by Danny Hogan
He then reached into his inside pocket and produced something, which at the flick of the wrist, turned out to be one of those telescopic batons. Lethal if you get one around the head, which by the look on his face, was his intention. I notice the sauce bottle that I did Smiley with, all bloody on the floor, but still intact. Wanted to play with toys did he? Well as my old man always said, you live by the sword, you die by the sword.
I picked up the sauce bottle and smashed it on the counter as I walked towards him. The cool breeze in the street made a welcome change to the humid chip shop.
He weren’t tall, but he was as wide as he was tall. Like a big meat square that had a prick with ears for a head. He looked at me as if he had already won, and was bellowing all kinds of threats. But although I ain’t no, Darren Brown, I knew how this one was going to end.
All that fat and muscle meant he’s slow and he ain’t got the movement or articulation of a smaller man. I had plenty of time to sidestep his first strike guiding his arm out of harm’s way with my left hand as I stick the broken bottle into his right bicep. I then twist my writs and cut a big circular lump out, and didn’t he just scream.
Poor old fat bloke didn’t know what was going on, his mind all twisted up with shock and pain. Which gave me enough leverage to get behind him, put my left arm around his neck, choke him a little and plunge the broken bottle into his left bicep. Want to know what I was feeling? Go into your fridge, pull out some raw liver and have a go at it with a knife and a heart full of rage.
With the broken bottle still firmly clutched in my fist, I did the back of his legs.
Fat bloke rendered useless. Mutilated limbs pissing with blood as he undulated face down on the cobbles, his fancy black mobile phone vibrating and chirping by his fat head. I never knew exactly what he was grumbling and screeching into the pavement, but I took it for: ‘Hail horrors, hail.’
Now where are all the actual police through all this palaver? I hear you ask. That’s them careering around the corners at each end of West street. Sirens sounding with them all hanging out of their windows, waiving their truncheons and giving it the Keystone Cops one.
Although, with all the exertion the last thing I felt like was doing a runner, I wasn’t ready for getting nicked. There was still some business I needed to take care of.
The chip shop was right next to this alley called Boyce’s Street, so I ducked up it as the cop cars encroached.
I knew that there’d be cops coming up from Middle Street at the other end of the alley, but I also knew that on the left hand side was a nursery school which backed on to the alley. I dived over the fence and took a major run up to the wall of the nursery school building, the squeal of sirens bothering me immensely.
My fingers grasped the edge of the nursery school’s roof as it weren’t all that tall, and with my very last ounce of energy I hoisted myself up and lay down on the roof. It was an old trick from my own school days and I hoped to fuck it still worked. The hard part was keeping my breath down as I wanted to gulp down air like never before. I didn’t have to worry about such yankee things as helicopters. They only tend to get them out when some tourist topples off the pier. I could hear the coppers make themselves look busy and talking all officially to one another and curious citizens. Then I closed my eyes.
12
I don’t have any idea how long I was out for, but it was dark when I open my eyes again. Although I didn’t exactly take any punishment that time, I’m stiff as a board and am hurting like buggery all over. I wince at that flesh wound on my arm which was all filthy and congealed.
I peered gingerly over the edge of the roof to see how much of the route the coppers had closed off. I couldn’t see a soul along Boyce’s Street but could see fat bodies in luminous yellow jackets with peaked caps along Middle Street and knew they’d probably have West Street cordoned off at the other end. I also knew that the cops around here were more show than CSI and clambering slowly across the roof, along Middle Street without being seen wasn’t the hardest thing I’ve had to do in my life.
But again, as my old man used to say, getting up’s the easy part, it’s the getting down. There were bloody cops everywhere. So I had to stay put. I must have been fucked because I dropped off again.
God knows when I came around again, but it was still dark and seemed a lot colder. I took a quick peek and could not see any coppers but heard the crackle of police radios and the reflection of blue flashing lights on walls and in shop windows.
There was a throng of people heading towards Ship Street and I saw my chance.
I very slowly eased myself over the edge and clambered down. I nearly winded myself when I lost my footing and tumbled a foot or so.
I pulled the collar of my crombie up and headed quickly towards the group. My heart nearly packed in when I turned the corner where the Trafalgar pub is and saw a load of pigs milling about. I tucked my head right down and kept pace with the people around me, manoeuvring myself between them so they were in the old bills’ line of sight and not me.
I knew I couldn’t go home. Amos probably spilled his guts out of shock and fear more than anything else. The cops were liable to watching my place for days.
There was only one place I could have any hope of getting any kind of sanctuary now, and it weren’t the church.
I was getting too old and was not used to all this exertion. I was totally suffering by the time I found the house and pressed the buzzer on the door.
The familiar but distinctly unimpressed voice crackled though that battered intercom, which was probably once cream but now a fag-stained brown complete with thick black streaks.
‘Joe? Oh for fuck’s sake… Come in.’
There was buzzing sound which strummed my nerves, indicating the door was unlocked. I pushed the door open, and walked past a kicked in bike and up the mould fragranced stairs.
The front door to the apartment was slightly ajar. I went to push the door but it was wrenched open from the inside.
Standing before me was Eloise in oversized purple pyjamas, hair in two massive black pigtails, a mug in her fist which was kicking out steam and the aroma of heated whisky, and a pissed off look on her face. I also noticed she had a reddened nose.
‘I’ve got a cold, so that’s gonna add to the many reasons why you’re out of luck if you came around here looking for action.’
I turn to show her the bullet skim on my arm like a hurt little boy and said. ‘I’m in a heap if trouble.’
Without saying much she made me a hot toddy and after cleaning up my wound from a little green first aid box she had we sat down, me on her leather settee and her coiled like a snake in the matching armchair.
She had barely reacted at my gunshot wound and the way she cleaned me up told me she had done it before. Not surprising really knowing her old man.
Girl’s houses always amazed me. Eloise was in her late twenties or early thirties and she had band posters and stuff you would associate with a teenager as well as box sets of sci-fi DVDs and paraphernalia you’d associate with a nerd. If she was a bloke you’d take the piss but she managed to make this nonsense look good.
Call it the sickness of being a man but even though all of that shit had happened, my only respite a few snatched hours on a cold roof with the pigs on my heels after destroying no less than ten men, and getting nicked by a bullet, I just wasn’t thinking about that. I was thinking about the mean-faced beauty before me, nothing between us but a thin layer of purple material. There was something in her eyes however that brought me back to the straight and narrow and I spilled my guts about what had happened.
After I had told her about all the righteous vengeance, and the narrow escape from the police, for the first time that evening I saw her smile.
‘Sure you can stay here, you big oaf. I’ll sort everything you need out, you won’t even have to leave.’
As I drank my hot toddy, she pulled the bottom of the arm chair she was sitting on and the whole thing seemed to u
nfold and become some kind of camper bed. She laid it out all nice, with a thick quilt and two plump pillows. She then came and checked my wound. She looked at me in an unusually concerned manner and it was at that point I realised how damned tired I was.
‘Call me if you need me,’ she said before moving out the room in that way of hers.
I crawled over to the camper bed, relished the clean softness and closed my eyes.
13
I woke up the next day in all kinds of discomfort. My whole body seemed to have seized up and my arm hurt like hell.
I sat up on the overly spongy bed and coughed my guts up. Bleary eyed I accustomed myself to the alien surroundings and smells. The latter being not that unpleasant at all.
I got up and sat down at a breakfast table where there were some fresh pastries and hot coffee in one of those glass French presses that are all the rage these days. I had to shake my head a little to make sure I wasn’t dreaming.
I saw a neatly folded piece of duck egg blue paper poking out from under the small plate with the pastries on it.
I’ve gone to work. Don’t worry about food tonight, I’ll sort it, so stay in. And keep your head down.
El
X
I should have stayed in and kept my head down. The last place I should have gown was anywhere near my place up the road. The police were sure to be camped outside of it. But that’s exactly what I did. I had a job to do.
See, I needed to get hold of Spindle now and finish this once and for all. So I grabbed my coat and headed out to the direction of my house. The outside seemed otherworldly, people just going about their business seemed awful strange to me.
My heart raced like a steam engine as I marched to the road I lived on and as I came up to the familiar bend in the curb my head was thumping with tension. But it wasn’t my house I had come all this way for; it was my local over the road.
I pushed the door open, the place was practically empty apart from some customers, sitting and drinking around a circular table, behind the bar a barman, a barmaid and that ponytailed bastard of a landlord.
There was no MC Hammer or people clapping their hands in time as I approached the bar.
*
That bucked-toothed, ponyytailed prick looked at me, shrugged, held his arms apart and said, ‘I’m a lover not a fighter.’
Tough. I grabbed his head with both hands and bounced his face off the bar. I enjoyed it so much I did it again, and by God don’t he kick out a sound. I reminded myself I need information out of him, so I dragged him across the bar and stuck my fingers deep into his jugular notch. He was there, tears rolling from his wide open eyes, blood and teeth dribbling down his chin and emitting a sound like a duck being raped.
‘Where can I find Spindle!’
He looks like an old washed up version of tattoo, which is making this thing all the more enjoyable. His face is a mask of terror, the kind of look a man has when he’s stuck between the Devil and the deep blue sea. I push my fingers deeper to help him make a decision. He taps my shoulders and I leave it a minute until his eyes begin to boggle.
I hauled him up, he splutters and coughs the rest of his teeth out before he says with a great deal of difficulty:
‘He owns a bar, it does them cocktail shots, on Preston Street. He always spends his Wednesday afternoons down there doing business.’
The pair of bar staff behind the bar were looking at this scene quivering with fright.
‘Play some Mc Hammer,’ I said to the barmen
He just stood there with a fearful look on his mug.
‘Play it,’ I shouted.
He went over to some CDs and fumbled around with them. Most of them leaped from his hands on to the floor.
‘I-I don’t think we’ve got it… I don’t think we’ve got it,’ he sniveled in a total panic.
‘Play something crap then,’ I shout.
Shakily he looks at a CD and puts it in. Some familiar sounding piped intro kicks up but my mind is to far gone to recognise it straight away until I hear the fruity singing:
I try to discover
A little something to make me sweeter
I glared at the ponytailed prick and shouted ‘Dance, dance you bastard!’
I’m so in Love with you
I’ll be forever blue
I let go off his scruff and he fell backwards. He looked at me terrified, and I started having this almighty lust to kill him outright. He must have sensed that as he started shuffling pathetically in time with the music.
That you give me no
That you give me no...
The three customers who had been drinking at the circular table have been trying to sneak out when I caught them with my eye and glared at them. They look at me like rabbits caught in head lights for a moment. Then look at each other. Then they start shuffling in time with the music. I turn my attention back to my quarry.
‘Put some effort into it,’ I roar.
I have to say it was amusing the juxtaposition of him gyrating like a tart and sobbing like a bitch, as Andy Bell went into one. The three customers are also doing a good job, but they don’t look happy as they dance away, truth be told.
Oh baby please give a little respect to me
I leave the pub comfortable in the knowledge I have lost my mind. I then realise this is not the time to get nicked as I have to sort Spindle out.
Gripped with fear I turn to look at my manor over the road, what I see turns my fear into white hot rage.
15
Instead of cop cars and meat wagons waiting for me in front of my house, I saw a single British racing green roller. In it were three occupants, who I would bet both of my knackers, were two hit men and a driver.
I’ve got the right hump as I approach. On my left was a house under construction, the builders were sitting having their sandwiches. The look on my face was apparently enough, as they just look at me all agog and say nothing as I pick up three feet worth of scaffolding off the floor, and walk back out into the street with it.
The hit men were watching my house all right, so much so they don’t realise I’m right on them until I’ve put the scaffolding pole through the driver’s side window and into his face. I open the door and drag the driver out, bringing the steel crashing down across his kidneys. His mate’s popped out the back and is going for me, but I stopped him dead with a pole to the gut then destroyed the left side of his face with an almighty swing of the scaffold. The third one’s made his way to my position and surprise, surprise he pulls out a shooter.
I backhand the scaffold and smack his right elbow, breaking it. I drop the scaffold, grab his hand with the gun in it before he has a chance to drop it. The shooter is 1911, nice piece, I force his hand up and squeaze his wrist hard causing him to loose six shots harmlessly in the air. Seagulls that were perched around rooftops or dragging last night’s kebabs from bins, noisily took flight and people ran around looking for cover. I then force his hand down into his groin and make him blow his own nuts off with his last bullet.
Money can make a lot of men do anything. But no amount of dough can give you the heart and conviction that getting seriously wronged does.
The fact that there were hit men waiting outside my gaff and not old bill was awfully telling.
With all this fuss and noise the police would definitely be on me on me now more than ever. I made a phone call on my mobile, which is a bugger to use with its small buttons, and headed to Preston Street.
16
It was drizzling with rain and the sky was a dark grey as I waited in the street on the other side of the road to this place, Nitros. It was a right tacky looking gaff and it only served shots of multicoated liquid and had photo-menus in its windows like a McDonald’s.
It seemed like an age before my phone vibrated in my pocket. It would be Hunter, that wofftah pal of Eloise’s. I had called when I left the mess at the my local and asked him to get down to Nitros and let me know when Spindle went to the shithouse. I knew
his kind.
With only one thought on my mind I stormed over the road and through the double doors of Nitros. It was a plain box room that had been done up like a tart’s handbag. Long bar along the left hand side, manned by dolly birds, who by the look on their faces, seemed to know what I was about. The punters were townie twats and morons commencing their stag dos.
I pushed through them, no one really bothered me, though I did have to slap a bloke. As I approached the bogs it was how imagined, two bouncers either side on the door making sure no one got in as Spindle conducted his business. I saw them stiffen and ready for action as I approached. I was going to have to make this quick and efficient, no showboating, no anger, just get the job done.
I picked a shot glass off a table, smashed it and shoved it deep into the right hand bouncer’s trachea. The one on the left went for me but I side stepped him, walloped him in the gut, got my arm around his neck as he bent forward and pulled up for all I was worth until I felt a dull snap and it was good night from him.
The punters in the bar started to panic and I could hear chairs dragging against the floor as they recoiled. I had to be bloody.
I pushed the doors of the toilets open and enter. Bloody fancy things they are all black tiled walls and gold effect fixtures. In the middle of this fancy piss pot is Spindle in a crushed velvet suit and slick shoulder- length hair. He has his back to me and in front of him some young bird in the same uniform as the bar girls is squatting. I knew full well he was one of them types.
‘Tell Jim to bring the Limo around the front will you,’ he said. Great, he thought I was one of his mugs on the door come to occupy themselevs with his whims.
I didn’t have time to savour this moment. Not then anyway. I booted him in his kidneys sending him flying forward, and grabbed the top of his hair wrenching his head right back so that I had eye contact. Now was the time.