by Ray Banks
I put one hand on the door handle, click it open. My foot eases onto the accelerator.
He catches the movement. He lunges.
As I turn the key, the engine coughs. The bouncer’s eyes become wide, like what the fuck do I think I’m doing? This was supposed to be a one-on-one. His top lip curls.
The engine catches as I throw open the driver door. It glances off his right knee as he makes a grab for me. One short dig in the kneecap and he twists away, his hand falling short, his face all screwed up with anger and pain.
I floor it.
Pull on the steering wheel as hard as I can, and the Micra jerks forward, pranging the car in front with a grinding shudder. I keep the pressure on until something snaps.
One of the Escort’s hubcaps goes spinning into the street.
The Micra’s engine screams at me to take it easy, but panic has taken over. I need to put as much distance between me and the bouncer as possible. I hear his hand slam the boot of the car and tense up. Keep the motor gunned, trying to do nought to sixty in first gear.
Nothing but the roar and whine of the car in my ears now.
When I’m halfway up the street and the engine sounds like it’s going to blow, I force myself to ease off on the accelerator.
A quick look in the rear view and the bouncer’s nothing but a hulking shadow. Jesus, that was close. I ease down at traffic lights, head back to Salford. Settle back into a rhythm; let my lungs catch a decent breath. My throat stings, feels like someone took a cheese grater to it. I cough up something slick that tastes of blood and spit out of the window. Check myself in the rear view mirror. I’m a fucking mess. My nose has stopped bleeding, but one nostril is torn in the middle.
Those bastard rings. Big ugly bruises on my neck, and it feels like he broke the skin somewhere.
As I pull into my parking space, I light another Embassy.
Something is seriously rotten in Morris’ club, and I’ll be fucked if I let some steroid freak stop me finding out what it is.
I get out of the Micra, inspect the damage. The left wing is scratched and battered to hell, but I suppose it adds character.
I’ll put it on expenses, let Morris pay for it. Maybe I’ll have a word with him about his bouncer. I might even let Mo have his wicked way.
Man, my neck really hurts. And to cap it off, my tooth’s started throbbing again. I get into my flat, pull the half-empty bottle of Vladivar from the freezer and take a swig. The first hit tugs on the raw nerve, the second freezes the pain. Bring it with me into the bathroom. I take drinks from it as I mop the blood from my face with a damp flannel. Dabbing, not rubbing.
Yeah, my nostril’s ripped. Not a lot, but enough to give me the look of a bad boxer. I peel the back off a plaster and slip it over the tear. A couple of prods, and it looks like it might stick fast. Another drink to celebrate.
I can’t do anything more tonight. Might as well try to get some sleep.
I think I deserve it.
TWELVE
‘You fuckin’ what?’ said Rossie. His face had gone a slapped arse red. ‘You fuckin’ what? You’re having a fuckin’ laugh aren’t you, Darren?’
Baz and me looked at each other. Baz said, ‘Some lads don’t like to swallow. Crying shame, innit?’
“I asked you to do one thing for us, right? One fuckin’ thing. And you couldn’t do that, could you?’
I watched Rossie in the rear view. He had his head down. I saw a bald patch starting on the top of his head.
‘Nah, don’t give us that, son. And don’t think you’re getting a fuckin’ penny, either.’ Rossie beeped the lad off and sucked his teeth. ‘That scally fuckin’ wanker.’
‘Didn’t go well then,’ I said.
‘He fucked it up.’
‘Then you ought to fuck him up, Rossie.’
‘Innes spotted him.’
‘Who’d you use?’
‘Darren Walker.’
‘Why’d you use that cunt? He couldn’t find his arsehole, two hands and a map.’
‘He owes us a favour,’ said Rossie.
‘Looks like he still owes you that fuckin’ favour.’
We was in Baz’s Nova, headed out for the night. Baz had turned on his Fast and Furious underlighter, which made the car look like shit, but Baz were proud of it. I reckoned it looked about as gay as you could get.
Normally I would’ve been buzzing, but that phone call Rossie just took put a proper crimp on the evening. I turned round in me seat. ‘So what’d he say?’
‘He says Innes saw him.’
‘Where’d he go?’
‘Some bar in Withy Grove.’
Baz snorted. ‘Darren in Withy Grove. No wonder he got fuckin’ spotted.’
‘Before that,’ I said.
‘He was round at the club,’ said Rossie. He had a sour face on him, like he didn’t care for me asking all these questions.
Like I gave a fuck.
‘The club?’ I said. ‘Yeah, right. The club.’ Course he would’ve started there, wouldn’t he? Stokes worked there, it were only fuckin’ right the cunt Innes would’ve started beaking it round there. But he would’ve got nowt, like. The word had already gone round that place like fuckin’ wildfire.
Just a rumour – Mo’ll kick your fuckin’ teeth in, you say owt – but a rumour well spread. Dealers, man, they fuckin’ shite it at the first sniff of a pasting. And I were discreet about it. I didn’t do nowt ‘cept get Rossie to break a lad’s wrists.
Try dealing now, cunt.
We pulled up in the NCP in town and I got out and let Rossie stretch his legs. Baz lit a ciggie. I taxed it off him after he’d had a few puffs. Baz pulled a face. ‘Here y’are, nobhead.’
‘I’ll get you another pack laters,’ I said. Took a draw, but it tasted like fuckin’ socks. That were the trouble with the pills, like. They proper fucked up your tastebuds. I took another puff and chucked it at the ground. Baz pulled another face, the twisty fucker.
‘What d’you want to do?’ said Rossie.
“Bout what?’
“Innes.’
‘Fuck him. He won’t find out nowt, know what I mean?
The lad might call himself a private dick, but he’s a fuckin’ drunk.’ I tapped the side of me head. ‘If he didn’t whistle, he wouldn’t know where to wipe his arse, the daft bastard. Fuck it. Forget it. We got other shit to be doing.’
Walked out onto Whitworth Street, got a gust of wind right in the boat. Getting cold these nights. I needed the sweat of a proper club in me armpits. We headed up towards the Village, but I weren’t going to try me luck in any of them places. Aye, there were a market for the uppers and poppers in there, but fucked if I were gonna get touched up. Places was full of shirtlifters and fag hags. So nah to the pink parties and on to the student union. The students had the most money in this town. Fuckin’ rich kids with Mater and Pater paying their way through Media Shite Studies. Disposable income. And they wasn’t bothered about getting caught. I had that to say for fuckin’ students: they didn’t give two shits about the law. Most of ‘em, they did one module in it, they thought they was Perry Mason.
A big bouncer with a shaved head, proper monkey goon cunt, tried feeling us up on the door. I wouldn’t have minded if he were a proper bouncer, like, but you could never tell with the student nights. This big bastard had a yellow vest on and like a tight T-shirt underneath, so he could’ve been fruity. I bared my teeth and gave him the wild eyes. He knew us then. He knew Rossie an’ all. Rossie slipped the bouncer a twenty and he let us in.
Bright lights, slick air, man. I were in me element. This were what a lad lived and breathed, like. Could kill you if you went too far down the line, but the secret for me was stamina and pills and water.
Pills for owt. Up, down, left, right, screaming singing all through the night and a couple vallies for Lorraine Kelly in the morning before the big daytime nap.
So Baz went straight for the bar with a proper thirst on and me and Rossie held back,
scanned the territory. I always liked to keep Rossie with us, because he looked like a card-carrying hard fuck when he needed to. He stopped any bother before it happened. It were still early, but it seemed like they was rolling out the tunes especially for me. This one’s a fuckin’ thumper for the Tiernan lad, welcome to the club, and the punters’ll be lining up round the fuckin’ block to buy.
Oi oi, you lahky peepholes. N-tsh-n-tsh-n-tsh.
Business went fast, kept the night banging underfoot. I sorted it out, got me turnover turned over sharpish, like. A half decent DJ spinning. And some blonde piece wanted a slice of Mo. I had to knock her back, like. Not that I were one not to mix business and pleasure, but she had tan lines and smelled rank.
‘What’s that perfume, love?’ I said.
‘J-Lo!’ she shouted. ‘Does it suit us, you think?’
‘Well, you got the arse for it.’
She got all pissy at that, but what the fuck were I supposed to say? She were fat as yer mother. More in Rossie’s league, know what I mean? He’d fuck mud. If mud’d have him.
‘You got snow, mate?’ said this fattish cunt in a black leather waistcoat. He had glasses on, thick ones. The light made his teeth look too big for his mouth.
‘Nah, mate,’ I said. ‘Pills.’
‘I don’t do pills,’ he said.
‘You want business, you stump up. Otherwise, fuck off out of me sight, alright?’
The Waistcoat blinked like a million times. Lairy fuck, this one. Stand Up Tall, fuck arf. Rossie saw it in the cunt’s eyes, even behind them glasses; Waistcoat were gearing up to go off on one. Coke flies in his head. Rossie moved towards the Waistcoat, sucked his teeth and showed the Waistcoat the butterfly in the palm of his hand. That were all it took to make the Waistcoat’s bowels loose.
‘Here, I didn’t mean nowt,’ he said.
‘Fuck off,’ I said.
‘Get yerself a Smirnoff Ice,’ said Rossie.
Baz came up behind the Waistcoat and hammered the point. Baz were a big fucker. Waistcoat turned off, went back into the crowd as Baz pushed a bottle of Becks into me hand.
I necked half the beer right away. The medication I were on had dried us right out. And I were sweating like a paedo in a creche, man. I kept some pills for meself and sold the rest on to a shorn member of the rave generation born five years after his time. I didn’t even fuck about with the price. Cunt reminded me of the old school. Could he get a rewind?
Certainly fuckin’ could. And I rolled back the prices like fuckin’ Asda.
The Becks got us a thirst, so I had to push through to the bar and got me a couple Martells. Double and trebles to clear the chalk in me throat. Baz got bleary and had to hang onto the bar, the fuckin’ lightweight.
Weren’t long before I started slowing right down, like. My head started getting mangled about four hours in. When I banged back the last two, washed ‘em down with beer, I were ready for the floor and ready to get loved the fuck up. So I went out there, left Rossie and Baz holding their cocks while my blood were mercury on fire and the beat took the thought of Innes and Stokes and everything fuckin’ else right out me head.
THIRTEEN
Normally, I’m okay when I wake up. Normally I’ve killed dreams with booze or a half-dozen Nytol. Normally, I get to wake up without the stifling fear that I’m back inside.
This time, it feels like the walls are coming down on me.
Eyes still closed, I can’t hear anything above the sound of a jackhammer. I can’t get my head straight enough to find the source, but I’m up. There’s no doubt about that.
My neck clicks painfully as I reach for the alarm clock: Open my eyes and red lines blink noon at me. Pull myself out of my kip. I swallow. It hurts.
As I pad into the living room, the front door’s rattling in the frame. Much more of this, and it’ll come flying off its hinges. Another volley of blows make my head throb.
‘Fuck’s sake,’ I say. ‘Alright, I’m coming. Jesus…’
I squint through the peephole. Nothing. Black. A pause in the battery, then it sounds like someone kicking the door.
Hard. I take a step back. I know that knock. Detective Sergeant Donkey Donkin of the Manchester Met. And I don’t have much of a choice in the matter. I have to let him in.
Fuck.
Pull the chain off, open the door.
Donkey stands there with a sick grin on his face. His body is just like that boat of his, overstuffed. A lanky streak of piss in a uniform stands next to him, the Matchmaker to his
Creme Egg. The uniform has a sour look, probably thinks it makes him look professional, but constipation’s the first thing that springs to my mind. At first glance, he’s not old enough to be wearing the uniform. At second glance, he doesn’t even look old enough to shave. It makes me wonder why Donkey’s brought him along. If he’s here to roll me, then he’s best doing it without witnesses. Unless Donkey’s taken up teaching his moves. Anything’s possible.
‘Morning, Detective.’
‘It’s afternoon, you lazy bastard. What’s with the Chinatown look?’
“I cut myself shaving.’
‘Don’t play funny buggers, Innes. Let us in. We got something we need to talk to you about.’
‘You got a warrant?’ I ask.
Donkey thinks I’m serious, but only for a moment. Rage flashes across his face, but once it hits his mouth, he parts his lips in an ugly grin. ‘Yeah, son. I’ve got a warrant. My boot up your arse. You got the kettle on?’
I don’t want Detective Sergeant Donkin in here. Not that I’ve got anything to hide. It’s just that I hate the fucker and once he gets in, he’ll start playing The Sweeney with me. And, to be fair, he does have a touch of John Thaw about him. If John Thaw was twenty stone and smelled like a dead dog. But if I slam the door on him, he’ll just kick it down.
I step back and leave the door open. It’s up to him. He squeezes through, the uniform following at a safe distance. I catch the young copper glance up and down the corridor as if he’s afraid of a rear attack.
‘So d’you want a brew, then?’ I say.
Donkey licks his thick lips and apparently finds something wedged in his teeth. ‘Aye, why not? Milk and four.’
‘Sweet tooth.’ I walk into the kitchen, fill the kettle and grab a couple of mugs from the draining board. ‘What about your boyfriend?’
‘Nah,’ comes the reply. ‘He’s on duty.’
Click the kettle on and dump a teabag into Donkey’s mug.
I make sure to hawk up a fat one to keep it company.
Sometimes it’s the little things that brighten your day.
While the kettle boils, I lean against the doorway to the living room. Donkey’s already made himself comfortable on my couch. Going for the regulation Burtons suit with the egg stain on the tie, he’s also wearing one of those retro brown leather coats that stop at the arse. The sides are bunched up around his thighs. It makes him look fatter than he already is, which is some feat. His neck is thick to the collar, but when he moves, I catch a brown stain running around the inside of his shirt.
He watches me with rodent eyes.
‘This business, then?’ I say.
‘I’m not here to admire the wallpaper.’ Donkey reaches into his jacket, pulls out a tin with a Harley Davidson on the lid. Pops it open and sticks a reed-thin roll-up between his lips. ‘Is that anaglypta, by the way?’
‘What’s this about?’
He lights the ciggie with a knock-off Zippo, takes a few puffs. The smoke smells like pipe tobacco. ‘Where was you the other night?’
‘The other night? You’ve got to be more specific than that, Detective.’
‘Last night, smart arse.’
The kettle clicks off in the kitchen. ‘Be right back,’ I say.
I make the tea, brain ticking over. He can’t have heard about my run-in with the bouncer. Doesn’t make sense that the big bugger would go crying to the busies, especially considering his line of work. But str
anger things have happened. Donkey’s notorious for keeping his ear to the ground, mostly because he’s as bent as they come. Not difficult to find out stuff happening in the underworld if you’re part of it.
Make sure to give him the sugar that’s congealed into a hardened lump, shot through with old coffee. He’ll have to chew the last mouthful.
As I give him his mug, he says, ‘You got an ashtray?’
There’s one right next to him.
‘Never mind,’ he says, and flicks ash onto the floor. ‘So where was you last night?’
I smile. “I was out at Withy Grove.’
‘Fuck me, going up in the world, eh? You’ll have plenty witnesses.’
‘Probably. I didn’t take any names, mind. Didn’t think I’d need ‘em.’
‘Oh, you need ‘em.’
This is Donkey through and through. Thinks he’s a proper hard case, reckons he should be down London and head of the Flying Squad by now. The closest he’s going to get is watching Regan and Carter on Granada Plus and getting pissed up on duty. Oh yeah, and maybe the odd bit of police brutality.
He sets his mug on the table next to him, reaches into his pocket for a hip flask. He adds a nip to the brew. ‘How’s Declan?’
It always comes down to my brother. ‘He’s fine,’ I say.
‘He’s clean.’
‘Wonders never cease. Send him my best.’
‘I’ll do that.’ Even though I won’t do anything of the sort.
Declan knows Donkey’s been asking after him, it might be enough to throw him back to the wolves.
I take a sip of tea, look across at the uniform. He hasn’t said a word so far. It bugs me. He’s standing on a couple of bandy legs, his hands behind his back in a classic plod pose. Weedy bastard. If Donkey’s brought him along as muscle, he needn’t have bothered. This kid doesn’t look like he could throw a tantrum, never mind a punch.
‘You been to The Denton recently?’ says Donkey.
“I was in there Bonfire Night,’ I say, still staring at the uniform.
‘Have any trouble?’
‘You know I did. You ask me about The Denton, it’s not my local, you heard someone mention my name ‘cause there was bother.’
