Stonedogs

by Craig Marriner

He’s out in ten seconds, legs a little wobbly, zipping up on the move. Behind him come the sounds of the shower starting.

  Mick, casual: ‘How did ya go?’

  In answer Bum swings out of the bag on his shoulder, clicks it open … and dumps enough wads of used notes on the table to keep Lefty in Brylcream for several centuries.

  In my breast the sight elicits barely a flicker.

  As one expecting answers, Barry hefts a wad, frowns at it.

  Mick: ‘How much?’

  Bum, intoning: ‘Forty thousand dollars, ladies and gentlemen. God bless the world’s fifth-oldest profession.’

  Mick: ‘He took the lot, then?’

  ‘Indeed.’

  A pound of good buds retails at around two grand. A pound of ‘our’ buds, closer to three. Bum’s man had placed an order for twenty pounds, negotiating a bulk price of forty grand.

  Leaving us the simple task of moving another sixty pounds.

  Me: ‘Does he want any more?’

  ‘As impressed as he is with the stuff, he’s got no use for any more till he’s shifted the first batch. Given the uniqueness of the blow, and that I told him it might be a little hot, he’s planning on boiling most of it down to oil. Which means he’ll need to lay his hands on a shitload of isopropyl. Once he’s cooked it, though, it’ll sell like hotcakes, so, at a guess, he’ll be ready for the same amount again in about … six weeks.’

  Mick, summing up: ‘Fuck.’

  Barry: ‘Did you take some samples around to those others, like you said?’

  ‘Yeah, but mostly no joy. They love the stuff, make no mistake, and they all want a pound or so — mostly for personal use — but most of them’ll have their own plants up within a month or so, and rounding up the readies for a big score off us is a little out of the budget.’

  Me: ‘Is that across the board, is it?’

  Bum, darkening: ‘Not completely. There’s one … consortium who reckon they’ll take as much as we can bring them.’

  Barry, sceptical: ‘All sixty pounds? Who the fuck is it? The Tony Soprano crew?’

  Bum: ‘If only. They’re skinheads.’

  The house grimaces collectively.

  Me, dismissive: ‘We couldn’t let sixty pounds go for much less than a hundred gs, man. As if a pack of cocksucker skinheads could lay claws on that type of dosh. Widowed grandmothers don’t tend to have more than loose change in their handbags.’

  Bum: ‘Strangely enough, I reckon these clowns could rake the capital together. Don’t ask me what the fuck went on, but a few skinhead factions united a while back and ever since they’ve had cash and good drugs coming out their fucking arseholes. The amount of psycho kids they’ve got running around jacking cars and doing houses might account for a fair bit of it, but it still don’t seem to fit. A mate of mine got a speed lab cooking in his garage a while back. He worked his arse off and stockpiled for a year, waiting for a shortage in the market. Then he started moving the shit in ounces. Me and him’ve gotta mate in the Skins — reasonable guy, as far as those cunts go — and when they heard how much whizz he had, they offered to relieve him of it in one hit. Three days later the deal’s done, and he’s fifty gs the richer.’

  Barry, puzzled: ‘So what’s the problem?’

  Bum: ‘The “problem” is simple: these guys are skinheads.’

  I know where he’s coming from. It’s a well-recorded fact that your standard skinhead is as much in need of a silver bullet as J. Edgar Hoover ever was.

  Barry, disdainful: ‘Na, fuck the cunts. So long as they’ve got the laros, it’ll be sweet as. They give us any grief, we’ll sort them out quick smart.’

  Barry doesn’t rate skinheads. (‘The fucking pansies are only tough in packs of ten or more. They all talk a good beating, though.’) Then again, Barry doesn’t rate graduates of the Bangkok Kick Boxing Association.

  Me: ‘You don’t trust ’em, Bum?’

  ‘As well trust a gut-shot puff adder, mate. Sure, they’re doing a fair bit of business around town, and they can no longer afford to be seen as a pack of loose cannons who’d stomp their mother for her milk money if she turned her back. But in my book a skinhead’s a skinhead. Those arseholes are just as destructive as their role-models, and anyone with half a brain’ll tell you that if Uncle Adolf and his mirthful monks had known a bit more restraint, we’d be eating blue whale sushi right now.’

  Mick: ‘You reckon they’ll jump us?’

  ‘All I’m saying is if you put a milky-bar in front of a five-year-old kid and leave him be, the odds of him eating only half on the promise of a visit to McDick’s in a month’s time are pretty fucking slim.’

  Mick: ‘What about your mate? Isn’t he a guarantor?’

  ‘He would be, but he’s in the Joint at the moment. The oinkers raided his house and found a knife with blood on it from a stabbing the week before. That Jamie had never laid eyes on the thing didn’t seem to trouble the judge overly.’

  Me: ‘You must know more of them. Didn’t you just go and see them?’

  ‘I went and saw Jamie’s little brother round at his mum’s place. He prospects for them. But that was only in the hope of moving a pound or three. One of the big shots happened to call round while I was there; he had a sample as well. That’s the only reason I know for sure that they’d take more. “As much as you’ve got,” he said. I never would have gone to their pad to sound them out, not without Jamie. I’d feel safer in the hyena enclosure down the zoo. And they won’t consent to doing a deal of any significance away from the fucking place. Their cars are too well known to the oinkers for that kind of risk. That’s their excuse, anyway.’

  Me: ‘How much notice would they need to get the hundred grand together?’

  Bum, vexed: ‘Probably not much, but I don’t see why you’s are even considering using them. You’ve each got about eight gs to “tide you over”, and if we use a bit of patience, I’ll be able to shift the rest under far less dodgy circumstances.’

  Me: ‘Can ya give us an estimate on that?’

  ‘Before it’s all sold? Well … with the harvest coming up, it’ll be a buyer’s market for about two months … with the quality of this gear, though, pound sales should stay regular even then … so … let’s say … three months, tops. Why the rush?’

  From where Bum’s standing that’s a fair question. And to bring him into frame fully would require an answer along the lines of: Because five people got killed over this weed, Bum. That’s right: killed. Whacked, iced, capped, rubbed out, or any other euphemism an actor might practise before bed. And though we’ve made what might just unfold to be a decent salvage, we’re pretty keen to put a few thousand miles between here and us … oh, and we won’t be back for a year or three.

  But that’s not the whole story, is it? No, a fuller account would delve into blurry abstract; might sound a little something like: Well, Bum, in the last two days we’ve gone and plunged ourselves into a dimension where the usual parameters no longer cut a lot of ice. A place where chaos runs the table. So far us three have surfed the rough stuff, and milked the sweet, but as stupid as we were to leave the real world in the first place, we’re not halfwits: our luck’s going to expire at any second, and we’d quite like to see the arse-end of this thing sometime before then.

  But, of course, Bum’s not going to hear a syllable of that. For were he to learn the real details of our swindle of the Rabble, we’d be minus a massively haired accomplice as quick as you could say ‘accessory to murder’.

  Granted, retaining Bum’s services under false pretences is a pretty low act. But next to some of the sins we’ve executed in recent times, when we’re finally capable of sane recollection I’m guessing this one will sit pretty comfortably.

  Naturally, if news of the slayings breaks, there’s a chance of Bum putting five and five together. If this occurs he could cut up rough.

  But after Takahera Forest, I’m suddenly in as much fear of this prospect as I am of contracting Creutzfeldt-Jakob disea
se.

  Whatever; with Bum’s stare demanding answers, I discover that my instinct for disinformation has survived apathetic dementia. A contrite wince: ‘Look, Bum, we should’ve said something about this earlier, but there was no way we could accommodate another partner and we didn’t wanna look like pricks if you asked for in.’

  Hard: ‘… I’m listening.’

  Blending in a sheepishness I wouldn’t normally have to feign: ‘Well … you remember that “Final Solution” of mine I told you about?’ The best deceptions, of course, stray least from the truth.

  Bum, irately taken aback: ‘What? Selling online story sessions to kids?’ Sarky: ‘“Truth for our youth”? “Impeaching the preaching”? What the fuck has that shit got to do with anything?’

  Seamless: ‘We’re gonna take a crack at it.’

  Bum squints at me for a good five seconds …

  Then rocks back on his heels, declaring darkly: ‘Bollocks. You were as serious about that as Lefty was of joining the seminary.’

  Me, ‘insulted’: ‘Oh, wow, thanks a lot, man. Remind me never to share any goals with you again.’

  But my ‘resentment’ isn’t challenged. Mick sees to that, backing me up with the currency he deals in so well. Flat: ‘It’s true, Bum. We only settled on it the other night, after Gator met that chick. She’s worked in IT for years, and she reckons the market’s got a yawning chasm in it for something like this.’ A wry little shrug, a touch of shame: ‘She says if we act now, get the money and the plans to her, we could all be millionaires by springtime.’

  This stuff’s more Bum’s language by far. Still, the dude’s not a total moron.

  ‘But why the fuck would you need so much dosh to get started?’

  Mick’s wise enough to step aside smartly, letting me weave. Chuckling at Bum’s ‘naivety’: ‘Are you kidding me? For a start we’ll be buying at least five computers, new ones at that, not to mention all sorts of hardware plug-ins; the software alone’s gonna set us back fifteen gs, if we shop around, then there’s the patents we’ll be taking out, the market research …’ — His eyes holding mine are still in no-man’s-land, but the new me stares back at him with ease — ‘… the advertising, the line rental and ISP bills, the copyright fees, the rent on a property, insurance for the whole kit and kaboodle, the hiring of a networking firm …’

  At last Bum breaks the gaze, and I can see my hook wedged firmly in his gullet.

  Thank you and good night.

  He’s far from happy, though. ‘What ya’s are telling me … is that you’re willing to risk dealing with the Skins?’

  Me, to my associates: ‘Is that what we’re saying, boys?’

  Barry, automatically: ‘Too fucking right it is.’

  Mick’s answer’s a little longer in coming. His eyes look nauseous; have done since he entered the Commodore. Finally, in a dribble: ‘Might as well, I guess. What choice is there?’

  Dismayed, searching for reason, Bum gives each of our faces another inspection … finds only vacuum.

  Flabbergasted: ‘I want fuck all to do with this! Understand? Sweet fuck all! I’ll jack up the deal if ya’s are desperate enough to risk these pricks — it’s your pot, after all — but with sixty pounds in the offing, you ain’t got a hope in hell of getting me anywhere near those cunts!’

  Waits again for a backtrack …

  … which will never arrive.

  And at last shakes his head. Sighs coerced complicity: ‘But if it’s important to keep The ’Dan off the road, for the right price, maybe Tony’ll drop ya’s off, wait down the street, and then pick ya’s up again. He’s running round in a hot Torana at the moment with good clean plates on it. As for me … I’ll take my cut from the deal now, thanks … in poundage.’

  Me: ‘Done.’

  14

  Tuesday, 14 March, 10.26pm

  There are many seams along which a society might be ripped. In ‘progressive’ society these fissures are well highlighted. And seldom in our history has humanity spawned a shortage of those with the ruthlessness to engineer convulsions.

  Less naturally occurring are the catalysts from which these demagogues might refine their combustion.

  The bad news is that our expand-or-die societies disseminate one such mineral in abundance, its fabrication a growth industry, flourishing in correlation with a nation’s economy.

  The substance is spiritual TNT: disillusionment.

  Because as the world’s wealth polarisation intensifies — responding to the ‘free’ market’s evolutionary laws — we’re able to witness the inequalities of our multicultural communities dispossessing souls by the very hour.

  Brown souls resenting White the theft of ‘hereditary wealth’; the imposition of a way of life in which White drive Rovers to work, dressed in suits, while they, Brown, wear hard-hats and dust masks … if they’re fortunate. In the evenings, on ancient TV sets, Brown broods over White’s newsreaders — who earn in a week what an average Brown family will in a year — enthusing on the fortunes won and lost daily by White at their playground, the stock exchange.

  Brown resenting Migrant Yellow the sale of their labour at basement costs, ‘cheating’ so many Brown of work, lowering the wages and work conditions of others.

  Migrant Yellow resenting Brown for racial abuse on the streets; for the amount of their tax dollar spent feeding ‘Brown bludgers’. Migrant Yellow resenting White for more implicit prejudice; for bureaucratic safeguards halting Yellow’s entry into upper spheres.

  Migrant Brown just resenting.

  And what of White itself? What of the thriving corporate class with its hands on the cosh?

  As such this class doesn’t exist. In defiance of the rhetoric of Brown firebrands, only a percentage of White in fact rules, and this faction wallowing at the crest of consumerism, erecting ladders for its children to climb, greasing the routes of others, embraces but a slither of its racial brothers.

  Leaving impoverished White resenting Brown its constant handouts, its privileges of colour, its rampant crime rate. Impoverished White resenting Yellow its growing ‘hordes’ and money-grubbing. Impoverished White resenting ‘professional’ White its beach homes and vacations abroad, its carpeted offices, its luxuriating in impoverished White’s wage-slavery.

  To my more open-eyed compatriots, the theory of this is sound, worthy of grimaces over the Sunday breakfast and papers. Worthy of loud lamentation around a boozy barbecue, of pensiveness though the ad break in Friends. But — for the moment — practical manifestations of the problem ebb into their living rooms with no frequency, sanctioning inner utterance of the institutionalised ‘she’ll be right’.

  A phrase which to me, at this point in time, begins to sound worse than hollow.

  Because without this deepening status quo, I doubt I’d currently be watching Tony back ‘his’ Torana beyond a shrinking gap of iron and barbed wire. I doubt Mick would be starting at the clash of metal as the gate is rammed home, made secure. I doubt Barry would be standing straight-backed beneath the bristling scrutiny of five apprentice Nazis.

  Five young men conditioned to daydream of genocide and megadeath, of torture and pillage.

  I doubt we’d be standing in the courtyard of an urban fortress, home to an organisation for whom brutality is an opiate, six bulging sacks arranged at our feet.

  In intimidation stakes these white gangsters may lag second to the Rabble, but the margin isn’t a large one. Denims are worn and ragged, adorned in fascist insignia — the Wehrmacht eagle, the Iron Cross, enough swastikas to decorate a Munich beerhall. Uniform jackboots black enough to kick a man to his casket and further, buffed to a high gloss, coloured laces indicative of a secret code, perhaps rank.

  Like roosters in the wings of a cock-fight, their every motion suggests aggression held poorly at bay, eyes shining with it.

  Then there’s the hair. Or rather the lack thereof.

  There’s something primally alarming in a human head shaven bare. No matter the t
ruth, a shears job adds illusory layers of toughness to anyone’s demeanour — just ask Mick. The shorter the shave, the higher the staunch points.

  Done with a fresh razor, the look has become universally symbolic of viciousness.

  There exists in sociology the theory that long hair grew synonymous with the peace movement of the sixties through its members seeking to distance themselves from the murderous antics of the US establishment and military.

  One wonders what sociologists make of current bristly trends.

  If not for the extremes of the past few days, for the lines of speed I snorted a few minutes ago, I’m sure the prolonged glares of these skinheads would be edging me close to a bowel movement.

  Already I’ve the impression that coming here was a mistake.

  But I find myself barely able to care. Perhaps disaster is what I subconsciously need.

  We’ve come to this party incognito — Mick’s wearing Uncle Rangi’s moustache, a cap pulled down, prescription sunnies; Barry and I, hair beneath beanies, shades across the windows — and as the face-off protracts, these latter let me take part with ease.

  We decided earlier that to treat with these guys meekly would be a mistake. Unlike a lot of hard cunts — who believe the picking of unfair fights shows them only in poor light — skinheads seem to find arousal in shows of weakness.

  Me, at last: ‘You guys wanna play I spy all night, or shall we get this show on the road?’

  One of them steps forward. He’s bigger than the rest, wears a goatee, and his bare arms are well muscled under a coating of vile tattooing. On both sides of his neck, where the collar of an officer might have rested, he sports the twin slashes of the SS.

  He fits Bum’s description of a piece of work known as Helmut, a member of their Reichstag. I’m not sure what he’s Minister of: perhaps Incompetent Body Art. Bum claimed Helmut was well down the chain of command but that tonight, due to a ‘briefing’ elsewhere, Helmut had been left in charge and would supervise the deal.

  Helmut, chin high: ‘Who are you ladies s’posed to be: the fucking Blues Brothers or something?’