’ll be dragged down the cells and all.’

  ‘Don’t make me do this, Elvis. Like I said before, I like you.’

  ‘Thanks Dave, but I’m staying here.’

  He reaches down and shakes my hand. ‘You’re a good bloke, you know that?’

  ‘No, I’m not, but I think one day I might be.’

  He hugs me tight, straightens himself up, smiles one last smile, and hurries out through the space where the door used to be.

  I wait for the police. Maybe Johnny will get here first, who knows? That would make the situation interesting. But whichever way it turns out, at least I know I tried to be noble, and with Eddie’s bullet hole staring at me like an all-seeing and judging eye from the centre of his face, it’s a big deal.

  So as the minutes tick by, far too slow, and much too fast, for old time’s sake, I sing for him:

  You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog

  Cryin’ all the time

  You ain’t nothin’ but a hound dog

  Cryin’ all the time

  You ain’t never caught a rabbit…

  First published in the United Kingdom in 2006 by Jonathan Cape

  Canelo Digital Publishing Limited

  57 Shepherds Lane

  Beaconsfield, Bucks HP9 2DU

  United Kingdom

  Copyright © Richard Blandford, 2006

  The moral right of Richard Blandford to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

  ISBN 9781911420842

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

  ‘See See Rider’, arranged by Elvis Presley. Copyright 1973 Elvis Presley Music, USA, Carlin Music Corporation. Used by permission of Music Sales Ltd. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. ‘Hound Dog’, words & music by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Copyright 1956 Elvis Presley Music/Lion Publishing Company Incorporated, USA. Universal/MCA Music Limited (80%)/Chappell/Morris Limited (20%), by permission of Music Sales Limited. All rights reserved. International copyright secured. Every effort has been made to trace the holders of copyright in this work. If a copyright permission has been overlooked, the publishers would be pleased to come to an arrangement with the owner of the material.

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