Falling (22 page)
Things were moving.
Bally has just made a call on the
mobile. We are parked up in some god forsaken side street in the east end and I
just want my kip. We dropped the paperwork from the vic’s house as requested
and were told to stake out the maintenance man’s house.
I am bored stupid and tired and I
ask Bally what we were getting for this gig and he told me that payment would
come in the form of legs that would not get broken.
Bally hangs up and tells me that
Charlie, the flyboy, is on his way to Simon’s house.
We have just watched the
maintenance man and a girl toddle up to his flat. Bally says we have to break
in and do ‘em over for some info. It seems we are after more paperwork. What is
it with this paperwork? I want to go home. It’s the middle of the night and I
don’t work well this late on without some decent shut eye. But I like my legs
the way they are so I suggest we get on with it quick.
We are getting out the car when a
gaggle of girls on their way home from a night out appear. We dodge back into
the car and wait. The girls pass the car and stop at the street corner.
There are six of them - dressed
to impress but all looking a little worse for wear. None of them are what I
would call lookers. MDL’s I tell Bally and for the first time today he smiles.
MDL’s - Mutton Dressed as Lamb.
You see them all over Glasgow on
any given night. Old enough to know better. Short skirts with legs that have
gone corned beef from years of MacD’s and fish suppers. Make up applied by Blue
Circle and dresses that cry out for a size ten body but are accommodating a
sixteen.
Not that there is anything wrong
with this in my opinion. I quite fancy two of them. The bottle blonde and the
short dark haired one. Given other circumstances I would be chancing my arm
right now. Drunk women are my specialty. Bally doesn’t buy into my way of
thinking. He calls it the Spanish waiter approach. He tells me that when he
went to Spain in the eighties, Spanish waiters would keep trying with as many
women as it took to land one. I like this approach. Who the hell ever died of a
knock-back and as my old man said a million times - if you don’t ask you don’t
get.
The girls are going nowhere fast.
I can’t be arsed waiting but Bally doesn’t want witnesses if it all kicks off.
Especially if we need to drag the maintenance man and his girlfriend down to
the car.
The light in the maintenance
man’s flat goes off and I see Bally tense up. They could be on their way down.
I’ve done enough of these to know that if they get in their car it isn’t good
news. Bally is always drilling into me about being in control. ‘Know the lay of
the land’. I think he means do the job where it is safe. Fat chance. It’s never
safe in this business. But I don’t fancy a Keystone Cops car chase so I keep my
eye on the tenement close. Bally also has his eyes glued to the entrance.
The girls are winding up the
noise and one of them is sharing out a quarter bottle of something with the
others. I return my gaze to the bottle blonde and when it is obvious the two
vics ain’t emerging I get out the car. I hear Bally shout at me but I’m bored
and if the vics have gone beddie byes there is time for me to chance my arm
with the girls.
I walk up to the girls and they
stop talking. I use my best opening line. It fails - big time. I go to plan B
and try my second best opening line. I bomb again. I go for broke and ask if
any of them fancies a quick shag. This goes down like a jobby in a builder’s
lunchbox. I haven’t got a plan D and Bally leans on the horn to let me know he
isn’t happy. Like I care. I turn and walk away from the girls and get back in
the car and Bally gives me an earful. Like I REALLY care.
The girls move on. They keep
looking over their shoulders at the car. Maybe they think we are going to stalk
them or maybe they quite fancy me and expect me to follow. I suggest this to
Bally and he blanks me. Like I REALLY, REALLY care.
Once the girls are gone Bally
tells me to move and we are out of the car and across the road in double quick
time. We slip into the close, a wally close as my mum would say. Tiled from
roof to floor. I like wally closes. Kind of reminds me of when I was wee and
used to visit my gran.
I run my hand along their cool
surface letting my fingers bump along the joins just as I did as a kid. We
climb the stairs and reach the maintenance man’s landing. The flat has two
oversized wooden doors that are tight shut. Behind them will be the front door.
Bally tries the handle and finds the doors locked tight. He curses. Most of
these doors will have floor bolts as well as locks. If the door is locked tight
you would need a battering ram to get in. Bally steps back to consider the
options.
I walk up to the door and press
the door bell. Bally gasps. I can’t be arsed hanging about. I stand in front of
the left hand door and after a few seconds I can hear noise from within. Bally
is right behind me telling me that I’m a dickhead.
There is no other way out from
the flat so ringing the door bell has to be worth a shout. If they open the
door even half an inch then I’m in.
The noise behind the door fades
and I know they are wondering who is at the door at this time of night. I ring
the bell again and Bally smacks me on the back of the head and pushes me out of
the way.
The door remains closed. Bally
turns round and pushes me down the stairs. We reach the floor below and he puts
his hand on my shoulder and tells me to wait. I slump to the floor, back
against the wall and take out my mobile. Bally is watching the stairs and I
find Tetris and let Bally worry about the vics.
It must be twenty minutes later
when we hear the click of a lock being turned. Bally kicks me and I put the
mobile away. He points down the stairs and gives me a shove. As I drop down to
the floor below Bally eases into the space between the front door and the storm
doors of the flat directly below the vics. If he stays in the shadow they won’t
see him until it’s too late.
I know my job. If they run for it
I’m the one that needs to deck them. I reach the floor below and hear more
sounds up stairs and then the sound of feet on the stone steps. A scuffle
breaks out and then a shed load of shouting. I want to run up and join in the
fun but decide to wait and see what happens next.
A short silence breaks out and
then more footsteps on the stairs. Closer this time. I crouch next to the
stairwell and wait for the owner to arrive.
If there is one thing that I have
learned in all the years of doing this shit it’s that nothing ever goes to
plan. I mean never. The simplest jobs have a habit of fucking up in a way that
you never see coming. I have a history of royal screw ups and none of them were
my fault. Never my fault.
I mention this often.
The owner of the footsteps hits
the landing and I am on to the job at hand with real speed. I jump up to grab
them round the neck. Only they aren’t there. At least their head isn’t where it
should be and I grab thin air. The girl rushes under me and I’m heading for the
wall. I hit tile and stars break out. I go down like three stone of potatoes
and let out a howl.
Above me there is more nonsense
and another set of footsteps are hammering towards me. I try and stand up but
I’m gubbed and can’t get up. I see the maintenance man fly past and a few seconds
later Bally is on top of me yelling. My personal collection of stars make
understanding him hard and he opts to pull me, collar first, down the stairs
and out into the night. He looks left and right and drops me on the path and I
hear him swear, swear and then for good measure swear.
I stand up and look around but
there is no sign of the pair.
Bally goes back into the close
and I follow.
Broken legs. It’s the only words
I can think of. Then I pick my nose.
George and Tina meet
the gorillas once more
.
The doorbell is ringing in my
dreams and I don’t want to answer it but Tina rolls over and whispers
‘It’s them.’
‘Who?’
‘My guess is the gorillas.’
I wake up fast. For a second I am
disorientated and then I realise that I am lying naked next to Tina - who also
happens to be naked. The doorbell seems a distant thing in comparison to this
revelation.
I couldn’t have been asleep more
than ten minutes but Tina is standing up telling me to get dressed. I hesitate.
Not because I don’t understand but because in the dim light of my bedroom my
girlfriend is standing before me in her birthday suit and she looks damn fine.
I smile and she smiles back and then bends down, picks up my clothes and throws
them at me. She starts to get dressed and I wish she would undress and bend
down again. I swing my legs out and start to dress beneath the covers. I’m not
quite ready to reveal myself to her yet.
Tina leaves the room and I hear
her walk to the door. The bell rings again and she comes back and I am up and
ready except for my shoes. I agree it has to be them and I suggest we sit tight
for a moment. The storm doors are rock solid but I pick up the phone ready to
call the police all the same.
Ten minutes go by and there is nothing.
We can’t stay here - sitting ducks would have a better chance. I go to the main
window and drop to the carpet and push my head up between curtain and window
and look down on the street below. There is no-one to be seen.
Maybe they have gone? I tell Tina
we need to get out of here and she agrees. We wait another ten minutes and then
I open the front door and unlock the outer doors. The click of the lock echoes
across the landing. I look out, half expecting someone to bring a bottle down
on my head. There is no-one there and I signal Tina to follow.
I walk over to the stairwell and
look down but there is little to be seen in the gloom. With Tina in tow I drop
down the first flight of stairs and stop. I fall to my knees and I can see the
landing below. It looks empty.
I decide that open stupidity is
the order of the day and grabbing Tina’s hand I plunge down the next flight of
stairs and straight into gorilla number one. We all go over in a heap. I yell,
Tina screams and the gorilla swears. Tina rolls clear and I take the
opportunity to kick at the thug. He shouts out and Tina gets up and disappears
down the stairs.
I am in a world of trouble. I see
the gorilla start to stand up and I know that he does this kind of thing for a
living and I don’t. I do the only thing I can think of and I rush him, head
down and catch him with my forehead on the top of his chest. I hear shouts from
below but there is nothing I can do about it and scrabble to my feet and head
for the stairs.
I barrel down the three flights
and see the tall gorilla lying against the wall. I ignore him and keep heading
down. I am about to fly out the close and onto the pavement when I’m grabbed
from behind. I turn with my arm up waiting for a punch and see Tina. She pulls
me into the dark that lurks at the bottom of the stairwell. She indicates that
I should hunker down and then joins me as the two gorillas rush past and out
onto the street beyond. The small one towing the tall one.
I watch as they stop and the
small one drops the tall one to the ground and begins to look up and down the
street. No doubt looking for us. The taller one gets up and joins him and all I
can think of is what will happen if they corner us down here.
The short one searches the street
for a few minutes more and then turns and walks back to the close entrance.
Tina freezes beside me and I grip her hand. As much for my benefit as hers. The
tall one joins his shorter cohort.
They are standing less than ten
feet away. Two feet closer and even in this dark they can’t fail to see us.
The short one is cursing with
every second word. The tall one seems less worried and begins to pick his nose.
The short ones take out his phone and dials. I hear a short conversation.
Partly about how we had done a runner before the thugs had arrived. Inventive
but not true. Then he hangs up and turns to the tall one.
‘The wee man has now got Charlie
over at his house. ‘the Voice’ wants us to go over and see what’s what.’
With that they cross over the
road and I hear a car start up and then fade into the distance.
We emerge from the shadows and I
hear a door open above us. God love our neighbours. If I had dropped a milk
bottle on the step or fumbled my keys in the door they would have been out like
a shot. On the other hand the sound of a fight and no-one appears until the
coast is clear. Bugger the ‘help your neighbour’ philosophy around here.
Tina asks what they meant by the
wee man and Charlie. That one is easy. The wee man and Simon, Retip’s Managing
Director, are one and the same person. It’s a standing joke in the building.
Simon is a big one for heels, hats, bouffant hair dos - anything to add to his
height. Not that he’s that small but he has a thing about it. Hence the wee
man.
So Charlie’s vanishing act and
Simon’s disappearing BMW at Tyler Tower were connected. The picture is
beginning to clear. Somehow Leonard’s documents cost Leonard his life and
nearly Charlie’s. Simon is smack in the frame for the arrangements and he is
now onto Charlie for the documents that Tina still has in her possession. No
doubt Charlie is being encouraged to divulge the document’s whereabouts and
that can only be bad news for Tina and me.
‘Police. Police.’ Tina says the
word twice for effect.
I can’t think why not except by
the time we convince them of the whole sordid story I wouldn’t give tuppence
ha’penny for Charlie’s chances of survival. Anyway we seem to come up with the
police option at every turn and I’m beginning to think the longer we ignore it
the harder it will be to use it when the time comes - if it comes.
