Headhunters

by John King

  ‘You and me, come on you cunt,’ Balti shouted, lunging at McDonald who stopped dead and shifted back, the bottle in his hand still in one piece but ready to make its mark.

  McDonald heard the noise behind. He turned but only partially. There was little light and he could see something crashing down. Doc stumbled forward and Roy tried to hold him up. Balti caught McDonald a beaut across the bridge of his nose, misting his eyes and smashing the bone. Slaughter was after the bloke he’d just hit, cracking McDonald in the balls in passing, Balti pulling his old foreman forward and dumped him in the rubble. There was the stink of rotting paper and wet mud taking Balti back to the reek of shit he remembered so well. Now it was his turn. Tit for tat. Hide and seek. Throwing the dice, one after the other playing the game of chance. They had the numbers and the Balham lot were getting a hiding. Balti kicked McDonald, then kept going, again and again, continuing till long after the Irishman had stopped moving. The others had backed off and were standing around waiting in silence. Not a bad result. Piece of piss in fact.

  There was no colour to the scene and the whole thing had lasted a couple of minutes. Still there was nobody about. It was a dead part of the world. Balti felt empty. The tension gone. There was no pleasure kicking McDonald now. It was just something needed doing. Everything was still as a graveyard. He didn’t feel good or bad. It was over. McDonald was one more bit of rubbish. He wasn’t a person.

  Balti remembered going down the Hammer a few years back. He’d forgotten about that. It was after work and Roy had taken a few of the boys along to celebrate the birth of his first grandson. Bought them drinks till closing. Funny how he’d forgotten that. The kid had died. Leukaemia or something. It all came rushing back, how McDonald had gone sour, but Balti couldn’t let himself think like that. He was on top again and had to stay unemotional. Everyone suffered. You couldn’t waste time on other people’s problems. You still deserved some kind of respect. He stopped kicking. The kid had only lived a year and then they’d buried him. Given him back to his maker. What a waste, the poor little bastard.

  McDonald didn’t groan or move. He was very still. Maybe Balti had killed him. Kick a bloke in the head like that enough times and they could go under. He bent down and shook the figure. There was a moan. He’d live.

  Balti noticed a wedding ring. It was a darker outline and he didn’t know whether it was silver or gold. He pulled it off and was about to throw it as far as he could into the distance. Send it into orbit. But he stopped and thought and then dropped it next to McDonald. If the others hadn’t been there he’d have put it back on his finger. Enough was enough. It was personal and had nothing to do with family. He was in a street full of ghosts, a sad world south of the river. Balti turned and the others were hurrying back to the van now, Harry telling him to come on and stop pissing about, that they shouldn’t hang about riding their luck. Only Slaughter remained. Pissing on one of the unconscious men.

  ‘I saved a bit,’ the headcase laughed. Balti looked at him and was glad Carter was shagging his missus.

  Back in the car and Balti hoped it would start. No problem. God was on his side alright. A just God who understood revenge and retribution. An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. It was so easy he wanted to laugh. Balti had the last word and from now on he was going to be careful where he walked, wouldn’t get careless like before. He’d take precautions and look after himself. As long as you were smart you were in the clear. It was when you got cocky and thought you were special that you suffered. It was God said the meek would inherit the earth. Or was it Jesus? One of those Bible boys. They’d done it in school. Why was he thinking of God anyway? And Balti was meek and mild and signing on, and McDonald would let it go now. Balti knew he would. He had a wife and kids. He’d taught the man a lesson. Best yet. That was it. Top of the totem. Finished. There had to be a winning line and he was the one drawing it here in Balham. End of story. Nobody took the piss out of Balti. Maybe the other two they’d done had been with McDonald before, maybe not. Who fucking cared anyway? They were up for a bit of five-onto-one so deserved everything they got. It was a neat package, wrapped and sealed with a kiss.

  It was strange though, because the thing had been eating away at Balti and then when the pegs were put in place he felt empty. Not in a bad way, but like something was over and there was nothing to take its place. He felt that for a bit, then he was a man again, with mates to back him up. He was worth something. He might have to sign on and talk nice to some tart with a computer button to punch, but when it came to the crunch it was your fists and feet that counted. That and an iron bar. See, the thing was that nobody listened to you unless you showed a bit of violence. They talked about the ballot box and the great democratic experiment, about putting your cross on a piece of paper once every five years or so, giving you the chance to vote for some tosser from Oxford or Cambridge, Tory or Labour, it didn’t make much difference, they were all the same, but the thing was that they never listened to anyone but their own kind.

  Balti was riding high, crest of a wave, somewhere off a Gold Coast beach skimming thirty-footers trimmed down with the beer gut tight and under control, pizza under his arm, thinking the thing through, not listening to Harry talking about the aggro. Because it was only the violence of the old bill that kept you in line and some kind of idea that there was justice in the legal system which everybody who had ever dealt with the law knew was shit, so when it came down to it, if you had the front to use your fists then you could get things done. It was like the IRA and that, and he hated them like most people, but they wouldn’t have got anywhere doing things peacefully. Or like the Poll Tax riot in Trafalgar Square tearing up the West End and scaring the tourists. That was the only way you could ever change things, but most people were scared shitless. He’d been listening to Karen and Will, though they talked ideas and weren’t about to go out and plant a bomb to back them up. They were alright those two. It must be nice to kick back and not give a toss, but still know what was going on, get wound up in your head but be able to control things. Turn it all round somehow and make sense from the chaos. But that was them and Balti was Balti and fuck it, he’d had enough of South London, a right shithole, crossing Wandsworth Bridge returning to the civilised world. Bollocks, he fancied a pint.

  ‘Your round then?’ Harry laughed as they entered The Unity.

  Carter was at the bar with Slaughter. The sex machine was sharing a joke with the machete man, Denise filling glasses with extra strong refreshment. There were minutes till last orders, but they were on for afters. Balti muscled in with a tenner and Denise completed the round. Slaughter blew his special girl a kiss as she went to the till, winking at Carter, who was thinking about the night before with that old scrubber in her red gear wanting him to stay longer. He’d had to get going, with work in the morning, and didn’t like hanging about in case Slaughter turned up. He was a bit nervous about it all, because though Slaughter looked a joke, with the fatigues and everything, he was seriously off his head and Carter didn’t fancy having his balls hacked off and shoved down his throat. It was well dodgy, shagging that mad woman behind the bar, but he was in too deep and, anyway, she was a great ride, rough as fuck taking it like a trouper.

  Carter had to be careful. That was all. Denise hadn’t been too pleased when he’d left, her face twisting around and in on itself so he wondered if she was a nutter as well, which when he thought about her and Slaughter made sense, a marriage arranged in hell, acid bringing out the toxins, leaving purple scars. It was a shock when he put two and two together because he could deal with most things, missing limbs and pictures of lepers rotting away on the other side of the world, but mental illness was different. He couldn’t handle that sort of stuff and Denise had enjoyed telling him before they’d gone down Balham how she rang Slaughter and he’d come straight round to take Terry’s place. Fair enough, Carter wasn’t complaining, but he couldn’t look the bloke straight in the eye with the fresh image of his bride-to-be naked with a
cucumber up her fanny.

  ‘You see that film last night?’ Harry asked. ‘It was about this bloke who came back from beyond the grave. This witchdoctor jets over from Haiti, takes the shekels, digs up the coffin and gives this mug the zombie treatment, blowing some kind of angel dust in his face. Then the zombie kills the witchdoctor for interrupting his beauty sleep and goes on the rampage. Steams this pub full of yokels and wipes them out.’

  ‘When did you watch that then?’ Balti asked, enjoying the lager and good company.

  ‘About three. I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. But I was thinking, imagine being dead like that granny the other day on the news who the doctors sent to the morgue and it was only luck that they saw her varicose vein twitching and realised she was still alive. I mean, how many people do you reckon that happens to? Bit naughty, isn’t it? Waking up six foot down.’

  The lads shook their heads. It was shocking. A sign of the times. The failure of the state to protect its citizens from premature burial. They paid their taxes and were entitled to accurate diagnosis.

  ‘This zombie, big fucker he was, and it only took a bit of the dust. It’s supposed to be true. They use that kind of magic in Haiti. They say voodoo can bring you back to life.’

  ‘That’s a load of shit,’ Carter said. ‘Once you’re dead, you’re dead. That’s the end. Heaven and hell is here. There’s nothing afterwards. You’ve got to enjoy yourself right now.’

  ‘You think though, if you could live forever. You wouldn’t be bothered about anything, would you? It’s only the thought that you’re running out of time, that your best years are flashing past and you’re going to end up with a shit pension, freezing to death, that does your head in most of the time.’

  Harry stopped to think. If you could dream then it showed there was something more. It was imagination that made it all click into place. If you were asleep, but the brain was still ticking over, then there had to be something extra. It was the same with instinct. That had to come from somewhere. It was alright saying it was built-in, but that didn’t explain anything. If you could get a good dream going then why wasn’t that real in its own way? If you were pissed or charged-up, then you saw things different, and that was real as well. There’d been a few times when he was stoned that he knew what the others were thinking, and they agreed, so how did anyone explain that? Nobody really tried. Maybe they knew deep down. In their dreams.

  ‘The only zombie round here is Slaughter,’ Carter said when the nutter had gone for a piss.

  ‘He’s alright. Just a bit sad.’

  Harry thought about it. Even Slaughter must have dreams. He wondered what he dreamt about. Whether he took them seriously. Maybe he didn’t remember anything the next morning.

  ‘And dangerous,’ Carter mumbled.

  ‘You should leave his woman alone then,’ Harry grinned.

  ‘Why don’t you shout it out,’ Carter snarled. ‘Let the whole fucking pub know.’

  ‘Calm down girls,’ Balti said.

  They moved over to an empty table once Carter had got a round in, leaving Slaughter talking to Denise at the bar. Balti stretched his legs out and noticed blood on his trainers. There wasn’t much. Just a black smudge that had congealed. He’d wash it off later. But he wasn’t thinking about all that now. It was history, and the image of ambulances and nurses was fantasy.

  ‘My granddad had one of those out-of-body experiences when I was a kid,’ Balti said. ‘He snuffed it and next thing he knows he’s looking down on his body laid out with this nurse banging his heart. He said first off he saw his mum and dad standing there waiting for him, all his old mates, his gran and granddad, everyone who was dead, outlines he recognised against this brilliant light. Then the next thing he knows he’s off down this tunnel and finds himself floating around the ceiling like a balloon. Except he didn’t feel like a balloon because there was no feeling at all. He was there, but not there, if you know what I mean. An out-of-body experience.’

  ‘Leave it out,’ Carter said. ‘You’re winding us up. Dead is dead. There’s no second chance.’

  ‘Straight up. He told me. He’s not going to lie about something like that, is he?’

  ‘You never told me about that,’ Harry said, interested.

  ‘You don’t like to, do you? People would just take the piss.’

  ‘So what happened next?’

  ‘He was up there looking down watching this nurse trying to revive him and he said he felt the best he’d ever felt. Really happy and everything seemed perfect and it was like he understood why his life had gone the way it had, even though it wasn’t the details so much as one big hit. None of it mattered any more. He said everything was suddenly alright. There was nothing to worry about. Then he was sucked back into his body and he was alive and felt like shit for months after. Once that was over, he was sweet as a nut because he knew there was something waiting for him and he could go to sleep one day and see everyone again. He knew there was a happy ending.’

  The lads sipped their drinks and thought about this for a while. Carter knew it was nonsense. It was a nice enough idea, but impossible to believe. Still, he wasn’t saying anything. After all, it was Balti’s family and you didn’t slag off a mate’s family. Harry was amazed and trying to get his head round it all.

  Balti wondered why he had come out with that story about his granddad. That’s right, it was the zombie film Harry mentioned. Word association. Football association. And for some reason he was in the dark on a patch of wasteland with these three men laying in the mud and there was a big flash of light like a bomb going off, except it was more like a searchlight because it wasn’t doing any harm. It was so bright it made him blink, but there was no sound because someone must have pulled the plug, and when he looked around the banks of speakers had been removed and there was just dark concrete lit up by this light that came from nowhere. He could see his foreman floating about, or at least some kind of ghost outline, and there was this Ulster accent telling everyone that it was alright and that there had to be peace because they were just acting their parts and keep that nurse away and send the ambulance back to the hospital because there’s this little boy waiting for me and we’re going to have all those football games we missed because of bad blood.

  ‘Alright Will?’ Balti asked as his mate pushed through the doors looking a bit nervous.

  ‘You did it then?’

  ‘No problem.’

  Carter watched Eileen pouring pints. She wouldn’t cause the kind of grief Denise was capable of bringing down on his head. He saw Slaughter lean over and kiss his woman on the cheek. Carter wondered what she would say when he popped the question. He had to laugh. Slaughter with his hair longer and styled, the tattoos removed and bitten fingernails grown and manicured, a five-hundred quid suit and shiny new shoes, down on one knee with a close shave and quality after-shave swamping the pores, a fine speech prepared in front of the mirror and not a drug in his system, seeing things clearly, ice cool, down on his knee with a bouquet personally selected from that expensive flower shop on the high street, building up to the big moment, a subtle line of chat, four-grand diamond ring in his breast pocket and a suite lined up at the Mayfair Hilton, dinner at the Savoy, the vintage champagne chilled, asking for the hand of the queen of West London barmaids, the look on Denise’s face as she realises what’s going on, that gold-plated machete in a shoulder-holster, James Bond making a comeback.

  More like a tab of acid to get his night vision focused on the job in hand, a few pints and a couple of burgers on the way home, giving her a take-it-or-leave-it offer just as he was about to dump his load. Because that was something birds forgot. That sex was personal, even with strangers, though no bloke was going to admit as much. It was better than talking shit for hours on end, girls lined up in the bogs applying their make-up and discussing the men they’d shagged, giggling like they were back in the playground, the stupid fucking slags. Carter wouldn’t get caught out. Not like Slaughter. Not like Will.
Not like before.

  ‘You heard, Chelsea are trying to sign Gazza,’ Will said.

  ‘They’re always going on about Gazza,’ Harry replied.

  ‘He couldn’t play in the same team as the Dutchman,’ Carter insisted. ‘You can only have one major play-maker in a team. It’s like me and you lot. There’s only room for one shag machine.’

  ‘Mango’s still within striking distance,’ Balti said. ‘At least mathematically anyway.’

  ‘What about when Osgood, Hudson and Cooke played in the same side?’ Harry asked. ‘They were all quality players.’

  ‘That was different,’ Carter insisted. ‘They were out on the piss night after night and didn’t have to worry so much about their fitness levels. Football’s more athletic now and there’s so much money at stake nobody’s going to go out and let themselves go when they’ve got ten years at the top creaming it.’

  ‘I don’t see you sitting at home keeping fit,’ Will laughed.

  ‘I’m different. A throwback to a golden age. When footballers were men and the crumpet down the King’s Road was well fucking nervous.’

  ‘I bet you The Dutchman isn’t getting hammered every night. It’s not like he can’t afford a pint. He earns more in a week than us lot do in a year.’

  ‘It’s good work if you can get it.’

  Harry was thinking about the death trip. It sounded like the old boy had been at the Buddhas. Burning away the weeds and leaving the ground clean and full of carbon. There was no pressure weighing you down and everything seemed perfect, though you couldn’t work out why. There was no reason or rhyme, you just felt good. He’d have to have a word with Mango. It had been a good night out. The memory was still there and it was easy back-pedalling, but it was different. Strange how Blackpool and the jungle dream had come together, walking into the clearing where the lights were brighter and Frank Bruno was keeping things in order. Maybe they were nothing more than chemical reactions. He didn’t know if it was a good thing or not. None of them had been raised with any kind of religion.