Wreckage (20 page)

—Yiz screwed that post office?

Darren nods. One hand encircling, caressing his own neck.

—Both of youse?

—Yeh.

—Without okayin it with me ferst?

—Spur-of-the-moment thing, Tommy. Wasn’t friggin planned or anythin, I mean we couldn’t find that one-armed bastard, likes, an we were drivin home an saw this postie like, an y’know … wasted fuckin trip otherwise, wasn’t it?

Tommy grunts. Sully and Squires snort in unison.

—Was gunner tell yeh, Tommy, honest. Honest to fuckin God.
Gorrer
believe me. Jeez, don’t yeh always go on at us about fuckin, whatjercallit, fuckin initiative? That’s all I was doin, lar. Showin some friggin initiative, man. That’s all.

Tommy grunts again. Darren babblecroaks more words, scatters more placating words into the softening air he senses around Tommy. Some minutes later and after a long silence Tommy stands and takes Lenny and Sully into the kitchen and leaves Squires to guard Darren with the nine-millimetre. Voices discussing, mumbling behind that closed door and the gun trained on Darren and Gozzy’s smirking face. Darren still on the floor.

—Lovin this, Goz, aren’t yeh? Gettin off on this, aren’t yeh, you pathetic little terd. Only way to get yer thrills, you. Me unarmed an there’s you with the fuckin piece. Wanker.

Squires laughs. —
I’m
the one with the gun, lar.
You’re
the one sittin on the deck wither stitched-up ed an onions up yer fuckin nose.

Darren laughs too. —Oh you’re gettin it, lad. Yer friggin claimed, Gozzy.

—Just one wee twitch of the finger …

—You haven’t got thee arse, twat.

—Try me, Darren. Go on, make a fuckin break for the door. I’d pure fuckin
love
yeh to.

Sitting there facing each other just some pistolled air between them and how that air crackles and spits with the weapon in it. Seems to hum. Whether it hums louder and zings tighter for him with the gun or he who is targeted is one mystery which neither could answer. Nor could the miner who drew the metal nor the smithy who shaped it nor he who designed it nor he who built the factory that produced it nor indeed the Bosnian who sold it to the Ulsterman who then sold it on to Tommy’s elder brother Joseph and nor Joseph himself even familiar as he is with what guns can do, the breeches in the world and the rifts wrought by them. The horrible consequences of their efficiency.

—Sammy Gallagher, Darren. Remember him? Same thing’s gunner happen to you, lar. Saaaaame thing. Whatjer think about that?

Darren does not respond, remembering as he is Sammy Gallagher in silence. Remembering how that man was ironed. Reflecting on how that man can still be spotted in some of the more obscure pubs at the docks or outskirts, sipping Guinness solitary in the pink gleaming patchwork of skin he must live within and dare to bare. Sammy Gallagher and how he screamed and the smell off him of melting fat.
Hiiiiissssssssss
.

Tommy is back in the room. Always disturbed
Darren
is to watch this man move, the size and lumbering of him, the vast volume of air he displaces. Like a thing doing what it shouldn’t really be able to do. Unnatural seeming. A flying shark. A high-jumping elephant or ice-skating rhino.

—Gerrup.

Darren does.

—Here’s what yer gunner do now, alright?

Darren nods.

—You leave here now an you find that fuckin Alastair one an then yeh bring im back here. Simple as. Alright?

Nod again. But Christ it’s a big city.

—An if you do one I’ll track yeh down an break every bone in yeh fuckin body. Honest to God, I’ll cripple yeh. Yer’ll never walk again.

Yes but Christ it’s a big city. —Be better if a couple of us went, Tommy. Berrer chance of findin im then, I mean –

—Don’t wanner hear it, lar;
you
fucked up, no one else, so
you
gerrit sorted. An if I
ever
find out that you’ve been rippin me off here yerrah fuckin carcass. Yeh hear me? Al fuckin slaughter yiz meself. Now goan wash yer face before yeh go. Carn av yeh walkin round the city smellin like a fuckin Big Mac.

And outside, along the corridor stolen-appliance-lined and beyond the reinforced-steel door the city flickers and brightens into dusk. Bruise-coloured sky and the jumping lights beneath appearing at the waterside and spreading upwards through the Goree to swarm around the two colossal cathedrals and tonight as through every night like two separate cities
themselves
they will seem within the one bigger city. And from the Tower restaurant like a giant mushroom spindly-stemmed now the headquarters of Radio City lasers will beam and sweep across the night sky like klieg lights warning of a coming catastrophe, white sweeps and red sweeps these swift beams above the city and those who look up at the weak moon will see it glow for brief moments red. Will see it for sporadic instants entirely lit up red like a different body or hanging planet of blood, a far far distant wounded world, or as if it simply bleeds given its vista, drip drip down on to the world below it immensely thirsty for its offerings.

As if it was meant to be, really, as if some god or other force benevolent to Alastair alone was directing these events. Was looking out for only him. He’d just about given up on searching and was heading back to his nan’s house for a smoke and a lie-down and thought he’d go the Upper Duke Street way in case some sexy women came out of the modelling agency there opposite the gates of the Anglican cathedral and indeed one did and he followed her arse over the road to the bus stop and
fuck
if it wasn’t one of them little bastard scallies sitting there on the bench in a brand-new Diesel anorak all buttoned up to his spotty chin, that frigging Freddy one. Sitting there like Lord Shite with some kind of frigging smirk on his dial like King of the fucking Kids. He saw Alastair and he was up and running instantly but too late, Ally grabbed him and dragged him into the cathedral grounds and the women at the bus stop both old and young, sexy and unsexy were shouting to leave him alone he’s only a kid and Freddy was screaming for help cos he was being mugged, he was being molested and Ally smacked him one on the chin to shut him up and wrestled him through the gates and down the steps and swung him around four times by the hood of his new anorak choking him with the collar and then let
go
and he bounced off the cathedral wall like an ant against a whale and slipped on the wet moss and Alastair booted him twice and stamped on his thigh to deaden his leg and now here he is crying, holding his leg in both hands, snot from his nose and cack all over his good new duds and Ally’s leaning over him like a scavenging bird a rigid finger like a beak in Freddy’s damply crumpled face.

—WHERE THE FUCK IS IT, YOU, YER THIEVIN LITTLE GET?! WHERE’S THE FUCKIN MONEY?! TELL ME, KNOB’ED!

—I don’t know … aw please man it was Robbo he’s fuckin hid it somewhere it was his idea anyway he –

Boot. Not a particularly hard one but under the chin so that the teeth clack and the skull thunks back against the cathedral stone.

Clack. THUNK. Ah shite.

Freddy wails.

—I’m sorry, lad, but al friggin do it again you don’t tell me where that friggin swag is. I
mean
it. Don’t like doing it like but al carry on fuckin doin it until you tell me where you an that fuckin shit’ed no-mark mate o’ yours have stashed that fuckin wedge. Unnerstand me?

Wail, wail. Some blood on his lips and blackly grouting Freddy’s teeth now and Alastair puts his own face in his own hands then crouches so that their eyes are level. He raps the boy’s knee with a knuckle.

—Ey, lad, look at me. Open yer eyes.

Freddy does. Them red and drowned eyes.

—See this? Alastair points at his own face. The markings on it. —See what you an yer mate did to me?

For some reason this makes Freddy wail again and louder. Alastair sighs and stands upright.

—Aw just tell me where the friggin money is, lad, ey? Tell me where it is an al leave yer alone and yer’ll never see me again. Simple as. An if yer
don’t
tell me where yer’ve stashed it am just gunner keep on wellyin yer until yer do, alright? It’s
that
simple. So what’s it gunner be, lar?
Your
choice.

Wail, sob. Bit of pleading, etc.

A voice behind Alastair: —Ey, lad. Birrouta fuckin order, innit eh?

Alastair turns.

—He’s only a kid, lar. Leave im alone.

Junkie drawl from the stick-man figure in the shadows underneath a tree not dark enough to obscure his baghead pallor like a sick moon there beneath the hanging branches or jaundiced bauble appended. Alastair bends and picks up a stone and flings it at that shape.

—Fuck off, smack’ed scum! Nonna your friggin business, yeh junkie twat!

The shape dissolves, becomes shadow itself. Ally turns back to the cringing figure at his feet.

—So what’s it gunner be, Freddy lad? Yer gunner tell me whereabouts
my
fuckin dough is or am I gunner give yiz a few more digs?

And this played out at the foot of this colossal edifice beginning now to blare with light as dusk comes. Vast shape of stone laid over decades into one pattern of human reaching a world’s air contained within and witnessed by the high gargoyles and angel faces carved that only the birds see and can it be said that this transaction, this withheld pain for money exchange does
not
belong here or that it somehow constitutes a proximal wrong? That the deep dissatisfaction which oils its motion is somehow inimical to the massive mystery embodied in the enormous surging of stone and glass above it? Or even that those driven by the chemical need in their cells to drift like phantoms through these trees and shrubs and tombstones should in any way be banished by the structure they scurry insectile about? That their arcane rituals and hard longings could ever find a better backdrop than this. There are birds here, gulls and pigeons and sparrows and crows, arising from these darkening gardens to roost for the coming night in unreachable cornice and architrave in the stars beyond danger like nothing but the souls of those who so move seemingly motiveless around at this cathedral’s foot and if meaning of the sought-for sort is to be found here then perhaps it is in the being of these creatures to which the sky is skin.

—Right. That’s it.

Alastair raises a foot to stamp on Freddy’s knee and Freddy screams and jerks his legs up to his chest. Points at a grave some yards away, a crumbling flat sarcophagus on a low plinth.

—What? Wharrer yeh pointin at?

—The fuckin money. It’s in there. Doan hit me.

—Where? That grave?

Nod.

—Yer fuckin kiddin me, aren’t yeh? It’s here? In that grave?

—Yeh.

—I don’t fuckin believe yiz. Too good to be true, this, lar.
Show
me.

He yanks Freddy to his feet and leads him over to the grave. A slab has cracked and come away from its partner on the sarcophagus and Freddy moves this to one side and reaches in and extracts a rucksack which he hands to Alastair.

—There. That’s all there is left.

Alastair opens the bag. An angled spotlight from the cathedral high, high above drops enough illumination for him to see that there is money inside the bag. Much money.

—Yer happy now? Am fuckin goin.

—Hang on, will yeh.

Alastair grabs the hood of Freddy’s new coat.

—Ow much av yiz spent?

—Few hundred quid. Robbo bought a fuckin –

—That’s all?

—Aye, yeh. We
was
gunner buy a loader friggin charlie an set arselves up. That was thee idea, like. All fucked now, tho. Thanks to
you
.

Alastair laughs. —Oh, thanks to
me
, is it?
My
fault, yeh? Owjer werk that one out, then? Cheeky friggin …

He shakes his head, not without some kind of amused admiration. Putting the blame on him like that. A Tommy in the making, this little scal. A Joey, even. A Willy frigging Hunter. See this sobbing wee get in twenty years’ time lording it round the city in a Shogun or whatever the Big Men will be driving by then. Floating around between the buildings in plush Anti-Grav units or their own private monorail trams or whatever the fuck it’ll be.

Without letting go of Freddy’s hood Alastair drops
the
bag and wedges it tight between his feet. Digs in his pocket with his free hand and takes out his mobile phone.

—I’m gunner call someone up an you’re gunner tell them that Darren Taylor has ripped them off. Got that? Darren Taylor. What name?

—Darren Taylor.

—Good lad. You’re gunner say that Darren Taylor has skanked
all
the money an is gunner buy a shit-load of cocaine an set imself up in biz an he’s been calling Tommy Maguire all kinds of dick’ed around the city. Been sayin that he’s a big fat poof an everythin. Alright?

Nod. —Then can I go?

—Aye, yeh, then yer can fuck off. If this person asks yeh questions or anythin just ignore em an gerron with sayin what I’ve just told yeh to. Alright?

Nod.

—Don’t worry, I’ll be here to help yeh, like, if yeh need it. Ready?

Alastair keys in a number, puts the phone to his ear. It rings. It’s answered.

—Yeh?

—Tommy? It’s Alastair.

—
Alastair
… where
are
yiz, mate?

Oh that sweet voice Tommy. ‘Where are ye, mate?’ all curious and inquisitive and friendly. Sweet as a viper. Sweet as a stoat.

—Noner your fuckin business where I am, lad. Got someone here wants a werd with yiz.

He puts the phone to Freddy’s ear.

—Hello?

—Who’s this?

—Me name’s Freddy. There’s –

—Freddy? Same fuckin ignorant lil get came to see me this mornin?
That
Freddy?

—Someone called Darren Taylor has got the money. He’s ripped yeh off big style.

—Yerwha? Are you fuckin –

—He’s bought imself a loader charlie an is settin up his own business. He’s been goin round the town n all tellin everyone that yerra dick’ed, all washed up. An that yerra big fat fuckin hom. An that yerra big blob of fuckin lard with no knob who takes it up thee arse.

Alastair laughs. Tommy’s voice:

—
Listen
to me yer fuckin little prick. You’re dead, lar. Fuckin dead. I’m gunner –

Alastair takes the phone away from Freddy’s ear and puts it to his own.

—Hear that, Tommy lad? Yer’ve been fucked over, lar. Terned over, taken for a twat by Darren fuckin Taylor.
Darren
fuckin
Taylor
, man. Softarse. He’s laughin at yeh, Tommy. Pure fuckin
laughin
. Takin yeh for all the stupid cunts under the sun. Wharra yeh gunner
do
about it, man?

—Alastair, listen to me. Stay there. Tell me where yer are an al be over soon
as
an we can avver chat about this. This needs fuckin
sortin
, mate, dunnit? This is all gunner –

—Pure friggin
laughin
at yeh, Tommy. ‘Tommy Maguire the fat dick’ed,’ he’s sayin. Wharra yeh gunner
do
, man? Wharra yeh gunner
do?
Whole bleedin
city’s
laughin at yeh.

Ally turns the phone off and drops it on the ground and stamps it beneath his foot until it shatters. Still clutching Freddy’s collar he squats and takes Freddy down with him and extracts the SIM card from the split handset and pockets it then stands upright again taking Freddy with him once more their movements mirrored as if in some dance of courtship. Or as if linked by some means invisible apart from Alastair’s extended clutching hand not in itself strong enough to affect this concrete conjoining.

—Let me fuckin go, now, lar. Yeh said I could fuckin go.

Alastair lets go. Freddy shrugs his coat back on to his shoulders properly and walks away. Back straight, head high, just walks away. No scurrying. Ally stoops and extracts a bundle of money from the sack, a small brick held together with a thick elastic band.

—Ey, lad.

Freddy turns. —What now?

—Eeyar. Catch.

That bundle tumbling through the darkening air. Freddy catches it, examines it, pockets it. Does not say anything but leaves the gardens at a sudden sprint and then when he has climbed the stairs and is back out on the road above he presses his face against the railings and yells:

—Al see you again, knob’ed! Gunner
find
you, I am! Take an ammer to yer fuckin knees, lad! Gorra brother an he’s gunner fuckin
do
yiz! You’re
dead
, knob’ed!

Alastair looks up at the yelling figure and sees him in silhouette above and against the street lights clinging to the railings like a shadow imprisoned. The figure
shouts
some more abuse and threats then flees and Alastair bends and rezips the rucksack and hoists it over his shoulder as he stands. Turns to regard the cathedral at his back which he may never see again and maybe some beneficence falls from it at this moment. Maybe it’s all true, what they say. In the fortuity of finding Freddy and taking him to the very place where the money was stashed maybe there’s some sympathy, maybe there’s some

yeh but Freddy was evidently sitting on that bench to be close to the dough to guard it, wasn’t he? So it’s no surprise cos – aye but if that modelling agency had’ve been on another street – if it had’ve been set up elsewhere – if Freddy had been sitting on any other bench – if the slab on that grave hadn’t’ve been cracked – if they’d hidden the rucksack somewhere else – if they if he if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if if –

Alastair leaves the gardens. It’s a fucking
big
cathedral. Junkies reappear to float ghostly through the trees and gravestones like desultory, departed souls. One from inside the oval shadow of his hoisted hood and with candleflame eyes watches the skinny figure with the rucksack and baseball hat ascend the stone stairs.

Oo the bag is nicely heavy. As he grins Alastair feels scabs crack on his face and thinks that before he boards the train he’ll wash his face in some public toilet somewhere, make himself look a bit more respectable for what he’s got to do. There’s a toilet in Central Station, a nice cleanish one with soap and towels and everything. He’s heading there anyway.

Station.

* * *

Darren’s mobile trills in his pocket like a baby bird chirruping ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. He takes it out, regards the display screen which shows Tommy’s number, turns it off and puts it back in his pocket. Fucking Tommy. No need to speak to that fat bastard or any of his toady minions like Sully or Squires or Lenny fucking Reece. Jesus, that Lenny – just caught him unawares, that’s all. And then the hot shock of that burger in his face all stingy in his eyes and he couldn’t see for a bit, was blinded, couldn’t do fuck all about being frogmarched into the cab or anything cos he couldn’t frigging see and the
shock
, man … Plus he’s one
strong
bastard, that Lenny is. Big strong Welsh bastard. Not so big that he won’t bleed, tho. Soft skin, every human being has got this soft, rippable skin that parts easily under sharpened steel or splits under heavy blunt objects. And the
amount
of blood … Darren saw someone get shot once – T with his nine-mil – shot in the leg, through the artery, like. The
blood
… spurted four feet in the air. Could’ve had a frigging
bath
in it, no lie. Or like the old lady in the post office and the way her scalp unzipped aye but bigger, younger, maler people as well Christ only cowards only focus on leathering old ladies and how
else
would she have opened the safe, by asking her nicely? By saying ‘pretty fucking please’? Ruthless, man, that’s how you’ve got to be. Merciless, like. Get hold of a Walther from somewhere and line them all up, all of them, Alastair Sully Gozzy Lenny Robbo Freddy and Tommy himself, one shot each back of the head walk down the line pull the trigger take this youse
cunts
–