‘Vari,’ he said. ‘Nice name. Is it Highland?’
She shook her head and moved further into the room. She was slim but rounded in all the right places. ‘Different spelling. It’s short for something else.’
‘What?’
She gave him a coy smile and said, ‘You’ll laugh.’
Davie shook his head and she looked at him thoughtfully, sizing him up. Then she said, ‘You seen a film called Spartacus?’ Davie nodded. It was a favourite of his and the boys, particularly the scene where Kirk Douglas’s men stand up and proclaim ‘I am Spartacus’ to save their leader, even though they knew it would mean their death. They stood up and were counted. The thought made him nervous once more about what was going to happen. Vari continued, ‘So did my dad. He loved it so much he named me after Spartacus’s wife.’
‘Varinia,’ said David, surprised that he had hauled the name up from his memory. He knew he fancied Jean Simmons, though.
She was impressed. ‘Right. So, you can see why I shorten it.’ Davie nodded, understanding that Varinias were not that thick on the ground in Glasgow. ‘And you’re Davie, right? Davie McCall?’ Davie nodded as she stepped closer to him. ‘Davie McCall,’ she repeated, as if weighing it up. ‘Heard a lot about you.’
‘Any of it good?’ He asked, his voice betraying his tension. He swallowed to lubricate his throat. He had not been much good at this kind of thing before the jail, now he was even more hopeless.
‘Some of it,’ she said, very close now, and he could smell her perfume. He had no idea what it was called but its aroma made him feel light-headed. She reached out and touched his face, drawing a finger from his temple to his jaw. Her finger was cool but her touch was electric. ‘You’re not bad-looking, you know that?’
He shrugged. He knew he looked like his father. He never thought of himself as handsome, simply ordinary looking.
‘Nice eyes,’ she said, ‘like Paul Newman. Anyone ever told you that?’ She raised her hand a little to brush his hair with her fingers. ‘Nice hair, too, very dark. When you go grey you’ll be dead distinguished looking.’
She cupped her hand under his chin, raised his head slightly and leaned in to kiss him. Her lips were cool and soft and he could taste her lipstick. Her tongue snaked between his teeth and probed his mouth. His hands went to her waist and he began to lean back onto the bed, pulling her with him.
And then, as she expertly took off his clothes, he looked down and smiled when he saw that his body had not failed him.
I am Spartacus, he thought.
* * *
Joe the Tailor told Luca Vizzini not to attend the party in Davie’s honour. It would not be fitting, Joe had said. Now he sat across the table in the café on Duke Street and watched as Luca completed tax forms. The café was empty, so the little Sicilian had taken the opportunity to catch up on paperwork. It was good to divert his thoughts from Bannatyne and Davie McCall. Tax is important, Joe always used to say, pay a little and it keeps the wolf from the door. Despite the cash rolling in from the drugs, Luca still liked working in his little café. Joe had bought it for him, way back when, and Luca felt at home here.
Joe had not said anything for an hour, he had simply sat there, watching. Finally, Luca tired of working at his figures and moved behind the counter to pour himself a cup of coffee. He carried his cup back to the table and sat down facing his old friend.
‘I still think I shoulda been there, Joe,’ he said. He knew Joe wasn’t really present, but it made him feel good to talk to him.
The old man shook his head. No, keep your distance.
‘I don’t think he suspects nothin,’ Luca said.
David, he is not stupid, said Joe. He knows. On some level, he knows what you did.
Luca was not a coward, but fear stabbed through him. Luca had been a button man for the Genovese family in New York and he had killed men without turning a hair. But Davie McCall disturbed him and he did not know why. He was just a young punk, after all, and he had dealt with young punks all his life. But there was something about that kid, something he could not put his finger on. Only one other person had unsettled Luca in the same way and that was the boy’s father, Danny. They looked so alike, maybe that was it. Or the cold distance in those blue peepers they both shared, a look that made you believe they knew what you were thinking before you even thought it. Rab McClymont Luca understood – he was motivated by profit, therefore he could be manipulated. Bobby Newman was nothing, a hanger-on, a tool to be used when necessary. But Davie? What was it Churchill said about Russia? A riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma. Yeah, that was Davie McCall.
You must stay away from him, Joe said.
‘Ain’t gonna be easy, Joe,’ said Luca. ‘He’s out now, he’s gonna be workin for us.’
He will know.
‘He can’t know,’ protested Luca, his voice taking on a whine he did not like. ‘No-one knows.’
Davie will know. And he will come for you.
Luca shook his head. ‘Joe, you’re all wrong on this, way off base. The kid don’t know nothing, I’ll stake my life on it.’
Joe gave him that little half smile of his and leaned forward in his seat. You are staking your life on it, Luca, my friend, he said.
* * *
Alice, the brunette, wouldn’t have minded going into the room with that Davie McCall fella. He wasn’t bad looking and they all said he was a good guy to have on side if she ever needed him. But she let Vari go because she had another function in the flat that day, a job to do. And the guy who sent her to do it scared the shit out of her. No-one noticed when she slipped away from the flat and skittered down the stairs, but she kept checking over her shoulder just in case. Don’t let anyone see you do it, the bloke had warned, and there was something in his eyes that told her she would suffer if she let anyone catch her. So she ran down the stairs, listening for footsteps behind her because that Bobby Newman would be the only one likely to notice she was missing. He would find her later, of course, but she’d just tell him she felt ill and had to go. In the end he wouldn’t give a damn.
She ran down Sword Street towards Reidvale Street, where he said he would be waiting. She scanned the scrubby trees and spotty grassy area that bordered the railway line, but she couldn’t see him. She looked at her watch, wondering if she had got the time wrong, but no, this was when he said to meet him. And she had the impression that being late was not an option.
‘You get it?’
His voice came from behind her and she whirled round in surprise, wondering where the hell he had appeared from. ‘You gave me a fright there,’ she said, her hand clutching her chest as if she was suffering from a heart attack. He smiled, but there was no humour there.
‘Did you get it?’ He asked again.
‘Aye,’ she said and handed over the slip of paper on which she had scribbled down the phone number for McCall’s flat.
He unfolded the paper and stared at it as if it was the answer to a mystery that had puzzled him for years. ‘You have trouble getting it?’
‘No, there’s one of they old-fashioned phones in there. Got the number written on the wee plate thing in the middle.’
He nodded, folded the paper up again and slid it into the pocket of his coat. ‘No-one saw you write it down?’ She shook her head and he seemed satisfied. ‘You tell anyone what you were going to do?’
Another shake of the head. ‘You told me not to.’
‘Good girl,’ he said and held out a sheaf of five pound notes. But it was the small plastic bag with them she focussed on. As she reached out he pulled them away again. ‘Keep your mouth shut, understand? You tell anyone you got me this, it’ll go hard on you.’
‘Aye, aye,’ she said, her eyes on the brown powder in the bag. She’d hit up just before she and Vari had set out for Sword Street, but that had been, like, hours ago, and she was coming down. The bundle of notes would see her nicely for a day or two, she thought, but the smack was just what the doctor ordered
. He held it and the money out again and she snatched them greedily. Then she felt his hand clamp on her upper arm and those blue eyes that seemed so cold burned right into her brain. She saw his eyes cloud, as if something was settling in. But then they cleared and he released her, stepping back and abruptly walking away. She watched him go, unconsciously rubbing her arm where his hand had bit into her flesh.
Alone in her flat in Parkhead that evening, she could still feel his fingers biting into her skin as she prepared the hit. She thought about him as she tightened the rubber strap round her arm and inserted the needle into her enlarged vein, thinking about how much he looked like the boy McCall.
It only took a few moments for the almost pure heroin to flood her system. It didn’t take her much longer to die.
* * *
The first phone call came in the early hours of the morning.
Davie was alone in the flat. All the guests had left, Bernadette giving him another long hug, though thankfully this time his baser urges did not react, thanks to Vari’s skilled and enthusiastic ministrations. Vari had extracted a promise from him that he would call her, but he wasn’t sure he would. She seemed a nice girl – worldly, certainly – but nice enough. After Audrey, Davie was certain nice was not for him. Before Rab left, he told him that if he was up to it he had a job for him and Bobby the following day, a wee trip down the coast. Get you some fresh air, son, he had said, do you good. Nothing special, he had promised, just a message to a boy down Ayrshire way. Davie had simply nodded. How easily he had slipped into old ways.
Davie couldn’t sleep. The bed was too soft, the room too clean, the flat too quiet. He’d become used to the coughs and groans of the old prison, he found, and it would take time to become accustomed to the outside again. So he got up and paced the flat for a time, feeling restless but too tired to go for a walk. He searched for some paper on which to draw. He’d discovered an aptitude for art inside during classes run by a well-meaning lecturer from the School of Art. His sketches were good, their subjects always recognisable, but he’d never be the toast of the arty-farty crowd. He found the act of drawing soothing, and thrust away in one of the plastic bags he’d carried from the jail were sketches of Sammy, other prisoners and screws as well as landscapes both real and imagined. He would never show them to anyone. They were a secret part of him that he would never reveal.
He found some old rolls of wallpaper in a cupboard in the kitchen so he tore some off and ripped it into manageable sheets. There were a couple of pencils in a drawer in the living room, which he sharpened with a small knife from the cutlery tray.
Davie settled in to the old room with Joe’s LPs. He found the one he had held earlier, ‘In the Wee Small Hours of the Morning’. Sinatra’s smooth voice filled the room with longing and a sense of loss, and Davie thought of Joe and he thought of Audrey and it was her face he drew from memory. There had been a time, and he had discussed it with Joe on their last night together, that he believed he could leave The Life behind him, shake it off like a bad cold, and start afresh with Audrey. He had been young then and he thought such things were possible. When he went after Clem Boyle that thundery night and they had fought in the street like two gladiators, he began to realise that even though he might want to leave The Life, The Life might not want to give him up. The incidents with Donald Harris and the others in the jail was merely confirmation. He knew that, so had Audrey. And then there was that dark thing that Sammy had spoken about. Davie knew it lurked within him, waiting for the chance to spring to life. He had felt it before he went into the jail, a force that guided his actions when violence threatened. It had taken over when Harris went for him and dealt with the situation. It was still there, biding its time, waiting for the buttons to be pushed again.
You have a choice when the devil comes knocking, Sammy had said. Rab wanted him to do this message tomorrow. Was Rab the devil at the door? Or was he still to appear?
Davie sighed and tried to focus on Sinatra’s voice as he sang of heartbreak and lost love. When he looked at his sketch of Audrey he realised he’d put something else in, a dark shape behind her, little more than a shadow.
And then the phone rang.
At first Davie was going to ignore it but it kept ringing. Must be Rab or Bobby, Davie thought as he walked down the hallway to the living room: they’re the only people who have the number. Must be about tomorrow.
He perched on the arm of the settee beside the small table on which the phone sat and lifted the receiver. ‘Hello?’
At first there seemed to be nothing on the line, but then he heard the sound of traffic slipping by somewhere.
‘Hello,’ Davie said again, but still the caller did not reply. He frowned, wondering if someone was playing silly buggers.
‘Okay,’ he said, ‘I’m busy so…’
‘You’ve grown up, son.’
The four words made Davie’s blood freeze and something cold and damp breathed up his spine. He hadn’t heard that voice for thirteen years, but he knew who it was. He squeezed the solid plastic receiver, unconsciously pressing the earpiece tight against his head. He felt his breath catch and an old fear steal over him.
There was a slight laugh on the other end of the line. ‘What? Not got anything to say to your old man? After all these years?’
‘Where are you?’ It was not much of a question, but it was the only one in his head.
‘All in good time, son. For now, just thought I’d say hello, let you know I was still alive and kicking. How you been?’
‘What do you care?’
‘I’m your dad, of course I care.’
‘You’ve got funny ways of showing it.’
Another small laugh. ‘Ah, still upset, eh?’
Davie stifled the desire to scream at him down the phone. That was what Danny McCall wanted, he sensed. He wanted to hear his son lose it. Davie would not give him the satisfaction. Instead he asked, ‘What do you want?’
‘Told you, to say hello. Let you know I’m around.’
‘If Joe was still alive, you’d not be here.’
‘That’s true, that old bastard would’ve had me cut into pieces and fed to the pigs somewhere. I’ll tell you, I was never more relieved than I was to hear he’d copped it. Even so, I’d been back to the old town a few times before that. He didn’t know that. None of you knew that.’
‘Where else you been hiding?’
‘Ah, here, there, everywhere. Like the song says. You know that song, son? The Beatles?’
Davie gritted his teeth, rage building inside him and at the same time hearing a roaring in his ears, like waves on a rocky shore. ‘I’m not your son. I don’t want anything to do with you.’
Another small laugh. ‘Ah, that’s not true, though. Is it, Davie, son?’
‘Don’t call me “son”.’
‘But that’s what you are, like it or not, son. My boy. My offspring. The fruit of my loins. Can’t change that.’
‘Come and see me. We’ll see what changes.’
‘That’s my boy! Heard you were a chip off the old block. To be honest, I did wonder sometimes if you’d let bygones be bygones, but I can tell that’s not likely. So we’ve got unfinished business, you and me.’
‘Anytime you want to finish it, I’m here.’
He heard his father chuckle again, as if he was enjoying this. ‘Soon, son. When the time’s right. Got stuff to do first.’
‘What sort of stuff?’
‘Never you mind that now. But we’ll talk again, you and me. We’ve got some catching up to do…’
And then he was gone, the connection cut off. Davie stood as if frozen to the spot, the phone still to his ear. He listened to the dial tone as if it would give him a hint to where Danny McCall was, but the monotone buzz had nothing to say. He hung the receiver up almost gently and stared at it, Sinatra’s voice still floating through the flat as if the world really hadn’t changed at all.
But he knew who had thrown the dark shadow in the drawing.
14
NICE DAY FOR a run down the coast, Rab had said as Davie and Bobby had set off in Bobby’s Montego for Ayrshire. He was right. Although there was a bite in the air, the sky was blue and it was the kind of morning that makes you feel good to be alive. Or at least out of jail. Davie, though, had his mind on the phone call. He now knew his gut feeling that Danny McCall had been lurking around the city for ten years was sound. He didn’t tell Rab or Bobby about the call. He needed to understand exactly what his father was after. Once he had a clearer picture, he’d tell his mates.
Bobby chatted away as they drove through the south side of the city and down the A77, but Davie didn’t take much in, so wrapped up was he in his own thoughts. But one thing Bobby said penetrated, and he turned from the passenger window and stared at him.
Bobby’s head swivelled briefly towards Davie then returned to the road ahead. ‘I’m giving up The Life, Davie,’ he repeated.
Davie watched his pal’s face. Bobby knew him well enough not to take his lack of response as disinterest.
‘It’s no the same anymore,’ Bobby went on with a slight sigh. ‘Been thinking about it for a while. Just no the same. Not since Joe.’
Bobby trailed off and fell silent. Davie waited, knowing Bobby had more to say.
‘It’s the drugs, Davie. It’s… well, it’s just no the same, you know? I mean, this bloke we’re going to see today. Glasgow boy, who’s moved down to the sticks, right? He’s puntin gear to weans, they say. Weans, Davie. And we’re helping him.’
Davie knew they were going to deliver some sort of message, but he hadn’t asked what it was or why. He was simply along for the ride. Sometimes ‘a message’ could be a slap or two, other times something worse, but Rab had not suggested that this was anything more than verbal, some business best not trusted to phones. Only Bobby knew what the message was, and until now Davie hadn’t been interested.
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