S K Paisley

by Take a Breath (epub)

  Chapter Eleven

  In the Low Road, days and nights had a tendency to merge. It didn’t matter what time Paul came though the heavy wooden doors – whether the sun was splitting the sky, the moon rising or setting – it was always just pub time. The healthy bustle of the nearby streets died at the doorway. Inside, peeling beer mats sat without irony on scored Formica table-tops, and plastic church-hall chairs lay across the floor like an obstacle course, their legs strategically placed to trip up the unwary. The lingering smell of smoke masked the more pungent whiffs which every once in a while stung the nose like a bad case of halitosis. Every shift Paul was met by the same threadbare, beer-soaked carpet and the same threadbare, beer-soaked customers.

  The staff were as washed-out as the hand-written tombola posters Sellotaped to the nicotine-stained walls. And they were skinning the place alive: free drinks for friends, watering down stock, skimming off the top, drinking during shifts. They were casual in their record-keeping and even more so in their handling of cash. The owner, John, didn’t seem to notice or care. When he wasn’t sleeping off hangovers, he was drinking down in the office or in the snug with customers.

  For the first few weeks, Paul kept his head down and tried to get to know the business; the scams to avoid, the customers to watch, the dealers to evict. It was the ideal place to learn how not to run a pub. He saved it all to report back to Manny. He had no idea what Manny was going to do with the information, but that wasn’t his concern; he was just the eyes and the ears and apart from that he just had to live the life as best he could.

  So he watched and he listened and, when called upon, told his stories along with the rest of them. But he never divulged more than he needed to. Some truths, mostly about his son; people usually warmed to him once they knew he was a father and asked fewer questions about which area of the city he came from. If it came up, he was vague on specifics, hinted at a difficult childhood. People filled in their own detail and marvelled at how well he was getting on with his life, bringing up his little son. After hours, at the late-night lock-ins encouraged by John, he watched what he drank so as not to let his mouth run away with itself; always mindful. Because Paul knew for a fact what for the others was just rumour – the real money behind the bar came from silent partner Manny Munroe. And for whatever reason, Manny was watching.

  At the epicentre of the gossip mill was Sheila, the miniscule matriarch and longest-serving member of staff. A whippet of a woman in her mid-fifties, she attended to the place with the devotion of head housekeeper in an English manor house. She was the only thing keeping it going, as far as Paul could see.

  Just watching her work was exhausting. When she wasn’t pulling pints, she busied herself with any number of tasks: soaping the gantry, scraping syrup off the nozzles, polishing the tarnished metalwork. It was hard to imagine what sort of disrepair the place would be in if she hadn’t spent the last twenty-five years cleaning it.

  After a few weeks Paul was appointed Sheila’s surrogate child; he had that effect on women of a certain age, who sensed some need in him for a mother. Another tool to be used. He was happy to play the wayward son in the absence of Sheila’s own. She doled out advice on everything from easy women to parenting and the pitfalls of drink. It was delivered with such well-intentioned enthusiasm, Paul always smiled in spite of himself.

  Usually after a late shift Paul would walk Sheila to her bus stop and wait with her until her bus arrived. Out of earshot of the pub, she reminisced about the old days. Mostly she lamented how rundown the place had got and described with sadness the fierce young man John had once been, back when he’d started out. It was hard to reconcile the energetic youngster Sheila spoke of with the pie-eyed man John had become, even if he did still have a certain red-faced avuncular charm.

  Paul liked to indulge Sheila and tried not to notice her slipping tenners into his pocket. He didn’t know why she thought he needed the money more than her, but it was useless to protest. She would have given away the shirt on her back if she thought someone needed it.

  As the weeks passed, it became clear for all to see that John was getting worse. Paul recognised a man under pressure and had his suspicions where that pressure was coming from. One night, after a heavy session, John broke down. The tears flowed, turned to sobs, turned to wailing.

  “Bastard. Fucking BASTARD!” He slammed his fist down on the table, knocking over several glasses.

  Sheila rushed off for a cloth to dry up the spillages.

  His cheeks were purple, his gut hanging over his trousers. It was days since he’d last shaved. John was a big man and it took a group effort to get him up and out into a taxi, homeward bound. Paul waited with Sheila for her bus. They stood sombrely, Sheila’s face twitching.

  “There’s something afoot here,” she mumbled.

  Paul held his breath. Sheila was ready to cry.

  “Or someone,” she added.

  “Who?” he pressed, proceeding with caution.

  “MANNY MUNROE!” Sheila spat his name with such contempt, her mouth sucked in to rid itself of the bitter residue left behind.

  Paul winced, no longer aware of the cold; a warm cloud mushroomed inside his head.

  “That’s right.” Sheila nodded angrily. “Not many people know this. But our little bar… is partly his.”

  Paul instinctively immobilised his features – an obvious tell when playing poker, but Sheila misread his hand and patted his shoulder protectively, moved by his sensitivity.

  “Sweet boy. Don’t worry, you’ll never have any dealings with him. Munroe hasn’t set foot inside the place for years. But he’s been there in spirit, hiding in the background. Holding on. Taking his cut.”

  “Have you met him?” Paul ventured, greedy for any insight.

  Sheila nodded very slightly, as if suppressing the memory.

  In the distance her bus turned the corner and started towards them. They watched it approach.

  “I’ve seen the books,” she said bitterly. “Washing dirty money and goodness knows what else for that man has left behind some stains. John’s slowly wasted himself under Munroe’s shadow.”

  Paul shivered, suddenly cold again. The bus screeched to a halt in front of them, the doors hissing open.

  “He’s a liability.” Sheila put one foot onto the bus step. “Munroe was never going to sit quiet forever.” She stopped speaking and looked at him with a strange expression, as if she was only just starting to realise the storm was coming.

  Paul was able to piece together more of the story over the next few days. His appetite whetted, he urged Sheila for details.

  When the partnership formed, it was John who had the reputation as a hard man; his dad had been a famous gangster and in a lot of ways he used that to distinguish himself on the streets, becoming the leader of one of the city gangs. But he wasn’t cut out for it and he sidestepped into business before he had time to get burned. Manny was younger and had been his right-hand man in the gang. He was known for his furious temper and propensity for violence; a robotic henchman who acted out John’s instructions. Or so everyone thought.

  When John made his bid for the bar, Manny offered to bankroll the shortfall, using the proceeds from a successful robbery on a post office. Manny went on to expand, using his profits to fund venture after venture. He intimidated officials into granting him licences. Used relentless violence to move in on different rackets in town. Going the extra distance, doing whatever his rivals wouldn’t or couldn’t. John, on the other hand, failed at everything he tried. He lost money gambling, drinking. Had a string of failed marriages. Sheila reckoned he’d finally run The Low Road into the ground: he was up to his eyeballs in debt and was about to lose the pub too.

  “You want to know why I think Munroe keeps the place going?” Her voice cracked as she explained it to Paul. “I think it’s so he can watch John suffer. Like everyone else, John thought Munroe w
as nothing more than a brainless thug. That was his big mistake. And Munroe’s been making him pay for that ever since.”

  Every day, for a brief period during lunch, the pub was busy. Crowds of local office- and shop-workers would throng in for a cheap meal and a pint. It was the only part of the day when time flew past, usually in a whirl of miscalculations, lost orders and smashed glasses.

  On the day that would be John’s last shift at the pub, it was no different. Paul spent the hour after the lunchtime rush cleaning up the aftermath. When the plates were cleared and all seats turned upright, Sheila went on her break and Paul got stuck in to the row of empty glasses that covered the bar, waiting in line to be washed. There was only one regular left propping up the bar and another man in the corner popping pound after pound into the puggy machine.

  Paul was hard at work when the man from the corner came over, sat at the bar and ordered a pint. He looked to be in his mid-fifties, his grey hair turning white in parts, day-old stubble on his chin. He was dressed in the cream and grey jacket-and-trouser combo of an older man, but underneath his build was solid. Wiry tendrils of hair sprouted where the top button of his shirt was undone.

  “That thing ever pay out?”

  “It does eventually. You need more change?”

  “Nah, I’m done. Lost enough for today.” Paul placed the pint in front of him. “John working today?”

  “I don’t know if you could call it working. He’s down in his office. Who’s asking?”

  “Just a friend. Eddie.” Eddie held out his large hand. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Paul.” Wiping off dishwater, Paul took the man’s hand, the skin rough and callused. It closed round his in a tight grip that crushed his knuckles.

  “Worked here long?”

  “A few weeks.” Paul pulled away.

  Eddie squinted at Paul as he took his pint. “Have we met before?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “You seem familiar.”

  Paul looked at Eddie more closely. His tired blue eyes were sunk beneath bruised, puffy circles and the thin blue and purple thread veins scrawled across his red cheeks indicated a man who lived with stress and a fondness for the bottle. He was stocky, potentially fat, and his voice resonated with the deep echo of a priest’s, as if amplified through a vaulted cathedral. Paul instantly disliked him.

  Eddie shook his head in confusion. “Must be someone else. Is it OK if I head down?”

  “Just let me check he’s decent.”

  Paul phoned down and on the tenth ring John answered. He grumbled to himself for a moment before telling Paul to send Eddie down.

  “On you go.”

  As he heard Eddie’s steps descending the stone stairs to the office, Paul took out the keys and locked the front door. He hoped Sheila would come back from lunch a little late.

  The regular was sipping on his pint and watched Paul with drunken confusion but said nothing, already half comatose.

  “Watch the bar for me, Charlie. I’ll only be gone a second. There better be some booze left on the gantry when I come back.”

  Paul knew a policeman when he saw one. The air was thick with the smell of bacon.

  He tiptoed to the halfway point on the stone stairs, careful not to knock into anything or creak the old wooden banister. John’s office was directly underneath him. He could see only the light from it, reaching across the dark hall, but even over the hum of machinery from the barrel room next door, he could hear them talking.

  “Where else am I supposed to find you? At home? You’ve left me no choice. Bonus that I’ve caught you sober.”

  Paul stood listening, while keeping one eye on the door for Sheila.

  “Carmichael, listen to me. I don’t want to do this. I can’t do this…” John sounded desperate, pleading with Carmichael.

  Paul descended further, unable to believe what he was hearing.

  “You don’t have a choice.”

  Waiting for John’s response, he heard a rattle at the door. He retreated back up the stairs. Charlie’s head was under a stream of lager. Sheila was waiting at the door.

  Paul walked up the drive of his two-bedroom semi-detached house in New Gorbals. He took out his key and was met by silence as the front door swung open. He breathed a sigh of relief. Stacy was probably down the road at her mother’s – recently she’d been going there more and more. Tripping over laundry and baby toys, he made his way into the living room, his hip brushing the stair banister as he squeezed past.

  An enormous playpen monopolised most of the floor. Dirty plates were piled on the coffee table, the smell of stale food clinging to the room. “Baby’s First Birthday” cards still stood on the mantelpiece from the week before. Taking the phone from its cradle, Paul began lifting toys and throwing them into the pen, clearing a pathway to the window. He stepped over the smashed photo frame still on the floor from the night before; a large crack in the glass cut through the smiling photo of the happy trio taken on the day Stacy had returned from hospital. Leaning on the plastic sill, he switched on the phone and began to dial.

  Manny’s gravelly voice answered. “What do you want?”

  “You said to contact you if anything interesting came up.”

  Paul fixed his eyes on the upturned supermarket trolley lying on his front lawn. Roots from the nearby hedge had sprouted around the bottom end of it, their long spindly fingers tightly wrapped around its rusting bars as if nature was claiming it back.

  “And?”

  “Something interesting came up.”

  “Well, don’t be coy!”

  Paul had been absently chewing on his lower lip and accidently tore a small sliver off, the sudden bitter taste of blood tickling his tongue. “I think John was talking to a cop today.” His voice was strained, alien.

  “What made you think he was a cop?”

  “I don’t know. He had that look. I overheard them – John sounded pretty upset.”

  “Did you get a name?”

  “He told me Eddie. But John called him Carmichael.”

  Manny was silent on the other end. For a moment Paul thought the connection had failed, then his voice came back on.

  “Where are you?”

  “At my house.”

  “Stay there. I’m going to come pick you up.” With that he clicked off.

  Paul was left, heart pounding, standing in his living room watching the moody grey sky turn to wrathful black.

  He waited and waited, the blue glare of the television lighting the darkened room. He’d turned the volume up, way up; loud enough to drown out the pounding rain, obliterate the world outside the room.

  Not long after midnight, the beams from a pair of car headlights shone through his window. He flicked the TV to mute and listened to the engine stop as the car pulled up outside his house. Stacy still hadn’t come home. Probably didn’t want to take the baby out in the rain. Paul left the TV on and slipped out, gently closing the latch behind him.

  A pearl-grey Daimler Sovereign with tinted windows was waiting just outside his gate. The moonlight bounced off its smooth waxed body. It looked huge in the street, the cars outside his neighbours’ houses diminished by its presence. Paul took a moment to admire it before the door flew open. Manny was sitting in the back and patted the seat beside him. Paul climbed in and slammed the door a little too forcefully. The driver’s light flicked off, but not before he’d caught a glimpse of the grinning face behind the wheel.

  “Manny. Terry.”

  Terry gave a vague grunt of acknowledgement; in the five years Paul had known him, it was about as much as he’d ever heard him say.

  Manny gave Paul a friendly pat on the shoulder. There was always something about his movements. Every action was a display of self-restraint.

  Terry revved the engine and pulled out.

  “How d
o you like my new motor?” Manny drew his hand down the walnut burl panelling. The smell of fresh leather and expensive aftershave teased Paul’s nostrils.

  “Beautiful.” Paul had never seen anything like it.

  “Did you see how low the suspension sits? That’s the armoured plates. Kevlar 29. Bullet-proof, just like its owner.”

  Paul caught Terry’s eyes watching him in the mirror. A shadow fell and his face loomed like a Baron Samedi mask.

  The first time he’d met Terry, Paul had been a skinny sixteen-year-old. He’d shown up outside Manny’s pool hall, armed only with a crumpled flier bearing its name, and had lumbered over on his crutches to where two of Manny’s crew were standing smoking in the sun. “I’m here to see Mr Munroe,” he said.

  Buck-toothed “Bucky” Buchanan had stood toe to toe with him. He was in his mid-twenties then, small and wiry, with skin so grey it was almost blue, translucent like a fish. His shaved head sprouted a subtle reddish glow and a thick scar reached from mouth to chin. “What would Mr Munroe want with a runt like you?”

  He pressed his chest into Paul’s. One of Paul’s crutches slid and he nearly lost his balance.

  The other heavy, Dickie Dunsmore, had laughed with the slack-jawed mania of a hyena. He was stockier, a bit older, his hewn face so badly scarred from acne it looked like it had been put through a cheese grater.

  Terry had been waiting just inside the pool hall door; when he strode out towards them, Bucky Buchanan stood aside and Paul immediately wanted to run away and hide. Whereas Bucky and Dunsmore were all noise and bravado, their gold chains and impossibly camp attire just daring you to laugh at them, Terry was a wall of understated, brooding silence, with an equally terrifying face to match. One half of Terry’s face was missing. Paul found out later that Terry had been caught in a bomb blast. Where they’d tried to rebuild his lip, he was left with his teeth bared, giving the appearance of a permanent grin. Together with the cavernous eye socket, it looked like one half of a grinning skull.