Deadfolk (20 page)

When I got out front again a feller in a green and yellow tunic were shouting at us about parking. I aimed at his head and fired. I thought I’d nailed the fucker but he ran off, so perhaps I missed. I got in the car and had away, noting with interest that it were a Morris Marina. The commonly held view of Marinas is that they goes like a combine harvester through a forest. But this one were fair nippy—an 1800, I reckoned—and not at all uncomfortable to drive. I took it around the block a couple of times before I recalled what I were meant to be doing.

I turned the radio on to see what kind of output it had. The news feller came on and said a lad in Norbert Green had had his purple Marina hijacked by a large armed feller in a black leather carrying a blood-soaked and possibly deceased third party across his shoulder. Coppers said the man were highly emotional and warned folks not to fuck with him in case he shot em. I pulled in, got out, and started walking.

It were only half a minute or so before an old feller came chuntering along on his moped. Soon as I seen it I knew it were the right transport for us at that particular time. I ran into the road and waved him down, but he went right on past us. I ran after him, thinking how it were a good job he were going uphill. Any folks could tell you how nippy I were over thirty yards. Farther than that and me lungs always started screaming. I reckoned I had asthma or summat, but I couldn’t ever be arsed to go along to the doctor and find out for surely. Weren’t as if it bothered us anyhow. A feller can run away from you, but where’s there to hide in Mangel?

Anyhow, I caught the old feller after ten yard or so and wrenched his hand off the throttle. That’s all I meant to do, mind. Weren’t my fault he fell off. Took a swing at us, didn’t he. Cheeky old sod. As I were riding off on his bike, I looked back at him. He were lying still in the road. But he’d be all right there. Someone’d find him.

I reached where I were headed a few minutes later and without further mishap. I parked her round back and went on up the fire escape. His light were on, so I were sure he were in. Legs weren’t the sort to waste nothing, not even a couple of pennies on the leccy bill. I rapped me knuckles on the door frame and waited. No one came. I lit a smoke and knocked harder. Perhaps he were in the bath or summat. I couldn’t hear no music so he’d be sure to hear us sooner or later. But no one came to the door. I knocked again for good measure but still got no avail. I walked slowly back down the stair, feeling a bit cheesed off. All right, he were my mate and I had to trust him at the end of the day. But he were in. I fucking knew he were in. Why didn’t he open the door for us? Cunt.

I stopped dead when I saw a feller running up the stairs at us, hood up and head down. I didn’t have much time to think, so as he came close and looked up I thumped him full bore on the forehead, knocking him cold and hurting me knuckles a bit. I had a look at him as he lay sprawled on the metal steps, head hanging over the side. He were only about thirteen by the looks of him. What the fuck were he playing at, taking a run at us like that? I looked inside the big orange bag over his shoulder. It were full of newspapers. I picked one of em out and had a look at it. It were the
Informer
. The headline were KILLER, and under it were a photo of meself. I squinted at the writing.

Only thing I didn’t like about it were the photo. It were an old one, from when I were eighteen and half stone of solid beef. Don’t get us wrong, it were a good picture. But that were the problem. Showed how much I’d let meself go in the past couple of years, didn’t it? I tucked the paper back in the kid’s bag and trotted down the stair.

I didn’t fancy getting on the moped again. My arse were aching still from the ride into town. Besides, coppers’d be on the lookout for it and I couldn’t be doing with none of that bollocks right then. I pushed it into the corner and hid it behind a load of rubbish bags. Then I walked round front.

Before stepping into the street, I hesitated. What the fuck were I playing at? My face were plastered all over the bastard paper, for fuck. Walking round town with me chin in the air wouldn’t be clever. Folks’d spot us—despite me not comparing well to the photo of meself—and sooner or later I’d end up in an interview room with two hard coppers and a truncheon. I stepped into the shadows and felt inside my pockets. There were a lot of gear in em, I can tell you. Any trouble cropped up I’d be all right. Short term, anyhow. But trouble were what I aimed to avoid, long as I could. I fished out the wig and pulled it on, then looked at meself in a window. It were all right, but I needed summat else if I were to pass meself off as not meself.

I walked back up Legsy’s fire escape and had a look at the kid’s anorak. It were nice and baggy on him, but it’d be a bit of a stretch around my generous girth. Still, it were that or nothing. And it were a disguise all right. Folks’d never expect to see Royston Blake wearing such twatwear. I pulled it off him careful as I could. He grunted and wheezed a bit but didn’t wake. I put it on. I couldn’t zip it up without bursting the seams, but hanging free it looked all right, if you likes that sort of thing. And with the wig on I looked nothing like meself.

I took everything out of me jacket and put it in the anorak, then dumped the leather in the bins. I thought about putting it on the kid, as a little thank you, like. But that’d be leaving evidence. And it were a warm day anyhow so he’d be all right.

I walked off up the street, humming ‘My Way’. When I saw Hoppers off up the way, a thirst took hold of us that shrivelled me tongue and made my hair ache. I gave meself a once over in the window of a junk shop. I looked like a twat all right, but nothing like Blake. Not even Rachel’d recognise us. I walked in.

It were midafternoon and slow. A few lunchtime stragglers was laughing and getting pissed over by the back wall, but no one else were there. Besides Rachel, course. But she were always there. I stepped up to her, trying to walk different to what were my habit. I wished I’d practised that one beforehand cos all it did were make us look more of a twat. The fellers at the back laughed a bit louder and I knew they was pointing at us. Fuckers. If they knew who I were they’d not find it so funny.

‘Hiya, Blake,’ says Rachel, not even looking up from her paper.

‘All right, R—how the fuck did you know who I were?’

She looked at us. ‘Oh, I see. Incognito is it? Sorry, should of looked first. Pint, is it?’

‘But how’d you know?’

‘Dunno, Blake. Reckon there’s summat about you that walks before you, like. Know what I means?’

‘No, Rache, I don’t.’ I looked at meself in the mirror behind the bar. It were a fucking marvellous disguise in my opinion. ‘Hey, got a pair of sunglasses behind there?’

‘Aye. Here.’

‘No, fellers’ sunglasses.’

‘What would I be doin’ with fellers’ sunglasses?’

Eventually I got her to have a look in that drawer down the bottom where all kinds of shite is stowed. She rummaged through it for a while, cooing at this and turning her nose up at that. At last she came up with two pair of fellers’ shades. One had only one arm. The other were all right. I put em on and had another gander in the mirror. It were perfect. The shades and hairpiece did such a job that I had to move my head side to side to make sure it were meself I were looking at. Did look a mite strange, mind, which were like as not why Rachel were giggling. I reached over and gave her a slap on the arse.

‘Hey, you, get off,’ she says.

‘Weren’t what you says yes’dy.’

‘Yesterday were a different day, before all this came out.’ She nodded at the paper spread out on the bartop. It were the same one I’d already seen just now. ‘Got summat to say about it, eh?’

She were looking at us funny, not like you’d expect her to. But it weren’t bad. It weren’t a bad look at all, in fact. No, her eyes told us that she thought I were summat special. She were looking at us, to be honest, as if I’d got out a foot-long tadger and waved it at her. ‘Know what I oughta do?’ she says, not blinking nor taking em off us. ‘Pick up this phone and call the coppers.’

‘What would you do that for, Rache?’

‘Why not? You don’t care for us.’

‘Rache, that ain’t true.’ I took her hand in mine. I could hear the fellers laughing behind us. ‘Why’d you reckon such a thing?’

‘Feller who cared for us’d turn up when he said he would. Like last night.’

‘Last night? Oh…I were—’

‘Aye, I’ve read about what you was up to.’

‘Rache, t’aint like you thinks. Coppers just wants to talk to us is all. I ain’t done nuthin’. Ever knew us to lay a finger on a feller other than to keep the peace?’

‘Well…’

‘No, course you ain’t. S’why I’m a doorman, ennit? Cool head.’

‘What about the, uh…’ She frowned at the wig.

‘Juss don’t want coppers botherin’ us right now is all. Got other business to—’

‘Other business? Blake, you weren’t involved in the…’ She nodded at Fenton’s office. ‘The robbery?’

‘Come on, Rache.’ I squeezed her hand harder, wondering what Fenton might have told her about it. She winced a bit, so I let go and started rubbing up and down her arm. ‘You knows that weren’t me. Wouldn’t Fenton know if I’d ripped him off? Course he fuckin’ would.’

‘What other business then, Blake?’ I could tell she wanted to believe us. Rachel were a good un, and there weren’t many of that kind in Mangel. She were the sort who’d walk through walls for you once you’d got her in your corner.

And I wanted her in my corner. I weren’t sure why. With all the shite rising up around my ankles right then, you’d reckon I’d be more concerned about other matters. But, looking right back at her as I were then, nothing were more important than making things straight with her. ‘Rache,’ I says. ‘Rache, sometimes there’s a time when a feller’s gotta put his life aside and do a few things so’s he can…Well, iss like that story about the fox and the…er…What were that story about? You know…’

She put her fingers up to my lips. ‘Shut up,’ she says. Then she leaned over the counter and kissed us.

I looked over her shoulder and got a fright when I saw the mop-haired gimp in shades and anorak in the mirror. Didn’t look right for such a one to be kissing a bird like Rachel. But I weren’t complaining.

Things was all right for a bit after that. I drank me pint and we chatted about this and that, without getting heavy nor her letting slip that I were Blake. Course, us having a snog might have drawn a few eyes. But it didn’t give us away. After a while a skinny cunt with thick glasses, sticky-out ears, and pigeon toes came in and told her he’d come for the interview. It were Mick Runter, a useless cunt who’d never had a job in his life, far as I knew. You wanted Mick Runter, you’d find him down the bookies or Blender Stadium, or kipping under a bus shelter when his mam wouldn’t have him. Though why you’d want Mick Runter I don’t know. She sent him out back to Fenton’s office, then went bright red and turned to her glass polishing.

‘Interview?’ I says. ‘For what?’

‘Your job.’ She were still blushing, but there were a defiant tone to her voice that I didn’t much care for.

‘My job? How fuckin’ come? S’goin’ on, Rache?’

‘Well you can’t hardly do it, can you? Shouldn’t even be here now, coppers after you and all.’

‘But I’m Royston Blake, head doorman of—’

‘Who’s gonna man the door tonight then? Clint Eastwood?’

I didn’t answer. She shook her head a bit and went off to serve someone. I felt bad. I felt like everyone were ganging up on us and setting us up for summat. And I didn’t like feeling that way. I were Blake, head door…

Ah, you knows who I were. And so did every cunt in Mangel.

I pissed off. I walked down Friar Street for a bit, thinking how right it all weren’t. I snapped out of it when a feller coming up on the pavement decided to step to the right just when I stepped to the left, and vicey-versa. Before long we was nose-to-nose, a pair of totems deathing each other out. I could feel the sinews in me neck tense, getting ready for the head I were about to drop on him. But I stopped it right on the point of letting go. His eyes was a bit funny, like he were pissed. Only I knew he weren’t cos I couldn’t smell it on him. And a pissed-up feller’d surely have said summat by now.