Wolf Tickets (10 page)

When I opened them again, I was staring at the jacket in my lap. Put two in Heinz's head, and he hadn't done half the shit to me that Nora had.

For all that, though, I still missed her like a last breath.

Here was something that popped in my head – Sigmund Freud, right, once said that the Irish were a race of people who'd never benefit from psychoanalysis. They were too fuckin' mental, you see. They were a lost cause. Course, Freud was scared of ferns, so he was plenty tapped himself, but sat next to Farrell, I was beginning to think he might have a point anyway.

Something had gone wrong in there. He was quiet, but I didn't need to hear him talking to know he'd taken a dose in the napper. Quiet, but he wasn't being the maudlin fucker anymore, which was fuckin' unnerving. There was an alertness to him now, like when a Doberman sees a cat – that kind of stare that meant he'd found his true calling, and that true calling involved fucking someone up.

"I want a drink," he said in a flat voice.

"Got stubbies back at the flat."

"I mean a proper drink." Farrell pulled out his wallet. "Drop me off at an off-licence. A decent one. None of your corner shops."

I found a Thresher and Farrell jumped out of the car before we stopped. Straight into the offy like a T1000, and he was quick to point out what he wanted. He came back with a bottle of Bushmills, a couple of four-packs of Stella and forty Dunhills. Between the whiskey, Wifebeater and full-tar nails, I reckoned it was safe to say the healthy living kick was well and truly over.

Farrell popped a can, swallowed. Nodded at the road. "Onwards, Jimmy. Find us a chipper."

Didn't look like the kind of gadgie it was safe to argue with, so I was a good boy and did what I was told, took him up to the Vegas Chippy, where I got my usual and Farrell got a fish supper so doused in vinegar the smell of it tugged at the hairs in my nose. We were going to take it back up to the flat, but a police car parked outside the block put the kibosh on that. Nobody behind the wheel, which meant there were at least two of the bastards nosing around. Farrell opened his chips and got stuck in. The growl in my gut told us to do the same, so I did.

"You leave anything incriminating up there?" said Farrell, chewing.

"Just the thirty keys of china I was holding for a mate."

Farrell stopped chewing.

"Having you on, man," I said.

He continued. "I hate guards."

"These lads aren't guards, they're bobbies. They're thick as their own shite, I'm telling you. Not a threat. We just need to wait 'em out."

"They got round here quick enough."

"We were away all night, man. And this could be owt. Could be Goose's lads got picked up and spun 'em a yarn, or else one of my neighbours saw the door busted in and played the Good Samaritan. Or they could be after someone else. It's not like I live in a fuckin' monastery – there's other people doing other things up there that might not be a hundred percent legit. So, y'know, it's not necessarily what we think it is."

"It's exactly what I think it is. O'Brien dropped a fucking twenty on us."

I picked at my teeth – there was a shred of batter that had packed itself into one of my back molars – and said, "Don't sweat it, marra. Seriously." I fished out the batter, sucked it off the end of my finger, and then looked back down at my chips. There was a fat one gagging to be eaten. "We just need to find somewhere else to hole up for a while, that's all."

"No," said Farrell. He was staring at the police car. "I know what you need to do, Jimmy."

I hammered a burp out. "Digest."

"You need to burn that car."

"Fuck off, will you?"

"C'mon, Jimmy, it'll be like the good old days. You know you want to."

I shook my head. Never pulled a burn on a police car before, and I wasn't about to do it now, either. "Don't fuck us about, Sean. I'm not an animal. I'm not about to torch a jam sandwich, am I? Give your fuckin' head a shake, man."

"But O'Brien—"

"Is after the money, isn't he? And how's he going to get that money if we're both locked up? Think about it."

Farrell thought about it. "I already told him there wasn't any money."

"And he's going to take your word for it, is he?"

"It's the truth."

"Doesn't matter. If he wants the money, he'll need to come to us."

"No."

"No?"

"We go to him."

"Alright then, that's your other option. And I might have an idea." More chips in my mouth. They were going cold. I slung the rest out the window. "This lad's fresh out of prison after a long stretch, he's not from here and from what you've said he doesn't sound like the kind of bloke who has a lot of friends ..."

"So?"

"So, he'll have to be in a halfway house, won't he? He won't have anywhere else to kip."

Farrell didn't say anything to that. He sniffed and reached behind him, popped another can of Stella. He guzzled the beer like it was mother's milk and his eyes turned to glass. Something definitely gone the way of the beast there. A vein bumped out of Farrell's temple – he was feeling the kick too much, and that kick had thrown his thinking out of whack. Drinking Stella wasn't going to help. They called that shite Wifebeater for a reason. Not so much brewed, more chemically engineered, and it had a way of bringing out the bolsh in people.

Farrell burped. He nodded at the steering wheel. "Alright. Halfway house it is."

I started the engine, pulled away from home. Farrell drained the can, chucked it out of the window and reached behind him for another. Couldn't say I wouldn't have done the same, given the circumstances. I mean, after Brenda left, that was me piss-mortal for a fuckin' month. Spent all my time reliving the bust-ups and picking at the stitches of our time together until it all snapped apart and I was convinced that she was the last good woman in my life, and she'd gone because of me. Too much said, too much done, and you couldn't put a Band Aid on a bullet wound. You only needed a glance at Farrell to see he was going through something similar. Simmering on the outside, his eyes half closed. Inside, mind, he was churning, and that was a bad combination.

What I should've said was, "You know what it is? You want to pick a fight with a fuckin' maniac, you be my guest, but you're on your own." I should've been hard about it – cruel to be kind – but I wasn't. Because when your marra's in pain, you're supposed to do something about it, even if you were sure it wasn't the right thing to do.

All this revenge bollocks, this wasn't the right thing to do. It was
understandable
– I mean, if O'Brien had done to Brenda what he'd done to Nora, then I'd be itching to hunt the prick down an' all – but it still wasn't right. One thing to draw a bead in a combat situation. You were paid to do that, and your conscience was given a good scrub by the flag you fought under. This was different. This was cold-blooded.

But it would have to be acceptable, wouldn't it? Because I couldn't think of any other way round it and, truth be told, I couldn't think of many people who deserved it more.

Someone on the radio was singing about how the sky was a prison, and the earth a grave. Last thing Farrell needed. I changed the station.

Ray Charles singing Hank Williams. You cheatin' hoor. Another change.

Some gadgie had ninety-nine problems, but a bitch wasn't one. I killed the radio.

"Have a look in the glove," I said. "See if there's owt in there you want to listen to."

Farrell slapped the glove compartment open. He picked out a Loretta Lynn CD and peered at the back. Then he nearly broke it trying to get it in the player.

"You know where these halfway houses are?" he said.

"Some of them."

"Some? How many of these fucking places are we going to have to trawl?"

"We're not. We're going to find out which one O'Brien's staying at, then we're going to go over there. There's people who know people, Sean, and I know one of those people."

"Right."

"But this time, mate, do us both a favour and keep it fuckin' shut, will you? Let me do the talking."

"Understood. I'll be good as gold, I promise."

***

Orville was an honest-to-God arsehole, and just as annoying as his fluffy green namesake. He was a pisshead with a hyper streak, delighted in dancing on everyone's last nerve like some sort of Quayside goblin, and for some reason he'd taken a shine to us. Probably because we had history, even though it was of the ancient kind.

Back in the day when times were shite and I used to spend my nights down the Sally on City Road, Orville was the closest thing I had to a best mate. Even back then, through the fuzz of a permanent drunk, I could tell he was a hopeless case. Spent most of his morning knocking it back down the river, so he was oiled and nasty by the time the office workers came down to the sandwich van. Then he'd do his best to make each and every one of them as uncomfortable as possible until he was moved along. Had to admit, like, sometimes I joined in, but only when I was three sheets. Most of the time I just watched Orville do what he did best, and there was a part of us that got off on seeing all them suits and grey-skirts try to pretend that the rasping dwarf didn't exist. After that, we'd trudge up to where they were building the new flats and sit by the river and pass a Buckfast back and forth as we muttered our litany of blame: the wrong woman (bitch), the wrong pub (shithole), the wrong friends (cunts).

In a way, if I was being honest, it was Orville that got us back on my feet. If he hadn't grabbed a hold of us while we were both sagging through a bad drunk one day and said we were kindred spirits – "
one and the fuckin' same, son
" – then I wouldn't have had that moment of total fuckin' clarity that showed us Orville as a mirror of my future self. And once I'd seen that, well, that was my arse well and truly in gear.

So I owed him. And so we kept in touch. I was never sure where he was dossing, but I knew where he'd be of a morning. And right enough, there he was one street off the Quayside, scamming a couple of quid off the bleeding heart passers-by. His usual trick was to nick a pile of
Short List
s from whatever student they had handing them out to commuters, roll them up and pass them off as copies of
The Big Issue
, selling the free magazine on at two quid a pop. On a busy morning, with good enough banter, he'd make enough to drink the afternoon away. Because if there was one thing you could count on with Orville, it was that he'd have a thirst on.

I stopped off at the corner shop to pick up a four-pack of Ace, then me and Farrell set off down the hill to the Tyne.

Orville was sat outside Malmaison with a Lidl bag at his feet. He wore a pullover under an Oxfam pinstripe suit jacket, trousers from another suit, socks that had probably been white in 1997, and market trainers. The right side of his head had lost a prolonged battle with a pair of clippers, which made him almost look fashionable. He didn't notice us for a while, too busy reading an old copy of
Heat
. Never understood his deal with that, but it wasn't like he was the kind of gadgie to have a subscription to
The Economist
, either.

"Orville," I said.

Orville grinned, showing teeth like wooden pegs. "Aaaaay, y'alreet, Jimmy-son?"

"Not so bad."

"You look like shit."

"You smell like shit."

Orville sniffed his armpit. "So I do. What a fuckin' turn-up. Borrow us a tab till Thursday. I'm gagging for a proper smoke, me."

"Menthol do you?"

"Wey aye, man. I'd suck the smoke out of a dead man's ringpiece. After dog-ends it's a fuckin' treat."

"Plenty of 'em, mind."

"What, you mean the smoking ban? Fuck that. They're smoking less and they're smoking 'em
down
. Nowt on 'em except the fibre glass, and I can't be smoking that anymore. Not with my lungs."

I gave him a tab. Orville put the menthol in his gob and patted his pockets. I chucked him my lighter. "You catching up on your reading there, Orville?"

"I need to keep on top of things, aye." He lit his tab, pointed to a photo of a skinny woman I didn't recognise. "See her? She can lose all the weight she wants, but there's no cure for ugly." He flipped a few pages. "Mind, I wouldn't chuck her out of bed for eating crackers."

"Orville's a feminist," I said to Farrell.

"Saying that like you're taking the piss," said Orville. "I'm a fuckin' sociologist, me. I know about the fuckin' high-rollers an' that, your fuckin' Pippa Middletons. I might be lying in the gutter, but I'm looking at the stars."

"A poet, too," said Farrell.

Orville looked at Farrell like he'd just noticed him standing there. "Who's he?"

"This is my friend Farrell."

"He looks like a cunt. Sounds like one an' all."

"You always were a good judge of character," I said, ignoring the glare I got from Farrell. It was his own fault for not keeping his gob shut. "We're looking for someone, Orville."

"Who?"