Booze and Burn

by Charlie Williams

  But she’d turned away to deal with a punter who’d slied up on me left. I turned to give that punter what for, but it were a young feller with a pan stuck atop his swede, mam standing behind him with a face like concrete. I let the bird sort em out while I finished the smoke and looked around at the folks waiting. It were busy in there for a morning, most injuries tending to occur after sundown by tradition. One or two gashes here and there along with a bust this and bent that, but with most of em you couldn’t tell what the problem were. Just sitting there they was, faces white, some with head in hands. Even recognised a couple of them arcade monkeys, I did, though they was wearing different togs this time. Baggy jeans and hooded jogging tops they was decked in now, a bit like—

  ‘I dunno why you don’t just go,’ the bird says.

  ‘All right,’ I says. Cos I’d just about had enough of her and her lip. ‘I will. I’ll piss off an’ not bother you again with me violent ways. Long as you answers us one thing.’

  ‘I ain’t meant to talk to you. Police’ll be here soon.’

  ‘Juss tell us if a particular young lass is in here.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Come on, me niece, ennit? Worried sick, her mam is.’

  ‘I can’t,’ she says, shaking her head hard.

  ‘Go on, love, look her up in that book you got down there. Mona, her name is.’

  ‘Mona who?’

  ‘Dunno. How many Monas you got in?’

  ‘That ain’t the point,’ she says, opening a big red book like the one they did your register in at school. ‘Needs a last name, don’t I?’

  ‘She’d of come in last night. Run over. Bust bones and that.’

  ‘Well…’ She were running her finger down the names now. I leaned over far as I could, but the writing were small and you could hardly read it close up, let alone from where I were. ‘Hang on,’ she says, slamming the book shut. ‘I ain’t meant to talk to you.’

  ‘Aye I knows that, but—’

  ‘Woss we got here then?’ comes a voice behind us. You could smell copper a mile off. Even the way the ozzy were stinking already.

  ‘Come on,’ I says, ignoring him and talking to the bird. ‘She in or not?’

  ‘This the feller givin’ you trouble?’ says the copper.

  ‘Aye,’ she says, folding her arms. ‘Banned he is an’ he won’t go away. Told him, I did. Told security an’ all, and what’d he do? Eh? Know what he done?’

  ‘Hoy, you,’ says I, ‘just tell us about Mona, fuck sake.’

  ‘Come on, Blake,’ says the copper, taking my arm.

  ‘Fuck off, Jonah,’ I says, shrugging him off and walking up a corridor. ‘Mona,’ I shouts, loud as me lungs let us. ‘Eh, girl, where’s you?’ I got fuck all answer except me own echoes. ‘Hoy, Mona.’

  ‘Right, you.’ Jonah the copper were behind us again. He pulled a sly one and twisted my arm up me back. Not bad considering the useless fucking broomstick he’d been at school. Must have learned him good when he joined the coppers.

  ‘Not bad at all,’ I says to him, wrenching my arm free and smacking him full bore in the gob with it.

  Odd feeling came to us as I walked through the car park behind the Paul Pry. Weren’t the time of day that were odd. It were gone lunch by now and I were in the habit of going down there any time after then. Weren’t sure what it were, to be honest. Not until I’d walked right past it and stepped inside the back door.

  Motors.

  All right, it were a car park and by nature such places tends to harbour motors. But you just didn’t ever get more than the one or two behind the Paul Pry. Not even on a Saturday niht, which this weren’t. But today, on this particular weekday afternoon, there was nine of the fuckers. I turned about and looked at em, scratching my head. Nothing unusual about the motors emselves. Just motors they was—Marinas, Cortinas, couple of Maxis, and a Zodiac there in the corner. Even recognised one or two of em from the Hoppers car park. But what the fuck was they doing here?

  I strolled on in, wondering if the car park on Strake Hill were shut for roadwork. Aye, like as not. But I were wrong there, as I found out when I entered the bar area. Cars was parked out back cos the drivers of em was inside.

  You might think that obvious yourself, you being a bit of a smart alec, but you didn’t know the Paul Pry like I done. It were a quiet pub. You never saw more than eight or so in there of a Saturday night, let alone weekday afternoon. ‘All right, Nathan,’ I says, taking a stool by the bar. He didn’t hear us at first, unaccustomed as he were to the level of backchat. ‘Hoy,’ I says, ‘Nathan.’

  He finished up polishing a tankard, placed it back careful on the tankard shelf, hung the rag on the rag hook, took the damp cloth off of the damp cloth peg, and sidled over to us. He stopped a couple of yard short and started mopping the bartop. ‘That you hoyin’ us, were it?’ he says.

  ‘Aye, I says. “All right, Nathan,” I says.’

  ‘Ain’t what I heared,’ he says. ‘“Hoy, Nathan,” what I heared.’

  ‘Come on, Nathan.’ I weren’t feeling too sharp of a sudden. Not like I’d been earlier, during me townward yomp. Maybe I’d used up all me sap for the day. Maybe I’d got a whiff of lager and noted the shortage of jangle in me pocket. ‘Giz a pint, eh?’

  ‘Gonna pay for it?’

  I ought to have known. There’s me standing there with no coinage, reckoning no one knew about it besides meself. But Nathan always caught you unawares like that. It were easy to forget about his special abilities.

  ‘What special abilities might they be?’ he says.

  I felt me face drain white as I looked back at him. Fucking hell. Everyone knew about him knowing everything that came to pass in the Mangel area, but it were news to us that he were tele…you know, tele…

  ‘Phone,’ he says plonking a full pint in front of us. ‘Telephone.’

  I were a bit confused now, so I had a sip and says: ‘Hang on…’

  ‘You gonna take him or what?’

  I put the empty down. ‘Take who?’

  ‘Telephone. Call fer you, ain’t there? Go on an’ take him.’

  He pointed over to the phone out back. ‘Oh, right,’ I says, getting off me stool. I were halfway across the floor before I started wondering what Nathan were on about. The phone were sitting cold and quiet in its cradle. So Nathan were trying to make a cunt of us, were he? I were just turning around to have him up about that when the phone started ringing. I looked at Nathan. He nodded at the blower and went to pull a pint for Greasy Joe the burger man, who’d just come in.

  ‘Hello,’ I says into the handset. ‘Er…Paul Pry here.’

  ‘Paul Pry, is it?’ says a feller’s voice. ‘Got a Royston Blake there have you, Paul?’

  ‘No, I ain’t the Paul Pry. I’m in the fuckin’ Paul Pry, like.’

  ‘Well, I knows that. Else you wouldn’t be pickin’ up when I rings the Paul Pry number, would you?’

  ‘Aye, well…so woss you want?’

  ‘Already telled you, ain’t I? Is Royston Blake there or what?’

  ‘Who’s askin’?’

  ‘Dave.’

  ‘All right, Dave.’

  ‘All right…er…who’s you again?’

  ‘Oh for fuck…you knows who I is.’

  ‘Paul Pry, you says just now.’

  ‘Royston fuckin’ Blake, ennit?’ I says, loud enough so’s a few punters turned and looked at us. I glared back until they started chinking and yakking amongst emselves once again.

  ‘Oh. All right, Blake.’

  ‘All right, Dave. So you gonna tell us woss you want or what?’

  He said nothing for a bit. A wood pigeon somewhere near him filled the gap. ‘You alone?’ he says.

  ‘I’m in the fuckin’ Paul Pry.’

  ‘All right all right, don’t shout.’

  ‘Where’s you?’

  ‘Well…anyone near you?’

  ‘Fuckin’ spit it, will you?’

  ‘All right, I’m…yo
u sure no one’s harkin’?’

  ‘I’m hangin’ up…’

  ‘No, I’ll tell you, I’ll tell you. I’m on the Barkettle Road phone box up—’

  ‘What end?’ I says, though I could have guessed the answer.

  ‘North.’

  ‘North?’

  ‘Aye.’

  ‘Thass Hurk Wood.’

  The pips started going and him cursing. Then I heard some coins spill on the floor and him cursing some more, a bit further away now. I thought about putting the blower down right there and then. Dave were in shite and I’d only get meself dragged down with him. Why the fuck were he in Hurk Wood, for fuck? No one went in Hurk Wood unless they was looking to plant a carcass or get planted emselves. ‘I’m back,’ he says. The pips was gone now, along with my last chance of enjoying a quiet life. ‘Aye,’ he says, ‘s’pose it is Hurk Wood.’

  ‘Woss you there for?’

  ‘Hidin’, ain’t I?’ An engine trundled past at his end, followed by some more twittering and maybe a sheep or two going baa. ‘Blake,’ he says. But he didn’t sound like Dave of a sudden. Sounded more like one o’ them there sheep as it happened. ‘I’m in a bit o’ trouble, you could say.’

  Course, I knew what the trouble were. I’d known it the second I’d picked up the blower and heard him the other end. ‘You topped her,’ I says. ‘You fuckin’ squashed her under your wheels like a bag o’ chips.’

  I could hear him thinking out his answer. I hated that. I dunno why he didn’t just spill the fucker, since I’d guessed him anyhow. But that weren’t what he done.

  ‘Topped her?’ he says. ‘I ain’t topped no one.’

  ‘Come on,’ I says. ‘Don’t give us that—’

  ‘But I ain’t.’

  ‘Oh aye, where is she then?’

  ‘Here.’

  ‘You what? Where?’

  ‘Right here, with me.’

  ‘In Hurk Wood?’

  ‘Aye, in Hurk Wood. Well, back there in some trees, to be particular.’

  ‘But…woss she doin’ there? How is she? She’s all right, right?’

  ‘Well…not really. Her leg, she…’

  ‘Fuckin’ hell…but she’s talkin’, right?’

  ‘Er…no.’

  ‘Fuck.’

  ‘Got her gagged, ain’t I? Had to, screamin’ an’ bawlin’ as she were.’

  This were all I needed. How the bastard fuck could I bring Mona to her old feller with her leg busted? My long-term plans was lying at me feet, ripped up and pissed upon. It were my fault, course. Long-term planning never got no one no place.

  ‘Blake? Blake, you still there? Blake?’

  ‘Aye,’ I says. ‘Well, looks like you got it all sorted. I’ll leave you to it, then…’

  ‘Blake. Blake, hold up.’

  ‘Look, Dave, I’m sorry for you an’ all, but—’

  ‘Sorry, is you?’ he says, his tone going a bit different now. Gone were the sheep voice of just now, replaced by…I dunno, summat more lairy. Like an angry goat or summat. ‘I should blinkin’ hope so. It were you bust me blinkin’ spectacles, wernit? Weren’t for that, none o’ this’d of happened. No, you’re helpin’ us, you are.’

  ‘Dave, but—’

  ‘But nuthin’. You ain’t here in one hour, I’ll tell the coppers it were you b plans wasthem spectacles, set that lass under me wheels, then hid behind a nearby motor and laughed as I went over her.’

  ‘Dave, that ain’t—’

  ‘One hour, Blake. I’ll be behind a clump of larches, thirty yard back from the phone box.’

  ‘Dave…’ But he were gone.

  I put the blower down careful. I wanted to slam the fucker but I knew that’d get folks wondering. I kept my head down and walked back through the bar, heading for the back door. This were all I fucking needed. I didn’t even have no motor to get to Hurk Wood in. She’d be down Filthy Stan’s by now, or maybe he’d fixed her up and dropped her off at ours already. But I didn’t have time to yomp home and look. Least I knew where Mona were now, mind. And perhaps she weren’t so fucked up as Dave had made out. Aye, once you got reflecting on it none of it seemed quite so bad. Even though Dave had pushed us around a bit there, the cunt. The path of life is paved with many a busted flagstone, and sometimes all you needs is a shove from behind to jump over em, or summat.

  ‘Hold on right there,’ says Nathan just as I were disappearing down the back passage. But I weren’t quite disappeared yet. And I’d heard him.

  And he knew it.

  ‘What?’ I says, stopping still but not turning.

  ‘You ain’t paid fer this one here yet.’

  11

  HOPPERS: AXIS OF EVIL?

  Steve Dowie, Crime Editor

  Hoppers squats menacingly in Friar Street like a beggar more interested in kicking at the legs of passersby than soliciting loose change. It is a place rich in history, and none of it good.

  It is here that I have come in search of Joey.

  JOEY: a code name, a euphemism employed by the dispossessed youth of Mangel for the sweet solace they all seek.

  JOEY: a teasing legend scrawled upon the walls of alleys and the doors of public conveniences across the town.

  JOEY: the unidentified confectionery found on two young petty thieves last week.

  Joey, my friends, is an illegal drug.

  ‘Not in this town,’ you say. ‘Folks in this town don’t need none of that. Drugs is for big city folk.’

  Well, think again.

  Drugs are here and now. Drugs are right there on our streets, waiting for your children to come and get them. Drugs are the driving force behind the crime wave that has lately been bringing this town to its knees. Drugs, unless we do something about it, will change this town forever.

  YOU WANT JOEY—SEE THE J-MAN. DOWN HOPPERS

  Founded three decades ago by legendary local bandit Tommy Munton (using for capital the spoils of extortion and armed robbery), Hoppers quickly became a magnet for the rough underbelly of Mangel’s populace. The venue thrived for many years, putting on entertainment events that drew crowds from all over the Mangel area. But then Munton Senior died, and control was passed to his hapless progeny.

  Within a few years the three brothers turned a thriving—if disreputable—business into a vomit-spattered vice den teetering on the verge of collapse. They attempted to cut their losses by resorting to arson, that time-honoured contingency plan. Sadly (if inevitably) for them, their make-or-break move failed spectacularly, resulting not only in firm shakes of the head from their insurers but also the death of their head doorman’s wife, Elizabeth Blake. Somehow avoiding custodial punishment for their crime(s), the Muntons then sold this scorched Jerusalem to one James Fenton, a mysterious businessman from the big city with a fat wallet and a death wish.

  Amazingly, Fenton managed to turn Hoppers back into the thriving if disreputable concern of old, bestowing upon it a fancy if unoriginal new moniker: ‘Hoppers Wine Bar & Bistro’. Despite keeping his new enterprise on the straight and narrow, within two short years Fenton fell victim to his own criminal past. The FOR SALE sign went up yet again.

  The next two years saw Hoppers sliding into a black pit of failure, featuring all the desperation of the Munton tenure but none of the colour. Through a combination of wilful omission and suspicious rain damage, official records defy all attempts to identify the owner during this period. Whoever it is, one would have to question his judgement in employing as day-to-day manager one Royston Blake, erstwhile doorman of Hoppers, widower of the aforementioned arson victim, and chief suspect in the subsequent murder inquiry (acquitted on grounds of mental unfitness to stand trial).

  And now Hoppers enters a new dynasty, as she once again feels the weight of a big city exile at her stern. As I approach the darkened door, I wonder where new skipper Nick Nopoly could possibly steer a ship which has already charted all manner of rocky waters. Could he be heading—unwittingly or otherwise—for a sea more treacherous still?<
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  YOU WANT JOEY—SEE THE J-MAN. DOWN HOPPERS

  ‘Not tonight, mate,’ I am told as a huge arm blocks my passage.

  And why? Is it because I am a reporter? Is it because I might just bring down this whole sticky, greasy house of cards if I can only get in?

  ‘Greasy?’ grunts the gargantuan doorman. ‘You want Burt’s Caff, down the road there. Now **** off.’

  So ends my search for Joey. For now. And so continues the unhallowed history of Mangel’s rankest corner.

  For now.

  ‘Fuck sake, Nathan,’ I says, wanting to fuck off out the door but not being able to.

  ‘I’ve told you before, Blake: I’ll not have obscenities uttered in my bar, ladies bein’ present an’ all.’

  I looked around, shaking my head and clocking no ladies. There was no reasoning with Nathan sometimes.

  ‘And there’s no special favours fer you here.’ Somehow I’d been drawn to the bar again. And his voice were a bit lower, for which I were grateful considering what he were saying and all the other punters being nearby. ‘You’ll pay fer your pint like everyone else.’

  ‘Come on, Nathan.’

  ‘Come on conkers. Ain’t my concern if your new boss won’t pay you. Wanna come back here an’ wash the glasses instead, do you?’

  I rolled me eyes. ‘I’m a doorman, Nathan. Doormen don’t wash up.’

  ‘Who’s a doorman?’

  ‘I…all right, I’m out o’ work right now, but…’

  Nathan were looking at us, waiting for us to finish. But I couldn’t. What were there to say? I weren’t a doorman no more. I weren’t a minder no more neither, what with recent Dave-related events and that. I could handle not being a minder, though. I hadn’t ever been one o’ them before so I weren’t missing nothing. But I’d been a doorman all me grafting life.

  And who were I kidding anyhow, reckoning I’d get meself back on the door at Hoppers? Frankenstein were there now, weren’t he? He were bigger than us, younger than us, and…I sucked me gut in far as it’d go, then looked down. It were no use. I still couldn’t see me belt.

  ‘All right, Jack,’ says Nathan to someone behind us. ‘Pint, is it?’ He went to pull one while Jack waited by the bar.