Deadfolk

by Charlie Williams

  He lobbed the knife at us.

  It were more a lurch than a sidestep, but I moved to the left anyhow just as the blade were due to stick us between the eyes. Glass shattered behind us.

  ‘Lucky bastard,’ he says, rooting around for summat in his jacket.

  But I didn’t fancy hanging about to give him another aim at bull. I punched aside the rest of the glass and jumped out the window.

  It were only a ground floor window, but I landed sort of wrong, right shoulder touching tarmac first followed by my poor head. But I managed to turn it onto a roly-poly and hit my feet running, which were good news being as the feller were just then making an appearance at the window shouting, ‘Hoy’. I ran and I kept on running, up the side and round back into the little car park. I ran round looking for my car for a bit, which shouldn’t have been so hard considering there was only five cars there, and a gold Capri with black vinyl roof stands out amongst a thousand. I couldn’t recall if I’d parked her there or not, but the upshot were that I didn’t find her.

  All right, I thought, trying the nearest door handle.

  Just my fucking luck, I were thinking as I pulled the fascia off and started fucking around with the wires. Mick Runter’s Viva, weren’t it. If there’s one motor I can’t fucking stick it’s your Vauxhall Viva. Just can’t rely on em, can you. I know I’d had a few glitches with my Capri, but that’s different. Your Capri, as I’ve said many a time, offers a sensual experience not unlike going at it with a bird. Your Viva offers a fucking headache. And that’s if you can get her started.

  Well, luck were with us right then. I weren’t sure which wire went where, to be honest, but somehow she spluttered into life. I pointed her up the side lane and gave her some shoe, whispering encouraging words to her.

  ‘Hoy,’ yells the feller again, now in the road blocking me way. I slammed the throttle down and went straight for him. Well, what would you do? Asking to get run down he were, silly fucker. And him calling himself a professional?

  But somehow he sort of jumped up and sideways and got out the way, which were good for him. I turned right into Friar Street and went up town, just as a couple of black mariahs was turning in from the right.

  19

  Town were nigh on empty, most folks being in or outside Hoppers. I drove around it for the best part of an hour—getting better acquainted with the Viva’s handling and changing my view of her a mite for the better—before settling on the notion that I had no place to go. Home were being rifled through by coppers like as not. Sal weren’t in. Finney were laid up. Legs were…I didn’t want to think about him just yet.

  All I needed were somewhere to crash. Just for a bit. If I could just clap eyes on a friendly face and talk about footy for half of an hour, I’d be all right.

  I went down the Paul Pry.

  Nathan the barman had a face for us but it weren’t friendly. It were a frown that stretched halfway round his head, which he shook solemnly when I stepped up to the bar and says, ‘All right, Nathan.’ I ordered meself a pint of the usual, which drew from him nothing but a folding of the arms.

  ‘Not in my bar you won’t drink lager,’ he says.

  ‘Why not?’ I saw meself in the mirror behind the bar and noted that I were still wearing Mick Runter’s tight doorman ensemble with the filthy shirt hanging out the front. ‘Oh,’ I says, tucking meself in. ‘Bit scruffy, is it?’

  ‘Scruffiness don’t bother us. This is a working man’s tavern and one that don’t turn up its nose at an honest day’s grime.’ He unfolded his hairy arms and leaned em atop the bar. ‘Iss the actions of a man that interests us more. Show us a man’s actions and I’ll show you his character. You, Royston Blake, I ain’t sure as you’ve got a character at all.’

  ‘I ain’t got…?’ But I didn’t say no more. I’d been prepared for him being a bit surly over us not giving him the doofer and that. I’d even half expected him to give us a public bollocking and boot us out. But this were a bit different. I weren’t sure what he were getting at, you see. Normally if a feller’s words passed over me swede, I’d switch off and turn my attention elsewhere. But it didn’t work like that this time. There were summat about Nathan that made him hard to ignore. I felt confused and more than a tad uneasy. I wanted to know what he were getting at, but couldn’t ask him in case it turned out to be summat I didn’t much care for. ‘Eh, but, Nathan,’ I says, trying hard to brighten up. ‘I got yer doofer for you.’

  As hoped, his face changed at that. ‘Doofer?’ he whispers, pulling us around a bit so’s to get us out of public earshot.

  ‘You know, the doofer you asked for. Remember? You asked for Fenton’s doofer in return—’

  ‘Aye aye. Juss checkin’ we was talkin’ same language. So you gat it on you, eh, boy?’

  ‘Aye. Well, out back, ennit. In me motor.’

  ‘In yer motor? Bring him on in, son. Bring him on in.’

  ‘Well…’ I scratched me chin. It were getting to be a proper beard and as such were causing us no end of itching. I reckoned a drink would go some ways to rectifying that problem, along with a few more after it. I looked at the pump and raised me eyebrows, hoping Nathan’d take the hint. Being a barman, he did. He plonked a tankard of the stuff before us and set to watching us again. I picked up the brew and swilled it down me neck without a drop of it touching the sides, it seemed to me. Deciding that it’d be a mite cheeky to press Nathan for a refill, I went on: ‘Well, ain’t as simple as all that is it. In a safe it is, see. Fuckin’ heavy one with a combination that I ain’t acquainted with.’

  He smiled. Then he frowned again. ‘Ain’t takin’ the piss, are you? I bet you have got a safe out there in the car park. I knows all about you, Blake, and I knows you’re tapped enough to do just such a thing as that.’

  ‘Ain’t cos I’m tapped, Nathan. I juss dunno the combination. Had to take the whole safe, see. It were that or never get another chance.’

  He nodded slowly. ‘Ain’t my problem though, is it? All I wants is what I asked for. I don’t want no big bastard safe locked up around it. Give us what I asked for and nut’n else. Give it us soon, Blake, or you’ll rue this day. There’s a lot of things I knows about you, and the coppers’d be interested in all of it.’ He turned and picked up a tankard and started polishing it with a dirty rag. For a minute or so the tankard got shinier and the rag got dirtier.

  ‘Woss so good about a doofer that you wants it so bad, eh?’ I says.

  ‘Keep yer counsel,’ he whispers loud enough to wake a drunk on a Sunday morning. ‘Keep yer blasted counsel.’

  ‘Go on though, Nathan,’ I went on a bit lower. But not that low. I wanted him on the back trotter, so to speak. ‘Tell us why you wants it. I don’t even know what it is. No one’ll tell us, will they.’

  ‘Never you mind why I wants it. Juss give it us or—’

  ‘Tell us or I won’t give it you. How’s that, eh?’

  ‘Don’t give it us and I’ll tell on you.’

  ‘An’ I’ll go to jail an’ you’ll miss out. Woss that prove? Tell us why you wants it and I’ll give it you and we’ll all be happy. Come on, you knows summat, don’t you. Got ears like radars an’ you hears it all.’

  He drew his face so close his eyebrows was tickling me forehead. ‘A barman can’t keep bar forever. And a man with knowledge from which he can’t profit is a poor man indeed, says I. Well, Blakey, I knows a lot. You’re right there. But it ain’t me ears. Thass where you been gettin’ it wrong. Ain’t me eyes neither. Seein’ and hearin’ things is easy, but any man can do that. This, ennit.’ He tapped his left sideburn.

  I looked hard at that sideburn, trying to see what were so special about.

  But then he went on: ‘I uses me swede, see. And I ain’t braggin’ there. Don’t take a genius to work out why a feller from out o’ town chooses Mangel to settle in. A feller who wears hairpiece and buys Hoppers cash up front? Why would someone like him come to Mangel, eh? Well I’ll tell you why: cos no one else ever come
s here. Cos Mangel folk never leaves town and can’t let on about him. Only one reason to come to Mangel, Blake. To hide. Mangel’s like the underside of a boulder, all damp and crawlin’ with woodlice. No one’d ever know it were there, less they took trouble to lift the boulder. But no one ever lifts the boulder, Blake. Too heavy, ennit. So the lice runs round and round in the dark and damp.’

  Another pint of lager had appeared in front of us at some stage during all this. I picked it up and knocked it back, trying to wash my head clean of the confusion that Nathan’s words had caused. And I reckon it done the trick, being as when I plonked glass atop bar I couldn’t recall half of what he’d said. Summat about woodlice, were it?

  ‘Yer mate were in here askin’ after you not long since,’ says Nathan, back to his tankard polishing.

  ‘Oh aye,’ I splutters. ‘Which un?’

  ‘Which un? How many mates you gat, Blakey? How many real mates you gat?’

  I clocked meself in the mirror again. I didn’t enjoy it. The feller in the mirror were too big. His head were too big and his clothes was too bright and his cheeks was too pink. He looked like a cunt and I wished he weren’t there. I wanted to go over and drop my head on him, then drag him out back and leave him for the rats. But I couldn’t do that. So I tried hard to ignore him instead. That didn’t work neither. ‘How many friends you got then, Nathan?’

  ‘Me?’ He laughed. Spit flew from his face like a wet sheepdog shaking himself dry. None of it seemed to land on meself though, which were fair play. ‘Me? I ain’t gat no friends, Blake. What do I need friends fer? A man stands alone.’

  I turned and headed for the back door, same as I always done. Nathan shouted summat after us but I hardly paid it no heed. It were only once I were pulling out into the road that his echoes come back to us. ‘Legs,’ he’d said. ‘It were Legs after you.’

  I killed the engine.

  I were in Cutler Road a few yard up from Legsy’s flat. I didn’t want him to hear us coming, see. I reckoned he’d be on his guard if he heard a motor pull up right outside. I got out and walked.

  Ain’t sure why I didn’t want him on his guard. I were just following me instincts, see, same as I always done. I followed em round the side of the offy and over to the bins in the corner. My leather coat were still there, right where I’d left it. It warmed me heart to see it so, and I felt more meself the moment I put it on. I chucked Mick Runter’s black jacket in the bin and closed the lid. Then I opened it again and felt about for the pistol and monkey wrench. I found the wrench all right but not the gun. I searched and searched, digging deep into the rubbish in case it’d slipped out. But all I found were old tea bags and broken glass. Bollocks, I thought. Must have left it in Fenton’s office, beside his dead body. That’d look good when the coppers found it.

  Ah well, fuck it.

  I walked over and trudged up the fire stairs, wondering what had happened to the youngun I’d laid out on em earlier. Like as not he’d woke up soon after, putting his misfortune down to slippery stairs and an anorak thief. At the top I took a deep un and rung the bell.

  Lights was on behind the frosted door. I could hear some music coming from inside. Sounded like ‘Devil in Disguise’. It ended suddenly, right before the slow verse kicks into the fast chorus. I rung again. Legs opened the door. ‘All right, Blake,’ he says.

  ‘All right, Legs.’

  We stood like that for a while or two, eyeing each other up. You couldn’t see much of him. His face were swathed in darkness, hiding all but the faint smile on his chops. My face couldn’t have been much more visible neither, which were good. He stepped aside.

  I went on in.

  I sat on the sofa and looked at the telly, same as what I always done. Some folks was walking about and talking and music were playing in the background. Same as always happened on the telly. Legs came in and lobbed us a cold un from the fridge. I caught it without looking up. Everything were taking place the way it always had done. I didn’t want it to. I hadn’t come to sit around and have a laugh. I’d come cos I were in deep shite and the wind had carried us here. But now I were here all I knew were the old routine. Legs sat down.

  We looked at the telly for a long stretch, chugging ale and farting quietly. It were Legs who spoke first. He looked over at us, then back at the telly. He says: ‘Seen Finney?’

  ‘Not since he went in,’ I says. ‘Yerself?’

  ‘Nah. Heared about him on the radio, mind. What the fuck happened?’

  I looked at him. It were hard to tell if he were joshing us or not, it being so dark. I knew he hadn’t been there, but I had a feeling Legs knew everything that had happened. ‘Got done over by the Muntons, didn’t he,’ I says, watching him.

  He raised a couple of eyebrows. ‘Fuckin’ bastards,’ he says.

  ‘Aye, brung him over the ozzy meself. Covered in blood he were. And cut to fuck. They was torchering him, see.’

  His eyes was on the telly. A bird were taking her kit off and any second her tits’d be out. We both watched for a bit until she did just that. It were a fleeting moment. Soon as it were over I turned back to Legs. ‘Aye, had a mind to kill him, they did. But they was doin’ it slow, draggin’ it out like.’

  His eyes was still on the telly, but I could tell he weren’t paying it no heed now.

  ‘Looks like Finney killed Baz, see,’ I went on. ‘Thass how the Muntons’d reckoned it anyhow. Some bastard telled em it were Finney, so they went after him. Can’t blame em though, eh? Some fucker tops my brother I’d like as not be after em with a chainsaw an’ all. Know what I’m wonderin’ though, eh, Legsy? I’m wonderin’ who telled em.’

  He rubbed his chin and puffed his cheeks out, still saying nothing. He got up and went into the kitchen.

  I followed him. When he opened the fridge door, it lit up his face and showed how white it were, like he’d had a nasty shock. But he had had a nasty shock, hearing about Finney like that. ‘Legs,’ I says. ‘What was you wantin’ us for?’

  He got a couple of tins out and lobbed us one. We cracked em open and started chugging. He leaned back against the fridge and looked at his watch. Then he says: ‘I know what you done.’

  ‘Done what?’ I says. ‘Woss I done?’

  ‘Killed her.’

  He were watching us now, just like I’d been watching him earlier, telling him about Fin. He were looking for summat in me face.

  I didn’t know what he were after, but whatever it were I knew he’d not find it. My face felt like it were made of wood. Nothing’d show on it. ‘Killed who?’

  ‘Beth.’

  ‘Killed Beth?’ I says. The words fizzed up somewhere in my head and bounced off the walls, echoing like a dog barking in a warehouse. But I didn’t feel much else. Sounds echo in hollow places. ‘Course I didn’t,’ I were gonna say. Cos I fucking didn’t, did I.

  But I didn’t say that. Wouldn’t sound right, would it. Be as good as saying: ‘Aye, course I killed her.’ And there were summat else and all. Finney had clocked onto it but I’d told him to piss off out of my business. I didn’t want to hear it, see. Not from meself nor no one else. But maybe it were time I did hear it. A problem shared and all that bollocks. And if you can’t trust your mates, who can you trust. Eh?

  There were a feller once who found a pack of fags in his bedroom. Same bedroom he shared with his dear wedded wife, it were. Only they wasn’t his fags. He smoked Bennys and these was Regals. Weren’t his wife’s neither, her smoking Consulate. So he scratched his head and wondered how come a pack of strange fags had come to be there, peeking out from under the bed.

  And no matter how hard he scratched, no answer came. Sore head were all he got. So he went to his wife aiming to ask her. Only when he got to her—when he stood in front of her and looked her in the eyes—his mouth dried up and his tongue went all limp. He didn’t need to ask her, did he. There were the answer for him, right there in her blue eyes, behind all that smudge she’d taken to applying of late. And you know what he do
ne?

  You knows what he ought to have done, like as not. He ought to have got it all sorted there and then. Are you my wife or are you a slapper? Do you know who I am? I’m Royston Fucking Blake and no wife of mine puts out behind me back. And what about this pack of Regals, eh? Who’s this gentleman you’ve been entertaining? Tell us now. He’ll be smoking em out his arse when I’m finished with the fucker, I can tell you.

  But that’s not what he done. What he done is walk away like a sick old dog.

  The twat.

  And he tried to forget all about it. He tried to think of all the innocent little accidents might have led to a pack of Regals being there in the bedroom. There was tons of em when you came to think on it. And when you came to think on it you saw how twattish you was behaving. That’s your fucking wife, mate. Not a tuppenny whore from down the arcade. Course she ain’t putting out to all and sundry.

  So this feller started being nice to his wife instead. He weren’t sure why, but summat told him that he’d better, just in case. He brung her flowers and perfume. He done a bit of cooking once until it were plain as day that cooking weren’t summat he were born to do. And he started paying her a bit more attention in the pit. Just like the old days, when they was newly-weds and at it like a couple of rabbits in spring.

  Only it weren’t the same now. The more he pressed himself on her, the more she turned away. And the perfume sat on the shelf and the flowers died.

  Meanwhile he ate and drank and slept and crapped and pissed and went to work and stewed on it. And one evening it all got a bit too much. Folks was taking advantage. Kids was getting past him. Fights was kicking off and playing out without him noticing. And when his boss—a big feller with a scarred meaty face and shaved head—told him to piss off home cos he were no use to man nor beast standing at the door with his eyes on his boots, that’s what he done. And as he rode his Capri homeward he pushed her harder and harder. Summat were driving him on, summat red-hot and knotted in his guts. And as he got closer it coiled tighter and tighter.