by David Bowker
“Assault? She got a bit of curry sauce on her fucking conk.”
“You don’t seem to understand, dickbrain. If this pub gets any more bad publicity, it gets closed down. That’s my livelihood down the fucking Swanee. Now fuck off.”
“All right,” said Pest, getting to his feet. “Just one more thing.…”
And then he drew the Browning.
But before he could remove the safety catch, Snowy hit him. It was a wonderful direct punch in the mouth that sent Pest careering over chairs and tables. Pest tried to get up, but Snowy hit him again, this time splattering his nose. Pest was vaguely aware of being dragged through the narrow, crowded bar before being ejected into the cold night.
He lay on the pavement for a while, gathering his thoughts. The night was turning out quite badly. Ten minutes ago he’d had a pint, a curry, and a guaranteed shag. Now his front teeth were loose, his aquiline nose looked more like a viaduct, and his reputation as Glossop’s hardest man had taken a serious dent.
Pest rolled over onto his side, hawking and spitting to clear the blood from his throat. He felt intensely humiliated. It is always uniquely embarrassing when a man you feel sure you can beat has the audacity to turn round and hammer you. Who’d have thought a fairy like Snowy could pack a punch like that? It wasn’t as if the fat yellow-toothed bastard went to the gym or anything.
No, Snowy wasn’t hard. He’d just been lucky. Pest knew he was still the hardest man in Glossop, and possibly the northwest of England. He got to his knees, coughing. Cars went by, but no one stopped to help him. Good. Because if they had, Pest would have given them the same treatment he’d given his own car. Kicked their fucking headlamps in, that’d teach them to take pity on him, the patronizing four-wheeled bastards.
Then he remembered the gun. It was still inside the pub. He’d dropped it somewhere between the first and second punch. He got to his feet, realized it hurt to breathe. His ribs ached, although he wasn’t sure why. Swearing, he walked back into the crowded pub and up to the bar. “Gimme my fucking gun.”
Snowy looked at him and sighed. Pest could see regret in his eyes as the landlord studied his shattered face. Snowy whistled to someone out of view. Pest felt a supportive arm slip under his left armpit. He looked to see who it was and saw Jammer.
“You’re not to start any more trouble,” said Jammer sternly.
“Take him to a hospital, would you?” pleaded Snowy. “I’d appreciate it.”
Jammer nodded. Pest hung his head for a moment to drip blood onto the floorboards. Then Jammer marched him out.
Pest didn’t want to go to a hospital. He insisted that he’d be better off at home. They were halfway to Pest’s house when he remembered the Browning again and tried to turn back. “I need it.”
“I’ve got your fucking gun,” said Jammer. “Here. Take the bloody thing. I don’t know where you got it and I don’t fucking want to know.”
“Fuck off.”
“Listen. Don’t come back to the pub tonight. Get me? I’ll smooth things over with Snowy; leave that to me. Give it a couple of days to blow over; he’ll come round. But tonight you’re staying home. OK?”
“Just fuck off, will ya?”
Pest hugged the weapon to his heart until they were at his front door. Jammer asked if he needed any more help. Pest took a swing at him, missed, and fell over. Jammer walked away in disgust. Pest struggled to his feet, found his door key, and let himself in. He turned on the light and lay down on the sofa. Still clutching the gun, he passed out.
* * *
The fat man with curly hair that Rawhead had butted in the face was called Fats Medcroft. On Rawhead’s second night Medcroft was on duty, eyes swollen, a plaster on his nose. “You wouldn’t believe the cunt who did it. Some cunt in a pair of goggles—the stupidest twat you ever saw—nuts me and shoots another lad’s foot off. First rule of running a door: Just because a fella looks like a daft prick don’t mean he ain’t dangerous.”
Fats Medcroft was about forty-five. He refused to call the new boy Abraham, feeling it was a puff’s name. So he called him Stoker. Everyone else did the same.
In his youth, Fats had been a promising boxer but had found it difficult to keep within his weight category. Forty thousand meat pies later, Fats was the most disgracefully unhealthy-looking bouncer Rawhead had ever seen. Fats smoked constantly and kept a flask of brandy in his hip pocket.
While they controlled the door, a third bouncer called Sirus patrolled inside to check for trouble and drug dealers. Sirus had a peroxide crew cut. He looked like a low-grade villain from a Bond film, one of those poor fucks who get thrown to the piranhas and never make another movie as long as they live.
Tonight was a dance night. Fats hated dance nights, not because of the lasers and the noise but because of all the illicit dealers trying to unload their talcum powder on unsuspecting posh kids from Bramhall and Cheadle Hulme. Pockets and handbags had to be searched, it took time, and there were only two of them.
“Why doesn’t Mr. Priest employ more staff?”
“Because he hasn’t got the money,” said Fats.
“How come? This place must make a fortune.”
“Yeah. But Malcolm only gets to keep a share. Most of it goes to the big man.”
After they’d searched a coachload of kids from Rochdale, Fats went for a cup of tea and a sit-down. Little Malc appeared and asked Rawhead how he was doing.
“Fine, Mr. Priest.”
“Good,” said Little Malc, walking about in a great cloud of citrus-scented cologne. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, but I’ve got to search you.”
Rawhead frowned. “I thought you’d already done that?”
Little Malc, hands working all the time, shot Rawhead a sly glance. “Just because you came in clean don’t mean you still are.”
“Fine. I just wouldn’t want you to search the wrong guy—”
Little Malc glared at him. “Listen, fuckface,” he said, suddenly sounding and looking like his father’s son. “You’re just a fucking doorknob with a stupid name. After tonight, you might not even be a doorknob.”
Fats returned from his tea break as Little Malc was storming off. “He gets like that,” Fats said. “Pay no attention. He hasn’t seen his wife for a few nights. The lad gets grumpy when he hasn’t had his whistle blown.”
It was Rawhead’s turn for a break. He went to the gents for a piss, but the door was jammed. He kicked it open and saw a man in a dinner jacket slam into the opposite wall. It was Sirus. Two hundred and fifty pounds of rippling muscle and the guy couldn’t even hold a door shut.
Angry and humiliated, Sirus turned on Rawhead. “Use the fucking bog upstairs.” His eyes were wide and shining, like he’d just seen a vision of the Virgin Mary. But Rawhead thought it was more likely that he’d been nosing coke.
Rawhead didn’t move, so Sirus tried to shove him. Rawhead didn’t like being touched, especially by low-grade Bond villains. He punched Sirus in his six-pack and Sirus doubled up, yelling, “Oof!”
Rawhead was surprised. He thought people only said “Oof!” in comics.
Rawhead looked past the injured doorman at the two other guys who were standing by the sink. Between them lay a black attaché case. The case was open. Rawhead couldn’t make out the contents, but he recognized the two men. It was the Medina brothers. They stared at him, not moving, too startled to be angry.
“Tell you what,” said Rawhead, turning to leave. “Why don’t I use the bog upstairs?”
* * *
Just before midnight, a silvery sports car screeched to a halt outside the club. A man with a sequined beret got out, followed by a blond woman with very long legs and a very short skirt. Leaving the car running, they walked to the door. Fats nodded respectfully. The man in the beret tossed his car keys to Rawhead.
“Park the car, would you, my good man?” You could tell he thought he was a witty guy. His girlfriend certainly thought so.
Rawhead tossed the keys bac
k. “Park it yourself.”
“My friend doesn’t understand,” said Fats, shooting Rawhead a warning glance. He nodded at the beret-wearing prick, then at the poster on the door. “This is Zippa Jay, Manchester’s coolest DJ. Park his car.”
Zippa Jay and his girlfriend smirked as Rawhead grimly accepted the keys and walked out to the car. He was beginning to wonder if he was temperamentally suited to being a doorman. The car was a Porsche Boxster with a number plate that read:
ZIPPA 1
If there was one thing that Rawhead hated more than personalized number plates, it was DJs. They reminded him of the fourteen year olds who open their bedroom windows wide on summer afternoons so the entire neighborhood can hear their record collection. Such behavior is forgivable in a naive kid. But not in a thirty-five-year-old twat in a beret.
Rawhead motored round to the private car park behind Diva and slotted the Porsche into a reserved parking space. He took a penknife out of his pocket and scraped a diagonal line across the car’s bonnet.
Suddenly Zippa’s car didn’t look nearly so expensive.
* * *
When Pest came round, he didn’t know where he was.
His first impression was that he was still on the pavement outside the Old Cow. He could feel freezing cold air on his face and ankles and the base of his spine. He opened his eyes slowly and recognized that he was at home, lying on the torn and shiny sofa stained with ketchup, brown ale, and stray jism. It was winter and his house had no heating apart from a two-bar electric fire that he’d forgotten to put on. Cold air poured in through the gap under the front door.
His face hurt, but not unbearably. What hurt more was the memory of the severe pounding Snowy Rains had given him. Something hard was burrowing into Pest’s chest. He reached for the cause of his discomfort, felt the muzzle of the gun. With a rush of anxiety he remembered the job he’d been given. Stiffly he turned his head to look at the clock and for a horrible moment thought it was quarter past six. Fuck! Fuck! He sat up and, focusing, saw that it was in fact thirty-two minutes past three. This was still very bad. He had half an hour to get downtown.
He went upstairs to relieve his bladder, farting curry fumes as he waited for the piss to flow. When he looked in the mirror, he was dismayed. He looked like one of the losers after a bout at “Fight Club.”
He could still smell bile but couldn’t see where the stench was coming from. Above the neckline of his leather jacket he could see he was wearing a speckled brown scarf. He couldn’t recall owning such a scarf and opened the jacket for a closer look. A solid lump of cold vomit sagged forward and slapped to the bathroom floor like a jelly.
Pest had no time to wash or change his clothes, no time to study for a fucking Ph.D., either. Stinking and unsightly, he went downstairs and had a brief panic while he searched for his gun. It was on the floor by the sofa. A horrifying thought occurred to him. What if Snowy had unloaded it? His heart hammered like an injured bird’s until he released the clip and saw that he still had his seven shots.
It was now 3:36. Move it, you twat, you loser.
He rushed into his kitchen, walls and ceiling black with the grease from a thousand filthy fry-ups. In a cupboard above the sink he kept some sulphate in the bottom of a cracked china cup. The gray powder was hard and old. He chipped a lump free with the end of a teaspoon and swallowed it. Almost instantly he felt the speed lighting him up, window by window, like a tall building at night.
Then he went out to the crappy Sierra and started it up.
His journey to the club was fast and berserk. He jumped every available light. The speed he’d taken made all the red lights leave weird wiggly trails. If there had been any pedestrians on the roads, he would have mown down the fuckers and laughed about it. He was a killer.
At the mouth of Water Street he rolled down his window and slowed to a crawl. Pest didn’t know the time. He didn’t have a watch and he’d forgotten to charge up his mobile phone. He had no idea whether he was late or early. Probably late. The street outside the club was surprisingly busy, taxis coming and going, girls standing about in groups, laughing and talking. At four in the fucking morning.
Outside Diva he had to wait for a black cab to load up and move away. This gave him a chance to see who was on the door. There was just one guy there, some lanky bonehead in a suit. Absolutely no fucking problem.
Pest had planned on waiting in his car with the engine running until Little Malc came out, but there were too many cars. He was scared that if he parked, some inconsiderate fucker might box him in. Then he’d be in trouble after the hit. “Excuse me. Would you mind moving your motor? I need to make a speedy fucking getaway.…”
Instead he found a dark side street, parked the car, and walked back to the club. After the sulphate, he was well revved. He was fucking buzzing. Tonight he was going to kill Little Malc. The son of Malcolm Priest. This would make his reputation. In a few months, with a few kills under his belt, he’d give Snowy Rains an ultimatum: “Free beer for life or I’ll kill all your customers, one by one.”
He found a dark doorway across the street from the club and lay there. Nothing unusual about a guy lying in a Manchester doorway. The wall beside him reeked of rotting fish, but Pest didn’t smell much better. A couple of young women clicked by, all lip gloss and powdered pubes.
Pest took out his gun, slipped off the safety catch, and waited.
An hour passed. As he watched, the lights outside the club went off. The bonehead on the door emerged once, to glance up and down the street. Then he disappeared again. A couple of loud rich guys came out of the club, then went back in, then came out again, like indecisive homos. For what seemed like ages the two ponces stood outside the club, laughing and talking in rich, plummy voices. It seemed obvious that they were waiting for a cab, but then they broke away abruptly and walked off in opposite directions.
In the space of about fifteen minutes the street had emptied. Above the doorway, high above the ugly roofs and chimneys, the full moon looked down at Pest, its pale mouth open as if it was about to gob in his face. A block away, some guy was singing unaccompanied in a sweet tenor voice. “I wonder what is keeping my true love tonight, I wonder what is keeping her from my sight…”
The voice echoed, lonely and sad, a stab of poetry in the piss-stained night.
Instinctively Pest moved farther back into the doorway. A moment later, a silver Rolls-Royce oozed past and parked outside the club.
Engine purring comfortably, the Rolls waited, completely blocking Pest’s view of the main entrance. He got to his feet for a better look and saw the uniformed driver getting out of the car. Pest heard voices and started to walk, adrenalin wiping out the reassuring glow of the sulphate. The gun’s handle and trigger were now slippery with his sweat. His legs felt unsteady as he raced round the side of the Rolls to perform his first-ever hit.
A short, wide-shouldered man in a gray suit was approaching the car. The chauffeur, stout and gray-haired, held the passenger door open for him. Pest brushed past the chauffeur and said, “Malcolm Priest Junior?” He had to be sure.
“Yes,” said Little Malc automatically, his eyes widening as he realized he’d made a mistake.
Little Malc saw the gun and stretched out the palms of his hands. As if he was Clark Kent and his hands could deflect a speeding bullet. The chauffeur, who could have intervened, hadn’t yet worked out what was happening. Pest could feel his own heart bouncing around in his chest, like a bird trapped inside a room, crashing from wall to wall in its panic.
Time seemed to slow down. Pest thought, This is it; I cannot fail. He’s standing right in front of me. Now I shoot him. He’s just fucking standing there. All I have to do is point the gun and squeeze the trigger. Don’t snatch at the trigger; that’ll fuck up your shot. Aim at the target and squeeze slowly. But oh, the gun feels heavy. So very heavy.
The thing was, Pest had never killed anyone. He’d slashed guys, burned and stabbed them, kicked them in the head. But
he’d never deliberately pulled the off switch on another human being. It was a little harder than he’d expected.
Shouting and swearing, hands over his eyes, Little Malc threw himself on the floor and curled up in a ball, as if this would somehow protect him from a bullet fired at close range. The chauffeur was crouching behind the bonnet of the car. He was shouting, too. Pest was about to shoot Little Malc when he was distracted by someone walking toward him. It was the tall bonehead who’d been standing on the door.
Pest should have shot Little Malc there and then. But as the doorman drew closer, Pest saw he was holding an oversize revolver, the kind of weapon Clint Eastwood used in the Dirty Harry films. He appeared to be in no hurry. He moved like a man going out to buy a newspaper. His gun, held loosely in his right hand, was pointed at the ground. Obviously an amateur. Pest decided to shoot him first.
Pest fired. The tremendous ringing blam of the shot made him jump. There was more smoke than he’d expected. The smoke smelled sweet, like the cap guns he’d played with as a kid. Although Pest had aimed at the doorman’s midriff, or thought he had, the bullet hit the Rolls, blasting a hole through the rear passenger door. The car rocked on its beautiful springs.
The doorman kept on coming.
Pest fired again. This time, the gun went myoww like a startled cat. The second bullet hit the wall beside the doorman’s head, showering him with brick dust and sparks. The doorman did not flinch, merely raised his own weapon and fired.
The big gun made a noise like the earth cracking open. The bullet hit Pest in the chest, severing his aorta. He rocketed backward flying five feet through the air. He landed on his back, already confused and blinking. Two seconds later he was dead.
Six
He gives me wealth: I give him all my Vowes:
I give him songs; He gives me length of dayes
—“CANTICLE,” FRANCIS QUARLES (1592–1644)
When he heard the shots, Fats Medcroft ran upstairs to the gents’ lavatory and hid. His departure was prompted by ambition, not cowardice. He was fat and old, his tits were getting bigger by the year, but Fats still dreamed of making something of his life. He was not about to get mourned for a man who paid him five pounds an hour.