Deadfolk (11 page)

Lee wanted us all to go downtown in the Capri but remembered the fucked exhaust and changed his mind. We went over to the Meat Wagon. For a moment I thought they was gonna open the back up for us, and I froze. I’d rather be knifed in the guts than put in there. But I were fretting over nothing on this occasion. Lee opened the front passenger door and waved us in.

When we was all sitting pretty he fired up the engine. It were a fair bit quieter than my Capri, diesel-powered though it were. I sat in the middle. Jess were on the left cleaning his nails with a Stanley knife. All the way into town Lee kept his eyes on the road and asked us questions about Fenton. I answered em best I could, but to be honest I weren’t paying em much heed. I were planning ahead, thinking where might be best to slip away. But I’d come up with nothing by the time the van stopped. Slipping away weren’t summat you could do for long in Mangel.

We parked in Felcham Lane and yomped the quiet way across town. No one else were about. We came at Hoppers from round the back, walking a bit down the Wall Road and then scrambling up through the scrub between it and the back wall of Hoppers. Lee clambered over the wall first. Then me. Then Jess. Lee grabbed my face and reminded us of what would happen in the event of a bottle-out, then we went up front and I let us all in, locking up again behind us.

Lee walked a few paces, breathing deep, eyes smiling and set on summat. He were looking at where the stage used to be, which were now just a raised boozing area. ‘Ah, them was the days,’ he says. ‘We had em all ere. Berty Fontana. Tina Topless. Jungle Jane versus Cowgirl Cath. We had em all, Blake. An’ we’ll have em all again soon. You’ll see.’

‘How’s that, Lee?’ I says.

But he were already off out back, rubbing his hands together.

I followed em. ‘Stock room,’ I says, coming up behind Lee, Jess behind us. ‘Up there on the left. Safe’s in there.’

‘Oh, right,’ says Lee, giving us a bored look.

Jess had the safe open in two minutes. It were a skill his old man had passed on to him, and other than cracking heads it were his only skill.

‘Not bad. Come on,’ says Lee, counting the wads. He were off out the door.

I followed him, scratching me head and wondering what else were worth pilfering. But Lee had his own plans. He were standing outside Fenton’s door, pointing to the lock and calling Jess over. I went and stood by em, watching Jess at work. For a big feller he had dainty hands, which helped with the business of lock picking. And if that failed he could always flatten the door with his massive shoulder. Or his head. Lee were watching him and all, smoking a fag. He didn’t offer us one but I weren’t too put out by it. I hadn’t been to blame for him losing out on the insurance two year back—honest I hadn’t—but I had topped his brother, so fair’s fair, ennit. I got one of me own out and lit that.

After a bit Jess got the lock done and pushed the door open. Lee stopped with his foot half in, then stepped back and shut the door quietly. ‘What the fuck is this,’ he whispers to us.

‘Eh?’

‘You. What the bastard fuck is you tryin’ to pull?’

‘Nuthin’. What?’

‘Go on then.’ He shoved us at the door.

I turned the handle and opened. I weren’t feeling so relaxed now. My back were squirming. Having Muntons behind us right then didn’t seem clever of a sudden. But I didn’t have much of a choice. When the door were open enough I looked into the room. The desk lamp were on, facing downward. A ways away from it were a rum bottle, empty. His leather swivel chair were facing the window. Some of his floppy locks hung over the back of it. I reckoned he were fast akip, being as he were snoring like a tractor starting up on a cold morning.

I wanted to back out and piss off before he woke up, but Lee were right behind us, shoving us on. I walked quiet as I could across the floor. Someone’s boots was creaking like rusty door hinges, but I couldn’t worry about other folks’ boots. I walked on, getting closer to Fenton, praying he wouldn’t wake up and spin about in his chair.

Weren’t so much that I wouldn’t know what to say to him. I’d say nothing like as not, there being nothing to say besides the truth. It were the thought of what Lee or Jess’d do if he woke.

But he never.

I pulled up alongside the chair and peered down at him. He were fast akip all right. No man can make them sorts of noises while he’s awake. He were in dark trousers, white shirt unbuttoned at the top, and a loosened orange tie. Across his chest, hands resting atop it, were a twelve-bore shotgun. My heart started hammering nigh on loud enough to wake him. I turned and started back, shaking my head at Lee. He had a black balaclava on now. He opened his coat and pulled out a sawn-off, pointing her at us. ‘Open it, Jessie,’ he says.

I put me finger on lips. ‘Fuckin’ calm down,’ I whispers. ‘You’ll wake the bastard up. And woss the—’

‘Tell him,’ says Jess, also now wearing a bally.

Fenton’s snoring were turning into grunting and throat-clearing. He’d be awake in a moment for surely. ‘Ain’t there a bally for me?’ I says.

Lee shook his head. ‘Wanna see the look on his face when he sees who’s robbin’ him, don’t us.’

‘Aw, come on, I’ll get locked up for it. Can’t we blindfold him?’

‘Scared or summat?’

‘Aye.’

Lee laughed. Jess joined in. I didn’t, hilarious though it all were. Fenton’s head were moving side to side. If he didn’t wake with all that noise, there were summat wrong with his ears. On cue he made a noise—a bit like ‘fnlagh’. Lee lamped him on side of the head, knocking him plum off his chair.

Jess were kneeling down in a corner now, moving a filing cabinet aside. His sleeve had slipped up his arm, showing a tattoo I’d seen once or twice and wondered about. SUSAN it said, in what were like as not Lee’s handwriting, being as Jess couldn’t even sign a cross for his signature. Behind the cabinet were a hole in the wall with a little safe in it. Jess sighed and shook his head like a builder doing an estimate. ‘Foreign, is it?’ he says.

‘Hoy, talkin’ to you, he is,’ says Lee.

‘Dunno, does I,’ I says. Cos I didn’t. Only safe I knew were in the stockroom.

He looked out the window, shotgun dangling by his side. Neither of em seemed interested in pointing guns at us no more. I thought about pegging it out the front door. Now we was here, the whole thing seemed about as bad an idea as a feller ever had. Any moment now Fenton were due to wake up and clock us. And no one’d said anything about firearms. And what the fuck were I thinking, trusting Lee to split the proceeds three ways? But running away weren’t no better of an idea neither. You can’t hide in Mangel, least of all from the Munton boys. Then I glanced at Jess’s sawn-off lying on the floor behind him and started having other ideas. Better ideas. That’s how they seemed at the time anyhow.

‘Can’t open it,’ says Jess. He got up and kicked Fenton’s foot. ‘Wake up, you cunt.’

Lee sat on the desk and folded his arms. ‘Just open the fucker.’

‘Says I can’t, didn’t I?’ Jess grabbed his gun and clutched it to his huge chest like a teddy bear. ‘An’ don’t fuckin’ shout at us.’

‘I never shouted. I just says open the fucker.’

‘You fuckin’ shouted.’

‘I never.’

Fenton coughed and says: ‘Fnlagh…’

‘Bastard’s wakin’ up now,’ says Lee. ‘Blake, tie him down or summat.’

‘What with?’

‘Dunno, do I? Find summat.’

I had a quick ferret around the office but came up with nothing. I weren’t really concentrating, being as I had these other thoughts, sort of thoughts you can’t shake once they takes hold.

‘He’s wakin’, Blake.’

I ran out front. Fenton had been whinging earlier about some cable, so I rummaged around behind the peanuts and found it in a bin liner. While I were there I squirted some drink straight out of the optic into the back of me throat. I didn’t know what it were. Didn’t matter. What mattered were that it made me throat burn and eyes water.

I had another quick think about what I had planned. It were one of the shitest ideas a feller ever came up with, but I reckoned it’d work if I held me nerve. The key to it were Fenton’s shotgun. I had to get my hands on it. If I could do that, I could make it look like Fenton had finished off two burglars—known crooks—who hadn’t banked on him being present and armed. Like I says, as ideas went it were barmy. But sometimes it’s the barmy ones that pulls you through.

Lee were kneeling on Fenton, who sounded like he were cursing, although you couldn’t hear what he were saying on account of Lee’s knee being in his face. I couldn’t see where the shotgun were, so I had to go along with things for the time being. I bound Fenton’s arms behind his back with the cable, pulled the bin liner over his head, and made a little hole so he could breathe. He kept on yelling and screaming at first, but the bag were suffocating him so he had to calm down. He were quiet for a while after that, catching his breath. Then he says: ‘Who’s here? What do you want?’

Lee got off and pulled him up. ‘Woss the combination?’ he says in a deep voice, gruffer than what came natural to him.

Fenton breathed in and out. ‘Who are you? How’d you get in?’

‘Come on. Woss the number for this here safe?’ He picked up the shotgun and crouched down next to Fenton’s legs. Fenton breathed a bit harder. ‘Come on, cunt. Get us into the safe or I’ll hurt you.’

‘I don’t know the combination.’

Lee slapped him across the face. ‘I’ll tell you what—whatever’s in there ain’t yours no more. Iss mine. So get over it and tell us the number.’ He moved up and down Fenton’s leg with the gun, prodding it here and there. His finger were on the trigger. ‘Know much about shotgun safety? Oughta be aware of shotgun safety, you ownin’ a shotgun and all.’

‘It doesn’t matter what you do to me.’ Fenton were sounding a bit calmer now, like he’d been expecting this all along and were all right about it. ‘I don’t know the combination, and that’s a fact.’

‘Always keep yer muzzle pointed in a safe direction. Never point her at person, animal, nor object what you doesn’t intend on shootin’.’

‘What do you want me to say? Look, there’s another safe…’

‘Keep her unloaded. Make habit of openin’ and checkin’ yer chamber whenever you picks her up. And keep the bastard empty and open till you’re ready to use her.’

‘There’s two days takin’s in the stock room safe.’ Fenton weren’t so calm now. His voice were getting louder and the bin liner were going in and out his mouth again. ‘Take it. Please don’t—’

‘Keep yer finger off the trigger,’ says Lee, holding up the gun and keeping his finger off the trigger. ‘Fight the natural urge to put yer finger on the trigger when you holds the gun. If you must curl it round summat, use the trigger guard. The only time yer finger oughta touch the trigger is when you’re ready to shoot.’

‘Please. I’ll give you anything else. Oh god. Just—’

‘Stop,’ I says.

The Munton brothers looked at us. Fenton’s bin liner went still.

I know I said it, but it didn’t seem like I had done. It were like the word had come out of my mouth of its own accord, like. Didn’t sound like me neither, which I were glad of. I waved Lee over to us.

He spat on Fenton and came over. ‘I oughta shoot the both of you,’ he says. The barrel were pointing at my guts, but I reckon that were just the way he were holding it. ‘Woss you playin’ at?’

I whispers: ‘You can’t—’

‘You what?’

I looked at Fenton, then whispers a bit louder: ‘You can’t fire that thing in here.’

‘Why not?’

‘Folks’ll hear.’

‘So? Let em. Part o’ the fun, ennit?’

‘They’ll call the coppers.’

‘Coppers is slow round here.’

‘They might be passin’.’

He thought for a short while, chewing his lip. ‘All right. You wins. Hold onto this.’ He passed us the gun, then picked up a marble ashtray off the desk and crouched next to Fenton. ‘Giz yer hand,’ he says. Then: ‘Giz yer hand, less you wants to lose it.’

Fenton reached out a shaking right hand. Then he pulled it back and held out his left instead.

Lee stretched it out flat on the carpet, fingers nice and spread out. He brung the ashtray down on em. Hard.

While Fenton were screaming I moved round the other side of him and curled me finger round the trigger. The bin liner were going in and out his gob, and soon he stopped screaming and started breathing funny, too fast like. Lee pulled it away from his face a bit to give him some air. ‘All right, mate? Don’t worry, I’ll have these fingers loosened up no time. You juss sit back an relax.’

More screaming.

I lifted the gun.

Lee looked up at us. ‘Oi. Didn’t you hear what I says just now? Never point yer weapon at folks, beasts, nor objects you ain’t wantin’ to shoot. Basic shotgun safety, ennit? An’ watch yer finger there—’

I pulled the trigger.

I were about fifteen when I killed my old man. Weren’t much of a killing, mind. No knifes, clubs, nor shotguns was present that time. Didn’t need em, see. When your enemy spends half his life drunker than a tadpole in a cider vat, he’s easy pickings.

I were upstairs in my room, flicking through a wank mag. I were swilling out of a big placcy bottle of lager and all, and like as not half cut, but you couldn’t blame us for that. It don’t matter how much shite you sees when you’re a youngun. Don’t matter how many times the old man comes home and knocks you about. Don’t matter how often you goes hungry cos he’s pissed his dole up the fucking wall. None of that amounts to shite. You’re still gonna end up thirsting for the warmth and numbness that comes from necking sauce. If you’re bred for it, you can’t escape it.

Front door slammed.

I closed the mag and slipped it back under the mattress without thinking about it. My ears filtered everything else out and listened for my old man. You learns to concentrate like that when you shares a roof with someone like him. He were messing around in the hall, getting his coat off and muttering to himself. I went to my door. It were open a crack. I tried to hear what he were grumbling about. Any information helps when you’d rather avoid a hiding. I couldn’t hear all of it, but it sounded like the usual. Nag let him down just when he needed her to come through for him. When he suddenly shouted my name I jumped clear off the floor.

I never knew what to say when he shouted my name. I wanted to say nothing. If you says nothing he might think you’re out. But saying nothing’s asking for trouble if he comes and finds you. On the other hand you don’t want to sound all keen and obedient because you’d be a cunt if you did. So this time, like all the other times, I shouted: ‘What.’

He started up the stairs, saying, ‘Right. You little bastard,’ under his breath. The tone of his voice set my skin itching and the hairs standing up all over my body. I wanted to cry. He tripped on the stairs and fell on his face. That’d make him madder. I stepped from foot to foot. My blood were pumping faster, getting ready for the hiding it knew were coming.

But I weren’t gonna cry. I never cried no more, not since I’d worked out that crying never got us nowhere.

He’d righted himself and were stomping upstairs again. I opened the door and stepped out onto the landing. I could see him crawling on hands and knees now, afraid that he’d fall again if he walked on his hind legs like a proper man.

Then summat left me.

It were an odd feeling. Relief more than anything else. It were like I’d stepped outside of meself and left my body to do what it had to do. I could see him for what he were now. An animal, walking on all fours. I went to the top of the stairs just as he were reaching it himself. I put my foot on his shoulder to stop him. He looked up and caught my eye. There were summat strange there. Just for a second I saw a flash of…

Not fear.

Maybe understanding.

And then the usual meanness were back.

I pushed hard on his shoulder and sent him to hell.

‘Me old man’s dead.’

‘All right, son. Just tell us what happened.’

‘Me old man’s dead.’

‘Where is he now?’

‘Dead.’

I put the blower down and sat on the stairs. Someone came and put a blanket round us and says, ‘Don’t worry, feller. Someone’ll come and look after you.’ Folks came and went, most of em in uniform. They measured him up and looked him up and down and took a photo of him. Then they carried him away. And I felt meself coming back, stepping back inside meself.

No one asked us what had happened. They just took for granted he’d fell down the stair, drunk as he were. That’s what I reckoned they thought, anyhow. But later, when I were meant to be living in care but were really dossing here and there and doing as I pleased, I got to thinking on that one. I got to thinking how perhaps they hadn’t assumed he’d fell at all. Maybe they knew the truth and were all right about it, being as he were a pissed-up old cunt who never done no good for no one, least of all his own son. Maybe that were the way things worked in the world. Or at least in Mangel.

I thought about it, and soon enough it weren’t an idea no more. It were a fact, like a foot being twelve inches long or water being wet. And I went on with it and made meself what I were…what I had been. And that’s the way it carried on.

Until Beth died.

Everything turned around and came back at us then. See, I never killed her. I loved her, I did. We had our troubles like any couple does, but nothing so bad that I’d do that to her. The coppers asked us and asked us and shouted at us and slapped us. I never done it, and I told em so again and again.

They never believed us. But they let us go anyhow, being as they couldn’t get shite to stick. No one believed us outside neither. Folks shunned us and whispered about us on the bus and sent us nasty letters. And that’s when I got to thinking again. About how I’d been wrong about Mangel and the way it works.

I ain’t sure what I’m getting at here. Maybe I’m just trying to tell you how I came to be how I were, how I am. But I reckon it ain’t my place to do that. Fish can’t say much about water cos water’s all he knows. Ah, fuck it.

Where were I?

Oh aye. I were in Fenton’s office, shooting Lee Munton.

But the gun weren’t loaded, were it.

I pulled the trigger again.

And still the bugger weren’t loaded.

The look on Lee’s face went from shite your pants to well well well, what does we have here then? ‘Jess?’ he says, not taking his eyes off us. Jess stopped messing with the safe and gandered over his shoulder. He clocked the scenario and grabbed his gun. I ran for the door. Lee made a swing at us, but I poked the barrel at his head and caught his cheekbone, by the feels of it. I carried on pegging it. When I got to the front door Jess shouted and fired. But I were already through and closing it behind us. Buckshot peppered it from inside, but it were a solid door and soaked it all up. I kept on running. Uptown. They’d not expect us to run uptown, I hoped.

Weren’t long before I had to pull up in a doorway, lungs screaming and legs like jelly. I’d always been one of them fellers built for strength and not stamina. Ain’t much call for stamina in a doorman, unless you’re talking about how long he can stand up for. Soon as I got my puff back I put me thinking cap on.

All right, so the Muntons was in Hoppers, with Fenton. If I called the coppers I’d get em caught red-handed and sent down for a bit. But a bit weren’t long enough. And they’d grass on us and all. No, that were a shite idea. But I had to do summat. I couldn’t very well roam the streets for the rest of me borned days, hoping they’d not ever find us. They’d come after us for surely. And they’d come soon. But long as they was in there trying to pop the safe, they wasn’t coming after us.

I peeked both ways out the doorway and set off again.

It were still dark when I got home. I got a bin liner and started filling it with gear. I thought about putting my doorman togs in but didn’t in the end. It’d get all creased and look shite when time came to put it on. So I left it on the hanger and took it downstairs with the bag. In the kitchen I necked a couple of glasses of water and wolfed an old pork pie I found in the fridge. No matter what shite is taking place in your life, it’s important to keep your strength up. More so, in fact, when trouble is on the cards. I upturned the whisky bottle into my gob and emptied it. I stopped by the front door.

What the fuck were I playing at?

Where could I go? And how long were I planning on staying there? All my life? I knew I couldn’t leave Mangel. And Mangel weren’t an easy place to hide in. And who said I had to hide anyhow? Who said the Muntons’d be after us?

I opened the door and got into the Capri. Muntons after us or not, it’d do us no harm to get away for a bit. I needed some time to get my head in shape. And there were one place I knew I were always welcome, despite how she sometimes sounded.

But instead of turning into the estate where Sal lived I took a right and headed out into the country. Soon the tree-lined roads swallowed us up and coaxed us farther and farther away from Mangel. But I knew it were just for now. Leaving Mangel were only ever a temporary thing. Nothing seemed real outside of town. It were like Mangel were the only town that really existed, and all the rest were just illusion, blurred around the edges and hard to focus on. But real as Mangel were, it were never a place for thinking and getting your head straight. That’s what the rest of the world were for. I started up the long hill on the East Bloater Road and put me foot on it.

Summat always made us floor it when I started up that hill. I wanted to keep on going and smash through the barrier and come out the other side battered and bloody but somewhere else. But it were only ever a brief urge, gone by the time I were halfway up. And there were no barrier up there to smash through anyhow. Not one you could see, leastways. I slowed up and stopped as I hit the brow of the hill, planting the left tyres on the grass verge.

I stood and admired the view, such as it were. Green and brown fields and a lot of trees. Bang in the middle of em were East Bloater—a bunch of rooftops huddled together around a spire and not much else besides. But the road went on and on past that. Up to the horizon and beyond it, like as not. And the horizon were what I always went out there to see.

When I got back to where I originally intended on going, I were a couple of decisions to the good. Not that it made us feel much happier about life. I knew I were still fucked from every angle no matter what. But I were a tad less confused. And I had a wild card that might just sort us out.

The money, see. Money were all them Muntons gave a shite about. So if I let em keep my share of the sherbet, they might leave us alone.

It needed working on, but that were the strength of it. All right, it were a shite idea and I were a twat for thinking it might do the trick. Feller can hope, can’t he? Feller
must
hope, in fact. And if he don’t then he ain’t a feller in my book. He’s dead.

But hoping never got no one nowhere. And I weren’t likely to reverse that particular trend.

‘Hello?’

‘S’me, ennit. Let us in.’

She said nothing for a short while. Then: ‘Come on up.’

I stood there stroking me tash. That hadn’t sounded like Sal at all. She’d never spoken a polite word to us since I’d known her.

Summat were up.

I walked round the corner and looked up and down the road. I kept my eye on the old fence round the back of the flats, waiting for some bastard to vault over. Plenty of cars was parked, mostly battered old shite ones. I glanced up and down em while I were waiting, fists clenched in me pockets. I were looking for summat out of the normal, summat that belonged to whoever Sal had been dogging up there. I could feel a vein sticking out on me temple, pumping hot blood into my brain.
I ain’t no slapper
, she’d said.
Them days is gone
. I knew I wouldn’t touch her. Hitting women ain’t right. I already told you that. But you needs to hit someone. Feller can’t deny his urges. ‘Come on, mate,’ I says, desperate for him. I needed him. My head were fit to burst, less I dropped it on some fucker soon.