by Ray Banks
And I hit him again, this time with a fist. The crack and sudden yield as his nose breaks, the cartilage grinding against my knuckles. I take a step back, one hand still spread on his chest. Something clicks in Josh; he goes apeshit, running over to me. I hold out my free hand, blood on the knuckles. “Don't, Josh. Your dad didn't pay me to take a dive for you so I can do what I like to you. Pick your fuckin' battles.”
Josh looks from me to his old man. He doesn't say anything, but his teeth are clamped together, his lips working. Water in his eyes. Matching the tears in his father's.
“You're the hard lad, Josh. You wanted Liam out of the competition. Don't tell me you didn't know anything about this.”
He didn't. He does now.
I pull Callahan from the side of the Lincoln, swing him round and let him go. He staggers a few steps before he collapses to the ground. His nose is dribbling red. Not a bad break, but enough to make him think he's got a six-inch nail in his sinuses and an ocean in his eyes. But then the fucker likes the ocean, doesn't he?
I catch my breath. “You tried to bribe me. It didn't work. You took Liam.”
“I didn't do anything like that.” When he talks, blood bubbles appear through Callahan's fingers. “I don't know where your golden boy is.”
“You took Liam.” I kick him, aiming for the face, but connecting with his right shoulder. Callahan doesn't drop; he sways in a sitting position, twisting. “If you didn't take him, one of your employees did.”
“You don't know who you're dealing with.”
“I know exactly who I'm dealing with, Mr Callahan. I'm dealing with a nobhead who thinks he can buy his son a future. Someone who thinks cash equates to intelligence.” I turn to Josh. “You believe me or not. Your dad tried to sway the bout. Didn't think you had the fight in you to pull off a win.”
“He didn't—”
“You're making a mistake,” says Callahan.
I start walking to my car before I get any more ideas. “I made 'em before, mate, and I'll make 'em again.”
As I slide behind the wheel of the Metro, I glance at the pair of them.
“Help me up, Josh,” says Callahan.
Josh stands there.
I turn the key in the ignition and the lad looks over at me.
He really didn't know the first thing about this.
And part of me feels bad about it. But that won't last long.
I've got more important things to take care of.
30
That temper flash. That's what keeps me running headlong into the shitpile. If I'd learned to control it in prison, it was only because routine dulls the nerves, wears you down to the point where you don't have to feel anymore. All you have is monotony, that same grey existence day in, day out. It turned scarlet every time some hard bastard gets a face on or a mealy fucker's looking to graduate, but mostly it was a grind. What brought it out in the real world was confusion, chaos and bad luck dogging me like bog roll on the heel of my shoe. And I've got a horrible way of taking that personally.
Knuckles white and spotted brown on the steering wheel, thinking Nelson's the only person I can trust. Hoping to fuck he's seen Liam, panic gnawing away at me, but all hope's not lost yet. Control, focus.
If something's happened to the lad, I don't know what I'm going to tell Paulo. I know I was supposed to be here to relax — and what a fucking joke that's turned out to be — but the least I could've done was keep an eye on Liam.
If he fucks this up, it's his fault, Callum.
That's not true. If Liam fucks this up because of something I've done or something I haven't done, that's my fault. And the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
As I pull up outside the hotel, I can see Nelson standing out front. Get closer, and his face is white.
Christ. Something happened. I stop the Metro by Nelson, wind down the window. “You seen Liam?”
“Where've you been?” he says. He blinks at me. Could be the sunlight, but his shoulders are tight.
“Where d'you think I've been? I've been at Shapiro's. Liam's not there. He's got his bout with Josh in about an hour or something. I've managed to get it postponed for a wee while, but Shapiro's not going to hold it forever.”
Nelson is shaking. If I thought it was bad before, I know it's worse now.
“Nelson, mate, what's the matter?”
“I know where he is, Cal.” He takes a deep breath, his shoulders dropping a little. His hand strays to his jacket. Looks like he's got a stomach ache or something, the way his hand moves under the fabric.
“He alright?”
Nelson nods. “I think so, yeah.”
“He in his room?”
“No.”
“The fuck's the matter with you, Nelson?”
“He's not in his room,” he says. He opens his mouth, presses a back tooth with his tongue and breathes out sharply. “He's not in his room.”
“But you know where he is. You've seen him.”
Nelson nods.
“The fuck is he, then? I'm on a clock here—”
Nelson snaps at me: “He's somewhere else, okay?”
“You need a lift? Can I drive it?”
Nelson removes his hand, squints up the street, then back to me. “Yeah.”
“Then whatever you've got to say, you can say it when I'm driving. Come on.”
****
At first, I think we're heading to Nelson's house. The city drops away, becomes desert on either side of the car. Blue skies above, tattered anorexic clouds. Nelson gives me directions and I'm doing my best to follow them as I keep tabs on the clock in the dash. Been driving for an hour now, time's running out and I don't know what the fuck's up with my passenger. Nelson's been pale as hell and trembling in his seat. When he speaks, it's as if he's playing ventriloquist's dummy.
“My mother loved Willie Nelson,” he says. “That's why she called me Nelson. She loved Willie Nelson.”
“What happened, mate?”
Nelson shakes his head, looks at his lap. In such a state, he hasn't buckled up. Just sitting there, this twitching mess. And I hope to Christ he snaps out of it soon, because I need answers and all this crazy shite is just making me fear the worst.
“That kid's got potential,” he says. “He had a lot of potential.”
“Had?”
“He shouldn't be screwing his life up like this.”
“Like what? Christ, Nelson, you're scaring the shit out of me here. What the fuck happened to him?”
Thinking now Liam got drunk, Liam got robbed, Liam ended up on a D and D or assault charge because he let his temper get the better of him. Picturing him sweating cobs in a jail cell. The heat of this place, the strangeness of it all, part of me is surprised it didn't happen earlier. Thinking that if Nelson didn't see it coming, I should have. And kicking myself for it. But then, he was with his coach most of the time. What the fuck was he doing when Liam was getting himself into trouble?
“Liam called me from the hotel this morning, Cal.”.
“He was there this morning?”
“Bear right,” he says, gesturing with his left hand. The right stays on his hand, clenched in a ball.
I bear right.
“He was at the hotel this morning and he called me up and said could I drop him off at the gym. So I drove to the hotel and I saw Liam there.”
“Is he at your place now? 'Cause if he's at your place, Nelson, I need to know. I'm running on a tight fuckin' deadline here, and I'll need to step on it if I'm going to get out to Palm Desert and back in time.”
Nelson leans back in his seat, closes his eyes, flexes his right hand. “It doesn't matter.”
“What?” I watch the road, put my foot down. “No, we can make this.”
“You left your door open,” he says. I hardly hear it, sounds like he's sighing at the same time. “I saw the money.”
“What money?”
“The cash. On the desk.” He faces me. There's sweat on his forehead and the a
ir conditioning's on. “You took the bribe, didn't you?”
“I didn't take any bribe, Nelson…”
“You took the money.”
“I didn't take anything. They put the cash on me. Last night—”
“All this time, Cal, I've been telling you… I told you how corrupt the sport could be. And you told me you didn't take it—”
“And I didn't—”
“I went in your room and I saw the cash. That means you took the bribe.”
“Nelson—”
“You fucking did,” he yells. “Don't tell me you didn't take the money, Cal. I saw the fucking money. What the fuck else was it going to be? You come into some cash that quickly? What was it, your fucking holiday money? Don't tell me I didn't fucking see something when I did. It was there—”
“Calm down. Let me explain.”
Nelson's voice drops low, almost to a whisper. “You know, everything in this world has a dollar sign attached to it, everything can be bought, I thought there were actually guys out there who wouldn't sell out at the first fucking opportunity and I thought there was some fucking decency in you, I did, I thought there was some integrity left in this—”
“Don't start that white-hat, black-hat shite with me again, Nelson. Listen to me.”
“You sold him out.” Hard, flat. A statement of fact. And there's a rage in his eyes that I haven't seen since Liam was messing him about.
“I didn't sell anyone out, man. I sold him out, why the fuck am I looking for him now?”
“So he can take that standing count for you.”
“Fuckin' stop it, alright? Stop it. I sorted that out with Callahan. You want to see his face, I'll find him when we get back. With Liam. Now where are we going?”
I glance across at Nelson. His mouth is tight, his eyes narrowed. Hand laying under his jacket. He looks like whatever problem he had with his stomach has moved to his heart.
“Nelson. Talk to me, mate. Where are we going?”
Nothing. He blinks. Mouthing something I don't catch.
“You alright? You feeling okay? You look like shit.”
“Shit,” he says.
“C'mon, give me directions. I'm just driving here. I don't want to be stuck out in the middle of fuckin' nowhere.”
I look back at the road. There's nothing out there. Bleak.
“Tell me where I'm going,” I say.
Nelson's hand clamps on the steering wheel. Holds fast. I turn in my seat. His right hand is under his jacket. He brings it out, a gun in his fist. I jerk my head as the metal brushes my cheek.
“You're fuckin' jok—”
The gun goes off, the smell of what I suppose is cordite in the air, billowing into my face, and I can't hear anything apart from a high drone in both ears. Shattered glass down the back of my neck. I lash out. Forget the fucking car.
Lash out.
The world flares once, bright as the sun.
Then crashes into grey.
THREE
A SATISFIED MIND
31
Pastel shades on the walls, designed to keep your temper in check. Clean, reflective floors or thin stain-resistant carpet: any flooring that can repel blood, urine, vomit and — in some extreme cases — shit. The kind of hush that makes the air thick, taste like furniture polish or bleach at the back of your throat. The men here are wearing short-sleeved shirts, loafers and slacks with razor-sharp creases in them. Buzz cuts and the beginnings of beer bellies. These men are all clean-shaven. Some of them look so young, so fresh-faced, that a five o'clock shadow's about as foreign to them as a bloke with part of his ear missing, covered in blood, and talking with an accent that belongs six thousand miles away from here.
They've asked me to repeat myself a few times already. Mainly because they can't understand what I'm saying, sometimes because they want to see if I stick to my story. If I repeat it word for word, I've been prepped and I'm lying. If I change my story too much, I'm not prepped and I'm still lying.
Nice to see that some things are the same on both sides of the Atlantic. But at least it looks like I'm going to be spared the kind of am-dram DS Donkin's so fucking keen on. So far, I've been left pretty much alone, questioned by a couple of cops, left with one of them, then left alone again.
We ride this merry-go-round because the two cops — Munroe and Wallace — don't know what's going on. I'm giving them more questions than answers. So they go off, have a conference, come back and try again with their verbal sleight-of-hand. They haven't waded in hard yet. No need to. They don't know I'm an ex-con.
Sitting now, alone in a room that's only a little bigger than my kitchen, there's a part of me that thinks I've got it made. After all, this is a step up: an American police station. Something to be said for an interview by Los Angeles' brightest and best. I still want a cigarette and they took my codeine from me. Oh, and a Sprite or a Coke would go down well right about now. Or a Mountain Dew. Can't get that in Britain anymore.
A long mirror takes up most of the wall to my left, and I wonder if Munroe and Wallace are in there, muttering to themselves, “What the fuck are we gonna do with this limey bastard?”
They can do what they want. I'm past caring. I made it out of this afternoon alive, and that's about all I can hope for. Inevitable that I'd end up here. But I had more important things to take care of — Nelson, Liam, Shapiro. Tick 'em off.
I adjust my position in the chair, feel my spine click. No pain. Too tired to feel much of anything. They'd offered me coffee earlier, but I declined after seeing the dishwater they had. And I was polite about it. I was polite about everything.
Play it like they've already beaten you down, and what comes out of your mouth will sound like the God's honest truth.
The door to the interview room opens. Munroe enters first. He's a tall, gangly guy with gingerish-blonde hair and invisible eyebrows. Ruddy face, more likely brought about by the sun than the booze.
“Mr Innes, sorry to keep you waiting,” he says.
Wallace follows him. Another strapping lad, looks like he might've played rugby or American football at one point in his life. But he's older, or looks older, a sprinkling of grey in his sideburns.
“Not a problem,” I say.
Munroe pulls up a chair and sits opposite me; Wallace closes the door and leans against it, his arms crossed.
“You're not going to sit?” I say.
“No, thanks,” says Wallace.
“If we could go through your story one more time,” says Munroe. “Just a few things I want to get absolutely clear.”
“That's fine.”
“Just to nail the facts down,” he says.
“Yeah.”
Munroe laces his fingers together, looks down at my statement so far. “You were in the car with Mr Byrne, is that correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you were heading where?”
“I don't know. He didn't tell me.”
“But he was giving you directions,” says Wallace. Obviously got this committed to memory.
“Yes.”
“Did you ask him where you were going?” says Munroe.
“A couple of times, yeah.”
“And what did he say?”
“He didn't answer me.”
“How was Mr Byrne's mood?” says Wallace.
“Homicidal,” I say.
Wallace smiles and nods; Munroe's mouth twitches as he says, “You knew he was going to shoot you.”
“I take that back.” I shift position again, wonder what the hell these chairs are made out of. “I didn't know he was going to shoot me. He was edgy, though. Something was bothering him.”
“Did he tell you what that was?” says Munroe.
“Before he shot me, yes.”
“And what was bothering him?”
“He thought I'd taken a bribe.”
“A bribe.”
“Yes.”
“What kind of bribe?”
“The money kind.”
> “What was the bribe for?” says Wallace.
“I had a fighter in an amateur competition. The bribe was supposed to make him lose.”
“This would be… Liam Wooley?” says Munroe.
“That's him.”
“And the… Alvarez competition.”
“Yeah.”
“You a coach?” says Wallace.
“No.”
“But you've got a fighter,” he says.
“What did you tell Mr Byrne?” says Munroe.
“I was chaperone to Liam.” Wallace nods, scratches his chin. “And I told Nelson he was out of his mind.”
“And what happened then?” says Munroe.
“He pulled the gun and fired it.”
Munroe waits for me to continue. I don't.
“You're saying he shot you,” he says.
I point to the side of my head. “I'd say that was a pretty solid description.”
“But that was… the second shot?”
“Yeah.”
****
I dropped my hands from the steering wheel after the first shot. Couldn't hear anything, blinded by smoke and fear. I lunged at Nelson, felt my open palms connect with something solid, the seatbelt lock. The only thing I could do, instinct taking over. Then Nelson pulled the trigger again, took me out, threw my head back.
But before I tapped out, there was something. Nelson grew smaller all at once, sucked out of the car like it was a plane and I was flying low. As he dropped out of sight, the rest of the world followed suit.
And then it was a dull, aching grey. I don't know how long.
I heard something.
Someone telling me that blue skies were smiling at me…
It was Ella Fitzgerald.
…telling me I couldn't see anything but blue skies…
It was that bloke who did the theme tune to Moonlighting.
…and those bluebirds were singing a song…
And it was Willie Nelson. He caught the tune, stayed with it, pulled me out a little so I could feel my heart beating again, thumping hard against my ribs. Good job your parents called you Nelson, Nelson. Can't imagine how tough your life would've been with a name like Willie Byrne. There were worse folks to be named after, too. At least Willie had the soft, lilting voice, as if he didn't really care about the song, but he made you care with his braids and his shining perfect teeth. Another job to get the IRS off his arse, but to me, right then, it was like the heavens fucking well opened wide.