Bad Men (7 page)

"Just the job. He didn't much fancy it. I don't think I managed to convince him of the seriousness of the situation. He thought I was overreacting."

Cooper scratched his earlobe. "What you going to do, then?"

Jacob glanced around, then whispered, "Kill him."

"Kill Pearce? That's harsh."

"Cut it out, Cooper. You know who I mean."

"If you weren't my uncle I'd plant you for telling me what to do."

Jacob stared at him. Cooper was such a big-mouthed fathead. Even as a kid, he annoyed the crap out of everybody with his cockiness. His dad should have skelped his bahookie more often. His dad, Jacob's brother-in-law, had been a real waste of space, though. Quietly drank himself to death over the years while nobody was looking.

"Yeah," Cooper said, the muscles in his cheeks taut. "But lucky for you, you are."

"Come on, Cooper. Drop the macho crap, will you?"

"Drop the fucking macho crap in here you'll have some queer up your arse first time you bend down to tie your laces."

Jacob couldn't help feeling sorry for his nephew, even if he was a complete animal. Blood was thicker than disgust. Mind you, where Cooper was concerned, it was a close-run thing.

"So," Cooper continued, his voice breaking, "you looking to take out a contract on Wallace?"

"I was thinking of doing it myself," Jacob said.

Cooper put his hand over his mouth. He cleared his throat. Jacob could see that Cooper was grinning behind his fingers. And on this occasion he wasn't having any trouble holding his smile.

"What do you have to smirk about?" Jacob said. Couldn't help himself.

Cooper shook his head, still grinning. He let his fingers slip from his mouth.

Jacob leaned forward, his stomach pitching and rolling, a buzzing in his temples, and said, "Maybe one of your boyfriends might fancy the job? Want to ask for me?"

Cooper stood up, fists balled.

Jacob thought, here we go. Lights out. Jesus, he'd made a big mistake. Cooper would go crazy, tear him into strips. Jacob's stomach was somersaulting. But he got to his feet, too, and realised they were attracting unwanted attention. "You're a disgrace to your family," he said in a whisper. If Cooper had been ... you know ... by those four, well, that was a kind of justice. Maybe not justice enough for what he'd done to end up in prison – beaten a poor woman to death with a baseball bat – but it was something. "Now sit down and compose yourself," Jacob said, "or you'll have a ... guard over here." He'd been about to say ‘screw' but caught himself at the last minute.

Cooper clenched his teeth. His eyes swept the room. Slowly, he sat down. He shifted in his chair, staring at Jacob, the heat gradually leaving his face.

"Hate me all you like," Jacob said. "I don't give a tinker's curse. Just tell me where I can get a gun."

Cooper said, "Why should I?"

Jacob shrugged. "Rumours, Cooper," he told him. "They can hurt a man. Damage his reputation."

Cooper eyeballed him. Jesus, he looked mad. Maybe Jacob had gone too far. How the hell had this happened? Something to do with the fact that he'd been pleased when he realised what had happened to Cooper. Couldn't keep it a secret. Didn't want to keep it a secret. That was it. He wanted Cooper to know what he thought of him.

Aye, screw him. The guy was blood, but he was bad blood.

Cooper was looking down at his hands. After a while, he looked up and told Jacob where he could get a gun. Then he told him where he could shove it.

Twenty-four hours
later, Jacob and Norrie were sitting opposite a heavy man with a Mohican haircut, who was holding a gun that looked like it was last used during the American Civil War.

"You claiming that thing works?" Norrie asked.

"Trust me." Joe-Bob pulled a face. Presumably it was supposed to convey innocence, but it was the kind of face you'd pull if you were lying through your teeth.

Anyway, how could you trust someone called Joe-Bob?

"He doesn't want it," Norrie said. "Eh, boss?"

Jacob nodded.

Joe-Bob said, "Well, that's all I've got."

Norrie nudged Jacob. Jacob said, "Then I'll take my business elsewhere."

"Best of luck."

"Thanks, but I won't need it."

"Yeah?" Joe-Bob said. "Think it's easy to find someone to sell you a gun?"

"I found you. I can find someone else." Jacob paused. "Worst case scenario, I'll go through to Glasgow." He waited a minute. "Go to any pub in Govan." He grinned to show he wasn't being serious. "Isn't that how it works?"

Joe-Bob ran his tongue over his lips. "I like your style, Mr Smith." He took the gun from the table, held it. "And Mr Jones isn't wrong about this," he said, turning towards Norrie. "It's a real piece of shit."

Flash said, "You
can't do it, Dad."

"What alternative is there?"

"I told you.
I'll
do it." Flash was serious, poor kid.

"Who are you trying to fool?" Jacob asked him. "Pearce beat the crap out of you. What chance would you have against Wallace?"

"I didn't have a gun before."

"That's right. Just a knife." Jacob paused. He'd hurt Flash with that comment and he hadn't meant to. "Look," he said, "maybe I can find someone else to do it."

"We can't afford it."

Jacob was silent. Flash was probably right.

"Anyway," Flash said, "we'd be throwing our money away. I'll do it for free."

"You won't," Jacob said. "There's no point gaining a grandson only to lose a son. I don't want you spending the rest of your life in prison." He thought of Cooper.
There were four of them.
"You never know what might happen to you inside."

Pearce finished reading
an article in the newspaper about yet another rape. The police suspected it was the fourth by the same guy. Offered lifts to his victims, then drove them to a secluded spot, like an industrial estate or a churchyard. Yeah, two were abused in God's shadow. Fucking God by proxy, Pearce figured. Guy was clearly a religious nut. Probably couldn't hack it as a priest. Too friendly with his parishioners. Got ex-communicated and was paying God back in his own special way. If Pearce was God he'd get a baseball bat and fuck the bastard with it, then pound the shit out of his balls until they burst. Give him a full-length circumcision with a pair of scissors to round things off. Wouldn't be so keen to use his cock after that.

Underneath the piece on the rapist, there was an article about a guy who'd had his jaw relocated to his back. Well, to his side. There was a picture, posed by a model, from the neck down, with arrows indicating where this guy's new jaw had been positioned. On the right-hand side, just under his armpit. Unfortunately, you couldn't make out very much, even with the helpful arrows. It was fascinating, but what Pearce really wanted to see was the real guy's face. You couldn't help wonder why he'd had to have his jaw repositioned in the first place. The article didn't say. Apparently, the poor bastard hadn't eaten properly in four years. But now he was munching away. Right there, just under his armpit. Didn't have any teeth, though.

Still, can't have everything.

Rodge was sweating
, despite all the car windows being open. What was wrong with the weather this year? Where was all the fucking rain? You got to rely on it and you missed it when it wasn't there. This heat was making him sweat and the sweat was making his stitches itch. He licked his lip and tasted salt. Man. And there was also that frigging stink, even with the windows open. He'd already poured the best part of a bottle of disinfectant all over the boot. End result, instead of smelling like dead dog, the car smelled like clean dead dog. An improvement, yeah, but a stink was a stink, even if it was a clean stink. And now the inside of the boot was sopping wet.

They'd stopped the car to talk.

Rodge said to Flash, "Park's the only man who might have done it and he's in prison." He dipped his head out the window and breathed in some fresh air. Only, it wasn't so fresh. The traffic fumes were pretty bad, as you might expect at one o'clock on the Glasgow Road. What was he doing here anyway? Flash wanted to talk in private, reckoned May was safe enough at home with Dad now he had a gun. For a while, anyway. Once they were in the car, Flash asked if he'd help with another burglary, cash was tight, but Rodge didn't have the stomach for it. He'd been on four with Flash already, and they'd all been successful – in the sense that they'd got a few quid and some electronic equipment and a stack of jewellery and, most importantly, got away with it – but Rodge hadn't managed to get used to the whole experience, not one little bit. In fact, each successive occasion was worse than the last. So he'd cried off, saying, "Now isn't the right time." And credit to Flash, he'd shut up about it. Asked him instead if he fancied helping him get a tyre collection service established, and explained how there was money to be made in taking away old tyres from garages and disposing of them in an environmentally friendly manner, according to the law passed in Scotland in 2003. He knew a guy who knew a guy who owned several garages who apparently paid seventy grand a year to have all his used tyres taken away. Lot of money in tyre disposal. Rodge thought it sounded like an interesting proposition, but he said no when Flash explained he was planning on illegally dumping the tyres in the countryside cause you had to save on costs somehow.

Rodge tucked his head back inside the car. He should think about getting a bite to eat, man. But he wasn't hungry. Hadn't had much of an appetite for a while. And he couldn't remember that ever happening before. "We can't let Dad do it," he said. God, Dad would kill him if he knew how he'd really been making money recently. He hated lying to Dad about being a bouncer, but it made the old guy happy and what was the harm in that? Truth was, Rodge had worked behind the bar in a Grassmarket pub for a while, but he was let go for being too slow.

"
Muchacha
alert," Flash said. "Would you look at that arse?" He turned in the passenger seat so he could carry on watching the
muchacha
. Or rather, the
muchacha
's arse. "
Muy
nice."

It
was
nice. Rodge couldn't argue with that. A J Lo arse. Something to get your teeth into and chomp on.

Flash continued, "Wouldn't you just love to take a plank of wood to it?"

The thought hadn't crossed Rodge's mind. But now that Flash mentioned it, he couldn't get the image out of his head. He gripped the steering wheel, squeezing it as if he were somehow able to squeeze the image from his brain. No joy. The picture stayed where it was. If anything, it was lodged even tighter and was in sharper focus. There she was, the
muchacha
, bare-arsed, oh yeah, bent over the back of a low chair, Rodge about to give her a whack with a plank. Why, he had no fucking idea. But there he was, all planked up. He wasn't thinking straight at all. Having all sorts of strange notions. Hallucinating, practically, like he was tripping, but he hadn't indulged for at least six months now and he'd never been a heavy user, so it wasn't a flashback. He felt fucking odd, though. "Why would I want to do that?" he asked Flash.

"Just, you know, cause it would ... fuck, I dunno, do I?"

"You're a perv, Flash." Which was true. He was. Rodge needed to get his mind off the babe. He was being too easily distracted. And he knew why. He didn't want to think about what he was going to have to do. But there was no way out. He'd have to concentrate. He said to Flash, "Pay attention, huh?"

"I'm listening."

"Look at me."

Flash turned, reluctantly. "I'm looking. Prefer the
muchacha
, though."

Rodge didn't return Flash's smile. He squeezed the steering wheel harder. "We can't let Dad do it," he said.

Flash snatched another look at the
muchacha
. "Rusty nails," he said.

"What the fuck are you on about now?"

"Rusty nails in the plank of wood."

Rodge pictured it. Jesus. His brother was sick. "You're sick," he told Flash.

"Maybe."

"Anyway," Rodge said, "she'd eat you for breakfast."

"Let's hope so."