Screen of Deceit (21 page)

He was out on the streets with Jonny that same evening, knowing that the events of the day had had a bad effect on him. He was on the lookout for trouble and if trouble found him, it had better bloody well watch out.

Jonny picked up on Mark's dark mood with an amused pleasure and went with it because he could sense Mark's wildness and knew something would come of it.

Mark, Jonny, Sam and Eric barged their way around the arcades in the town centre, an air of violence emanating from the way in which they entered a premises and stalked through it. Like hungry hyenas. Smirks of superiority on their faces. Pushing for a fight. Hoping someone would stand in their way, or give them a dirty look.

No one did.

Everyone shied respectfully out of their way. No challenges, no disrespect tonight.

Underneath the façade, though, Mark was unhappy. Yes, this was his true mood. He was angry and frustrated and at that moment in time he hated the world and wanted to lash out, but the truth was that everything inside him was really directed at Jonny, although he did not allow that to show. He had to keep that in check, but a big part of him wanted them all to get into a fight which they couldn't win, one in which Sparks would get the hammering he deserved without Mark blowing his cover.

But it was unlikely to happen.

Jonny breezed through everybody. His fearsome reputation made them step aside and cower. No one would be taking them on tonight.

They'd gravitated to a cheapo greasy-spoon café near the Winter Gardens. Over Cokes, they had been laughing at the patheticness of every wimp in town, and wondering what to do later that evening, when Jonny got the call on his phone. The ringtone, as ever, ‘Boulevard of Broken Dreams' by Green Day. Mark's favourite. He cringed.

Jonny suddenly became businesslike – just like on the day he'd got the call when he and Mark had faced each other over the BMX.

Mark sat back, tried to act natural and pretend he wasn't interested.

It was obviously an important call. Business.

‘Need to get this,' Jonny said. He stood up and left the other three sitting at the cracked, Formica-topped table. Jonny walked out of the caff and took the call on the street. Mark watched him discreetly whilst at the same time trying to give the impression he was interested in the dumb-arse ramblings of Sam and Eric who, in truth, struggled to sling two coherent sentences together. They really needed schooling, Mark thought sadly. He'd learned neither could really read or write and their futures looked bleak. He'd also learned that Jonny
could
read and write, which put him one step up the evolutionary ladder from his mates. Perhaps made him a chimp. That said, Mark believed that Jonny was canny enough underneath his toughness to have a better future than the one already mapped out for him, if only he could see it.

Mark slyly eyed Jonny on the phone. It was a phone call during which Jonny did most of the listening. A few nods, some monosyllabic responses.

‘Bet it's the Crackman,' Eric said suddenly.

‘Eh?' Mark turned to him – too quickly – then tried to disguise his interest by taking a swig of his Coke. He needn't have worried. Neither goon saw his body language.

‘On t'phone.' Eric put his thumb to his ear, little finger to his mouth in the well-known gesture to imitate a phone.

‘Who's the Crackman?' Mark asked dumbly.

‘Don't effin' ask me. I dunno,' Eric said.

‘And that's the Crackman on the phone, is it?'

‘Er … probably, that's his ringtone I think,' Eric said dumbly, losing interest in the conversation. He had started cracking his knuckles one by one, loudly, by bending his fingers right back. Mark winced and felt queasy.

Then Sam joined in, making a stereo, knuckle-cracking symphony which was weirdly in tune, giving Mark the perfect excuse to get up and walk away with an ‘Ugh!' on his lips.

Jonny's phone call ended. He was about to return inside as Mark shouldered his way out of the door and met him.

‘Those two are going to have arthritis big style when they get older,' Mark said disgustedly.

‘Knuckle-cracking?' Jonny said knowingly.

‘Yep.'

Jonny raised his right fist and, using the palm of his left, spectacularly cracked his knuckles, one by one, like dry twigs snapping. Then he laughed.

‘Whatever.' Mark raised his hands in submission. ‘Was that business?' he asked innocently.

Jonny ran his eyes over Mark. ‘What's it to do wi' you?'

‘Sorry, mate – just asking. Those guys said it was the Crackman.'

‘Pricks!' Jonny uttered. ‘Big-mouthed pricks.'

‘Hey, hey, no need to get riled.' Mark used his hands in a calming gesture. ‘No big deal. I don't know owt, OK? I'm not prying.'

Jonny's eyes blazed, then the fire went out of them and the expression he gave Mark was one of serious consideration. ‘Maybe it's about time you started earning your keep.'

‘What d'you mean?' Mark kept the excitement out of his voice as best he could.

‘OK,' Jonny relented, ‘that was the Crackman.' He held up his phone. ‘You know about the Crackman, don't you?'

‘Only by reputation. Don't know who he is.'

‘Nor do I.'

‘Yeah, right. You deal for him, don't you? You distribute for him, don't you?'

‘Don't push it. I don't know who he is and I don't want to know. I got recommended by a friend of a friend, got a call, then took it from there. The rest is history.'

‘But you don't know who he is?'

‘Nah.'

‘He must know who you are.' Mark desperately wanted to ask about the phone, but couldn't think how to phrase a question so that it seemed innocent … but then Jonny seemed to sense what was going on in Mark's head and was suddenly suspicious.

‘Hey – why all the questions? You an undercover cop or summat?'

‘Don't be thick,' Mark responded. He knew it was a question that might come at some time and had rehearsed his reaction to it. Was it a good enough reaction, though? Or did his body language leak the truth? ‘You're the one who wanted to mate about with me, remember?'

‘In fact, thinking about it, I need to check,' Jonny said warily.

‘How do you mean?'

‘Better safe than sorry. Maybe I've already said too much.'

‘What?' Mark's face was screwed up in puzzlement.

‘You wearin' a wire?'

‘A what?'

‘A wire, y'know? Like summat that records what we say, what I say.'

‘Am I fuck!' Mark said, uttering a word he detested, but which Jonny used with abandon. All part of the game plan.

‘Well let's check it out, then,' Jonny said. He pushed Mark in the chest, back inside the greasy-spoon, gesturing to the Hyenas that he needed some help here.

Jonny manhandled him into the gents' toilets, Mark's face red, angry, his breath coming hard. Eric and Sam followed, eagerly wondering what the hell was going on, but gladly along for the ride.

‘Eric – door,' Jonny barked.

‘Eh?'

‘Guard the door. Don't let anyone in,' Jonny shouted at him whilst pinning Mark against the wall next to the washbasins. Sam checked all the stalls, found them empty. Not that anyone in their right mind would have willingly sat on any of the cracked, reeking toilets.

‘This is stupid,' Mark said, nostrils flaring.

‘It's only stupid if I don't find a wire,' Jonny came back at him. ‘So if I don't, you can call me stupid, OK?'

Sam completed his bog search, came and hovered by Jonny's shoulder. ‘All crappers empty,' he reported back.

Mark looked at Jonny and saw in him the true feral monster he really was. Not the big mate he'd been pretending to be. This guy, even though he was only fourteen, was a truly hardened criminal, in a league of his own. His personality changed on a whim, and Mark guessed this is what they meant when they talked about psychopaths. Charming one minute, breaking your friggin' head the next and laughing while they did it – and maybe killing people by plying them with drugs.

To put it bluntly, Mark, slammed hard against a graffiti-covered wall in a toilet in the back of a shit-hole café, was terrified, even though he knew Jonny would find nothing.

‘Take your jacket off and give it to Sam.'

With his lips snarling, Mark did as he was told, peeling off his denim jacket and handing it across to Sam, who went through the pockets and inspected the stitching. He found some cash, nothing else.

‘Now the shirt.'

Mark removed his short-sleeved tee-shirt with a breast pocket in which was clipped the MP3 player Jonny had given him in a moment of generosity. Sam searched it, found nothing incriminating.

‘Just this,' Sam said, holding out the MP3 player, which Jonny took. He turned it over in his fingers and held it up to his mouth.

‘Hey – can you hear me, pig bastards?' he screamed at it, making Mark jerk. He handed it back to Sam. ‘This is the one I gave him, it's OK.'

‘Turn around and face the wall. I want to see your back.'

Mark did as instructed, his nose inches from a felt-tip scrawled, ‘
All coppers are bastards
'. At that moment, he could not have agreed more with the sentiment.

‘OK, turn back and drop your keks.'

‘No chance,' he said, defiantly facing Jonny, teeth gritted.

Jonny looked eye to eye with him. Mark noted the line of wispy bum fluff growing over Jonny's top lip. And his blackheads. And his zits, their creamy heads ripe for popping.

‘Do it, or I'll cut you.' Suddenly there was a click and in his hand was a flick knife, which he held up to Mark's left eye.

A beat.

The point of the knife was only a centimetre from Mark's eyeball.

Mark unbuttoned his jeans, pushed them down and stood there with them around his ankles, just his boxers on.

Jonny's eyes dropped to Mark's hairless body.

‘See,' Mark growled. ‘Nothing.'

At which point Jonny burst into laughter and Eric bundled the clothes back into Mark's arms.

‘No hard feelings, mate?' Jonny had easily reverted back to the big-hearted friend again, laughing off the intrusion he'd made into Mark's privacy.

Inside, Mark still shook, his guts churned and his lungs dithered as they expanded and contracted. Outwardly, he hoped he exuded confidence and a bit of street savvy. He wasn't completely sure how to deal with the situation and he hoped his reaction was the right one.

The four of them were walking down the prom. Jonny had wrapped his bony arm around Mark's shoulders. Mark shrugged him off and turned angrily to him, so they were face to face.

‘Just what the fuck were you hoping to find?'

‘Can't be too careful in this business.'

Mark sneered. ‘You think I'm a grass?'

‘Like I said,' Jonny responded playfully, ‘call me stupid.'

Mark's mouth snapped shut as he held back the urge to do that, only because he knew if he did call Jonny names, he'd just get angry again. Even when Jonny invited you to call him stupid, you would have to be a fool to take up the offer.

‘Look – it's a good lesson for you. Trust no bugger.' Jonny raised his eyebrows. ‘Anyway, what's done is done. We got over it and now we're out the other side. You want to start earnin' some dosh? Need a new bike, don't you?'

‘Yeah, yeah I do.'

They were in McDonald's opposite central pier. Generous Jonny bought them all more Cokes, then he and Mark slid into one of the booths by the window whilst Sam and Eric went to another table, keeping nicks, as Jonny and Mark talked.

It was obvious the two big lads were nothing more than hard men and gofers. Jonny seemed to keep them well out of the loop of his business dealings. They were his muscle, his enforcers, nothing else.

They faced each other across the table.

‘Before I got excluded, I ran the whole of the drugs trade in that school,' Jonny opened up. ‘One or two others were dabbling, but I took care of them.'

‘How?'

Jonny gave him a withering look. ‘Remember Paul Eaves?'

Vividly, Mark thought. Paul Eaves, tough nut troublemaker. He had ended up being beaten up in odd circumstances, with no witnesses. It had been a brutal attack and he'd ended up with a broken arm amongst other serious injuries. The story was that his attackers had beaten him up at the side of the road, then laid his arm on the edge of the kerb and stamped on it, breaking it in five or six places. He'd been repaired with lots of bits of steel and nuts and bolts, but would never have full use of his arm again. Jonny saw these recollections whizzing through Mark's brain.

‘I did the arm,' Jonny said simply. ‘Stamped on it like a twig.'

Suddenly Mark's throat went dry. He sucked on his straw and knew then, if he hadn't known before, that he was out of his depth. This guy, this fourteen-year-old sitting opposite, coolly sipping a fizzy drink, maimed people for life if they got in his way.

‘Tony Wright?' Jonny said.

‘Shit,' Mark gurgled. Another one who'd come to serious grief. He'd been flattened by a stolen car, had only just survived and never been seen at school since.

‘Both muscling in. Had to get rid. On the Crackman's instructions, of course.' More Coke disappeared up Jonny's straw. ‘You got to understand there's a lot at stake, here … I mean, how many kids go to our school?'

Our
school? Mark thought. That's a bit rich coming from you. He didn't say it. ‘About thirteen hundred.'

‘See! Big market, big money. On a bad week, say five hundred quid.'

‘Jesus!' Mark's eyes opened, literally and metaphorically. He simply had no idea of the extent of the drugs trade that went on. He knew it happened, but had no conception of its size.

‘And then I have the estate and I control a couple of the arcades, too. My patch,' he said proudly. ‘You work it out.'