by Tony Black
I nashed through the streets, over paving flags all cracked to buggery. Round the burning wheelie bins — apparently you can get a buzz off them. I kept my head low this time, avoided any eye contact. Avoided the hails of skag merchants, yelling:
‘You sorted, pal?’
‘What about some jellies?’
‘Bag ay puff?’
Didn’t answer, got:
‘A shooter ye after, big man?’
‘You for a ride? Only top nanny, mind.’
Then:
‘… Well fuck ye!’
‘… Homo!’
‘… Fucking bawbag!’
Was hard to imagine meaner streets. Christ, even I was a tourist here. But if a Corrado skidded into view, I’d be ready for it. Somehow I doubted it, though. Smart money was on that baby being garaged for the foreseeable.
At the boarded-up store I tapped the counter, roused the Sikh. ‘How goes it?’
A ‘like I care about that shit’ stare.
I produced the bottle of Glenfiddich, pushed it through the bars, said, ‘I wanted to say thank you… for what you did the other day.’
His face lit up. A huge row of teeth, fair dazzled me. He took the bottle, said, ‘Thank you.’
I shrugged. ‘I’m the one giving thanks here, don’t be turning the tables on me. I’m serious: what you did, you probably saved my life.’
A wave of the hand. ‘No, sir, I do the same for anyone.’ He wiped at the bottle with the tips of his fingers. ‘Come, a drink, yes?’
Like I’d say no.
The Sikh called through to the back. A young girl in denims came out, slouched at the till and started to chew on red-liquorice laces.
Out back smelled of strong spices, cooking. Made my mouth water.
He put two china cups down on the table, poured. I waited for him to drink first. He raised his cup, clinked it on mine. All the while he smiled like a cheeky child. At first taste, I could see he approved.
‘I am Rafi.’
‘Gus. Pleased to meet you.’
We shook.
More smiles. Didn’t think his English was up to much more; tried anyway: ‘I wondered, how did you get those little shites off me?’
A laugh. His head shook on his shoulders. ‘Mossberg!’
‘You what?’
In a second he was out of his chair, unfurling a chain from his belt with a bunch of keys on the end. He slid one into the lock of a battered old cabinet, popped the door. As he turned he grasped the barrel on a pump-action shotgun. ‘Mossberg. Best, yes?’
Somehow, when I see a gun like this, I pinch my lips. ‘That’s some piece. I’m guessing that’ll do the trick.’
He smiled, beamed wide. ‘No talkie. No talkie, Mr Gus.’ He wagged a finger at me. ‘Rafi, no papers.’
I couldn’t help but laugh. He laughed with me, poured another cup of whisky.
For an hour we sat, finished the bottle.
‘You eat with us, Mr Gus.’
‘I’d love to, Rafi… love to, just love to, mate.’ I was feeling a bit tanked, the good stuff mixing with the codeine tabs I’d swallowed earlier on an empty stomach. ‘But my wife would disapprove of me imposing on your family.’
‘A wife, yes. Good. Good.’
‘Sorry, I meant ex-wife.’
‘Ah, ex-wife, not good.’
‘You got that bang to rights. Let me tell you about the d-i-v-o-r-c-e…’
He knew the song, surprised me, joined in:
‘ D-i-v-o-r-c-e…’ We raised the roof, clutching each other, peals of laughter flooding out of us when the door was flung open and an old woman in a sari pushed in, blasted Rafi with some heavy-duty home language. For that stuff you don’t need the lingo, it’s the same the world over. He shrank before me, lowered his head. I followed his lead. When she left, slamming the door behind her, I stood up.
‘Time to boost…’ I had to meet Hod and make our venture out to the pit fight. ‘I’ve enjoyed your company, Rafi, but I must nash.’
The headlight smile came back on. Handshake. ‘Always my pleasure, Mr Gus! Any time, any time.’
As he grasped my hand tightly, I had a thought, said, ‘Rafi, y’know, if it wouldn’t be stretching the friendship too much, there is one thing you could do for me…’
Chapter 44
Had some rain. left the streets looking washed. In this town that’s something. The council was wrestling with a ‘budget black hole’, according to the papers. Never ceased to amaze me: any other city you visit in the world, they manage to empty the bins, tend the parks, clean the streets. Edinburgh, unless there’re developer kickbacks or a massive tourism pay-off, forget it. Daily the population gets one in the coal-hole from the mob in the City Chambers. Really boils my piss. Such a scenic town. A World Heritage city. But in reality, just a jam pot for the few with their hands on the levers.
I jumped into the nearest newsagent’s. Ordered: ‘Twenty, nah, make that forty Rothmans.’
They had a collection of bottles behind the counter, up on the shelf. Lambrusco on offer, great fluorescent orange star stuck to the side saying?1.99. Wasn’t tempted. But after starting on the whisky with Rafi at Sighthill, I wasn’t stopping. Said, ‘Oh and chuck in a couple of quarter-bottles of that.’
I pointed to the vodka. Was overtaking scoosh in the convenience stores now; the first choice of our influx of Polish immigrants.
The newsagent put the bottles before me. I looked at the label — name I’d never heard of. Pocketed them. On the street I stood waiting for Hod, wrestled the cellophane off my tabs, sparked up.
The smoke cancelled out the smell of dampness rising from the paving flags. It was like an old memory being shoved to the back of my mind: dampness, wet, rain… When I look back these are the background images in every scene. My life has been lived in the tones of Van Gogh’s early paintings, grey and greyer. The few moments of colour all involved Debs; but she featured in a lot of the grey days too.
I had a Mossberg pump under my Crombie that Rafi had sold to me; kept a firm hand on the barrel. As I schlepped over the road, the shooter rammed into my ribs with every step. Knew it pulled my coat south. I felt lopsided, but in this rain, who was looking?
I wasn’t messing about. End of.
The night was cold. Dark clouds gathering at the edges of a red sky. As I waited at the roadside I powered through my Rothmans King Size. The sharpness of the air seemed to take the hit out of the cigarette so I stubbed it. For some reason I thought of Debs again. It was on nights like this we’d begun to bond. Freezing half to death on park benches, sharing ten Regal on a roundabout in some skanky playground.
The reverie was soon interrupted as Hod’s car screeched up; a yell, ‘Get in.’
I opened the door. ‘Fuck me, it’s Chewbacca!’ I sat down and buckled up. All the while trying to disguise the shooter. He wouldn’t approve.
‘What’s with the faraway look?’ said Hod.
‘No look.’
‘Bollocks… Is it Debs?’
Jesus, did it still show? ‘No, no way.’
‘C’mon, you can’t kid me, I was your best man, remember. I know that look.’
I took out my smokes again. Sparked another one. ‘I saw her earlier,’ I said.
‘And?’
‘She told me Jonny Johnstone has it set in his mind that I’m going down.’
Hod pulled around a red Micra, waved a hand to let out a bus. ‘Hasn’t she been speaking up for you? Can’t she set this arsehole straight? I mean, she should be our inside track here, no?’
I wound down the window, flicked ash. ‘Hod, she’s not my wife any more. She doesn’t owe me anything and besides…’
I trailed off mid-sentence but Hod was listening, a gap appearing in the fuzz of his face. ‘Besides what?’
‘I think she’d be too frightened to speak up for me. Not because she’s shitting it from J. J., but because she wouldn’t want to rattle him any more. Like Fitz said, the man has a boner for me.’
Hod fired up: ‘I thought plod was supposed to be professional about these things. Fucksake, what’s his problem? I just don’t get this.’
‘Jonny Boy’s young and insecure, Hod. That’s what it boils down to. He wants to obliterate Debs’s past, completely own her — with this murder case he’s found the perfect way to do it… And there’s more to it. He’s up to some kind of shit I can’t quite get a handle on.’
‘But how? He’s off the case.’
‘Bollocks to that. McAvoy’s working the case for him: a man desperate for a collar, any collar — what a gift!’
‘Bad boys stick together.’
I frowned. ‘I’m not sure about that. I mean, I don’t know how much McAvoy is interested in J. J. as a partner, even a junior one. The pair struck me as both a little too self-interested to get along… D’you know what I mean?’
Hod revved the engine, dropped a gear; in second he beat the lights. He didn’t need to answer my question, I could see he understood where I was coming from — the pair would cut each other’s throats to get ahead.
‘Anyway, things might change tonight,’ said Hod.
I had my doubts but I was willing to give it a go. ‘You think the wee bastard with the Corrado will be there?’
‘There’s every chance. They don’t put these sort of gigs on every night of the week.’
‘I suppose.’
‘Look, be positive…’
I saw Bell’s books again — reran ‘Techniques for positive visualisation’.
‘Positive — that’s horseshit. You’ll be telling me to keep my fingers crossed next.’
‘Gus, we have a chance here, slim as it might be, to track down the little fucker that killed Tupac, maybe even link him up to Mark Crawford. Let’s not balls it up is all I’m saying.’
‘Okay. Okay.’ The point was taken. Stay off the sauce. Keep the head. Don’t, under any circumstances, lose it.
‘At the very least we get to see that slimy fucker Sid in action. Keep a close eye on him — whoever he’s mixing it with might be useful to us.’
I took a grip on the shooter. I had a handful of cartridges in each pocket of my Crombie. Felt comforting. Like insurance.
‘And anyway, it’s not the end of the world if we don’t grab us a gimpy boy tonight,’ said Hod.
‘How come?’
‘Well, we have some leads now, right?’
‘ We?’ I wasn’t getting this Hod seeing himself as my partner business one iota.
‘Yeah, well, I’m on the team, right?’
‘Hod, there is no fucking team… there’s me versus the world. I wouldn’t be opting for a side so quick if I were you.’
Hod pelted the accelerator, hit the bypass. ‘C’mon, don’t mark me for a wuss — I’m in, all right.’
An artic pulled out from a slip road. Hod had to floor it to get past.
‘Hod, watch the road, eh?’
‘Gus, my man, relax there. With me on the team you have an extra pair of hands, eyes, and that’s not to mention my brain and brawn.’
I laughed. ‘You put it like that…’
‘How else would I put it?’
‘Well, there’s no question you can be a help. What I’m having trouble with is the whole babysitting aspect.’
‘Oh…’
‘Yes, oh… Hod, I know you and Mac and maybe one or two others are scheming to get me off the sauce, sorted, into, I dunno, the poor man’s Priory. Hear me now: it’ll never happen.’
Hod put on the indicator, pulled off the bypass at the Loanhead roundabout.
Just before the village was a row of abandoned terrace cottages, old-style red-brick jobs. All boarded up. Like a post-apocalyptic Coronation Street. How, in the city’s mad state of overdevelopment, these had not been snapped up was beyond me. A few flat-pack kitchens, plasterboard walls, we were talking a quarter mil for one of them.
‘You’re not scoping new property, are you?’ I said.
‘Fuck no — Loanheid!’
‘Well, why you slowing down?’
‘This is the first part of the trip, my son.’
‘You what?’
A skinny lad in a blue Lonsdale hoodie came scurrying out of the backyard of the nearest boarded-up terrace. He looked down the street, left to right, then seemed to take a note of the number plate and check it against a list.
‘Here we go. Let me do the talking, Gus.’
‘Go yerself.’
The lad lolled up to Hod’s window, leaned over. He spoke, ‘You know the big man, eh?’
‘Yeah, I know the big man… he likes his fishing.’
‘That’ll be fly fishing?’
‘He’s a fly man.’
The lad unzipped his Lonsdale top, tucked a hand in and brought out a bit of paper, handed it over to Hod. ‘That’s yer map there. Have a good night, eh, mate.’
‘Oh, I think we will… I think we will.’
Chapter 45
The map took us beyond the city boundaries, deep into the countryside.
‘We’re gonna be in fucking Glasgow soon, Hod.’
‘I’m following the map.’
‘You sure about that?’
He thrust the piece of paper at me, said, ‘Check if you like.’
I didn’t bother.
I had a quarter of vodka in my inside pocket, cracked it open, tipped back a few mouthfuls. Then a few more.
Seemed to settle the thrashing in my stomach.
‘You’re not gonna lash that, are you?’ said Hod.
I held up the bottle; seemed pathetically small, said, ‘Could I? Is it possible?’
‘You could have half a dozen of them stashed about you, I wouldn’t know… I mean, what’s with the coat? It’s hardly the weather for it.’
I let that slide, tucked away the bottle.
We took the M8 for about six miles before hitting the side roads. Lots of brown-backed signposts appeared declaring we were on a ‘Tourist Route’. Official: this entire country is not for those who live in it.
After a mile or so, Hod chucked a hairpin right, hit dirt track. Heard David Byrne wail, ‘We’re on a road to nowhere’… except maybe the dark heart of the forest. Light overhead became thinner and thinner, until it was time to flick the headlamps on.
‘This is spooky shit,’ said Hod.
‘Man, not the time to be bottling on me.’
‘Bottling? Me?’
‘You just said you were spooked.’
‘I was scene-setting.’
‘Oh yeah.’
Through the forest and out the other side we hit a clearing, another dirt track. In the open I could see it had been churned up quite a bit. Deep puddles and a mush of black earth indicating some heavy traffic had passed this way recently.
‘Looks like we’re getting close.’
‘According to this,’ Hod waved the map, ‘we should be just about there.’
‘Hold up… what’s this?’
A big biffer in a black leather jacket, shaved head, unshaven face, approached. He had a moustache that would put Harley handles in the shade. As he got closer I saw he looked like the late Ollie Reed, matched him for size and sheer shit-stopping radgeness.
A hand went up. Hod braked, wound down the window. ‘All right, mate.’
Not a flicker; cold eyes. ‘What you up tae?’
‘We’re, eh… friends of the big man.’
‘Aye, spare me that shite… You got Hosie’s map?’
‘Hosie… oh, right, the wee hoodie.’ Hod held up the map.
The biffer stuck a hand through the open window. Four sovereign rings played for attention with some nasty spider’s-web tats. One inky near the wrist read CUT HERE. He grabbed the map, tucked it in his pocket then pointed out to the left: ‘Take the motor over there, by that wee clump ay trees. You can park in front ay the barn. Pit’s on the inside.’
Hod put the car in gear, raised a little wave in gratitude, then drove for the barn. ‘You see his face?’
he said.
‘The scar… fucking deadly.’
‘Never seen a Mars bar like that before.’
I knew what he meant: it wasn’t a clean cut, it was jagged. ‘What do you think, a bottle fight?’
‘Maybe a dog attack… or maybe someone just wanted him to look carved up good and proper.’
I didn’t like to think about it. I touched the barrel of the Mossberg for reassurance.
As Hod parked the car I got out, hit myself up with another blast of vodka. The bottle near emptied on me. I held it in my hand, staring at it until Hod appeared at my side and said, ‘What’s up?’
‘Nothing.’ I raised the bottle again, finished the dregs.
‘Got you in some shit that stuff, hasn’t it.’
It was a low blow, but could I fault him? It was perfectly pitched.
I threw the bottle, watched it smash on a tree, said, ‘C’mon, let’s do this.’
I put my collar up as we strode towards the barn doors. There were angry pit bulls chained to car axles that had been staked into the ground. Every one of the dogs strained to break free and attack its nearest neighbour. An Irishman stood pointing to one of them, highlighting each of its scars and regaling a slope-shouldered yoof in trackies with tales of the fights it had won.
Inside the place was hoachin. Like a cattle auction. Men stood three, four deep around the centre of the barn. Light was poor, save at the midpoint, where some old storm lanterns were suspended from the roof beams.
We edged our way closer. Suddenly the crowd seemed to disperse.
‘Are we too late?’ I asked Hod.
An old gadgie, baseball cap turned round, answered for him: ‘Utter fucking shite pagger that was. Where they got that useless wee cunt in there I’ve no idea.’
Hod smiled. ‘A mismatch?’
‘Mismatch? Fucking bloodbath — look at it.’
I got to the front of the crowd to see what he was on about. A ring, maybe fifteen feet wide, had been set up. Inside was a forty-pound snarling pit bull shaking the virtually lifeless body of what looked like the same breed. The near-dead animal had remarkably similar markings to Usual. I felt my heart pound.
I turned away. My hand raised automatically to my mouth.
From nowhere, I felt my arm knocked down. ‘Don’t make that face, Gus,’ said Hod.