They leave the pole hanging out of his arse. Nogger steps around in front of him, trying hard to keep his balance as the van flies round a corner. He’s holding Dylan’s sword. He saws into One Arm’s ribs, on the left side, opposite his good arm, so he can’t move his hand to the wound.
At the lights, Clegsy nooses a scarf around One Arm’s mouth to smother his howls, saying, ‘Listen, lad, I’ll saw through your cage if we don’t find Karlos.’
‘He’s sat off near Park Road.’
They burst the ken, come through the door. Four young lads who answer the phones for Karlos are sat on the couch. Twelve mobile phones, the key components of Karlos’s mini-call centre, are spread out on the coffee table before them. One kid is holding an Xbox gamepad, playing a game. One’s got a load of sweets and wash-off tattoos that come free in packets of bubble-gum. Dylan ignores the small fry, runs straight past. He’ll let the younger lads following in his trail deal with them.
Nogger steams straight through to the kitchen as well. Karlos is stood over the sink. He’s a big cunt – skinhead, roid head, bulletproof vest on. Clegsy jumps on his back, strangling him with a wire coat-hanger, trying to suffocate him. ‘You can’t knock these big cunts out.’ Pacer twats his face with the butt of a pistol. Karlos struggles like a wounded dinosaur. Clegsy’s swinging about on his back like a child. Karlos braces his feet against the door frame to stop himself being dragged out. He knows the first rule of being taxed: don’t let them get you on the floor or in the boot of a car.
Nogger and Dylan are busy looking for the main phone. Loads of rings and vibrates from the ones on the table. But Dylan’s sussed out the MO in seconds, not arsed about the shit ones on the table. He tells Nogger, ‘He’ll have the main phone on him.’ They look at Karlos. ‘Those ones [he points his samurai sword at the table] don’t take the calls off the punters. They’re just the ones the cunt uses to phone the lads.’ Dylan spies a Bluetooth earpiece in Karlos’s right ear. ‘He’s holding it.’
Seven lads – Clegsy, Pacer, Iggo, New Loon, Lupus, Bloot and Nogger – are in the tiny kitchen punching, kicking, stabbing Karlos. But Karlos is using the tiny space to his advantage. Little Jay’s stood at the kitchen door picking his moments to poke the beast with a sharpened metal bar.
Dylan tugs Jay out the way. Screams, ‘Get off him! Out of the way!’ Karlos is thinking he could be winning. The lads in the kitchen think it might be time to go, that their opportunity’s gone. But lightning quick Dylan says to Nogger, ‘Hold his arm up.’ Dylan chops the hand, the left one, with an upstroke. Whooosh! It doesn’t come off at first. The second chop, the downstroke, does the job. The fist opens. No phone there.
‘Must be in the other one. For fuck’s sake.’ A fast lightsaber downstroke onto the right wrist. Pure Obi Wan in his younger days. ‘Fuuuuck Offf!’ Jay gasps in admiration. The hand topples off. Nogger’s grinning maniacally, loves it when Dylan goes operational. This time the fingers remain clenched but the top of the phone can be seen. It’s still going off with punters ringing in.
Karlos is stunned. Both hands severed. Nogger knocks him out with a small steel weights bar to stop him screaming, cuts the Bluetooth out of his ear with a kitchen knife. Dylan goes to pick up the hand with the phone in it from the floor. But it’s skidded down the side of the cooker. ‘For fuck’s sake. Fucking typical.’ He pokes it out with a drippy spatula from a chip pan. Nogger tries to nudge it along from above with the sword.
‘Fucking be careful, will you?’ says Dylan. ‘Don’t fucking break that phone.’
‘Just giving you a hand, lad.’
Lupus and Pacer smirk at the joke. They’re all buzzing cos they’re seconds away from pure bart.
‘Soft cunt,’ says Dylan, chiding Nogger.
The hand’s now sticking out slightly from the gap. Dylan picks it up with the tips of his fingers and lashes it in the sink.
Nogger peels back the clenched fingers, takes the phone and rags off the sovvies from two of the fingers. Dylan looks at the phone, an old Nokia N73 with a big screen, worth about £15. The number’s worth £250,000.
Dylan’s worked out the digits. Karlos’s round does £50,000 a day, £2,000 an hour. About 80 callers an hour, spending, say, £25 each. Karlos is famous for his aggressive marketing on the street. Buy two get one free – two rocks (whisky) and one wrap (brandy). Bumper wraps for favoured customers. Hence his excellent sales figures.
They pile into the van, get off. Dylan takes the SIM out. ‘Wouldn’t believe it, lad, would you?’ he asks Nogger. ‘Quarter bar for that.’
‘Back-door it, lad.’
‘Can’t. Got to get it to him within the hour. Too long and the bagheads’ll start going somewhere else. It’ll be worth fuck all by tomorrow.’
Dylan unpeels the cling film from five stones confiscated from One Arm before and carefully wraps the tiny see-through squares around the SIM to protect it.
Dylan explains that the client Paul’s lined up to buy the card has already set up a call centre to take over the business. ‘Two shifts’ worth,’ says Dylan. ‘Two lots of workers. One on from ten till ten, then another overnight.’
‘It’s just gonna switch over like that?’
‘Seamless, lad. Bagheads won’t even know Karlos has been neutralised, d’you get me?’
‘Mad, innit?’
‘Graft, lad, innit?’
Dylan slots the SIM into his side pocket.
On The Boot, they petrolise the van. The lads head into a derelict house. Lowies burned. Bodies chemical washed. Nasal hairs cut and ears swiped with cotton wool buds to get rid of any residues that might have stuck to them.
Dylan has to attend a prearranged handover at the McDonald’s in Page Moss. He gets there early and orders two cups of tea, as planned. Crimson Formica tabletops, stained wooden trim. Good place to graft Mackie D’s: big glass windows on three sides so you can see who’s coming, one entrance, one car park, one bogs. It’s bigger and less intimate than a caff and the punters are less chatty too. Workies in wide-collared rigger boots and hi-vis jackets. A scally dad in Lowies with two kids, mouthing the words to the piped tune. McDonald’s is like smoking – an allowed respite from the struggle of daily life.
Dylan necks his tea as fast as, even though it’s fucking boiling, then slots the cling-filmed SIM through the slot in the plastic lid. He picks up the full tea and has a couple of swigs.
Bulb Head, Paul’s run-around, turns up. ‘You Dylan?’
‘All right?’
‘You all right?’
‘Yeah. Cup of tea there for you.’
Bulb Head picks up the empty cup containing the SIM. ‘Got to go.’ He gets off.
Dylan walks over to the Lidl next door, heads behind the bushes strewn with Big Mac cartons, crisp packets and plastic bottles of Coke. He picks up two brown-paper McDonald’s bags. Heavy. £30,000 in cash. Get paid.
CHAPTER 10
FEVER
Next day they go down to Fever to get some new gear for Casey. Nogger pulls up in the black Rangey (a ringer, brand new, two grand, bought with the graft money). Casey jumps out. She’s wearing a bright-red bell-bottomed catsuit, right up her arse. Low-cut halterneck round her falling-out, orange, plastic tits, red flamenco frills down the sides. Massive plate-sized sunglasses on. Wagged-up to death.
Nogger to Casey: ‘Love to smell your arse, girl.’ Romantic talk. They all bounce in the shop. The girl on the till tells Nogger, ‘Can’t smoke that in here.’ Nogger lashes his joint on the laminate floor.
Pauline MacInerney pulls up in her baby Bentley outside, going to get her hair done next door. Nogger’s onto her, banging on the window. ‘Fuck off, you Crocky witch. Saw your Rocky in The Cathouse the other night, hanging out of some brass.’ Pauline fucks them off. Half-snooty media grid on, handbag on arm, she slopes into the hairdressers.
Nogger turns to Dylan. ‘Do the car, lad,’ he says, looking at the baby Bentley parked outside. Dylan can’t be arsed and laughs, but when he looks a
t Casey her eyes black with jealousy at a real WAG.
‘Who the fuck does she think she is?’ she says. ‘Only shagging a ‘baller. Thinks she’s fucking Cheryl Cole or someone.’
‘Pauline is a proper fucking celebrity now, girl,’ says Nogger, winding her up. ‘Wages in her own right, her, girl. On telly. In the magazines. All that.’
‘All she is is a fucking prostitute, lad. Shags that ugly twat and gets paid in fucking mansions and swimming pools. What’s the fucking difference between her and those girls he shags in The Cathouse? Fuck all, lad. Wouldn’t shag Rocky O’Rourke if you give me a million pound. Beneath me, lad.’
‘Fuck off, you dickhead,’ says Nogger. ‘You’d suck the fucking shit out of his arse if he fucking spat on you in the Mosquito, you fucking slag.’
‘She wears a handbag in a magazine and all you scrubbers buy it,’ Dylan tells her. ‘Fucking gold dust to businesses, her, girl. Just a fucking walking advert, isn’t she?’
‘You shouldn’t let that gobshite [looks at Nogger] talk to me like that. And are you gonna let that cunt [Pauline] show me up?’
Dylan’s under pressure now. Next minute, he’s outside. Keys the car goodo, down both sides, sprays it up with a can of robbed turquoise paint. ‘RIP Crocky Rats’ on the side. All the suck-hole hairdressers in the salon are telling Pauline what’s happened, going mad. Dylan walks over to the window and mouths at her, with her curlers in, through the window: ‘Call the bizzies and I’ll bang you, you fucking Crocky rip. Got bummed by Anthony Mulhearn, girl.’ As he’s getting off, he mouths, ‘Fucking Crocky rat. Tell Rocky I’m gonna smash his auld feller in the Canada Dock.’
Outside Fever are two giant flame burners, like something out of ancient Rome, draped in synthetic pink lace. Inside, the waglet tries on a purple basque and a Roberto Cavalli dress with a big fuck-off split right up to her fanny. ‘Yes, girl.’ The bill comes to £2,200. The manager takes Dylan into the back to pay and wrap the dress. In the stockroom, Dylan peels off a good few quid, all euros and Scottish notes, graft money.
There’s a nice old bint out the back in the stockroom. Looks to be in her 40s. Nice big false tits. Wrinkly, tanned neck, black liver spots on her cleavage. Dylan wonders how you get dirty blemishes on new taigs like that. He gets a lob on. She’s wearing just a grey trackie, the zip half down.
‘Boss tits, them, girl.’ She takes the compliment well. You don’t know with these auld ones.
‘Ta, lad,’ she says. ‘Might go up one this year.’
Dylan stares down her top. ‘No, they’re just the right size for you.’
She’s got short old woman’s hair, fluffy and feathery, over-dyed and chemically. Dylan loves it. Pulls down the front of his kecks. ‘Get on that, girl.’
She sucks his young cock. He gets a tit wank off her over the desk, comes all over his Lowies and her black age spots. He has a little play with her falsies.
‘Best get back to her in there,’ he says. ‘Top blowie, that, girl.’
‘Ta, lad.’
They go back into town in the Rangey. Dylan drives. Nogger’s lying on the back seat. Too on top, too many people are after him.
Casey tells Dylan, ‘I wanna go to a hotel tonight.’
‘Fuck’s sake, girl. Only got ten quid off the graft. Spent two on you there. Fuck all left by the end of the week.’ Dylan wants to keep five grand back, buy a quarter ki of white or half a ki of brown. Thirteens on a ki at the present, but he reckons he can get just under half for five grand.
‘Well, fucking drop me off at me ma’s then,’ says Casey, ‘cos I’m not fucking wasting me time. You’re a fucking minge, lad.’
‘It’s you, girl. Fucking greedy twat. Want this. Want that. Slaughtered Pauline for being a whore but you’re the fucking same. Fucking nightmare, you, girl.’
‘You call Rocky fucking O’Rourke a cunt but at least he’s got enough dough to take that fucking beast to a hotel. D’you get me? You, a fucking gangster? Know lads who work in Jaguar who make more money than you – who’ve done more graft than you.’
‘Fuck off, you prick. Worked in Halewood, I’d be getting £400 a week. I spent more on fucking Cristal the other night, you greedy twat.’
‘Be on me for a suck, later, lad, won’t you, though? Be a different story, won’t it? “Ah, Casey, d’you wanna prawn fried rice from the Chung Ku? Ar, come ’ead, Casey, just give us a li’l blowie.” Well, you can fuck off and have a wank. Won’t be happening, lad.’
Dylan and Nogger are pissing themselves.
‘And don’t think I didn’t notice that bit of strange in the back of the shop then, you sly cunt,’ Casey carries on. ‘Fucking state of her. Getting a tug off of a pensioner.’ Dylan gets a cherry on. ‘Didn’t know you liked the bingo-ites.’
Dylan’s humiliated. ‘Well, if you saw it, why didn’t you fucking say nothing?’
‘Cos you were buying me a two-grand fucking dress, fucking twat-hooks. Wouldn’t have fucking minded if you were hanging out of Pauline or me fucking ma or me ten-year-old sister. Do not give a fuck what you do. As long as you’re paying, lad, you can do what the fuck you like. Only problem, don’t come sniffing round me after you’ve had a few lines and want your dick sucked.’
She hoists her leg onto the dash, digging her heel into the leather, pretending to be in a rage, pretending she doesn’t know that her bronzed legs are open a bit. Dylan blimps her snatch under her miniskirt. No knickers. Casey’s looking out the window, twirling her chewy round her fingers. For an 18-year-old, she has a top mature fanny on her. Nice and brown, wine-coloured lips, jet-black peabs. As she moved in rhythm with the speeding Rangey, her lips opened ever so slightly. A fine stretch of cunt spittle, like a thread of silk, elongated and disintegrated as the lips kissed and parted. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘Let’s go to the hotel then.’
In the room, plasma on, kit off. Casey’s wearing white, lacy underwear: thin gusset, high-waisted, Daily Star/Sunday Sport-style gear. Her brown skin’s mottled from over-tanning. ‘Bought these today,’ she says. ‘D’you like them?’ She’s pouting in the mirror, lipstick scarring at the crease of her mouth.
‘Two hundred buff for a pair of scraigs and a bra? Mind you, fucking hell, girl, a baghead brass off Parly’d look fine in those, girl.’
They put on robes and go down to the health club and into the jacuzzi. The other customers are a few taxi drivers, some gangsters, loads of doormen, just knocked off. Dylan, a scrawny cunt in his long, baggy Everton shorts, follows her in, drags her into the steam room, bends her over, wallops her over the granite, her head pressing up against the smoked-glass door. Outside, the doormen and taxi drivers see her hair and body coming in and out of the steam. One by one, they gather round the door, doggers, having a wank in their Adidas shorts. Casey gets into it, presses her head against the glass. Window-licker.
CHAPTER 11
THE LIBRARY
The next day, Dylan’s whacked, exhausted. He’s still coming down off the SIM card graft, the adrenalin breaking down now, sinews lifeless. He has combat fatigue off the session in the hotel. He was on the stripes all night, shagging the waglet. His memories are gone already, bleached by the white. He’s feeling hollow now.
He needs to get off. Get to The Place, quick.
Dylan loves Friday nights. A vague memory from school comes back, of sitting in a science lab as the winter darkness descends outside, relishing the cosiness of the classroom, the comfort of its golden light, but feeling the thrill of the weekend just hours away and the adventure it holds. A feeling of warmth washes over him, cuts through the anaesthetic of the coke for a moment.
He heads for the bus through the drenched estate: charred houses dripping, water pouring through craters in roofs. Silvery yellow light glows from the odd one, still occupied. Pinky, orangey neons flicker on above in Miami colours. He can taste the freedom already, his tummy slightly rolling now at the thought of it: The Place.
He jogs on to the bus stop, moving fast, just in case. There�
�s the odd lad running from building to building, jumping out of the shadows, running for cover. No one standing still, just in case.
Out of the corner of his eye, he spies a lad with a samurai sword stood on the wall at the base of Broadway Bridge. The lad tries to cop for him, gives chase over the roundabout but loses Dylan in the traffic and the dark. Dylan jogs on through the rain. Case of mistaken identity, he thinks. Dylan’s hooded up. So is everyone else.
Onto the parade, past the bookie’s. Late-night racing. As he passes by, an 18-year-old girl – skinny, on her way to work in the social club, he knows her – gets a slap. Something to do with her brother, a fight at a party 18 months ago. Dylan hears the lad as he gets off: ‘Tell him from me, you little sweat, I’ll put one in his fucking head.’ In an unrelated fight, another lad runs into the chippy and roundhouse kicks a Crocky lad’s ma in the queue. Dylan looks the other way. Got to get to The Place. Jog on to the bus stop.
On the top deck, the back seat is hot. He zens in on the rough vibration of the engine, enveloped by a cushion of sound, buzzing off it. Not far now to The Place, his only sanctuary. He started going there six years ago to get away from the mayhem. It’s the only place he feels safe.
He gets off at the Central Library, a huge, well-kept Georgian building next to the art gallery. Deep within it is an inner sanctum, a 130-year-old rotunda, The Place. The front of the library is well lit, spotlights beaming up the stone, through the swaying trees. The old wooden entrance is bathed in gold from the chandeliers inside.
He takes a look, drinks it in. A dry gulp of excitement. Then he slips off round the back. It’s rainy and weedy and dark. Grey slabs of stone. He jumps into a square stone recess, about three foot deep, at the foot of a giant wall. It’s a bit sheltered in there. On the wall above him are ventilation shafts, air-con outlets, old, lagged heating pipes. Dylan feels the loneliness of the big building looming, but he’s loving it.
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