Cleaning Up (3 page)

He nodded, ‘yeah, I did, and?’

‘Gypsy Keith, Keithy Dalton - you remember him from bloody way back now?’

He did and the name still fitted the face. Tommy nodded at his old man

‘Thought you would, with that bloody memory of yours. Haven’t seen that fucker for nearly twenty years,’ Mick said, ‘he’s not changed no doubt. Trouble, he is.’

His old man was right about that, Keith Dalton; a connected drug dealer, fence, a card skimmer, a sometime bare knuckled fighter back in his youth and a reputed procurer of young kids. He had a colourful CV alright did Keithy. Tommy remembered that Dalton had gone away some time ago for a two year stretch, sent down for glassing some guy in that poxy old pub near the central railway station. But that had to be a fair time ago now. He’d have a chat with Sonny about it next time they caught up. Keithy might be clocking on a bit to be involved with the street stuff. But, given the company he was still keeping, who knows?

Tommy got a text around half ten. Chris and Jimbo were in Piccolos. Did he fancy it? It was only a ten-minute cab ride away. The bar was home to a mixed straight and gay crowd - what passed for the city’s bohemia. And there was always more than a smattering of talent in there. He had a quick one with the old man and told him of his of plans.

‘Piccolos,’ Mick vented, ‘bloody Piccolos, a bloody wine bar! Ten bob millionaires and over priced piss.’

Mick wouldn’t be joining him then. ‘Be careful in there Tom,’ Nev offered, ‘you don’t want to have one of those el-o-el- a- la Lola - moments.’

They had a good laugh at that, although it crossed Tommy’s
mind that a few of the Piccolo trannies were convincing enough to have turned plenty of heads in the Crown. He kept that thought to himself, there were audiences and there were audiences.

The cab quickly arrived, the driver calling out his name as he walked in through the doors. He necked his Guinness with a couple of hungry gulps and made his way out. As he did so he overheard Danny commenting to his old man.

‘He’s reight your lad Mick in’t he…sorted like.’ From Danny ‘Drink’ Gorman there was no higher compliment.

Darrin’s dad had worked him hard on the pads for nearly half an hour and then the crew had worked him over with pints and chasers in the cop friendly boozers around the centre of town, and down along the rough holes on Argylle Street. At Trish’s suggestion they had ended up at Piccolos. She seemed to love hanging out with gay boys and the drag queens. He’d only been in there with her the one time before, just after their festive shag and he had spent an arse clenching hour making sure that the shirt lifters weren’t checking him out. She’d disconcerted him further by telling him in front of a couple of her gay mates that she was a queer man in a woman’s body - the three of them laughing uproariously at his ill concealed discomfort. All in all it had not exactly been conducive to a relaxing night out.

He was glad that he had given it another go though. It had been more of a mixed crowd last night, the place packed but refreshingly good humoured. He had to admit there was some quality skirt in there too. Barnesy had teased him a little about going over to chat with a couple of drag queens and he’d held Barnesy’s eyes a little longer than usual to let him know that
it would be wise to drop it. Turned out that Ged Keegan, who was in the bar when they had arrived, knew the ‘girls’ in question and Ged had silently took Barnesy at his word and ambled over to chew the fat with the gaudy pair. That move had left Barnesy a little querulous and wide-eyed - rocking the skinny, bandy legged fucker’s world right enough. Keegan had leant in close to the pair to make himself heard over the babble that bounced off the low ceiling of the bar. A nudge, a wink and that irritating thing he sometimes did whenever the crew were out on the piss - twisting his closed hand in front of his nose along with a pursed lip look in Darrin and Barnesy’s direction had set the pair off. The two of them laughing like a pair of drains, as lady like as a pair of old school tag-team wrestlers. Keegan, according to Trish, was mates with the owners; a couple of blokes that had previously owned a ‘celebrity’ hair and beauty salon down near the city’s coach station. Darrin never knew where he was with that ham-hocked fucker, who didn’t need to be chatting up a couple of drag queens to be disconcerting. Keegan had been a detective, a very successful one at that, for twenty plus years now. The brass gave him plenty of leash and he had the rep of a one man wrecking crew - plenty of beef yet very light on his feet. A formidable fucker was Ged, always comfortable in his own skin, seemingly relaxed and easy going but with the unmistakeable purr of a big engine. Darrin had to work hard at just appearing to be himself whenever the big man was around.

He’d also caught a glimpse of Tommy Cochrane. Tommy was still looking good, chilled and at ease, out and about with a couple of his mates. His dad still mentioned Tommy now and again. The old man had known the Cochranes since Tommy was a nipper. He was thinning a little on top but yeah, he
looked good, colour in his face and plenty of size in his shoulders and chest, it looked like he still had plenty under the hood too. Trish had broken the train of thought - his pencil sketches of handy, capable middle-aged men. She’d grabbed his arm and swayed into him, pulling him into the circle to make him listen to another one of Choppy’s slightly off colour jokes.

Come one o’clock and he had been more than ready to pull the plug. He was working tomorrow and starting to flag after a long day and a busy week. Barnesy was on next day’s early shift and he needed no persuading in joining him to make tracks and they had left the joint together. Darrin was hungry and the kebab shop on the High Street was just around the corner from the bar, but there was too much of a queue in there to justify the wait. He’d do a couple of those mini pizzas when he got home.

They made their way up to the top end of the street, dodging through the still surging hordes of the marauding piss heads. They walked up the incline to the Maria that was parked across the middle of the road making sure that there would be no through traffic. It was pedestrians only on the Golden half-mile of the town’s boozy epicentre on both Friday and Saturday nights.

Travers, Sarge Collins and Jolika were guarding the van. The three of them had drawn short straw duty tonight. Out of politeness and comradeship, he and Barnesy chewed the fat with them for a little while and Jolika had given him a couple of nice smiles, which made him forget about the mini pizzas for a while. Apparently, it had been a relatively quiet night, which explained why the three of them looked so chilled out. There had been one dust up in the nearest taxi rank but the taxi marshalls had pretty much nipped that in the bud. Although,
as Travers pointed out, the marshalls themselves could be cause for plenty of concern. It was too cold to be hanging around. His feet were starting to numb and they said their good nights and made their way back to the nearest rank. A couple of blowsy, pissed up girls were already in the queue and the marshalls briefly interrupted their wit and repartee with the lasses to gave them their due nods of recognition and respect.

It was an Asian bloke who picked them up, a young guy playing some noisy beats per minute. Darrin asked him to turn it down and the young guy did, not mithered at all by the request. The three men shared silence and the melded fug of sweat and a little too much after-shave as they smoothly drove away from the roiling blather of the city centre.

Tommy had no plans for the weekend and that was just fine, if it cleared up maybe he’d take a trip over the tops to catch up with Wayne. If not he’d relax and have a people free day, maybe go down Doug May’s gym later on and have a workout with the old goat. He’d seen Dougy’s young lad clocking him last night. He’d thought about going over for a chat but young Daz was with a gaggle of plod and they’d stood out like a turd in a spa with their un-groovy haircuts and try hard denims. He knew Big Ged from the old days, Tommy reckoned that DS Keegan had to be up in his mid fifties by now. He had been a wild one had Ged, with plenty of rep for being handy on the cobbles. There was a time when the big man could have gone either way but being a copper seemed to be enough of a valve for his particular energies. Keegan had seen him early in the piece and tipped him a wink. Tommy didn’t bother going over for a chat though, underneath the bristling bonhomie Keegan was heavy company and it would be too much like shop talk.

Jimbo had insisted that they engage with a table full of obviously married women. He’d indulged him and one of the ladies had been obviously interested. She was nice on the eye but he didn’t fancy being somebody’s cheap frisson for the night. She backed off quickly, so no fuss either way. He liked the crowd in Piccolos and the relaxed good will and expansive cheer reminded him of some of the bars that he frequented with Bonnie during his time in the very gay friendly bars of inner-city Sydney. There was some prudent muscle on the door, a couple of polite bouncers that maintained a friendly but rigorous door policy. It was enough to keep the numb nuts and thrill seeking gawpers away.

He’d had some fun watching Jimbo at work. His mate slipping through the gears with his well honed patter, the lad fully engrossed in the game. Jimbo was forty five going on twenty two, incorrigible, unsinkable and daft as a brush.

The chat with the ladies had made his mind wander onto his current ‘hobby’- the trawling of internet dating sites. He’d vowed to stay off the computer over this weekend, although he knew that it was a promise that he was likely to break. What was once a (too) easy way to kill time and assuage the loneliness was now beginning to shade into ‘must do’ addiction. He was spending hours cruising dating sites of the down-market variety, engaging in virtual chat with strangers, cock out of his pants whilst sitting at the keyboard. His mind had even started to go there whilst he was at work too. Tommy knew that he was tumbling towards risky behaviour.

So, he stoically resolved, breakfast, and then he’d get stuck into some housework. An hour later and he was done and it had just started to rain. He glanced at the computer and then, with a reproachful snort, he made his way into the bedroom to
grab his gym gear. Dougy would sort him out, he was better than bromide that grizzled old sod.

It had been a toss weekend. Mum had kept him on the leash for the full duration. The only concession that she’d allowed him was the Xbox and he’d had to play it up in his fucking room. He was up there for hours whilst she played her dopey tunes in the lounge, sitting there on the sofa hogging the phone, busy doing nothing other than chatting at excruciating length with her girlfriends.

Pasquale had no credit on his mobile either so he couldn’t text the boys to find out what was going on. He thought about knocking hers off and getting a message to M or Junior, he knew that there was going to be a party down on the Barrington tonight. In his ongoing frustration he’d toyed again with the notion of leaving home, luxuriating in the thought of being able to do exactly what he wanted to do when he wanted to do it. But, he couldn’t really think past the act of leaving, and, if he pushed it, he felt a kind of vertigo, spinning out with the uncertainty of it. He was more than anxious about that uncertainty, in fact it scared him shitless.

Matty had talked about getting a place of his own. The prick was starting to make some real spends now too, muling smoke for the bigger lads on the estate. He’d shown them a fan of twenties over at his place, M had to have been carrying about four ton there at least. The older boys were moving smoke, crack and ice and, according to M, there was plenty of it to be moved. Matt loved to talk about the older boys being ‘mobbed up’ but you never knew with him what was bullshit and what was real. He could say both within the same sentence. But he and Junior couldn’t mask the fact that they were
impressed and whenever he thought about it he felt giddy with the possibilities that such money would give him.

She ordered in a pizza on the Saturday night and then cooked him his favourite meal on Sunday afternoon. They watched a movie together in the evening and they’d even had a bit of a laugh together. Fuck it he’d go in to school tomorrow - keep the peace.

Tommy had taken the old man over the tops for lunch on the Sunday. Pub grub washed down with a couple of pints. His old man was eating like a bird these days, a couple of tastes of the steak pud, a few chips and a desultory stab at the vegetables - Mick had never been that big on his greens. Tommy was as hungry as a horse after his workout with Dougy and he cleaned up the old man’s plate too - Mick watching on with a fond, tolerant amusement.

His dad wanted a cig’ after the meal so they went outside and sat on the bench that was just to the left of the entrance of the pub.

‘Ta for that son, nice grub that. It’s a bloody grand day eh?’

‘Yeah it’s a good-un alright Mick, nary a cloud in the sky.’

His dad turned and smiled at that. ‘Pity there’s not more of them. You going to go back then son, get out of this bloody shithole?’

His old man hadn’t mentioned that for a while and Tommy was taken off guard by it - surprised by the lack of context. It was a conversation that they had been having on and off for the last twenty odd years.

‘Probably Mick, probably, no rush at the moment though, I reckon.’

His dad jutted his jaw, he removed a non existent flake of
tobacco from his lower lip then took another tug on his gasper.

‘Don’t let it slip away son. I know you’ve got the job here now but, bloody hell.’

Tommy didn’t reply, they both knew why he was still here.

They passed a few quiet moments together. His Dad smoked down the fag, crushed the dimp underfoot then stiffly scooped down to pick it up off the floor.

‘Fancy another then Dad?’

‘You alright for the driving like?’

‘On top of all that grub, no problem.’

‘Bugger it then son eh - why not?’

Tommy did the honours and took their beers back on outside. He handed the old man his and they sat and drank in an easy silence, the pair of them gazing over at the wide valley that unfolded to the south of the pub, taking in the view of the variegated greens and the stone walls that latticed the near and distant hills.