The Cleaner (17 page)

Elijah dismissed the advice with a wave of his drumstick. “I know what it was. When I was younger, primary school, I was out playing football in the park when this bigger boy, Malachi, he comes onto me with his screwface on after I scored a goal against his team. He punched me right in the face and I didn’t do nothing about it. I wasn’t crying or nothing, but when I got home my mum saw that I had a cut on my head and she was on at me about how I got it. I told her what happened and she sent me back out again.” He swallowed a mouthful and put on an exaggerated impression of his mother’s voice. “‘Listen good,’ she said, ‘I’m your mum, I protected you in my womb for nine months, I gave birth to you, I didn’t do none of that so other people could just beat on you. Go outside and don’t come back in until you’ve given that boy a good seeing to, and I’m going to be watching you from the balcony.’ So I did what she said and sorted him out. I never let anyone push me around after that.”

Milton couldn’t help laugh and, after a moment, the boy laughed along with him.

“I don’t know anything about you, do I?” he said when they had finished.

“What would you like to know?”

The boy was watching him curiously over his jumbo cup of coke. “What do you do? For a job, I mean?”

“This and that,” he said.

“Because we all knew you ain’t no journalist.”

“No, I’m not. We spoke about this. I’m not––”

“So what is it you do? Come on, man, I’ve told you plenty about me. Only fair. You want to get to know me properly, how you expect that if you got kinds of secrets and shit I don’t know about?”

He said, awkwardly, “It’s a little hard to explain.”

“Try me.”

“I’m a”––he fumbled for the right euphemism––“I’m a problem solver. Occasionally, there are situations that require solutions that are a little out of the ordinary. I’m the one who gets asks to sort them out.”

“This ain’t one of those situations?”

“I don’t understand.”

“Me, I mean. This ain’t work?”

“No. I told you, it’s nothing like that.”

“So what, then? What kind of situations?”

“I can’t really say anything else.”

“So you’re saying it’s secret?”

“Something like that.”

Elijah grinned at him. “Cool. What are you, some kind of secret agent?”

“Hardly.”

“Some kind of James Bond shit, right?” He was grinning.

“Come on,” Milton said, “Look at me––do I look like James Bond?”

“Nah,” he said, “You way too old for that.”

Milton smiled as he finished one of his chicken wings.

“So tell me what it is you do.”

“Elijah, I can’t tell you anything else. Give me a break, alright?”

They ate quietly for a moment. Elijah concentrated on his chicken, dipping it into the sauce, nibbling right the way up to the bone. He put it down on the plate and wiped his fingers on a napkin. A thoughtful look passed across his face.

“What is it?”

“Why are you helping me and my mum?”

“Because she needed it. You both did.”

“She manages fine,” he said, waving the chicken leg dismissively. Milton realised that Sharon had not explained to her son the circumstances of how they had met. That was probably the right thing to do; there was no sense in worrying him but, at the same time, if he knew how desperate he had made her feel then perhaps he would have corrected his course more readily, without the need for help. It didn’t really matter. He was making good progress now and it was up to Sharon what she told her son. Milton was not about to abuse her trust.

Elijah was still regarding him carefully. Milton realised that the boy was shrewder than he looked. “No other reason?”

“Such as?”

“Such as you want to be with my mum.”

Milton shook his head. “No.”

“She’s had boyfriends,” Elijah said, discursively, “not many, but some. None of them were any good. They all give it the talk until they get what they want but when it comes down to it, when they need to back it up, they’re all full of shit. It breaks her up when they leave. It’s just me and her most of the time. It’s better that way.”

“You don’t think she’s lonely?”

“Not when I’m there.”

“She’ll find someone eventually.”

Elijah wrinkled his nose. “Nah,” he said. “She don’t need no-one else. She’s got me.”

Milton felt a flicker of encouragement. The boy’s attitude was changing, the hardened carapace slowly falling away. He watched him enthusiastically finishing the chicken, the sauce smearing around the corners of his mouth, and for that moment he looked exactly what he was: a fifteen year old boy, bravado masking a deep well of insecurity, anxiously trying to find his place in the world. Milton realised that he had started to warm towards him.

29.

CALLAN WALKED purposefully up the street, the row of terraced houses on his left. He passed the house that Milton had taken and slowed, glancing quickly through the single window. A net curtain obscured the view inside but it did not appear that the house was occupied. He continued fifty yards up the road, turned, and paused. Traffic hurried busily along the road, a few youngsters loitered aimlessly in front of the arcade of shops at the distant junction, the blocks of 1950s’ social housing loomed heavily behind their iron railings and scrappy lawns.

He watched carefully, assessing.

He started back towards the house, reaching into his pocket for his lock picks as he did so. A couple walked towards him, hand in hand, and Callan slowed his pace, timing his approach carefully so that the couple had passed the door to Milton’s house before he reached it.

He took out his lock pick and knelt before the door. He slid the pick and a small tension wrench into the lock and lifted the pins one by one until they clicked. It had taken him less than five seconds. He turned the doorknob and passed quickly, and quietly, inside.

He took out his Sig Sauer and held it in both hands, his stance loose and easy. He held his breath and listened. The house was quiet.

He did not know how long he had before Milton returned and so he worked quickly. He pulled a pair of latex gloves onto his hands and, with his gun still held ready before him, he went from room to room.

The house was cheaply furnished and in need of repair and decoration. Milton had brought hardly anything with him. Callan found a rucksack, a handful of clothes hung carefully in a rickety cupboard, some toiletries in the bathroom, but little else. There were pints of milk and orange juice in the fridge and a half eaten loaf of bread, but nothing else.

The investigation posed more questions than it answered. What was Milton doing here, in a place like this?

He went into the front room and shuffled through the envelopes on the table. They were old bills, addressed to a person whom Callan assumed was the previous occupier. He turned a gas bill over and saw that a note had been scribbled on the back.

SHARON WARRINER

FLAT 609, BLISSETT HOUSE

He took out his phone and took a photograph of the address. He slid the envelope back into the pile and left the room as he had found it.

He holstered the Sig Sauer, opened the door to the street and stepped outside. The road was clear. He closed the door and stuffed the latex gloves into his pockets. He set off in the direction of the tube station.

30.

ELIJAH HAD BEEN working on the heavy bag and was sweating hard as he sat down on the bench. He took off his gloves and the wraps that had been wound tightly around his fists. His knuckles had cut and blistered during the session and blood had stained the white fabric. He screwed the bandages into a tight ball and dropped them into the dustbin. The hall was busy. Two boys were sparring in the ring and another was firing combinations into the pads that one of the men who helped Rutherford was wearing. The man moved them up and down and side to side, changing the target, barking out left and right, the boy doing his best to keep pace. Other boys skipped rope, lifted weights or shadow-boxed in the space around the ring.

Rutherford came over to him and sat down.

“How you feeling, younger?”

“I feel good.”

“Looking good, too. That was a good session.”

“How did I do?”

“You did good. You got to work on your guard a little, you leave your chin open like that and it don’t matter how slippery and quick you are, someone’ll eventually get lucky and stitch you and that’ll be that––but we can sort that for you. You got a lot of potential. You work hard at this, who knows?”

“What you mean? I could make something of it?”

“It’s too early to say that, younger. But you got potential, like I said.” Rutherford paused for a moment, his eyes drifting across the room. “You’re running with the LFB, right?”

Elijah said that he was.

“That’s right. Your friend told me. You know we don’t have none of that in here, right? No colours, no beefs, nothing. You alright with that?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It’s not like I’m tight with them or anything. It’s a recent thing. I know some of the boys, that’s it.”

“Then we ain’t going to have a problem then. That’s good.”

“You were involved, weren’t you? The streets, I mean?”

“Yeah,” Rutherford said. “Long time ago. Is it obvious?”

“I see the way the other boys look at you. It’s not hard to guess. Who were you with?”

“LFB.”

“What did you do?”

“The usual––rolled people, shotted drugs, tiefed stuff. But my speciality was robbing dealers.”

“Seriously?”

“Why not? You know they’ve got to be carrying plenty of Ps and if you take it, what they going to do? I know they ain’t going to the Feds.” He sat down on the bench next to Elijah. “Some days,” he said, “we’d head down onto the Pembury or into the park and we’d rob the shotters. Same guys, every day. They’d never see us coming. You put them up against the wall, and it’s ‘give me your money, nigger.’ They know I’m strapped, they ain’t going to risk getting shot. Day in, day out, gimme the money, your jewellery, your phone––anything they had. Who they gonna tell? If we knew where there was a crack house, we’d go in there and clear the place out too. No-one’s packing in a crack house, see––no-one wants to be caught with drugs and a gun for no reason, so you just stroll in, get your blammer out, and everyone’s too wasted too argue. But you got to be strapped. Always knew that––you got to be strapped. You turn up to a place like that with a knife, man, you’re gambling with your life. And you got to be strapped all the time, because when you rob another gang’s crack house, the cats’ll stop going, and that costs money. When the crew ask around they’ll find out who’s done what they done and they’re gonna want to take action to make sure it don’t happen again.”

“Didn’t you feel bad?”

“Sometimes, when I was lying in bed thinking about the way my life was going, course I did. But then you think about it some more and you got money and power, so in the end you persuade yourself there was nothing in it. You tell yourself it’s the law of the jungle, the strong against the weak. And I was strong, that’s the way I saw it then. But I wasn’t strong. I was a bully, hiding behind a 2-2, and I was foolish. Young, proud, full of shit and foolish. But the way I saw it, I knew the players we was going after was doing the same shit to other people. It’s kind of like––this is the road––this is how it is. If you don’t like it, get off the road.”

“What happened?”

“In the end?” He shook his head and sucked on his teeth. “In the end, younger, it happened like it was always gonna happen. We rolled a crack house only this time the Tottenham boys were wise to it. They had a couple of mash men with blammers there themselves, waiting for us. Soon as we got in there they pulled them out and started shooting the place up. I took out my strap and fired back. Didn’t know who I was shooting at. Bad things happened.”

“You killed someone?”

“Like I said, bad things happened. I had to get away, so I signed up for the Army.”

“How old were you?”

He turned the question around. “How old you say you are?”

“Fifteen.”

“That’s right. I had just five short years on you, younger. I’m thirty-six now. I got out six months ago. I did sixteen years in the Army. Two wars. Longer than you been around in this world.”

“Shit.”

“Yeah, that’s right––shit. You see why I do what I do now, JaJa? I know where the road is gonna take youngsters like you if you don’t pay attention. There ain’t no chance it can go anywhere else. I know I probably sound like it sometimes, but I ain’t trying to patronise. I just
know
. You follow the road you’re on for too much longer, you’ll get in so deep you don’t even know how to begin getting out. And then, one day, the road will take you, too. You’ll get shot, or shanked, or you’ll do it to someone else and the Trident will lock you up. And, either way, that’ll be it––the end of your life. If I can help a couple of you boys get straight, get off the road, then, the way I look at it, I’m starting to give back a little, pay back the debt I owe.”

The door to the street opened and Pinky came inside. Elijah stiffened.

“You know him?” Rutherford said.

“Yeah. Does he come here, too?”

“Used to, but I haven’t seen him for a while. You two get on?”

“Not really.”

“No, I bet––he’s not an easy one to get along with. He’s got a whole lot of troubles.” Rutherford got up as Pinky approached them. “Easy, younger,” he said. “How’s it going? Ain’t seen you for a couple of weeks.”

“Been busy.” The boy said it proudly, and Elijah knew exactly what he meant.

“That right? How much you made this week, playa?”

“Huh?”

“Your Ps. I know you been shotting. I saw you, up on the balcony at Blissett House. How much?”

Pinky stared at Elijah and grinned as he said, “Five-o-o.”

Rutherford sucked his teeth. “Five hundred,” he said. “Not bad.”

“Not bad? Better than you’ll make all month.”

“Probably right,” he conceded with an equable duck of his head. “So, let me get that straight… five hundred a week, over a whole year, you keep taking that you’re gonna end up with what, twenty-five thousand? What you gonna do with that much money?”