Screen of Deceit

by Nick Oldham

  ‘Oh yeah,’ said Eric.

  The Swannee was a piece of boggy, derelict land on the outskirts of Shoreside where kids often met and played. How it had got its name, no one knew, but it was a great place to hang out because it was not overlooked by any houses and it wasn’t far away from the motorway. It was a pretty desolate place where someone could easily get beaten up and have their bike stolen from them without any witnesses.

  Mark quickly weighed up the chances of legging it, ditching his precious BMX and just running … but his guards seemed to read his mind. They stepped in closer and Sam said, ‘No chance.’

  Mark’s shoulders sagged. He started to shake as a wave of terror washed over him. His head spun and he looked back imploringly at Kate, who shrugged her shoulders and raised her hands helplessly.

  Face facts, Mark Carter, you are definitely going to get a battering this time.

  His saviour came in a black Porsche Cayenne, one of those big four-wheel drive monsters with smoked glass windows, huge tyres and a big attitude – fifty grand’s worth of attitude.

  Mark, Sam and Eric had walked about a hundred metres – slowly – at the pace of a condemned man being led to the gallows. Things were not helped by the evocative description Sam was gleefully relaying to Mark about the extent of the beating he was about to get from Jonny.

  ‘He’s gonna kick yer ’ed in,’ he said with relish.

  Eric added his own salt to that particular description. ‘Even yer own mum won’t be able to recognize ya.’

  Mark began to feel that Eric and Sam were interchangeable, two peas out of the same pod, their thought processes almost identical. They could’ve been brothers, but Mark knew they weren’t related … but, then again, maybe they were and they just didn’t know it. Stranger things than that had happened on Shoreside. Same dad, different mums.

  Mark’s face had set like concrete. He didn’t hear the car at first, just became aware of its presence behind, hovering like a ghost. Mind, the engine was quiet, purring away, almost inaudible.

  His captors didn’t notice it either, not until the horn blasted out and made all three of them leap out of their skins. They all spun around.

  Mark’s eyes widened.

  The Porsche drew up alongside and stopped. A man climbed out.

  He was wearing designer shades, covering eyes which Mark knew were as keen as an eagle’s. The man’s hair was close-cropped, but styled all the same, trimmed with scissors by a hairstylist, rather than just with a mini lawnmower. There was a square chin and a tanned face. He wore a pure white D&G T-shirt underneath a superbly cut leather jacket, complementing his expensive jeans and loafers, his feet sock-less.

  ‘What’s going on?’ the man asked. His voice was soft.

  ‘What’s it to you?’ Eric sneered defiantly, though with a bit of hesitance.

  ‘I asked what’s going on.’

  Eric stepped aggressively forward. ‘An’ I said, what’s it to you?’

  Wrong move.

  It was just a blur of speed. So fast. A kind of double-punch to the face and Eric went down as though a ten-ton weight had smashed into him. He hit the ground hard.

  Sam moved at the man then – launched himself with a scream at this mystery attacker.

  Wrong move number two.

  The man pivoted and drove his fist into Sam’s stomach, making Mark go ‘Oooh!’ and wince, even. Then he twisted Sam around and shoved him head first against the school railings. As Sam’s head made contact with the iron, the man let him go and he flopped uselessly to the ground.

  The Porsche driver cast a critical eye over his handiwork and rubbed his hands. He then looked at Mark with a wry smile and slowly removed his sunglasses.

  ‘Can you not keep out of trouble?’

  ‘Thanks, you saved my skin.’

  ‘I know.’ The man’s attention turned to the two defeated miscreants on the ground. Eric was sat up on his backside, knees up, hands covering a crunched, bloody nose. Sam was on his knees, both hands covering the top of his head. The man gave Eric a tap with his toe just to get his attention. ‘Get lost, unless you want more – cos I’d be happy to dish it out.’

  They clambered unsteadily to their feet, but before they hobbled off, the man said in a low voice that was really a growl, ‘You leave Mark Carter alone, OK? If I ever hear you’ve even been near him, I’ll be back and you’ll be dangling by your feet from a motorway bridge – now piss off.’

  They ran, or shuffled, away, like the beaten dogs they were.

  Jack Carter turned to his younger brother and gave him a look of deep affection. ‘They won’t bother you again – promise.’

  ‘Thanks, mate.’

  It was one of those rare moments in Mark’s life. It didn’t happen often, but it still felt very, very good to have a big brother who could look after you now and again.

  Five

  Jack was wearing that sardonic smile he had perfected so well. It sort of hovered on his lips. That, coupled with one raised eyebrow – something else he’d perfected – and his easy good looks had the effect of making Mark squirm under his gaze – but not uncomfortably so – and go, ‘Whaaat?’ before chomping into his chicken burger and savouring a real treat, unlike Ray’s pieces of cardboard that doubled as burgers. It was something Mark could rarely afford – a three-piece meal. Bliss, and bless Colonel Sanders.

  They were in the Kentucky Fried Chicken near to Preston New Road. Jack shook his head with twisted amusement. ‘You don’t half get yourself into some scrapes,’ he chuckled.

  ‘Yeah, yeah I do,’ Mark admitted through his munching, revelling in Jack’s attention, even though the truth was he actually did his best not to get into scrapes.

  ‘And big bro has to come along and bail you out.’

  ‘Yep.’ Mark shoved a bunch of salty chips into his mouth.

  ‘What was that all about then?’

  ‘Oh, nowt,’ Mark said, trying to play it down. ‘Just trod on some tough guy’s toes. Nowt really. Big mistake.’ To be honest, Mark didn’t want Jack to get involved. Jack’s life had no connection with what went on at this low level on the streets of Blackpool. Jack was a high-flyer, a businessman who always had bits of computers and paperwork strewn around the inside of his car.

  ‘I see. You don’t really wanna tell me, do you?’

  ‘Nah – just glad you came along when you did, that’s all.’

  ‘OK, fair dos … but I’ll tell you something, those guys won’t bother you again.’

  Mark placed a half-eaten chicken drumstick down and squinted thoughtfully at his brother. ‘Jack, you won’t be here to do anything. I mean, once you’ve gone, you’ve gone, if you know what I mean. I mean, thanks for leatherin’ them, but they’ll get me sometime. It’s just how they are. The way of the world. And you won’t be here, because your life’s not here.’ Mark interlocked his fingers on the table in front of him.

  ‘No!’ It was barked harshly, making Mark jump a little. Jack placed a big hand over Mark’s hands and squeezed reassuringly. He leaned forward, looking closely into Mark’s eyes. A strange, hard, determined expression came over Jack’s face, a bit scary, even. Mark’s eyes narrowed. Jack said, ‘I mean it – they won’t bother you again.’

  ‘You can say that, Jack, but—’

  ‘Yeah, I can.’ Jack sat back, pulling away from Mark. There was another look on his face now which made Mark feel slightly edgy.

  ‘How?’

  ‘Trust me … I might not be here in person, but I’ll be here in spirit.’

  ‘Mm, OK, then,’ Mark said, not wanting to fall out with him, but knowing that as soon as Jack hopped into his fancy motor, he, Mark, would be alone again and would have to rely on his own wits and cunning to avoid Jonny Sparks and the Hyenas.

  ‘Don’t believe me, do you?’ Jack said.

  ‘Jack …’ Mark shrugged, opening his arms, wiggling his fingers as he tried to put his doubt into words that wouldn’t offend Jack.

  ‘You’ll be
all right, mate. I’ll be watching over you.’

  ‘If you say so,’ Mark conceded, not wanting to fall out.

  Jack’s mobile phone rang. It was on the table between them. He picked it up and inspected the caller display. ‘Need to get this – sorry.’ He pushed himself to his feet, putting the phone to his ear and walking out of the restaurant in to the car park out front.

  Mark watched him leave as he folded more chips into his mouth and washed them down with Fanta Orange.

  God, he thought, it was fantastic to see Jack. He always did this: didn’t see him for weeks on end and then, when you least expected it – bam! – turned up out of the blue. Mark loved it when he came, even if it was only for a fleeting visit. And he hated it when he left, drove off into the sunset, back to his business, his girlfriend and his own life. Mark really looked up to Jack, seeing what his elder brother had achieved, having dragged himself up and away from a shitty council estate and made something of his life. Good job, great car, some fantastic women, too. What Mark wanted was just to be happy and have a family of his own some day – a steady, dull family. Even at the tender age of fourteen he knew that was what he ultimately wanted and that’s what he was working towards. Get the education, get the degree, get the job, have a ball, see the world and leave this sink-hole and people like Jonny Sparks behind.

  Mark’s thoughts skittered to Bethany and his face darkened.

  Mark needed to speak to Jack about her. Maybe he could do something. But he knew that Jack didn’t hold much sway over Beth. No one did. She was hot-headed and independent, didn’t listen, knew best, didn’t like being told. Mark just hoped she wasn’t a lost cause.

  He would speak to Jack.

  Jack was in deep, animated conversation on the phone, gesticulating, emphasizing points with his hands, stomping around in circles, looking at the ground. Probably pulling off some business deal or other, Mark thought. Jack seemed pretty annoyed at something, but Mark could not hear any words, nor even guess at what was being said.

  Mark’s eyes roved round at the other customers. There were only a few people in the place. A young couple, all gooey-eyed, lovey-dovey, feeding chips to each other making Mark want to retch; one bloke sitting with a coffee, reading a broadsheet newspaper; two lads in their late teens were huddled in one corner by a window. Mark paused on them and they immediately locked on to his gaze, glowering back at him nastily. Mark quickly averted his eyes. He knew that even glancing at someone could end up with a head-butt and the two lads looked mean. He gave them a quick label: dealers. They reeked of drugs … or maybe he was being unfair to them.

  He looked outside again. Jack was now leaning on his Cayenne, facing toward the restaurant, still in discussion. He spotted Mark and held up two fingers, meaning two minutes. Mark nodded. He was in no rush. He sat back, relaxed, hands behind his head, watched a blue Subaru Impreza pull into the car park. It was that fantastic shade of blue, with gold-rimmed wheels – a real speed machine. Quite a lot of dosh for four wheels, though not as expensive as Jack’s Porsche, which was a real beast of a motor.

  The Subaru rolled on to the tarmac and stopped as though the driver was deciding where to park. Not a difficult decision, Mark wouldn’t have thought. There were loads of free spaces. Or maybe it was a hard decision. Too many free spaces. Too much choice.

  Mark watched idly.

  There were two lads in the car. Their features were indistinct, faces hidden in shadow, but Mark could tell they were young and actually, as he looked harder, they were both wearing baseball caps with the peaks pulled down. Mark sat up as his eyebrows knitted together and a deep but unsubstantiated suspicion rattled through him. Something about it just didn’t seem quite right.

  Was it a stolen car? Were they car thieves, maybe? Maybe they had targeted Jack’s motor. Mark had heard stories about people nicking good quality cars and exporting them, even carjacking them, literally robbing the owners.

  Just as quickly as he had made up his mind about the ‘dealers’ sitting in the corner, he now decided the Subaru was either stolen or the lads on board were looking for their next car to nick. Two lads, peaks pulled down over their faces, fast car: it all added up.

  Mark’s brain jumped and bounded. Was the car connected to the two dealers in the restaurant? Had they come to do a deal? Was something about to go down here?

  Or was he letting his vivid imagination run riot?

  The Subaru was still stationary. Jack, leaning on his car, was located between it and the entrance to the restaurant, concentrating on his phone call.

  Mark shook his head to clear it and sat back again.

  But only for a second.

  The passenger window of the Subaru slid down.

  Suddenly the car screamed forward with a howl of its powerful, well-tuned engine, and Mark jerked upright in his seat. The car veered left so it was travelling parallel to the restaurant, placing Jack and his vehicle between it and the front door.

  Mark’s guts lurched and he sensed real, serious danger now, not just imagined. His eyes glued to the car and in particular the passenger who was now leaning out of the window – with a heavy-looking pistol in his hands, tilted over, held parallel to the ground. Mark knew nothing about guns, but he knew one when he saw one. This one needed two hands to hold and point it. He’d seen such things in plenty of American cop dramas. It was huge, almost the size of a machine gun.

  There was a dull but horrible ‘Crack-ack-ack!’ – the gun being fired. Jack twisted round, screamed something unintelligible and dived to the hard ground, taking cover by the side of the Porsche.

  Mark, stupidly, rose to his feet, like he’d been hypnotised.

  Everything was a blur.

  The Subaru accelerated past the restaurant, with Jack still caught between it and the intended targets – Mark assumed in his racing, tumbling mind that the two lads who he’d put down as drug dealers were the intended victims. So he had been right after all.

  One of the large plate-glass windows at the front of the restaurant shattered spectacularly as bullets smashed through it.

  Now Mark reacted as he should have done initially – by throwing himself down between the chair and table legs and his own chair clattered away as he upturned it.

  There was a high-pitched, female scream.

  Mark hit the deck hard, catching a glancing blow on his forehead as he caught the edge of a table.

  A man shouted.

  More shots were fired – a dull, sickening sound, unlike anything he’d ever heard before and totally unlike the sound effects of gunshots on the telly.

  An engine revved. The Subaru?

  Had Jack been hit accidentally?

  Mark lay on the floor, his hands over his head, terrified. He had no idea how long he was there amongst the chair legs. Probably only seconds and then he was being hauled to his feet by strong hands and there was Jack’s cool face in his. He was OK.

  ‘Let’s get out of here,’ big brother said calmly.

  ‘What happened?’ Mark babbled.

  ‘DBS,’ said Jack, yanking his younger brother across the restaurant and out through the front door.

  Mark just went with the flow. His head was in a vortex and he allowed Jack to manhandle him away from the scene. Still, he managed to utter, ‘What’s a DBS?’

  Drive-by shooting!

  Mark Carter sat there stunned, dumbstruck, in the front passenger seat of Jack’s Cayenne, Jack at the wheel, driving away from the KFC cool as an icebox. Mark’s brow was deeply furrowed, his eyebrows almost touching with his perplexity as he tried desperately to work it all out. A drive-by shooting. Hell! Something he’d only ever heard of. Something that only ever happened in London or Birmingham, or Nottingham – or the Bronx. Not here in Blackpool.

  He turned and studied Jack’s profile. He couldn’t even remember being bundled into the 4x4. It was all a sort of muzzed-up haze as Jack had dragged, prodded and forced him out of the restaurant and into his motor. Mark was now in shock. He was
starting to shake a little. He held out his right hand in front of him, palm down, and watched it tremble uncontrollably. A look of horror morphed his face.

  ‘You OK?’ Jack asked, not taking his eyes off the road. ‘I hope that’s not your gun hand.’

  Mark quickly dropped his hand back into his lap and blurted, ‘Yeah, yeah … Shit, Jack, a drive-by shooting?’

  ‘I know. I can hardly believe it myself.’

  ‘You seem dead laid back about it, though.’

  Jack shrugged.

  ‘What was it all about?’

  He shrugged again. ‘Dunno.’

  ‘Who were they shooting at?’

  ‘How would I know? Somebody in the Kentucky, I guess.’

  Mark’s mind was beginning to clear a little. He cast his thoughts back to the few moments before the Subaru had rolled in to the car park and everything had gone to rat shit. The seconds when he was looking around, taking in the other people there. The bloke reading the newspaper, the lovey-dovey couple and, yeah, the two lads. It all slotted neatly into place for him then.

  ‘It had to be those two lads,’ he gasped. ‘Real seedy looking guys, druggies if ever I saw any.’

  He tried to picture what had happened to them in the chaos of a hail of bullets, but couldn’t. It was all a blurred, frightening mess, and he couldn’t recall seeing them when Jack was dragging him away. They were probably flat on the floor. Had they been hit? Had anyone been hit?

  ‘Yeah, must’ve been them. Looked just like dealers.’

  ‘You know what a drug-dealer looks like, then?’ Jack asked.

  ‘Spot one a mile off,’ Mark said confidently.

  Jack chortled.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Talk about stereotyping – what, shell suits, baseball caps and Reeboks?’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘The guys who usually look like drug-dealers or pimps, usually aren’t, but they’d like people to think they were. It’s the ones who don’t look like ’em are the ones who usually are. Still, you’re probably right. They were probably the targets.’

  ‘Think anyone did get shot?’