Weekend in Weighton Final Amazon version 12-12-12 (2 page)

With my head still tipped back, I squinted at Jimmy and made a pitch for the sympathy vote. ‘That wath my nothe for Crythe thake.’

‘Consider yourself a lucky boy.
I
would have crushed your bollocks. Less messy.’

‘Bleth you, Jimmy.’

Tommy, presumably on autopilot, pulled his fist back in line with my crotch. Fortunately, he caught a restraining glare from his boss.

‘If you had a brain,’ Jimmy said, shaking his head slowly at Tommy, ‘you’d be a fucking sensation.’

‘Thanks, boss.’

‘QED,’ affirmed Jimmy. He stared back at me. ‘So, where were we?’

‘Bleeding prothfusely I think.’

‘You didn’t listen to me, did you, Eddie. I told you to stay out of this. I said, “Stay out of this, Eddie, or I’ll kill you.” Nothing ambiguous there. Well, I didn’t think so. "Yes, Jimmy," you said. "No problem, Jimmy," you said.’

I swallowed, seeing where he was going with his rant and tasted copper from the blood in my throat.

His voice rose. ‘Then I find out you’re blabbing to the Mayor. The fucking
Mayor
for Christ’s sake. Mayor Fucking Clegg. What the fuck’s going on?’

To be honest, I could have done with more time on that. With difficulty and no little pain, I returned Jimmy’s stare. How much did he see? How much did he know? The same questions I’d wondered about God when I masturbated as a kid. In the end, I figured he couldn’t see anything through the sheets. God, that is, not Jimmy. Although as far as Weighton’s divine reverence went …

Blood still trickled at the back of my throat and I tasted more metal. ‘Got one word for you, Jimmy. Starts with “S”, ends with “orry”.’

He lifted a thick black eyebrow. ‘That’s all?’

‘How about very sorry?’

His face lapsed into a pretend smile. ‘As long as you mean it.’

‘They say it’s the hardest word, but I know I could do it justice.’

Jimmy’s eyes bulged. ‘“Sorry,” you tell me.’ His words spewed out, each one coated in thick, tobacco-infused saliva. ‘And everything’s supposed to be all right. Who the fuck do you take me for? Sir Elton Fucking John?’ He pushed stubby fingers through his hair slick and clacked his jaw.

‘What else can I say? I made a mistake.’ I lifted my shoulders and tried to sound repentant. ‘I shouldn’t have seen Clegg, I know that. But it was an impulse thing, Jimmy. I got my pride like anybody else. I wanted to get to the bottom of things, for the late Mrs Porson’s sake. She said she knew him. Met him at some charity bash. Said he was a good friend. Being the Mayor, I thought he might know something.’

‘An
impulse
?’ Jimmy twitched in his seat. ‘How come you kept changing buses? Couldn’t find one you liked?’

I realised his goons must have been following me all day. It didn’t surprise me, but it was still a blow to my fabled sixth sense. Before I could answer, he pummelled on.

‘What’d he say?’

‘Cleggy wouldn’t talk to a low-life like me.’

‘Eddie, don’t do that!’

‘Do what?’

‘Fuck with me.’

My nose hurt too much to look puzzled, so I chose blank. I’m known for my blank.

Jimmy rocked a switch to let the window down and threw his cigar butt out. ‘It takes him less than a minute not to talk to you – what’d you do for the other twelve?’

‘It’s a well-timed point, Jimmy, but I only got in there because he thought I was a journo from the
Post
.’

A staccato laugh from Jimmy. ‘A waiter, a gardener and now a journalist. You move fast.’

‘Essential in my game. Anyway I was doing the whole reporter bit, going through the Q&A routine. Figured I’d soften him up a little before getting onto the serious shit.’

‘And?’

‘He dried up on me. Threw me out. Interview over, you know?’ My palms gave a hapless, upward turn.

Jimmy nodded, absorbed, rubbing his chin. ‘How’d he look?’

I wondered why Cartwright could care less. But rather than stray into the aforementioned, yet not-always-easy-to-discern “don’t fuck with me” territory, I obliged. ‘Like he’d been to four funerals in one day. Worse than shit.’

‘Really?’ Jimmy brightened at that.

I ladled a little more gravy. ‘Yeah, one tense hombre.’

My neck was aching from nodding and turning so I looked straight ahead. The wayside scenery was taking on that rural blend of green and brown. Farmyard scents permeated the car, threatening to overwhelm the hair gel. The kind of omen I had been right to worry about.

Jimmy was silent for a few seconds and then his head swung round so he could look right at me. ‘What am I gonna do with you?’

‘Be merciful?’

The evil git grabbed the tip of my throbbing nose and pulled my face round to meet his morgue-inspired stare. ‘I like you, Eddie. I like your style. All that patter, it’s good. Brings out the best in me. Someday we might even work together. Loads of openings on Team Jimmy for a guy like you. My campaign push ain’t that far away either.’ He increased the pinch pressure until my eyes blurred. ‘But, you see, it has to start with respect. And I ain’t getting it.’

Jimmy maintained a hard eyeball stare for a few seconds and only then did he release my red-raw nose. I tried not to gasp in relief. To be fair to Jimmy, I was sure we’d covered that “respect” thing the day before: always the shit implementation with me.

‘I’m a fast learner, though, Jimmy, honest.’ Hot tears stung my cheeks as I spoke.

‘Really? Remind me. What did I tell you last time?’

‘Stay out of it.’

‘Or what?’

‘You’d kill me.’

‘And did you?’

‘I didn’t. Not entirely.’

‘You see my point?’

My voice weakened. ‘You’re saying there’s not much down for me?’

‘You’re right,’ he said agreeably. ‘You do learn fast.’ He looked over at Tommy. ‘What d’you think?’

‘Kill him,’ said Tommy, brimming with enthusiasm.

‘Do I get a vote?’

Jimmy smiled. ‘It’s hard not to like you, Eddie. That said, and I know I already mentioned this, but see, it bears repeating: it’s
my
town, people play by
my
rules. And rule number one? No fucker fucks me about. No one. I never compromise.’

‘I think that was two rules,’ I replied under my breath.

But Jimmy was so deep into his shtick by now he was missing my pearls. He smiled on reflex and resumed his riff. ‘The nice thing about being boss is you get to break your own rules – if you want to.’ Jimmy tapped the driver’s seat. ‘Let’s pull up.’

We were in Forley Forest on the green side of town, and the road was edged by huge, regal pines. The Merc pulled off the main road and headed onto a forest track. The sound of small stones pinging against the car’s underside tapped out a tin-pan beat. We rumbled on for about half a mile and then stopped.

‘Time for some fresh air,’ declared Jimmy. He opened his door and got out.

I followed, getting an extra shove from Tommy.

Without stopping, Jimmy set off down a narrow trail, dodging the foliage as he went with what looked like surprising familiarity. My new best friend stayed close behind his leader, dragging me with him. I counted fifty or so paces before we emerged into a bowl-shaped clearing. Beyond, I could see the water’s edge of a small mere.

There I stood in Forley Forest on a sweet summer’s day, with Jimmy’s handkerchief still bunched under my nose and Tommy’s hand gripping my jacket collar. It reminded me of the scene in the
Great Escape
. The one before Dicky Att and Co got shot.

For a moment the three of us stood in the clearing, saying nothing. If anyone else was around, they were keeping remarkably quiet.

‘Any last requests?’ Jimmy’s voice sounded eerily distant.

‘You choose. Not that shitty
Titanic
song, though.’

I wasn’t exactly scared; I knew he wouldn’t shoot me. He liked me too much. And all through his long, hall-of-shame career, he’d shown sufficient smarts to never be within a siren sound of any actual crime-doing. He wouldn’t make an exception. Would he?

Tommy bundled past Jimmy and thumped me hard in the chest, thankfully slamming the other side this time. I fell to my knees. With my head bent, I saw a flash of brown laces just before he kicked me hard on the right side of the face. Green ferns met ocean-blue sky, and I found myself on my back, peering up at achingly tall trees. So many different pains competed from different body parts that they neutralised each other, leaving just a numb sensation. I rolled forward, grabbed a tree root and sat up.

‘Finish him,’ said Jimmy, matter-of-factly.

‘Thought you liked me?’

‘I lied,’ Jimmy said, beaming. He jerked his head at Tommy. ‘Hurry up, I’ve got an appointment.’

Tommy pulled a gun from his jacket and placed it against the side of my head. The smoothness of the barrel pressed into my hairline. This was turning out to be an exceptional day.

‘Sweet dreams, big mouth,’ said Tommy.

In keeping with B movie noir, a plump wood pigeon took flight, high in the branches just as Tommy pulled the trigger.

CHAPTER TWO

Friday afternoon – 14:35

In a forest at the edge of a distant universe, I gazed at celluloid images flickering and bouncing around the high tree canopy. A mini-series featuring the late, great Eddie G played on the forest’s big screen, flashing in 3D at neutrino speed. It was the best of times and the worst: Mum and Dad in nearly every scene, a guest appearance from Kate, and Jimmy hamming it up in the final scene, a showman to the end – my end anyway.

But before the closing credits could roll, the screen splintered into a million pieces. The metallic echo from an empty chamber jolted me back into time and place. Had the gun jammed? I stared at a fat knuckle of fate, waiting to see if it would squeeze the trigger a second time. The finger relaxed and withdrew.

The raucous laughter of Tommy and Jimmy filled the woods. It hung in the clammy air long after I’d lost sight of them through the trees. To be sure, one day I’d have a good giggle about it myself, but in the meantime, I decided to cancel any plans that involved fucking with the psychotic gangster, here-before-referred-to as Jimmy “Kingpin” Cartwright. He was an A1 certified lunatic.

And that was on a medicated day.

After a ten minute shuffle, retracing my route, I got back to the road. My legs were shaking and my clothes were soaked in sweat, but I was out of the woods. Only in a literal sense, maybe, but for the time being at least, I was safe. Relief frothed over me like a soda stream. In the brief calm, I decided what to do next: even in tip top condition it was too far to walk, but I was close enough to civilisation to hitch a lift back to town. With my head angled in the direction of the approaching hum, I planted a speculative toe on the tarmac, extended my thumb and waited.

Despite looking like an extra from a zombie flick, in the end, my despairing thumb worked. An obliging sales rep stopped and took pity. He seemed to accept my story about being mugged in the forest, despite my unsuitable duds for that terrain. Maybe he wasn’t listening, too busy daydreaming about his next call and the possibility of major payola.Ahh, the sweet, fragrant, mesmerising smell of a newly conceived payday.