The next morning, Dylan gets the video. It shows Elizabeth sitting up on the side of her bed, floppy and laughing. She’s nodding and keeling over, so that her head ends up between her legs. She’s ro’ied-up, sitting there in just a pink vest, no kecks on.
A masked-up lad pushes her down into the foetal position. No resistance. He shafts her one, up the arse. A fatter, older man in a dark-grey camouflage jacket is on the bed, having a wank in her mouth. He’s pushing his soft knob into her mush lips. At one point, she pats it away, winces like she’s just sucked a lemon, like someone who’s drunk and wants to go to sleep.
Dylan drops the phone. Watches the video still playing on the floor. He sees vague images of flesh and shapes of black material moving across the screen. He picks it up again. The lads aren’t brutal. They don’t have to be and they don’t want to leave any marks. All the hard graft has been done. Getting into her pad. Getting the tablet into her. Get paid.
Two of them turn her over onto her back. One of them pulls her torso to the edge of the bed by curling his arms around her thighs. Dylan remembers her milky skin. He spreads her legs. She flinches, resists for a second. He fucks her missionary-style.
Dylan doesn’t make a sound. He looks outside into the street, his hands on hips. Then he stares at the floor, not knowing what to do. He begins shadow-boxing, fast, long jabs, packed with power and reach. Sweating, he takes his top off, then one by one, he removes every piece of his clothing until he is naked.
Then he jabs at the thin walls, cracking and creasing the cheap plaster methodically from one room to the next, bending and bashing the wire mesh strips with combinations, then ripping them out with his bleeding hands, one wall after another, the bedrooms, the landing, downstairs.
Looks at the vid again. It shows her being shagged from behind, flat on the bed, then being three-pipered. In the mirror next to her bed, there’s the reflection of a fourth lad sat off in a chair, having a wank. Even he’s got a condom on. They’re all forensically aware. No spunk on her face. There’s no soundtrack in case their voices are recognised.
At the end, the credits roll up: ‘Smashen Dylan Olsen’s Sweat. CYG Croxteth Young Guns.’ Crude mobile-phone text, video DJ graphics.
Turned on by the three-piper, Dylan has a wank with his swollen, bloodied hands. Then he takes a shower and puts his special all-black kit on, with full hood and goggles, military-issue. He runs up to The Boot, digs up a silver Czech-made 9-mm pistol, a converted replica, from its hiding place. He runs down the centre of the road to the offices of Red Road Taxis. He waits for a driver to come out of the steel-plated doors and bursts the ken. The dispatcher’s sitting off in a bulletproof jacket worn over a shiny silk-nylon trackie. Bunter’s in a little side room for the drivers, halfway through a Breakfast Brunch Pasty. Dylan goes for the head with the first shot but the bullet nips into Bunter’s neck. Dylan picks up the two-bar electric fire and rams it into Bunter’s crotch. His trackies melt and there’s a foul smell of groin-odour, burning skin and nylon. Behind Dylan, the dispatcher lets some buck off from a small wooden-stock side-by-side. Most of the pellets hit the door frame and Bunter, but Dylan’s OK. He fires one shot off to clear his way, then he’s off.
Dylan knew the fat one on the bed was Bunter straight away.
As for Crocky, the CYG, this is it. War is now on. No back answers. Dylan heads for The Boot to burn his all-blacks.
CHAPTER 17
THE ACCIDENT
Nogger and Dylan meet in the park, on the tarmac in the middle: sideways rain, pink streetlamps, bare steel railings, melted wheelie bins like purple puddles on the ground.
‘Crocky mongrels have got to go, lad,’ says Dylan. ‘Been thinking about what you said and that . . .’ He doesn’t mention the rape.
Big smile from Nogger. ‘Sound, lad. Knew you’d come round. Anthony Mulhearn has got to go, lad. Made up you’re up for it. Got to do it, for Bleeker, if nothing else.’
‘But how we gonna do it, lad?’
‘Got a boss idea. Get Casey into him, lad. He’ll love that, thinking he’ll be hanging out of Dylan’s bird. Get her to set him up for a little meet.’
‘That fucking rip’s costing me two G a week in fucking swag and charlie anyways,’ Dylan says. ‘Made up to offload her onto that scruffy fucking winnet.’
‘Get her to send some pictures of herself in all the tackle, lad, sussies and everything. Bit of phone flirting, get her to get him up to the alley behind the Royal Oak, then we can cop for him as he’s getting into her, get Jay to blast him. We’ll sit off nearby with the Macs in case Jay misses first time.’
Nogger fills Dylan in on the Mac-10 graft, how him and Jay and a few of the younger lads had screwed the farm – smashed the locks on an outhouse and cleaned it out at four in the morning.
* * *
Dylan arranges to meet Jay in the Lidl car park. ‘Bit of work there for you, lad.’
‘Go ’ead.’
‘We want you to smoke Mulhearn for us, lad.’
It’s a big thrill for Jay, the older lads asking him to do a bit of graft. ‘OK, D. What d’you want me to do?’
‘There’s a .455 out the way, there,’ says Dylan, referring to a First World War revolver. ‘But I’ll get it brought on for you, d’you get me? So you can use that.’
‘Decent.’
‘I’ll get Clegsy to bring it to you.’
* * *
Casey texts Anthony Mulhearn: ‘Want to see me by the entry, back of the Royal Oak pub?’ She turns up in the alleyway in tight black Kal Kaur Rai hotpants that cost £300, a silver ankle bracelet, a turquoise Maillili silk jacket, big fuck-off fake-fur trim round the neck and hip, tied at tit height with a big black silk sash, no top or bra underneath. It’s four o’clock on a Thursday afternoon. Anthony turns up on a robbed quad bike, a few of the little rats behind him on pushers. He’s in a fresh pair of Lowies, fully hooded up with a gas mask and gloves on.
‘All right, girl,’ he says. ‘You look fucking excellent.’ He pervs off her, looking her up and down, doing his mating ritual. He rides round her, staring hard, talking hard, cuffing the young rats, not taking his mask off.
Round the corner, a group of little lads from the posh half of the estate wander over from the new chippy, dressed in their school uniforms – grey jumpers, blue shirts hanging out untidily from under them, striped ties, thick knots. They’re eating ice pops, playing footie against the wall, dotting in and out of the busy chippy. One of their mas turns up and calls out, ‘Michael! Michael, look after Chalina for a minute while I pop into the chippy.’ The little sister hops out the car and joins the boys. She’s three, wearing a red top, playing with a doll and a buggy on the pavement.
* * *
Meanwhile, as Anthony’s being lured into the trap, Jay prepares for his mission, noradrenalin pumping round his body now. His shoulders are knotted with stress. They’re sat off in a derelict house at the bottom of the alley, Nogger being the older one, counselling him, geeing him up.
‘It’ll be all right, lad,’ Nogger says.
‘I know, yeah,’ replies Jay. ‘I’m not worried.’
Clegsy arrives, in a location jacket with a mad hooded mask, a dismantled shotgun in two parts down the front of his kecks and a Hungarian M57 9-mm pistol in his pocket. He assembles the shotgun Day of the Jackal-style. As he swings the long, heavy barrel onto lock-on, he says, ‘It take no shit. If the beef come down here, they get blasted, lad.’
He keeps the shotgun himself. ‘I’ll watch over you on the way in,’ Clegsy assures Jay. ‘I’ll be right behind you, all the way,’ he says, trying to steel the worried kid. He hands Jay the M57. ‘This is your back-up, in case the .455 jams.’ Finally, he reveals the big old .455, which he is carrying in the belly of his trackie top.
Jay looks more nervous at the sight of the gunmetal. Nogger tells him, ‘Best thing is to have a joint, lad.’ Clegsy builds up and Jay gets stoned, gorping, the ancient hashshashin.
Nogger takes the .455
off Clegsy and loads six bullets into the revolving chamber. As he hands it over to Jay, he warns: ‘Remember, this thing’s got a range like a fucking rocket. One side of the park to the other. You don’t have to get too close. We’ll give you a call when we’re ready.’
* * *
Small talk over, Anthony bends the waglet over a crumbling concrete bollard, pulls her hotpants down over her arse, rags the front of his Lowies down and smashes her from behind under the pink neon streetlamps. He gets a good feel of her. As he’s walloping her, he puts his hand round the front, down the crotch of her hotpants, to cop a feel of her Brazilian. ‘Nice bit of stubble there, girl.’ Anthony likes it. She’s half embarrassed that she isn’t waxed smooth. She reminds herself she must get it done before Ladies’ Day at Aintree.
Then Anthony gets his mobile out and starts to video himself smashing Dylan Olsen’s bird. Got to ring this one in. What a coup! He gets the hotpants, then tracks up to her bobbing face, her Farrah Fawcett/Beyoncé-style layers gently bouncing. He gets a top profile of her fat Botoxed-up lips. She starts biting them with her bleached-up incisors. He splats right up her, then all over the crack of her arse. He pulls in and out and slaps his dick on her cheeks, just like in the blueys, holding the base of his knob and slapping her with the other eight inches. ‘Boss, la.’ He stretches a bit of the black material of her hotpants and wipes his dick. There’s a bit of come on his Lowies, which he wipes on the fake fur of her coat.
* * *
Nogger leaves Jay to familiarise himself with the weapons and shoots off to meet Dylan, who’s lying low in a cluster of bushes with a good view of the chippy. The alley where Anthony and Casey are is obscured, but he can hear the engine on Anthony’s quad ticking over and imagines Casey’s getting walloped all over the show by now. He checks his phone to see if she’s sent the signal. They arranged for her to send a blank text meaning that Anthony was set up. But there’s nothing yet.
Nogger creeps into the bushes behind him and carefully fishes out a present from his sports bag. ‘This is yours,’ he says, handing Dylan one of the stolen Mac-10s, a reward for finally OK’ing a big go-around. Respect for coming onside and avenging the death of Bleeker. They’re both smiling, on the same buzz: a bit of Mac-10 porn.
‘The Mac-10 needs no intro, la,’ says Nogger, talking Dylan through the basics. ‘See the hard square lines. Wastes no time in telling you just where to pick it up and which way to point it. But it’s not until you handle it, lad, grip the dark cold metal, that it all makes sense. Do you get me, lad?’
Dylan feels the heft and the balance. A big grin like he’s dropped a tablet comes over him.
‘Check the fast muzzle sweep,’ says Nogger. ‘Comes over you like a wave, lad, doesn’t it? What you’ve been waiting for all your life, isn’t it, lad? Now you’re the equal of any cunt, aren’t you, lad?’ Then the pay-off: ‘Let’s do it to them before they do it to us, lad.’
* * *
Anthony’s gas mask is steamed up. Casey’s coming down off her orgasm, affectionately kissing the holed metal casing of the carbon filters where his mouth should be. Anthony tells her, ‘Clean me up, you little rip.’ His voice is muffled and deep, like Darth Vader’s, from behind the respirator. First she cleans herself, giving herself a good scratch of the arse through the hotpants, using the material to try to soak up his jizzum, but the fabric’s stretchy and hardly absorbent.
Anthony tries his hand at pillow talk: ‘You’re a fucking disgrace, you.’
Casey’s kneeling down in position for a blowie, giving him a wank to start off with. Looking sheepish and pink faced, she replies, ‘Ar eh, Anthony, that’s lovely. You don’t have to say that.’
Half embarrassed about showing his feelings, he says, ‘I know, girl. But I mean it.’
Then she sucks his knob clean and licks the milky blobs off the computer-designed black Gore-tex of his Berg jacket. She slowly moves her hand down into her pocket and presses the send button on her phone.
* * *
Dylan’s Nokia suddenly lights up. Quickly, he gives Jay the jump-off call on another pay-as-you-go. Jay, still gorping, rides down the alleyway on his pusher. Nogger and Dylan come out of hiding and take up position behind the pub, making sure no CYG reinforcements make it into the kill zone and that Anthony Mulhearn can’t escape. Casey gets the call to get out of the way. Jay sees Mulhearn getting on his quad bike. Out comes the auld 4/5. He can barely lift it, it’s that fucking heavy. He’s gonna do it with two hands but he sees the young ones – the kids by the shops, the little girl, and the young lads with Anthony – and decides to do a bit of showing off. One hand on the pusher, one on the 4/5. Sideways. Bang! Fuck off! A bullet goes right into the quad bike. The fucking recoil on that. Bang! One into the chippy wall. Bang! One into the crowd of kids.
Out of sight, Dylan and Nogger hear the shots go off.
‘Go ’ead, Jay, lad. True Nogzy soldier,’ says Nogger.
They raise their weapons, waiting for Mulhearn to come running round the corner, but instead they see three flashes of black run in between the buildings, like soldiers running for cover. Nogger spurts the Mac-10 in their general direction but the fierce recoil sends his aim skyward. The magazine’s emptied. Dylan, charged with adrenalin, fires his, copycat, but it sprays all over the show. Dylan and Nogger look at each other, faces stretched with joy, laughing.
Mulhearn and the three other lads have already made it into the chippy. They jump over the counter and arm themselves with knives, ducking behind a stainless-steel counter in the kitchen, bobbing up to see if anyone has followed them in. Mulhearn has his phone to his ear, belling one of the lads hiding outside. ‘Have they gone? Have they gone? Where the fuck are they, lad?’
‘Can’t see ’em nowhere. Fucking hell . . . there’s just fucking bullets everywhere.’
‘What the fuck was that?’ shouts Anthony, who can hear the shots simultaneously in the background and over the phone. ‘Fucking madness.’
Everything’s turning chaotic. Phones are going off everywhere after the contact.
‘Have they gone?’ Anthony yells down the phone.
Jay pedals like fuck, the .455 weighing heavily on him, angular in the belly of his Lowies, stopped from falling out by the tightened toggles. Dylan and Nogger run back to Nogzy over through the backs, phones all over the show lighting up.
PART TWO
THE AFTERMATH
CHAPTER 18
GLORY
The lads meet on The Boot. They’re still coming down.
‘Better one, wannit?’ says Dylan. ‘Madness.’
‘Did you get him?’ Nogger asks Jay. ‘Did you get him? Did you drop Mulhearn, lad?’
‘Fuck knows. Just let rip. Shots going everywhere. Ting! Ting! Ting! Just saw them run off by the chippy, fall over and that.’
‘True solja, you, lad.’
Jay beams with pride, his pasty, additive-riven complexion looking healthy for once, as Nogger pays him the highest accolade, the most meaningful honour. But he shows humility in his response. ‘For Nogzy, lad, innit? Protect and serve, innit, lad?’
‘Protect and serve. That’s us, lad,’ replies Nogger, justifying the offensive. ‘We’re serving the community, lad. Protecting everyone. Not just the lads but all hands: mums, schoolies, kids, shoppers, auld biddies. Stopping them from being had off by Crocky mongrels. People should be thanking you for what you did today.’
‘Nice one, Nogger. I know, yeah.’
All their phones are buzzing, ringing, bleeping. A symphony of ringtones. News of the attack is spreading fast. ‘Listen to that. Don’t worry lad,’ Nogger tells Jay. ‘That’ll be all the congratulations. “Well done for putting Mulhearn in a box.”’
‘We’ve got to get off, la,’ says Dylan. ‘Out of the favela as soon as possible. Place’ll be roasting with bizzies soon.’
‘I know, yeah,’ agrees Nogger. ‘Just waiting for the pick-up.’
There are lookouts all over The Boot coordinating the e
xtraction. A black Volvo four-by-four pulls up outside, takes them down to a big coachworks on an industrial estate. All three of them strip naked, Nogger cupping his bollocks, nothing on but a gold chain around his neck. Jay’s wretched adolescent corpse is exposed, underfed but with a pot belly caused by a diet of Haribo and Coke and still partially frozen microwaved scampi.
Dylan shivers as Bloot and Lupus pour petrol over his head from two plastic containers. The organic solvents will dissolve any gun residues and DNA that could link them to the shooting. Then they pour some down his back.
Casey turns up. She stands in the doorway with one hand on her hip, smoking a ciggie even though there’s petrol fumes all over the place. ‘That was some boss graft, that, lad,’ she says to Dylan.
It’s time for the post-match analysis, everyone wanting to know the details, share the gossip. ‘You were fucking spot-on,’ says Dylan, rubbing his cock with petrol.
‘Had to fucking tempt him with me charms, like, but the dirty twat was all over me, trying to a get a grip.’ Casey’s making out that she didn’t like Anthony Mulhearn’s advances, but Dylan knows that she enjoyed fucking someone who was minutes away from death. In fact, he’s sure she’s still turned on by the dead man’s cold come inside her and in her kecks. That is, if he is dead.
New Loon bursts in. ‘Just heard on the radio – the bizzies say there’s one fatality.’
Nogger rubs his hands together in jubilation. ‘Go ’ead. He’s dead, the stupid cunt. I’ve put him in a box,’ he says, greedily claiming the kill.
‘Fucking boss,’ says Jay, not arguing.
‘That must have been my one, lad, with the Mac-10. I saw him go down,’ he pretends to remember.
Dylan feels a buzz, like he’s coming up on a tablet. A job well done. But the edge is taken off it because he feels jealous that Nogger’s already claiming the coup de grâce. Dylan knows the power an incident like this had. By the end of the night, grafters in Amsterdam, Spain and Portugal will be talking about it. Dylan can make his bones off this if he plays his cards right. The Imperator might not approve of petty squabbles, but he’ll quietly respect the operator who carried this one off. Everyone could use lads like that.
Gang War Page 11
