The Charmer

by Mandasue Heller

  ‘Whatever you want,’ Maria said, smiling happily.

  They were on the verge of something special here, and she had no intention of letting anything get in the way – especially not a house. Great as the old place was, she’d meant what she said. Without Joel, it meant nothing.

  They decided not to go to the Britannia. Being in the town centre, there was too much risk of somebody who knew Joel dropping in and seeing him. So they booked in at the Lowry Hotel in Salford’s thriving regeneration zone instead.

  Leaving Maria to settle in to the room, Joel nipped out for a pack of cigarettes. Down in the foyer, he went into a quiet corner and phoned Lance Gallagher.

  ‘It’s me,’ he said when Lance answered. ‘Re your call last night, it’s a positive on the Scots. They’ve been seen several times by a friend of mine, driving round near where I’ve been staying.’

  ‘Which is where?’

  ‘Didsbury.’

  ‘How many bodies?’

  ‘Five, as far as I know.’

  ‘Armed?’

  ‘Most likely, yeah.’

  ‘You out the way?’

  ‘Yeah, I’m safe.’

  ‘Right, leave it with me. Give us a ring in a couple of days if I haven’t been in touch, see what’s happening.’

  ‘Will do. And thanks, Lance.’

  ‘I’m not doing this for you,’ Lance grunted. ‘I ain’t having no fucker prowling round looking for me and getting away with it. Laters.’

  Feeling a huge sense of relief, Joel got his cigarettes from the machine and went back to the room. If Psycho was still hanging about, he wouldn’t be for long once Lance picked up his trail. And even if it didn’t end in Psycho being dead, at least he’d have got the warning, and wouldn’t be back again in a hurry. Mad as he was, when he realised what he was up against, he’d figure it wasn’t worth the hassle. Not when he was so far off his own territory, with no troops to call in as back-up.

  ‘Everything all right?’ Maria asked when he came back smiling.

  ‘Couldn’t be better,’ he said, taking her in his arms and walking her backwards towards the bed. Pushing her down, he fell on top of her. ‘How’s about we try out the soundproofing in this room?’

  ‘How?’ she asked, gasping when she felt his hardness pressing against her.

  ‘If we get any complaints about the noise, we’ll know it’s no good,’ Joel murmured huskily, pulling Maria’s skirt up around her hips.

  24

  ‘I know he’s round here somewhere,’ Psycho spat, staring out into the dark as Fletch reversed the car out from under the tin canopy at the side of the derelict cottage where they’d parked the night they’d broken into Joel’s old flat – and where they’d been sleeping for the past two nights.

  Easing out onto the road, they set off in the direction of Didsbury.

  ‘That bloke wasn’t sure it was definitely him he’d seen,’ Gerry reminded him. ‘He did tell you that.’

  ‘Shut your yowling gob-hole,’ Psycho warned him, giving him a less than playful slap across the back of his head.

  ‘Aw, come on, man, this is crazy,’ Gerry responded edgily. ‘Enough is enough. I want to go home.’

  ‘Mwah . . . M-fuckin’-wah!’ Psycho jeered. ‘Don’t let me stop ye, y’ mardy fuckin’ cunt, ye. Go on – fuck off out the fuckin’ car and walk back to your mammy!’

  ‘I want to go an’ all,’ Fletch said tersely.

  This was getting too much. They’d spent three solid days driving up and down, round and round. But, apart from the blonde that Psycho – in his dubious wisdom – had decided was the one that the bloke they’d pulled in the pub had seen the grass with, there had been nothing. Fletch was sick of sleeping sat upright with the driving wheel cutting into his thighs; sick of the stench of the other guys. And Psycho was totally living up to his name at the moment – he’d lost it big time.

  ‘What are you saying?’ Psycho glared at Eamon and Jimmy.

  Jimmy kept his mouth shut and rubbed at a spot of condensation on the window. He was trapped in back with his big mean brothers – close enough for a real smacking, not just a slap.

  Eamon shrugged apologetically. ‘Does seem like we’re wasting our time, bro. I reckon Kyle fucked off last time he knew we were coming. He knows you, big man . . . He knows you won’t drop it, so there’s no way he’d have risked coming back. I reckon we’d have more chance of finding him if we took a trip to Tenerife. And it’d be a sight more fun than this shite.’

  ‘Aye, too right,’ Fletch agreed. ‘Think about it, Psycho, man. All them wee lassies with their tits out in the sun.’

  ‘Get fuckin’ driving,’ Psycho said coldly. ‘One last time round.’

  ‘Then we go, yeah?’ Gerry asked flatly.

  ‘I’ll let you know when I’m ready for the off, pal.’

  ‘Fetch that bag out from under the sink,’ Lance told Keith, strolling into the kitchen. ‘I’ve belled a few of the guys, and they’re gonna meet us by the pub on Palatine.’

  ‘We gonna kill ’em?’ Keith wanted to know, struggling to get down on one knee without getting chinned by his own gut.

  ‘Only if we have to,’ Lance answered distractedly, peering down at the buckle on the side of his bulletproof vest. ‘I hate this fucking thing,’ he snarled, getting angry with it now.

  ‘I can’t fit into mine no more,’ Keith grumbled, tugging the heavy sports bag out from its hiding place.

  ‘Yeah, well, you’d best get your fat bastard self on a diet.’

  ‘Piss off! I hardly eat nowt as it is. I should be a fucking anorexic by now.’

  Giving him a scornful look, Lance gave up on the last buckle and sat down at the kitchen table. Tipping a wrap of coke out onto the small mirror, he chopped it deftly into two long fat lines and snorted one up his left nostril, the other up the right. Sniffing hard to keep it all in, he held his head back.

  ‘That’s what I’m fucking talking about!’ he said when it hit.

  ‘Where’s mine?’ Keith moaned, seeing him mop the traces up with his finger.

  ‘Up your arse, second shelf,’ Lance jeered. Taking another wrap out of his pocket when Keith’s face fell, he tossed it to him. ‘Here, you whining git.’

  Snorting his straight from the wrap, Keith licked the traces off his nose. ‘I’m coming with youse, ain’t I?’

  ‘If you want, but you’d best stop in the car till we know if they’re packing,’ Lance said, stalking across the kitchen to the bag and taking several guns out. ‘Don’t want you getting shot if you ain’t got your vest on.’

  Weighing each of the weapons in his hand to see which felt right, he settled on a slim-line black semi-automatic and slid the magazine out to check that it was fully loaded. Choosing another as a back-up, he checked it and slipped it into his pocket.

  ‘Hurry up and get ready,’ Lance said then, checking the time. ‘We’re meeting up in twenty.’

  ‘Wait till I’ve got me trainers on.’ Keith waddled out into the hall. ‘Think we’d best tell the old man where we’re going?’ he called back over his shoulder.

  ‘Nah, we’ll be back before the old fuck’s sober enough to figure out what we said,’ Lance called back, pulling a large padded black jacket on over his body armour. If they got a tug from the pigs and they clocked the bulletproof, he’d get nicked for sure.

  The black 4x4 flashed its lights when Lance drove into the pitch-dark car park at the rear of the pub. Parking up at the opposite end, Lance and Keith got out. Locking the doors, they ran across to the 4x4 and hopped in – Lance up front, Keith in back.

  Three local faces were already inside: Cody Willis driving, Henry Lord and Tommy Davis in back. Cody had done a few jobs with Lance before, and knew what was expected of him. Henry and Tommy were in Cody’s crew and had been worded up.

  ‘How much?’ Cody asked as soon as Lance was settled.

  ‘A gee apiece,’ Lance told him. ‘I’ll up it to three if we have to do a body dump.’

&
nbsp; ‘Cool.’ Cody nodded. ‘Youse two all right with that?’

  ‘Sound.’ Henry cracked his knuckles like a sledgehammer on concrete in the back.

  ‘Great, yeah,’ Tommy said quietly, already spending the money in his head. Little Tommy’s fifth birthday – new bike; Mrs Tommy’s new tits – maybe not, but he’d get her some more of them push-up bras she liked while she was waiting.

  A huge man, Cody was a retired football hooligan who’d run his own army called The Manc Maniacs in the 1970s and 1980s. They had travelled the length and breadth of the country in highly organised groups, meeting up at the motorway services along the way to plan their attacks on the rival fans. As big as the Chelsea Headhunters in their day, the Maniacs had terrorised many a rival firm into taking flight and missing the match. And Cody had a rock-solid head from all the nuttings he’d dealt out in those first mad adrenalin-fuelled surges before the knives and knuckledusters had come out.

  Retired from the matches since his face got too well known to get past the police cordons, Cody had set up his own wholesale business. He didn’t need the money that Lance was going to pay him for tonight’s job, but violence was something you were born with: age didn’t diminish the thirst, it just stole the opportunities to quench it.

  ‘How’s it going?’ he asked Lance now, starting the engine and easing out of the car park.

  ‘All right,’ Lance said, already peering out of the window as they rolled off the pavement, itching to get game-on. ‘’Cept for these tartan twats trying to muscle in. I’ve got a load of guys on standby, depending what we find when we catch up with ’em, but I’m not anticipating needing no one else. You and me go far enough back to do the deed, eh, Codes?’

  ‘We do that,’ Cody agreed, sounding like the cool calm businessman he was in his day-to-day life, despite the excitement building in his gut. ‘So, we looking to take them out, or scare ’em off?’

  ‘Think just a scare for now,’ Lance said. ‘You know me – I’m a fair man. If they don’t want to heed the warning, then we go after them – simple. You tooled?’

  ‘Don’t worry about it.’ Cody smiled mysteriously.

  ‘Fuck, this is gonna be good,’ Lance declared jubilantly. ‘Been a while since anyone dared step this far out of line round here.’

  ‘So, how d’y’ hear about this takeover coup?’ Cody asked.

  ‘Just whispers,’ Lance told him. ‘That’s why I don’t want to go in too heavy to start off with – give them the benefit of the doubt, and all that.’

  ‘For real?’

  ‘Fuck off! I want the cunts off my land, man!’

  ‘So, you ain’t gonna bother talking to ’em to see what the crack is?’

  ‘Cody, my friend, I don’t do talk,’ Lance sneered, his face feral in the lights from the impressive dash. ‘The only talking I’ll do is warning them to get the fuck off my turf and not come back if they know what’s good for ’em. After that it’ll be bye-bye, you kilty fuckers!’

  ‘What car we looking for?’ Henry asked from the back.

  ‘Shit! I forgot to ask,’ Lance admitted.

  ‘Only asking, ’cos we just passed a car packed with heavies back there.’

  ‘Where?’ Cody growled, slamming the brakes on.

  ‘Back there, down the side road two back.’

  Turning the car around in the middle of the road, Cody gunned it in the direction Henry had pointed.

  ‘Keep it cool,’ Lance said, getting a crystal-clear head on. ‘Tail ’em till they’re in a less inhabited bit, then block them off. Everyone got a piece?’ Nodding when the two in the back said yes, he said, ‘Surprise is the key. Fast, accurate, no fuck-ups. And keep your eyes wide,’cos there’s a good chance they’re tooled.’

  ‘I think we’re being followed,’ Fletch said, eyeing the 4x4 in his rear-view.

  Turning his head to look, Psycho squinted to make out the outlines in front, then shook his head.

  ‘Nah. It’s nothing.’

  ‘This is a quiet street, so why’s it been following us all the way up it?’ Fletch persisted.

  ‘They probably fucking live up here, you paranoid cunt,’ Psycho jeered. ‘We’re not in fucking Govan now, you know. People actually buy them poncey wheels up here.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I don’t like it,’ Fletch muttered, still eyeing it. Swerving sharply, he took a left into a dark uninhabited cul-de-sac.

  The 4x4 came right in behind them with a powerful roar and cut sideways across the back of them, blocking them in.

  ‘Look what you done now, y’ clever cunt!’ Psycho yelled, raising a foot and kicking the back of Fletch’s seat.

  ‘Quit it, man!’ Eamon yelled, struggling for room to get at the gun in his pocket.

  It was too late. Four balaclavaed men hopped out of the 4x4 and surrounded them, guns pointing at every window.

  ‘Wind it fucking down!’ Lance barked, rapping his gun on the driver’s-side window. ‘All of ’em!’

  ‘What you want us to do now?’ Fletch hissed at Psycho.

  ‘Do as he fucking says,’ Psycho snarled, his eyes fixed on the eyes he could just about make out through the slits in the mouth-man’s bally.

  ‘I hear you been looking for me?’ Lance said when the windows were down and he had a captive audience.

  ‘I havnae got a fucking clue who ye are, pal,’ Psycho spat, still glaring.

  ‘I take it you’re the head honcho,’ Lance jeered, giving an upward flick of the gun. ‘Lean closer, my friend. I want to word you up about how these things go down in my town.’

  ‘And what are you?’ Psycho retorted in a low, mean voice. ‘Wyatt fucking Earp?’

  ‘Listen, you Scotch twat,’ Lance said, equally low and mean. ‘I ain’t gonna stand here chatting all night, so I’ll just say what I’ve got to say, and if you’re a good boy, you can go.’

  ‘Don’t threaten me, you sheep-shagging cunt,’ Psycho spat furiously. ‘I don’t think you know who you’re messing with, pal.’

  ‘Do I look like I’m fucking shaking?’ Lance sneered.

  He fired a round off into a tree behind them, then immediately turned the gun back on the car. The bullet made a dull thwok as it embedded itself in the bark.

  ‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ Eamon said, flinching back from the window. ‘All right, pal, quit pointing it. We don’t know who the fuck ye are, and we havnae been looking for ye, so just back off, aye? We’ll be on our way.’

  ‘Sensible man,’ Lance said. ‘And we’ll follow youse to the motorway to make sure, eh?’ he went on, as if giving directions to a stranger. ‘Know the way? Or do we have to spell it out?’

  ‘I know the way,’ Fletch said, nervously eyeing Tommy’s gun.

  In the back, Jimmy had shrunk to half his size and had his eyes squeezed shut so that he didn’t have to look into the muzzle of Henry’s piece.

  Gerry was sitting stock-still in front, his hands palm down on his thighs to show that he wasn’t about to reach for a weapon. Cody was impressed by his calmness under the circumstances. He’d have made a great Maniac.

  ‘Y’ still havnae told us who ye are, pal,’ Psycho said coolly.

  ‘Your worst nightmare, that’s who,’ Lance said with a nasty laugh. ‘And that, my friend, is all you need to know. ’Cos you’re in my town now, and I want you out – capiche?’

  ‘Aye, we got you, pal,’ Eamon said.

  ‘How about Honcho?’ Lance pointed the gun straight at the spot between Psycho’s eyes. ‘You got me – pal?’

  ‘He’s got you,’ Eamon said, giving Psycho a dig with his elbow. ‘Eh, bro?’

  ‘Aye,’ Psycho said reluctantly. ‘Me, too.’

  ‘See us?’ Lance said, staring straight at Psycho. ‘We’ve got a bigger car, bigger guns, and a much bigger fucking chance of walking out of this alive. So don’t be no heroes, eh, lads? Just turn this shit-heap around, get the fuck out of here, and don’t let me hear about you coming back again or I won’t be so reasonable – all right?’
/>
  ‘Aye, right,’ Eamon said. ‘Nae problem.’

  Psycho was livid as they headed onto the motorway. The 4x4 stopped at the entrance to the slip road and sat watching so there was no way they could turn back.

  ‘Take the next slip road,’ he growled at Fletch. ‘We’re going after the cunts.’

  ‘No way!’ Fletch retorted adamantly. ‘We’re nae ready for that lot. I’m going back hame to get ma heed together.’

  ‘Do as you’re fuckin’ told!’ Psycho roared, kicking out again.

  ‘Quit it!’ Eamon yelled at him. ‘We’ll come back another time, but we’re nae ready! You might want to die the night, but we’re nae going with ye! And quit rocking the fucking car before you have the police after us, eh?’

  ‘I’m coming fucking back!’ Psycho declared. ‘Kyle’s gonna get what’s fucking coming to him, then I’m gonna track those cunts down!’

  ‘Aye, man, aye,’ Eamon said placatingly. ‘And we’ll all be with ye. But not now, eh?’

  Up front, Gerry shook his head. Psycho was turning into a loose cannon. Even with four guns on him, he was still mouthing off. He was going to get them all killed if he carried on like that.

  ‘Pussy fucking cunts!’ Lance sneered as Cody reversed and turned to head back into Manchester.

  ‘You did good.’ Cody grinned. ‘Head fuckin’ Honcho!’

  ‘Wyatt fucking Earp!’ Henry snorted amusedly.

  ‘Just call me Sheriff Fuck-Off-Outta-My-Town!’ Lance laughed. ‘They won’t be back in a hurry.’

  ‘I wouldn’t bank on it,’ Cody said, still chuckling. ‘See the evils the dude in the back was giving out?’

  ‘Didn’t get him nowhere but on the road fucking out, did it?’ Lance jeered, reaching into his pocket for the money. Turning, he handed a wad each to the two men in back.

  ‘What about me?’ Keith moaned.

  ‘You didn’t fucking do nowt!’ Lance reminded him. ‘Anyhow, why am I gonna pay you, you mental toss-pot? You own half of it. You’d be paying your fucking self.’