Frankie was sat on the green velvet plush of the bench seat that ran around the main lounge. His ex-pat gang gathered around him, taking turns to get the beers in. Their pint glasses frothed over onto the polished wooden tops of the cast—iron tables. Their meaty hands hovered carelessly over the circular ceramic Courage ashtray. Cigarette ash surrounded them like scales.
Cardiff said, “I’ll get them in, girl. Watchyavin’?”
She told him, spritzer. Cardiff waddled over to the bar with its ornate, Brit Vic lathe-turned pillars while she turned towards her husband. Frankie caught sight of her before she sat down.
“Alright, gal. I been telling the lads about my hunting trip. You know that cunt Pedro what runs the marina, he took me out to his cousin’s spread. They got wolves up there, a
fucking pack of them. Those cunts in Madrid want to make them a protected fucking species but Pedro says they been having it away with the livestock—chickens and fuck knows what else. We got up there, chased the cunts all over the show. Pedro was the wheels, I was riding shotgun—stuck out the fucking sun-roof giving it a bit with me Thompson. Tore the fuckers to pieces. Fucking magic.”
“Where is he?”
Frankie made like he hadn’t heard, “One in the fucking eye for the Greenpissers. Those wolves are well-fucking-endangered now.”
His boys started laughing, one beat behind him.
Susan kept her voice at the same level. “Where is he?”
Frankie looked round the table. “She’s asking about the boy.” Turning to her, he said, “The boy’s come good. Cut the fucking apron strings, know what I mean.”
“What have you got him doing?”
“Not me love. The boy come up with a business proposition. I just give him the capital. Set him up in a trade, didn’t I.”
“What have you done, Frankie. He’s doing armed robbery?”
Frankie started laughing again. “That’d be something: chip off the old block. Can’t see that soft git with a shotgun, though. No, love. Don’t you worry, he’s gone into the import/export game.”
Susan gagged. “Drugs? You got him running drugs, you bastard.”
Frankie turned on her. “Less of the fucking lip, less you want a slap. You spoil him like a cunt, smother him till everyone thinks he’s a fucking fairy. Well it’s over. He’s going into business with his old man. I should have done it years back. Good for him, good for me.” He looked round his table and said, “I’m too fucking young to retire, ain’t that right.”
They all nodded. Susan didn’t know what they were thinking. Frankie’s last job had left him a multi-millionaire but they were all happier sponging off him than following his example. And now they just sat there nodding, as though they missed the life as much as he did.
Cardiff came wheezing over with her drink and tried to hand it to her.
She said, “Forget it. I’m leaving.” Turning to Frankie, she said, “Give me my car keys.”
He handed the jeep keys over. “I’ll be back later. So get your twat warmed up, alright.”
He slapped her backside as she stood.
Back in the parking lot, the air seemed all the sweeter. The sun was blinding. London couldn’t still be how they all imagined it, sat in their fake boozer and reminiscing about Frankie’s great days. The real place must have changed in the past twelve years.
Frankie had left the Tommy gun in the back of the jeep, covered by the Barbour jacket he hardly ever wore. Susan picked up a fresh drum. As she climbed out of the jeep, she tried to remember how much Frankie had paid for his Mercedes. It was always cash up-front whenever he bought anything big and it was her job to withdraw the money from the bank. No, the figure had gone. She took a long calm look at the car before she started firing. The bullets raked off in all directions, some splintering off the metal and blowing open the windows of the cars to its side. The windscreen exploded, the seats ripped to shreds. When the gun started clicking on an empty chamber, she tossed it into the back of the jeep. Frankie came running out of the pub shouting: “Jesus, Jesus, What The Fuck—My fucking car. What happened?”
“I think it was ETA terrorists, love.”
She drove off to the airport.
FIVE
It took Hogie and Mannie more than an hour to coax Cheb out of the toilet cubicle where he was locked, shouting comic book descriptions of what Hogie had done to his mother through the gap under the door. The boy wanted the world to know, his mam had been wild for it, she couldn’t get enough of Hogie. She was a front—loading momma and he was her crazy teen machine.
They got him out onto the street with the help of two bouncers. Even then, he wouldn’t take a step until Hogie covered his head with a jacket, like a child rapist turning up for a first court appearance. But at least he’d quietened down.
In the cab on the way to Rusholme, Hogie said he might be getting hungry. He wasn’t sure. “What do you think? Maybe food will help bring Cheb out of orbit”
Mannie immediately began moaning. “Who says I got any food in the house? I don’t keep food in my house.”
Hogie wondered how he’d missed his vocation, he could have been a care assistant. Cheb had been easier to handle since he lapsed into something between autism and a coma but still his problems weren’t over. Now he had to start nursemaiding a neurotic depressive like Mannie. He played it even and neutral: “Easy, mate. We’ll go buy something at an all—night garage and I’ll cook up one of my redneck convenience deals.”
Even then, Mannie gave him grief. “You know you’re paying. I don’t have any money.”
Hogie had plenty of money on him but decided this treat was on Cheb. He frisked him until he touched plastic. “How about we use this?”
They got the cabbie to stop at the Shell station by Saint Xav’s and left him to babysit Cheb on metered time. They spent twenty‘ minutes making the attendant run around behind his security screen, fetching every item one by one: six tangerine yoghurts, Yorkie bars, gingernuts, cigs, skins and anything with vitamin C. When they finally decided they had everything and it came time to pay, there was another problem. Hogie had to step out into the forecourt light before he could read the signature on the credit card.
As the cab pulled back out into Wilmslow Road, Mannie said, “Do you think the guy was suspicious?”
“Fuck no. I was too fucking suave.”
“Only, he knows me. That’s where I do all my shopping.”
“I was like ice. You see how steady my hand was when I signed?”
“And they got those video cameras.‘
Hogie said, “Will you please just shut it.”
He couldn’t believe it, Mannie was so hyped to see the black side of everything. It wasn’t even funny.
*
Back at Mannie’s, they put Cheb to bed on a pile of cushions in the front room. Hogie thought it was better to keep him close, they’d hear him if he started ranting again. They sat in the back parlour, Hogie on the carpet, shaking a finished joint by its loose end, Mannie on the couch trying to choose the perfect calibre of cardboard for the roach. The yoggo-choc cake Hogie had made sat between them on a mangled copy of Eight Ball comic. It was Mannie’s plan to keep smoking the dope. Once the munchies had cancelled the effects of the amphetamine, they’d be able to eat the cake. Later they might even fall sleep. They hadn’t heard a sound out of Cheb in hours. They were more worried about themselves now.
Mannie saw the cake as a turning point. Once it was eaten they could resume earth-time. The past few hours had swung violently, never settling on a rhythm, punctuated by flashbacks. creeping or racing. There had been moments when the cake seemed a real possibility. But the moment had spun away, collapsed, reassembled at another point. It would have been unnerving, if he wasn’t so used to it. He had spent the past fifty minutes searching for a video of Hogie’s first and last television appearance. Now he’d found it, just in time for them to enjoy over the newest joint.
Hogie squinted at the screen, watching his
TV image lope forward in full chef’s drag.
Mannie said, “With the white suit and the goatee, it looks like the only thing you’re gonna cook is the Colonel’s Chicken.”
On-screen, Hogie shouted kung fu-style and embedded a cleaver a full two inches into a butcher’s block.
Hogie grinned, “Check that out. How’s that for a serious melting in-your-face intro.”
Mannie had watched the tape a hundred times. He had never understood why Hogie only got to do the one show, anyone could see the boy was a star. “I see all these other chefs and none of them have got your screen presence.”
Hogie knew it. ‘The problem is, I got kind of a bad reputation following that show. I turned up to the studio a little wrecked and I think I managed to neurotize the bosses.”
“What happened?”
“It was after the cooking spot. They’d set up this fashion piece and brought out a bunch of models in evening wear. Only, after about five minutes, the presenters ra.n out of things to say so they improvised by asking the other guests what they thought of the clothes. The model closest to me was wearing velvet trousers, so I thought, you know, it’d be good TV if I reached out to stroke them. The thing was, it felt so good, I couldn’t let go. In the end, they practically had to prise me off her leg.”
Mannie remembered the show got a bit weird later on in the programme but he’d assumed it was all rehearsed. He’d thought it worked, Hogie looked natural.
Hogie said “I might have another chance, though. I’ve got a chance to appear on a new late-night show and I’m going to be more professional. I’m definitely steering clear of psychedelics.”
“Good luck, bud.”
Hogie reckoned he’d need it. “So far, I’ve got one fucking appearance while your sister’s on every other day. Not that I watch her. I might tape the episode when she get hits by a runaway truck, that sounds like one for the archives.”
Mannie said, “I tell you, I wouldn’t mind seeing that. I’d pay to see that. Are you hungry enough to eat the cake, yet?”
Hogie couldn’t decide. Maybe if they had one more joint. While he smoothed out the Rizlas, Mannie asked about the credit card scam. Hogie tried to get the facts straight. The truth was, Cheb was better at explaining that kind of shit.
“It’s some kind of Far East thing. Cheb’s got this decoder that plugs straight into the till. You zip a card through the machine and it reads everything off the magnetic strip. Right down to the owner’s PIN number.”
Mannie thought it sounded smooth. “So you can copy anyone’s credit card, and they don‘t get a whisper until their statement arrives.”
Hogie nodded. That was it.
“So you can make as many cards as you want, and never get caught?”
“Foolproof. Except we can’t make the cards.”
“You said you could.”
“No. We can copy information onto a replica card but we can’t make the cards. Cheb says you need a serious plastics factory for that, especially with all the new holograms and shit.”
“Then the decoder’s useless.”
“No, he’s got a stack of blank cards he bought with the decoder. He wants to install it at the new restaurant I got him a job there so we can run the scam on the quiet.”
Mannie admired the plot, but had doubts: “Are there no risks? I mean stealing off your own customers, doesn’t it make you more likely to be caught?”
“No,” said Hogie. “Cheb says there’s no risk. The man who owns the restaurant, he’s never there.” Hogie was giggling, it was so sweet. “It’ll just be me and Cheb, the head cook and his bottle washer. Why don’t you come down. I’ll find some sort of menial shit for you. You can act as my ponce and personal runner.”
“Yeah. I’ll be your ponce. I’ll go and kidnap grannies off the street to satisfy your unnatural desires.”
Hogie said, ‘Enough of that granny shit. Cheb was fucking raving.”
‘So you didn’t fuck his mother?”
“No. Okay? …Okay?”
Mannie said, “Okay. So now we’ve got that straight, is it time we cut the cake or what?”
It was an idea. But Mannie’s only knives were leant against the gas-fire grille with their blades charred from repeated over-heatings. Before they started rolling the spliffs, they’d smoked the dope using hot knives. That was around dawn, after Mannie had forgotten where he’d left the Rizlas and before Hogie remembered he’d brought new ones at the Shell shop.
Hogie had another look at the knives but he was a professional and refused to use them in that condition. He went through to the kitchen at the back of the house to find a couple of spoons. They could pass the cake between them, taking mouthfuls in turn.
The only spoons were encrusted with dried cereal. Hogie stood at the sink, looking out to the backyard as he scraped away the hardened crap. It was after twelve already. He had an evening flight booked to London but his bags were at a B&B near Heaton Park. He still had Jools‘s car keys in his pocket, the car must be somewhere in town—wherever he had parked it. He was lucky it was Saturday—no parking restrictions. If it hadn’t been stolen, it would still be there. As long as Cheb surfaced in time to remember where they dumped it, they could get their bags and still make the plane.
The line of thought was overtaken by a solid banging at the front door.
He shouted back, “Sounds as though Jools has caught up with us.”
All he got back was Mannie hissing, “Shut it, Hoges.”
The hammering never stopped and whatever else Mannie had to say, Hogie couldn’t make out a word. There was something wrong with the guy’s voice, strangled and dripping anxiety. He would have gone to see if he was alright but there was someone coming up through the backyard. A tall Pakistani, walking with a swing past the outdoor toilet and giving him a friendly wave, mouthing hello. Hogie waved back. The man pointed towards the kitchen door, making a key-turning gesture.
Hogie mouthed through the glass, “Open the door?”
The Paki nodded, smiling, relaxed in the yard with his hands in his hip pockets.
Hogie slipped the door off the latch. The guy said, “Thanks mate” and walked through the kitchen. Hogie was left standing, feeling dumb.
He followed on, still wondering if he’d done the wrong thing, and watched as the guy passed through the room and out towards the front door. Mannie was sat on the floor, green and trembling, but the Paki had never said a word to him. Hogie could hear him now, turning the latch on the front door. As he opened it, the hammering stopped.
Before Hogie had a chance to ask Mannie anything, the guy returned. There was another, smaller, Asian with him.
The only thing Mannie said was “Naz.”
The man had the slowest voice Hogie had ever heard. “What’s wrong, Mannie. You didn’t hear Omar knocking at the fucking door, or what?” The words spewed out in a long flat drone, the sentence never seemed to end.
Mannie tried to apologise but only managed to stutter.
Hogie saw the bulge in Naz’s jacket. He couldn’t believe someone could smash into someone else’s house carrying a gun. When Naz slipped out of his padded leather jacket, Hogie saw what he thought was a gun was nothing but a mobile, worn in a shoulder holster.
Naz said, “Fucking stinks in here. What is it? Cheap shitty dope or the smell of fear? What I want to know, Mannie, is when are you going to pay me my six hundred quid.”
Mannie got to his feet, keeping his shoulders hunched as he answered. As though he hoped the genuflection would work some kind of magic. He couldn’t keep his hands from fidgeting, from pulling at the sleeves of his sweater, as he whispered, “I haven’t got it You know I’m not going to run out on you but I haven’t got it. I wouldn’t rip you off Naz. I mean, I’m trying to get the cash together.”
“Six hundred quid or three hundred tabs of acid. Payment due last week. You know what I reckon, I should charge interest.” Naz turned to his partner. “What kind of interest should I charge, Omar?”<
br />
“Take it out his fucking flesh, Naz.”
Mannie kept his eyes on Naz, pleading openly.
“You been trying to avoid me, Mannie. I don’t understand what the fuck kind of problem you’ve got, but I reckon Omar’s right. I should write you off as a bad debt and just fucking blow you away.”
Naz reached round the back of his trousers. He had a gun after all, stuck into the back of his belt. As he pulled it out, Mannie made a noise different to anything Hogie had heard before.
Naz spoke on, slow and nasal, his lips barely moving. “Hey, Mannie. You don’t wanna fucking wet yourself. It’s not loaded.”
He held the gun in his left hand, flat on his palm. Taking a rectangular piece of metal from his pocket, he slotted it into the handgrip. There was a click as the magazine connected inside the gun. Naz switched hands on the gun, racking back a bar that ran across the top of the barrel. As it snapped back into place, he said: “Now it’s loaded.”
Mannie swam backwards, dissolving out of focus. He collapsed. There was no percentage in him moving again.
Naz and Omar looked down on Mannie from one side, Hogie looked down from the other. As he glanced up, Hogie caught Naz’s eye. He lifted his hands and began to back away into a corner.
Naz said, “What’s your fucking problem, bud?”
Hogie kept his hands above his head, feeling them shake up there, somewhere close to the ceiling above him. He didn’t have anything to say. He didn’t need to. Over by the door, he heard a familiar voice saying, “It’s okay. We’re just friends of Mannie’s.”
It was Cheb. Back on this planet and not looking at all bad. In fact, relaxed, standing posed in the doorway with a sweet smile on his face and his hands open in front of him. A pacifying gesture to go with the easy calm of his voice. “Why’s everyone so anxious?”
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