JUDAS PIG

by Horace Silver

  ‘Charlie’s in here for killing his cell mate,’ says Ronnie.

  ‘Two cell mates,’ says Charlie, obviously peeved by Ronnie’s under-calculation.

  ‘Sorry, Charlie. Two cell mates. Billy, I think that Charlie could be the next George Michael.’ Personally, I have my reservations and judging by the silence coming from Danny and Peacock, they do too. Thankfully a screw arrives and orders us to end the visit, and so, we all jump up to leave. Over hurried goodbyes we make all kinds of bullshit promises of stardom and record deals for Charlie Smith, as Ronnie slips me a demo tape of Charlie singing. After promising my life away by assuring Ronnie that I’ll do my best to punt the tape round Tin Pan Alley, I do no more than lob it in the hospital’s main rubbish bin on the way out. And as we all climb back into our motor and get ready for the journey home, I resolve that the only time I’ll visit this gaff again is in a straitjacket and howling at the fucking moon.

  OUR FIRM’S QUICK action in closing down the Rites’ Southend car showroom has paid dividends. For Jacko Rite, under intense pressure from his brothers to keep up his end of the bargain, has just belled us to let us know that The Bug’s just flown in from Spain. Which means he’s over here to draw in his dough from yet another successful puff smuggling operation. The other good news is that as soon as he arrived, Jacko Rite managed to sweet-talk him into a meeting at one of his old offices, a disused car site at the top end of the Essex road, in order to discuss our firm’s business proposition. Also running in our favour is the fact that his minder, Skinny O’Neil, is on his toes after a shooting incident, which means that The Bug will be on his lonesome, and therefore ripe for picking. This is a short notice swindle, but we’ve been primed and ready for action since day one, and so, no sooner do we get the nod through the grapevine than we rush to the safe house, tooled up, psyched up, and ready to go to work. After piling into a ringed Transit van with blacked-out rear windows, and with Frankie, Stevie and Danny upfront, and me in the rear, we slip out of Custom House and trundle eastbound along the A13 towards our destination.

  While being tossed about like a ship’s stowaway in the cavernous hollow of the back of the van, courtesy of Stevie’s shit driving and the stop-start traffic, it gives me time for reflection, and I can’t help but feel kind of bad about the fact that we’re on the way to kidnap one of our own, but then reason, fuck it! In for a penny, in for a pound. Speaking of which, us four against The Bug and Jacko Rite, is a darn sight better odds that slinging a knicker on the lottery, and then feeling like a right cunt when your numbers don’t come up. After thirty minutes or so we reach the car site in question. Stevie parks up in an adjacent alley and I pull down the peak of my baseball cap, check my gun and climb quietly out of the rear to hook up with my firm, whose heads are now similarly attired. While Stevie and Billy proceed to stake the gaff out, me and Danny wait nervously by the side of the van. Through a handy crack in the alley wall, Frankie lets us know that The Bug’s Mercedes sports is parked up outside the building, while Stevie, after taking a quick walk past the site to have a sly gander, comes back to announce solemnly through pursed lips that everything’s kosher, and so in we go. This kidnapping has to be quick and clinical, as we’re not too far from a busy trunk road, and don’t want to discharge firepower and draw attention to ourselves, because if we fuck up here and Old Bill flops on us, we’ve got no chance of outrunning them in a diesel Transit van. And the last time I looked they dish out twenty stretches for kidnappings. As the four of us moves as one towards the door of the car site’s main office, through a set of dust covered window blinds we can see The Bug and Jacko seated around a desk, deep in animated conversation. At which stage I’m thanking God that both Jacko and The Bug are skinny skanks, because I would imagine that fat bastards are a fucking nightmare to kidnap.

  Danny’s through the door first as usual, but all of us are hot on his heels, guns drawn and knowing we have to move fast in case The Bug’s tooled up himself. But as we bear down on him and Jacko, a look of sheer terror spreads across his face and his hands make no move to pull out any ironware. It’s too late anyway, because in the blink of an eye we’re on the pair of them like a pack of hungry African hunting dogs, spitting and growling and ready to tear limb from limb. Kill or be killed, whatever the case maybe, because nothing or no man comes between us and our greed. As Danny and Stevie proceed to smash The Bug unmercifully into the ground, I pistol whip Jacko, fracturing his skull with a loud crack before laying him face down in his own blood on the carpet and screaming at him, ‘Keep your fucking eyes and mouth shut, you slag, or I’ll put one in your fucking nut!’ It don’t matter that Jacko’s in the swindle, he has to get hurt, because if he don’t the whole thing’s going to stink to high heaven. Once I’m satisfied he’s been mollified, and under no illusions that I’ll kill him even though he’s a pal, I drag him to his feet, stick my gun in the small of his back, and after checking that the coast is clear, march him to the van as discreetly as possible, where I then force him into the rear with instructions to lay down and stay down and keep his fucking trap shut. Another sweep up and down the street reveals everything to be sweet, and so, I give my firm the thumbs up, and Stevie and Frankie come out carrying The Bug, unconscious and badly bruised like a drunken groom on a stag night, before dumping him unceremoniously inside the rear of the Transit alongside Jacko.

  But as invariably happens on gangster graft things don’t go exactly according to plan, for on the journey back to Canning Town, The Bug digs deep down into his soul to find some fighting spirit and rages up, kicking and screaming in all directions. He’s given ten out of ten for his bolshie bollocks, but then beaten back to oblivion under a welter of professional violence that sees his ginger mooey used as a stomping ground by one of Danny’s black commando boots. With the life further stamped out of him, his body switches into safety mode and he slumps into semi-consciousness for the rest of the journey. We hit Canning Town and head straight towards one of our boozers, handily closed for refurbishment, and that sits on its own plot amidst a litter-strewn acre of wasteland, backing onto a maze of empty shipping docks. Once Stevie has backed the Transit tight against the pavement, I slide open the side door of the van and jump out to lever up the wooden delivery doors that lead directly down to the boozer’s beer cellar.

  Stevie and Frankie then pull up the metal chute that’s used to roll down the beer kegs, after which, the four of us climb back into the rear of the van. After a serious bout of huffing and puffing, semi-conscious men being nearly, but not quite as heavy as dead men, we drag our two captives out onto the pavement, before hurling them through the open cellar doors as though they were no more than a couple of bags of dirty laundry. Both men tumble ungainly down the chute before coming to a bone-crunching halt on the concrete cellar floor, amidst stacks of empty kegs and cases of booze. And as we seal their fate by slamming the doors shut over the top them, all that can be heard to remind us that we’re dealing with fellow human beings is the occasional muffled groan.

  Once we’re happy the coast is clear, the four of us then slip in through the rear entrance of the pub, lock the door up firmly behind us and make our way down to the cellar in order to get negotiations under way. After blindfolding and tying each man to a separate chair, it’s agreed that Jacko’s of no further use, and so me and Danny drag him away into the staff toilet and tell him that if he makes a move he’ll never see another sunrise. Once Jacko’s been sorted we then drag The Bug into a large, vault-like room which has been soundproofed by the previous owners who used it as a recording studio. So now he’s sitting there all alone in his very own antechamber to Hell and with not a friend in the world, and surrounded by four gangsters that would muller their granny for the dough he’d be sitting on right now, if only he hadn’t been kidnapped and tied to a pub chair. And if he don’t spill the beans, we’re going to be spilling his guts. Standing a foot away and looking down at The Bug, it’s plain to see the beating he’s taken has already started to take its t
oll. His left eye is swollen up in its socket like an overripe peach, and the eyelid’s split so deep it resembles an open wallet. His upper lip has been ripped in two, resulting in a jagged tear that runs from the top of his mouth to the bottom of his nostrils, exposing one of his front teeth. And every once in a while he lifts his head from his chest, stares blindly around and mutters incomprehensibly. All in all it’s a sorrowful state to be in, but this ain’t no time for pity, it’s time for business.

  Danny steps forward to take over the runnings, and the first thing he does is let The Bug know the obvious. He’s been kidnapped and we want to know the whereabouts of his dough. Whether or not he understands what Danny has just pointed out I don’t know, for he says nothing, just bleeds a little more over the carpet, which is not a clever move, because that means it’s now torture time. And Danny excels in the black art of indescribable pain. I’ve seen him in action countless times, inflicting more than was necessary to get less than was required, but one instance sticks out in my mind the most. It was going back a few years when Danny’s moll, Kelly Amore was looking after her uncle’s off-licence in Custom House. One night this lairy black dude, who was a bit of a face amongst the scrotes on the plot, strolled in and ordered a couple of cans of Special Brew, and then strolled back out without paying for them. Kelly Amore took off after him into the street and remonstrated loudly, telling him that he was a bad man for behaving in such a way. By way of return he told her he was going to wait for her one night after closing time and rape her for being the white cunt she is. Bad mistake, because Kelly Amore went home in tatters and floods of tears.

  Word got straight back to Danny, and in less than two hours he had found out exactly who the slag was, and where he lived. He then belled me and we both slipped out and got hold of some firepower and a ringed motor, then went straight on the dude’s knocker that night. The flats where he lived were absolute khazis and a dumping ground for all the filth in the area. As expected, the lift was out of order and every spare inch of wall and door on the building had been graffitied on. Plus, the whole place stank of piss and rotting food. Twelve flights of fucking stairs we had to climb and each one smelling worse than the one below. By the time we reached our man’s hovel we were both heaving with sickness and panting from shortness of breath. One look at Danny also told me that his blood was at boiling point, which didn’t bode well for our Special Brew-snagging, would-be rapist friend, who unbeknown to him was on our most wanted list and less than two minutes away from nearing the end of his shitty and pointless existence. Thankfully his door weren’t much thicker than plywood and had no deadbolt, so we crashed straight though into a pigsty of a gaff to find our man sprawled out on the floor in front of a ten-year-old TV, spliff in hand and not a single piece of furniture in sight. It’s a bonus when you stumble in on a toerag living in such squalor because it dehumanises them, making it easier for the conscience to remain clean after their disposal.

  While I scouted the rest of flat for more scumbags, Danny went garrity and proceeded to smash the black dude’s mooey to bits with the butt of his sawn-off. Up and down it went like a piledriver hammering in track bolts, with Danny’s face contorted like a man possessed and each strike ending in a sickening crunch of bone and teeth, until a once black face was beaten to the colour and consistency of a burnt ham and cheese omelette, smothered with lashings of tomato ketchup. Now it was time for the real punishment to begin. Between the two of us we dragged him out of his flat and down the stairs by his lice-infested dreadlocks, kicking, punching and pistol whipping him down the whole twelve flights. By the time we reached the bottom he had been scalped of nearly all his hair, and his skull was bleeding heavily from the holes torn out of his head. After bundling him into the boot of our motor we drove a short distance to a slaughter we own up on the Mile End Road. There, we blindfolded and gagged our man and beat the fuck out of him again, after which we went out for some Chinese. We then sort of forgot about him for almost a week, and when we eventually flopped back on him I was surprised, and Danny gutted, to find him still clinging tenuously onto what was left of his life. Danny thought it was a stinking liberty that he was still breathing, and so, for some reason known only to himself, pulled out his blade and carved the nipples off of the dude’s chest. That gave him the flavour I think, because every day after that I had to drop Danny over to the slaughter, where he’d amuse himself and vent his frustrations by cutting single slivers of skin from the man on each visit, before feeding and watering him to keep him alive. This torture lasted about two weeks, but by then Danny had grown bored of his little game. So one night we bundled the dude back into a motor and drove him to a patch of waste ground on the Essex wetlands where, after kicking the last piece of shit out him, Danny poured petrol on him and set him alight.

  Due to his injuries the man was too weak to even scream as the flames enveloped him, and to be honest I think he was glad that death had finally arrived to rescue him from his last few days of agony. And as we turned to make our way back to our motor, a large flame shot skywards from his burning body, to embrace the night sky in an eerie flicker that lit Danny’s face up, and I swear to God that the smile that had spread across his face was that of the Devil incarnate. As we climbed back into our motor, Danny took one last look over at the dude and said to me.

  ‘Now that’s what you call a proper barbecue, Billy. Roast nigger.’

  So Danny goes to graft on The Bug. Just a few right handers to start with, not big bombs but still hard enough to liven a man up and cause him possible brain damage. Under the first assault The Bug groans and blood splatters from his face all over the show, but give the man his due, he soaks up the punishment like a seasoned pro-fighter and stays schtummo, which gets me to thinking that this cunt could be a hell of a tough ginger-nut to crack. But then Danny moves up a gear and smashes his shoulder blades to bits with a stonemason’s hammer. Six smashes in, The Bug mumbles something, and the four of us moves forward in the hope he’s broken, but our hearts sink when we realise that all he’s muttering is ‘Fuck you, fuck you’ over and over again, the words spitting from his busted mouth as if they were poison. And although I’m gutted because I thought we were on the verge of a breakthrough, if I was wearing a hat right now I’d have to take it off to the man, because I know that if that was me in the hot seat getting smashed to smithereens, I would have gone belly up a long time ago.

  As Danny continues to go about his wicked business, me, Stevie and Frankie step back into the half-light to have a smoke and shake our heads, thinking that the coup’s fucked because The Bug ain’t far from mullering, and yet there’s no still sign of him cracking.

  But then Danny tells us he’s had a brainwave and slips into the staff toilet, only to reappear brandishing a plastic bucket full of dirty water and with a wicked smile spread across his face, which goes to show he’s a man that enjoys his work. After placing the bucket on the floor, he yanks The Bug forward in his chair, forcing his head underwater, where he holds it for about a minute, and all the while The Bug’s lower body is bucking violently like a convict getting juiced in the electric chair. Two repeat dunkings later and Danny sits The Bug back upright. Only now his once white face has turned mottled blue, his eyes are bulging, and his tongue is hanging twisted and swollen outside of his mouth, like a the fresh victim of a lynching.

  But in spite of The Bug’s condition Danny goes to work some more and livens him up with a flurry of spiteful, bone-crunching digs up the ribs, before standing to one side and grinning like a Cheshire cat, as The Bug seems to come back to life. Lurching forward in his restraints he retches, spraying a foaming torrent of blood and shitty drain water from deep inside his lungs, before once again fighting like a Trojan for every breath that his broken ribs will allow. After finally coming to rest, he then mutters something that sounds suspiciously to me like the sweet song of surrender.

  ‘He’s cracked. He’s fucking gone, I can tell,’ I say, moving quickly forward and getting right in between
him and Danny. ‘Let him be, man, he’s trying to rocker something, listen to him.’

  ‘Listen to him?’ says Danny. ‘I am fucking listening to him, and he’s talking bollocks. It’s not even fucking English. He’s carrying on like a fucking Paki or something. This fucking piece of ginger shit is sitting on about three mil, and all he’s doing is playing Joe Cunt.’

  ‘Nah, nah, I can definitely make something out,’ I say again.

  ‘We want names and places, not mumbo fucking jumbo,’ shouts Danny, getting ready to sink The Bug’s head into the bucket once more.

  ‘Well, if you fucking shut up,’ I shout at him. ‘I’ll be able to tell you what he’s rockering. Look, just move over there and I’ll speak to him on my own, otherwise I can’t hear a fucking thing.’

  ‘That slippery shitcunt knows the score,’ screams Danny back at me, as he backs off a couple of feet. ‘You fucking tell him, he’s got one way out of this, or I’m gonna slit his throat and throw him in the fucking docks, like the cunt-eyed mongrel he is.’

  Jesus fucking Christ! I’m screaming to myself. Danny’s so engulfed in his own greed and the thrill of torture that if he’s not careful he’s going to kill the golden goose. Besides, I really don’t want to see The Bug take any more punishment. The fact that he’s been kidnapped is enough of a bargaining chip, surely. So what’s the point of beating the man almost to death, so that he’s incapable of telling us fuck all?