BLOOD DRUGS TEA (A Dark Comedy Novel)

by Saunders, Craig

  *

  17. Bareback Bloodsports

  The darkness on the street was oppressive. It was only alleviated by the occasional cruiser; dark windowed cars with dull headlights driving down the wharf for some action. The cars were invariably new. Poor people couldn’t afford ladies of the night.

  Ladies of the night. It seems wrong to call them anything else. All the other terms for prostitutes seem derogatory. We use words like bats to put them down but never about the men that frequent the ladies. They are, after all, only doing their job.

  We walked down the street to the Shufflers. There were a few girls on the street, most paid us no attention. A guy alone and they would have given him the come on. Three guys together on a dark street wasn’t something the girls down here were into. A quick blow job in the back of a car was as risky as most of them got. Reb ignored the girls on show. Pill seemed chuffed to have something to look at. I felt strangely unaffected. We past three before we came to the Shufflers. None of them talked to us.

  In the darkness ahead I could see a strip of red. Our girl was here.

  I walked up to her and left the others behind. As I approached I could see her face for the first time. It wasn’t, by any means, a stunning face. She didn’t look smart. Definitely not the look I’d go for. I guess to work in this game she must have had street smarts but there was no burning light of intellect about the set of her face. She had a hooked nose, too. She looked scary.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “What can I do for you, sweetness?” she said. She looked at Pill and Reb over my shoulder. Something about the set of her body told me she was ready to run if I just gave her the chance.

  “Just information.”

  “You a cop?” She looked at me closely. “No, you’re not a cop. What do you want?”

  “Don’t you recognise me?”

  She looked at me dumbly. It had been dark that night outside the aerobics hall but she must have gotten a good look at me.

  “Nah, I see all sorts down here. You’re not a regular. What do you want?”

  “Are you Mary Hunford?”

  Light dawned in her eyes then. Worry sprang to life in her eyes. She made to move away but I grabbed her arm. Not hard. Not yet. “I just want to talk.” I said.

  Understandably, she struggled. My grip held firm.

  Just my luck, some good Samaritan john slowed down and wound down his window as he passed.

  “This guy troubling you, love?” He had glasses on. He looked like an accountant. I wasn’t worried. Mary was still struggling but I had a good hold on her. Pill and Reb hadn’t moved.

  “Fuck off,” I said. The guy looked like he was thinking twice but this wasn’t the kind of action he was interested in. He drove off. What a shining example of citizenship. This city made me sick sometimes. No one was even interested in helping a girl in trouble.

  Made my job easier.

  I was hurting the girl. She was wincing and struggling. I let her go but she didn’t run. She just stood there rubbing her arm. There was something in her eyes. More than distrust. It was almost hatred, but it couldn’t be. She’d only just met me. It usually takes women more than five minutes to start hating me.

  I would’ve been scared if I was this girl but working in a game like this I guessed she didn’t scare easy.

  “I’m looking into the death of your friend. Tracey. You’d better talk to me.”

  Still nothing. She was clammed up tight. She’d crossed her arms but was making no move to get away. I guess if she thought I was really trouble she’d have bolted by now. I have a kind face though, the kind of face you wouldn’t expect to go grabbing girls on the street. I didn’t feel bad about it, mind. This girl knew something I needed to know. Joe needed me to know. My loyalties were divided but I still felt like I owed Joe, not to mention the dead girl.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” She was good. Not a hint of recognition on her face.

  “I think you’re lying. You know what happened the night she died. Why else did you run from us Monday night?”

  “I was working Monday night. I think you’d better leave me alone now.” One foot was out in front of the other. I could see she had high heels on. Her hair was nice. I was trying to think why a man would want to pay this woman to have sex with him. I could come up with no other reason than her hair. Then I guessed there weren’t that many hair fetishists in Bridgend.

  “Well, you can talk to me or you can talk to the cops.”

  She made a show of thinking about this. I didn’t think it would take long. It didn’t.

  “So what if I knew her? Who are you?”

  She didn’t think of running away. She could see where Pill and Reb were waiting for me. She must have figured there was no way she could get away.

  “I’m Jake,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.” A little politeness costs fuck all.

  “Well I don’t know anything about Tracey’s death. We were just friends.”

  “You a user?”

  “Mind your own business.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “Were you with Tracey the night she died?”

  She looked like she was about to say something but then changed her mind. I didn’t think she was going to give me anything but then she said, “I saw her that night. She was fine.”

  “What time?”

  “Well I was working that night so it must have been late.”

  “Were you over on the north side of town?”

  “Yeah.”

  “But you work here.” I said it as a statement of fact.

  “Well it must have been before I started work. Yeah that’s right. Now I think of it, it was before I started work.”

  “Right,” I said for want of something better. I didn’t think I was going to get very far with this girl. She wasn’t going to tell me jack shit.

  “What time did you leave her?”

  “I don’t know. We talked for a while. Must’ve been before twelve. I think.”

  “You think? You must be able to remember.”

  “Well I don’t, alright?”

  “You were close to Tracey, right?”

  “We were just friends. I never got close to her.”

  She was lying. I knew it and she knew it. The barman in the Moose had seen them holding hands but I didn’t think it was the right time to let her know she’d been caught out in a lie.

  “You had enough yet? You’re scaring off the punters.” Her lips turned down and she looked at me with distaste painted bright and clear on her face. A cold breeze made my eyes water.

  I didn’t say what I was thinking. She’d do an adequate job of scaring off the punters just by looking at them.

  “Yeah.” I gave her my card. “Call me if you think of anything else.”

  She made a show of putting it in her pocket but I figured she’d dump it later. Still, you never know. I’d have to come back down and talk to her but I had a theory I wanted to test out first.

  “Bye then.”

  “Thanks, have a good night,” I said, and left.

  *

  It was early morning by the time we got back from talking to Mary Hunford. I was tired but I didn’t think I could go to bed. Reb gave us a lift back to mine then made a show of parallel parking in the street. He parked like a girl and Pill and I took the piss out of him for a while. Reb’s good at having the piss taken out of him. He doesn’t take himself too seriously.

  Pill rolled, while we listened to the childish glee of Blur’s You’re so Great on the CD player. My hands usually shake and he’s much better at rolling than I am. There’s an art to rolling I haven’t quite mastered. It’s all about the preparation. I haven’t got the patience for it. I was OK at rolling solids. I’d had more practice. But with greens I tended to put too much in, my ratio of weed to tobacco was all out. Pill rolled a Marlboro light between his finger and thumb, depositing a sprinkling of tobacco over some sweet smelling weed. My house would reek of it by the morning bu
t the police rarely visit me. I’m sure they would overlook a little smelly weed even if they did. I’m paranoid but I’ve never been worried about the cops rolling me for drugs. They had more important things to do with their time. I was more worried about the government bugging my house. At least that was a sensible worry. No sense in worrying about things that will never happen.

  We passed around the joint. I sat on the floor with the wavy heat of the radiator at my back. I’m no connoisseur but I was fairly sure it was white widow. I wasn’t too fussy though. Greens are good, whatever the flavour. It was pretty powerful stuff. I knew sights and sounds would begin to take on deeper resonance after one joint. Maybe I’d even hallucinate after a couple.

  After one joint Reb fell asleep on the couch and Pill and I moved onto the floor.

  After two I could see through my eyelids.

  Pill asked me what I thought about Mary. I told him she was definitely lying. I thought there was no way that girl didn’t know what happened. But then I couldn’t force her to talk to me. I’ve got no bargaining power. I could throw money at her but she’d just take it and still lie. There was really nothing I could do about it. For now. I’d bear her in mind for later.

  We smoked some more. It was good gear. My thoughts were flying, more so than the paranoid ramblings I suffer when I’m on solids. It was a better quality rambling than on solids. The thoughts were friendly.

  Thoughts for me were like clouds of rain falling upwards. Thoughts for Pill were like peas on a plate; the harder he chased them, the harder they fled.

  Fleed. I was going to make that rhyme. Harry’s round tonight for tea, I need a pee.

  Jesus, stop, I said to myself. I was really quite stoned.

  Pill fell asleep on the floor. I fell asleep making up rhymes in my head.

  *

  18. Nocturnal Emissions

  I woke up about three that morning still feeling stoned. Reb and Pill were up. They’d made themselves tea. I rubbed my eyes. They felt greasy. I prepared to be a proper host. It was no good me falling asleep with company. That just wouldn’t do.

  “Did we wake you?”

  “No, I guess I woke up anyway. What’re you two doing?”

  “Just talking about Joe. Just wondering why you’re sticking by him. We both think he did it.”

  “Yeah, well, neither of you like him.” I sat up and pulled my legs under me. Pill was rolling again. There was cold tea on the coffee table among Pill’s doings. I picked up a mug and drank some. Cold tea is foul. I got up to make myself some tea but I found beer in the fridge and popped the cap. I took a swig before going back into the front room.

  My head span some and the air was thick with the smell of drugs. It was a heady smell, pungent. There was a slight ringing in my ears and sounds slipped into each other. I could hear my breath. I was aware of a slight aftershock on the air from each word that they spoke while I was in the kitchen, and the sound of the cap popping off the beer, and the sound of the bubbles frothing as they were set free. I took another sip. The cool beer on my furry tongue was delightful. I padded back into the front room. I felt like going old school. I put Aphex Twin on the stereo. I put it on low but it still sounded loud.

  “Well,” said Pill, as I came back in. “He permanently looks like someone’s dribbled in his sherbert.”

  “That’s an interesting turn of phrase.”

  “Well, he’s just so sour.”

  “He probably drinks too much,” I said. Not sure if I was defending Joe or not.

  Reb laughed. He was red eyed. Gear has a funny effect on Reb. It takes away all his self-consciousness.

  “He’s got assholic tendencies,” he said.

  “Nobody’s perfect. He’s been a good friend to me.”

  Pill finished rolling and handed me the joint. I wasn’t sure if I should smoke it. My belly felt funny. I knew I’d smoke it anyway. No sense in turning down free drugs. I lit up, pulling the little paper twizzle off before lighting.

  “I’ve got willy sprites. I’ve got to go to the toilet.” Pill got up and his knees popped.

  I took a long drag. I passed it immediately to Reb and held the smoke in for a long time. Reb looked a little green. He had work in the morning, as did Pill. But Reb’s line of work, while not particularly taxing, required a bit more concentration than Pill’s. I wasn’t up to other people’s worries though. The thought came back to me with all its previous power that Joe was in trouble and I felt ambivalent about it. Ambivalent was a good word for three o’clock in the morning, stoned. I was proud of it. I said it over in my head a couple of times to make the most of it. I didn’t think I’d come up with anything better tonight.

  “Reb, why is it you’re so much better talking when you’re caned?”

  “I guess I’m more relaxed.”

  “Hmm, I guess it does work like that. When I smoke Pill’s weed I don’t get relaxed. I feel like the stars are twinkling through my eyelids.”

  “Must be weird,” said Reb. He coughed and handed me the joint back. He’d only taken a few puffs but I hadn’t been counting. There’s no joint etiquette round mine. You smoke for as long as you want to. Besides, I never bought the drugs myself.

  I took another single drag and handed it straight back to Reb. He didn’t seem to notice that I was taking pains to get him really stoned. I figured he needed it more than I did. It was nice to see him relaxed. I don’t know why he didn’t relax normally but I figured work or no he needed to let off a little steam.

  We smoked in silence until the joint was gone. I lay back and let it work. Reb laid on his elbow.

  “I think there’s something wrong about all this. I’ve been thinking about the crime and I’ve come to a few conclusions.”

  I wasn’t sure Reb’s conclusions were going to be of much use tonight but I asked anyway.

  “What do you think then?”

  “Hmm. I think we’re looking at this from the wrong angle. I think the police are barking up the wrong tree. As much as I’d like it to be Joe – sorry Jake, but I would – I’m not sure he did it. I mean he’s a big guy, and he could have snapped the girl’s neck and thrown her off the roof of the car park, but what about the girl’s muffler? The strangulation marks were no doubt from her muffler and not from hands. Joe’s a man who uses his hands, right? I mean he broke a girl’s jaw. He didn’t try to throttle her. If he was in some sort of psychotic rage he’d have beaten the girl to death, not strangled her with her own muffler.”

  I couldn’t get my head around the whole sequence of events either.

  “It doesn’t necessarily follow, Reb. Who can say what was going through Joe’s mind if he did kill the girl? We don’t really know him. I know him as well as anyone else does but I never knew he’d spent time in a mental ward. I never knew he’d broken a girl’s jaw before. I knew he was unhinged some of the time but it’s never seemed to affect his actions before. If he killed the girl there’s no way we could say he didn’t do it.”

  Some friend I was. Here I was playing devil’s advocate about a man who was supposed to be my friend. Whether I knew him or not he’d always been straight with me.

  “What about the note? It’s a bit flowery for Joe. I am as shadow. That doesn’t sound like Joe at all.”

  “Straight forward and to the point I think. It sounds like Joe to me. He means he’s like a shadow because he thinks nothing is real. That’s what he feels like. Like a shadow. Everything must be unreal for him.”

  I still felt the note was pointless. I was sure the ring was the key, not the note. It was too twee. I still couldn’t get my head around the idea of a note. “But why would someone want to boast about the murder? I mean Joe’s frightened the police are after him and he leaves a note? That doesn’t sound like someone with self preservation in mind.”

  “Nobody said he was rational.”

  Reb was quiet for a minute. His hand was shaking and he looked pale. I thought he might be about to throw up. Just so long as he didn’t throw up o
n my carpet. It was threadbare and tatty and it couldn’t take the scrubbing it would need to get the smell of sick out of it.

  “What about the ring? Was it her ring?”

  “I’m not sure. Why would someone else leave their ring at the scene? I mean, apart from you, Reb, nobody does things like that.”

  “You know, I don’t know why I do that.”

  “I always figured it was a cry for attention.”

  “Maybe. God knows I don’t get the kind of attention I’d like.” I figured he was talking about me. I wasn’t about to get into it. I changed the subject.

  “Are you feeling OK? You look a bit green.”

  “Yeah. I’m fine. I’m seeing after trails though.” He waved his hand in front of his face. “I probably shouldn’t do that.”

  We lapsed into silence then. Reb laid out on his back and stared at the ceiling. I laid back and could see shapes in the cracks on the ceiling. I wondered if Reb could see them too. I was too caned to ask. I couldn’t be bothered to talk or move. I just laid there, thinking round thoughts.

  Pill was gone about half an hour. By the time he came back I’d decided to go to bed. Reb was asleep on the floor again.

  *

  I lay in bed thinking about Harry and Joe. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was time for a clean break and I was happy she was free. Today had flown by. They say time flies when you’re having fun but I only ever found that to be true when I wank left-handed.

  I’d been trying to forget about things all day and gear had finally worked until I lay in bed with nothing but the quiet to distract me. I wondered what Joe was up to. I’d forgotten all about him. I guess he was still in for questioning. But what I’d found out from Mary put Joe’s possible indiscretions in a new light. I’d been busier than a spastic rabbit shagging all day.