Wolf Tickets (6 page)

"Fuck d'you think you're doing? I was watching that."

Farrell cupped an ear. "Sorry, Mr. Goose, I didn't hear you on account of your pornography was turned up too loud."

Goose jerked in his chair. "You what?"

"Farrell," I said.

"See? It's playing havoc with
his
hearing, too."

"Farrell-man—"

Farrell smacked the table, sent it flipping into the air. It landed somewhere behind him, knocking something fragile over and smashing it. Goose's mouth went like a cat's arse and he made a move for his shirt, but Farrell got there first. Grabbed Goose's fingers and twisted, dipping in for the gun with the other hand. Goose screamed. Farrell brought out the gun, held it up out of reach, and then let go of Goose's hand. Goose snatched his fingers back, his face all crumpled up.

"Broke me fuckin' fingers, you fuckin'—"

"You don't know anyone who sells guns, do you?"

Goose glared at us. "I thought you was a decent bloke, Jimmy. I thought you knew where the line was drawn."

"Don't project onto him." Farrell shucked the cylinder from the .38 snub. "You're the one caught in a lie."

"Goose," I said, "I'm sorry."

"What you sorry for?" said Farrell.

"You, you mental twat. Listen, Goose, let's be fuckin' civilised about this, alright? Try not to chuck an eppy or owt."

"Chuck an eppy? I don't know this cunt from Adam and he comes in here, breaks me fuckin' hand—"

"Oh, it's your whole hand now, is it?"

"And now he's waving me fuckin'
gun
around—"

"I'm not waving it around."

"You fuckin' well are, you bog-trotting shitehawk. You know I would've took you right down if it wasn't for me leg."

"Or lack thereof." Farrell shook the bullets from the cylinder, dropped them into his jacket pocket, and clicked the gun closed. Then he started messing on with the hammer, thumbing it back and letting it settle slowly onto the firing pin. All of this while he pointed the gun right at Goose. And even though it was empty, Goose was still shitting it.

"You keep it nice," said Farrell. "Where'd you get it?"

The hammer clicked down. Goose jerked his chair away from Farrell, knocked over a pile of videos. "Pair of youse can get fucked."

"Howeh, Goose," I said. "Don't be like that."

"
You
in particular."

"I'm sorry about Farrell. I already said I was sorry about him, alright?"

"That doesn't make it better."

"Lookuh, he's just in a hurry, so he's not as polite as he could be."

"I'm being polite," said Farrell. "He's the one having a tantrum."

"Fuck yourself."

"See what I mean?" Farrell held up the gun. "You should be thanking me, Mr. Goose. This gun, you keep it nice and everything, but it's too old to be handling the kind of round you had wedged into it. I'll tell you straight, if you'd have drawn and fired this just now, you'd have a blown barrel and a hand to match your leg there."

Goose kept quiet. A vein throbbed in the side of his head.

"So, you know, you're welcome."

"Fuck you."

"Close enough."

"How much do you want for the gun?" I said.

"Fuck you an' all."

"Is this the dark place you were telling me about?" said Farrell.

I put hands on Farrell then, pushed him out towards the door before Goose launched at him. I shoved Goose back into his chair, pointed at Farrell, nodded for him to fuck off out the house. Stared at him until he moved. Which took a while, because Farrell was a stubborn bastard.

"Get that fuckin' bastard back in here," said Goose.

I rolled my shoulders. "Listen, Goose—"

"You're dead, you know that, don't you?"

The speech, the one I had all prepared, the one about us just having a lend of the gun for a bit, and how we could bring it back in a couple days and nobody would know any different, that went out the window as soon as Goose said that. Because all I could see right then was the nasty little prick who'd shown us that Polaroid of himself with his cock in a dead Argie's mouth.

"You walk out of here, you
steal
from us, I'll fuckin' come for you. I'll fuckin'
find
you."

I took a deep breath. It smelled rotten in here. "You do, and you know what'll be waiting."

"You what, a fuckin' sock full of batteries?"

I went to the door. Goose's voice got louder.

"You charva fuckin' cunt, you think I'm scared of
you
? Wasn't so long ago you would've choked on my length for a fuckin' gram bag."

I left the front door standing open.

"Fuckin' Cromwell had the right idea!"

I went to the car. I could hear him shouting still, but I didn't know what he was saying. Couldn't hear much over the thump in my napper. I tried to unlock the driver's door, but my hand wouldn't stay still.

Looked up, and there was Farrell watching us.

"Jimmy," he said.

"I'm fine." I pulled the door open. "You got what you came for, so lash on."

There was no talk on the drive back to Cobb's flat. No music, either. He stared straight ahead the whole journey, his eyes shadowed by a heavy frown. As soon as we got back to the flat, Cobb made for the kitchen. I heard the cap spin from the bottle of whisky, watched Cobb return to the doorway and give me a murderous look.

"Okay, I'll say it: thank you, Jimmy."

"For what?" Cobb pushed off the doorway and went over to the couch. "I never did nowt, me. I never got him all riled up. I never nicked his gun. All I fuckin' did was stand around like a spare dick."

"You and him had some history."

"Fuck me, you're perceptive."

"Anything you want to tell me?"

"No."

"Is he dangerous?"

"He's in a wheelchair." Cobb took a large gulp from the bottle, showed his teeth. "How dangerous can a gadgie in a wheelchair be, eh?" He waved one hand. "He's a pussycat, man. All mouth, no trousers. One leg, plenty of bad dreams, fucker's a mess. Watch, you give it a night and he'll have forgotten about us."

"Sure?"

"No." said Cobb. "But it doesn't matter now, does it?"

"I should've stayed on the bench."

"You should've stayed in the fuckin'
car
." Cobb rubbed at the side of his head, then took another swig. "Nah, you know what, it doesn't fuckin' matter. I mean, I ever get back on the coke, I'm fucked for a dealer, but I suppose it's closure, isn't it? Not like I didn't need it. Never liked it that much in the first place. I know you're a fan, but I drink a dozen double espressos I turn into the same kind of gibbering cunt as I used to on the coke. Costs less an' all. So, no, Sean, it's all good, don't you worry." He put the bottle on the floor, lifted one cheek from the couch and felt around in his back pocket. "Fuck's sake, I left my tabs in the car."

I threw my Silk Cuts at him. Cobb picked up the pack, pulled a cigarette out.

"I never got the whole Ultra thing."

"Rip off the filter."

Cobb ripped off the filter, lit the rest with my lighter. He took a couple of puffs. "Shite."

"So you going to tell me?"

"About what?"

"The coke."

"I just did."

"That's not the whole story."

"Aye, it is."

"What, you were on it bad and now you're not?"

"In a nutshell."

"Fuck off," I said. I knew Cobb better than he knew himself. He wasn't going to brush this off. He was one of those blokes, had themselves a full-on addictive personality. "There's more to this. You haven't changed."

"How the fuck would you know?" Cobb squinted, the cigarette pointing upwards. "Been years, man. You been off doing whatever in Galway, shacked up with that runaway bitch of yours and fuck Jimmy Cobb, leave
him
to fuckin' rot." He plucked the cigarette from his mouth, swigged from the bottle. A thin trickle of whisky ran down the side of his face. He wiped at it before he sucked on the Silk Cut again, speaking through his teeth. "You recall, marra, we never spoke again after I came round. You was all hitched up and happy. I might as well have been dead, man."

"Don't be so bloody melodramatic, Jimmy."

"Only reason you're here now is you need something from us."

"No."

"No?"

"That's not true."

"Howeh, then, tell us what you're here for."

"Thought I'd come and see how you were getting on."

"You what?" Cobb shook his head. "You can't even come up with a good lie, man." He sniffed. "I don't even fuckin' care, anyway. You wanted a gun, you got a gun. What now?"

"Well, I think I know where she's going."

"Where?"

I lit a cigarette. Puffed a couple. Cobb was right; they did taste like shit. "She's after the two hundred grand."

Cobb sucked some whisky from his bottom lip. "Thought you said it was twenty she took."

"It was. But she's after the two hundred we collected in our squaddie days."

"Huh," said Cobb, nodding. "Alright. Here's the thing, I thought I had a handle on our squaddie days, Sean, and for some reason I don't recall us having two hundred thousand pounds at any point. See, I wouldn't be robbing the spastics if I had that kind of change."

"You don't."

"I know I fuckin' don't."

"And neither do I."

Cobb opened his mouth, then closed it. Then he said, "Fuck are you blethering on about?"

Smoke drifted into my eyes. I waved it away and blinked water. Flicked ash into an empty stubbie bottle. "I told Nora we had two hundred stashed away."

"You never."

"I did."

"Why?"

I blew out a long stream of smoke, held my hand out for the bottle. I took a belt of the Rotgut and it tasted even worse than I remembered – battery acid with a hint of wet dog. I coughed, handed the bottle back and leaned over to wipe my eyes. Smiled because I had to.

"Well?" said Cobb.

"Because I wanted to be big time, Jimmy. That's why I told her. Because I wanted her to think I was someone special."

And Cobb burst out laughing.

Oh, howeh, I fuckin' had to, didn't I? Tell you, that bird had him pure whipped if he was telling her stories like that. I never saw the attraction myself, but fair play to this Nora lass, there must've been something about her that made a grown man like Farrell act like a teenager trying to get his tops.

"Man, you're a daft bastard, you are. Fuckin' special is right. You want to give your fuckin' head a shake, man."

I took a big drink from the Rotgut. Looked back at Farrell and the gadgie looked about a hundred. Disgusting and pitiful. How the mighty had fallen.

"You know what happened," I said.

"I know," he said.

"You lost the plot because you got your end away. That's bad form, man."

"I know," he said again, this time with an edge in his voice like it was my fault he was a twat.

"So howeh then, you going to tell us where this mother lode is?"

Farrell looked up from the carpet. "Right where you shot me."

"Your left shoulder?"

"You know what I mean."

"You're never going to let that lie, are you? It's not like I did it on purpose. Fuckin' bygones, man."

I was a different bloke back then, into the powder and firearms in a big way. Amazing that the pair of us ever got away with the amount of jobs we did with me bristling like that all the fuckin' time, but there you go.

This particular time was after the post office in Carlisle. We'd been tooled up for that one, carried a mean-looking handgun and a fresh sawn-off. Menacing stuff. One shot to the ceiling and the rest took care of itself. You'd be surprised how quick people can move with shite in their kecks.

Course, we still needed somewhere to lie low for a bit after. There was this mate of mine, Baz, he specialised in that kind of thing. He had a load of caravans up around Sandy Bay, all of them spaced out so the nearest neighbour was about a mile away. Nice and private. And because I was a mate, I was promised a double-wide. What I ended up getting was a two-berth tin can that shook like a dog shitting razor blades when the wind blew. Which it did. A lot. And that was the least of its problems. The floor was greasy and there was a smell of old beef coming from the fridge. It was the kind of place you'd have to be piss-mortal to stay in, so we set about achieving that state as soon as possible.

After a while, it got a bit tight in there. Only so many times you can play gin rummy before it loses its fuckin' lustre. So I reckoned fuck this for a game of soldiers, I was going to trot out into the marl and get some shooting done. Had enough booze in my system to get a bit reckless, enough empties to line up as targets and a loaded revolver that was going to be unloaded now or as soon as Farrell's snoring got on my last fuckin' nerve.