What You Pay For

by Claire Askew

  When I say Toad’s a sound cunt, I know it’s messed up, given everything he’s done. But to be fair he did also save my life. They were all ready to disappear me, turn over my flat, get hold of the laptop and anything else incendiary that I might have lying around. Wipe it out. Wipe me out. For a few days there, I was blithely walking around while somewhere in a darkened room (I always imagined a darkened room, maybe with a poker table and cigarette smoke, like the movies) a bunch of hard bastards thought about how they’d get rid of me. But Toad got shirty, thank fuck. Turns out I hadn’t been imagining the weird brand of fatherly pseudo-friendship he’d developed. Toad was fond of me. Toad wanted to keep me around. And eventually, he got his way. I never forgot that I owed him.

  After we’d dispatched Tsezar, Toad drove us up onto the flyover and through the sickly orange streetlights of Glasgow. I let him. I sat in the passenger seat of Vic’s old van and tried not to throw up. When we turned a particularly big sweep of a corner, I felt Tsezar’s body roll across the floor of the van and hit the partition, right behind my seat. I really hoped he was fully dead. Like, really hoped.

  Somehow, I fell asleep on that drive. I was already tired and hungry and I guess the adrenalin that came from watching a radge Ukrainian guy get shot right in front of me ran out faster than you’d think, and I had nothing left. When I woke up, the engine was quiet and Toad was gone from the driver’s seat. I had no bearings at all. It was dark. I couldn’t find my phone – turned out Toad had lifted it while I was asleep, and I never saw it again. Like a fucking useless idiot I just sat there: cold and tired and terrified out of my wits.

  Eventually Toad came back, opened the passenger door, and hauled me out. I walked round the back of the van and saw that the doors were open and the inside was empty. Whatever was left of Tsezar had disappeared.

  From that yard we walked through a wee ginnel and then in through a door that had a push-button code and swivel handle like they put on the toilet doors in city centre coffee shops. I could smell the Clyde – boat fuel and salt – somewhere nearby. Toad led me through this maze of a building, past a lot more push-button locks, a lot of unseen voices. I don’t remember much else, other than following the moving mountain of Toad’s back, thinking about how I’d become an accessory to murder, and wondering how the fuck I was ever going to get myself out of this.

  ‘What is this place?’ I asked.

  Toad half turned as he walked.

  ‘The Gym,’ he said. ‘The ground floor? It is a gym complex owned by the boss. You can use it for free, if you are a gym person. I am not.’

  That went without saying.

  ‘Up here? Other things. I will show you.’

  We got to a door that was different to the rest, in that Toad stopped outside it, fumbled with the little stainless-steel numbered lock, punched in the code. There were voices inside – not loud enough for me to make out words, just a low hum. At the sound of the keypad’s ka-dunk, ka-dunk, they stopped.

  I don’t know what I was expecting in there, but it wasn’t padded armchairs and a big TV. In one corner of the room was a kitchen of sorts, with a sink and kettle and a few cupboards. There was a fridge, and a dartboard on the wall. A PlayStation console had been chucked down on one of the chairs. It smelled like weed. It reminded me of every student flat I’d ever been in.

  There were two guys in the room. One was holding a second console and keeping half an eye on a game of Call of Duty. I remember noticing he was camping: he’d found himself a nice defensive position and was sitting there, picking off his opponents with the occasional blast of sniper fire. I wanted to tell him he was cheating, but I wasn’t quite that stupid.

  The other guy was wearing a really fucking nice suit, and under the room’s ambient weed smell I caught the sharp edge of his cologne. He was standing, leaning against the wall the TV was mounted on. I could see he’d taken up his post there because it was the only chance he stood of having the first guy look at him while he was talking. The first guy was wearing a hoodie and jeans, and had a sort of football hooligan look about him. The second guy looked so groomed he could have been a hairdresser and, in the context of that room, was immediately far more frightening.

  ‘Schenok,’ Toad said, elbowing me inside and closing the door.

  The PlayStation guy rattled off a round of semi-automatic gunfire in the game, and I jumped about a foot in the air.

  The guy in the suit took a long time looking me up and down. I don’t often call other men beautiful, but this guy was: his skin was the colour of polished mahogany and he had long, elegant hands. He was clearly not at all impressed by me.

  ‘You know why you’re here?’ he asked me. He had a mild Scottish accent, which surprised me.

  ‘Um . . .’

  There was a simulated yelp, and the PlayStation guy got picked off. He brandished the console in the air as the screen turned red-tinged, then grey.

  ‘Ya fucking bas! They cunts gang up on me every time.’

  I couldn’t help myself. ‘They will do,’ I said. ‘It’s ’cause you’re camping.’

  The PlayStation guy set the console down beside him, and turned to look at me. He was older than I’d thought, and for some reason that made me wish I hadn’t said anything.

  He looked at Toad. ‘This yer friend, Toady?’

  ‘Schenok,’ Toad said again. ‘Yes.’

  The PlayStation guy stood up and stretched. Then he walked round the bank of chairs and advanced towards me. I braced myself, assuming I’d be punched. He moved his face near to mine. It was him, I realised, who smelled of weed.

  ‘You’re fair cheeky for someone who’s got himsel’ in deep shit.’

  I realised I was nodding. ‘Sorry,’ I said. It came out like a squeak, and both the guys laughed.

  ‘Oh fuck, Toad,’ PlayStation guy said. ‘The fuck’ve you brought us, pal?’ He looked hard at me, cocked his head like a bird. ‘Ye got any mad skills, Schenok? What’s that? Puppy boy? What d’you plan tae bring to this eh . . . wee brotherhood?’

  I had nothing. I could feel my knees trembling.

  ‘See, Izz back there’ – the guy slung his head backward to indicate the suited gent, still leaning against the wall – ‘he’s meet-and-greet. The schmoozer. Smooth-talker. Brings in the big fancy clients, makes us all look reputable to the general public and whatnot. Whereas me?’

  He made a fist and jerked it towards my abdomen as if to punch me. I crumpled in response, folding myself almost in half to avoid the blow, and the guy cackled. He’d stopped an inch short of contact.

  ‘I’m just muscle,’ he said.

  As I straightened up, he nodded at Toad. ‘Toady here’s our UK ambassador to the good auld Russian Federation, aren’t you, son?’

  Toad shrugged. I could tell he didn’t think much of this guy.

  ‘An’ you can call me Fenton,’ he said.

  I tried to stand up straight. ‘Charlie,’ I said.

  At the edge of my vision, I saw Toad shake his head.

  ‘Schenok,’ he corrected me.

  Great. So I was just Pup, now, was I?

  ‘So,’ Fenton said. He began to walk around me in a tight circle, looking me up and down. ‘What’re you bringin’ tae this merry band, eh? What skills’ve ye got? Tech, mebbe? Ye look like wan o’ they geek types.’ He came back round to stand in front of me.

  ‘I’m a translator,’ I said. ‘Russian.’ My voice was piss-weak.

  I expected him to laugh, but instead he cocked his head again, magpie-like. ‘Oh, aye?’ He glanced at Toad. ‘Well that’s no’ a bad start.’

  He looked me up and down again, then ruffled my hair with one huge hand. ‘We’ll lose that bird’s nest ye’ve got goin’ on,’ he said. ‘Get ye liftin’ some weights too, eh? Teach ye a few moves. Make sure ye can multi-task.’

  I nodded.

  He leaned in closer. ‘The more useful ye are,’ he said, ‘the more ye get paid.’

  Something clicked for me, then. It was like
I finally realised what was going on. I’d seen too much. I knew about the units and the money. I’d just watched a Ukrainian pimp get killed. My old life – life as an impoverished, slacker student kid who worked evenings in Blockbuster and was miserable – had just ended. This wasn’t an invitation. It was an induction. I didn’t know it then, but I’d just become one of Solomon’s boys.

  Birch felt like she’d been slapped. She remembered her conversation with Rab, about the informant, in the Kay’s Bar snug: I hope he’s in Greenland. And then something about as good as dead. She’d agreed, at the time, and thought, Yeah. Poor guy. That poor informant, daring to grass on Solomon – even Amy, the eternal optimist, had assumed he was dead by now. They’d all seen the file. When it came to a fish as big and ruthless as Solomon, informants disappeared. Everyone knows what happens to a grass, sooner or later. Snowball in hell’s chance. That’s what her mother would have said.

  But this wasn’t just any informant. This was Charlie.

  ‘I . . .’ She had so many questions, but no words for them. ‘I mean . . . why? What did you . . . ?’

  Charlie had looked away from her again, back into the hissing gas fire. He was wincing. ‘I’ve been . . . working with this guy for a month or so. Polis in Glasgow. I’d got to the point where I wanted out from under Solomon; I just can’t keep doing it, you know? A couple of weeks ago, he made me . . . I did something. A thing I never wanted to do, and didn’t mean to do . . .’

  ‘Solomon?’ He wasn’t finished speaking, but she didn’t care. ‘Solomon himself?’

  Charlie blinked. ‘I’m afraid so,’ he said. ‘This . . . thing. It fucked me up, Nella, it really did. I can’t sleep. I have these – what do you call them? Night terrors? And flashbacks. I can’t concentrate. I can’t sit fucking still.’

  Charlie lifted the tumbler to his lips, and took a long slug of whisky. She thought she could see his hand shaking, ever so slightly, now he’d mentioned it.

  ‘And it’s like . . . it’s almost like, that’s fine, you know, that’s what I should be feeling because I’m a fucked-up scumbag who’s done fucked-up shit and I know that.’

  He looked at her, and his eyes were damp once again. ‘But what scares me is . . . what if that goes, that feeling? What if I get to the point where I’m just like, dandy with it all? Proper emotionless, you know? I could see it starting to happen, like . . . coping mechanisms and all that. Anger. Wanting to lash out. I can’t let myself get like that. You’ll think I’m a hypocrite because I’ve been doing fucked-up criminal shit for fourteen whole years, but like . . . nothing like this. This one time.’

  ‘Charlie.’ She spoke quietly, as though to a startled animal. ‘What did you do?’

  He looked away.

  ‘Tell me,’ she said. ‘Please. If you don’t, my imagination’s just going to run riot.’

  Her brother was staring into the fire again, shaking his head. ‘I can’t.’

  Birch bit her lip. ‘Because of . . .’ She realised they hadn’t discussed what she did for a living, yet he seemed to know. ‘Because of my job?’

  He was still fighting tears, but she saw a smile pass across his face, and he snorted. ‘No, doll,’ he said. ‘I mean, it’s not the most convenient thing in the world that you’re the fucking polis, but . . .’

  ‘Hey.’ She said it more sharply than she meant to. ‘I joined the fucking polis because of you, Charlie. Because I wanted to find you. They were sucking at it, Lothian and Borders, and I thought I could do better.’ She dropped her eyes. ‘Goes to show what I knew. When I couldn’t find you either, I just assumed it was because you must be dead.’

  He was nodding. ‘I did have that choice,’ he said, after a pause, ‘at one point. Dead, or work for Solomon. I mean, I could have run, and grassed right from the start, but . . . I was smart enough at least to know that that still meant picking the dead option, just in a more roundabout way. Plus, these are real gangsters we’re talking about. I had to think about you and Maw.’

  Birch cocked her head to one side. ‘They threatened to come after us?’

  Charlie shrugged. ‘They didn’t have to,’ he said. ‘Not specifically. Instead they just told me stories of what happened to deserters, grasses, guys who cut and run or tried to go into business for themselves. I learned pretty fast that Solomon doesn’t just take out your knees. He takes out the knees of anyone you’ve ever cared about.’

  He looked at her again, and she could see he’d pulled the emotion back into himself, tamped it down like a low fire, the way men do.

  ‘I never talked about you or Maw,’ he said. ‘I had this naïve idea that they might not know about you, and if I didn’t get in contact I could stop them finding out. I was fucking twenty, remember. I was shit scared. But I was thinking about you both all the time. Thinking that you’d be safe. And that you’d probably want me to live, even if I never saw you again. Even if I couldn’t get in touch.’

  The urge to slap him came over Birch once more. She tasted acid in the back of her throat. ‘I don’t believe this,’ she said. ‘How did you get yourself there, Charlie? How the fuck did you get in with Solomon in the first place? What were you doing, was it drugs? I mean—’

  ‘Nella.’ He cut her off. ‘Give me some fucking credit.’

  ‘Oh, what – like you never smoked weed. You were into that stuff, and guess what? Some of those deadbeats you used to hang out with, I’ve since put away. You remember Richard? That jerk you lived with, the philosophy guy?’

  Charlie nodded.

  ‘He went away for possession with intent to supply, after several slaps on the wrist which went ignored.’

  Charlie chuckled. ‘Wow . . . Richard. What a naughty boy.’

  Now Birch snorted. ‘Oh, like you’re so much smarter? Look where you’re at right now. How did those life choices work out for you?’ She was enjoying this. He’d put her through so much anguish: she realised she was enjoying making him squirm.

  ‘Look, Nella,’ he said. ‘It wasn’t drugs, okay? It wasn’t any stupid shit like that. I mean, I was stupid, but . . . it was Russian. I got in with this Russian guy who used to come to Blockbuster, and I didn’t realise he was a fucking gangster, and then it was too late. All right? I was a translator, for fuck’s sake. I was just trying to make some money on the side.’

  Birch paused. She repeated what he’d just said back to herself, in her head. ‘You’re telling me,’ she said, after a moment, ‘that you got caught up in organised crime . . . by working at Blockbuster Video?’

  Charlie gave his head a fast, dismissive shake. ‘Shut up, Nella.’

  But she’d begun to laugh. Not because it was funny – it wasn’t funny, her little brother had been missing for fourteen years because he’d apparently become a hardened criminal – but because it was hysterical. She was hysterical. She’d had maybe five hours’ sleep that whole week so far and she was feeling it. It was four in the morning, and she was laughing so hard that she could feel tears beginning to streak her face. She had to hug herself, just to drag in enough breath to keep laughing.

  ‘Well that explains . . .’ The words came out choked. ‘How you were so invisible. Organised crime. Wow.’

  ‘It’s serious,’ Charlie said.

  Birch let out a low hum, trying to rein the laughter back in. ‘I know it is,’ she said, in something not unlike a sob. ‘It’s bloody awful.’

  He’d begun to rock back and forth now: the laughing had got to him. ‘If I had a choice then,’ he said, ‘I didn’t know it. I was what? Fucking twenty, and this Russian dude . . . he shot a guy in front of me. He did it like it was no big thing. Like he was showing me, I do this every day, arsehole. If I had a choice that wasn’t die or get on board, I swear to God I didn’t know it.’

  Birch could feel herself quietening now. She was still laughing, but it was petering out.

  ‘Until . . . the other week.’ Charlie’s voice had softened. ‘And then I thought I could see a way out. Maybe. Or at least I fel
t like . . . fuck it, I can’t carry on with this. I can’t do something like that again, I just . . . don’t have the strength.’

  With the back of her hand, Birch smeared the tears off her cheekbones. ‘Charlie,’ she said. ‘You have to tell me what you did.’

  He was still rocking, making the whisky in the glass between his palms slosh, as though he were on a boat. He was staring down at it, rapt. ‘I can’t,’ he said. ‘I really, really can’t. Not because you’re polis. But because you’re my fucking sister, okay?’

  Him saying the word shocked her so much that she gasped. It was as though she thought maybe he’d forgotten, after all these years, that that was who she was.

  ‘You’d never forgive me,’ he said. ‘You’d never speak to me again. And I know it’s my fault, it’s one hundred and one per cent my entire fault, but . . . we’ve gone too long without speaking. I missed you.’

  He surprised her then. He shifted the weight of the whisky into his left hand, and reached out with his right, leaned over the coffee table, and put one hand onto her wrist. She jumped, and coffee splashed over both of them.

  ‘Fucksake.’

  ‘Shit.’ Birch brought the back of her own hand to her mouth, and sucked at the patch the coffee had scalded. It wasn’t that bad, she realised: just a shock.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she said.

  He shrugged. ‘Anyway. You’d never speak to me again.’ He said it as though the moment with the hands and the coffee hadn’t happened. ‘And you’d certainly not want to fucking help me, if you knew.’ He looked into her face then. ‘And I really, really need your help, Nella.’

  They put me in Tsezar’s old job. They decided I was essentially going to be the silent heavy in one of Solomon’s saunas. Vyshnya, Tsezar’s Ukrainian ex, didn’t seem too troubled by his passing: the first time I met her she looked me up and down and laughed, without smiling. Vyshnya got her name – a Ukrainian cherry – for her hair, which was bottle-dyed a sort of pinkish burgundy. She was in her late forties but dressed like Lolita, and wore platform boots so high that she usually stood taller than me. She laughed at my scrawniness, how ill-equipped I was to be the strong arm she needed.