‘Maaate.’ The stretched-out word is half-shouted from behind. Paul. Dylan about-faces. ‘How you doin’, my mate?’ asks McQuillum. Big grin, big hug, then one hand round Dylan’s shoulder. ‘Come over into the office, my mate.’ Dylan flushes with pride at being invited into the court, the inner sanctum.
‘You OK, lad?’ Paul asks.
‘Sound. How’s life at the top?’
‘Wouldn’t know, lad.’ A knowing half-smile from the Imperator. He stops, gestures at Dylan’s head with his hand, fingers together, palm slightly cupped. Here comes the big-up. ‘Listen, mate, there’s only one man around here who moves up there – and that’s you.’
Dylan flushes at the use of the word ‘man’. They laugh and shake hands, not formally, but with Paul’s hand swooping downwards in front of him at 45 degrees, like a dogfight Spitfire, and Dylan’s coming upwards like a southpaw uppercut. ‘Maaate,’ as they connect vigorously. Dylan’s loving it, buzzing at being on the meet with the Imperator.
‘How’s business?’ asks Dylan, egging Paul on now.
‘Listen, lad, if I was doing any better . . . I’d be you.’
Whooah!
Behind the bar – a giant white Corian globe – is a large cordoned-off alcove: the office. They sit off on vast square chrome and leather chairs next to a low teak table. Paul calls over the bar lad, buzzes with him like a mate, shakes his hand, then asks for two seven-pound-a-throw cups of tea to be sent over. Which he’ll get for fuck all, by the way, cos everyone loves the cunt.
In a mumbly voice, like a long cough, Paul says: ‘Might have some work, there. Wages for youse and that.’
Might have. Hmmm. Dylan’s disappointed that Paul’s not committing straight off, but he remains expressionless, giving nothing away.
Paul’s mouth forms a concerned, off-round ‘o’, then a ‘we’re not soft’ smile, meaning, ‘Best not talk in here – too on top.’ He tells Dylan, ‘We’ll go for a walk in a minute. Around the town,’ meaning, ‘We’ll speak outside.’
‘Sound. Whatever,’ says Dylan, letting the Imperator make the running. At the leige’s leisure.
‘Everything OK?’ asks Dylan, keeping it neutral.
‘Can’t complain, lad. If I did, no one would listen, would they?’
Paul’s biding his time, wondering if Dylan has been followed, if there’s anyone moody in the hotel, any foes that Dylan might betray him to, impart his explosive info to.
‘Just got a contract there to build a power station in South Africa. Worth 20 quid [£20 million].’
‘That’s good, innit?’
They shake hands. To toast Paul’s good fortune.
It’s all true. Paul’s never told a lie. That’s his power, telling the truth.
What he doesn’t say is ‘Yeah, I’m building a power station. But as you well know, I’ve also been bringing in Class As by the tankerful for 20 years. On an industrial scale. I have put myself at the centre of an empire, from Amsterdam to the Andes. But I’m post-industrial now. D’you get me? Richard Branson has got fuck all on me now. Branson, Alan Sugar, the Dragons – they’ve got fuck all on me now. D’you get me?’
Paul’s letting Dylan know that he is super-league, that he cannot be trifled with. ‘Abu Dhabi, mate. The other day. To see a man. An oil man. Few million barrels there. Know what I’m saying?’
‘Is right,’ says Dylan, who has £1.78 on him for the bus and a serrated kitchen knife down his bollocks in case he gets caught slipping on the way home.
‘But I can’t sell a flippin’ drop.’
‘What?’ Dylan’s nearly up off his seat in fighting stance at the unfairness of it.
‘Not a drop, mate,’ says Paul, a sad smile on his jowly pudding face.
‘You’re joking, aren’t you?’
‘Not even a can of oil for your bike, lad, can you sell,’ says Paul, his temper rising, ‘unless you’ve got a licence. Boxed off, lad. D’you get me? So the likes of me can’t get their hand in the sweet jar. For hundreds of years, lad.’
‘By who?’ asks Dylan, his voice rising, getting right into it, the Dallas drama of it.
‘By George Bush. Mark Thatcher. By the flippin’ Illuminati . . . I don’t flippin’ know. Just them, innit?’
‘No way.’
‘Way, lad. But d’you think those pricks are gonna stop Paul McQuillum from taking what’s rightfully his?’
‘Can’t see it, like.’
They shake hands in tribute to Paul’s gargantuan one-man struggle against the Establishment, not only for himself but for Dylan as well, and for the likes of. So that Dylan and his boys can have a shot at the super-league one day when the time is right. If they stay onside.
‘As it happens, like,’ Paul continues, ‘I knew another man, over there [points towards the bogs] in Uzbekistan – oil type, ten-gallon hat, all that – who’s got the paperwork. I put the two of them together in a hotel. And guess what?’
‘What?’ replies Dylan.
‘Got paid. Deals, innit, lad?’ They shake hands. ‘And I got a new carpet out it. A nice one, know what I’m saying?’
‘Mad, innit?’
‘There’s no one we can’t get to, mate. No one.’
Graft meetings can go on for days without anyone really saying anything, just chatting shit and stalling. Dylan knows that. Paul’s still weighing it up. He hasn’t decided yet if he can trust Dylan enough to work with him. Work in haste, repent at leisure. That’s the Imperator’s watchword. What he’s trying to let Dylan know is: ‘I can take you into the stratosphere, lad. I won’t pull the ladder up. But wo-be-fucking-tide you if there’s any behaviour once I’ve opened the door.’
Ticker and Jo Jo come in, so there’s a break in proceedings, a rest from the head games. They’re sharp-witted old-school scallies, purveyors of moody goods to the cash rich, to supplement their pensions. They’re selling jarg gear out of a bin-bag. Loads of old-style laughs. Paul buys a jarg Hugo Boss jacket. Dark blue, looks like an Argentinian army coat, Falklands-puffa-style. Seventy buff. Looks all right, though. Dylan buys five pairs of Emporio Armani socks, a pair of mad three-quarter-length Lacoste shorts made out of shiny nylon that catches on his nail, with big blocks of different sickly colours. Eighty quid. He doesn’t want them, but he’ll wear them in bed. Paul insists on paying for the stuff. He sorts it from his arse pocket. Little shake from Dylan, to say, ‘Nice one. You shouldn’t have.’
But that’s the thing about Ticker, Dylan thinks. He’s not cheap. But all hands want to keep him onside. Out of the alehouses, on the move in his little Punto. Cos he’s flipping nightmare when he’s had a drink. Paul notices Dylan’s a bit sinkered by the over-the-odds prices and turns to him, one hand round the shoulder, cupped hand to the face, a bit of anger in him. ‘He’s one of us, mate,’ he says. Dylan’s taken back by his intensity, but he’s back to normal almost immediately.
Paul’s pointing at Dylan with his slightly cupped hand. Here comes the public big-up. ‘You see this man?’ Paul asks Ticker and Jo Jo, who get around to all the courtiers, his open hand zooming in on Dylan’s face. ‘Even if you had a telescope that could look into space, you couldn’t look at this man.’
When the other two leave, Paul and Dylan go outside and get into the beige Lexus. ‘Have a word in a minute,’ Paul says, making a face to indicate that the car could be bugged.
They talk shit about the car for a bit, keeping to safe territory. It’s rented, Paul says. ‘If you buy one of these new, you lose five grand as soon as it comes off the forecourt. So, for that, the cost of depreciation, I get a free year’s worth of use. D’you get me? Plus a service.’ All the while, Paul’s checking to see if they’re being followed and he’s thinking, weighing things up. Are Dylan and his crew safe? Can these upstarts be trusted? Are they too hotheaded?
They drive past a restaurant clad in shiny steel. The whole three-storey building. Dylan can’t get over a whole building coated in weapons-grade steel. Paul’s a bit put out at the spectacle of t
his investment that isn’t his, in his city. ‘Me mate Louis owns that,’ he says. ‘Know him, mate?’ Dylan says nothing. ‘He’s all right, Louis. But he’s a bit of a mouthpiece, know mean?’ Paul’s letting Dylan know the guy’s the ultimate in scum: a grass.
They stop outside a huge Victorian red-brick warehouse, shut down, for sale. ‘See that?’ asks Paul. ‘I’m developing that, lad: hotel, retail, flats. Planning for 200 units. I’m putting £40 million into that. Do you know what I’m covering it in?’
‘No.’
‘Gold leaf.’
‘No!’
‘Like in Dubai.’ Paul breathes a sigh of relief, his ego back on track now.
Dylan decides he can’t fuck about much longer. He needs to go for it now, get on the offensive. ‘Mad about Leon, wasn’t it?’ he asks. That’s all that needs to be said. He’s bringing out the big guns. The fable of Leon, the 18-year-old urchin who took on the heavy hitters, in their mansions, in their nightclubs, in their businesses – and won. By spraying up their mansions. By nail-bombing their nightclubs. By burning down their businesses. Leon, who’d won because he was assetless. The heavy hitters lost because they had nowhere to run, trapped by their millions and billions. Leon, a hero to the likes of Dylan, Nogger and the lads.
Paul gets the message, but he just says, ‘Mad that, wannit?’ He sucks his teeth and a pinched look spreads across his face. What he’s thinking is: I’ve got no choice, have I?
Dylan says nothing more. He’s thinking: Deals, innit? Let’s get down to business now.
They jump out and cut off quickly up a side street into a new-build estate. Squat red-brick bungalows, low garden walls, purple wheelie bins looking massive against the shit small houses.
Even outside, Paul refuses to speak openly, paranoid. Suddenly, he starts talking in a mad, twisted voice, throwing it like a ventriloquist. Dylan freaks and instinctively reaches for his knife, genuinely unnerved. Paul’s saying, ‘Uhiss as e hoary, rythe,’ which Dylan works out means, ‘This is the story, right.’
‘You know me,’ Paul goes on. ‘I don’t usually get involved in all this palaver.’
‘Yeah. Go ’ead.’
‘But I want you to do us a favour,’ he says, still speaking in tongues.
‘Yeah? What is it?’
‘I want you to rob something for us.’
‘Yeah. Anything. What is it?’
‘A SIM card.’
CHAPTER 9
SIM CARD
Princess Park gates on a cold, March Saturday night. Old iron gates, black trees swooshing overhead in the wind. Crackheads are moving like zombies across a plain towards the gates, slowly coming together, in the shadows so the bizzies can’t see them. They stand just a bit back from the gates, waiting to score.
One of them is a mixed-race kid with black cauterised moles on his skin. He’s wearing a big medieval-looking hood with a shiny black jacket with letters on the back over the top – smackhead wear. He bells the dealer, the blue laser glow from his mobile phone lighting up the inside of his hood.
‘All right, kidder. I’m by the bench.’
‘Be there, in a minute, lad,’ replies the dealer.
He’s been saying that for more than an hour now. But he won’t come until there’s at least ten gathered to serve up to, until it’s worth his while. Makes them wait, rattling in the freezing rain, for six hours sometimes, pregnant brasses, whatever. But they couldn’t give a fuck. They’ve got the power – it’s a seller’s market. The mixed-race lad doesn’t complain, case he’s grassed up to the dealer for slagging him. The politics of scoring: you’ve got to be careful, grateful.
A skinny, scag-addict prostitute arrives on a bike. A 40-odd-year-old black woman called Chloe mooches out of the street halogens into the dark. Short hair, headband, white-rimmed, grafted sunglasses on, big, colourful bag. The fashiony accessories are to distract the eye from her crack-ridden, blistered face and unsure gait, to make her look normal to the security guards.
‘When was the last time somebody phoned him?’ she asks.
‘Just now,’ the mixed-race lad tells her. ‘He’s on his way.’
‘Wish he’d hurry up, kidder. Going grafting after this. Want to get there before it closes.’
‘Where d’you go?’ asks the lad, chatting shit now.
‘Asda.’
A stocky lad with a hard face is waiting too, his black woolly cap pulled right down to his eyes. Someone must be after him. He keeps using the words ‘for time’, seems nervous. Just got out from a seven-and-a-half stretch for armed robbery, he says. Got moved around the prison system, he says.
‘Who’s on?’ he asks.
‘One Arm,’ Haden replies.
Haden claims to have been Britain’s first crack dealer. He’s on the gear himself now. He’s done so much he’s almost immune to it, though. He’s wearing his all-blacks: black hood attached to his 20-quid bargain-basement Lowies with black goggles sown in. Looks like a gas mask. He goes out doing work in it.
Haden and four or five others phone the dealer one after the other. ‘Eight or nine of us here now,’ Haden tells him, trying to convince him that it’s worth his while.
‘Just coming now,’ he says.
Everyone knows that could mean two minutes or three hours in the freezing cold. One new face appears. People nervously look for reassurance that he’s not a bizzy. They make small talk.
One Arm arrives. One Arm is a 19-year-old former heroin addict who had his arm amputated. It had rotted away because it got infected from injecting. With him is a 12-year-old runner, a mixed-race kid called Ray-Ray. One Arm has a face like a Scream mask: skin dragged tight over his cheekbones like the membrane across an insect’s wings; his mouth is slack, lozenge-shaped, his eyes slanted and drooping. He’s terrified, walking very slowly, looking for signs of danger every step of the way. It’s a dangerous job. They could be taxed at any moment.
They stop under the black of the trees. One Arm doubles over, like he’s going to spew. Instead, he raises his good arm so that his hand is three inches below his nose and begins spitting out some of the tiny wraps of white and dark that are hidden in his mouth so that he can neck them if he gets stopped by the bizzies. Crackhead zombies rush him. They need to be served, fast.
‘Get back, you fucking meffs,’ says Ray-Ray. He’s there to herd the punters into order and make sure One Arm doesn’t get taxed while he’s serving up.
The mixed-race baghead gives his order: ‘Two whisky.’
‘Five whisky,’ says Chloe.
‘Shut the fuck up, you dirty fucking wretch,’ replies Ray-Ray.
‘What, lad?’ One Arm asks Haden.
‘One white, lad.’
One Arm spits a dark out by accident. He puts it between his thumb and forefinger for another customer, snatches Haden’s tenner with his three remaining fingers and folds it into the palm of his hand.
‘Chloe,’ he says, ‘Karlos says you haven’t been calling today. Have you been going to someone else?’
‘No, love. Just not been around.’
‘Listen, you dirty nigger,’ says Ray-Ray, ‘if we catch you scoring off those Tocky niggers, we’ll fuck you off. And I’ll give you a slap, girl.’
The kid has no respect for adults. The only adults he has ever known have been scagheads: the punters, his ma and da. Shit stains on their kecks cos they’re too stoned to clean themselves properly. But the kids he knows are all straight, together, all grafting. They’ve got the power now.
Dylan’s sat off in the bushes about ten metres away looking through a night sight he’s taken off an SA80. He waits until all the punters except Chloe have been served up, then steps forward out of the bushes with a samurai sword.
‘Stand still. Section 60. Stop and search,’ he says. Then he tells One Arm, ‘Empty your mouth, lad.’ One Arm can do fuck all, but Ray-Ray goes for a gun. Dylan chops him a bit on the shoulder, slashes him fully across the arse and boots him into the leaves on the ground. ‘That’
s for the beef you gave the girl, lad.’
One Arm spits the rest of the rocks into Dylan’s leather glove. He hands them to Chloe. ‘Be off, girl. Keep your fucking mouth shut. Stripe your arse like that little cunt’s if you don’t.’ He’s relying on the free gear – 70 quid of One Arm’s stash – to shut her up.
Jay and three of the younger lads whizz round the corner in an old Toyota Previa, pick up Ray-Ray and put him in the boot. Dylan walks One Arm over to a bit of gravel by the gate. An old Tranny van pulls up, the side door open. He launches the dealer into the back, gets in and they drive off.
‘Where’s Karlos, lad? Where’s the phone?’ Dylan asks One Arm.
‘Don’t know, lad. Just get the calls from him, lad. “Go the gates.” “Go by the doctor’s.” Whatever.’
Nogger pulls One Arm’s trackies down from the back, like messing at school. He bends him over. One Arm has to put his hand on the wheel arch to balance. He’s panicky, ready to burst into tears. ‘What are you doin’, lad? Are eh, lad.’ He’s suffocating in the helplessness.
Pacer gets One Arm in a head lock. Nogger fishes about with a mop handle, trying to find One Arm’s arse.
Slowly he pushes it in until he gets well going, plunging backwards and forwards like he’s trying to unblock a drain. ‘Woah, lad,’ he says, ‘got a nice big ring on you there, lad.’
Clegsy, splayed against the back windows (blacked out with bin-bags) to keep his balance, asks, ‘Karlos been getting stuck up you, lad?’
Dylan: ‘Where’s Karlos’s ken, lad?’
‘Don’t know, lad. Don’t fucking know.’
The mop handle’s about nine inches in now. One Arm’s trying to catch his breath. The van’s ragging around fast. The graft’s on. Big, grating revs, hard, deep gear changes. One Arm’s sweating in the cold. Nogger puts on a spurt. Shoves the pole in and out, fast, for about 20 reps, like a jackhammer. Afterwards, he’s fucked, his triceps ripped to shreds and burning, like pushing one more out on the weights. Clegsy takes over. Twenty more reps one after the other. One Arm not saying fuck all. Clegsy, breathless, says, ‘Must be a fucking rent boy. Used to it, la.’
Gang War Page 6
