For Those Who Know the Ending

by Mackay, Malcolm

  Usman had thought there would be a period of fear, a couple of months maybe, after the killing. Then, when the police had stopped looking for Comrie very hard, and the people involved in the deal had moved on with their lives, the fear would fade. But it didn’t, and Usman had come to realize that it never would. The police would keep an interest in Comrie’s disappearance for evermore. They might not actively look for him, but it would only take Martin telling them about it for Usman to get a life sentence. The other people involved, the Allens and Chris Argyle, would never stop trying to find out what happened either. That was good money for them, not the sort of thing angry professionals would ever just shrug off, and a major business opportunity scuppered.

  And it had been scuppered. Gully had confirmed it in a meeting not long afterwards. People were pissed off about money going missing and word had gotten to the Allens that Argyle wasn’t convinced of their innocence in the matter. That may or may not have been true, it didn’t really matter. The deal was dead in the water, Gully’s employers happy with a sly piece of sabotage.

  Usman’s mind kept going back to Martin, the cold-blooded killer. What would happen if he got arrested? He wouldn’t keep his mouth shut, not if he thought it would help him get a smaller sentence. He would drop everyone else in the shit and then flee Scotland for the old dangers of home when he eventually got out of jail. Hell, if they were able to deport him to face more charges over there they probably would. No, Martin wasn’t a man who could be trusted. This wasn’t like working with his brother, where flesh and blood tied them together. He had wanted Martin to be a friend. He’d wanted him to be someone that he could trust and enjoy working with, form a bond that he could depend upon. If that had happened, if Martin had become the kind of friend Usman had wanted him to be, then the proposal Gully put to him would have been dismissed.

  Usman was a loyal friend to those that earned it, that was what he told himself. He would never turn his back on his friends, on his brother, on anyone that returned his loyalty. He would do time for them, if it ever came to that. But Martin wasn’t returning his calls, and seemed determined to put a vast amount of space between them. That wasn’t a man you could rely on.

  Gully came to the flat, earlier in the morning than Usman liked to be awake for. He wasn’t expecting visitors and was still half-asleep when he heard the knock at the door. Slung on whatever combination of clothing was closest to the bed and went out into the corridor, just wanting the knocking to stop. He jerked back a little with surprise when he opened the door to Gully Fitzgerald. It had been a few months since they’d spoken; as far as Usman was concerned they had nothing left to say to each other.

  ‘Morning, lad, now a good time to speak?’ Gully seemed bright and cheerful, and, more importantly, alone and unarmed.

  They sat in the living room, Gully doing a good job of looking sympathetic. Seemed sorry to have dropped in out of nowhere and alarmed the boy. Usman sat opposite and waited for Gully to take the lead on this. Wherever it was going, it was nowhere Usman wanted to rush.

  ‘I’ve got a proposal for you,’ Gully said, the friendly undertone always there to make the industry talk less intimidating. ‘There’s been some trouble within the organization, the aftermath of that job on the bookies. Your pal, Martin thingummy, he’s a wanted man.’

  ‘Shit,’ Usman said, running a hand through his hair. If Martin was most wanted then Usman had to be next on the list.

  ‘Now, he’s the one people are talking about right now, not you. He’s the one that really pissed people off and I think we can keep it that way. He cracked Donny Gregor on the skull, and that’s what’s gotten people worked up. See, Donny’s been suffering from what happened that night, health problems and the like. Blackouts, headaches, all sorts of stuff, it’s really affected the poor bastard. People have noticed, and they want to see us do something about it. They expect it from us. It’s bad timing, more than anything,’ Gully added.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘If this had happened when Jamieson was free, and the organization was at its strongest, we probably wouldn’t be having this conversation. Problem is, at a time like this, we can’t afford to look weak, not in any way, so we have to be seen to do something about it. Punish anyone who hurts us. Reassures people. So that’s why I’m here, we need to do something. We, us, you, me and Nate. We were all there that night, so we all need to clean that up. People won’t put you under any pressure if they know that you helped us punish the guy who caused all the bother. Gets you off the hook, you see.’

  Usman nodded along. Wasn’t going to sit there and argue with Gully Fitzgerald anyway, but he was hearing some good things. He liked the idea of we, of being bundled in with Gully and Nate. Talk about protecting Usman from the people who wanted to hurt Martin.

  ‘What, uh, what were you thinking of doing?’ Usman asked him, leaning forward in the chair to listen.

  ‘We want you to set up a job with him, make it seem like a right good score. You and him go and work a place over, let’s say a warehouse or somewhere like that; somewhere there won’t be anyone to get in the way. You get him in there, and, well, you can probably take a guess at the rest of it.’

  Usman could guess, and guess with unerring accuracy. He nodded his head, picked at the seam of his trousers, tried to think of something he could say. Martin wasn’t a friend, not really, but he wasn’t a bad guy either, and only bad guys deserved that sort of ending. But he was dangerous, that was the fact he couldn’t escape. He was a man who no longer seemed to want to work with Usman, who knew what Usman had done and could get him into a hellish amount of trouble.

  ‘He doesn’t want to work with me now,’ Usman said. ‘We got a good score last time out, I don’t think he’ll want to work again for a while. He ain’t greedy.’

  Gully nodded. ‘That was, what, four months ago, something like that?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Well, there you go, we’re starting to get into the time when it’s safe for him to go to his work again. The man might not be desperate for work, but he’ll be tempted if you dangle a pretty-looking carrot in front of him. Something lucrative and something safe as well, that’ll be the clincher. You go to him and tell him there’s good money in a job and that he won’t even have to bring his wee gun with him, that’ll get him interested. Low risk, high reward. He won’t be able to turn it down.’

  Usman didn’t look convinced, but he knew what he was being told. Gully wasn’t saying that Martin would jump at the chance; he was telling Usman that he had to find a way of pushing the gunman to accept it.

  ‘What do I tell him?’

  ‘Tell him there’s a warehouse you know some drugs move through. Tell him it isn’t well guarded because they’re scared of drawing attention, it’s a legit place most of the time, stuff like that. Tell him you know people you can shift the drugs on to as well, so there’ll be no hassle in selling it.’

  ‘He doesn’t like drugs, anything to do with them.’

  ‘Tell him you already have a buyer, and it was the buyer that brought the job to you. Money already agreed, you just got to go in and grab the gear, nice and easy. Talk about the dough, not the drugs.’

  ‘He’ll want details,’ Usman said. ‘He always wants details.’

  ‘Sounds like a pro, this boy. All right then, tell him it’s a warehouse out Clydebank way. I know we have a good place out there you can use for it, I’ll get you the full address in the next few hours, before you talk to him. You tell him there are pills going through the place, party drugs coming in from the continent. Stored there, then distributed round the city. Tell him it belongs to James Kealing, someone like that.’

  Usman nodded enthusiastically, this was something he could do. Telling lies, spinning a yarn with just enough detail to convince a man like Martin. Once you started dressing it up, it looked like one of his jobs. This could work, it really could.

  ‘You’re going to kill him?’ Usman asked.

  ‘I’m
not,’ Gully said with a sorry smile. ‘You are.’

  Usman just looked at him. Sat there and stared across the room. The only way to extricate himself from the wrath of the Jamieson organization was to kill the man they blamed for hurting the bookie.

  ‘I’m not . . .’

  ‘I know this ain’t your sort of gig,’ Gully said, ‘but you got to be serious about the situation you got yourself into. People need to see that you’ve helped us, done something for us that nobody else could do. That happens, and they’ll welcome you into the organization.’

  Usman jerked his head up, having been staring at the floor. He looked across at Gully, eyes a little wider. ‘Into the organization?’

  ‘Into the organization, yeah. You’ve already proven that you’re a useful fellow to have around. The job on the bookies was well done, even if it had this fallout. If you’d done that against someone else we’d all be very happy with you. The job on that dealer, shit, that was very well done as well. Textbook stuff, I would say. You pulled it off beautifully, even though it was a tricky wee thing to have to work. If you have other jobs like that, things you can work that weaken other organizations, then we’ll look after you. You’ll need to earn it, keep working jobs,’ he added with a shrug, ‘but I don’t think there’ll be any trouble in that, eh?’

  ‘I’ve got loads of jobs I can work,’ Usman said, ‘if I get the help. Against other organizations as well. They’d be good for Jamieson. But, yeah, I got to kill Martin?’

  ‘You do, yeah.’ Silence for thirty seconds, Usman looking at the floor again and Gully letting him. Letting him see how dark the job was before he offered a little more light to guide him towards justification. ‘Don’t look at it as a negative thing though. Look at it as a chance to step up and join the organization. Look at it as the chance to make sure that the boy Martin whatshisname doesn’t come back and bite you on the arse down the line, you know what I mean?’

  Usman looked up and nodded. ‘I can do it,’ he said. ‘I’ll get in touch with him, set it up, let you know.’

  ‘Good lad, good lad,’ Gully told him, getting up. ‘We’ll help you as much as possible.’

  It wasn’t betrayal, that’s what Usman started convincing himself of before Gully had closed the front door behind himself. Martin would have done the same if the roles were reversed, and there was a chance that he still would. If Usman was scared of Martin dropping him in it, then Martin had to have the same fears, didn’t he? And he was a gunman. He might already be planning to wipe out Usman. This wasn’t betrayal, it was self-defence.

  A few weeks went past and there were no more calls from Usman. Seemed like he had moved on, maybe found himself another pair of bloody hands to work the job for him. A part of Martin was relaxing at the prospect of not having to work with the boy again. Another part was starting to get nervy at the thought of not having enough money. He needed a reliable income.

  Then Usman called again. This time Martin answered.

  ‘Martin, man, where the hell have you been?’

  ‘Nowhere.’

  ‘Nowhere, aye, right, good one. Listen, you fit for some work?’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ Martin said, but it didn’t quite sound like he believed himself.

  ‘I got something to put to you, man, it’s worth hearing. You want to listen?’

  Martin held the phone in his hand, thought about it. Money was running down. Joanne had just started working an extra shift in the bookstore, extending the opening hours in the hope of a few extra quid. Less time for them to be together at home. Money was another thing they didn’t talk about much, something that Joanne didn’t like to make an issue of. She had always looked after herself and Skye, didn’t need Martin or anyone else trying to help her out. Didn’t change the fact that he wanted to help.

  ‘Look, I ain’t leaning on you here,’ Usman said, leaning heavily, ‘but this is a good one, man, real good. None of the shite we had with the last one, that’s guaranteed. No, what’s the word, complications. Come on, what do you say, eh? Come round to the flat, the one in Mosspark, I haven’t used that in ages, we’ll have a wee chat about it. Never hurts to have a chat, does it?’

  Martin was silent, standing in the kitchen with the phone in his hand. This felt like home now, felt like a place he was sharing rather than occupying. It was hard to imagine being anywhere else, being with anyone else. This house, Joanne, that was life now. The life he hadn’t realized he wanted and now couldn’t live without.

  ‘Jesus, you still there, man?’ Usman asked, shouting a little because he thought Martin had put the phone down and wandered off in a moment of sudden senility.

  ‘I’m here,’ Martin said, his voice harsh. ‘I’m thinking.’ He paused again. ‘I don’t think so, Usman, I don’t think I need the trouble of another one of your jobs.’

  ‘Listen to me, Martin,’ Usman said quickly before Martin could hang up on him. Too quickly, sounded a little desperate. ‘This job isn’t going to have trouble. I have something, not going to be as big as the last one for cash, but it’s going to be damn good. I been saving it up, a nice easy one, you know? Something to break us back in gently after a long break. Good money, twenty-five, thirty grand maybe, to split between us. One night’s work. In and out of a place, that’s all it is. Not even anybody there to interrupt us. Get in, get a few boxes of gear and get out. I got a guy already to buy the lot, so we get the money on the night. It’s that easy.’

  ‘Thirty thousand pounds of gear has security.’

  ‘Not good security, not this lot,’ Usman said, his voice sounding insufferably smug down the phone line. ‘Look, I’m not giving you all the details over the fucking phone or you could go and pull the job without me. Let’s do this the proper way. Come to the flat, tomorrow afternoon. Two o’clock, right? Martin? Two o’clock.’

  More silence before a reluctant answer. ‘Maybe,’ Martin said, and he hung up.

  He went. Two o’clock the following afternoon he was walking through the little alley and knocking on the door. Usman answered, smiling broadly as he welcomed Martin in. They went up the unlit stairs and into the small flat, a place no more welcoming than it had been the last time Martin was there. They sat in the living room, Martin watching warily as Usman did all he could to make this seem like a meeting of old friends.

  ‘It’s good to see you, man, how have you been?’

  ‘Fine,’ Martin said, and shrugged.

  ‘Good, yeah, chatty as ever, huh? I’m glad you came though, seriously. I have this job, right, and it’s pretty basic stuff, but I need a second person there with me.’

  ‘What is it then?’

  ‘A warehouse job. Down Clydebank way. You heard of James Kealing?’

  Martin half-shrugged and shook his head. He had heard the name, but it wasn’t mentioned as frequently as the likes of Jamieson and MacArthur.

  ‘Well Kealing’s got a decent little operation, not as big as the real big beasts, but he’s been around a good long time and he knows how to run an organization. His old man was, like, some mad bastard or something. Anyway, Kealing knows how to keep himself in expensive suits. Dangerous enough guy, is what I’m hearing. He moves some gear, and a lot of it is, like, that synthetic shit, party drugs, legal highs, highs that used to be legal and ain’t any more. That sort of thing. Plenty of buyers, but it’s a crowded fucking market, margins aren’t great unless you got the latest flavour of the month. Gets it from Europe, Holland or somewhere, and stores it in his warehouse before he moves it on.’

  ‘You want to steal these drugs.’

  ‘Yes I do.’

  ‘And you think that this man, this man who has a good operation, will not have any security at all at this warehouse? He is that good?’

  ‘There’s going to be some security, Jesus, I ain’t saying the door will be wide open and we can just walk right in and there’ll be a sign pointing to the gear. What I’m saying is there ain’t going to be much, not as much as you might think. There’ll
be cameras, maybe alarms, shit like that, but we can handle that. We can handle it because we’ll be moving fast, you see. No guards. Nobody armed. We won’t even have to bring any weapons along with us. Just a van. We scout the place, see what’s there, deal with it when we get there. In and out fast, like, in a proper fucking hurry, you know? That’s going to be the challenge with this one, getting in and out fast enough.’

  Martin started to nod his head. Working against the clock, rushing in and out. If there were no guards on site then it could be possible.

  ‘Best thing is, right, I already got someone to buy all the gear off me. Haven’t confirmed anything yet because I don’t know for certain how much there’ll be, but there should be plenty. It was that lad that pointed me in the direction of it and that was months ago, so this has been well scouted. We take it straight to him from the warehouse, get our cash, and we’re done. And he’ll pay nice. Not market value, but you don’t get market value on stuff you’ve nicked out of Kealing’s warehouse, do you?’

  ‘This man is dangerous?’ Martin asked.

  ‘Kealing? Dangerous as usual, no more than that. Probably less dangerous than the people we’ve worked over so far, you know. He’s got a smaller operation than any of them.’

  They were both silent this time, Martin thinking and Usman watching him, wondering what there was to think about. He could sense that Martin was close to biting, that the hook was bouncing around right in front of him.

  ‘I would like more details,’ Martin said quietly. ‘About the money, about the warehouse.’