Deadfolk (8 page)

I’d never seen him that way meself. For starters he had floppy hair past his collar, which made him bent in my book. Feller’s hair ought to be short, unless he’s a tramp. Then there was other things about him I didn’t take to.

He didn’t understand what made Mangel folk tick, for one. That don’t add up to much of a problem in a street sweeper or a warehouseman, but when you runs one of Mangel’s premier drinking holes it does. Right from the off he were spouting new-fangled ideas about running Hoppers. I reckoned em just talk at first. But then I seen the way the new Hoppers were taking shape. It weren’t right. He’d turned a perfectly good piss house into a fucking tart’s parlour. Take the name for starters. Plain old Hoppers it’d been up to then. Nothing wrong with that and no need to change it. But Fenton had to go and tack on ‘Wine Bar & Bistro’, didn’t he. I’d never seen no one drink wine in there, and fuck knows what a bistro is.

Course, when the punters saw his changes they gave it the arse and stayed away in droves. And to his credit Fenton recognised where he’d gone wrong and changed most of it back again, except the new name. Still weren’t right in my book, but it were an improvement. And folks seemed to agree. Hoppers weren’t the place it once had been, but it were a place to get pissed. Punters came back. And after a while you got used to the name. It were classy, when you came to look at it. Classy in a way only a feller from the outside could pull off.

‘Aye,’ I says to his question about him having a word. ‘Why not.’

‘What happened last night, Blake?’

‘Last night? What of it?’

‘You disappeared.’ He were wearing a dark grey suit with a green tie. Fucking twat, wearing a suit when he didn’t have to. No need for it. But suits and ties is what he always wore. ‘There was some kind of scene out front and you disappeared. I need to know why.’

He were right, you know. After the thing with Baz last night I weren’t feeling much like being a doorman. So I popped round back for a bit of air. Fair enough, you might reckon. But I hadn’t ever done it before. And Fenton had a point: a doorman oughtn’t to desert his door. I’d forgot about it since, what with everything. Not even walking into Hoppers had jogged my memory. But it weren’t a problem no more. I’d sorted it.

‘Look,’ I says. I were feeling better now I had everything straight in me head. You couldn’t blame Fenton for being a wanker. Like I says, he weren’t from round here. He didn’t know what’s what more than a cat knows how to make gravy. ‘Look, it ain’t a problem,’ I says. ‘Won’t happen again.’

‘What won’t happen again? Tell me what happened.’

‘Some shite, thass all. Nut’n to—’

‘Blake.’

‘Eh eh eh,’ I says, nice and calm. I noticed I were stood square to him now, arm aloft in a placatory gesture. It were only when he looked at it that I noticed there were a fist on the end. It shut him up, mind, which is what placatory gestures is meant to do in my book. ‘Cool it, right? As I were sayin’, some shite came to pass and it ain’t worth frettin’ over the entrails. All right, I shouldn’t of deserted me post an’ that. But I had a little problem an’ now iss sorted, see? Nuthin’ like that’ll ever happen henceforth. You mark my words it won’t.’

He said nothing. You could almost hear his brain whirring away beneath them floppy locks.

‘Tell you what,’ I says, smirking a bit. ‘It happens again, I’ll hand in me dicky bow. Feller can’t play fairer.’

‘Blake…Look, I really don’t want to fight about this, but I need you to understand something. When I took you on there were certain conditions attached. Remember? Do you remember them?

I did. And I thought em a bit strange if I’m honest. But it were a doorman job and it were Hoppers, so I’d shrugged and said I’d do it. ‘Aye.’

‘And do you remember what they were?’

This were a bit harder, being as it’d been a while back and I don’t like to think about the past too much. But I had a quick think and came up with summat. ‘Aye,’ I says. ‘Work five nights a week and don’t have holidays unless you has em same time.’

‘That’s right. And watch out for anyone strange coming in. That was your special job, Blake. That’s why I needed a good doorman.’

‘And you fuckin’ got one.’

‘I know I did. But I need to trust you.’ He sucked on his cigar. It’d gone out. ‘Can I, Blake? Can I trust you?’

I tutted and looked up the bar. Punters was coming in. ‘Fuck sake. I’m the best fuckin’ doorman—’

‘—in Mangel. I know, Blake. Look, let’s forget about this, OK? No hard feelings. But just please be vigilant on that door. It means a lot to me. If you have to slip away for any reason, tell me. And watch out for those—’

‘Odd folks.’

‘Yes. Strangers. One other thing, Blake.’

‘What?’

He relit his cigar and brightened up a bit. ‘I’ve been thinking about Hoppers. I’ve got plans. Big plans. Plans that’ll turn this place into something the people of Mangel have never seen.’

Oh, for fuck sake. Couldn’t leave it alone, could he?

‘First off,’ he says, ‘the name Hoppers has got to go. Even with the Wine Bar & Bistro suffix. I know we’ve tried this before and it failed, but I think the timing was wrong. It’ll work this time. It’s been called Hoppers for too long, and people have made up their minds about the place years ago. No, we need something new. Something that people will find irresistibly glamorous and exotic. I’m thinking Café Americano. What do you think about that, Blake?’

I rubbed me chin. ‘Ain’t a caff though, is it. Only scran a feller can get here is a bag o’ nuts. And there’s Burt’s Caff twenty yard up the road for a fry-up.’

Fenton burst out laughing like I’d tickled his armpits. Then he stopped so suddenly you’d never have known he’d been laughing just now. ‘Blake, the word “café” has connotations beyond the greasy spoon. I aim to bring in some catering anyway. That’s part of my plans. Just a selection of light bites.’

‘Americano. Woss that mean? American? Hoppers ain’t American though, is it? It’s in Mangel.’

‘That’s the whole point, Blake. I want to bring a slice of otherness to this town. I want to give people the excitement of foreign culture without them having to leave town.’

‘And you ain’t American neither. How can you call Hoppers American?’

‘Ah, don’t worry about it,’ he says, turning. ‘Just wanted your opinion.’

‘Aye, and I gave it you.’

‘Right.’

I got the impression folks saw us a bit different that night. There were none of the last night’s sneering and jeering. There were no trouble, which makes for a good night when you’re employed as a doorman. And there were no talk of bottling.

But there weren’t much else neither. No joking from them who was in the habit of being funny. No asking after my well-being from them who was often as not solicitous after it. A lot of looks, mind. A lot of long stares and sly glances from them what ought to know better, eye contact being the main root of aggro round these parts. Plenty of looks from the birds and all. And when I gets that kind of attention I reciprocates in kind. You shouldn’t look a gift horse in the muzzle, says I. Not even when she’s got fat legs, cross-eyes, and a hair lip. You never know when your luck’ll change and someone like that might be all you can snag.

Course, I knew these folks couldn’t be acting on knowledge of what I’d done. They couldn’t know. If they knew then the Munton boys knew as well. Them what was remaining of that clan anyhow. And chances were the coppers’d know by now and all.

But I couldn’t help thinking that somehow folks did know, without knowing it, like. I knows I ain’t making much sense here, but if you just bears with us I’ll do me best to spit it out in such a way as you’ll understand. Some things folks knows without realising it. Sometimes you can tell what kind of a thing a feller has done simply by looking at him. And it’s not in your swede where you feels it. It’s in your heart. So they knew, I reckoned, without really knowing what they knew, why they knew it, or whether they knew anything at all. All right?

And whatever they felt about us, I felt it and all. I felt like I could have kept a randy bull out that night, no matter how many pissed-up cows was inside.

Didn’t last long, mind. About halfway into the evening them other thoughts started creeping in, ones about the Muntons. Who the fuck were I joshing, reckoning I could top Baz and dump him in me cellar and go to work and hey ho here we go? I were joshing no one, is who.

Least of all the Muntons.

They’d know it were me all right. It were plain as the hairs on my arse. They’d know. Them and every other bastard in Mangel. It were all clear now. The way folks had been looking at us—fellers backing off, birds licking their lips. They knew what I’d done, who I’d done it to, and how I’d done it.

I passed the rest of the evening turning these things over in my head, looking for any sign of light up the end of the dark tunnel that had opened up before us. I didn’t even notice the folks going in and out of Hoppers after a bit, other than that none of em was Munton nor copper. There were no light to be found in my tunnel. And no matter which way I turned I knew it only came out one place: the back of the Meat Wagon, me tied up and gagged and heading for a carve-up in Hurk Wood.

I finished up for the night at midnight or so and pulled meself one before pissing off. I reckoned I’d go and see Legsy again. I wouldn’t let him know what had happened to Baz, less he’d already guessed it. But I could tell him what else were happening on the Munton front. He’d tell us what to do. And maybe it’d be best to spill the full tin of beans after all. Legs were a mate and I could trust him. He’d not be able to help us unless I told him about Baz.

Aye, that’s what I’d do.

But somehow that didn’t make us feel a lot better. It were with a leaden heart that I downed the whisky and traipsed out back. Each footstep were a step further into the dark tunnel what only had one end. Even if I stopped and turned arse the other way, it were still a step further. There were no way out. Legs couldn’t help us out of this one.

No one could.

I opened the door and climbed into my car, thinking how going to the coppers might not be such a bad idea. I’d go down for years. But at least I wouldn’t find meself dressed in concrete at the bottom of the river, arms and legs lopped off and head shoved up arse. And it were because I were preoccupied with such thoughts that I didn’t notice the feller on the back seat.

‘All right, Jess,’ says I as he pulled himself upright.

Right here seems a good place to say a few more words about the Muntons, reduced in number as that clan now were. You’ve heard the stories. Can’t very well hear about Mangel without hearing a thing or two relating to the Muntons. And you’ve heard what I’ve already told you, so I’ll do my bastardest not to retread old ground, so to speak.

But there’s one thing about them that you won’t have heard. It’s a secret all right, sure as shite is brown. And if it ain’t a secret and you has heard it before…Well, I don’t rightly know what. Who told you?

Happened two summers before the time I’m telling you about. I were working for the Muntons back then, as I had done for the few years previous, and intended on doing for as long as they’d have me. It were good work, see. I were doorman at Hoppers. Head doorman.

Heard it before, eh?

Well, Hoppers were a different kettle of kippers back then. These days it were a Wine Bar & Bistro, as you’ve come to hear. But in them days it were something of a local entertainment venue, as well as being a place to get right pissed. Every night there were summat on. Funny man Tuesdays, topless mud wrestling Monday and Wednesday, karaoke Saturday, strippers other nights. And happy hour every night between five and seven. It were popular and all. Not just amongst town folk. They came from miles around, from Barkettle in the north to Tuber in the south. Once I even welcomed a coach party from East Bloater, believe it or not.

Hoppers were the Mangel Mecca in all but name. And presiding over it were the Munton brothers. Course, it were their old man who made it what it were. Tommy Munton.

Aye.

Tommy Munton.

Let me tell you summat. Everything you’ve heard about Tommy Munton is true. True as grass is green, trees reaches upward, and turnips grows in the ground. Even the one about him ripping off the post office in Lower Flapp dressed as a nun. And the shoot-out in Felcham where he shot their heads off and walked away with nary a pellet up his arse. Course, that’s how Hoppers got started, with all the money he’d robbed. How else do a man borned in a skip and growed up in the gutter get his paws on that kind of coinage?

But none of his misdeeds mattered if you looks at em as a means to an end. That’s the way most folks reckoned it anyhow. Hoppers were the smartest premises in Mangel. And when Tommy died of old shrapnel, he passed it on to his younguns.

Which were his first and last mistake.

Now, you can say what you likes about schools and books, but far as I’m concerned teachers and writing can’t give a feller a business brain. He’s either born with one or he’s picking sprouts with the rest of us. And Tommy Munton were born with one. That’s how he’d made Hoppers the success it were. Helped him with the bank jobs and all, like as not. You’d need to know where they keeps the safe in a bank, for example. But whatever business brains he had, he’d held em back when fathering his boys.

You’d never have known it to look at the surface appearance of things. To the untrained eye, Hoppers looked healthy as ever under the Muntons junior. Folks was drinking, which were all that counted to my thinking. And that’s why it were summat of a shock when Lee took us aside one night after lock-up and told us what he had in mind.

‘Burn the place down?’ says I.

‘Aye. And you’re the torch.’

‘Hang on, hang on—’

‘Can’t hang on too long. You’re doin’ it, Blakey.’

‘But…Lee, this is Hoppers. You can’t very well burn down Hoppers. Iss…’

‘I’ll tell you what it is. Worth more to us burnt down than stood up is what it is.’

‘But, Lee, you can’t.’

‘Right. I can’t. So you do it.’

And so it were to be.

The date were planned for the Thursday night a week hence, which were a stripping night. Lee’s thinking were that coppers and insurance folk would point the finger at local opposition, there being a backward element in Mangel what reckoned a bird oughtn’t to be exploited in such a way as they was at Hoppers. That’s how his thinking went anyhow. Can’t say I’d ever met any such folk meself.

Well, the night came. I started it as I always done, standing by the door. I weren’t being as friendly with folks as were my custom. It weren’t only impending commitments playing on my nerves. There was other matters getting us down and all. One of em—the main one, perhaps—were that I’d not been getting on too brightly with Beth of late. Like any happily married couple, we’d had our ups and downs. But you know how it goes. It gets to the point where the downs just keeps on going down, making up for all the ups you had at the start.

Anyhow, them was the sorts of worries that nagged at us as I stood there at the door of Hoppers that night. To cut a long un short, I weren’t feeling up to the task in hand. Torching Hoppers were a big job, and one which demanded the kind of juice that frankly weren’t in us. So I took a young feller aside, showed him a few twenties, and asked him to get it done for us.

Finney being Finney, he accepted the task with nary a moment’s reflection. Said he’d do it for nothing, twat that he were. But seeing as I had the money out ready and all, he took it. Come back a couple hours after closing, I says to him.

Getting that sorted had no end of a soothing effect on me nerves. I were able to spend the rest of the night being my usual self—cheerful and up for a laugh, but any trouble and I’ll have you, mate. Even had a couple of pints and caught some of the show. Sally were up there that night, skin all oiled up and glistening under the spotlights. She’d only been working there a few weeks. Course, she were Baz Munton’s bird then. But when a feller lets his bird go up on stage like that and show off her wares, he’s asking for trouble. I dunno how long I watched her for. Got to feeling like no one else were there, it did. Just me with me lager, and her up there dancing for us. Things’d be all right soon, I recalled thinking.

After lock-up I went out to the car park, trying not to think about the future too much. Just get this out the way first. Burn Hoppers down, collect me torch fee from Lee, and see what happens. Only problem were that the Capri wouldn’t start.

I had me swede under that bonnet for half an hour. Can’t recall what the trouble were. You knows what Capris is like. I went back inside and rang Beth. Get some kit on, I says, it being late and her in bed and all. If I were still stuck in fifteen minutes, I told her, she’d be hearing another ring from us. Else she could go back to her kip. True to form, she hurled thirty seconds of complaint down the line, studded with words choice enough to have a bull terrier blushing purple. I shrugged and hung up. I knew she’d come if I asked her, just so she’d have a reason to get at us for the next few days. She’d fucking better. Finney’d soon be here with a tank of paraffin and a lighter.

But then the car started, so I never called her back.

I took one last look around the place, made sure the door were unlocked for Finney, then hared off home.

When I got there I cracked open a can and sat down a while, thinking how lucky I were that Beth were sound akip. I turned on the telly and watched the news for a bit. They was talking about the war, as always. That were about the time they first started showing that big bomb sitting there in the silo. I had a flick and found my way to a film that looked like it had potential. Sure enough, within a minute or two a feller were taking the bird’s bra off and feeling her up all over. It were smart, like the stuff you ain’t meant to get on telly. Before I knew it I had meself out and ready. It didn’t take long. I didn’t really need the telly neither. All I had to do were close my eyes and think of Sal, up there on stage, half a can of motor oil rubbed into her tits and arse. I imagined it were me who oiled her up before her turn. And I had a feeling it soon would be, though the stage’d be charcoal by then.

After I’d had a bit of a doze, I pulled me kecks up and went to the front window. You couldn’t see Hoppers from where I were standing, but there were a dull glow in the sky above a certain spot in town. I had a funny feeling at that moment, like a frozen clot of blood passing through my heart. But it passed. It were no real shock to see that Hoppers were blazing. Finney might have shite for brains, but if he says he’ll do summat he’ll do it. He were still standing there now, like as not, warming his hands and laughing. Fucking twat.

It were with a heavy sigh that I switched off the telly and went upstairs. I opened the bedroom door as quietly as born clumsiness allows. I weren’t planning on kipping in there, mind. That’d be breaking the habit of twelve months. I just wanted to…dunno, really. See that Beth were akip, I reckon. But she weren’t. She weren’t in bed at all.

She weren’t anywhere in the room.

Hang on, I thought, scratching my head. I know what she went and done. She went to pick us up anyhow, even though I hadn’t called her back. She went to get us so she can lay into us, bitter and enraged as she were.

‘Ah, fuck…’ I says, downstairs again now, glancing outside at the warm glow over Hoppers. It were a clear night. Stars in the sky, full moon. Smoke billowed up like a grey genie out of a dirty old beer bottle.

My throat already knew the feel of cold steel. My old man used to threaten to slit it on a regular basis. Just verbal threats at first, little reminders that one day he’d cut my neck open and hang us up over a tin bucket. After a while I noticed a pattern—the threats’d come when I looked happy, when I walked around the house whistling or bouncing on my heels. Then I started coming home with birds. Hiding em from Dad, course. But he always knew. He’d get the family silver out soon as she were out the door. ‘Thinks your life’ll turn out just how you wants it, don’t you,’ he’d say, throat rattling with all the fags and whisky. ‘Reckon it’ll be nice and happy, eh? Well forget it. Didn’t turn out that way for me, did it? And I’ll make sure it don’t for you neither, you little bastard.’

‘Shift,’ says Jess, nodding at the controls and sliding the blade off my skin.

I knew he’d nicked us. I could feel the drop of blood reaching into my chest hairs and tickling us. But I didn’t wipe it away. I got the motor started and put her in gear. ‘Where to?’ I says as we joined an empty Friar Street.

‘Strake Hill.’

‘Car park?’ I looked in the mirror and saw his nod. Weren’t much else about him I could see besides his big silhouette. Reminded us of Baz. I’d never thought em alike before. ‘Been puttin’ on weight there, Jess?’ I says.

He didn’t move. Or his silhouette didn’t. He just sat tight, filling my mirror. A car turned up ahead and flashed headlights in his face. I looked away. I liked the silhouette better.

‘Whereabouts, Jess?’ I slowed down, seeing the turn-off up yonder. ‘What we goin’ there for?’

He leaned forward and rested his knife hand by me right shoulder.

I pulled into the car park and straight away spotted the Meat Wagon parked in the far corner. Everyone in Mangel knew the Meat Wagon. No one seemed to know for surely why it were so called. Not even meself, and I’d been quite close to the Munton boys in the past. From the moment Lee were big enough to drive one, they’d driven around in a white van known as the Meat Wagon. And before that Tommy Munton used to drive one, also known as the Meat Wagon. But I hadn’t ever met a soul who could tell us for surely why. Weren’t like they was butchers nor nothing. Most folks wasn’t interested in the why anyhow, long as they never ended up riding in the back of it.

Jess pointed a sausage-like finger at the van.

‘Look, Jess…’

With his other hand he twocked the back of the blade across my head, which weren’t nice.

I rolled up to the Meat Wagon nice and slow, trying not to wake it up. It were solid as a Sherman tank and had no windows besides them up front, which was blacked out anyhow. I says it were white, but it weren’t white right then. It were plastered in shite and crap and couldn’t have been cleaned in a year. I pulled up next to it.

What if I makes a break for it here? What are the chances of them having guns? I ought to outrun Jess, big feller as he were. And Lee never ran. Lee never done any kind of legwork. Aye, it were a good plan. Open the door and peg it like billy-o…

I felt Jess’s hot breath on the back of my neck. ‘Try it,’ he says, in a voice coming from somewhere between Norbert Green and the bowels of hell itself, which ain’t too far separated, I shouldn’t think.

The passenger door opened.

Lee got in.

He were dressed same as he always were: black leather coat, black boots, blue jeans. There were no hairs on his head besides a neat beard that covered up some of the scars he’d earned as a youngun. Other facial scars was visible and all. There were no hiding the deep groove that started on his right cheekbone and went through his nose like a mountain pass. But some scars you don’t want to hide. Some scars is a part of your character, and say more about you than any pissed-up pub tales.

‘All right, Blake,’ he says.

‘All right, Lee.’

One thing were in my favour: they couldn’t do it here. Not in this car park in the middle of town. Their style were more out in the sticks, Hurk Wood in particular if rumour had it right. They was always careful in their enforcing, even if they didn’t know shite about running a business. That’s why they was so legendary. All them stories about em, no convictions.