Headhunters

by John King

  Balti walked out of Stamford Bridge and bought himself a burger. He stood in a pub doorway waiting for the revolutionaries to arrive and together they were heading for the hills. Harry went back to the hut. He heard the sound of hooves and knew Balti was gone. He wasn’t bothered because he wanted some time on his own. He felt no panic at the dangers facing his mate as he had realised he was inside a dream and because he had the knowledge he was able to turn the tables. He was lucid. Fucking right he was. Not only could he see the future, but he could take control. A whole new world was there for the taking and he understood that the argument about control was about to start all over again. He opened the paper and read about the Lottery win. The high court had decreed it valid, so Balti was in the clear. Balti had issued a statement saying he was going to settle down and marry a scouser he’d met in Blackpool. The hunt was on. She had to be found.

  It was an easy, stupid sort of dream. Up down, up down, applying a nice even coat. Waiting for the DJ to tell a joke he thought was funny. It was the first time he’d been inside a dream and really known what was going on. Even then, though, there was some confusion, as he’d seemed to wake up, but was still asleep. He didn’t know how often it would happen in the future, but it really did open all sorts of windows. If he could take charge of his dreams he could do whatever he wanted. There would be no more limits and no more boundaries. Roller applying an even coat.

  Carter slammed his foot down and yanked the hand brake into position. He jumped out of the van and ran back to the Sierra. The driver was getting out as well, but the dozy cunt was too slow. Flash him, would he, the fucking cunt. Carter hit him with the sawn-off snooker cue he kept under the driver’s seat. He felt the hatred surge. There was blood splattered across the bastard’s face and the man staggered back. Carter pulled the door towards him and rammed it home, brought the cue down on the back of the cunt’s head. He fell into the car. His eyes were rolling. Carter looked around and hurried back to the van. He released the hand brake and shot off. Who did the cunt think he was? He’d had it coming. Flashing him like that. The fucking cunt.

  Sometimes you had to be hard as well as skilful. With women you had to show your good side, pile on the charm and avoid aggravation. The goal was the most important thing. Flatter a bird and eventually she’d let you in. This constructive approach to the beautiful game rarely failed. If you could show them you were open to things they’d keep an eye on you. Find their interests and then connect up and you had it made. The next thing you knew you were slapping your balls against some bird’s chin, chalking up points as you shot a wad of salty duff over their tonsils. Stroll in the pub and the rest of the Sex Division wondered how the old charmer had scored yet again. It was simple when you knew how.

  When it came to cunts like that getting up your arse and flashing his lights just because you’d cut him up, then you couldn’t fuck about with pretty talk. That was a mug’s option. You had to get stuck in. All the great teams were like that. They could knock the ball around sweetly, but they were also able to stick a foot in when they needed. It made sense. Compete at the physical level and then let the imagination flow. You had to have a plan. The more straightforward the better. That’s why the rest of the lads didn’t get their leg over more. They were too busy with other things. You had to focus your attention.

  Balti and Harry. A couple of fucking donuts. If they made the effort they’d be alright. Balti sitting in the pub on his own like that. He’d have to have a word. Shame he couldn’t get him a job on the vans, but there was nothing going. You never knew. But he couldn’t let him sink down like that. It was all in the head. Harry was doing alright, but how long since he’d done the business? Carter couldn’t live like that. Fucking Will shacked up. Fair enough. As for Mango, he didn’t know how much of what he said was true. All those points and nobody ever saw him with a bird. Still, he was way out in front so why should he bother? No complications. That was the way he lived. The trouble with blokes like Harry and Balti, though, was that they didn’t care enough. Give them a few pints and they were happy just having a laugh. Where was the sense in that? They thought they were letting themselves down talking shit. They’d lost sight of the goal. With the points in the bag you could relax. The Sex Division was important. Carter loved women. He wanted them all the time. He loved the chat and the sex. It was like being a salesman really, giving them a line and reeling the catch in. Except it was all friendly. Nobody got hurt. Except cunts who tried to shove their bumper up your fucking arse.

  Balti’s mum poured two cups of tea. These cups sat on a tray. This tray rested on the coffee table. She sat on the sofa. Her son was in the chair on the opposite side of the table. The furniture was new and smelt fresh. She knew that her son had been drinking. Not a lot, mind, but he’d been drinking all the same. He wasn’t drunk. She could smell the drink. She felt sorry for him being out of work, but felt that it was simply a case of him hanging on. Things changed. She had an optimistic approach to life. She handed her son his tea. He was a lovely boy. She thought of him as he was seconds after she had given birth. Smacked into the world. Opening his lungs to cry out and choking on the air. Covered in slime. A nearly-bald, peanut head. Pure virgin skin and frail little bones she could have crushed with too strong a hug. His eyes saw nothing. She held him tight against her chest. She tried to feel his tiny heart beating against her, but her own heart was like a drum deep inside and they blended together. A rhythmic pounding. Her son. A beautiful boy who would grow and be anything that he wanted. The possibilities were endless. Floating on a cloud. She was a mother. He was so fine and honest and totally dependent, how could anything bad ever happen to him? Nursing her little boy, changing his nappies and wiping his nose, seeing her son grow, happy-go-lucky as a little boy kicking a football around, wanting to be an engine driver. He wasn’t that much different now. Not really. She wished she could turn the clock back and her kids could stay six years old for ever. That had been the best age. Old enough to talk and communicate but still innocent and excited by life. He was all grown up. Her baby had become a man. She wondered if the boy’s father had ruined it all. Seeing the violence and unhappiness. How could anyone know. The man had turned and she hoped her boy wouldn’t go the same way. Something in the genes. But her boy seemed fine. He made jokes sometimes like all the men felt they had to, but inside he was still pure. She knew he was clean. But she wished he’d settle down with a nice girl. If he could find a decent job and a woman who would love and cherish him, then Balti’s mum would be able to rest easy. She worried about her son. Every mother worried about her children. It was natural. She knew him like nobody else in the world. Drunk or sober, he was always her child. Things would get better. She knew things would get better. They called it a woman’s intuition, but it seemed obvious enough. Things always got better eventually.

  RENT BOY

  James Wilson left WorldView early, his hasty departure causing a few raised eyebrows and a great deal of whispered comment among his colleagues. The excuse was vague, a mumbled line concerning family matters. A doctor’s appointment for work-related insomnia, or perhaps long-delayed dentistry would have sufficed, but no, Wilson had spoken of family matters in a broken delivery that, while comforting in the weakness it revealed, had also shown a peculiar forcefulness. His fellow workers didn’t expect this from such a dedicated employee as, of course, the corporation came first, but he was determined and the surprise lasted at most a few minutes. It was out of the ordinary, but his colleagues were more concerned with the various tasks facing them. Time was most definitely money. When he disappeared through the door, James Wilson was neatly indexed.

  Jimmy sat in the front room, his Rest-Easy chair pulled across to the window where he could watch the street below. He sucked the leather’s treated fragrance deep into his lungs, held it for a few seconds, and then slowly let it go. He felt the air tickle the end of his nose. He shut his eyes and repeated the process. This time white light crossed his eyelids. A tingle remaine
d in his throat and he felt calmer. He had changed into smart but casual clothes, and had taken twenty minutes in the shower, liberally dowsing himself with his most expensive aftershave and deodorant. He had been to Dino’s Delicatessen on the Fulham Road and purchased two types of fresh tea, caffeinated and decaffeinated coffee, skimmed and full milk, four kinds of biscuits. But perhaps they would go to the pub. Or maybe for a meal. Fulham was packed with up-market restaurants, though Mango rarely visited them. Italian, French, Greek, Thai. Whatever money demanded there was always a well-bred entrepreneur on hand to supply the goods.

  His mum had phoned and told him the news. Her words were warped as they passed along the line linking two very separate worlds. It was the first time she had called him at WorldView. It had taken Mango several seconds to tune in properly and realise he hadn’t drifted over the edge. The words filtered through and were distorted by the receiver, the message trapped and disjointed, turning to a fuzzy echo. It had taken him those vital seconds to understand the sense of his mother’s message. Then he was asking questions and receiving answers, finally putting the phone down and going to collect his coat in a daze. The details of the office were of little consequence, his direct superior no longer a key player in the thrilling game of international finance but a small-minded wanker with BO, dandruff and a boring tendency to transfer The Times editorial into self-aggrandising lectures. WorldView melted into the background, the people around him shadows. He went to the lift and waited for the doors to open, unaware of his noiseless descent. He drove home at a relaxed speed, the radio silent.

  Jimmy strained his eyes and sipped a glass of mineral water. He was nervous. The deep breathing exercises the doctor had suggested worked up to a point, but his brain refused to be totally sedated. It was more than nervousness. That was natural enough. He was alone in his flat and terrified. Actually terrified. Of what he wasn’t sure. Expectations. That’s what it was. He tapped his foot against the skirting board and looked around the room quickly, making sure everything was in place, trying to distract his attention, fear coming again, flicking back to the street. He could have stayed on at work for a few more hours, but knew he wouldn’t have been able to concentrate. He had wanted to leave immediately his mother’s words kicked home. Property, wealth, status; what did it matter when your brother was coming to see you after eighteen years buried in a field? What did any of it mean? His head was buzzing. His brain playing games again.

  He thought of the churned field, thick black mud and thick brown worms. An ancient battlefield filled with the corpses of Danes and Saxons and all the tribes who had ever landed in England and fought over the land, artery blood absorbed by the soil. Men had been hacked and chopped into ragged pieces, shining gold axes rusted and blunted from the constant hack hack hacking of Jack The Ripper and M25 murderers with their vans and cars and razor-wire erections. Jump on the ring road and observe the speed limit. Dump the evidence. Spade in the boot. Silver clean. Fresh from the superstore. Brand new wellies. Green rubber padding. Out for a stroll bird-watching on Sunday morning listening for woodpeckers in the copse in the distance but only ever hearing crows and seeing ravens with their jet black feathers and peck peck pecking beaks sharp and merciless ripping the heads off smaller birds, pulling the neck tight, cutting into the skin, decapitation headless bodies rotting blue from the rain thunder lightening flooded England, draught-stricken England. Black soil, black birds, black mummified hand pushing through the soil reaching out for Jimmy, grabbing him around the neck feeling the pressure of finger bones on his throat making him want to throw up, gasping for air, inhalation/exhalation restricted, muddy fist pulling him down into the mud, into the sewer, into the sordid backstreets of homelessness and psychiatric disorder, care in the community beyond the streetlife blockbuster romances showing at a five-screen deluxe cinema, popcorn backseat masturbation as a kid spunking up over the velvet chairs and black stockings and suspenders of a girl from school. Back from the dead. Back from the grave. Back from heaven and hell on earth, high-rise office blocks and high-rise flats where the views are the same. Clogged earth reeking of insecticide, washed away by acid rain, burnt off by sun, watered again until it’s clean and rich and ready to give up its dead in some kind of resurrection. And classroom history lessons forget the men in the field, content with kings and queens and their sons and daughters, ignoring the raped sons and daughters of the peasants buried alive.

  Seven o’clock his mum had said.

  Pete Wilson had been hit by guilt. It connected with the bridge of his nose sending blood over a bare-breasted Snow White. His guilt was natural rather than something conditioned or manufactured, an ingrained notion of justice. Looking straight ahead he’d ended up in bed with Jill Smart, and his biggest mistake was that he kept going round knowing full well she was living with a boy who loved her and would be heart-broken if he ever found out about her infidelity. But he didn’t care. Didn’t give it a second thought. It was help yourself time and everyone out for themselves.

  Then one day they were unlucky. Playing with people’s emotions. All so he could have it off with a fucking soulgirl. Kev Bennett walking in and finding them on the job, naturally enough going off his rocker as he took in the scene, Pete behind Jill, the woman Kev loved on all fours, turning her head to see her fiance in the doorway snapped in half, snapshot disaster, faces registering shock and a stark realisation of what the moment meant. All because of glands. Natural urges. Then there’d been the inevitable punch-up, Pete’s head racing from the speed and his reason wired as he stumbled out of an unhappy home with his clothes tucked under his arm. He’d left Jill to sort out the mess. He dressed in a doorway hoping it wouldn’t be opened by a middle-aged bodybuilder who hated flashers. With his clothes on he’d hurried home to hide. A bottle job, but he hadn’t known what to do. Couldn’t think straight. Just didn’t want Bennett banging his head on the bedroom wall or passersby seeing him naked, laughing their heads off. Jill had been game enough and he didn’t want any aggro with Bennett because Kev was the one getting stitched up. Pete didn’t blame him. Anyway, Bennett would’ve slaughtered him if he hadn’t got away, Kev turning back towards Jill looking for some kind of explanation, something that would make everything alright. He was waiting for the magic excuse knowing there was nothing left to say. Actions were more honest than words. Pete rolling home and waiting for sleep to come and turn the engine off, willing his brain to close down, tapping his fingers impatiently with a pillow burying his head. It was a long, tormenting wait and when he finally slept he didn’t wake until the next morning.

  Pete had a bath and washed away the filth. Stared at his face and into battered eyes—red veins and stunned pupils. Dressed slowly feeling sore where Bennett had punched him in the ribs and head. A kick in the back as he legged it out of the bedroom. He was walking into a nightmare as he sat down and took the Cornflakes box. Filled his bowl, pouring milk from the bottle. Sat silently with Mum and Dad talking excitedly about the police siege of Kevin Bennett and Jill Smart’s flat. Young Kevin holding Jill hostage with a shotgun, pissed up threatening to blow her away and then top himself.

  He’d made no demands, that was the strange thing. There seemed no reason for the madness. No request for a fast car to the airport, a suitcase full of cash and a private jet to a mystery destination. Nobody could understand why he’d gone mental like that. What else could the police do when they arrived and tried to talk him into handing over the gun? After hours of patient, logical discussion things were getting worse, with Bennett swigging from a bottle of whisky. The reason they were trying to apply only wound him up. Mr Wilson wished he knew what was behind it all. Then Kev fired a barrel into the wall and the old bill had taken him out. Blown his head in half according to hearsay. Splattered spirit-pickled brains all over the new wallpaper Kevin and Jill had put up together, laughing and joking as the paper peeled and the paste stuck to their hands. Imagine that, Mr Wilson said—being the marksman with Kevin Bennett in your sights. He rememb
ered Kevin when he was a young lad, a nice enough kid who loved motorbikes. He shook his head sadly and wondered how his family felt. Didn’t know what the world was coming to. Wondered what Kevin was doing with a shotgun in the first place.

  It was a sin, playing with people’s emotions. Pete returned to his room and laid on his bed until midday before venturing out. He felt as though people were staring at him, but in truth nobody knew why Bennett had gone off his head like that. It was just one of those things, now and again someone cracking under the pressures of living. Thing was, he was only nineteen and had the whole of his life ahead of him. He had a good job as an apprentice electrician and a nice fiancé who’d done a typing course, and it wasn’t like they didn’t have anywhere to live. It was a crying shame, it really was, and when Pete went into the newsagents they all seemed to be talking about the shooting and he wondered where Jill was, the first time he’d thought about her properly. His skull was creaking and he had to sort things out. He needed to justify himself, but was unable.

  He tried to imagine Bennett’s face after the marksman had done his job. Did he get it between the eyes like the Westerns, those spaghetti efforts where the eyes stayed open and blood covered the walls, or did the bullet go straight through an eye and leave a neat wound in the socket, exploding deep inside the brain. An earthquake sending tremors down the spine. A police horror show. More likely half the head was blown over Jill. He wondered if Bennett had let her get dressed. Whether she had stood there screaming, naked, with grey matter plastering her hair. He went home without buying anything and sat on his bed, everyone out. He hung his Snow White T-shirt on the door, watching the sick midgets go about their business, Snow White with a big smile on her face enjoying the attention of her seven lovers. He propped the pillows behind his head and stretched out. What would Snow White’s prince think when he walked in after a hard day finding the love of his life on all fours with a spiky-haired freak banging in and out of her? Only Bennett knew the answer to that one.