The Bullet Trick

by Louise Welsh

'I’d best get going.'

  'People to do, things to see?'

  'A show to fix.'

  She smiled.

  'It wasn’t so bad.'

  'Wasn’t so good either.'

  'You’ll fix it. You just need to work out an angle.'

  'I guess so.'

  We swapped mobile numbers and I promised again to ring her if anything came up. It crossed my mind that I might phone her anyway, but then thoughts of Uncle Dix intruded.

  Uncle Dix, where did people get off with these weird names? Styling himself like some Weimar pimp. I bet even now he was cursing the late night and getting ready for some second-rate lecturing job. No, I probably wouldn’t phone. I gave her a last wave then strode onto the street and hailed a taxi to take me to my hotel.

  It was early in the afternoon when I stepped out and started to walk towards the theatre.

  I’d been in the shower when the phone had rung. I’d assumed it was a wrong number, then when the ringing persisted thought it might be someone from Schall und Rauch. I’d answered half-draped in a towel, wondering why it was I seemed to be naked whenever the phone rang, though I was sure I was clothed most of my waking hours. I picked up the receiver, saying, 'Ja?' Assuming whoever it was would appreciate the effort.

  'William? That you?' My agent evidently thought he should shout even louder when talking to someone abroad. 'What’s with the Ja? You gone native? You’ll be singing

  ‘Tomorrow Belongs to Me’ and sieg-heiling next.'

  I started to rub myself dry.

  'Times have changed Rich. They don’t go in for that anymore.'

  'Once a Nazi always a Nazi. Anyway, where have you been?' He didn’t give me a chance to reply. 'Don’t you ever check your bloody messages?'

  For the first time I noticed the red light flashing on the hotel-room phone. 'You could have rung my mobile.'

  'I tried that. Dead, wasn’t it?'

  'So where’s the fire?'

  'Have you seen an English newspaper today?'

  'No.'

  'Well get yourself a Daily Telegraph then phone me back.'

  'A Telegraph, you been checking your stocks and shares, Richard?'

  'Just do it. I’ll speak to you in five.'

  The line went dead. I looked at the receiver, shook my head then phoned down to the front desk and asked them to send out for a copy of the paper. I’d finished my interrupted shower and was just retying the towel around my waist when the knock came at the door. I tipped the porter, locked the door behind him, sat down on the bed and turned the pages.

  It was the photograph that I saw first, a picture of a younger stern-faced Bill that might have been a police mug shot, or might just have been a poor passport photo. There was a picture of the club too. An outside shot that looked vaguely dated, though I wasn’t sure why. There was also, chillingly, a small photograph of Sam onstage from what must have been a long while ago. He looked younger, hopeful, his head thrown back in a laugh. I’d seen him laugh like that often.

  I turned to the text though the headline had already given me the substance of the news, CLUB SHOOTING SLAYS TWO. The building’s new owners had gone on a tour of inspection and found Bill and Sam in the office, each lying in a pool of his own blood. The verdict so far was murder and suicide, the finger pointing towards Sam. My balls climbed up towards my belly. I laid the paper down on the bed, poured myself an unnecessarily chilled Famous Grouse from the minibar, downed it, then read on.

  The article was big on photographs and low on facts, though it mentioned a jail sentence Bill had served for extortion and referred to his father, calling him a businessman in a way that would leave no one in any doubt of which side of the law he favoured. The whole family was pictured, the biggest space reserved for his mother, Gloria. Montgomery had promised to tell Bill the truth about his mother. Bill had said she was gone. If I’d thought anything of it, I’d assumed death or divorce. The newspaper revealed that she’d gone missing some time in the seventies, her fate never discovered, though after all this time the obvious conclusion was that she was dead.

  I’d shut the adventure at Bill’s Soho club in a neat trunk in the corner of my mind. I visualised the trunk. It was an old seaman’s chest. The wood dry and peeling with age, banded with thin strips of black steel. There was a strong padlock clamped tight in its metal hasp. I unlocked it, opened the lid and started to examine my situation.

  I thought of Montgomery standing outside the door and Sam thrusting the envelope into my hand. I thought of the envelope lying unopened somewhere in my mother’s bungalow in Cumbernauld. I was sure Sam was innocent, a victim. He wouldn’t be the first person to pay the ultimate price for falling for a bad boy. Maybe they were both victims. If Sam hadn’t insisted on a peaceful approach perhaps Bill would have been more on his guard. But then maybe the business with Montgomery had been settled amicably after all.

  Bill was a gangster. Who knew how many enemies he’d made? There might have been a queue lining up to settle old scores before he and Sam sailed into the sun.

  If Montgomery had had anything to do with the shootings I didn’t want him to have an inkling that I’d been on the scene when he’d shown up. That meant not alerting any of his chums in the police. If he hadn’t had anything to do with the killings then I was of no practical use to any investigation. Whatever way I looked at it, I was best sitting quiet and letting people who were used to this kind of thing get on with it.

  The phone buzzed back into life.

  'You found it yet?'

  'Yes.'

  'Whadda you think?'

  'I don’t know. Tragic.'

  'Yeah, yeah, young lives cut short and all that, but that wasn’t what I meant. What do you know?'

  My voice was defensive.

  'Nothing.'

  'Don’t be so touchy. I know you wouldn’t get mixed up in anything heavy, William.

  Silliness with drink and women, yes, the odd dabble with drugs possibly, but heavy stuff, no.' The line went quiet while my agent took a long drag on his cigarette then exhaled and resumed his monologue. 'So you feel no sudden urge to go and present yourself to the police?'

  'No.'

  'Good,' cos it would fuck up your Berlin gig that’s for sure.'

  'Yeah.' I made an effort to keep my voice casual. 'That’s what I was thinking.'

  Hundreds of miles away in Crouch End Richard grunted into the phone.

  'You know what bum boys are like, William, unstable.'

  'You seem to know a lot about it.'

  'Well I would do working in this trade wouldn’t I?' He sighed. 'I’ve got nothing against poofs, William, but they’re a race apart.'

  Disgust at Rich, myself, the whole sorry business suddenly filled me. I snapped, 'You knew Sam, don’t you feel anything for him?'

  Rich’s voice was sharp.

  'I’ll do my mourning on my own time, William.' His tone softened. 'Look, I’m not saying it isn’t sad and I’m not saying he deserved it, but Sam always was reckless. You remember the way he walked out of that summer tour.'

  'It’s hardly the same thing.'

  'Maybe not, but he wasn’t what you’d call steady. I mean what was he doing hanging around with the likes of Bill in the first place? Get yourself mixed up with that sort and you take what you get.'

  'I suppose so.'

  'Anyway don’t be surprised if you’re called back to Blighty to answer a few questions.'

  I drew the towel closer round me.

  'How d’you make that out?'

  'All those bloody coppers on a police balls-out? Only a matter of time before one of them drops you in it.'

  'I’d not thought of that.'

  'No, well that’s why you’re schlepping around Krautland while I sit in a nice warm office with Mrs Pierce putting the kettle on.' He took another asthmatic pull at his cigarette.

  'Speaking of Krautland, how’s the gig going?'

  'Bloody awful.'

  'Pull your finger out and sort it
then. I’ve told you before, you need a bit of glamour. Fix yourself up with a nice Fräulein to saw in two and you’ll be laughing.'

  'It’s just teething problems, you didn’t tell me the erotic nature of the club.'

  Richard laughed.

  'Didn’t I?'

  'No you bloody didn’t.'

  'Oh well, keep your hand on your ha’penny and you’ll be fine.'

  'I’ll do my best.'

  'That’s the boy.' I heard the quick tap of computer keys and knew the phone call was coming to an end. My agent’s voice took on a self-consciously compassionate tone. 'I’ll get Mrs P to find out when Sam’s funeral is and send along a nice wreath.'

  'Thanks, Rich.'

  'Don’t worry, son, it’s coming out your wages. Now you put all this from your mind and concentrate on making magic magical. OK?'

  'OK.'

  'Good boy.'

  He hung up with his usual abruptness. I sat on the bed for a while, staring blankly at the wall, then tied the towel around my waist, went to the wardrobe, took my mobile phone from my jacket pocket and turned it on. The screen glowed lazily awake. Richard’s unanswered calls were logged like accusations. But slid in beside his familiar phone number was a number not featured on my address book, a British number I didn’t recognise. The mobile suddenly sprang back into life. I dropped it on the bed and stepped backwards, giving a small groan and looking at the tiny machine with all the horror I’d show a crawling, disembodied hand. My instincts were against it but on the third ring I reached out, pressed the call accept button and raised the phone to my ear.

  A voice said, 'Hello?'

  And I hung up. Almost immediately the mobile resumed its buzzing. I turned it off, went through to the en suite, filled the sink and dropped the phone into the water. Tiny bubbles rose from it, almost like the phone was breathing its last. I’d heard the police could trace locations through sim cards, but I had no idea if it worked overseas. Maybe I was overreacting. Maybe Sam had done for Bill then killed himself. Maybe I was safe as houses in Berlin, and maybe it hadn’t been Inspector James Montgomery’s voice I’d just heard at the end of the line.

  Glasgow

  FOR ALL OF the warnings drink seemed a pretty slow killer. Not like a knife in the guts or a bullet through the head. Looking at the men that lived in the pubs around the Gallowgate it appeared you could reach sixty or seventy on a diet of whisky, beer and bile.

  But perhaps the drinkers I took for pensionable were raddled thirty-somethings and it wouldn’t be long before I looked the same. I stared in the mirror and whispered, 'Bring it on.'

  Already my waist had thickened; there was a scaliness between my fingers that itched more at night. My skin had the porridge pallor of a prisoner after a six-month stretch. I’d abandoned vanities like deodorant, cologne and contact lenses. My specs added three years, though they were a mite flash for my current circumstances. I wondered if I should get a new pair, ones that didn’t mark me out as a man who had known better days. My hair was longer too. I could go a full fortnight without showing it the shampoo. And there was no need for mousse or gel or any other crap. I just swept it back with my fingertips and left it as nature intended — which seemed to be a dirty brown flecked through with dandruff. Add to that the new old clothes I’d bought at Paddy’s Market and, all in all, I was managing my decline pretty well.

  When I was a boy my heroes were two great escape artists, Harry Houdini and Jesse James. I borrowed library books about them, read up on their exploits and stared deep into black and white photographs of two men so skilled they could only be killed by cowards. In my fantasies I was the cowboy magician, no bonds could hold me and I was swift enough to sidestep a punch in the guts or any bullet in the back.

  I jammed so many yales and mortises my father decided we were under siege and called the police. But in time my picking grew smooth. I freed tethered dogs, opened padlocks to sheds, gates and lockups. I released jangles of bicycle chains and liberated telephone dials from locks designed to frustrate teenage sisters. I bought a pair of trick handcuffs and taught myself to unfasten them with a dismantled hair clasp stolen from my mother. I hung about the locksmith’s shop, begged adults for old keys. My fingers were twitching to try their skill on a safe, but round our way there was nothing that worth securing, so I kept on the alert for a gang of thieves on the lookout for a nimble-fingered boy. They wouldn’t need to promise me lemonade streams or big rock-candy mountains; all I wanted was a chance to click that dial to the right combination. I’d be their creature and if we got caught, no great matter, I’d unlock the prison and set us free. But no wily crew ever spotted my talents and once mastered there was no drama in solitary achievements. Jesse had his pursuers, Houdini his audience. So of course I decided to organise my own great escape.

  Ten-year-old boys have more access to padlocks and chains than adults might think. I invited the kids in my street to collect all they could find, and leave the keys behind. We met down by the railway line in an abandoned signal box that had once been boarded shut.

  They came with dog leashes, belts and skipping ropes. They came with rusty iron links that had hung round gates for years. One boy brought a pair of handcuffs he said he’d found at the bottom of his parents’ wardrobe. I gave a short speech, and then chose the prettiest girl in the group to come and tie me up. She was too shy, but the boys obliged, setting on me with cowboy whoops and primitive yells. I flexed my non-existent muscles, like I’d read Houdini had done, and kept my face straight, though the bellows and rough jabs from the boys all eager to bind me as secure as possible made me want to struggle. Eventually I was trussed. Some of the strapping was slack but at its core was a tight tangle of metal, a firm pressure through my clothes and onto my flesh. My hands were cuffed behind my back. I felt a strange excitement in my stomach. The boys stepped away, I put on a deep voice that demanded they leave me for fifteen minutes precisely; the audience hesitated and my vulnerability entered the room. I gave them a strong hard stare. Then Ewan McIvor, the tallest of the group, said, 'He’s a fucking weirdo.' Neil Blane picked up the refrain, 'Weirdy Wilson.' And it became hard to make out individual insults beneath the mêlée of abuse.

  Stupid fucking poof… silly cunt… weirdy bastard… Jessie… fucking spazmo… Joey Deakon

  …

  Ewan pushed me to the ground and the others joined in with quick kicks and jabs, then almost as suddenly as it had started the assault was over. They turned and ran whooping out into the sunshine, slamming the door behind them.

  It wasn’t completely black in the hut. Light filtered in through cracks in the untrue slats, but it was dark enough to give the old signalling equipment a sinister aspect. I bumped up onto my bottom, brought my hands round in front of me and grasped the small metal pick I’d hidden beneath my tongue. Then I got my second shock of the adventure.

  Police handcuffs are not as easy to unfasten as the trick set I’d been practising on.

  It was dinner-time before my mother noticed I was missing. Neighbours’ children were interrogated and my fate soon discovered. My father shook his head, borrowed a pair of bolt cutters and set off to release me. The summer nights are long in Scotland, and it was not quite yet gloaming when he found me. But the shadows inside the signal box had spread their fingers until the little space was black. The darkness had crept inside my clothes, filtered into my nose and mouth, and slunk into my ears until I was unsure whether the rustling noises and groans came from the trees and grasses outside or from some creature inside the box with me.

  My father ruffled my hair, and slowly cut my bonds, scolding and comforting in turn, finally releasing me, piss stained, snot crusted and tearful, into my mother’s custody. That was the first time I learned a fact that has haunted me throughout my return to Glasgow. I can’t stand to be locked up and I was never destined to be an escape artist.

  After a few of my usual consolations I decided I was finished with pubs for that morning, so I bought myself a picnic and we
nt down to the Clyde to drink it. In Berlin the rivers and canals were part of the centre of the city, there was bathing and boating, tourist barges and river taxis. People sunned themselves and played tennis and frisbee by the banks of the Spree, and though there were rainy days I only ever went there when it was sunny, so my impression is of brightness and good times.

  It was damp down by the Clyde. The concrete walkway was deserted but there were signs others had been there before me, rusting beer cans, dead bottles of Buckfast, old porno magazines splaying already splayed women in the breeze. There were a few boats moored by the riverside, but the water was lead-grey dead, if I’d had any thoughts of drowning myself I would have ditched them for the day. The water was too cold to consider it. It would swallow you with a slurp and no word of pardon afterwards.

  I walked along by the edge for a while trying to keep my mind empty. I didn’t bother trying to conceal my carry-out from the early afternoon. It swung from my hand in the kind of thin plastic bag licensed grocers seem to think sufficient for transporting lager, though every drinker knows they’ll bend and snap before you’ve walked a mile.

  An old man with Struwwelpeter hair lay skippered in the shadows beneath Jamaica Bridge. He’d made a nest from an army-issue sleeping bag supplemented by a bundle of rough-looking blankets and some dismantled cardboard boxes. A tattered tartan trolley stuffed with newspapers lay toppled on the ground beside him. The old man mumbled something and I leant beneath the bridge’s supports and passed him a can of lager. It was more a plea for karma than any kind of sympathy, but the old tramp tipped his hand to his forehead and whispered ‘God go with you son’ in a voice raw with phlegm and cold. I nodded and said, 'And with you.' Though I thought any god had probably given up on both of us a long while back.

  I found a bench, tucked my supplies neatly beneath its seat and settled myself down with my first tin, pulling the collar of my jacket up. It was pretty bitter down there by the river, but there was a distant gleam somewhere across the sky and it was no longer impossible to believe that spring was somewhere in the beyond. I took a sip of the beer. The liquid was warmer than the air outside, but it was better quality than the stuff I’d been supping in the bar. These old tramps were obviously men of discernment. Who knows what I might learn if I joined their ranks?