Eoin Miller 02 - Old Gold (4 page)

“Yeah, some new guy. Polish, I think.”

“Selling in town?”

“Yeah, in the pubs and clubs. He’s probably going to try and get a place in the estates.”

That would be interesting. Once a new person started pushing in on the estates, there would be hell to pay.

“What’s this all about anyway? Not like you to be sniffing round drugs.”

“Bad joke, Matt, very bad joke. Any dealers having girl trouble?”

“Of course. You know how it is.”

I turned to leave. I could think of better ways to waste my time. Most of them involved sitting in Posada. I tried one last question.

“You know an Irish girl name of Mary?”

“No, is she fit?”

I laughed and walked away. I passed through the church gate and headed toward the steps.

“I still get the drinks, right?”

“Whatever, Matt. Yeah.”

I’d forgotten about the drinks before I reached the steps.

I headed back out and started tapping up the street dealers. They weren’t all as low as Matt. In fact, the majority of them were at least three showers and a meal better off. But it’s hard to get anything solid out of a drug addict. I needed someone who didn’t use the product. I needed to go higher up the tree.

There was one person who kept eluding me.

I must have asked a dozen people, “You seen Jellyfish lately?”

Everyone had the same answer or variations on it. He wasn’t around or he was out of town or he owed them money.

Jellyfish wasn’t a dealer, but they all knew him. He was a professional good time. As far as I knew, he’d never held an honest job, but he always knew where the party was, who was doing the fucking, who was being fucked, and who was peddling the best gear. Like an old-school tobacco company rep, he’d always turn up at a party with free samples from whoever was protecting him that month—usually the Mann brothers.

It was usually quicker to get information from him than to go looking for it myself. I’d never known exactly where his nickname came from or what his real name was. I’m sure he started out as a Jeremy or a Justin, something along those lines. The nickname had something to do with him going both ways. Or, to be more precise, he went whichever way the money was.

Another question that kept turning me up blanks was, “Know a girl named Mary?”

“Nah, man, she owe you money?”

“Nah, man, she cut and run on you?”

“Yeah, man, I heard she’s your mom.”

I was getting nowhere.

I tried a few of the local pubs, telling myself I was still looking for information when really I was just drinking. As I
left the last of the pubs, a skinny Asian-looking kid bumped into me. He wore a turban low over his forehead, more like a bandanna, and I saw a kara on his wrist, the metal Sikh bracelet. As he walked away he said, “Bauser wants to see you.”

Bauser was a couple of steps up the food chain. He was one of the stoppers for the Mann brothers, and he was rarely away from his estate or one of the pubs on the outskirts of the city. My questions had got me noticed.

I followed the messenger down past a row of kebab shops. He turned into a side street that I recognized as the back entrance to an old rock club. He accelerated to walk away faster, making it clear he’d done his job.

I heard my name called, and Bauser stepped toward me from a doorway.

He had a gun.

You don’t really see guns in the city.

They’re expensive, and the bullets are precious.

But they’re there.

Never let anyone tell you there isn’t a gun culture in the Midlands. They’re kept out of sight so that the police don’t have to worry about them, and the public can feel safe because the media just wants to talk about knives. But you see them. For example, I was seeing one in Bauser’s hand.

I’d talked to armed kids when I was on the force, but my job had provided protection then. Even without an actual badge pinned to my chest, one hovered over me. But I didn’t have that protection anymore, and when I saw the silver of the gun sticking out the sleeve of his hoodie, I felt my stomach flex just a little.

“What’s up, Bauser?”

I’d known him a long time and watched him grow. I’d arrested him when he was barely into his teens and still going by the name Boz, a kid wanting to play at Scorsese. But now he was growing into his frame, and he knew there weren’t many black kids in Scorsese films. His broad shoulders flexed a little, a play at showing me he was a grown-up,
but in his cheeks and eyes I could see he was still younger than Matt.

Our streets are run by children.

“You’ve been asking a lot of questions today.”

“Not been getting any answers.”

He eyed me for a minute.

“You’ve been asking about our stuff. You knew it would come up the chain.”

“I hoped it would, yes. Baus, I need you to tell me what’s going on.”

He stepped in close and patted me down. He knew I wouldn’t be armed; I’d never carried on the force. If I’d wanted an illegal one after leaving, I would have gone through him. But he went through the motions.

“Ask your questions,” he said, once he finished.

“Has anyone had a stash stolen?”

“All the time, man. But you mean a big stash? No.”

“I’ve heard about a new face selling. That mean anything to you?”

“The Polish guy? Yeah. He’s selling good shit, good price. He’s not really making any moves into serious territory, though.”

“Is he going to?”

“How the hell would I know?”

A new face would annoy the establishment. For all the people out there moving and selling the drugs, only a handful of people at the top take the money. And it’s an uneasy truce between them as it is.

“Who are you asking for?” Bauser asked.

“Myself.”

Bauser eyed me again. His gun hand looked a little twitchy. Not the kind of nervous twitch that filled me with confidence. He would be wondering why I hadn’t gone straight to his bosses, the Mann brothers.

“Gyp, you’ve never been interested in drugs. Why start now?”

On the list of people I allow to call me Gyp, those with guns tend to rank quite highly. I switched up my questions.

“Who’s working for this new guy?”

“Say what?”

Everyone’s an American these days.

“Look, this new guy’s been selling in the city and pubs, right? He can’t be doing all of this by himself. If he’s not taken any territory yet, he doesn’t need a lot of people to stand and make a claim. But he’s got to have people out there using their feet, pushing for him.”

Bauser blinked a couple of times. He didn’t say anything.

He’d always been loyal to the Mann brothers. That had never been in question. But a blink is a blink.

“Baus, are you switching up?”

His body language changed, all wounded pride and anger. Defiance. His words and tone changed as well.

“Fuck you, man, nobody questions my loyalty. I’ve always been straight.”

His eyes told a different story.

So whatever this new guy was, he wasn’t stupid. He wasn’t trying to take away territory from the Mann brothers or Gaines. He was letting them keep the territory; he was taking the staff.

So he was smart, but was he a killer?

I could imagine the motive. Fucking with me would give him another way to get at the Mann brothers. Or leverage to hire me, if he was still looking for staff.

“OK, Bauser, I’m sorry. Listen, you hear anything interesting, let me know, yeah?”

He nodded and put his hand out for a shake.

Respect is important with these boys; if you don’t show it, you don’t have it. And if you don’t have it, you don’t get
to speak. I shook his hand. I didn’t give him any cash. Mid-level guys never touch cash, and you don’t disrespect them by offering bribes. You just make deals, always make it about business.

“Listen, I’m serious. I’ve got a personal stake in all this right now. Any moves made by this guy, or against him, you tell your uncle Eoin.”

He laughed, which was as close as I was going to get to a yes.

We nodded at each other, and I walked back the way I’d come.

I still needed to find Jelly, and I’d just thought of the best place to start.

The Mann brothers’ newest investment was a couple of miles out of town, behind the Angel pub on Junction Road, not far from where I’d found Lee Owen. The council had built a new block of low-rise flats and made room for it by clearing away an older estate of almost exactly the same design, relocating the tenants, and smoothing out the land. They should have salted the earth too, because the minute the new blocks went up, some of the old tenants came back.

It had been the perfect plan. The Mann brothers had owned most of the estate and sold it at a good price to the council. After the building work was done, the brothers used a front company to buy the property at a discount through an urban redevelopment scheme. The face-lift had worked, and there were young, honest families in many of the apartments, but also in the mix was a collection of stash houses, safe houses, pill presses, and grow ops. But the buildings were kept clean and the paint was fresh, so nobody seemed to mind.

The man given the job of keeping an eye on all of this, making sure the buildings were clean and everything stayed
low profile, was Bobby. He wasn’t stupid, but his brain worked at a different speed. This gave him a simple, trustworthy air and made him the perfect caretaker for a number of the Mann brothers’ estates. It also made people underestimate him, which is why he came in handy when I was investigating things. Just as Jellyfish was the life of every party, Bobby was ignored wherever he went. He could often ask questions that I couldn’t, and as we both worked for the same people, I didn’t have to pay him for it.

I pressed the intercom buzzer for Bobby’s flat and waited. There was no answer.

I took a look around, but the grounds were quiet. There were no kids playing outside, nobody to ask. I tried again, and when I got no answer, I tried the buzzers for other apartments that I knew Bobby looked after.

On the fourth attempt I found him. His voice sounded electronic through the intercom. It was like talking to Stephen Hawking. It sounded like there was someone else with him, making strange noises in the background.

“Hey, Bobby,” I said. “Can I come up?”

He didn’t reply, but the door buzzed open, and I made my way up to his floor.

As I came out of the stairwell, he stepped out of the first door on the left, pulling the door almost shut behind him. I heard the strange noise again, halfway between a chew and a whimper. I thought it was a dog for a second, but then I heard very human moaning.

“Who you got in there?”

He shrugged. Like I said, he’s good at being discreet.

“Whoever it is doesn’t sound too healthy.”

“Broken jaw,” he said. “I’m trying to feed him.”

I could make an educated guess about who’d be locked away in a Mann brothers’ safe house with a broken jaw. It didn’t take much.

“Lee Owen, huh?”

Bobby shrugged again, a great non-answer.

I wasn’t surprised that Lee hadn’t had the money on him when Gav Mann had paid him a visit last night. They’d be keeping him almost healthy until he gave up the dough.

“Listen, have you seen Jellyfish around?”

Bobby shook his head. “Naw. Last time I spoke to him, he was off chasing some blonde from the university. You know Jelly.”

“Could you take a look for him? I really need to catch up with him.”

Bobby shrugged again. This time his shoulders rolled forward in a way that said yes.

“Have you heard of any stash grabs lately? Anything big.”

He stared at me. I could see his brain working behind his eyes as my question worked its way into his memory and the answer worked its way back out.

“No, not for a while.”

“OK. I’m hearing about a Polish dealer? You know anything about him?”

He shook his head. This time the answer hadn’t taken as long to retrieve.

The moaning sound came from inside again, and I touched Bobby’s shoulder.

“You better get back inside and feed the poor bastard.”

As he turned to step back inside, I thought of something. The last thing I needed was to go back to that empty house, to sleep alone with memories and ghosts.

“Hey, Bobby. I might need a place to crash tonight. The house is giving me the creeps. Is there a vacancy?”

He rummaged in his pocket and pulled out a keychain that was so burdened it seemed fit for a jail warden. He selected a copper-colored Yale key and a silver one of a
different make. He worked them off the chain and handed them to me.

“Number thirty-four is clean. I repainted it yesterday, so behave. The gold key is for downstairs.”

“Cheers, Bob.”

He nodded. He stepped back into the flat, and before the door shut, I caught the coppery smell of blood. I pushed the thoughts away. I was carrying enough around without feeling guilty for Lee Owen. He chose his fate when he stole. Then I thought of Mary and how she’d stolen as well.

Too many questions.

I shook my head and left.