Filth (37 page)

I think you’re a smarmy wee cunt. – Don’t see why not Ray, can’t do any harm, I nod.

Ray Lennox now, after our job. Ray Cuntybaws Lennox. Big Dick Lennox in the canteen and the club. Arselick Lennox in Toalie’s office. Shitey-drawers Shrivelled-knob Lennox when it come doon tae the action wi ma hoor ay a sister-in-law.

Treacherous Ray Lennox.

– Not a bad idea Ray, we wheezingly repeat, – can’t do any harm . . . puts a marker for the future.

– That’s it Robbo, just fly up a wee kite to let them know who Ray Lennox is, the cunt smiles and chops up more cocaine.

Criminal Lennox.

When he goes to the toilet I watch the hoor-house red cushion covers on his settee retreat under the implacable heat from the end of my cigarette. I do a few more of these, then turn it over.

Merry Christmas Mister Lennox.

Christmas Shopping

Cuntybaws Lennox, having dropped the bombshell that he’s trying to take my fuckin job, then has the audacity to all but chuck me out into the snow as he’s off to the paternal home for Christmas. Fuck’um: I need to Christmas shop anyway. They’re open late tonight. I have a pint in Alan Anderson’s old boozer, then repair to the bogs where I chop up a huge line on the cistern and snort it back. I need it to brave this shopping hell. I get down to the St James’s Centre. I have to use the coke energy to shop. Christmas fuckin Eve. Need tae get something for the bairn . . .

C&A’s catches my eye, as I need to get some new flannels. All my others are getting a bit smelly and I refuse to wear jeans as it’s the mark of a schemie. I grab a pair of fawn ones which look like my size, twenty-eight waist, medium leg, and I shakily hand over my credit card. The Visa credit limit is fucked, and I face up to the humiliation of the rejection. I pay it by Switch, and get the fuck out of here, loudly announcing as I go, – Cash flow, that’s all. Professional. Not a schemie. Man of wealth! Man of wealth!

But the vultures are circling. I can’t face that fucking Toys Я Us place. Where now . . . where now . . .

Fuckin John Lewis.

JOHN LEWIS STORE GUIDE: LADIES’ FASHIONS

I’ll maybe get something for Carole. Something nice. A Christmas Carole.

I can’t hack this though, the crowds and all that shite. I do another big line in the store bogs.

I’m still losing it outside because I’m standing alone (can we stand any other way) and they’re flying past in all directions those shoppers in John Lewis’s those eyes everyplace but mine just please look at me and one bitch in leather troosers does then averts her gaze to the OTHER GOODS heading for HABERDASHERY KNITTING WOOLS CUSTOMERS COLLECTIONS DRESS FABRICS DRESS PATTERNS . . . I say madam, go one floor up just past CARDS and LOST SOULS

Then I see it: £2.35 for a black, paper gift bag to put small gifts into . . . gifts . . . gifts for gifts . . . better to give than to receive . . . still to come . . . the fact, sweating midget spitting tersely into his mobby . . . the vacant procession of sheep up the escalator . . . the big cow you want to just scream GIES A FUCKIN SHAG at or even just look at me please police please please look at me

And I feel the hand on my arm and somebody’s asking if I am alright sir and I pull away and whip out my ID and snarl: – Police! please me like I please you . . . and then I move away through the house of the lord this great temple of worship to our God of Christian givingness spendingness consumer expenditureness business competitiveness shop and cheat deathness and into the street where the excluded jakeys beg for pennies . . .

last night I said those words to poor Ray

Our Shirt she reckons you’re a crap lay

fuck off, fuck off, fuck off, fuck off please police me oh yeah

like I police you

I’m fucked and I’m away hame wi nae fuckin presents expect my Man At C&A’s flannels.

Nae presents.

Naebody tae gie them tae anyway.

No way will I sleep. No way. I chop out a line and watch some porn. I’m unable to raise a wank though and it depresses me. I put my decomposing prick away and watch some of the Saturday night programmes I’ve taped.
Jim Davidson’s Generation Game
. Davidson’s a good comic. He keeps the trash in their place but the ponces at the BBC don’t let him show his full range. It passes the time until the twilight comes and it’s safe for me to crash.

Not Crashing

But I couldn’t crash.

So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody’s having fun . . .

Some might be, but others, we have work to do. These OTA 1–7 forms won’t complete themselves, worse luck. So I’m out, bright and early, with Gus Bain and we’re cruising deserted streets, looking for a bit of action. The wide cunts will never ease up for something as trivial as Christmas, so neither do we.

It’s no difficult to find your fuckin fly-boys in this city. You’ve got the Leith ones, the Gorgie ones, the South Side ones and the Tollcross ones, although the latter two are fewer now thanks to the redevelopment of the city centre. Theatre and student types have colonised the South Side, with business sorts doing the same to Tollcross.

Ignore the Schemies: these cunts are a law unto themselves. As long as they stey oot ay the city centre, they can kill each other as much as they like on cheap bevvy, fags, drugs and high-cholesterol food. Zero tolerance of crime in the city centre; total laissez-faire in the schemie hinterlands. That’s the way forward for policing in the twenty-first century. Tony Blair’s got the right idea: get those jakey beggars out of the city centres. Dispossessed, keep away . . . we don’t want you at our par-tay . . .

Gus and I are both early birds. I couldn’t kip so that was me. If only I could sleep, but I get the voices in my heid at night and then I start thinking of that thing inside me, eating my guts out. Too many anxiety attacks at night. I wish it was daylight for twenty-four hours. Gus seldom sleeps as well, less so now that the promotion is on the line. We both want to be seen in early. I sometimes leave my car in the car park just to give that illusion. You don’t need to do fuck all, as long as you’re seen to be in early and to leave late. This tactic paid handsome dividends for Toal who was known as an incompetent officer. Look at that cunt now though. But he’ll fuckin well ken.

The first thing Gus said to me on this dull, cold morning was: – Merry Christmas Bruce.

– You n aw Gus.

Christmas Day. Gus wants to start early and finish early for the family dinner. I want to start early and never fucking finish.

– What’s yir plans fir the day then Bruce? he asks.

– The usual family stuff Gus. Yirsel?

– Aye, me too. Edith’s cooking a huge turkey. She’s got Malcom’s wife, Sarah, helping her oot. They’ve got the two wee ones. Then Angus and Fiona are coming over. They’ve just got the one wee lassie. Edith’ll be makin that mulled wine ay hers. We’ll aw be a wee bit tipsy this afternoon. I thought, best just get oot fae under everybody’s feet until it’s aw ready.

I nod knowingly.

I mind of Edith, Gus’s wife. I’ve met her a few times. A cheery soul. Her and mister big-cock Gus wi their family Christmas. Nae wonder the auld hag’s always got a dopey smile on her face. Any hoor gitting that length ay Gus’s fuckin well would. See her mind you: stinking carrion dressed as mutton. I almost feel sorry for auld Gus. It’s nae good huvin the biggest widdin spoon in the kitchen if you’re only using it tae stir the same auld fusty pot ay broth that has long since gone off the boil. So sayeth Bruce Robertson.

Anyway, we’re checking on a morning opening bar doon Leith. One part of the bar is full of polis from the Leith cop shop. Same rules apply in the early opening salons, Christmas fuckin Day or no. They’re mostly uniformed spastics who’ve just knocked off, therefore not worth talking to, but it’s fun to dish out the odd terse, serious nod which makes them para that there’s some internal investigation going on and some of the more corrupt cunts finish their drinks quickly and move on. We dismisseth them. I recognise a couple of faces from the craft; one cunt who I never even knew was polis.

We’re looking over at the other side of the bar which is populated by the criminal classes. I recognise one face at the pool table straight away. A Begbie, definitely. I’m not sure which one, Joseph or Francis or Sean or some other filthy pape name. They all look the same. I think it’s Francis, the worst one. A nasty piece of work. The bastard looks up, then turns away back to the table. That bastard’s so paranoid that if you were to casually ask him in a boozer if he remembers where he was when John Lennon was shot, he’d say that he was playing pool up The Volley and he had loads of witnesses.

But there’s no sign of my pal Ocky. Tisk, tisk, tisk, as they say in the comics. – Maybe get a bit of brekker in, Gus, then hit the spastic’s gaff. See if he’s still stoatin-the-baw.

– Right Bruce, Gus smiles.

Yep, auld Gus is a good old boy. A grandfaither who dotes on his grandchildren, but still one of the most feared interrogators in Christendom. That’s the great thing aboot cunts like Gus, it’s no just a job tae them. He’s a churchy guy and genuinely hates crime and law-breaking. His problem though is he can demonstrate a bit too much Christian compassion at times.

We hit a greasy spoon, a place we know down by the docks. Again, it’s always open, Christmas Day or no. Thank fuck for those places. – What do you think of Ray Lennox putting his name forward for the job? I ask.

– Well, I can see young Ray’s point: it marks his card for the future.

– To me it shows lack of respect for the likes of us Gus. It’s his way of saying he doesnae rate us.

– You reckon?

– I thought that you’d be mair fucked off than anyone: a classic recruitment tactic to narrow the field. If you’ve a choice of three it’s harder than a choice of two. So it was me, you or Arnott. Forget Inglis. No way they’d take a pansy on.

Gus nods intently, concern starting to show in his eyes.

– Now Lennox goes and throws his hat intae the ring. What do the cunts on the board say? They go: It was bad enough with a choice of three, but now it’s four. So the standard tactic is to take the youngest and the oldest and knock them out, just don’t consider them, soas you only have to choose between two. I should be thanking the wee cunt, he’s just eliminated the favourite, that’s you, I point at him, raising my eyebrows in a baleful expression.

Gus looks flabbergasted. – What the fuck . . .

– It’s an auld ploy Gus; as I said, standard Personnel practices. Same rules apply. Probably been advised by that silly wee lassie Drummond. That’s how she goat her stripes, overhauling the Personnel procedures. C’moan Gus, you saw how tight her and Lennox were oan that daft race course. Pillay talk. That’s the new freemasonry for ye Gus, the wine-bar freemasonry. New Labour, New Freemasonry. That sort ay thing. They’re setting it aw up tae feather their ain nests.

Gus looks in shock as my spiel starts tae sink in. He’s just shaking his heid slowly, watching thirty-odd years’ service bubbling down the plug-hole.

– Five minutes they’ve been in here Gus, I remind him, shaking my head in disgust, – five fuckin minutes.

The eggs, beans, bacon, sausage, tomato, black pudding and tattie scones arrive. Gus though, seems to have lost his appetite. – Ye really reckon that’s his game? The words rip from his throat like an Elastoplast torn from a wound.

– Guaranteed, I nod. – Pass the ketchup Gus.

Gus is beelin on our way up the Walk. Yes, it’s a shame for the poor auld cunt, but he still needs to be kept in his place. Keep him on edge, keep him nippy and his confidence low and the daft auld cunt will strop oot and shoot himself in the fit long before this promotion interview ever comes to pass. Sure as night follows day.

We pull up outside a second-hand furniture shop in the Walk. Used to be auld Rab Vance’s place until Franco Begbie and Alex Setterington strolled in one day and retired the cunt. They just told him they were taking over the lease and that was that. Rab was a semi-jakey anyway (he went fully-fledged shortly eftir that) but essentially harmless even if as Clark Kent as fuck. It’s obvious that those cunts are selling drugs from there, just look at the fuckin dregs who come in and out: Keasbo Halcrow, Nelly McIntosh, Spud Murphy, Johnny Swan, Simon Williamson, Raymie Airlie, Juice Terry and every casual and clubby wee cunt under the sun. I don’t think those fuckers are in the market for old suites or used fridges. Begbie and Setterington think that they’re being subtle if they meet somebody in the pub on the corner or the caff over the road. Wrong! Their fetid erses are mine. But we’re not going to bust cunts like that oan something trivial, we’re going tae pit them away for good.

Especially Setterington. What him and his mates did to that wee lassie that time was out of order. Conrad Donaldson was defending him. Well, I got that cunt back, and I’ll do the same to old Lexo Setterington. No fuckin worries.

We get up to Ocky’s but he’s not at home. This is far from surprising, with the filthy wee stoat probably enjoying a family Christmas.

– Listen Gus, I’d like to keep tabs on Lexo. Don’t worry so much about Franco; that cunt’s so predictable. Thinks you need a passport to go past Pilrig. But watch Lexo. And keep a look-out for Ocky showing up.