Authors: Ray Banks
Plummer sighs. “Did you get the job done or not?”
“Well, you’ll know that Frank’s tried to call in sick, ’cause he’s talked to you, but I reckon he’ll show up tomorrow anyway. See, thing is, he’s a bit scared because he thinks he did a lad more damage than he was supposed to. Fucked his knuckles on the lad’s face. But I reckon once he gets over the shock, has a good night’s kip, he should be fine. Me, I’ll tell you, I took a
serious
fuckin’ whack to the side. I’m having trouble walking right, actually. Lot of lingering pain. I
think
I should be alright, but I need you to understand that I’ll be putting myself on the sick if I’m not.”
I drain the vodka in my glass.
“And yes,” I say, “we got the fuckin’ job done.”
A pause. Then, “Good.”
“But see if I have to go into battle on your behalf again, you can stick that job up your arse.”
“Right.”
“I mean it, Don. Circumstantial inflation, know what I mean? The money’s not worth the kickings anymore. And the bastards messed up my car.”
“Tomorrow’s an easy job, Cal,” he says, stringing out the “easy” like the Caramel bunny.
“Tonight was supposed to be an easy job, Donald. Students aren’t supposed to put up a fight, are they?”
“No, they’re not. But how was I supposed to know—”
“I’m just saying. You never know. But if I get hurt tomorrow, that’s it. Call it a fuckin’ night, because life’s too short to take this many knocks. I don’t heal as fast as I used to.”
“You say that,” says Plummer. Sounds like he’s smiling. Picture him now: he’s sat back in his large chair, that all-too-familiar self-satisfied grin on his shiny fucking face. “You say that, but you’ll come back, because what else are you going to do, Callum? Go back to private work? Yeah, because
that
worked out wonderfully for you, didn’t it?”
I don’t answer.
“Whatever happened tonight, it’s nothing to worry about. You have yourself a couple more drinks and forget about it. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
“Fuck off. Call me a fuckin’ drunk, you wanker—”
“Don’t do that.” The smile’s gone from his voice now. “Don’t think you can talk to me like that. You want to walk, Callum, by all means walk. And if you want me to take this as something other than the drink talking, you’ll be out on your arse anyway. Loads of people on licence right now who’d kill to have your job. So treat me with some respect, okay?”
I don’t say anything. Can’t think of anything but swear words.
The pause translates to Plummer as if I’ve conceded defeat. When he starts talking again, I hang up on him. Takes a few slams to get the receiver back where it’s supposed to be, but I manage it in the end. Then I take the phone off the hook.
Wait a few seconds, and my mobile starts ringing.
Mithering bastard.
I turn off the mobile, drop it onto the couch and pour another vodka.
Fuck him.
Fuck
him. Reckons just because he’s paying me, he can talk to me like I’m his fucking slave?
He wants to talk respect, about time he paid some to me, isn’t it? Fucking hell, I’m the one doing all the donkey work. Me and Frank. Even when I did menial shit at Paulo’s club, the man treated me like a human being. Still looked at me and talked to me like I was a fucking person.
But Plummer. Pays a man’s wages, thinks he’s got the bastard
owned
. He wants to have a word with himself.
Put him on tonight’s job, see how he’d handle it. Bet he’d shit his pants.
Too right.
I fetch my Pot Noodle and slurp it sitting on the couch. Grab the remote and turn on the telly. I need a distraction, so I stab the remote until I find something to watch, something loud and obnoxious to smother my mood.
Finish the Pot Noodle, none the better for it. I light an Embassy, stop surfing when I catch a black-and-white film on ITV.
Vincent Price is in it, looking like a stretched-out bulldog. He’s goggle-eyed and chewing the scenery like he hasn’t eaten in a month, talking about a mute woman who’s in the room with him. Except he’s talking about her like she’s some kind of specimen or he’s conducting some sort of experiment on her. A touch of the weird to the situation, so I keep watching, even though the film looks familiar. I put it down to the actors and the sets — they re-used everything in the glory days of schlock.
After a while, Price’s voice becomes narcotic. I settle back on the couch. The vodka, the pills, the nicotine, the fatigue and now Whispering Vince, they’re all delivering blows to knock me out. It’s not long before the television becomes radio, and then the lot drops away.
Then I don’t know how long it is before the pain starts again.
“Christ Almighty, what happened to you?”
“Bad night.” Slouched out on the walkway, hands dug deep into jacket pockets. It’s warm out here, but there’s still that chill against my skin. “Can I come in?”
Greg nods, leaves the front door open for me as he walks back up the narrow hall. I can make out Cat Stevens singing, “I’m Gonna Get Me A Gun” from the living room. I lean back against the front door until it closes, take a moment to breathe some stillness into my churning gut, then follow him on unsteady legs.
It’s taken all my energy to get to my feet, and Greg’s the only person I know who can keep me upright and alive.
As I head into Greg’s living room, I see the two massive lava lamps he keeps by the windows. The glow’s supposed to soothe his customers, provide a languid lightshow to take the edge off a Jones, but I can’t bring myself to look at them right now. The lava movement matches the way my stomach’s lurching around. And Cat Stevens is doing fuck all to help the situation.
“Surprised to see you back so soon.”
Greg drops into a worn-out wingback, leans forward and snorts a chunky line of coke from a CD case. Looks like Cat on the cover — the white shoes and cocky position. It’s the disc that’s in right now:
Matthew And Son
. Not what I would’ve expected from Greg — certainly not music to get coked up to — but then he’s an odd bloke.
“I didn’t expect to be back,” I say.
Gregs sniffs, pulls at his nose. “Difficult to factor in those really bad nights, huh?”
“That’s right.”
A bad night, that’s a mild way of putting it. Nightmares of a blood-soaked arm reaching out of a scarlet bath and grabbing at me, fingers streaking red across my wrist, digging into flesh, nails tearing at skin. And the cloying smell of the blood, like the inside of a fucking abattoir. That forced me awake. The TV screen was black, but the telly was still on.
I thought it was, anyway.
White shapes flashed, nothing I could make out.
And then there was Vince again, no more whispering,
shouting
: “Ladies and gentlemen, please do not panic! But
scream! Scream for your lives!
”
They did. Women screeching in terror, men doing their version. I was twisted to one side on the couch, the bottle of vodka knocked over on the coffee table.
A bloke shouted, “It’s over here!”
Felt like a dream, but then I realised that dreams weren’t this painful. My hip felt swollen and infected, a low pulse beneath the skin. Panic drained the booze out of my system and I found that I couldn’t move my legs. I wanted to scream right along with everyone else, but I couldn’t find my voice, the breath torn out of me, my chest burning. I grabbed at one side of the couch, tried to get up. My leg twitched, jerked a shadow across the carpet, flickering in the dull light from the television.
So I wasn’t paralysed. That was something. Small comfort with the pain burrowing its way through my back, my hip flared.
I pulled myself to the edge of the couch as my gut flipped. It kicked me into a heave. I convulsed, belched, splattered the carpet with puke. I hung on there for a while, spit abseiling from my open mouth, more wind following. My eyes closed as the movie played on without me.
This wasn’t good.
I’d been sick before, had pain before, but it was Blue Square Premier compared to this. So I hung on, waited for it to pass, and when I thought it was safe to move, I turned and fumbled for the prescription bottle.
And found it empty.
Greg laughs now, which is about the usual level of sympathy I can expect from him.
“Fuck me,” he says, gesturing towards the widescreen telly in the corner of the room. “Talk about coincidence, I was just watching that, man.”
“Not a lot on, this time of night.”
“
The Tingler
,” he says, playing it out like Price. Gives me the wide eyes and spooky expression to go along with it, but he can keep them. I’m not in the mood for fucking impressions.
I nod slowly, run my tongue along the inside of my mouth. Still that vomit taste. I should’ve brushed my teeth before I came over here, but there wasn’t the time or the inclination. And this bastard’s never been in a hurry his entire life.
“Thought I’d seen it before,” I say.
“Fuckin’ classic, but a hell of a thing to watch when your back’s playing you up. That fuckin’ beast on the spine? Jesus, no thanks.” Greg ducks to the CD case, rattles off another line from Cat’s leg. Comes up, thumbs one nostril. “Shit, sorry, I forgot to ask — you want a line or something?”
“No, y’alright,” I say. “Just the usual.”
“Right. I get you. You need to ease down. I’ll see what I can dig up.”
I look at him.
“Codeine,” he says. “It’s a pain in the fuckin’ rear to get.”
A spike of panic. “You don’t have any?”
He jerks his chin at me. “You got a ciggie?”
I give him an Embassy. Greg pulls some gum from his combats pocket, starts chewing, then lights the cigarette. When he catches me watching him, he says, “Just smoked my last menthol.”
“You got any codeine or not, Greg?”
“Did I say I didn’t have any? I didn’t say that, Cal. Supposed to be an investigator—”
“You know I don’t do that anymore.”
“You should be listening to people when they say things. Otherwise you won’t be too good at your fuckin’ job. I mean, I know you got a trick ear an’ that, but, shit, open the other one, eh? All I said was that it’s a pain in the fuckin’ rear to get. I mean, fuckin’
codeine
. You’re talking specifics there, man. You want painkillers, I can do you painkillers.”
“No,” I say, but it doesn’t matter. The coke’s kicked in. Too much chatter, the white stuff bringing out the bullshit and the barker.
“You sure? Diazepam — blues and yellows. I don’t do the whites ’cause they’re fuckin’ bobbins. But I got the blues and yellows, you want them. Valium. If you need Valium. Take a couple of them, they kick in nice, gets your muscles relaxed, that’s fuckin’
medical
. Methadone—”
“Do I look like a smackhead to you, Greg?”
He grins, the Embassy twitching towards the ceiling. “You want an honest answer?”
“No. And I don’t want you slipping me methadone, either. I came here for codeine. I’ve got a medical
condition
. That’s what was prescribed, so that’s what I need. You keep the rest, sell it on to someone who isn’t so fuckin’
specific
.”
“Alright, Mardy. I wouldn’t slip you nowt anyway. I don’t work like that. Shocked and stunned you’d ever say that to me, truth be fuckin’ told.” Greg gets out of his chair, smacks the gum. “Tell you what, I’ll have a butcher’s, see what I’ve got. See if I have anything close to what you’re after.”
“No,” I say. “Fuck’s sake, Greg, nothing
close
. Codeine or nothing.”
“Yeah, alright, okay. Codeine or nowt. No need to suck your pants about it.” He waves at me as he leaves the room. “Make yourself comfortable.”
I hear him thump about in another room. I look around. Make myself comfortable. That’s a joke and a half right there.
I sit on the arm of his threadbare couch. Probably an antique, could be worth something if it wasn’t for the fact that the stuffing’s been knocked out of it and it smells vaguely of wet dog. A long strip of wood threatens to split my arse in two. I shift position, but there’s no relief. Still feeling the itch and the burn. Better than the pain, but only just.
I promised myself I wouldn’t act like a junkie in front of Greg, but it’s getting harder with each visit. Because each time I’m leaving it longer — or it
feels
like it — so I’m normally a wreck by the time I get round to his flat.
Up until recently, I’ve been able to rely on overworked and stressed hospital staff for my painkillers. Got myself a repeat script when I fucked my hand on Mo Tiernan’s skull and they weren’t too bothered when I kept coming back — a hospital has more important people to worry about than a bloke with a bandaged hand.
But I could only push it so far without questions, and I wasn’t about to start messing myself up on purpose just to get a prescription. So I came to Greg. And talk about right under your nose — he lives just across the way.
Greg’s not a proper dealer, though. I mean, it’s not his only job. He’s also a croupier on George Street. Legitimate, yeah, but his job’s turned him snowblind. The constant rattle of Mah Jong tiles and heavy roulette games took its toll on Greg a while back, but seeing as he’s a clever lad, he reckoned he could deal pills as well as the games. The money keeps him in his habit, and he never sells from his own stash.
Because Greg’s small-time. I made sure of that. He isn’t about to play Tony Montana, despite all the white powder. Working in the city centre, he knows who’s who, knows better than to tread on anyone’s toes. As long as he stays like that, remembers his place, everybody’s happy. Most of all, me.
Now all I need to do is pop out onto the walkway, see if there’s the glow of sixties kitsch in his window. Like the old song, Greg’s is the light that never goes out. He keeps cokehead croup hours — 24/7.
The CD pauses, then kicks in again from the beginning. The title track, and the rhythm of Cat’s ode to the working man is too fast to keep me seated. I get off the arm of the couch, grab the hi-fi remote and fiddle with it until the volume drops. A whiff of ash and kebabs as I replace the remote by the CD case. Turn around and look at the posters of Johnny Cash flipping the bird and
Hot Fuzz
on the walls. A couple of consoles on the floor by the telly, a load of ex-rental DVDs.