Long Way Down (A Gus Dury crime thriller) (2 page)

'Come on, Mac ... where's your balls?'

'Where I want them ... not dangling from my fucking ears
which is where they'll be if Shakey hears I've gone against him!'

I returned the roll of cash to his hand with a little
more on top. 'You're not going against Shakey, I just need to know what Shakey's
got planned for Barry, that's all.'

Mac crushed the money in his fist, wagged it at me. 'It's
not about this, you know.'

'I know, mate.'

He put the cash away and sighed. 'What are you looking
for?'

'That's the question ...'

'What?'

I put my elbows on the table, 'I ran into Danny Murray,
he's working for Shakey, and he wants to find Barry.'

'Well, I'm guessing it's not to ask what he wants for
his Christmas present.'

I nodded, my mouth dried over as I tried to speak. 'Barry's
a good lad, like I say, we go way back. I knew him at school for fucksake.'

'So what, Gus?'

'So, I'll find him. Not for Danny Murray or Shakey or a
bundle of used notes stuffed in a Racing Post. I'll find him because he's an
old friend and if he's in some kind of trouble I want to know about it.'

Mac rose from the table. His pint had hardly been
touched. He was doing up his coat as he spoke. 'You still on the same number?'

'Yeah, I am.'

He nodded. 'I'll give you a call.'

I tipped the dregs of Mac's pint into my own as he left
the pub.

* * * *

There was a time in my life when leaving Robbie's,
or any pub for that matter, with only a couple of drinks in me was a
non-starter. Call it maturity because I couldn't call it a lack of funds with
the best part of three-grannies stuffed in my pocket, or call it whatever, but
I was back pounding the pavement. And thinking of Barry.

We'd done the school together and those types of ties
you don't unpick for the hell of it. He'd been Baz then, a bit of a joker and a
bit of a wido, all the teachers hated his guts. We lads loved him for it. He
had a carefree, cut-the-crap way about him that was always on the verge of
being out of control. Some folks are never far away from the self-destruct
switch, I knew the territory, but Baz took it to a whole other level. In third
year I watched him implode a Bunsen burner by clamping the rubber feed. The
explosion burst a girl's eardrum and set some heavy-duty school curtains
alight. The fire-brigade's attendance is still my highlight of six-years'
stoop-shouldered study. It was also memorable as Baz's last day — he got
expelled. There was another school. A stack of McJobs after that and a power of
what the Eagles might call witchy women. Katrina, or Kat as she was known, was
the worst of the lot. She was still on the junk, last I heard anyway, and still
in possession of the kind of nasty mouth you might never tire of plugging. She
was a full-on bitch and bad news for Baz but also my best chance of tracking
down the lost soul.

I took the bus out to Porty and got off outside an
old-school drinker where a couple of snoutcasts were spraffing away outside
about the current state of the Jam Tarts' finances. It was 'beyond a joke'
apparently that players weren't getting paid. I had to clamp it when the
thought of eleven near-millionaires being out of pocket for a little while bit;
my old man never saw that kind of money in his whole playing career. Shudder
the thought, what kind of damage would that sort of wealth have done to him;
and the rest of my family? I dreaded to think. To me family was what you made
it, no more, no less. Blood counted for little.

Katrina's gaff was part of the boxy high-rise that sat
in Porty's main drag, it was as incongruous as a chocolate-dildo at a
Morningside tea-party. This end of the town used to see the well-heeled
promenading during Victorian times; you'd be lucky not to catch a crowd of
hen-night scrubbers pissing in the gutter now.

I pushed the bust door-front and made my way to the
first-floor gaff. The yellowing net curtains in the window of the door would
have had my Mam reaching for the Daz. I depressed the bell and stepped back. In
a few minutes a hazy black shadow started to stagger behind the frosted glass
and manky curtains.

'Hello, Kat ...' I said.

She squinted, dropped her neck further into her
shoulders and tried to discern something in the ball-park of familiarity.

'It's Gus ... Gus Dury, I'm Barry's mate, remember?' I
felt like I was talking to a child, she scrunched up her brows and started to
grip at her sides with two lank arms that didn't look strong enough to lift
stamps. The woman was in a worse state than I had imagined possible.

'Gus ...oh, aye,' she said. 'Barry's not here ...'

The reply came a little too practiced for my liking;
this fucktard didn't have enough marbles left to crank out a reply like that.

'What makes you think I'm looking for, Barry?'

She stepped back into the flat, fiddled with the edges
of her cardigan. She was too scoobied to manage a reply. I felt like putting
her out of her misery, felt like ending Barry's misery to tell the truth. I
pushed open the door and walked in. She managed to look surprised after I'd got
to the end of the corridor and turned back to face her.

'Hey, hey ...'

'Shut the door, Kat.'

She slow-blinked in my direction, vague bloodshot eyes
above heavily crenulated bags. I'd seen too many junkies to summon a single
atom of sympathy. She'd given up, like they all had, but it was the rest of us
that had to live in fucking Zombieland with them. And people like Barry had no
escape from them; they remembered the before, the time when junk wasn't a way
of life, or more accurately, death.

Kat raised a thin mitt to the door and pushed it to. She
stumbled in her blue-fluffy baffies as she walked towards me. The cardigan was
getting wrapped tighter and tighter round her thin waist in an effort to shield
her from something: life, at a guess.

I turned into the smoke-thick living room. There was a
TV stand but no television. A burst couch, spewing foam from one arm. A patchy,
manky carpet and a coffee table, replete with dirty works. I looked around,
thought about opening the curtains but didn't want to shed any more light on
the place. The one thin sliver of a yellow sunbeam that erupted through the gap
in the curtains was dust-filled, sent motes dancing in my eyes.

'I don't understand ...' said Katrina. She had a bunch
of limp black hair in her hand now, she twisted it. 'I don't know why you're here.'

I knew she was lying. There was an old Gola holdall
sitting beside the arm of the burst couch; I hadn't seen one of those since
they came back in fashion about a decade ago. I walked over to the bag and
peered inside; seemed liked Barry had been round to drop off his gear.

'Where is he?'

'He's not here.'

'Oh, aye.' I walked over to the Gola bag, gave it a tap
with the tip of my cherry Docs.

She gripped her sides and swayed. 'Aye, he was here ...
but he left again.'

At least she was coming clean, I didn't fancy tearing
the gaff apart to look for him; not without a tetanus anyway. 'What do you mean
... left?'

She leaned on the wall, looked woozy. 'The night he got
out he dropped his stuff off ... then he went again.'

I was ready to rattle her chops, took a step closer and
let my impatience hit her. 'Went where?'

She shrugged.

I poked her in the shoulder, one finger, it was enough
to near fell her.

'Stop that ... I don't know where he went.'

'Was he alone?'

She shrugged again.

I pointed my finger, it was enough.

'No. Some guy was with him. He said they had some
business, that he'd be in touch but he wouldn't be back ... look, leave me be,
he's not here!'

I didn't like the sound of what she had told me, for the
simple reason that it rung true. Katrina wasn't in possession of the faculties
to manufacture a cover story. She wasn't in possession of faculties, full-stop.
She was near the end of the black-tunnel that all junkies travelled. Another
hit, if she could find a vein capable, and she was over. That's what her days
were about.

When I left her, closed the door, I knew she wouldn't
remember seeing me inside of five minutes. Barry must have got the same
impression when he showed, least I hoped he had; the heart has its reason, and
all that.

* * * *

I crossed the street to the grimy drinker with
the fag-bound boyos outside; the chatter was on Rangers now, voices were being
raised.

'Mark my words, this fella will shaft the club!' said
the snoutcast.

I shook my head as I took the pavement, the club was
already on Shit Street.

'Aye you're all right, yer all wrong ... I knew that the
second I saw his name was Green.'

Holy Christ. This actually amounted to reasoning among
these monkey-brained troglodytes. I stepped up to the plate. 'And here's
something for you both to think about, the fella that he replaced was called
Whyte!'

I saw the half-sozzled, slow-blinking eyes turn to
saucer shapes. There was the hint of a cog turning, maybe the sound of the
rodents working the controls in their heads moving, as they tried to piece
together the significance.

I helped them out. 'Green and Whyte ... something to
think about.'

I grabbed for the door and tipped the daft lads a wink.
I could tell I'd kicked off a conspiracy theory already.

The bar was dark, dingy. In days gone past there'd have
been a pall of grey smoke you'd struggle to shine headlamps through. Now the
nicotine-stained walls and ceiling looked painfully over-exposed — the woodchip
papering would turn to writhing maggots after a few scoops.

I slotted myself on a stool behind the heavily scarred
and scratched-up hardwood of the bar. There were bars in Edinburgh that
Stevenson frequented in his drinking days when he was known as Velvet Coat; if
he ever got as far out of the New Town as Porty, I'd have sunk money on him
supping here.

I ordered up a Guinness and a low-flying birdie to chase
it. The bar man dispensed a gruff acknowledgement that came topped with a
thin-eyed stare in my direction. Okay, I was looking rough — in the ball-park
of a jakey to be truthful — but this was hardly the fucking Ivy.

The pint and chaser were laid in front of me and a hand
went out, I waited for a 'make those your last' but it never came. Say one
thing about the ass-fucking the Tories had given the country of late, the
shortage of cash and the surfeit of those drowning their sorrows spoke to
publicans like a whore with a lullaby.

I took a seat by the window and stared out at the
entrance to the flats where I'd just left Baz's Katrina in a perplexed state.
She didn't exactly look sorted for E's and wizz — and I'd put those stairs
beyond her withered legs, she could hardly stand, never mind make ambulatory.
The chances were she'd be getting a visit from Mr Fix-it sooner or later.

I downed a full draught of my pint and took out my
rumpled paperback of Trocchi's Young Adam whilst the wee goldie stood sentry.
In a brief moment the pint did the trick, sent my senses swirling as I
luxuriated in Trocchi's dulcet prose. So what if they called him a
pornographer, and accused him of pimping his wife, the guy could write and who
ever said being a genius was easy? Give me some grit, someone who knows the
wild side over Jeeves and fucking Wooster any day.

'Another pint?'

The barman stood over me with a white towel in his
hands, he was wringing it like he had hold of a game bird's neck.

'Why not ...' I said.

He nodded and I clocked the three or four black hairs on
his glabrous scalp that he'd greased back, likely with Brylcreem. He was an
anachronism, the whole place was — maybe that's why I felt so at home.

My second pint was in motion, that creamy head of
goodness making its way towards me as I spotted a familiar face on the street
outside. He was jinxing between cars halted in the road and looking far too
cocky for my liking.

'Aye, aye ...'

I turned a tenner in the direction of the barman but
kept my gaze on the scene through the window. It was Weasel. One of Devlin
McArdle's runners. He did odd-jobs for the Deil but I'd be very surprised if he
was ever given anything more than the scrapings on the bottom of the barrel.
Weasel was one of those shifting faces that attached himself here and there
wherever the opportunity arose. He'd turned out for Shakey once and he was
rumoured to be on the job with Barry when he got put away. It was only a rumour
because Barry would never confirm it — others would — but Barry had loyalty.

'You clown, Barry ...'

'What?' The barman was back, holding out my change.

I shook my head, 'Nothing ... just thinking.'

'Jesus above, why would you want to do that?'

I smiled and took my change. 'Why indeed?'

As I turned back to the window, Weasel was taking the
door of Katrina's flats. He stood with the door open, blocking it with the sole
of his Adidas Samba, and looked furtively up and down the street before ducking
inside.

'What are you up to, Weasel you little shit?'

I watched him ascend the stairs towards Katrina's floor;
the barman was wiping a tabletop as I downed a fair pelt of my Guinness.

'Keep them coming, mate,' I said.

The low-flying birdie called out to me, singing that golden
oldie that always strummed the chords of my heart.

* * * *

I was somewhere I shouldn't be. Locked in
reverie with my beloved late brother and less-than beloved, but just as late,
father. Michael had the noose round his neck that he'd taken from the clothesline,
the one my mother had across her back when Cannis Dury came home out of pocket
and pride. Everything was a blur that somehow burned in my eyes and my heart
and my head. Someone was screaming but I couldn't make out who — was it
Catherine or my mother? I never heard my sister scream, she was always locked
in silence but I knew my mother's cries all too well. Jesus, who was it?