Gang War

by Graham Johnson

  The lads head down to the ePod, a concrete and sheet-metal box on an industrial estate. It was originally built as a giant logistics complex but was turned into a club after the local factories were pushed out by the new light industry – mass drug-dealing. DJs from the Pleasure Rooms are on. All the lads bail in. Everyone gets a walkover, so they don’t have to pay, but the doormen make Lupus and Clegsy, who are carrying the guns, leave them in the car.

  Pauline’s over there, Pauline MacInerney, the girlfriend of Everton’s new wonderkid Rocky O’Rourke. Heat/Closer/Grazia are calling her the new Coleen. She was a sixth-former at Holly Lodge last week; this week she’s a multimillionaire WAG.

  She’s reverting to type now. Her phoney smile has started slipping into a crooked snarl as she argues with some girls off her old estate who’ve come over to wish her well. She’s wearing tight jeans, heels, dark, oversized sunglasses, a tight, white body, fastened at the gusset. Looks half-decent over her bumps. Her hair’s done in a mad WAG style, kind of a rockabilly bun, with a big hairsprayed quiff.

  New Loon shouts over, ‘Tell your Rocky I’m gonna burst his ball, girl. Then I’m gonna burst him – from the stands with a sight-mounted SA80.’ He grins. Pauline can’t hear him because of the music, so he brings his arms up to shoulder height, as though he’s holding a sniper rifle, Lee Harvey Oswald-style.

  ‘Bang. I’m going to ‘plode his grid. Ugly twat.’

  Pauline’s ex-SAS bodyguards close ranks around her. Doormen, plated up in body armour, move in. To ease the tension, a trayful of whiskies is brought for the lads. Appeasement.

  The lads are taking Magic, powdered Ecstasy. None of them dance. They line up, shadow boxing on the spot in time to the music.

  Dylan’s mobile goes off. Caller ID shows a code name he’s keyed in for Paul McQuillum.

  ‘How you doing, my mate?’ asks Paul.

  ‘Sound.’

  ‘What are you up to?’

  ‘Just at the ePod. At the wake and that.’

  ‘Was all right, that, wasn’t it?’ Paul says, obliquely referring to the successful body retrieval and the execution of the burial.

  ‘No sweat, lad.’

  Paul makes a mad, strangulated sound, like a coughing animal, the automatic, ingrained behaviour of a drug dealer used to covering up his phone conversations with random noises in order to prevent being taped. It’s a cue to move on and say little else over the phone.

  ‘Pop into the hotel, if you’re around, for a cup of tea,’ says Paul.

  ‘OK.’

  ‘We can have a walk around the town, bowl of soup in the Chinese, whatever you’re up to.’

  ‘Nice one.’

  ‘Whenever you’re ready. Any time when you’ve got five minutes.’

  ‘OK.’

  ‘By the way, the other feller [Peter] got a little thing for you there for helping him out there.’

  ‘You don’t have to do that, mate.’

  ‘Listen, mate, we’ve all got to live. We’ve all got mobile bills to sort. We’ve all got families and sisters and that.’ Paul’s letting Dylan know he understands his situation.

  Dylan wants the dough badly. It’s much needed. He divvies it up quickly in his mind, guessing it’ll be about a grand: £500 to his nan for looking after his two younger brothers and his sister; £100 to his sister for some new gear; £100 to his ma for a day’s brown and white; £150 for some new gear for himself; £150 for the night out tonight. But he has to pretend to Paul that he isn’t arsed about the money, that he’s mysteriously doing all right from his gang graft.

  ‘Listen, mate, that was a present from me. A gift on the day of my daughter’s wedding, mate,’ says Dylan, both of them buzzing off the in-joke off of The Godfather.

  ‘No, no, no. Listen, mate, behave yourself.’

  ‘Sound, mate,’ says Dylan, massively relieved about the money, buzzing.

  ‘And I’ve sorted you out at that Sacchanalia bar for a little drink and that. Take your bird or one of your mates if you want.’

  So Dylan and Nogger got off in a Joe into town.

  CHAPTER 7

  WAG PARTY

  Dylan, Nogger. Graft-reward meeting for getting the body back, a little sweetener off Paul McQuillum. Outside the bar, the roid-head doormen shaved heads, black coats, ID passes in white plastic holders on silver-ball chains – are serious but a bit too undisciplined and not arsed to be professional. Regional. Dylan and Nogger are not arsed either. No let-ons, no shaking hands, no ‘all right, mate’, no big mad doorman hugs, no Scouse Sopranos stuff – just right up to the door.

  The door team stand back in deference to Dylan and Nogger. For the first time tonight they’re cowed. They’ve been rock hard all night to bits of birds and office workers, bullying daft waglets, civilians. But not any more. The doormen are suddenly aware of their mortality.

  They’re impotent. Any gyp, and Nogger will do one of them. Nine out. Bang! Bang! Bang! Or tomorrow he’ll find one of the two-up, two-downs where they live. And before the roid head even has a call-out, before he’s even started his morning ablutions – shitting out the smelly weight-gain powder, the runny raw eggs by the glass, the chemically steds – Nogger’ll nail the windows shut, seal the door shut, petrol-bomb the place. Industrial fireworks through the windows, kids’ bedroom as well. Stick a nail bomb in there. Everyone understands this. In an instant. The roid-head doormen pricks are seeing images of their toddlers burning, Peppa Pig PJs melting like a plastic bag.

  Dylan and Nogger bounce through, expressionless but buzzing off facing down the doormen, egos pumped up off the serious gangster flex. Pianoey house music drifts over them in waves, getting louder, pumping them further. Scarface.

  A row of ten tellies is stuck to the right-hand wall above head height, showing Nogger and Dylan walking through the atrium. Live. Liverpool Fashion Week TV. Nogger instinctively covers his face with his right arm, flicks his hood up with a slight bow. Inside, the place is full of waglets in short, floaty dresses with patchy orange tans and straightened, shoulder-length blonde hair. Dylan knows he should feel aroused, but an image of their waxed, red-raw-round-the-edges fannies flashes into his mind and he feels deadened.

  Dylan and Nogger head into a VIP booth off to the left. The table’s dirty and wet with spilled drinks. Dylan gets onto a waglet: silky empire-line dress, two strips of fabric covering her false tits, hard, angular face, funny, scowly grid. She’s dancing a bit, serious, pretending she doesn’t notice she’s desired. But she soon loses her on-top-ness when the Queen WAG waltzes in and steals the show. Pauline MacInerney’s out to celebrate her feller being picked to play for England.

  Everyone’s looking. All the girls want to talk to her, talk shit to her about a shared experience in Cricket. She gives a random waglet the nod of approval: ‘You’re lovely.’ Tells her her dress/handbag/shoes are gorgeous. The random waglet has got her hair seriously wrong. Even Dylan can see that. Peaches Geldof messy bob crossed with a retro beehive. You’re not Amy Winehouse, girl, Dylan thinks to himself. How can that dirty rip Pauline think that that’s a good hairdo? Dylan cannot believe it.

  Nogger, oblivious to the gone-wrong hair and a bit confused that he’s no longer the centre of, starts shouting over, ‘Pauline, you fucking smelly ming, your Rocky’s a tit.’ A few of the older gangsters look over. The ones who like kissing Rocky’s arse, the match-heads who look after Pauline when she goes around the town and that. The ones who keep away the beauts who dance too close, stop anyone with a moody camera phone getting on her case. But then try and shag her on the way home, try and cop for her in Rocky’s Rangey, to viciously, jealously put one up him while he’s playing away. None of them wants to say nothing to Nogger and Dylan.

  Rows of low-status WAGs are lined up at the bar gawping at Pauline, wanting to talk to her. Dylan feels deadened by the shallowness. Nogger can’t chat up birds: no socialisation process. He just goes to brass-houses and shags schoolies. Instant gratification. But Dylan has a go. He moseys
over to the waglet he spied before, not the rough Peaches Geldof one but the scowly silk-dress one, hard-faced, pursing her lips and flicking her hair dramatically.

  ‘D’you wanna drink?’ he asks, shy. He’s seen this on the telly, on Corrie or Easties. The waglet fucks him off immediately, because he looks like a scruff. She looks into the distance, into the green dance-floor LEDs, not blinking. She’s wearing True Sapphire blue contact lenses. Her face is taut, tough. Waxen cheekbones. Her dream is to marry a cage fighter. But Dylan knows she might settle for him with a bit of persuasion. ‘Got some nice powder there,’ he says. ‘Off the block. Yellow and crumbly.’ Instant result. At once, the waglet picks up her £600 furry alpaca bag with chain handle. Dylan notices a patch of the fur is matted with spilt, sticky drink. They go into the disabled bogs for a line.

  Back in the club, Dylan asks her again, ‘D’you wanna drink?’

  ‘Rosé champagne, lad. Cristal. Bottle of.’

  The tray is delivered ostentatiously by a retinue of barmaids. They part the crowd, carrying Roman-style torches topped off with industrial sparklers. one barmaid is dressed in a gold lamé swimsuit and a purple sash saying ‘Cristal’ on it. Close-up, Dylan notices that the gold costume is faintly dirty, smudgy and sweaty as though she’s worn it night after night, got it from a stinky box in the staff changey. But the cups of the swimsuit are metallic-smooth and full. Dylan gets half a tingle on. She places the bottle in a foot-high golden champagne bucket on the bar. Dylan notices that the bucket is slightly dented. All hands in the club are looking over, groups of gangsters and their girls huddled around tiny VIP booths, hate and envy in their eyes. Dylan feels like a cunt, but his WAG is beaming, although she’s trying to hide it. She’s got one over on everyone in one fell swoop.

  She’s called Casey. She doesn’t talk to Dylan. She just stands next to him and dances, looking into the distance, pouty, concentrating hard to keep the detached look on her face. She stays clear of the Cristal on the bar so maximum hands can see it, to savour the fact that it’s hers. Within minutes, sparklers and lamé birds are criss-crossing the club as the jealous desires of the other WAGs are satiated.

  Nogger is on the dance floor, shadow boxing on the spot. Does a few high kicks in the direction of a mirrored column, his fists in fighting position, held tight to his cheeks, like a picture of the Krays he’s seen. He pulls a bird’s hair he fancies, spits at another. Dylan’s like that: ‘He’s only having a dance, girl.’ He knows it’s time to go soon, to the brass-house, before murder breaks out.

  ‘Come ’ead,’ says Nogger. ‘Let’s get off to the massage parlour.’

  ‘OK, yeah.’

  Dylan explains to the waglet, apologetically, ‘Just to get him sorted, girl. Otherwise he’ll start kicking off.’

  ‘What d’you mean, lad?’ asks Casey.

  ‘Just gonna take him down to The Cathouse. Get him a bird, girl. Then we’ll get off somewhere nice.’

  The waglet puts on a hard-done-by expression, scowling and pouting like an R’n’B diva, eyes wide, arms crossed. ‘Where, lad?’

  ‘Got a nice little caravan, there. On the path, girl. It’s boss, la. Nice and warm. Get in there, have a weed.’

  ‘What? D’you think I’m some kind of fuckin’ dickhead or something? Think I’m waiting around in a brass-house then getting walloped all round a caravan by you? In Nogzy?’

  ‘What d’you mean, girl?’ asks Dylan, genuinely hurt.

  ‘I wanna go to a hotel for the night. Like any other normal girl. Think I’m some kind of fucking scrubber, lad?’

  Dylan has never been to a hotel. ‘What d’you mean? Go on holiday? I’ve only known you five minutes, girl.’

  ‘No, you prick. I mean take me down the Malmaison or the Radisson like normal fellers do. D’you think Pauline goes back to smoke weed in a caravan? What are you, you little fucking ming?’

  Dylan shakes his head in disbelief. They jump in a cab and Nogger gives the driver the address and launches his chippy – shredded crispy duck in hoisin sauce with pancakes (untouched in their plastic wrapper) – onto the floor of the cab, then boots it upwards so that the polystyrene tray sticks to the glass partition just behind the driver’s head and slides down, like blood. The driver says fuck all and Nogger falls asleep.

  Dylan gets to work on the waglet. She gives him a wank under his Lowies, saying ta for the Cristal under her stinky breath, letting him know the connection between his orgasm and her satiated consumer desire, for future reference.

  When they get there, Nogger wakes up from his alcopop slumber feeling aggressive. He throws a 50-quid note at the driver and tells him, ‘Wait here, you fucking scruff.’ Then he tells Dylan, ‘Leave that slag in the back, lad.’

  Casey, air-drying the come on her hands, retorts, ‘Who you calling a fucking slag? You fucking victim. I’ll phone someone now, lad. Turn you into a fucking sieve, you fucking drip.’

  Nogger just laughs. Dylan’s wiping the fast-drying come off his kecks with her furry alpaca bag, laughing as well. ‘Just wait here, girl,’ he says. ‘Look after her, will you, lad?’ he says to the driver. ‘I’ll sort you out later.’

  Dylan and Nogger slip through the steel security gates into the camera’d-up alleyway and ring the buzzer.

  ‘Can I help you?’

  ‘Here to see Gabby, girl,’ answers Nogger.

  ‘There’s an hour’s wait.’

  ‘Yeah, as if. Buzz us in, girl.’

  Clank. The big metal shutter opens. It’s like a prison. They’re up the stairs fast. The receptionist opens the gate at the top. She’s 50-odd, short, grey, chemically hair. Sometimes wears a rubber catsuit for a bit of extra dough. Dylan’s shagged her before now.

  The place is packed, sweaty, smoky. Lads are wandering around half-undressed, waiting to go into a cubicle, stoned and carrying their trainies in their hands. A Liverpool FC youth-team player is stood naked in reception, high, too horny to wait, trying to cop for a wank off the other receptionist, a young mum. There’s the smell of green and a couple of lads are snorting.

  Nogger clocks Rocky O’Rourke, asks him, ‘What are you doing in here, you fucking Crocky rat?’

  ‘Same as you, lad.’

  ‘Fuck off, you twat.’

  O’Rourke shoots off, back to a semi-circular booth with a couch covered in thin red velvet, lies down next to several Liverpool and Everton youth-team and reserve-team players.

  Nogger can’t be arsed queuing, so he bursts into a cubicle: a red heart-shaped bed covered in threadbare, red school-play-quality satin, a wonky oil heater, the enamel burned brown because it’s never switched off, a packet of antiseptic baby wipes. Gabby is kneeling on the bed. Fortyish, bad hair, spots and blackened teeth from the drugs. She’s wearing a cowgirl suit and a beige felt cowboy hat, a souvenir from a Blackpool seafront shop. Her top’s off: pale skin, smooth, bowl-shaped breasts, tiny, red raspberry nipples. She’s bent over a disabled man in callipers, giving him a blowie, his wheelchair at the side.

  Nogger pushes the cripple over to the other side of the bed. He curls up into the foetal position and Nogger tells him, ‘Look at the wall while I’m shagging her, lad. If you look up, lad, I’ll break your legs.’ He laughs at his joke. ‘She’ll finish you off after me, lad.’

  Nogger snarl-smiles at Gabby. ‘Fucking biff. What’s he doing in here?’

  ‘Ah, he’s lovely, Nogger. I’ve got a few disabled clients.’

  ‘What? Shut up, you fucking dickhead,’ he says as he pushes her head downwards, her mouth locking onto his knob.

  Nogger wallops the cowgirl on the heart-shaped bed. He puts her on top. His legs stiffen as he desperately tries to ejaculate, pushing the disabled man onto the floor at the side of the bed. Nogger kicks out slightly several times to make sure the man is completely off the bed. No interruptions while he’s about to jizz up his brass, the heels of his trainies ragging up the red satin.

  Afterwards, Nogger pushes the cowgirl off the bed on top of the disabled m
an. He tears her hat off and wipes the come on the soft felt. She’s trying to get the man up from the floor and onto the unmade bed. ‘Nogger, give us a hand, will ya?’

  ‘Fuck off with him, will you, girl? Fucking Joey. Who d’you think I am, girl? Bob Geldof?’

  ‘Are eh, Nogger.’

  Nogger laughs. He pays the receptionist fifty quid and waits for his fiver change, sparks a Liverpool player on the way out.

  CHAPTER 8

  ON THE MEET

  Big day today. A meet with the Imperator at the hotel. At the hotel, lad. Dylan keeps beaming to himself as he jogs on to the bus stop.

  The hotel is a tall, deep rhomboid-shaped building clad in white, streakless marble. The ground floor is a wall of glass with heavy curtains behind. Expensive, expansive. Dylan steps into the huge revolving door. Warm air, sterile, blasts from jets above. Through the door’s curved partition, he sees a blaze of colour, shape and gloss inside, dazzling even through the tinted glass. His eyes ache at the newness of it. He wants to lunge in, fast as, soak up the freshness of it.

  Inside, Dylan stands helpless in the atrium, awestruck at the opulence. One wall as big as two buses is covered in solid, shiny plastic, delicately frosted, gently, hazily morphing into different colours: azure blue, faint pink, pale purple. Dylan breathes out, relaxing, gorping. What the fuck is this?

  To the left, clean lines, curved white tables, thick swooshes of wood. Immaculate. To the right, the reception desk, a streaky, dark teak, curvily carved into big boxes, divided by narrow sheets of smoked glass.

  No caved-in walls. No kids slowly destroying everything, chipping away at brick walls with a centre punch. No shards of shattered windscreen. No piles of shitty washing. No decay. No caravan on the front path. No plastic windows held in with brown tape. No little motorbikes lashed in the garden. No black-tyre fires. Only shiny gleam, dreamy order – and Dylan in his Lowies.

  He looks up. Twenty floors, stacked up. To the stars. Thick, curved triangles of polished concrete on top of each other, glazed white, seamless and symmetrical, to the height of a tower block. Tiny ice-blue lights twinkle in the roof, thousands of them. Fucking millions of them.