Double Cross (3 page)

'Raoul, you blanker, get up!' Dan put his hands to his
mouth and yelled so hard, my head started ringing.

'Godsake, Dan! My frickin' eardrums.'

'Sorry,' Dan said with a grin.

I sniffed around his shoulders before recoiling. 'Damn,
Dan! Your pits are howling!'

Dan raised his arm to sniff at his armpits. He looked like
a bird covering its head with its wing.

'Oh yeah, you're right!' he said, surprised.

I pushed his arm back down before he gassed everyone
on the pitch. 'You do know that armpits can be washed,
don't you?'

'I forgot to put on some deodorant today.' Dan grinned.

I mean, Godsake!

Our Monday evening football match was well under
way. The July evening was still bright and uncomfortably
hot. Within minutes of running around, my shirt was
sticking to my armpits and my back. Dan and I were on
opposing teams, both on the wing, supposedly marking
each other. But mostly we were talking. We watched
patiently as once again pain stopped play. Raoul was
still
rolling on the ground, clutching his lower leg like he was
in a death scene in some bad straight-to-DVD movie.

The Wasteland, where we were playing (or
Meadowview Park, as the local authority had it listed
on their website), wasn't as busy as usual. Only enough
guys had turned up for a seven-a-side football match,
hence the reason I was playing. With a full complement
of players I was usually relegated to one of the park
benches. The Wasteland was a flat patch of rectangular
land, with a children's adventure playground at one
end and a flower garden enclosed by knee-high blunt
railings at the other. Except the flower garden hadn't
had any flowers in it for close to two decades, according
to my mum. The criss-cross paths of concrete were now
used by roller-bladers, skate-boarders and trick cyclists.
Anyone using the park for any wheeled activity did so
at their own peril – so the numerous signs posted around
the place stated. I often wondered if that included
pushing baby buggies and pulling shopping trolleys?
Closer to the garden than the adventure playground
was the football pitch, surrounded on all sides by rusting
wire-mesh fencing. It wasn't much, but it was ours. And
the football pitch was kept clean of dog crap and clear
of litter. All the footballers in the neighbourhood saw
to that.

Raoul finally stood up and shook out his leg. About
time! The ball was kicked to me and I displayed semiadequate
skills by getting rid of it asap – and to someone
on my own side too, which made a change.

'So what d'you reckon?' Dan flashed his new watch
about a centimetre away from my nose, twisting
his forearm this way and that. It was so close I couldn't
see it properly. Was he trying to poke out one of my
eyeballs with the thing or what? And eau-de-stinky-pits
was repeatedly punching at my nose again.

'The watch?' Dan prompted. 'What d'you think?'

'Does it shoot down low-flying aircraft?' I asked, taking
a quick step back.

Dan pursed his lips. 'Not that it says in the manual.'

'Does it contain the nano-technology to drain a
subdural haematoma?'

'That's the next model up from this one.'

'Then it tells the time, the same as my cheap effort,' I
said.

'Yeah, but mine looks good and cost more than everything
you have in your bedroom and then some.'

'Could you lower your arm before you kill me?' I
pleaded.

Dan took pity on me and did as I asked.

'Your watch, did you buy it or acquire it?'

'I bought it, you blanker. And I have the receipt and
sales certificate to prove it.' Dan frowned. 'You sound just
like a Cross copper.'

I held up my hands. 'Hey, it's no skin off my nose
where you got it from.'

'Well, I bought it with cash money, made from earning
a living rather than dossing at school like some people I
could mention.' Dan's frown lessened only slightly.

'And is it accurate?'

'Of course. It's guaranteed to lose only one second
every hundred years.'

For the kind of money Dan must've forked out for his
watch, it shouldn't lose any time at all – ever. And surely
it did more than just turn two strips of arrow-shaped metal
through three hundred and sixty degrees periodically?

'So what else does it do?' I asked.

'Nothing else. It's not some digital toy out of a cracker,'
said Dan, preening. 'This is pure class.'

'But all it does is tell the time,' I repeated.

'Damn, Tobey. How are we friends? You don't have a
clue,' Dan said, exasperated.

'It's a lovely watch, Dan,' I sighed. 'If I ever get
married, it'll be to your watch.'

'Feel free to bugger off and die at any time.' Dan
scowled.

I grinned. 'Only if you'll bury me with your watch over
my heart.'

'Tobey . . .'

'OK, OK. I'll shut up now.'

Dan gave a reluctant smile. He was still annoyed at my
lack of open fawning appreciation for his watch, but he'd
get over it. I glanced over to the sidelines, wondering
which of the girls standing there was Dan's latest girlfriend.

'How's your love life?' I asked.

'Non-existent, thank God!' Dan's reply was heartfelt.

'How's your sex life?'

Dan sighed. 'Non-existent, unfortunately. Talking of
sex . . .' His eyes lit up. 'How's Callie Rose?'

Damn! I should've seen that coming. 'Dan, don't start.'

'What?' said Dan, acting the innocent. 'I'm just asking
if you two are still an item?'

'We are,' I said firmly.

''Cause if you're not,' Dan continued as if I hadn't
spoken, 'I wouldn't mind some of that. She's extra fit – for
a Cross.'

'Callie isn't a Cross.'

'She ain't one of us either,' said Dan.

'Then what is she?' I asked, annoyed.

'Extra fit – I already told you.'

We stood in silence for a while. Why had I been so
quick to deny that Callie was a Cross? Maybe because I
still couldn't quite believe she'd chosen me over Lucas. I
couldn't help wondering if she'd wake up one morning
and realize . . . realize that she could do better.

'Tobey, chill. I was only messing with your head a bit.'

'I know. Remind me to pay you back for that later,' I
replied.

If only I had the money for watches and bracelets and
all the things Callie deserved. If only . . . I took hold of
Dan's arm to give his watch a proper look.

'That is one cool watch, though,' I admitted.

'You could afford a watch like this too, you know. And
more besides,' said Dan.

'You know my job only pays minimum wage.' I
shrugged. My Saturday job of almost a year was roughly
twenty per cent selling mobile phones and eighty per cent
listening to customers whinge. It just about paid for my
school stationery and a few textbooks, and that was it. 'So
at that rate I should be able to afford a watch like yours in
about – what? Five or six years?'

'Selling mobile phones isn't the only game in town,'
Dan said pointedly.

'It's the only game I'm interested in playing,' I replied.

'Aren't you tired of having nothing?'

And that was just it. Because I was tired of having no
money. All the things I could do, all the things I could
be
if I had money kept slipping into my head like mental
gate-crashers.

'You could just make deliveries like me,' Dan
continued. 'Dropping off a package here, picking up a
parcel there.'

For the first time, I started to listen. 'I don't know . . .'
I began.

Sensing hesitation like a shark sensing blood, Dan
pounced. 'Tobey, it's easy money. Think of all the things
you could do if you were holding folding. You could save
up to get out of this place for a start.'

'Is that what you're doing?' I couldn't help but ask.

'Nah. If I had your brains, then maybe. But it's this or
do something like take food orders and nothing else for
the rest of my life. And guess what, that don't appeal. But
with your smarts, Tobey, in two years you could be
anything you wanted 'cause you'd have the cash to do it.'

Packages . . . deliveries . . . Dan made it sound so
innocuous. So very easy.

'Who d'you deliver these packages to?' I asked.

'The people who need them or want them or should
have them.'

'And who d'you deliver these packages for?' As if I
couldn't guess. 'Cause it sure as hell wasn't the post office.

Dan smiled. 'Does it matter? I pick up the packages and
the addresses that each one should be taken to and that's
all I know or care about. Tobey, think of the money you
could make. I'm tired of having your broke arse trailing
behind me all the time.'

Waving the two most eloquent fingers on each hand in
his direction, I thought about what he'd said.

If I had money, Callie and me . . .

I cut the thought off at the pockets. I couldn't start
thinking that way. I'd go mad if I started thinking that
way.

But after all, it was just deliveries.

The odd parcel delivery couldn't hurt.

Unless I got caught . . .

I shook my head, trying to dislodge all visions of
cascading money. 'I don't think so, Dan. I just want to go
to school and keep my head down.'

'School.' Dan snorted derisively. 'I hope your school
isn't going to make you forget who you are.'

Inside, I went very still. 'And what is that exactly?'

'You're a Nought, Tobey. And going to your fancy
school isn't going to change that.'

'I wouldn't want school to change that.'

'Some of our friends already think you've sold out. It's
up to you to prove that you haven't,' Dan told me.

Sold out?
What the—?

'I don't have to prove a damned thing, Dan.'

'Hey.' Dan raised a placating hand. 'I'm only telling you
what some of our friends are saying about you.'

Friends? My eyes narrowed as I thought of my so-called
friends.

Dan stepped back from the look on my face. 'I'm just
saying, you have to be careful that your brain doesn't get
smart at the expense of your head getting stupid.'

'Wanting to do something with my life isn't selling out,'
I said, banking down my resentment with difficulty.
'Wanting something more than all this isn't selling out.'

'Tell that to Raoul and—'

'No, I'm telling it to you. That crap doesn't even make
it to ignorant. Going to school so I can think for myself,
so I can make something of myself, is selling out now, is
it? We don't need the Crosses to keep us down with that
kind of thinking. We'll do it to ourselves.'

Dan took another step back. 'Listen, I was just—'

'The next time Raoul or anyone else starts spouting that
bollocks, you send them to me to say it to my face,' I said
furiously. 'I'm going to go to school and keep my head
down until I can get out of Meadowview and that's all
there is to it.'

'Tobey, wake up. That's not even an option,' Dan
stated. 'And McAuley can protect you. He's great, almost
like a dad to me. Besides which, he's one of us.'

One of us . . .

McAuley was a gangster, pure and not so simple. But his
being a Nought was enough mitigation as far as Dan was
concerned. McAuley fancied himself as a Nought kingpin.
He took his cut of every crooked deal that went down in
Meadowview – that's if the Dowd family didn't get in
first. The Dowds were the Cross family who ran all the
illegal activities in Meadowview that McAuley didn't
already have his grubby hands on. Or maybe it was the
other way around. Who could tell? They both offered
protection to any lowlife who pledged allegiance.
Bottom-feeding Noughts tended to join McAuley.
Scumbag Crosses joined forces with the Dowds. Criminal
fraternity segregation.

A while ago some Nought hooli called Jordy Carson
tried to take on the Dowds. He vanished like a fart in the
wind. And waiting in the wings to take his place was his
second-in-command, Alex McAuley. Everyone said
McAuley had learned from his old boss's mistakes.
McAuley had no intention of 'disappearing'. So he made
sure everyone knew his name and his game. Trouble was,
McAuley was even worse than Carson. I guess that for the
Dowds and McAuley there was plenty of misery around
for everyone to make a profit. Those of us who had to live
in Meadowview – the poorer Crosses and us Noughts
with a whole heap of not much – saw to that. One of us?
Yeah, right.

'The point is, the no-man's-land you want to live on
doesn't exist, not for either of us,' Dan continued. 'If you
don't pick a side soon, you'll be nowhere.'

'Yeah, but Nowhere looks like a peaceful place to be –
especially around here,' I said.

'Nowhere will get you dead,' said Dan. 'On the inside
you'll be protected, you'll have back up. McAuley looks
after his own. What d'you have at the moment?'

'I have you, Dan.' I smiled.

'Very funny.'