by Declan Burke
“I’ve heard sadder on The Waltons. So, what?”
“When you’re bored, Harry, you talk. You’ll talk to anyone, even the screws. You’ll talk to yourself. Then you get really bored and you start listening, just for a change of pace. And you hear all sorts of mad shit on the inside. Most of what’s said is crap. Wasters pumping themselves up, throwing their weight around, hoping someone’ll catch it. Anything anyone tells you when you’re inside, it’s cell-talk, bullshit.” He jabbed the air with his cigarette for emphasis. “Unless they’re selling it.”
“It isn’t bullshit because they’re selling it? Tell it to Ronald McDonald.”
“You get to know the score. What’s what and who’s who. Punters who say fuck all are the ones in the know. When they say something, it’s worth hearing. Worth paying to hear, too.”
“And you heard what?”
The wolfish grin flashed.
“What I heard isn’t the point. What I didn’t say is the point. And what I had to say was worth hearing, only I didn’t say anything. So, I’m owed.”
“Owed?”
“Owed. And I’m collecting.”
“You’re putting the bounce on?”
“You watch too many movies.”
“Blackmail has a new name now? They call it something different inside?”
“It’s an investment, Harry. Like with houses. You don’t sell it now because it’ll be worth more next year.”
“Get away from me, Gonz. You might be contagious.”
“Relax, Harry. A couple of days, I’ll be gone again.”
“You think I’m having you around Ben when you’re fucking around like this? Think again, Gonz. Tomorrow morning you’re gone, and if I never see you again it’ll be too soon.”
“You’re in for a cut. I owe you that much.”
“You owe me nothing. Because that’s all you’ve ever given me. Nothing.”
Dutchie and Michelle arrived back at the table, laughing, faces flushed. I went to the bar. When I got back I slipped in beside Michelle, as far away from Gonzo as possible. The lights came up soon afterwards and we finished our drinks, shivering when the bouncers opened the front door to allow the night filter through the club. Dutchie dug some tickets out of his back pocket.
“Do us a favour, Gonz.” Gonzo was sitting closest to the coat-check cubicle. “Get the jackets, big man.”
“Sound. Someone ring a taxi. It’s fucking freezing out there.”
“The phone’s out by the cubicle,” Michelle told him.
Gonzo took out his mobile phone, tossed it at me.
“You know all the numbers.”
Gave me his own number, in case the cabbie needed to ring back. Fat chance. I tried about six numbers, no joy.
“Bad as the fucking Blue,” Dutchie said. “Never around when you need one.”
Gonzo came back excited, wearing my jacket. He handed me the bright orange Puffa.
“You can bury me in that if you want,” I told him. “Otherwise, no chance.”
“I met two birds checking the coats. They’re off for a kebab and I’m buying.”
“Classy stuff, Gonz. What’s that got to do with my jacket?”
“They were laughing at mine, the tarts. Come on, just until we leave the kebab house. I’ll pay for your grub. If I haven’t pulled by the time we leave you can have it back.”
I shrugged. The choice was to let Gonzo wear my jacket or try to rip it off his back, and I was tired. Gonzo started jogging on the spot, his dreads bouncing on his shoulders.
“Yeah yeah yeah.”
We left, pausing on the steps outside to watch the entertainment. A girl, puce with embarrassment or rage or a combination of both, was screaming abuse at an older man who was dragging her into a silver-grey Merc SL. It took me a couple of seconds to realise the older guy was Conway. His face was flushed, jabbing a finger at the big bloke who’d been with his daughter inside the club. The big bloke was standing on the steps, hands on hips, like he’d reached the end of a catwalk.
“I’m not telling you again!” Conway’s voice was a strangled snarl. “Next time it’ll be you in the back of the car! Fucking pervert.”
He looked around, trying to work out exactly where the catcalls, the jeering, was coming from. His eyes caught mine. He looked away, came back to check out Gonzo and Dutchie, and got in the car, which roared away down the street.
“What was that all about?” Michelle wanted to know.
“Jail-bait,” I said. “Still at school, I’d say.”
Gonzo clicked his tongue.
“Shame.”
The sleet had stopped. The temperature had plummeted. Stars glittered against a clear black sky. Gonzo spotted the girls from the coat check, one wearing thigh-length PVC boots, the other chewing gum and looking bored. He sallied forth.
We piled into a booth in the kebab house and chewed on the plastic food while Gonzo tried to impress the two girls. Their ages combined would hardly have made up his, and they spent the best part of an hour giggling at his efforts. Then, without any visible sign of communication, they stood up and left. Gonzo stared after them, nonplussed.
“Are we right so?” Dutchie asked. Michelle was snuggled against him, head on his shoulder, eyes closed.
“Yeah,” Gonzo said. “I’ll be back in a minute.” He winked and tapped his breast pocket. “Just taking a whizz.”
He disappeared in the direction of the toilets. Dutchie looked at me.
“He on something?” he asked.
“You sit where you are,” Michelle ordered without opening her eyes. Dutchie grinned, started reminiscing about chemically inspired mayhem. Twenty minutes passed. Eventually Dutchie did the decent thing and went after Gonzo. Thirty seconds later he sprinted back around the corner, face drained.
“Harry!” He sounded choked, breath coming short. My first instinct was that Dutchie had got into a row, that a fight was brewing. Then I caught something in Dutchie’s eye that told me there was no fight, that whatever was wrong was very, very wrong. I bolted out of my seat.
The urinals were empty, the stench of ammonia blinding. Dutchie pulled me down the line of cubicles, pushed in the door of the last but one. Gonzo was slumped between bowl and wall, jammed into the narrow space. Shaking hard, head back, face bathed in sweat. A thin line of blood trickled from one nostril. Concrete settled in my stomach. I pushed past Dutchie into the cubicle, tugging at Gonzo’s arm.
“Get up, you fucker!” He was heavy, way too heavy, and it took a huge effort to dislodge him. When I finally pulled him loose he flopped forward onto the floor, face down in the piss, the sodden toilet paper. The blood mingled with the piss. A pink stain ebbed from his face.
“Is he…?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“Take his pulse.”
“Where the fuck is his pulse?”
“His wrist!”
“I know it’s his fucking wrist! Where on his wrist?”
“How the fuck would I know?”
“Jesus!” I groped at Gonzo’s wrist but I hadn’t the faintest idea of what I was looking for. “Christ sakes, Dutch. Ring a fucking ambulance!”
I sat on the floor, pulled Gonzo’s head onto my midriff, cradling his head. His face was contorted into a rictus, the skin fiery to the touch. I bent my face to his but I couldn’t tell whether he was breathing or not. When I slipped my hand inside his shirt to feel for his heartbeat, his chest was clammy with sweat. The heartbeat was there but the party was winding down.
“Alright, Gonz,” I whispered. “It’s going to be alright. Just hold on.”
I didn’t believe a word of it but I thought I should say something and I couldn’t remember any prayers.
14
Brady came through the door like it was last orders on Sunday night. If I hadn’t had other things on my mind, I might have wondered why it was Brady coming through the toilet door. I might have been surprised that the cavalry turned up so soon, too, and I might hav
e thought it odd that Brady was still on duty. But I had other things on my mind.
The kebab house manager was standing in the doorway, rubbing his hands in a sweaty fret. Brady shouldered him to one side, shoved past Dutchie, got down on one knee. Feeling the side of Gonzo’s neck, staring into my eyes, waiting for a pulse. Then he stood up, surveyed the cubicle, not noticing that one knee of his pants was a sodden stain. He rasped: “What’re you on, Rigby?”
“Nothing.” I pulled Gonzo tight. “Where the fuck’s the ambulance?”
He didn’t answer. He hunkered down, rifled through Gonzo’s pockets. It didn’t take him long to find the plastic wrap. He opened it, tipped a tablet out onto his palm, grimaced.
“How many?”
“I don’t fucking know.”
“If he dies – and he’s dying – your name’s first on the report, in red fucking marker. Last time. How many?”
“He said five. Said he wasn’t getting a buzz.”
Brady looked around as Galway pushed past Dutchie, picking his way between the puddles of urine, deft as a poodle.
“OD,” Brady reported. “E, looks like Flats. He’s still breathing. Pulse faint. No blockage.”
Galway said, like he had a razor under his tongue: “And there was me thinking you were kidding about public toilets.” Then, to Brady: “Get him to casualty.”
Brady did a double take.
“Me?”
“You. And do it quick-like. I don’t want any fucker dying on my watch.”
“What about the medics? The ambulance?”
“No ambulance, they’re both out at a pile-up on the motorway. Some prick jumped the reservation, ploughed into a Renault coming on. A kid went through the prick’s windscreen, still in his safety seat. What the fuck a kid is doing up at this hour.”
Brady still looked dubious.
“You want me to take him? In the squad?”
“Do it fast or there’ll be no point doing it at all.”
Brady squared his shoulders.
“I’m taking no fucker to Casualty in the squad. What if he kicks it?”
“Christ.” Galway looked down at Gonzo, sour. “Alright, put him in the car. I’ll take him.” He nodded at me. “You take that fucker down the station. Book him on suspicion, possession, resisting arrest, whatever takes your fancy. Just don’t let him out of your sight until I get back.”
“Fuck you,” I said, clutching Gonzo tight. I was feeling a pull, a bond, that I wasn’t even sure had anything to do with Gonzo. “I’m going to the hospital.”
Galway poked Gonzo’s leg with the toe of his hi-shine shoe. He popped a mint under his tongue, worked it around his cheek.
“One more word, you’ll be going to the hospital and know fuck all about it.”
Dutchie spoke up.
“I’ll follow on to the hospital, Harry. Alright?”
Galway turned for the door, saying: “Let the cunt die in his piss, I give a fuck.”
Michelle was standing outside on the street, hugging herself, as Brady half-carried, half-dragged Gonzo to the blue Mondeo. Dutchie told her that Gonzo was fine, kissed her on the side of the head, but she stayed rigid, staring. I could read her mind. ‘Dutchie,’ she was thinking. ‘There but for the grace of God. Oh my God, Dutchie.’
I didn’t blame her. I was thinking it too.
The Mondeo pulled off, Gonzo lolling in the passenger seat, Dutchie in the back trying to support Gonzo’s head. I watched it go until Brady clamped a hand on my shoulder, directed me towards a squad car. He pushed me into the back seat, sat in beside me.
“Sit still,” he said. “Don’t do anything stupid.”
From the depths of my torpor I heard someone say: “Put your safety-belt on. I’d hate to see you fined.”
He looked across, laughed a reedy laugh, turned away again. Then he straight-armed me flush on the ear with a punch of pure napalm. The side of my face blazed into flame. My head pitched back, clipping the reinforced glass window. Stupefied, screaming a sound I’d never heard before, I balled a fist on the recoil, putting every last atom of my existence into a punch that was four years brewing.
I was still swinging when Brady’s second caught me full on the bridge of the nose. I saw something flash, bright and impossibly white, and then the light dulled to something red and warm. I dove into the embers, found myself a convenient black hole.
I was lying on a thin, grimy mattress, a couple of migraines playing charades inside my head. Wrists handcuffed somewhere down around my kidneys. My head was an over-ripe melon, big, soft, raw and pulpy. My nose was blocked. When I snuffled, my ears nearly exploded. My shirt was covered in snot and puke. That made two nights running. I was on a roll.
I put the erection down to the handcuffs. When it finally went away, I started kicking at the cell door. Brady unlocked the handcuffs, marched me down to the end of a long, narrow hallway. The room was big, bright. Apart from the chair Brady pushed me into, there was a table with a scuffed Formica top and a blackened foil ashtray, for show. The carpet was threadbare and snot-green. The walls were a dirty-brown colour, the paint streaky, like someone had been left there long enough for a dirty protest to get out of hand.
Brady sat on a corner of the table, one leg dangling, placed Gonzo’s plastic wrap on the table. He looked comfortable, assured, on his own turf, or maybe he was just more relaxed when he didn’t have to impress the boss. He dug a packet of cigarettes out of his coat pocket, offered me one. I could barely hold it, my hands were shaking so hard. Brady lit the smoke, cocked his head to one side.
“You carrying anything, Rigby?”
“Could be.”
“Could be?”
“The jacket’s his. He wanted to wear mine. There could be something in the pockets.”
He held out a hand, snapped his fingers. I unzipped, handed the jacket across. He made a cursory search of the pockets, inside and out, ran his hand down the lining. Then he handed it back. I put the Puffa back on. It might have looked ridiculous but it was warm, quilted on the inside and worth every penny Gonzo had paid for it. Providing, I acknowledged, he had actually paid for it.
“Alright. Now, at the risk of repeating myself, tell me about Frank Conway.”
“First off – am I under arrest?”
“Not yet, no. That’s up to Galway, when he gets back.” He leered. “He might want to frisk you himself, by the way.”
“I’m all a-tremble. Why haven’t you arrested me?”
“You want me to?”
“I’ll try anything once. Besides, you’d be surprised how much false arrest is worth these days.”
“I wouldn’t. And who says it’d be false arrest?”
I stubbed the cigarette.
“Come on, Brady. Even I’m not thick enough to walk into a bacon factory with gear on me, and you have nothing that says I’ve ever taken anything stronger than Solpadeine. So what’s the drill?”
“You’re here because Galway wants you here.”
“You’re pimping for Galway?”
“He calls the shots.” He scratched at an ear. “Still, while you’re here, no reason we can’t be chatting.”
“I’ll wait for the coffee morning. Cheers all the same.”
He drummed a tattoo on the tabletop, came to a decision.
“You like Frank Conway, Rigby?” He waved a dismissive hand before I had a chance to answer. “And save the routine, I might start heckling.”
“I like everyone, Brady. Even you.”
“Okay, let’s do it this way. Your brother, Eddie?”
“We call him Gonzo.”
“Gonzo. Jesus.” The grim smile belonged in a morgue. “That’s not what he called himself when we knew him. He called himself Robbie back then, Robbie Callaghan. Passport to prove it, too, with an address in Shepherds Bush. Clocked up some serious air miles, did our Robbie. Amsterdam, Hamburg, you name it. Fascinated by real estate, too. Which was why he dropped in on Frank Conway every time he was home.” He
dropped the jovial tone. “Gonzo we know,” he growled. “Gonzo’s a good mate of ours. We had him over for tea and biscuits one day, he liked the place so much he stayed eighteen months. We had to take his medication off him on the way in, but he didn’t seem to mind.”
“Gonzo’d be too polite to say.”
“I can imagine. Anyway, Conway’s scum. Cheap with it, too. He jumped when the shit hit the fan and didn’t bounce until he hit Torremolinos. And there he stayed, until one fine day he upped sticks and disappeared. Six months ago we tracked him down here. We can’t make anything stick, because all along Robbie keeps schtum. Same old story, it even has a happy ending, Conway’s back in business. This time we think the gear’s coming in through Belfast. Stop me when I tell you something you don’t know already.”
“Go on. I like the sound of your voice.”
“Jesus, Rigby. You’re a – What do you call it? A research consultant?” He laughed, harsh. “I’d get a new job, Rigby. One where you don’t need to put one and one together.”
I let that one float.
“Okay, here’s what we reckon is going on. Eddie – Gonzo, Robbie, whatever the fuck he calls himself – does eighteen months. It should be two years, but who the fuck does a full stretch these days and he was a good boy. He gets back here last week, scouting Conway. Once he’s sussed what’s going on, he tells Conway he’s looking for sick pay. Conway makes with the fatted calf, tells Eddie he’ll look after him. Gives him a little something, just to show willing. Maybe it’s a lot of something, and Eddie’s back on commission. Except maybe there’s something more in the little something. Something that shouldn’t be there.”
“No chance. Gonzo knows his drugs.”
“Gonzo knows fuck all, panned out on a gurney with his face inside out. It makes me want to cry, but it’ll keep, until we’ve nailed Conway.”
“Why don’t you nail him now?”
Brady sniffed, thumbed his nose. Offered me another cigarette. I turned it down, started rolling a twist. The shakes had subsided. I was already sober, the hangover kicking in. Brady said: “Four-MTA.”