by Les Wood
McLean was a big man, tall and hefty, with his hair oiled and swept back and his greying beard neatly trimmed. He wore a long, dark overcoat with a yellow cashmere scarf tucked neatly around his neck. Black leather gloves covered his hands and the scent of expensive aftershave drifted towards the men as he approached. Leggett was looking at him expectantly, his hands fidgeting with the buttons on his jacket.
‘Alright, boys?’ said McLean. ‘Glad you could make it.’
‘Ah’m just fine, Mr McLean,’ said Leggett, not realising the question didn’t require an answer. ‘Just fine.’
McLean didn’t even look at him. ‘Mr Boddice apologises – he has been unavoidably detained,’ he said. ‘But he will be glad to learn you all received his message and took the trouble to come out on this foul night to attend to business.’ He reached into his coat and took out a bundle wrapped in a dark blue towel. McLean unfolded the package slowly to reveal a snub-nosed revolver, chrome-plated. It lay gleaming on the towel, reflecting the flames from the fire. He placed it carefully on the floor.
‘Holy mother of all things holy,’ said Leggett in a hushed voice. ‘Fuck me, but that’s a beauty! Can Ah touch it?’
McLean turned his head slightly and raised an eyebrow. ‘Don’t be so stupid!’ he snapped. ‘Mr Boddice paid over eight hundred for this weapon. Imported from Holland. Never fired.’ He looked at each of them in turn. ‘There’s one bullet and then it goes back tomorrow. It’ll be untraceable.’ He turned to Leggett. ‘So Ah don’t want your grubby wee mitts on it alright?’
Leggett looked dejected.
‘Not yet anyway,’ McLean finished.
Leggett’s eyes widened, and a grin spread across his face. He hopped from foot to foot. ‘Oh man, oh man,’ he muttered under his breath.
‘Okay boys,’ said McLean. ‘Sorry this has been a wee hike for most of youse. Mr Boddice hopes you will forgive him. But it’s a single shot job. Ah don’t need youse all for this one.’
They had heard all this before. Boddice always liked to have his full team at his disposal and usually didn’t make up his mind who he would use on a particular job until the last minute. A wee text message on the mobile, giving the time and place for the meet, and he’d expect them all to be there. Failure to show and they’d never be used again. Simple as that. He’d make sure each of them got a wee something for their trouble, but it was never that much. Nevertheless, if any of them was picked for one of the ‘special’ jobs, the rewards were handsome; and that’s what kept them coming back.
McLean stood for a moment in silence, contemplating. He took a deep breath. ‘Leggett, it’s you,’ he said.
Leggett let out a wee gasp. ‘Oh fuckin mama... yes!’ he said.
McLean went on. ‘And Kyle, Ah’ll need you as well.’
Kyle’s heart skipped a beat. He glanced over at Leggett who was still too excited to notice what McLean had said. Oh fuck, thought Kyle. I think I know what’s coming.
McLean ushered the rest of them from the hall. ‘Right lads. See the rest of youse soon. Let yourselves out the back.’
All the time Leggett eyed the gun as it lay glistening on the towel. It shone in the darkness like a bead of mercury. He licked his lips and looked up at Kyle, seeming to notice for the first time that he was still there, that they were a twosome. A small frown creased his forehead.
McLean came back down the aisle towards the fire, bent down and picked up the gun, holding it carefully in the towel, despite his gloved hands. Leggett shifted back and forth restlessly, barely able to contain himself, his eyes darting between McLean and the gun.
‘Kyle,’ McLean said, turning towards him. ‘You’ve done this for Mr Boddice before, haven’t ye?’
Kyle nodded.
He felt the universe tilt on its axis.
McLean came over and handed the gun to Kyle. ‘Okay, do him,’ he said, and walked quickly to the doors at the back of the hall.
Kyle turned to Leggett who was looking at him with innocent, uncomprehending eyes. Eyes that were growing wider by the second as it slowly dawned on him what was about to happen. Leggett started gibbering. ‘No, it’s alright, Ah don’t need to know... Ah don’t need to know.’
Kyle became aware of the banging of the fire exit door down in the depths of the building. It must have worked its way free of the board propping it open.
The sound reminded him of something. He couldn’t quite place it.
He levelled the gun and squeezed the trigger.
Pow! he thought.
PART 2: THE BEST-LAID PLANS…
Boddice: Nobody’s Child
The Merc was becoming too hot. McLean had kept the heater running when he left, and Boddice felt stifled. He’d already reached over from the passenger seat and set the climate control to a cooler setting, but the combination of his overcoat, scarf and gloves meant he was still sweltered, the air in the car suffocatingly dry. Despite being a Mercedes, the people carrier wasn’t his favourite among his cars, not by a long way, but it was necessary for tonight’s wee job.
A trickle of sweat threaded through the stubble on his face. He couldn’t stand it any longer. Sighing, he opened the door and clambered out into the thin sleet. Immediately, the chill sliced through him and he shivered violently. Fuck’s sake, he thought, from one extreme to the other. He scowled and pulled up his collar.
The awning above the entrance to the Palace clattered and boomed in the wind, and Boddice thought of McLean taking care of business; in there; in the dark. Not that Boddice was concerned about Leggett – the spotty wee scrag meant less to him than the dogshit on the pavement. No, the thing that gave him pause was what was going to happen next.
The Announcement.
The Plan.
Whether it was going to work. And, more to the point, whether they were all up for it, ready for the change of direction. Without them on board, it would all go to hell. He needed the boys to carry it off, and he needed them to be fully behind him.
Later, when he was ready, he would reveal the wee twist in the story. Much later. Once they were committed.
He leaned against the bonnet of the car, fished inside his pocket and brought out a silver hip flask. He unscrewed the top, sniffed the contents. Laphroaig. The good old Leapfrog. That would do the trick. He knew it was supposed to taste better if it was watered slightly, but Boddice preferred it raw and unadulterated. None of your namby-pamby tasting-notes shite. Just the whisky and nothing else. And this was the good stuff. Twenty-five-year-old. Four hundred quid a bottle. He put the flask to his lips and tipped it back. The whisky ran into his mouth, the pungent, peat-smoke flavour both warming and anaesthetising his tongue at the same time. He held it for a moment, savouring its fierceness, before letting the whisky slip down his throat.
The Plan. The change of direction. So much was riding on this. Of course, the money was one thing, and there was his standing in the drug world. But Boddice knew that had been declining for years. He wasn’t self-obsessed enough to believe he was now not much more than a bit player in the great scheme of things. His star was no longer in the ascendancy. Sure, he was feared, he was loathed, he commanded respect, and rightly too – a guy would have to be one crazy fucker to even think about crossing him (as Leggett was just about to discover) – but now there were much bigger fish in the pond.
Boddice knew he was tolerated, allowed to run his little empire more by lack of interest than anything else on the part of those guys who had become the real movers and shakers; the guys with the book deals for a ghost-written autobiography, the television documentaries on their ‘shady criminal underworld’ shenanigans, and the publicists who made sure they were front-page regulars. He still moved in their circles of course, attended the same swanky dinners, the charity dos, the boxing bouts, schmoozed the room with the minor celebrities and the hangers-on, pressed the flesh, shared the dirty jokes. But he knew, and, more importantly, they knew, he wasn’t the man he was. He didn’t kid himself that if they ever were to exp
ress even the slightest curiosity in his business affairs, think about moving in, he wouldn’t be removed from the scene without so much as a polite good-night and thank-you.
But this Plan… this could be different. This was something those newbies wouldn’t dream of touching – not their scene in the first place – but, even so, something that could establish Boddice in an altogether different league. One where they would press their noses to the window and look on in awe at what he had done. He would show the fuckers.
Boddice shivered again. He was about to take another swig from the hip flask when the door of the Palace opened, juddering and scraping against the fake marble floor of the vestibule. He screwed the top back on the flask, smoothed his coat and stretched his neck over his shirt collar. About time, he thought, slipping the flask back into his pocket.
Boag was first. He shuffled through the rubbish in the doorway and made his way down the stairs towards Boddice without even lifting his head to notice him standing there. Prentice came out next, followed by the twins and then McLean, buttoning his jacket. Prentice nodded and gave a low grunt by way of a greeting, and Boag finally looked up, startled to see Boddice standing beside the Mercedes.
Time to turn on the charm.
Boddice smiled. ‘Good to see you boys,’ he said. ‘Glad you saw fit to come along.’ He turned to McLean. ‘Everything alright with the boy and Kyle?’
McLean stuffed his hands into the pockets of his coat, glanced up the empty street. ‘I don’t see there being any problems Mr Boddice.’ There was a dry, crisp bang from the bingo hall behind him, a sudden crack like the slap of a wooden plank on a stone floor. Boag and the twins gave a startled jump. McLean grinned. ‘No problems at all.’
‘You hear that?’ Boddice scanned their faces. ‘That, boys,’ Boddice said, ‘is the sound of justice, the sweet, reassuring noise that tells me I have someone I can trust to do what they are told. Not go fucking around behind my back or hope to pull the wool over my eyes.’
The door opened and Kyle came out shaking his head, his lips pressed tightly together, forcing his mouth into a thin slash. He held the gun in trembling hands. He sat heavily on the stairs, his eyes fixed on the ground.
Boddice ignored him and carried on with his speech. ‘The sound that, should any one of you even begin to think to try to scam me, to defy me,’ he threw a sidelong glance at Prentice, ‘to turn your back on me, will be the last fucking thing you hear.’
The door opened again and Leggett staggered into the street, his face as pale as the moon and with a piss stain darkening the inside of his trouser leg. Boddice waved Leggett over... ‘It’s the sound which our… come on son, over here, soon as you can... which our young cub, our wee baby spice, our thinks-he-knows-it-all fledgling entrepreneur, should have had echoing in his shell-likes as he breathed his last, lying on the sticky carpet of the illustrious Palace Bingo Hall.’ Boddice put his arm around Leggett who stood blinking back tears. ‘Which, you can clearly see, he has not. He has in fact... ’ Boddice wrinkled his nose. ‘Have you shat yourself son? Had a wee wet fart and followed through? Understandable, I suppose.’ He curled his upper lip. ‘Anyway... as I was saying... Leggett here has in fact become a member of a very rare and elite band of people. We should get you a T-shirt made up... That’s a good idea, I like it.’ He winked at McLean. ‘Andy, remind me about that tomorrow morning.’ Boddice took Leggett’s arm, began twisting it up behind his back, forcing the boy to his knees in front of the car. ‘Yes, young Leggett is one of those unique people that have had the privilege of me, yes me, paying back a favour I owe them. More than that, he is one of the even more uncommon species of creatures that are alive and kicking when they should, more properly, be queuing up at the pearly gates.’
He kicked Leggett in the small of the back. Leggett fell to the ground, his shadow thrown far along the road by the car headlamps. Boddice knelt down beside him. ‘You hear me son?’ he hissed. ‘You understand what I’m fucking saying to you? You’ve had a second chance here boy, and second chances are not usually my thing.’ Boddice got to his feet. ‘Consider us squared up.’
Boddice left Leggett lying on the road and turned to the others. ‘I know what you’re all thinking. What the fuck is going on? Why did I almost dispatch this wee toaly to meet his maker; and more to the point, you’re probably wondering why I haven’t, in fact, done so. Why is he still sucking air into his lungs, and not lying up in that hall waiting to be discovered by some scabby wee jakey three weeks from now?’
Boddice watched them shuffle uncomfortably. One of the twins, he couldn’t tell which one, lit up a cigarette.
Kyle, still sitting on the stairs, looked over to Boddice. ‘You’re fucking right that’s what we’re wondering,’ Kyle said, his voice shaking with anger. ‘Ah’ve just psyched myself up to get rid of this wee prick once and for all, and what do Ah get? Nuthin more than a bloody ringing in my ear from a fucking blank.’ He shook his head again. ‘A blank!’
‘I fully understand how you must feel,’ said Boddice, smiling. ‘You’re a good man... loyal… and I took advantage. No doubt about that. But, rest assured, I’ll see to it that you’ll not go empty-handed for this. You’re on a bonus Kyle.’
Leggett, still on his hands and knees, started to throw up on the road. Boddice laughed again. ‘That’s right son, get it all up. Better out than in, eh?’ He was relishing his performance. ‘You see lads, I brought you out here to observe this because I want you to know two things.’ He kicked Leggett’s arm away from him, sent him sprawling back to the ground. ‘One, if you fuck with me, try to turn me over, this is going to happen for real, make no mistake.’ Leggett had started to get back up. Boddice kicked him down again. ‘Secondly, and I won’t bore you with the details of what this wee shite got up to, but let’s say I owed him a favour and now that’s not only settled, but he owes me a few thousand pounds in lost revenue.’ He grinned at Leggett. ‘Let’s just hope for both our sakes you’ve been squirreling it away under your clatty wee bed. A favour returned is one thing. Letting you get away with it is something altogether different.’ He nodded to Kyle and Prentice. ‘You two will go round tomorrow and do a bit of collecting. If he’s not got it, break his fucking legs, tell him you’ll be back the next day. And if... well, you know the drill.’
Boddice clapped his hands together, and rubbed them to get some blood flowing back in. ‘But, anyway,’ he said. ‘There’s also the real reason you’re out here in this god-awful weather.’ They all glanced up, except Kyle who fidgeted with the stock of the gun. Boddice swept his arms wide, shepherding them towards the Merc. ‘I’ve got an announcement to make,’ he said, opening the door and ushering them inside. ‘In private.’ Boddice went back over to Leggett, who had finally scrambled to his feet. Boddice grabbed Leggett’s shirt and pulled him close. ‘As for you, ya wee prick, you’re out. As of now, if I ever see you on this patch again, ever catch you with so much as a baw-hair on these streets, I will fucking kill you.’ His breath condensed in the cold air causing each word to be punctuated by a small cloud of vapour. ‘Don’t for a second doubt me. I’ll rip your plooky wee face off.’ Boddice pushed him away. ‘And that’s not just a fancy figure of speech, believe me. You’ve been lucky tonight son. Luckier than you can ever know. Understand?’
Leggett stared at the ground and nodded his head.
‘Say it,’ said Boddice. ‘Tell me you understand.’
Leggett blinked back his tears. ‘Ah understand.’
‘Good. Then we both know the lie of the land.’
Boddice turned his back on him and returned to the Merc.
He climbed into the front seat beside McLean who spun the car into the road and sped off, leaving Leggett, orphaned, under the Palace awning.
On the beach
McLean took the Merc onto the motorway, heading for the coast. Boddice turned in his seat and looked at the men sitting in the back. The twins and Boag seemed to shrink into their seats, unsure of what was going on. Kyle
and Prentice stared out the windows on either side, watching the housing schemes slip past in the falling snow.
They drove in silence for forty-five minutes, the men knowing not to ask any questions or strike up any banal attempts at small talk with each other. Things would be made clear in due course.
When they reached Ayr, McLean drove through the town centre and down to the promenade, the car park deserted, not even a shaggin-wagon parked in a far corner away from the street lights.
Boddice touched McLean on the shoulder. ‘Just pull up here Andy, this’ll do fine.’
McLean turned into a space facing the beach and killed the headlights. They could just make out the waves breaking in long lines of white surf which surged onto the sand. The wind buffeted the car, rocking and bouncing it on the suspension. Prentice shook his head and muttered under his breath, ‘Surely not here...’
Boddice opened his door. ‘Afraid so, Davie. Thought we’d try somewhere different.’
‘Ah’ll say it’s different,’ said Prentice. ‘It’s fucking freezing out there. Ah’m not dressed for this.’
Boddice climbed out. ‘Okay lads, follow me.’
They got out of the car and stood huddled beside it. Boddice leaned inside, spoke to McLean. ‘Sorry Andy, it’s just the boys for this one. Need-to-know basis and all that. What you don’t know can’t hurt you.’
‘No problem, Mr Boddice. I’ll be waiting here.’
‘Good man. We’ll not be too long.’ Boddice made to close the door, but stopped. ‘Oh, and Andy,’ he said. ‘Don’t leave the heater running too high. Let’s keep it down to sauna levels eh?’