The Cleaner (19 page)

Sharon emerged from the kitchen with two glasses in her hands. “My boys,” she said simply. “I failed with Jules. I’m not going to let the same thing happen to Elijah.”

“You won’t.”

She smiled sadly, resting both glasses on the table. Milton watched as a single tear rolled slowly down her cheek and he went to her, drawing her into his body and holding her there, his right hand reaching around to stroke her hair.

She gently pulled back and looked up into his face. Her eyes were wet and bright. Milton pushed her against the wall and kissed her, hard, on the mouth. She pulled away and Milton took a step back to give her room. “I’m sorry,” he said, but her hands came up, the fingers circling his wrists, and she drew him back towards her until their bodies touched. She moved his hands downwards until they were around her slender waist and angled her head to kiss him, her mouth open hungrily. Milton embraced her passionately, his tongue forcing her teeth apart, her own tongue working shyly at first and then more passionately. Milton pulled her even more tightly into his body, crushing her breasts against his chest. She gasped, disengaging her mouth and pressing her cheek against his, her mouth nuzzling his neck. They stayed like that for a moment, breathing hard, Milton feeling her hard breasts against his sternum, his hands sliding down into the small of her back.

She leant back a little so that she could look up into his face. She gently brushed aside the lock of black hair that had fallen across his damp forehead. Her hand slid into his, the fingers interlacing, and then she pulled him after her, leading the way across the sitting room to the door that led to her bedroom.

32.

ELIJAH AWOKE AT EIGHT, just as usual, and got straight out of bed. His body felt sore from exercise but it was a good pain, a steady ache that told him he had worked hard. He thought of his muscles, the little tears and rips that would regenerate and thicken, making him stronger. He thought of Pinky, and the session in the ring. He had dreamt about that in the night, replaying the two rounds over and over again. It was one of those good dreams where it made him feel happy at the end, not the nightmares that he usually had. He thought of the boys who had been watching. “He banged Pinky out,” one of them called, and there had been something different in the way that he looked at him, the way that they all looked at him. He felt a warmth in his chest as he thought about it again.

He took off his shirt, opened his cupboard door and looked at his torso in the full-length mirror. He was lean and strong, the muscles in his stomach starting to develop, his arms thickening, his shoulders growing heavier. His puppy fat was disappearing. He knew from the few pictures he had found in his mother’s room that his father had been a big man, powerfully built, and he had always hoped that he might inherit that from him. He wanted to be like Rutherford. A man that size, who was going to mess around with him?

He found a clean t-shirt and pulled on his jeans. He threw his duvet back across his bed, straightened it out and went into the sitting room. It was empty. That was strange; his mother was normally up well before him, preparing his breakfast before she went off to work.

“Mums,” he called.

There was no reply.

He went into the kitchen and poured himself an orange juice. He went and stood before the door to her bedroom. It was closed.

“Mums,” he said again, “I can’t find my iPod. You awake?”

He heard the sound of hasty movement from inside and, without thinking, reached for the door handle and opened it. His mother was half out of bed, fastening the belt of her dressing gown around her waist. She was not alone. Milton was sitting in her bed, the covers pulled down to reveal his hard, muscular chest.

Elijah felt his stomach drop away. He felt sick.

“Oh no,” he said.

“Elijah,” his mother said helplessly.

“What? What’s going on?”

“
Elijah
.”

He backed out of the room.

His mother followed him, stammering something about him needing to be calm, about how he shouldn’t lose his temper, how he should listen, but he hardly heard her. She came into the sitting room as he scrabbled on the floor for the trainers he had left there after he came in last night. Milton came out of the bedroom, his trousers halfway undone and hastily doing up the buttons of his shirt.

“Come on, Elijah,” he said. “Let me talk to you.”

“You said you weren’t like the others.”

“I’m not.”

“I thought you wanted to help me?”

“I do.”

“No you don’t. You just want her to think you do so you can get with her. What’s wrong with me? You must think I’m an idiot. I can’t believe I fell for it.”

“You’re not an idiot, and that’s not how it is. I do want to help you. It’s very important to me. What happens between me and your mum doesn’t make any difference to that.”

“You can fool her if you want, but you ain’t fooling me, not any more.”

He stamped his feet into his trainers and laced them hurriedly.

“Elijah…” Sharon said.

“I’ll see you later, mum.”

She called after him as he slammed the door behind him. He stood on the balcony in the fresh morning air. The kids at the end of the balcony sniggered and, as he turned back, he saw why: someone had sprayed graffiti across the front door and the paint, still wet, said SLUT.

Elijah went across to the boys. Elijah knew them by reputation; they were a year or two older than him with a bit of a reputation, occasionally passing through the Estate to sell Bizness’s gear.

“You think that’s funny?” he said.

“Look at the little chi-chi man,” the oldest of the three said. “Hush your gums, younger, you know it’s true.”

“Wouldn’t be so touchy about it if he didn’t, would he? Your mum’s a grimey skank, bruv, you know she is.”

Elijah was blinded by a sudden, unquenchable flash of anger. He flung his arm out in a powerful right cross, catching the boy flush on the chin. He dropped to the concrete, his head bouncing back off the balustrade, and lay still. He turned to face the other two. They gaped and then, as they saw the ire that had distorted Elijah’s face, they both backed away. Elijah’s fist burned from the impact and, as he opened and closed his hand he saw that his knuckles had been painted with the boy’s blood.

The door to the flat opened behind him. He turned back to see Milton emerging, barefoot. “Elijah,” he called out. “Please––let me talk to you.”

He leapt over the boy and made for the stairs, kicking the door open and taking them two at a time. He was crying by the time he reached the bottom; hot, gasping sobs of disappointment and disenchantment and the sure knowledge that any chance he had of striking out on a different path was gone. He could not trust Milton. He had used him and, like a callow little boy, he had given himself away cheaply and unquestioning. He could not trust him and there was no-one else. He had always known he was alone. This had been just another false hope. He would not fall for them so easily again.

He found his phone in his pocket and swiped through his contacts until he found Bizness’s number.

33.

POPS DROVE his car into Dalston and parked next to a Turkish restaurant on Kingsland Road. He killed the engine and sat quietly, watching the pedestrians passing next to him. Bizness had called him thirty minutes earlier and told him to come to his studio. He made no mention of Laura, nor did Pops expect him to. He would feel no guilt for what he had done. The way he would see it, he was entitled to take whatever he wanted. A woman was no different to money, time, or possessions. If Bizness wanted it, then it was his.

Elijah was in the passenger seat. Bizness had told him to collect him and bring him along. Pops tried to engage him in conversation when he picked him up but the youngster did not respond. His face was clouded with anger and he was completely closed off. Something had happened to him, that much was obvious.

“Here we are, younger,” he said to him. “I don’t know what Bizness wants with you, but be careful, alright?”

Elijah grunted, but, other than that, he did not respond.

Pops tried again. “Listen to me, JaJa. You don’t have to do nothing you don’t want to do. Nothing’s changed from before. If you’d gone through with what he wanted, you’d either be dead or in prison now. You hear me?”

Once again, Elijah said nothing. Pops hardly knew the boy, but he had never seen him like this. He looked older, more severe, his lack of emotion even a little frightening. Pops realised with a sudden flash of insight that the boy reminded him of himself, five years earlier. Anger throbbed out of him. He was frightened for him.

Elijah pulled back the handle and pushed the door open. He got out, slammed it behind him and crossed the pavement to the door of the studio.

“Alright, then,” Pops said in his wake. He got out, locked the car and followed.

The studio was on the first floor of the building, above the restaurant. Pops held his thumb against the buzzer and spoke into the intercom. The lock popped open and he went inside. Pops knew the history of the place. Bizness had bought the two flats that had been here before and spent fifty thousand knocking them through into one large space. He followed the dingy flight of steps upwards, frayed squares of carpet on the treads and framed posters of BRAPPPP! hung on the walls on either side of him. They were ordered chronologically, and the pictures nearer the ground floor, before the collective discovered that popularity was inextricably tied to notoriety, even seemed a little naïve. The final poster before the door at the top of the stairs was of Bizness, standing alone, bare chested, holding a semi-automatic MAC-10 pistol in one hand and smoking a joint with the other. Pops remembered the first time he had seen the poster. He had been awed, then, a black man with power who was unafraid of putting a finger up at society’s conventions; now, he found it all predictable and depressing. There was no message there, no purpose. The power was illusory. It was all about the money.

The sound of heavy bass thudded from the room at the stop of the stairs. The interior door was open and Pops pushed it aside. The rooms beyond comprised a small kitchen strewn with takeaway packaging and an area laid out with plush sofas and a low coffee table. At the other side of the building was the studio itself, sealed off behind a glass screen with its recording booth and mixing suite. The rest area was busy with people and the noise was cacophonous; the latest BRAPPPP! record was playing through the studio’s PA, the repetitive drone blending with the shouts and whoops of the people in the room, everyone struggling to make themselves heard. Pops recognised several members of the collective and the hangers-on who trailed them wherever they went. Bizness was sitting with his back against the arm of the sofa, his legs stretched out across it, his feet resting in Laura’s lap. He was shirtless, exposing the litany of tattoos that stretched across his skin. The word GANGSTER had been tattooed across his stomach in gothic cursive, the letters describing a long, lazy arc above his navel. IN GUNS WE TRUST was written, two words apiece, across the backs of his hands.

Laura looked up as Pops entered, her eyes flickering to his face for a moment. There was barely a moment of recognition before her unfocussed gaze washed over him. The muscles in her face were loose, flaccid. He tried to hold her attention but it was a waste of time. She turned her face to the low table in front of her where several lines of cocaine had been arranged across the surface. She ignored them, languidly reaching her fingers for the crack pipe that trailed tendrils of smoke up towards the ceiling. She grasped it and put it to her lips, inhaled and then closed her eyes. Pops’s heart sank. She toked, the smoke uncurling from her nostrils and rolling up past her cheeks, obscuring her blank eyes. She ignored him completely. It was as if he was not there.

Bizness grinned at them both, displaying his gold teeth. He reached over for a remote control and quietened the music so he could more easily be heard. “Look who it is, my two best bredderz. Big Pops and little JaJa. Aight, bruv?”

Pops felt his hands curling into fists. “Bizness,” he said, forcing himself to smile. He could not stop himself from looking over at Laura again, just for an instant, and Bizness noticed. He said nothing––there was no need for it––but his lips curled up in a derisive grin, the light glittering off the gold caps. Everyone in the room knew what had happened, that Bizness had clicked his fingers and taken her from him, doing it without compunction, like it was no big thing. Not even acknowledging it to his face was the biggest dis of all. It said Bizness didn’t care. That Pops’ reaction was irrelevant, and that there was nothing he could do about any of it. Pops felt his anger flare but he forced himself to suppress it. There was no move for him to play. Laura was gone. She was with Bizness now, for however long he wanted her. If he showed his anger there would be hype, and there could only be one outcome after that.

Bizness turned to Elijah. “And my little soldier, how are you doing, younger?”

“I’m good,” Elijah said. He went over to Bizness and held up his closed fist.

Bizness looked around the room, his mouth open in an expression of delighted surprise. “Look at the little hoodrat,” he exclaimed. Elijah ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders. “He got some serious attitude, innit?” Bizness bumped fists with him. “So what happened to you the other night, soldier?”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Elijah said. He angled his face a fraction, enough to turn his gaze onto Pops, and it was clear from his expression that he blamed him for not carrying out his instructions. “The fight––I lost my nerve. Won’t happen again.”

“That right? You still wanna get involved?”

“Yeah. For definite.”

“Because that problem ain’t gone away. We made our point but the little fassy ain’t listening. Put up another message for us last night. You see it?”

Elijah shrugged again. There was a open laptop resting on the table. Bizness stretched across and tabbed through the open windows to YouTube. The video he wanted had already been selected and he dragged the cursor across and set it to play. Pops had seen Wiley T’s uploads before and this met the usual pattern. The boy was rapping on the streets of Camden as a friend filmed him with a handheld camera. The bars he was dropping were all about Bizness and the brawl at the party. Bizness was right: Wiley was not backing down, and, if anything, the incident had made him even more brazen. It was an escalation, a direct and unambiguous dis. He questioned Bizness’s heritage, his legitimacy and the size of his manhood, all in artfully rhymed couplets. He ended by calling him out for a battle, doubting that the invitation would be taken up. Wiley was good, much better than Bizness, and it was that, Pops knew, rather than the content of his bars, that had upset him so badly.