The Smiling Man

by Joseph Knox

  8

  ‘He’s in the toilet,’ said Sian, nodding towards the back of the room.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I said it distractedly, because I knew I should.

  I was nervous, looking over my shoulder.

  ‘Sure,’ she said. ‘He kept asking for shots of Jack Daniel’s. Dropped some notes on the bar and said to just keep lining them up so he could watch me pour. In the end I took the notes, pulled the bottle off the wall and sat it next to him.’

  ‘Sounds better than the alternative.’

  ‘I don’t know …’ She nodded at the bottle on the bar. It was half-empty. ‘Who is this guy? What’s his problem with you?’ Before I could answer I saw her eyes move, smoothly, over my shoulder. Widening slightly. I felt Bateman’s entrance into the room as a change in air pressure. A psychic gasp going through the bar. I turned to see him crushing a cigarette out on the wall, dropping what was left and walking through the tables towards us.

  The people either side of him glanced at the ruined face, the empty eye socket surrounded by darkened, concave scar tissue, then they looked quickly away. He held his chin out like a challenge, daring someone to say or do something. When he reached the bar he shoulder-barged past me and I felt the power of his body. The heat that seemed to pour out of him, the hate.

  ‘Jim Beam,’ he slurred, through the wet click of his speech impediment. Close up, his face was painful to look at. A gunshot will do that. Sian glanced at me for a split second but I didn’t react.

  ‘You’ve got half a bottle of Jack,’ she said.

  ‘Changed mind …’

  When he spoke he sounded like a deaf person but I wasn’t sure how much of that was real and how much of it was for show. My impression was that he enjoyed unnerving people. Sian took a nervous step back from the bar, pushed a glass up to the optic and measured out a shot. Bateman made a show of watching her move. She looked back at him and he nodded to make it a double. ‘Slower,’ he said. She turned to give him the glass. ‘Make it a threesome …’ he said.

  ‘Nope, that’s your lot.’ She slid the drink towards him so there was no chance they’d touch. I could see the pulse moving in her neck. He gave her his painful, flesh-wound smile, dropped more notes on the bar and ran his hands back and forth across it.

  ‘Could watch all day,’ he said, his fingers leaving slug trails of grime on the wood. He picked up the drink, threw it back and slammed it down. ‘More glasses. You and friend can help with bottle.’ He nodded in my direction when he spoke, but he still hadn’t looked directly at me. Sian hesitated then put two more glasses on the bar, watching as he poured large measures into each. ‘Cheers,’ he said, raising his in toast to her.

  ‘Cheers,’ she said, lifting hers and pouring it down the sink.

  Bateman scowled. ‘Paying a compliment …’

  ‘You pay me money for drinks,’ she said. ‘That’s it.’

  He screwed up his face, literally, folding it in on itself. My skin itched standing so close to him, and I wondered how we must look to Sian.

  Inseparable, I thought. Like the fucking cause of each other.

  He broke eye contact with her suddenly. ‘Bet this guy drinks.’ He was so tall that he had to look down at me and I saw saliva bubbling out of his damaged mouth. He sucked it noisily back in. ‘Have we met …?’

  ‘Come on,’ I said, taking my glass and sitting at a free table. My back was against the wall and he followed me, sitting opposite.

  I leaned into him. ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’

  ‘Like the barmaid …’

  ‘Well enjoy your drink, because it’s your last.’

  ‘Says who?’

  I looked at him. Waited.

  ‘Told you, Wally,’ he said, hunching up over the table.

  ‘Aidan,’ I replied.

  ‘Told you to hide the bag. Tell no fucker where. Told you we were going back for it.’

  ‘You’re not serious …’

  ‘Said—’

  ‘It was twenty years ago.’

  ‘Yeah?’ He drooled the word out of his mouth. ‘I wasn’t counting …’ His inability or unwillingness to articulate certain sounds ignited a natural sympathy in me. But whenever I looked at his one living eye I knew the person behind it hadn’t changed.

  ‘They say that by fifty a man gets the face he deserves. How old are you now?’

  ‘This,’ he spat, pointing at the dead eye. ‘This was for you. I stepped between that gun and you.’

  ‘Bullshit. You stepped between that gun and the money.’ It was so plainly true that he paused and took a drink while considering his next line of attack. He dribbled bourbon into the side of his mouth. ‘How’s your sister?’ These words were difficult for him to get his mouth around, and it looked like he was chewing them.

  ‘I don’t have a sister,’ I said.

  ‘Funny—’

  ‘No, Bateman,’ I said, lowering my voice. ‘Get this into that fucking squash you’ve got for a head. I don’t have a sister. We haven’t seen each other since then, either. She’s nothing to do with me, and I’m nothing to do with her.’

  He did his best impersonation of a smile. ‘Maybe I’ll pay a visit. You lived together afterwards.’ He caught my look. Smirked and went on. ‘You might not have kept track of me … but I kept track of you … Maybe you told your sister where that bag went in The Oaks.’ The Oaks was the home we’d been sent to, and not something he should know about. I tried not to react. ‘Your mother told me, by the way.’ He smiled again. ‘Sends her love.’

  I didn’t know if he was telling the truth.

  I didn’t even know if she was alive, but the revulsion working its way through my body felt so strong I thought it must be visible. A light haze of sunspots washed in front of my eyes and I held on to the table to stay in control. Bateman was still talking but I couldn’t hear him. I looked about the room. It seemed to be in motion. Sian was serving someone, distractedly, watching us through the corner of her eye.

  I looked at Bateman, interrupting him as my senses snapped back.

  ‘Do you remember what you used to call her?’

  ‘Your mother? A few things …’

  ‘My sister,’ I said, my voice thickening. ‘Do you remember what you used to call my sister?’ He looked away. Shrugged. ‘A nickname,’ I said. ‘You had a nickname for her.’ All traces of smirk fell slowly from his face and a look of overwhelming exhaustion replaced it.

  ‘Twenty years ago,’ he said. ‘How would I remember that?’

  ‘I remember it.’

  ‘This sister you’re nothing to do with?’ The saliva was boiling at the corners of his mouth. ‘I’m counting on that memory. You in those trees …’

  ‘Count on this. You’ve been inside for two decades. The bag’s gone. The trees probably aren’t even there any more.’

  ‘They’re there.’ He nodded. ‘I’ve been back. Looked round.’ He smiled again, globs of spit dropping on to the table. ‘No mention of that bag in papers. No mention ever since …’

  ‘I threw it in the water.’

  He shook his head. ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘Why?’ I said. ‘Why don’t you think so?’

  ‘You were too scared of me to throw in water. Still scared now.’

  ‘Most people are probably scared of you, weren’t there any mirrors inside?’

  ‘I was a celebrity inside,’ he said, drawing himself up. ‘Not many men eat a bullet and live.’

  ‘Well, if you ever feel like going back for seconds …’ I felt a jolt of self-loathing. I was actually sitting here having this conversation.

  Meeting him on his own level.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, getting up. ‘Let’s do this again in twenty years.’ I went back to the bar, leaning on it with both hands. I’d take the pictures to Parrs myself rather than interact with him again. When I moved my hands from the bar-top they left perfect prints in sweat. Sian touched my arm and I looked up.

  ‘Are you
OK?’ I nodded. ‘Hang around for a minute, yeah?’ she said, with a smile.

  I nodded again. My eyes were wet.

  She frowned over my shoulder.

  ‘Aidan, save me bother,’ said Bateman to my back. He was intentionally hamming up his speech impediment now, into a caricature of a man with learning difficulties. ‘Where’s sister?’ I turned. He was looming over me. Neck, chest and arms swollen with muscle. People at the surrounding tables were starting to stare. ‘She’ll talk to me …’

  ‘We’ve got nothing to talk about,’ I clarified. ‘And you’ve got even less in common with her.’

  ‘Wrong,’ he said, slapping a sloppy wet kiss on my forehead. ‘Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.’ I put a hand out to stop him getting any closer. His chest felt like a rock face. He looked at me momentarily and took another step as though my arm wasn’t there. He gripped the back of my head tightly and tore his hand away.

  He pressed a sweaty coin into my palm.

  Then he reached around me, poured a final shot of Jack Daniel’s and drank it off.

  ‘Places to go …’ he said, winking his good eye at me. ‘People to see. Annie’s my daughter. So we must have a few things in common …’

  He put a cigarette in his mouth and started to leave.

  ‘Bateman,’ I said. He half-turned. ‘If you go anywhere near my sister, your eyesight will deteriorate in a serious fucking way.’ He looked at me. ‘I swear on my life, you’ll never come back from it.’

  He laughed and looked at the cigarette in his hand. ‘I’ve remembered her nickname.’ As he said this I saw that he’d been telling the truth. That he was capable of forgetting something like that. He looked at the cigarette again and did his pitiful impersonation of a smile. ‘Ash,’ he said. ‘Short for ashtray.’ He spoke deliberately, making the effort to enunciate every word. ‘Nothing put a smoke out like those fat little arms.’

  He turned to leave.

  I looked at Sian. Leaned on the bar to stay upright.

  She was talking to me. ‘It’s OK,’ she was saying, her voice shaking. ‘… it’s OK.’ But something snapped in my ears and all I could hear was ringing. My mouth watered and white-hot, electric sunspots roared down in front of my eyes. Sian moved her hand on to mine but I was already rising, lifting up out of my body.

  I picked up the bottle of Jack Daniel’s by the neck, followed Bateman and swung it with both hands like an axe, in the highest possible arc. I felt the whisky, glugging out on to my wrists, before bringing it down on the back of his head with every ounce of strength in my body. The bottle exploded in a red mist of blood and broken glass, and an incredible shock wave travelled up my arms. He didn’t go down. He put both hands out to steady himself on the wall then turned, touched his head and gave me his flesh-wound smile.

  I was still holding the broken bottle by the neck.

  I heard a guttural scream and I was charging it at him.

  His arm belted out like a piston and struck me the hardest blow I’d ever felt. I crashed back through a table and into the couple who’d been sitting there. Bateman threw himself at me. I rolled to the side and he flattened the man I’d landed on. I was still on my knees when he turned, and I swung an uppercut for his groin. He moved in time and it caught him in the thigh, knocking him off balance rather than off his feet. He leaned back on the upturned table and swung a kick at my head. I felt my body travel up and back down again in a perfect arc, then he dropped on top of me with all his weight.

  He gripped me by the jaw and started banging my skull into the concrete. I struck two blows to the back of his head but he didn’t even notice. His grip tightened. His body felt like one enormous taut muscle, crushing me to death. I spread both hands wildly along the floor, searching for purchase, for anything that would help me roll away.

  Anything I could hit him with.

  My right hand found broken glass from the destroyed table. As he brought my head down on the concrete again I wrapped a fist around the shards, feeling the blood bursting out from my hand. Then I forced my palm into the good side of his face. Pressing the glass into him, into me, as hard as I could. He threw back his head in an animal scream, let go of me and lifted himself to a crouch. This time when I kicked him in the groin I didn’t miss, and I saw the pain climb all the way up his body. I got to my feet on another overturned table.

  He was bleeding out of his good eye, and his face turned the colour of old money.

  I buried a fist into his stomach and he doubled up, retching over my shoulder. I linked both hands behind his head and kneed him so hard in the face that my entire leg went numb. I stepped back, holding my own head, watching him falter. He drooled out a long stream of blood on to the floor and collapsed into it, face first. I fell down on top of him, tears blurring my vision, and hit him, repeatedly, in the face, the neck, the chest, until I couldn’t breathe.

  I felt a hand on my shoulder and slapped it away, then another and another, until I couldn’t move my arms any more and I was being lifted up from the floor. When they pulled me off him I had both hands inside his mouth, trying to rip it apart, and I was screaming incomprehensibly. As the hands pulled me upright and dragged me backwards through the room I saw that the bar was destroyed. Terrified men and women pressed themselves into walls, covered their mouths. Some consoled each other. Some were sitting on the floor, holding injuries. And at the end of the room, growing smaller as I got further away, was my friend, Sian. She had both hands over her mouth and she was crying.

  9

  By the time they turned the key on me I’d painfully re-set my jaw, but it was too late to start a conversation with the desk sergeant, or to request a phone call. I couldn’t think of anyone who’d pick up anyway.

  I couldn’t think of what I’d tell them.

  I’d been thrown into the back of a squad van by four stompers. During the drive I’d felt the bumps in the road like pneumatic drills at my temples, with the pain reaching an almost transcendental pitch. At the other end I imagined for a moment I might wake up out of a nightmare. Instead I was arrested, booked and detained.

  A fresh arrival in hell.

  The stompers were subnormal men kept on continual call. They scored non-existently on tests of IQ, emotional intelligence or intuition, so of course there was a place for them in the modern police force. They spent their shifts drinking protein shakes, lifting weights and shit-talking each other. When they got the call, they burst on to scenes of ongoing violence and brought them rapidly to a close.

  Almost always by taking it up a notch.

  I was probably lucky to be alive, but that depended on how you saw things. The mingling smells of blood, sweat and bourbon turned my stomach. I was dragging one leg from where I’d driven my knee into Bateman’s face and my head felt like it had been cracked open, then glued back together again in the dark. It was unfamiliar to the touch, with a whole new terrain of ridges, scars and bumps. I could almost see the concussion stretching out in front of me like an enormous, never-ending skyline, and my hands, when I looked at them, were unrecognizable with deep cuts and grazes, those of a psychopath, I thought, a madman. My right palm still glistened with the shards of glass I’d forced into Bateman’s face, and I was still picking them out when I heard the bolt go.

  ‘Stand away from the door, please,’ said the desk sergeant. He was smooth and chinless. Literally the most humourless man I’d ever met, and I could never remember his name. He looked like a stage of evolution we’d had to go through to reach humanity.

  ‘Give me a minute,’ I said, with some difficulty. I almost didn’t want to know who was outside. Superintendent Parrs would probably send me into the main population with a sign on my back that said ‘police officer’.

  ‘Stand away from the door, please,’ the desk sergeant repeated.

  ‘Give me a fucking minute.’

  It sounded like I had cotton wool in my mouth.

  I was lifting myself up off the bunk when the door opened anyway and Sutty stepped inside.
Next to me he looked pretty together, and I was actually glad to see him.

  ‘Don’t get up on my account,’ he said. ‘Give us a minute, yeah?’ The door slammed shut behind him and I slumped back down.

  ‘Get me out of here, Sutts …’

  ‘No can do, pal,’ he said, working alcoholic sanitizer into his hands.

  ‘I haven’t had a phone call.’

  ‘Unless you’ve got God Almighty on speed-dial, it’s not much use to you. You’ve been locked up with your belt and shoelaces, though. What’s that tell you?’

  ‘That they don’t expect me to be here long.’

  ‘In a way …’

  I looked at him. ‘What? They think I’m going to hang myself over a bar fight?’

  ‘More than a bar fight from what I heard. What was it, Aid? Is the hit back on?’ I didn’t say anything. ‘Or is it drugs again? Always multiple choice when it comes to you …’

  ‘It’s neither.’

  ‘Anyway, do they think you’ll hang yourself? They’re counting on it, pal.’ He laughed. ‘No, really. They’re running a book from the front desk, taking bets. They all think tonight’s the big one.’

  I didn’t say anything.

  ‘I was outraged. Said that’s my partner you’re talking about, there. Put a tonne down on you seeing daylight.’ He smiled. ‘Hanged? Not your style. Not your style at all. When a guy hangs he kicks out the stool, shits his pants and presents himself to the world. Here I am.’ He shook his head. ‘That doesn’t sound like Aidan Waits to me. If they’d locked you up with something messier, a chainsaw or a shotgun, that’d be different …’ When he saw I wasn’t in the mood he changed the subject. ‘Do you want the good news or the bad news?’

  ‘I’ve got a feeling I won’t tell the difference …’

  ‘The bad news is that your data requests on a Mr Anthony Blick started to drop into the office after you left. Luckily, while you were in the pub I was able to pick them up. That led me to speak to Aneesa Khan, which was very illuminating. Turns out there’s an entire line of enquiry you’ve been keeping from me. You’ve been interviewing the owners. Playing them against each other. Even making allegations. And now I know all about it. So, that’s the bad news.’