The Cleaner (20 page)

Elijah watched the video, his face darkening. “He’s got some front,” he said when it came to an end, “don’t he?”

“Fucking right he got some front. Everyone knows I’d take him down if we battled, aight, so what’s the point? Nah, bruv. There ain’t nothing else for it––he’s got to get merked. Can I count on you, young ‘un? You ready to stand up?”

He turned to Pops again, his eyes blazing with purpose. “Yeah,” he said. “Man needs to get dooked, innit. Be my pleasure to do it for you.”

Bizness laughed harshly and, following their cue, the others in the room quickly followed suit. “Little man found his balls, eh? Good for you––good for you. You still got the piece?”

“In my bedroom.”

Bizness extracted himself from the sofa, stretching himself out to his full height. He took a joint from the boy next to him and inhaled deeply. He knelt down, taking Elijah by both shoulders, and breathed the smoke into his face. “We’ll make a rude boy out of you, JaJa. A good little soldier.”

34.

JOHN MILTON sat in the threadbare armchair in the front room of the house, staring at the stains on the wall and thinking. He had left Blissett House soon after Elijah. Sharon had been upset at the confrontation and, apologising as she did so, told him that it was probably better if he left. She said that what had happened had been a good thing, and that she didn’t regret it, but that she had to put her child first. Milton understood. He had not planned for the night to develop as it had, and he had been surprised at his reaction. There was something about her that drew him in, her endearing combination of quiet dignity and vulnerability, perhaps. She was attractive but he wished he had shown more restraint. Elijah had been making progress and now he did not know how much damage had been done.

His mobile was on the table. It started to ring. Milton picked it up and checked the display. He did not recognise the number.

“Yes?” he said.

“Hello?” said the caller.

“Who’s this?”

“You the man? The man in the park?”

“Who’s this?”

“I met you a week ago. You were looking for Elijah.”

“Which one are you?”

“You gave me your number.”

Milton remembered the boy: older than the others, bigger, a strange mixture of tranquillity and threat in his expression. “I remember,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Call me Pops.”

“No––your real name.”

There was a pause as the boy weighed up whether he should say. “Aaron,” he said eventually.

“Alright, then, Aaron. I’m John. How can I help you?”

The boy’s voice was tight, tense. “You were looking out for JaJa, weren’t you? You wanted to help him.”

There was something in the boy’s tone that made him fearful. “What about him?”

“He’s in trouble. He’s in real trouble, man. Serious.” There was a pause. “Shit, I’m in trouble too. Both of us.”

“You better tell me about it. What’s the matter?”

“Just so I know, you ain’t a journalist, are you?”

“No.”

“And you ain’t no police, neither?”

“No.”

“What do you do, then, you so sure you can help?”

“I can’t tell you that. But all you need to know is that I have a particular set of skills, and that if you’re in trouble, then I can help you. Beyond that you’ll have to trust me.” There was a pause on the line and Milton noticed that he was holding his breath. “Are you still there?” he said.

“Yeah,” the boy said. “I’m here.”

“It sounds like we need to talk.”

“Yeah. Can we meet?”

“Of course.”

“Now? I’m in the park, next to the fountains. You around?”

“I can be.”

“I’ll be here for another thirty minutes, then.”

The boy ended the call without saying anything else.

Milton walked the short distance to Victoria Park and made his way to the fountain. It had been another stifling day, and the grass was parched and flattened in squares from where picnic blankets had been stretched across it. The night was darkening, the wide expanses gloomy between the amber cones from the occasional streetlamp. A jumbo jet slid across the gloaming, its lights winking red as it curled away to the west. The big estate buildings on the southern edges of the park hunched over the fringe of trees and railings, twenty storey blocks of concrete, depressingly stolid, oppressive. It was a changing of the guard: the last joggers, cyclists and dog walkers passed around the outer circle as groups of youngsters gathered on the benches beneath the streetlamps to smoke and joke with one another. Milton noticed all of them, a habitual caution so ingrained that he did not even realise it, but he paid them no heed. He followed the outer circle around from the pub and then took the diagonal path that cut straight to the memorial and the glassy squares of water that attended it. A homeless man sat at one of the benches, massaging the ears of the thin greyhound huddling next to him. There was no-one else. Milton walked slowly around the monument, making a show of examining it, before sitting at one of the empty benches to fuss with a lace that did not need tying. The water was still and flat and perfectly reflective, a rind of moon floating in the shallow depth. He set to waiting.

Twenty minutes passed before he looked up to see someone else turn off the outer path and head towards the monument. Despite the late heat, the figure was wearing a bomber jacket over the top of a hoodie, the hood pulled over the head like a cowl. Pristine white trainers almost shone in the gloom.

Milton got up from the bench and idled towards the monument. As the boy got closer he recognised the face beneath the hood. His skin was black and perfectly smooth, his eyes and teeth shining.

“Aight,” the boy said in a low monotone, angling his head in greeting.

“Hello, Aaron.”

“We can head towards the pond, over there. Ain’t no-one there this time of the day.”

They set off side-by-side. Milton studied the boy through the corner of his eye. He was large, not much shorter than Milton but heavier, and he walked with a roll to his step, his head and shoulders slouched forwards. He dressed like all the others: hooded jacket, low-slung jeans with the crotch somewhere between his knees, the brand new trainers, pieces of expensive jewellery. It was the uniform of the gang, topped off by the purple bandana knotted around his throat. He wore it all naturally. He was quiet and predisposed, his eyes on the path. They continued that way for a minute, Milton happy to wait until the boy was ready to speak.

They were approaching the pond when he finally spoke. “JaJa needs help,” he said. “He’s got in with a bad man. I tried to keep him out of it but he ain’t listening to me any more. Ain’t nothing else I can do for him.”

“Is it Bizness?”

“You know him?”

“Elijah spoke to me after he was arrested. I know a little about him. Is he dangerous?”

“What, man, are you fucking high? Is he
dangerous?
Seriously? Bizness’s a psycho, innit? He was always bad, but since his ego got to be like it is now, he’s turned into a monster.”

“What about you?”

“What about me?”

“You said you needed help, too.”

He cleared his throat awkwardly. “Bizness’s the same age as I am. We were at school together. We used to be tight but we ain’t no more and he’s finished with me. I dunno, the last few weeks it’s as if he’s been provoking me, starting hype like he wants to get a reaction. I seen it happen before. He don’t let anyone get too influential, start taking his thunder, see, and then when they do, when he thinks they might be getting to be a threat”––he clicked his fingers––“then he gets rid of them. One way or another.”

“And you’re a threat.”

“Nah, man. I ain’t like that. I want out, but he don’t know that.”

“So tell him.”

He laughed bitterly. “Don’t work that way, man. You get in, you’re all the way in. You ain’t done until he tells you you’re done. And there ain’t no talking with him.”

Milton reflected that he knew what that felt like. He said nothing.

“Look, it ain’t about me, not really. I
am
getting out, whether he likes it or not. It’s the younger who needs help.”

They reached the pond. A sign describing the nearby flora and fauna had been defaced with graffiti––Milton guessed that the 925 was a rival gang tag––and the bracket that should have held the buoyancy aid had been vandalised, snapped wood showing white through the creosote like splintered bone. Pops sat down on the bench and took a joint from his pocket. “I come down here now and again,” he said, lighting the joint with his lighter. “I know it sounds pathetic, but I used to be in the Scouts, when I was younger. The fucking Scouts. We used to come down here once a year and dredge the whole lot. You wouldn’t believe the things people used to dump––washing machines, shopping trolleys, every thing covered in sludge and weeds. We always joked we’d pull out a dead body one day. What I know now, I’m half surprised we never did. There are guns and shanks in there, I know
that
for a fact.”

The boy offered the joint to Milton. He shook his head. The boy shrugged and smoked hard on it instead.

“So tell me about Elijah.”

“You know about what happened at the party?”

“He told me.”

“There’s a man Bizness wants to have shot. JaJa mention Wiley?

“A little.”

“Bizness’s got beef with him. Wants him gone. That was what the club was all about. He wants JaJa to do it. He had the gun that night. I thought I’d got through to him. I sent him home when I saw what was happening. I thought he’d listen to me. Something must’ve happened since.” His voice trailed off. Milton said nothing. “So then I got a call from Bizness yesterday to say I had to pick JaJa up and bring him to his studio. I never seen the younger like that before––he was angry, man, he had this proper screwface on like he was ready to fucking
explode
. Bizness loves that, course, and he asks him whether he’s ready to do what he wants him to do with Wiley.”

A dog walker skirted the far side of the pond. His dog, a pitbull heavy with a fat collar of muscle, chased the ducks into the water.

“And Elijah said he’d do it?”

Pops nodded.

Milton felt sick to the pit of his stomach.

“When?”

“I don’t know the details. Bizness won’t tell me. I’m not that close to him and I don’t think he trusts me no more, anyway.”

“Is there anything else?”

“Can’t think of nothing.” He paused. “Except––”

“Go on.”

The boy clenched his teeth so hard that the strong line of his jaw jutted from his face. “My girl’s got involved with him, too. She’s vulnerable. Got a weakness for drugs and he won’t look out for her like I did. Last time I saw her, she was smoking crack with him. It’ll be skag next. She’ll end up on the streets for him, I seen that before, too. Or she’ll end up raped, or dead.”

Milton sat quietly.

“So what are you going to do?”

“I don’t know,” Milton said.

“You said you could help me, man.”

“I will. But you have to work with me.”

“How?”

“First things first: you have to speak to the police.”

Pops kissed his teeth. “Go to the Feds? You know what would happen to me if Bizness found out I’d been grassing? I’d end up in that fucking pond with a bullet between my eyes.” Pops stood abruptly. “If that’s the best you can do, we’re finished. Police aren’t going to do nothing until JaJa’s got blood on his hands and my girl is fucking dead. I’m wasting my time with this bullshit.”

“Grow up, Aaron,” Milton said. His voice was emotionless, iron-hard and utterly authoritative. “Sit down.”

He did as he was told, adding, self-pityingly, “What’s the point?”

“Because I’m going to take him out of the picture,” Milton said. “Tell them what happened at the club. The boy who got beaten, you saw all that.”

Pops looked down at his feet. “Yeah, man, I saw it.”

“That’s good,” Milton said. “They’ll have to take that seriously.”

“What you gonna to do?”

“I’m going to have a word with Bizness.”

He laughed. “A word? No offence, man, but he ain’t gonna listen to you.”

“He’ll listen to me,” Milton said. “You’ll have to trust me about that.”

Milton stood and they started back towards the main road. “This is what we’re going to do––you’re going to go to the police and tell them about what happened at the club. Leave Elijah out of it, but tell them everything else.”

“It won’t do nothing. It’ll my word against theirs.”

“Maybe. But it will be a useful distraction.”

“And then what?”

“You’ll get your friend off balance just as I give him something else to think about. I want him to take me seriously when we speak. I’m going to need some information from you about how his operation is put together––who works for him, how he makes his money, where he keeps it. Can you help me with that?”

“Yeah.”

Milton asked a series of questions and Pops provided awkward, but reasonably comprehensive, answers. Milton memorised the information, filtering it and arranging it as he built a picture of Bizness’s business. The man had numerous interests in the local underworld, his malign influence stretching from drugs to prostitution and robbery. His music was clearly lucrative but it would be as nothing compared to the profit he was turning from his illegal businesses. It was good that he was spread among different businesses, and areas. That would mean that there would be plenty of vulnerable spots that Milton would be able to exploit.

“How does he communicate with everyone?”

Pops looked at him derisively. “How’d you think, man? Smoke signals? Homing pigeons? Facebook, BBM, texts. Pay-As-You-Go phones. Nothing he could ever get nailed with by the Feds if they got hold of it. If he needs to meet to talk business, he’ll get someone else to make the call to set it up and then arrange the meet somewhere, in the open, where it’s impossible for the boydem to bug him. He’s careful, man. Precise. Plans everything like he’s in the military or something. Police think their old ways still work, but people––the real players like him––man, they been around long enough to have seen brothers get nicked all sorts of different ways and they remember all of them. You got to get up early to pull a fast one on him.”