Chapter Five.
The weak dawn light struggled its way in through the greasy cracks of the window pane. The feeble rays illuminated the stoor that hovered languidly in the stale air. At some point Daft Pete found he’d been watching it for several minutes, his awareness returning by degrees as his numbing, narcotic, bliss thawed. The room smelled like a bad hangover, reeking of flat lager, fading nicotine and burnt matches, which tickled his taste-buds. He needed a cigarette. Brian was still on the filthy carpet, sprawled out amongst the pockmark burns, empty cans and fag ends. He was still on the nod Pete realised, as he looked around for a packet of smokes.
The coffee table had puddles of grey wax on it replete with a needle-thin blood spray stain, a few syringes, a blackened spoon, some bags of skag, and over to the end, a pack of Camels. He stretched over with a groan, slowly, as pushing himself through an invisible gel and grabbed it. Empty.
“Fuck!” he declared in an indistinct slow-motion drawl. The word came out as a string of saliva that dribbled down his lip and onto his cheek. He wiped it away. He’d have to get up, make the effort to move and go downstairs, across the road to the newsagents and buy some smokes. What a hassle.
He was still annoyed by all the effort it would take by the time he found himself at the counter paying for his cigarettes and of course the extra pack of papers. He had a thumbnail-sized bit of hash left, which would do until Brian woke and they could shoot up again. He palmed his goods and walked back out onto the street where he bumped into a large man, both in height and weight. The guy with thinning, greasy, black hair glowered at him and said. “Daft Pete. I’ve been looking for you.”
Pete immediately went into panic mode assuming this was one of the many people he’d ripped off or robbed. It took his brain a few seconds to realise it was Giddy Allerdyce. “Aye? Whit?” Pete asked.
“That lamp you an’ your pal hud th’other day, still goat it?” Allerdyce asked.
Pete stood there for a moment, trying to process the information. He had vague recollections of a lamp, but then most of his recollections were pretty vague at that moment. “Might huv, how?” He answered cagily, giving a shrug so bereft of effort it was almost unnoticeable.
“Cos I know somebody that might be interested if ye can bring it in,” Allerdyce suggested, with a pinch of menace.
It came to him, the lamp Brian had stolen, what did he call it, Ghost Light? That was it. He nodded. “Right, right. We’d want five grand fur it you know.”
Allerdyce’s scowl turned into a sneer. “Aye, I telt him that. I’ll take a cut obviously.”
Daft Pete thought about that, but not hard, his brain was still too foggy and his lust for cash overwhelming. “I suppose.”
Allerdyce was waiting for something. He loomed over Pete. “Well?”
“Well whit?” Pete asked, convinced the conversation had ended.
“When are you gonny bring it in?”
“Oh. Riiiight. Aye. I’ll ask Brian, he stashed it somewhere fur safe keeping.” Pete lied as he tried to locate his memories of the old guy who bought it. “Say the morra?”
“The morra is fine. I’ll let the guy know.”
“Aye. Cool, Giddy. Cheers, big man.” Pete said. A seed of a notion struggling to take root in his intoxicated mind, it’s soil not particularly fertile. Nevertheless, as he walked back to the squat it somehow managed to bloom as he squeezed in past the half-torn off iron security door. Excitedly, he stumbled into the filthy main room, to find Brian had not woken up, nor was Brian ever waking up. Brian had gone over, popped his clogs, overdosed. Brian was dead. Pete had seen enough O.D's in his time to know there wasn’t a chance he was going to pull through. He’d been dead for hours. Pete tried to think of the last time he knew Brian was alive, it had been mid-afternoon the day before, the first time they’d shot up after getting back from Slaters. As he rummaged through the empty shelves of his memory, he realised that Brian had been flat out like that, on the floor, the last time Pete had woken up Pete had assumed he was still out of it, and so, just shot up again.
“Shit,” Pete said as he looked at the dark blue lips of his buddy. He stood there for a second, tears stinging his dry eyeballs. He supposed he should do something, perhaps call the cops, maybe an ambulance and feign ignorance, That would be the decent thing. Brian had been a good pal after all.
Instead, he went over to the corpse and began to rifle through the dead man’s pockets; spare change. Eventually, he discovered all the money in the deceased’s jacket and counted it. There was three thousand two hundred pounds in total and Pete hissed. “Cheatin’ junkie fuck.”
He gave Brian’s corpse a hard, angry kick to the head. Raging at Brian’s betrayal, he decided to pick up the drugs, his works and, making sure he had everything of value, left the hovel. He needed somewhere better to hole up, he had a plan to enact.
Two roads down, in a pub of ill-repute and unhealthy clientele, Barry Figgis looked at Skinner in such a way that Skinner wondered if the big man was going to start something. He kind of hoped Figgis would and kept his left hand inside the tracksuit pocket, poked through the hole he’d cut, and grasped the handle of the machete he’d taped to his leg. He’d made the blade himself. It was razor sharp and so he’d taped about a meter of inch thick gauze to the outside of his thigh, to stop it tearing his legs to shreds. He needed to finish working on the leather sheath he was making.
Figgis stood up, his beer-gut almost toppling the wobbly table and the pint glass on it. His scowl pushed his eyebrows into the bridge of his nose like two squat sausages. “No’ here,” was all he said before cocking his head in a gesture, directing Skinner behind the bar.
“Right,” Skinner said. He felt slightly relieved and disappointed but headed towards the counter. Figgis waddled over and opened the door into the back of the pub. Skinner followed him and was escorted into a small bathroom where Figgis turned on both taps. “The water fucks up the bugs,” He explained.
“Who’s bugging you?” Skinner asked.
“Dunno if any cunt’s buggin’ me but it pays tae be cautious, eh? Figgis said.
Skinner half shrugged, half nodded. “I suppose so. So, you wanted 10 grams right?”
“Aye. You know that stuff is so pure you could charge double, don’t you?” Figgis offered.
“It’s a sideline Barry, costs me peanuts, everybody’s getting fat off it, gives me a good reputation, that’s worth more than the coke, in my book anyway,” Skinner answered.
“Still, five hundred quid of ten grams of uncut charlie. I feel like I’m robbin’ ye.” Figgis said.
Skinner thought it was rather fair of him to say so and noted that. Figgis was someone he could work with in the future. “No, it’s fine, Barry,” he answered.
Figgis pulled back the heavy cistern lid of the toilet and pulled out a wet plastic bag filled with notes. He unknotted it and started counting out twenties. “So, I had somethin’ tae ask you,” he began.
“Ask away.” Skinner said.
“Well, rumour has it you’re, tae quote Mental Dunkie “A spooky bastard”.”
“There are always rumours, Barry. You know that.” Skinner answered.
“Aye that’s true, gangsters talk mer shite than those auld birds that spend aw day in the laundrettes. Even so, you’ve got a bit of a reputation fur spooky shit. Ye know that. I mean look at the state Dunkie wis left in. Ah heard that you...”
“Where are you going with this, Barry?” Skinner asked. He didn’t want to hear about Dunkie. He’d heard enough rumours, enough fingers pointed his way. The truth was Dunkie’s boys had tried to rob him, made a mistake and went on a rampage three flats down from one of his safehouses. All he knew was that Dunkie had gone off the rails and his top enforcer, one violent arsehole by the name of Gordon Harper, had disappeared off the face of the Earth. That was all he wanted to know.
“Well, ma sister’s wee lassie Olivia, she’s wan o’ they goths.”
“Aye, and?”
“Couple of months back she meets some guy in the Cathoose. Faw’s heid oor heels wae the prick. Cunt says he’s a black magician, aw that bollocks. Anyway, within the month, she’s moved oot of her mother’s hoose and is shackin’ up wae the wee cunt oor in Craigton. He’s got a semi by the cemmy. The sister’s aw cut up aboot it, Olivia’s only sixteen an’ a daft wee bitch at the best o’ times. So I’m like, ‘there’s nothin’ tae be done.’ That wis until I start hearin’ that the fucker’s oot pimpin’ her.”
“Christ,” Skinner said. “That’s a bad scene right there, Barry.”
“Ah know, right? Thing is, I’m no huvin’ that. So I send oor two characters tae sort the wee fucker oot. No heard a peep fae them in days. They’ve just vanished.”
“You didn’t pay them up front did you?” Skinner asked.
“Come on, I’m no that stupit. Besides, these were hard fuckers, so I get tae thinkin’ whit if the wee cunt is involved wae the black arts efter aw?”
“I think I see where you’re going with this.” Skinner said. Two events in two days. The lamp and now this. It might be nothing, but as Figgis had said, it paid to be cautious.
“Aye? So, you’ll check it oot? I mean I’ll pay ye top dollar.”
“You’ll pay me nothing, don’t be daft. I’ll do it as a favour.” Skinner said.
Figgis slapped the drug money into Skinner’s hand and then shook it. “You’re a weird lookin’ bugger Skinny, but you’re a decent bugger,” Figgis said.
Skinner laughed and raised his eyebrows, the look that said: “Are you serious?”
Figgis joined in with the laughter. “Aw yer a sick fuck, nae doubt about that, but you know whit I meant.”
“I do. So, give me the details.”
Comments
Post a Comment