House of Lads

by Roland Lloyd Parry

  Raz stood in the glare of the torch, his legs planted wide and arms folded. Rodney sat down on the bottom step.

  Raz frowned. “We’ve been worried about you,” he said.

  “Eh?”

  “You’re not yourself, Azo. Something bugging you. Wondering what.”

  “I’m knackered, aren’t I? Looking after five lads.”

  He reached in the pocket of his combat shorts and lit up a Regal.

  “So where’d you take Rodney today?” I said.

  “Not sure I can tell you, la’.”

  “What’s the matter? Am I not in the gang anymore?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Get lost.”

  I turned my back on him and sparked up a ciggie of my own.

  Raz came after me and grabbed my arm. Grip like wire-cutters. He pulled me back round to face him.

  “Where’d you sneak out to last night?” he said. “I heard you coming back in.”

  I sighed. “I was seeing that bird I told you about.”

  “Oh ay, yeah. Knobbed her yet?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “That’s taking a while. She Catholic?”

  I said nothing.

  He shrugged. He went and flicked a switch at the bottom of the stairs. A bulb lit up at the far end of the cellar. It was hanging from the ceiling behind a chest-high line of crates. Three-yard gap on the other side there was, between the stack and the wall. Raz plodded over there, stepped into the gap and beckoned to me.

  There was something round there. Raz was looking at it, smiling. He beckoned me on again. I stepped round the stack in front him and looked.

  Wooden chair. No one was sitting in it. He was on the bare floor instead. Lying there, in white boxies, blood and drool.

  Manc Lee.

  He wasn’t moving. He looked hardly alive. Blood was crusted round his nose and lips and hair pasted to his head. One eye swollen shut. Wrists together behind his back in old chain handcuffs.

  Rodney stooped down and grabbed him. He yanked him up and planted him backwards in the chair.

  The Manc sat slumped with his head lolling to the right. He squinted with his less bad eye and saw me standing there. Then he saw Raz and shuddered.

  Raz stepped towards the chair. The Manc twitched and jerked. He scraped the legs an inch backwards and came to rest, breathing all heavy and snotty through his nose.

  “Raz,” I said. “What have you done?”

  Raz leaned closer to him. More jerking and scraping. The Manc was backed up against the wall now.

  “No, la’. Ask him what he’s done.”

  I looked at the Manc. He didn’t look up to talking.

  I turned to Raz. He turned to Rodney.

  “I caught him with this,” Rodney said.

  He reached round behind him as he spoke and pulled something from the belt of his jeans. He held it out under the hanging bulb so I could see. A black Sig.

  Rodney held it like a pro, with his finger stretched out safely along the barrel, not curled ready around the trigger like a jumpy scally. He gave us this hard frown.

  I knew what had happened but I didn’t let on. I made a fake sigh like I couldn’t believe it. “So he’s got a gun. Since when’s that a shit-kicking crime?”

  Raz let Rodney answer again. Even with my nerves like they were, the sound of his fake Windie scally twang made me want to slap him.

  “He nicked it from us,” Rodney said. “Ain’t the only thing he nicked. He went in Raz’s fridge.”

  He turned and glared down at the Manc. “Eh, you?” he said. “That wasn’t very nice, was it?”

  “Hang on,” I said. “His fridge?”

  “Where I keep my doctor’s knick-knacks,” Raz said. He grinned and his eyes glinted. “He thought he were nicking drugs. He were nicking something much worse than that. Could have killed us all.”

  The Manc had his gooey eyes fixed on me.

  I turned to Raz again. “Hang on,” I said. I wasn’t sure how to finish that line. “You should look after him,” I said. “He can help us out.”

  Raz frowned at me like I was off my head.

  “I mean… He made a mistake, Raz, mate,” I went on. “He got scared. He never meant to screw you over.”

  Raz frowned darker.

  “Hey,” said Rodney. “You knew about this?”

  “No. It’s just…” I know this lad, I wanted to say. He’s alright. Same soppy crap you’d say for any mate. Couldn’t though, could I. I’d made up my mind to stay in this game. For Ali’s sake. For Maya’s. I couldn’t stick up for the Manc if Raz had him down as a back-stabber. I’d be no use to anyone sitting where the Manc was.

  Rodney went on. “Little Hanzi tipped us off. I looked in on this gyppo in bed. He had this under the cover. He were holding onto it like his cock. Had the test tube under his pillow.”

  Raz had heard enough. He stepped round behind the chair and took something from his pocket. He bent down behind the Manc. Click. Stepped away with the cuffs in his hand.

  The Manc’s arms fell limp by his sides.

  “Nice one, Raz,” I said. “We all work together, eh?”

  “Dead right, la’.”

  He reached behind him and took something from his own belt. Another of the Sig Sauer semis I’d seen in his box that day.

  He turned to face the Manc.

  Well I couldn’t stop Raz, could I. Not if I wanted to walk out of there. Paterson would understand that.

  Raz cocked the gun. I tried to swallow. Couldn’t.

  He took hold of the barrel and handed it to me.

  “Here you go, la’,” he said. “Show us whose side you’re on.”

  I heard Rodney shuffling his feet behind me. Then a snap and a hiss as he blew a bubble with chewing gum and popped it. I looked at the Manc’s mashed-up face.

  The gun was heavier in my hand than the day before. Raz had loaded it. So he did have ammo. Another box to tick for Paterson there. Paterson. That twat. What was he’d said to me? Do what you have to do, lad. Anything. I’ll keep you safe.

  I smelt fag smoke from somewhere. I tried to think.

  Eleven rounds there’d be in this gun in my hand, if it was full. Eleven in the one in Rodney’s hand. I wasn’t sure how handy he was. I could have him in a fight but there was a lot of things I was starting to wonder about Rodney. Then who knew what other bits and bobs Raz had on him. I didn’t fancy my chances of making it out the door alive.

  The Manc was eyeballing me through his good socket. I looked at him and slid my finger over the trigger. He spoke to me softly.

  “Come off it, Azo,” he said. “He’ll do you next.”

  “Shush.”

  “Who you gonna betray next, Azo?” the Manc said. “Where does it end?”

  Good point, that. I didn’t know the answer. What I was doing? Whatever Raz told me, that’s what. So much for all my training. All Paterson’s arse-kissing about me being a great asset. I was a tool, like everyone in that house.

  I muttered a prayer to myself as I stooped over the Manc. Not sure who I was talking to. I heard a bird fluttering its wings in my head. I muttered and whispered to myself faster and lighter.

  I prodded the muzzle in the Manc’s forehead and pulled the trigger twice.

  Raz took the gun from my hand. I turned and looked at him. His leery saggy lip. Then something caught my eye further behind me. A white top. Vest.

  I hadn’t seen Maya come in. She was standing there with her back against the stone wall, holding a fag to her mouth. She was looking at me. I couldn’t tell if she was seeing me or not.

  Raz slapped me on the back.

  “Welcome back, la’,” he said.

  28

  Raz and Rodney carried him out in the night while I cleaned up the cellar. I keeled over into bed about three and dreamt of his mashed face and popped head. That wiped out the face of the lad on the tracks for a bit.

  The two of them were still gone the
next morning. I checked upstairs. Rodney had taken his clothes and his bag from his room.

  Sunday. Meant to be my Ali day. Not this time.

  As I got back downstairs I heard a key turning in the hall. A shape loomed through the frosted glass of the front door. Raz came in and slammed it behind him.

  “Where’s Rodney?” I said.

  He didn’t answer. Handed me the car keys.

  “What about the lads?”

  “They be alright. Casho and Ayax, they big enough.”

  I gripped the keys in my hand. He slapped my shoulder. “Come ’ead,” he said.

  He had me drive around a bit. Didn’t speak. He looked at me from time to time and sat there thinking as I drove. We went down Princess Way and up the dock road to the Marina then on into Crosby till we got to the beach.

  We parked up. Clear summer day. To the right, miles of grey water and slimy sand. A few miles along was the spot where Paterson picked me up two nights before. Crests of green grass on the tips of the dunes. Left, the docks. Containers and cranes and windmills. Further away, the hills of Wales in the haze. Nice it was, to see so far. Spy other places and wonder what was going on there. Made me feel part of some wider world.

  We sat there in the Astra, staring at the sea a hundred yards off. All I could think about was the Manc.

  “Did I pass the test then?” I said. I let a narky tone creep into my voice. “Or am I next?”

  He lit up a ciggie. Then he spoke at last, staring out over the wet sand.

  “You told me you had nothing, when I met you,” he said. “Why did you not tell me you had a little boy?”

  I couldn’t move.

  “Ali, isn’t it?”

  So that was it. Who’d told him? Maya? Or had he sent one of the lads to follow me one Sunday?

  He made me tell him all about Ali and Leanne. The whole thing. How I felt about it. How I got friends with her at the ring, that summer after I left school. How fit and tough and smart she was. Boxing after work. Her good heart. Cared about me. Let me gob to her all about my dad. Daft friendship, me and this bird ten years older. Then that Friday night in the gym car park when she came out all dressed up for the night. Necking cider out of my bottle. Dragging me along to the Krazy House with her mate. Bar. Dancefloor. Taxi. Hers.

  Then Ali.

  Raz sat there in the car next to me, nodding at his lap.

  “He’s a good lad, eh?”

  “Yeah.”

  “How old?”

  “Four now.”

  He tossed his ciggie out of the window. “Hard for you.”

  I didn’t answer. I sparked up one of my own. The smoke filled the space between us.

  “Alright,” I said. “You sussed. I been going to see him on my Sundays off. After his swimming class.”

  I looked up at him, all frightened orphan like. The same act I did to get hired by him. Go ’ead. Giz an Oscar.

  “Don’t kick me out, Raz mate. I’ll do what you tell me. I’ve nowhere to go.”

  Raz rubbed his stubbly head and banged a fist on the dashboard.

  “I done good work for you,” I said. “Never crossed you. Never dissed you. Never let you down.”

  I wiped my eyes and sucked on my fag.

  Raz sat there staring at the fuel gauge, then lifted his eyes and gazed out to sea. His mind was somewhere else. Lips moving, nodding, like he was chatting to someone in his head.

  He turned to me.

  “You’re a good lad,” he said. “Daft. Lost. But good. You did good last night. You’ll do good for me again.”

  I sniffed and nodded.

  “Must miss your boy?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Bring him to live with us.”

  I shuddered inside. A big icy broom handle right up my arse to the chest. So that was where my acting got me. I wasn’t patting myself on the back anymore.

  I smiled at him and snorted, like he couldn’t mean it. I shook my head.

  “Not allowed,” I said. “He’s with his mum.”

  “So?” Raz tapped the dashboard. “We go and get him.”

  “But she’s…. there’s…”

  His turn to shrug. “Come ’ead,” he said. Like there was nothing simpler in the world.

  “They’ll lock me up. Then I’ll never get to see him.”

  “They never know where he is, la’! He be in the house of lads.”

  He patted my shoulder.

  “How can he... What are we going to do with him?”

  I wished I hadn’t asked.

  “He learn from me, la’. No mum. No welfare. None of them bell-ends. I teach him the way.” Raz stopped and thought for a sec. “He can have Rodney’s room,” he said, and grinned. “Sunday today. Swimming class, right?”

  I’d not seen it before. I’d thought Raz was just clever and hard. I saw it now though. He may have been both of those things, but he was mad too.

  If I dug my heels in he’d stop trusting me again.

  There was only one way out. I’d kill him. Crash that lemon with the two of us in it. Sooner that than let him near Ali.

  “Alright, Raz,” I said. Playing it up again. Hopeless. Grateful. “Nice one.”

  I turned the key, palmed the Astra round in a circle and crunched back up to the give-way.

  Raz was all daft and happy now, like some kid going to Disneyland. He wouldn’t stop talking. I let him gas on. I was trying to work out how to get away and call Paterson. But I pricked my ears up when he talked about Rodney.

  “I drove him to Speke this morning,” Raz said.

  “How come?”

  Raz chuckled. “Catch the plane, la’. Above us only sky!”

  “Eh? He going on holiday?”

  I turned my head and saw him smirk at that. Calm, he was. I was back in the gang.

  “More like a work trip,” he said.

  “Business class?”

  “Right on, la’. There’s poor folks pouring into this country, la’. Pay their life savings to wriggle through in the back of some lorry. Rodney though, he go the other way!”

  Here was something Paterson could get his teeth into. I kept my eyes on the road and tried not to look too keen.

  “So where’s he going?” I said.

  “Now you’re askin’, la’. Them poor fugees. Where d’you reckon they come from?”

  “Don’t know. Shitholes and wars.”

  He chuckled again. “Shitholes is right. Wars is right!”

  And he went on. Told me the whole plan. Cheap flights. Liverpool to Madrid. Madrid to Istanbul. Then a big long ride to the Syrian border. All the way to that shitstorm you see on the news.

  “My Albanians have got him a clean passport,” Raz said. “Radars’ll never bleep!”

  “And when he gets there?”

  Raz winked at me.

  “Study trip,” he said.

  He leant over and gripped my shoulder. The burning sweat off his palm seeped through my shirt.

  He made me stop on the main road in Crosby and got out. He crossed over and went into a fried chicken place.

  I fumbled the Nokia out of my pocket. My hands were shaking. I dropped it. Picked it up. I stared across the road at Raz through the shop front, waiting in line for his chicken with his back to the road.

  I slumped down in the seat and put the phone to my ear. It started ringing.

  “Hello, lad.”

  All chilled out, Paterson sounded. I pictured him sitting there at Sunday lunch, passing the mushrooms to the vicar and wiping gravy off his chin.

  I kept an eye on the chicken queue. Raz was nearly at the till. I sank further down in my seat.

  “Listen. You’ve got to send some rozzers to the baths. Raz is going to snatch my boy.”

  “Raz?”

  “He’s found out about Ali,” I tell him. “He wants him with us. He’s sending Rodney off today for some jihadi crap in Syria.”

  “And the other lads too?”

  “I guess so, sooner or late
r.”

  “Good work.”

  “You going to help me out then?”

  “We can’t go near Raz yet. That’d give the game away.”

  “I don’t care about Raz. I’m talking about Ali.”

  “We can’t just snatch him from his mother.”

  “Then there’s going to be a car crash in Crosby. I’m not driving this mad twat to my little boy.”

  “Now then… ”

  “You’ll be peeling me out of the wreck.”

  “Alright, Azo,” he said. “Hear me out.”

  “Quick.”

  “Your friend Frank will be with him. He’ll head Raz off.”

  “You lazy shit. You’re leaving Frank to sort this out?”

  “Azo, I can’t snatch Raz now. We still haven’t joined the dots. But we’ll have Rodney when he tries to leave. Where’s he flying from? Liverpool? Manchester? What name’s he travelling under?”

  “I’ll tell you once you’ve rescued my kid.”

  “Now listen… ”

  “You nick Raz. Then you let me see Ali. Or you’ll get no more out of me.”

  “Hold on, Azo. We’ve got to keep Raz out there and you with him. Until we know what he’s up to and who with. That’s how you’ll get your boy.”

  “I’m crashing.”

  “Hold on!”

  I stopped and listened.

  “You’re a good lad, Azo… ”

  “Stop. I might come in your mouth.”

  “I mean it. You’re a good agent and I need you. I’m saying alright. You keep online with Raz and we’ll see what we can do to let you spend some time with Ali. I’ll get you some help.”

  “Rodney’s flying from Speke to Madrid this morning.”

  I hung up and pocketed the phone. I turned the key as Raz got back in the car.

  We passed through Litherland near the house, but he made me drive right on without stopping. Bootle, Walton. Down and down. South and east.

  I started praying in my head. Don’t let him get his hands on Ali. Nice one, Mr God mate. All this crap could be nearly over. If I could just get Raz nicked. I’d give Paterson everything. Mossie, Rodney. Even Casho and Ayax, the poor bastards. Little Hanzi? He’d be better off with Paterson. Wouldn’t he? I’d help him stitch up the lot of them. Then I’d grab Ali, and Maya, and run.