Wolf Tickets
Authors: Ray Banks
WOLF TICKETS
Ray Banks
This one's for Ken Bruen, Chester Himes and Joe Lansdale.
With apologies ...
Published by Blasted Heath, 2012
copyright © 2010, 2012 Ray Banks
First published in Needle Magazine, issues #3-#5, 2010
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means without permission of the author.
Ray Banks has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 to be identified as the author of this work.
All the characters in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.
Cover design by JT Lindroos
Cover photo: Giles Chiroleu
Visit Ray Banks at:
ISBN (ePub): 978-1-908688-18-7
Version 2-1-3
Novels
Dead Money
The Cal Innes Quartet
Saturday's Child
Donkey Punch
No More Heroes
Beast of Burden
Novellas
Gun
California
Dead Money
by Ray Banks
Wee Rockets
by Gerard Brennan
Phase Four
by Gary Carson
The Long Midnight of Barney Thomson
by Douglas Lindsay
The Unburied Dead
by Douglas Lindsay
The Man in the Seventh Row
by Brian Pendreigh
The Killing of Emma Gross
by Damien Seaman
All The Young Warriors
by Anthony Neil Smith
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"Another one I like is wolf tickets, which means bad news, as in someone who is bad news or generally insubordinate. In a sentence you'd say, 'Don't fuck with me, I'm passing out wolf tickets.' I think it's either Baltimore Negro or turn-of-the-century railroad use."
—Tom Waits,
Playboy
Magazine, 1988
I was on a halfway nash across Asda car park when I heard this whiney little security prick pipe up behind us.
High voice going: "Sir? Sir, if you could just ...
Excuse me?
"
I had a bottle of Cherry Coke, one of them white poverty bracelets and a fistful of Freddos in my jacket, and I never paid for item fuckin' one. They were small time hobby-steals, hardly worth the bother, except this twat wasn't letting us out of his sight. Didn't need to turn around to know which one it was, either – I could tell by the sound of his footsteps that he was that Security with legs too short for his body. He was built like a tall dwarf, young and freakish, and his feet made this little pattering sound when he walked. Old Security, they never bothered us much – they knew better. It was just the young cunts with something to prove who tried it on.
"Okay now, you hold it." Bit more gravel in his voice, like he'd only been messing before and he was pure serious now. "You stop right there or I'll call the police."
So I stopped. And I turned. There he was, one hand in his pocket, trying to square us up. I looked at the cardboard creases in his new white shirt, wondered why his mam hadn't bothered ironing them out.
He cleared his throat. He said, "I think you have some items there that you haven't paid for."
I shook my head. "Nah."
"Would you turn out your pockets for me, please?"
I was friendly about it: "Fuck off."
"If you don't turn out your pockets, you know I'm well within my rights to search you."
"And I'm well within my rights to knock you on your arse you so much as breathe on us."
Security held his hands up. His fingernails were minging, all hacky and bit to the quick. I put one hand in my jacket pocket, felt around for the sock.
"There's no need to be aggressive, sir."
"I'm not being aggressive. I know my rights."
"Then I'll have to ask you to come back into the shop—"
"I think I already telt you to fuck off, didn't I?"
"Now you
are
being aggressive."
"You want us to sign it for you, son? It's simple enough. Whatever you stick near us gets broke off,
capisce
?"
Security looked around him. Midweek morning, there was nobody about. He rubbed his tongue across his bottom teeth. He breathed out once, hard, through his nose, made a sound like a baby bull. He took a good long look at us, weighed it up.
Me against him, me all flabby and old and him as gym-wide as he was tall.
On paper, it was a fuckin' no-brainer, even if Security hadn't reckoned himself tidy as, which he did. So, being a daft bastard, he made a grab for us. And me being prepared, I was ready for him.
There's an old saying: it's better to have a size thirteen sock with a clutch of double-As in the toe and not need
it than ...
You know the rest.
Brought my hand out my pocket, let the sock drop. A dull clicking sound as the batteries hit the toe. Security frowned, hands out. I hefted. He opened his mouth. I lashed the cunt across the eyes.
He made a noise like "
Ah
-yah!" then dropped and rolled. Didn't have time to say much else before I stepped up and took the sock to the back of the bastard's ankles, double-
whap
. Then he started screaming, so I had to kick the wind out of him, else he'd have the fuckin' polis round in no time. Took a couple goes, like, on account of I was wearing my Golas and they're proper shit to kick with, but I managed in the end.
He breathed grit for a while. I stepped back, caught my breath and then hockled on Security.
Said, "That's what you get for trying to poof up a war hero."
Then I patted my arse like the bird in the ads and did one.
God, that fucking noise.
I woke up on the couch with a crick in my neck and a hangover that felt like the day of reckoning. Looked down. Stripped to boxers and Docs. Somewhere in the flat, it sounded like a deaf person was fighting for her life.
Took me a moment to piece it all together. It was Nora's pet sound: Dido. In particular, "Hunter", a tune that had almost eclipsed "I Will Survive" as the tear-streaked fuck-you karaoke anthem of the bingo-winged divorcée, the kind of woman, the only thin part of them was their mascara. Dido was big about ten years ago; I didn't need a comeback right now.
I rolled off the couch onto the floor. Something kicked me in the back of the eyes. A Bushmills night, Guinness back. Jesus, what a way to break a drought. Couldn't remember the last time I'd had a proper drink, and there we were last night, Nora pushing me into one after the other. Celebrating something, must have been, but I couldn't for the life of me remember what it was.
I did remember her trying to get my boots off.
Remembered saying – no, Jesus,
singing
– "I die with my boots
on
!"
But I couldn't think straight, not with that racket. I tracked it through to the kitchen and the portable CD player that'd been turned out to face the living room. Stabbed at the buttons with one finger, used my fist like a hammer, then grabbed the player and launched it across the room.
A crash that sent white lights flaring behind my eyes, then silence.
I took a moment to myself, eyes closed, pinching the bridge. When I looked up, the first thing I saw through the black bugs was the note on the fridge.
I plucked the paper from under the Hello Kitty magnet, read it:
Sean,
By the time you read this I will be gone.
Don't try to find me because I won't be found. Just accept that it was time to say goodbye. So before you get too angry you should know I took some stuff.
The money – because you owe me.
The jacket – because I like it.
The coke – because things go better with it (ha!)
Everything else in the flat is yours. Hope you like the music. Like the song, I have to be a HUNTER again. I hope you understand. If you don't then fine. Fuck you.
Love always,
Nora
XOXOXO
P.S. Take care of Heinz for me – I know you will.
Right. Okay.
I slapped the note face down on the kitchen counter. I went through to the bedroom, tore back the carpet by the window, lifted the one loose floorboard and stared into the hole.
Nothing.
Put a hand down there to have a double check – nothing but fluff. I got up and went to the wardrobe. On her side: a ratty dressing gown and chicken slippers. On my side: everything I owned. Almost. Like the note said, I was minus one jacket. I grabbed the dressing gown from the hanger, flung it out the window, watched it drop like a slow suicide.
Treacherous.
Fucking.
Hoor.
The dressing gown landed in the canal, spreading on the green water. I watched it until it buckled under, then I threw on some jeans and a T-shirt – same outfit Nora always said made me look like a cruiser – and took one of the chicken feet slippers with me into the kitchen. My gut churned; it needed something. I dropped the slipper on the counter, went through the cupboards until I found the last variety pack of Coco Puffs. Ripped off the top, palmed the bottle of Bush and poured the dregs into the cereal.
An old pick-me-up, handed down by my old man. I upended the box into my mouth, crunched the cereal down. Hair of the dog, sugared up. Nothing better to get the sleep out of your eyes, even if it did taste rotten. The mixture stayed down, but not without a struggle. I slung the empty box in the bin, then put hands on the fridge freezer and walked it a couple of steps away from the wall.
Peeked behind. Allowed myself a smirk.
She'd missed the .22 taped to the back, thank fuck. Much as I'd trusted her, women like Nora demanded a man keep an insurance policy.
I ripped the gun from the back of the fridge freezer, knocked the dust from it, then grabbed the slipper and headed downstairs.
Could've done with that coke right then. A gram would've cut through the hangover nicely. But she'd taken it along with everything I held dear, and I didn't have time to call Angry Steve.
It was one more annoyance to cap off a long list of 'em.
The jacket wasn't an annoyance. The jacket was much more than that. A one-off, that jacket, a genuine rarity. Couldn't buy 'em in shops, no sir. That jacket was issued to the Italian cops. It had been stitched to last. Yeah, mine had a bullet hole in the shoulder, but it had also weathered like a good Zippo, and I had to admit, in a certain angle and a certain light, I looked just like Franco Nero in it.
