Die Tryin'

by Stavro Yianni

  After a brief shifting sound behind it, the letterbox snapped open from the inside, small fingers poking out. ‘Who is it?’ a woman’s voice barked.

  Tony took a step back. ‘It’s Tony,’ he answered.

  ‘Tony? Don’t know no Tony, sorry.’

  Tony quickly grabbed the letterbox—just before whoever was behind the door could close it—and held it open. ‘It’s Tony, the mechanic,’ he informed her. ‘I fix your boyfriend’s motor whenever he crashes it while he’s off his head.’

  There was a second or two of thought. Then: ‘Oh. Okay. Give us a second.’ The letterbox flipped back down, and there was a rattling sound as a multitude of locks and chains were unlatched.

  Then, the door finally opened, and Tony was greeted with Sabrina and her purple ringed eyes. ‘Thought you was Old Bill,’ she said and smiled, revealing gritty teeth that looked a lot older than they actually were.

  ‘If I was, I wouldn’t have knocked,’ Tony replied and stepped inside.

  Sabrina closed the door behind him. ‘What you after?’ she asked.

  Tony reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of notes, making Sabrina’s tired eyes light up. ‘Get me a gram of coke,’ he said and handed her the money.

  Sabrina snapped up the cash. ‘Be right back, sweetheart,’ she said and flashed him a smile.

  ‘I’ll be in the front room,’ Tony told her.

  Sabrina disappeared into the kitchen while Tony made his way into the lounge, passing by all the shit the crackheads and junkies had collected over the years—old bikes and pushchairs; street signs; blow up dolls. Some lowlife had even nicked one of those temporary set of traffic lights builders put up when road works are going on. He shook his head in disgust, and pushed open the door to the front room. He stepped into what was like some kind of waiting room for the damned. The place was bare apart from a piss and sick stained sofa pushed up against one of the walls. The threadbare carpet had similar stains on it, old syringes and pieces of tin foil strewn here and there. A big black mark blotted the wall to his left that Tony guessed was where the telly used to be before some crackhead nicked it.

  Tony looked round at the dregs—a washed up, skinny thing lay on the floor under the windows, rolling from side to side and groaning, Tony unable to tell whether it was dying, or in the throes of pleasure. Hunched up against another wall was a phantom with cold blue eyes and ginger stubble, half hiding under a hoodie, who lifted his head when Tony entered the room, checked him out, then slunk his head back down between his knees. But, over on the pissed stained sofa was what Tony was looking for—a bloke who still had a bit of strength about him, Tony assessing that he was new(ish) to the crack game, and so the stuff hadn’t eaten his body to total dysfunction just yet. But the cravings would be there and best of all, he didn’t look wasted, so an actual coherent conversation looked a strong possibility.

  He went straight over to the sofa, ignoring the others. He checked the spot where he was about to sit, wiping it clean with his hand, and then wiping his hand on his overalls. He slowly settled down next to the crackhead, feeling nauseous just being near that sofa, never mind parking his arse on it. He leant back; the crackhead twitched nervously, and for a second, he looked exactly like Charlie.

  ‘You seen me before?’ Tony asked him.

  The crackhead turned briefly to the side as if to check that the bloke sitting next to him had actually just spoken to him, and it hadn’t been a voice in his head. Tony suddenly thought that he may have misjudged this one. He was completely fucked and not up to the task.

  He was about to stand up, when the crackhead spoke. ‘No,’ he said and quickly looked away.

  Tony edged in closer to him and cleared his throat. ‘Listen. You wanna earn fifty notes?’

  And the mention of money suddenly made the crackhead switch like mentioning Big Macs to an obese teenager.

  He turned to face Tony, a sudden lithe gleam in his eye. ‘Depends what it is you want me to do. I don’t do sex stuff.’

  Tony looked at him disgusted. ‘And I ain’t that desperate, you fucking junkie!’

  The crackhead pursed his lips and looked away. ‘Well, what is it then?’ he asked.

  ‘There’s a bloke I want you to do over for me,’ Tony informed him. ‘Now, I don’t want you to kill him or anything like that, just give him a good kicking. You do that for me, and I’ll give you fifty quid.’

  Tony then pulled out a photo from his pocket. It was a picture from the wedding. He had torn it in half, cutting Maria out of it and leaving Mario; he was grinning cheesily while cutting their cake. ‘This is him,’ Tony said, but the crackhead didn’t even look at the photo.

  ‘Why don’t you just do it yourself?’ the crackhead asked the air ahead of him, but directed his question at Tony.

  Tony started getting tetchy. This prick was supposed to do anything for money, no questions asked. ‘You wanna know why?’ he said loudly. ‘You wanna know why, you fucking lowlife? Because he’s married to my sister, that’s why. All right? Prick. I can’t get directly involved. Now are you gonna do it or what?’

  ‘I’ll do it,’ a voice spoke from across the room before the crackhead could answer.

  Tony turned his head in the direction from where it came to see the phantom in the hoodie now looking up at him with clear, lucid eyes.

  Tony looked from the phantom to the crackhead. ‘At least there’s someone round here with a pair,’ he said and pushed the crackhead’s head away.

  Tony got to his feet, glad to be off the sticky sofa, and went over to the phantom to hand him the photo. The phantom took a good look at it.

  ‘You’ll find him at his café, The Olive Tree, on the High Street,’ Tony told him, and then took the photo back, just to be on the safe side. ‘You know it?’

  ‘I’ll find it,’ the phantom coldly replied.

  Tony handed him twenty five quid. ‘Here’s half. When you’re done, come by White Rose Motors on Cedar Avenue, and I’ll give you the rest. Okay?’

  The phantom nodded, snatched up the money, and stuffed it in the pocket of his hoodie.

  Sabrina then entered the room with a tired gait. She handed Tony his gram of coke and tried to smile, but if Tony was being honest, he had seen better efforts from piranha fish.

  ‘Fucking drugs gonna mess you up, believe me,’ he told her as he took his wrap. He looked round at the dregs one final time and saw the phantom now with his head down again. He hoped he hadn’t just wasted his twenty five.

  ‘Yes, doctor,’ Sabrina said back to him. ‘Thanks for the advice.’

  Tony turned back to face her. ‘My pleasure,’ he replied. ‘Now, it’s your lucky day ’cos here’s some more—use that money I just gave you to get your hair done or something ’cos you look like shit.’ He then headed for the door, wanting to get out of the pisshole before he got fleas, or something worse.

  ‘Fuck you!’ Sabrina shouted after him, but Tony didn’t hear because he was out the front door before she could even respond.

  *****

  Nick Black stepped apprehensively out of the Storage Centre, the Nike holdall held tight by his thigh. Carla was waiting for him in the car park outside; she watched him approach with quizzical eyes. Nick got halfway to her car and began speed walking over as fast as he could without making it look like some kind of getaway. He didn’t like the way XR2’s cousin was eyeing him as he came in, didn’t like the silent atmosphere of the place, didn’t like feeling as if he were being watched the whole time he was there. John had seen four of them come round to put the bag in, now only one came to take it out.

  Would he find that suspicious?

  Or was he just being paranoid again?

  He didn’t want to hang around to find out. Instead, he jumped in the passenger seat, placed the bag neatly on his lap, and held onto it as if it were his baby.

  ‘What’s in the bag, Nick?’ Carla enquired.

  ‘Just drive and I’ll tell you,’ Nick replied, turning his head
round to scrutinise the front of the Storage Centre, swearing he could feel John’s stare burning into him like laser beams.

  ‘Is it something dodgy?’ Carla then asked in a ‘you better tell me now what’s going on’ voice.

  Nick huffed. ‘Look, I’ll tell you once we’re out of here, okay, babe?’ he told her in a firm manner.

  Carla just gave him a bemused ‘whatever’ look and started up the engine.

  ‘It’s a good job you got this car,’ Nick said as she finally pulled away. While Nick had spunked his credit on getting wasted, Carla had the brains to at least put it into something useful as well as tangible, even if it was an old banger. He glanced back at the building he just came out of, now imagining the whole thing as a giant eyeball watching them pull away with the gold—but swiftly feeling the relief of it getting smaller and smaller as the seconds ticked by. As Carla pulled out of the car park and onto the main road, John and the Storage Centre became a distant memory.

  He breathed a sigh of relief and began laughing to himself.

  ‘What’s so funny?’ Carla asked.

  Nick shook his head and rubbed his eyes. ‘This. It’s so messed up!’

  ‘What is?’

  Nick’s eyes darted over to where she sat just as a moment of sobriety slapped him hard. Had he just said too much? ‘Oh, nothing,’ he replied tentatively, but it was too late, his last comment had opened up a can of worms that had no intention of wriggling back inside again.

  ‘What’s in the bag, Nick?’ she asked again, and this time, he knew she wouldn’t accept anything but a straight answer.

  Nick sighed and looked out of the window. ‘All right,’ he conceded. ‘Pull over.’ Carla immediately put on her indicator. ‘In there,’ Nick said pointing at a side road.

  Carla pulled up behind a Ford Transit, which helped conceal them even more. She switched off the engine and turned to face him. ‘Well?’

  Nick took a look round him to make sure no one was looking. There wasn’t a soul in sight. Behind them the cars rushed past along the main road. He turned his attention back to the bag, grabbed the zipper, and slowly pulled it open. When it reached the end, he took in a deep breath, and then opened up the bag for her to see inside. She craned her neck forwards, curiosity stamped all over her face. Nick watched her carefully, watched the way her eyes widened and lit up like Christmas lights. Then the way her jaw dropped and hung there as she gasped, her hand flying up to her mouth to cover the hole.

  Nick started nodding in understanding, and glanced down himself to clock the glittering gold, the sparkling diamonds, the gleaming jewels. Even though he had seen it before, it still left him in awe.

  ‘Where the hell did you get those from?’ Carla said in a breathless voice.

  You don’t wanna know…Nick replied in his mind. And at that moment, he was suddenly faced with a massive dilemma. He didn’t want to lie to her, but at the same time he couldn’t tell her the truth.

  Well, it’s like this, babe. You see, we broke into this mausoleum, opened up the tomb, sorry, loading vault (six by eight by three and a half), mugged the old bitch lying in there draped from head to toe in bling, and had it away! Great ain’t it?

  Nick knew she would fucking flip if he told her that.

  Nah, he had to lie. And had to lie good.

  ‘When we were kids,’ he began on his blag. ‘Me and Tony used to help this old woman out who lived nearby. You know, take her washing back to our mums so they could wash them for her, help her clean up, take her dinner. Well, thing is, she died recently. All alone. She had no kids, no family, just these jewels that she had collected over the years. And so she couldn’t just leave them to be eaten by the system, so she left ’em to us—me and Tony.’

  ‘Oh my God, Nick,’ Carla replied, and put both her hands up to her mouth this time, her big brown eyes welling with tears.

  Looking at those eyes, Nick was struck with guilt in the centre of his heart like a vampire being staked. He didn’t want to lie, hated manipulating her like this, but it was for his and her own good.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me about this?’ Carla asked.

  ‘I didn’t want to get you excited. And I wanted to see if I trust you enough first.’

  ‘Oh thanks…’

  ‘Well, you could’ve been a gold digger for all I knew…’

  Carla nudged him with her elbow. Nick let out a casual laugh. ‘Me and Tony hadn’t decided what we were going to do with them anyway,’ he continued. ‘So I kept it quiet until we did. We agreed to keep ’em in that storage place until we had it all worked out. Finally, just recently, we decided to just cash ’em in and split the profit fifty/fifty… but…’

  ‘Yeah…?’

  ‘Well, me and Tony have since…grown apart.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  Nick tutted. ‘I just don’t think he’s worthy of them any more. He’s a bad person, Carla…And he’s changed a lot recently, ever since…’ Nick trailed off, reeling himself in before he spilled the beans about Marco.

  ‘Ever since what?’ Carla asked.

  Nick shook his head. ‘Nothing,’ he said zipping the bag up. ‘Just recently, over the last year or so, he’s changed, that’s all. Changed a lot. Started doing loads of coke.’

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘I don’t even know why either, he was always against drugs.’

  ‘Maybe he tried it and liked it,’ Carla suggested.

  ‘Maybe. Who knows? His cousin Christo is a proper cokehead and got him into it. Things have happened over the years, and he probably needs an escape from all the crap in his head.’ Nick stared at her sincerely as he spoke. ‘But, one thing’s for sure, shit’s messed up his mind. As if it needed messing up any more…’

  Carla suddenly looked worried. ‘What do you mean, Nick? Is he…dangerous?’

  Nick sighed. ‘Does the Pope shit in the woods?’

  ‘Think you might have mixed your idioms a tad there…’ Carla replied deadpan.

  Nick chuckled to himself.

  ‘What are you laughing about, Nick?’ Carla then snapped, irritated at not getting a straight answer. ‘Is he dangerous? Tell me!’

  Nick looked her in the eye, his smile now completely wiped from his face. ‘Yeah. He’s dangerous, Carla,’ he replied candidly. ‘He’s done things…’

  ‘What kind of things?’

  Nick hesitated.

  ‘Tell me, Nick!’ Carla repeated sternly. ‘I’ve got to know what I’m dealing with here!’

  Nick huffed. ‘I’ve seen him beat people to a pulp, Carla,’ he told her. ‘On more than one occasion as well. Saw him cream this Greek girl once who made a joke about his sister. Ripped the hair right out of her head…’

  ‘Jesus…’ Carla gasped.

  Nick nodded solemnly. ‘Heard a few years later she was so traumatised afterwards she couldn’t leave the house. Scarred for life. And too scared to go to the police.’

  ‘My God…’

  ‘You don’t wanna know what I saw him do to this black kid who asked him for a light one night either. The shit I’ve seen him do, Carla, believe me… Now, do you think that sounds like a man who is worthy of all these jewels?’

  Carla looked at him with wet gleaming eyes and shook her head. ‘No. I don’t. He sounds like a nutter…So, tell me again why you’re friends with him.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Nick said, shaking his head and smiling ruefully. ‘Look. We are kind of alike in that he didn’t have a dad around neither. I’ve known him since I was a kid as well, his mum and mine were friends at the church… It’s mainly a protection thing with Tony. If any shit goes down on the street, he is the best bloke to have around because he can handle himself. Tony might be a psycho, but one thing about him is, if you keep him sweet, then he won’t harm you. I’d rather he was my friend than my enemy, you know what I mean?’

  ‘And you call stealing his jewels keeping him sweet do you?’

  ‘Well…’

  ‘And now he’s afte
r us because of it!’

  Nick sighed. ‘Yeah, but—’

  ‘That’s just fucking great, Nick! And what do you think he’s gonna do when he finds us?’

  ‘He won’t.’

  ‘He’s gonna kill us both!’

  Nick grabbed the upper portion of her left arm and shook her. ‘I fucking said he won’t find us!’ He stared at her with wide bulging eyes as he spoke. ‘If he doesn’t know where we are, how does he know where to even start looking for us?’

  Carla stared back at him with frightened eyes, and he cooled a little, aware that his engine was overheating. ‘Look,’ he began in a calmer voice, staring at her sincerely. ‘For the first time in my life I’ve found myself a quality bird…’

  ‘Thanks…’ Carla replied, her voice tinged with attitude.

  ‘A quality woman in my life, and more cash than I’ve ever seen right in this bag. Understand? This is our ticket to freedom. I mean, come on, what do you think we’re gonna end up doing in our post uni lives? Stuck in some grey office somewhere twiddling our thumbs, believe me.

  But, once we cash this lot in, we’ll leave this place for good, and start a new life somewhere Tony will never find us. You always say how you want to leave home and so do I. Now we can. Look at what we’ve got here…’ He showed her the jewels again as he spoke.

  She looked down at them and sighed. Then she began smiling as if the jewels told her to like whenever someone opened the briefcase in Pulp Fiction.

  ‘They are beautiful…’ she then said softly. ‘And they must be worth a lot…And the grey office doesn’t sound like much fun…’ She then looked up at Nick. ‘Maybe it’s worth the risk…’ She nodded her head and smiled pleasantly, and that smile both repulsed and made him feel happy at the same time. He wanted rid of that particular oxymoron, and so reached out and gently kissed her.

  She closed her eyes, and when he pulled away, she opened them again. ‘But, where are we going to go?’ she asked in a mildly exasperated voice.

  ‘Dunno. Anywhere. Anywhere away from these fucking Greeks, this fucking city, this fucking life.’ He stared at her with a serious look on his face. ‘Fancy Jamaica?’