by Tony Black
'What?'
I put my elbows on the table, 'I ran into Danny Murray, he's working for Shakey, and he wants to find Barry.'
'Well, I'm guessing it's not to ask what he wants for his Christmas present.'
I nodded, my mouth dried over as I tried to speak. 'Barry's a good lad, like I say, we go way back. I knew him at school for fucksake.'
'So what, Gus?'
'So, I'll find him. Not for Danny Murray or Shakey or a bundle of used notes stuffed in a Racing Post. I'll find him because he's an old friend and if he's in some kind of trouble I want to know about it.'
Mac rose from the table. His pint had hardly been touched. He was doing up his coat as he spoke. 'You still on the same number?'
'Yeah, I am.'
He nodded. 'I'll give you a call.'
I tipped the dregs of Mac's pint into my own as he left the pub.
* * * *
There was a time in my life when leaving Robbie's, or any pub for that matter, with only a couple of drinks in me was a non-starter. Call it maturity because I couldn't call it a lack of funds with the best part of three-grannies stuffed in my pocket, or call it whatever, but I was back pounding the pavement. And thinking of Barry.
We'd done the school together and those types of ties you don't unpick for the hell of it. He'd been Baz then, a bit of a joker and a bit of a wido, all the teachers hated his guts. We lads loved him for it. He had a carefree, cut-the-crap way about him that was always on the verge of being out of control. Some folks are never far away from the self-destruct switch, I knew the territory, but Baz took it to a whole other level. In third year I watched him implode a Bunsen burner by clamping the rubber feed. The explosion burst a girl's eardrum and set some heavy-duty school curtains alight. The fire-brigade's attendance is still my highlight of six-years' stoop-shouldered study. It was also memorable as Baz's last day — he got expelled. There was another school. A stack of McJobs after that and a power of what the Eagles might call witchy women. Katrina, or Kat as she was known, was the worst of the lot. She was still on the junk, last I heard anyway, and still in possession of the kind of nasty mouth you might never tire of plugging. She was a full-on bitch and bad news for Baz but also my best chance of tracking down the lost soul.
I took the bus out to Porty and got off outside an old-school drinker where a couple of snoutcasts were spraffing away outside about the current state of the Jam Tarts' finances. It was 'beyond a joke' apparently that players weren't getting paid. I had to clamp it when the thought of eleven near-millionaires being out of pocket for a little while bit; my old man never saw that kind of money in his whole playing career. Shudder the thought, what kind of damage would that sort of wealth have done to him; and the rest of my family? I dreaded to think. To me family was what you made it, no more, no less. Blood counted for little.
Katrina's gaff was part of the boxy high-rise that sat in Porty's main drag, it was as incongruous as a chocolate-dildo at a Morningside tea-party. This end of the town used to see the well-heeled promenading during Victorian times; you'd be lucky not to catch a crowd of hen-night scrubbers pissing in the gutter now.
I pushed the bust door-front and made my way to the first-floor gaff. The yellowing net curtains in the window of the door would have had my Mam reaching for the Daz. I depressed the bell and stepped back. In a few minutes a hazy black shadow started to stagger behind the frosted glass and manky curtains.
'Hello, Kat ...' I said.
She squinted, dropped her neck further into her shoulders and tried to discern something in the ball-park of familiarity.
'It's Gus ... Gus Dury, I'm Barry's mate, remember?' I felt like I was talking to a child, she scrunched up her brows and started to grip at her sides with two lank arms that didn't look strong enough to lift stamps. The woman was in a worse state than I had imagined possible.
'Gus ...oh, aye,' she said. 'Barry's not here ...'
The reply came a little too practiced for my liking; this fucktard didn't have enough marbles left to crank out a reply like that.
'What makes you think I'm looking for, Barry?'
She stepped back into the flat, fiddled with the edges of her cardigan. She was too scoobied to manage a reply. I felt like putting her out of her misery, felt like ending Barry's misery to tell the truth. I pushed open the door and walked in. She managed to look surprised after I'd got to the end of the corridor and turned back to face her.
'Hey, hey ...'
'Shut the door, Kat.'
She slow-blinked in my direction, vague bloodshot eyes above heavily crenulated bags. I'd seen too many junkies to summon a single atom of sympathy. She'd given up, like they all had, but it was the rest of us that had to live in fucking Zombieland with them. And people like Barry had no escape from them; they remembered the before, the time when junk wasn't a way of life, or more accurately, death.
Kat raised a thin mitt to the door and pushed it to. She stumbled in her blue-fluffy baffies as she walked towards me. The cardigan was getting wrapped tighter and tighter round her thin waist in an effort to shield her from something: life, at a guess.
I turned into the smoke-thick living room. There was a TV stand but no television. A burst couch, spewing foam from one arm. A patchy, manky carpet and a coffee table, replete with dirty works. I looked around, thought about opening the curtains but didn't want to shed any more light on the place. The one thin sliver of a yellow sunbeam that erupted through the gap in the curtains was dust-filled, sent motes dancing in my eyes.
'I don't understand ...' said Katrina. She had a bunch of limp black hair in her hand now, she twisted it. 'I don't know why you're here.'
I knew she was lying. There was an old Gola holdall sitting beside the arm of the burst couch; I hadn't seen one of those since they came back in fashion about a decade ago. I walked over to the bag and peered inside; seemed liked Barry had been round to drop off his gear.
'Where is he?'
'He's not here.'
'Oh, aye.' I walked over to the Gola bag, gave it a tap with the tip of my cherry Docs.
She gripped her sides and swayed. 'Aye, he was here ... but he left again.'
At least she was coming clean, I didn't fancy tearing the gaff apart to look for him; not without a tetanus anyway. 'What do you mean ... left?'
She leaned on the wall, looked woozy. 'The night he got out he dropped his stuff off ... then he went again.'
I was ready to rattle her chops, took a step closer and let my impatience hit her. 'Went where?'
She shrugged.
I poked her in the shoulder, one finger, it was enough to near fell her.
'Stop that ... I don't know where he went.'
'Was he alone?'
She shrugged again.
I pointed my finger, it was enough.
'No. Some guy was with him. He said they had some business, that he'd be in touch but he wouldn't be back ... look, leave me be, he's not here!'
I didn't like the sound of what she had told me, for the simple reason that it rung true. Katrina wasn't in possession of the faculties to manufacture a cover story. She wasn't in possession of faculties, full-stop. She was near the end of the black-tunnel that all junkies travelled. Another hit, if she could find a vein capable, and she was over. That's what her days were about.
When I left her, closed the door, I knew she wouldn't remember seeing me inside of five minutes. Barry must have got the same impression when he showed, least I hoped he had; the heart has its reason, and all that.
* * * *
I crossed the street to the grimy drinker with the fag-bound boyos outside; the chatter was on Rangers now, voices were being raised.
'Mark my words, this fella will shaft the club!' said the snoutcast.
I shook my head as I took the pavement, the club was already on Shit Street.
'Aye you're all right, yer all wrong ... I knew that the second I saw his name was Green.'
Holy Christ. This actually amounted to reasoning among these monkey-
brained troglodytes. I stepped up to the plate. 'And here's something for you both to think about, the fella that he replaced was called Whyte!'
I saw the half-sozzled, slow-blinking eyes turn to saucer shapes. There was the hint of a cog turning, maybe the sound of the rodents working the controls in their heads moving, as they tried to piece together the significance.
I helped them out. 'Green and Whyte ... something to think about.'
I grabbed for the door and tipped the daft lads a wink. I could tell I'd kicked off a conspiracy theory already.
The bar was dark, dingy. In days gone past there'd have been a pall of grey smoke you'd struggle to shine headlamps through. Now the nicotine-stained walls and ceiling looked painfully over-exposed — the woodchip papering would turn to writhing maggots after a few scoops.
I slotted myself on a stool behind the heavily scarred and scratched-up hardwood of the bar. There were bars in Edinburgh that Stevenson frequented in his drinking days when he was known as Velvet Coat; if he ever got as far out of the New Town as Porty, I'd have sunk money on him supping here.
I ordered up a Guinness and a low-flying birdie to chase it. The bar man dispensed a gruff acknowledgement that came topped with a thin-eyed stare in my direction. Okay, I was looking rough — in the ball-park of a jakey to be truthful — but this was hardly the fucking Ivy.
The pint and chaser were laid in front of me and a hand went out, I waited for a 'make those your last' but it never came. Say one thing about the ass-fucking the Tories had given the country of late, the shortage of cash and the surfeit of those drowning their sorrows spoke to publicans like a whore with a lullaby.
I took a seat by the window and stared out at the entrance to the flats where I'd just left Baz's Katrina in a perplexed state. She didn't exactly look sorted for E's and wizz — and I'd put those stairs beyond her withered legs, she could hardly stand, never mind make ambulatory. The chances were she'd be getting a visit from Mr Fix-it sooner or later.
I downed a full draught of my pint and took out my rumpled paperback of Trocchi's Young Adam whilst the wee goldie stood sentry. In a brief moment the pint did the trick, sent my senses swirling as I luxuriated in Trocchi's dulcet prose. So what if they called him a pornographer, and accused him of pimping his wife, the guy could write and who ever said being a genius was easy? Give me some grit, someone who knows the wild side over Jeeves and fucking Wooster any day.
'Another pint?'
The barman stood over me with a white towel in his hands, he was wringing it like he had hold of a game bird's neck.
'Why not ...' I said.
He nodded and I clocked the three or four black hairs on his glabrous scalp that he'd greased back, likely with Brylcreem. He was an anachronism, the whole place was — maybe that's why I felt so at home.
My second pint was in motion, that creamy head of goodness making its way towards me as I spotted a familiar face on the street outside. He was jinxing between cars halted in the road and looking far too cocky for my liking.
'Aye, aye ...'
I turned a tenner in the direction of the barman but kept my gaze on the scene through the window. It was Weasel. One of Devlin McArdle's runners. He did odd-jobs for the Deil but I'd be very surprised if he was ever given anything more than the scrapings on the bottom of the barrel. Weasel was one of those shifting faces that attached himself here and there wherever the opportunity arose. He'd turned out for Shakey once and he was rumoured to be on the job with Barry when he got put away. It was only a rumour because Barry would never confirm it — others would — but Barry had loyalty.
'You clown, Barry ...'
'What?' The barman was back, holding out my change.
I shook my head, 'Nothing ... just thinking.'
'Jesus above, why would you want to do that?'
I smiled and took my change. 'Why indeed?'
As I turned back to the window, Weasel was taking the door of Katrina's flats. He stood with the door open, blocking it with the sole of his Adidas Samba, and looked furtively up and down the street before ducking inside.
'What are you up to, Weasel you little shit?'
I watched him ascend the stairs towards Katrina's floor; the barman was wiping a tabletop as I downed a fair pelt of my Guinness.
'Keep them coming, mate,' I said.
The low-flying birdie called out to me, singing that golden oldie that always strummed the chords of my heart.
* * * *
I was somewhere I shouldn't be. Locked in reverie with my beloved late brother and less-than beloved, but just as late, father. Michael had the noose round his neck that he'd taken from the clothesline, the one my mother had across her back when Cannis Dury came home out of pocket and pride. Everything was a blur that somehow burned in my eyes and my heart and my head. Someone was screaming but I couldn't make out who — was it Catherine or my mother? I never heard my sister scream, she was always locked in silence but I knew my mother's cries all too well. Jesus, who was it?
'Debs? ... Debs, is that you?'
As I uttered my ex-wife's name my eyes widened.
I was still in the bar.
A table full of empty glasses.
My heart-rate ramped; I looked about me. Only a few old bluenoses and a dole-mole nursing a pint of heavy.
My mobile was ringing. I dipped a hand in my pocket and took it out.
'Hello ...'
It was Mac. 'Fuck me, you still on the sauce?'
'What? ...' I looked out the window. Blackness. 'I mean, what time is it?'
Mac's voice rose, became lyrical. 'Gone ten anyway ... where are you?'
I had to think, tried to lace up my thought patterns. 'Portobello ... I paid a visit to Barry's missus.'
I heard Mac scratching the stubble on his chin. 'Yeah, I bet that was a waste of shoe leather.'
'Well ... something like that.' I felt my head start to reconnect with reality; my mouth had dried over, I drained the last of my warm Guinness.
Mac dropped his voice, tipped in some serious tones. 'You wanted to know about Shakey and what he had in mind for your friend, Barry ...'
My breathing stilled. 'You found something?'
'Well, that depends.'
I knew what Mac's depends meant. It could be delivered in two instalments. The first was the grim facts. The second was the grim facts and a warning dressed up as advice.
'Go on then ... spill it.'
Mac drew breath. 'Shakey has been hearing a few things about your pal, Barry ... things he doesn't like the sound of.'
I couldn't see Barry in the same starting blocks as Shakey — the idea that he might be likely to put a chink in Shakey's armour was laughable. 'What? How is that even possible?'
Mac's voice rose. 'Seems Barry made some very interesting contacts in Saughton. Heavy mob, Irish ...'
Barry was an affable bloke, he could make mates anywhere but he had the nous to shy away from the 40-watt variety of criminal. I hoped he hadn't latched on to someone as serious as the word 'Irish' suggested. 'What do you mean, heavy?'
'I mean what I say ... fucking loyalist nut-cases. You know the type.'
I did indeed. The type — if they were over here — were not getting enough action at home. The end of the Troubles didn't sit well with them so it was over the water to pastures new — expand and conquer, pick a fight.
'Fucking hell ...'
'Aye, well, that's what I thought.'
I sighed into the mobi. 'What else did you hear?'
'Jesus, Gus, your pal's about to kick off a turf war ... with some big-time players, isn't that enough?'
I couldn't get my head around it. 'What do you mean ... what exactly has Barry got himself into, Mac?'
He dropped his voice to a whisper. 'Gus, he's planning a job on Shakey's turf ... but if that's not bad enough he's planning it with some Irish hardies and that just doesn't sit well with a good patriot like Shakey.'
My thoughts started to mash. I could feel a hot band tighteni
ng around my skull. 'We need to find, Barry.'
'Eh, what's this we?'
If Mac the Knife was in retreat it was more serious than I imagined. 'Come on, Mac ... since when did you go pussy on me?'
He laughed. 'Aye, nice attempt at reverse psychology, mate ... not working.' He seemed to be moving, I heard a car door open, an ignition bite. 'No, Gus, you can count me out on this one. I don't know the guy from Adam but he must be a decent enough sort for you to stick your neck out for him ...'
'He is ...'
'Yeah, just don't go as far as slapping your neck on the chopping block!'
He hung up.
* * * *
I staggered on to a Number 26 bus heading back to the east-end of the city. The air inside was rank, filled with a grim dampness that misted the windows and clung to the fabric of the seats. The grunting engine, evacuating diesel fumes, and the slow revolution of the lumpy wheels made my guts churn. Two teenies played a tinnie tune on a phone that had them laughing and guffawing like burst drains. I was tempted to turn round, blast them one, but I kept schtum. I couldn't guarantee that I wouldn't chuck up some Guinness if I opened my mouth.
The orange glow of the street lamps battered the top-deck of the bus and sent a sickly sheen all the way down to the tarmac that was taking another battering from the rain. I reached out to steady myself, gripped the silver rail, and got looks from an old giffer in a bobble hat. She had a mouth as tightly pursed as a cat's arse and I'd have been surprised if anything half as pleasant came from it. I wasn't fazed. So she had me down as another one of Edinburgh's drunken jakeys — who didn't? I'd fallen pretty far from the days of desk-diaries and pinstripes. If I'd been somebody of note once, I'd forgotten. My past was as far behind me as the reek of the Porty sewage outflows that spewed into the sea.
At Abbeyhill I thanked the driver and stepped out.
The wind was blowing down London Road, a procession of black cabs lined the street hoping to pick up those afraid of the rain. Some young girls in high-heels and tight dresses, likely heading to a George Street style-bar, took the bait and climbed in. I mean, there was no point spending an hour with the hair straightners to get pished on, now was there?
