‘Your ego
should be built less out of how big your TV screen is and more out
of how many people turn up to your gigs.’
‘Actually, you
take the amount of money in your bank account, and multiply it by
how many days you can go without showering whilst still being able
to convince women to sleep with you.’
‘Then how come
you still walk around with that massive head perched on your
shoulders, you broke mother fucker?’
Charlie
smirks.
‘Having a
massive dick doesn’t hurt, either.’
Phoebe lets
out a cackle, apparently involuntary and to herself, but loud
enough that everyone present turns to look at her. She resumes her
joint without bothering to inspect the damage her outburst
caused.
‘Anyway,’
Charlie says, going back to Sid. ‘If you’ll stop fucking moaning
for five minutes, I’ll tell you how you can put an extra ten grand
in the shoebox under your bed you call your bank account.’
‘Eleven
grand,’ I butt in, eyes fixed on Sid. For the first time, a shimmer
of curiosity flits over his features.
‘Why so
specific?’ he asks, with a snort of laughter. He looks away from
me. ‘You got a card-counting scheme all worked out, Charlie?’
‘Ten tills,
average person spending fifty-odd quid, average till getting one
person through every five minutes. Ten-times-fifty-times-twelve is
fifty-four grand. Between five people, that’s eleven grand each.
Add the money we can swipe from everyone’s wallets and you’ll
probably up it to twelve.’
In unison,
Charlie and Sid’s faces fall into the same Neanderthalish
expression, then - after a few seconds silence - they open their
mouths. I silence them both with a gesture, and quickly start
talking again before either of them remembers that they don’t
respect me.
‘We’re holding
up the Marks and Spencer by the Haymarket Metro station. Charlie
seems to think you know someone who can sell us guns.’
Sid looks
confused. As does Charlie.
‘I thought we
were-’ Charlie begins to exclaim, but I give him the same gesture
and shoot him my most threatening look - the look I’ve been
practicing in the bathroom mirror every night for the past couple
of weeks, whilst I’ve been brushing my teeth.
‘Well, do
you?’ I ask. I take a step toward Sid.
Sid glances at
Charlie. Without letting my own gaze fall off him I bury my hand in
my pocket and dig out a wedge of A3 papers. The maps of the
surrounding streets, traced from Google Earth, with all of the CCTV
camera hotspots highlighted; floor plans of both the shop floor and
the staff-only areas, painstakingly mapped out using a combination
of what I remember seeing up there and what I can infer from the
structure of the building; three floors’ worth of car park, with
every potential escape route neatly inked in. I’ve spend the last
few weeks drafting and re-drafting these, at night and in secret,
working out the kinks and marking out the movements of each
participant with the kind of precision that only an
obsessive-compulsive geek can muster up. I explain everything: the
guns; the hostages; the thermite; the escape route; the bombs; the
car. The whole plan that’s been convalescing in my mind since I
went a-wandering in Marks & Spencer’s the other day. In and out
in ten minutes, and the police left without a place to even start
looking.
Sid doesn’t
say anything for a while; he just stands with his hands on his
hips, inspecting the papers. Now that I’m done Phoebe begins to
roll herself another joint, a little crease forming in her cheek,
but her hands won’t work for her, and she only succeeds in spilling
weed all over the carpet. Charlie, never having been the biggest
fan of silence, comments first.
‘Jesus Christ,
you’ve thought of everything,’ he mutters.
‘Not
everything,’ Sid counters. ‘First off, this plan needs five stupid
people, plus me to arrange getting you guns. I see one stupid
person, one person who’s stupid if she thinks she’s getting out of
here without paying for that weed, and one smart person who’s
pointing his smarts in a very stupid direction. Where are the other
two coming from?’
Sid gives me a
sly cock of the eyebrow, and goes on:
‘Then,
secondly; when stupid person number one goes and leaves his driving
license in the middle of the crime scene, what guarantee do I have
that I’m not going to get dragged into your court case?’
‘I wasn’t even
listening when you said what your name was, and, no offense, but
you don’t seem interesting enough to warrant asking for it again,’
Phoebe drawls. ‘So you don’t have to worry about me.’
Sid parts his
lips slightly, keeping one eye on Charlie, but appears to think
better of responding. Charlie doesn’t notice; his eyes are still on
my paperwork.
‘No-one knows
anything about her, either,’ I stammer, my rehearsed confidence
quickly unravelling now that I’ve reached the end of my script. ‘We
know her first name, and Charlie knows what she looks like naked,
but that’s about it. We pose her no threat, so she doesn’t have any
incentive to go running to the police.’
‘Until they’ve
got her in the interrogation room,’ Sid returns. I open my mouth,
but nothing comes out. Sid’s insecurities don’t seem to concern
Phoebe.
‘Well, that’s,
um…’ I’m blithering, when Charlie calls out, with his eyes still on
one of the maps:
‘Oh God, be
quiet, the lot of you. Here’s the truth of it; if one of us fucks
up, we’ve either got to straight-up murder him before he says
anything, or plead guilty and hope those rumours about prison
showers aren’t true outside of the movies. If we follow the plan,
we all get an anecdote to tell at our high school reunion, some
extra disposable income, and no-one will end up in jail. It’s as
simple as that.’
The crease in
Phoebe’s cheek has now turned into a full grin. It would appear
that Charlie notices this, or was even looking for it, since he
glances at her rather than Sid after he says it. Sid’s brow
furrows.
‘I guess that
answers your second question,’ I add, with a sudden rekindling of
swagger. ‘As for the first one, we’ve got one other guy signed up.
He’s trustworthy, and he can get his own gun. He never even has to
know your name if that makes you feel better.’
‘And the
fifth?’
‘You.’
‘How did I
guess?’ Sid replies, in a sarcastic tone of voice.
‘We need one
more person who can pull off a Geordie accent. The police’s first
thought will be that this is just some local scallywags getting
overambitious. We don’t want to give them any reason to change
their theory.’ I turn to Charlie. ‘This means that you’ll need to
swipe some hooded sweatshirts for us - the trench coats look way
too middle-class.’
Charlie cocks
an eyebrow.
‘You giving me
orders now?’
‘Yes.’ I give
him a cocky look of my own, and then I turn and start walking
towards the door. ‘And do it quick; we’ve only got seven days until
the job.’
MONTAGE
I can only
remember the week that followed as a series of little film-reels,
sliced up and spliced together by some Tyler Durden wannabe working
the late-shift at the movie theatre. It began with me and Sid going
over the etiquette for dealing with small-arms dealers. We were in
the living room. Charlie and Phoebe were in Charlie’s bedroom, so
Sid was forced to speak at a much higher volume than usual in order
to make himself heard. I’ve often suggested to Charlie that he do
his lovemaking at Phoebe’s place, but he says that’s she’s funny
about taking him back there. Apparently he’s never even seen her
bedroom, much less been naked in it.
‘When we get
to his place,’ Sid shouts, ‘Let me do the talking.’ Sid has never
referred to the mysterious gun-vendor - our first link between the
adolescent fantasy of criminality and its scuzzy reality - by any
other name but ‘him’. ‘I know him better… Well, I don’t
know
him, but I know the guy who knows the guy who knows him. Don’t hang
back, though, or he’ll get suspicious.’
‘Yeah, bouncer
psychology, I get it,’ I drawl back at him.
‘I don’t care
what you call it. Just do it. Oh, and one other thing…’
I hear the
doorbell rattling around the inside of the house, but there are no
signs of life. After a couple of minutes Sid and I exchange a
glance. I can’t get my head all the way around to check his
expression because I’m standing closer to the door than he is.
The lock
clicks.
‘How does my
make-up look?’ Charlie asks.
‘It looks
fine, just stop fucking touching it,’ Freddy replies. It turns out
that Phoebe has a peculiar talent for face paint; even with
Charlie’s constant poking and prodding, his KISS mask still looks
as though it’s been tattooed on. Charlie insisted on being Gene
Simmons. I, predictably, got lumbered with Peter Criss. Johnny dug
out his old
Where’s Wally?
costume from first year.
‘Johnny-’
‘Wally.’
Johnny takes
his fancy dressage very seriously. Freddy sighs.
‘Fine. Wally,
you’d better do the knocking; you’re the only one who knows anyone
here.’
‘“Know” is a
strong word,’ Johnny replies. ‘I only got invited because I’m on
Stephen’s course and he needs to look like he’s got friends.’
Johnny knocks
once on the door. It only takes the one knock for the lock to
click, and the door to swing open.
Johnny slams
the door shut as he leaves. With him off to lectures, Sid emerges
from hiding and the meeting can begin. Sid has been especially
careful about not letting or neighbours catch a glimpse of him
approaching our house, turning up before dawn and lurking around in
the back yard until Johnny departs and either me or Freddy comes
and quietly opens the door. Phoebe pretty much barges in as and
when she pleases, though I suppose she has a more plausible excuse
- Charlie doesn’t claim that the sight of her makes him see why so
many frontmen turn to heroin.
The TV is
turned off, and the remotes have been put out of everyone’s -
particularly Charlie’s - reach. The maps and plans and checklists
are brought in and spread across the coffee table. We’re taking
these little discussion groups more seriously these days. Even
Charlie did for a couple of sessions, but he’s since become
distracted by his new toy.
‘Right, so
where are we up to?’ Sid asks. Since joining us, he’s taken on
something of a leadership role in our meetings. I glance down at
the stuff on the table to remind me of some information I already
know.
‘The
chemicals,’ I reply. ‘Magnesium, peroxide and sulphuric acid.’
‘Two points,’
Sid replies. He turns to Charlie. ‘And where are we getting
it?’
Charlie
doesn’t hear; he’s too busy pulling the hammer on his gun back and
letting it ping into place.
‘Oi, prick!’
Sid hisses. Charlie stirs, but, rather than answering, he points
the gun at his bandmate.
‘Use that tone
with me again, boy, and you’ll wish you hadn’t.’
Sid’s bottom
jaw juts forward, as though a retort is trying to force its way
out. For expediency’s sake, however, he swallows it and rolls his
eyes in my direction.
‘Basil
Exposition, will you please enlighten this fucking idiot?’
‘Our way in is
Stephen Martin. He lives two streets away from the chemistry lab,
and since he’s also such a geek stereotype that he’d fit in better
in a John Hughes movie than reality, Johnny’s professor fixed it
that his smartcard will let him in and out of the lab after hours.
The plan is to tag along to a house party he’s invited Johnny to
tomorrow night, swipe the card, use it to get into the lab and take
what we need, then run back and replace the card before anyone is
any the wiser.’
‘And how do we
get the card off him?’
‘The same way
Charlie got Phoebe to sleep with him; by pouring vodka down his
neck.’
‘Oi.’ Charlie
is now pointing the gun at me. He pulls the trigger.
Click
.
‘Next time,’
he says, with a smirk, ‘there’ll be a bullet in there.’
‘Johnny! You
came!’ Stephen gushes as he wrenches the door open. His tone of
voice harbours something closer to relief than joy. He stumbles
forward to embrace Wally. ‘Some girls gave me some of their shots!
Girls
!’
‘This might be
easier than we gave it credit for,’ Phoebe whispers in my ear. I
notice Charlie’s eyes narrow beneath his make-up. When he has
disentangled himself from Stephen’s embrace, Johnny asks:
‘What the hell
are you dressed as? That rabbit thing from Donnie Darko?’
‘I’m
Schrodinger’s cat! I thought you, of all people, would get the
reference! Those girls didn’t, either; I even had to tell them what
Schrodinger’s cat was!’
‘Yeah, girls
love it when put that much effort into pointing out that you’re
more intelligent than they are,’ I sneer. ‘Bouncers too.’ Stephen’s
eyes fall to the floor.
‘So, do you
want to come in?’ he asks Johnny sheepishly.
‘Erm, yeah,
sure,’ Johnny replies, suddenly awkward. The rest of us follow the
rabbit thing inside before our invitation expires. As we’re
shuffling over the threshold, Charlie whispers to me:
‘Hey, aren’t I
supposed to be the arsehole in the group?’
My heart seems
to dive forwards in my ribcage as the dog comes screaming and
snapping out of the front door, and my skeleton tries to leap out
of my flesh and into Sid’s arms. I stiffen every muscle in my leg
to stop it from taking more than one step back, and force myself to
maintain eye contact with the short fellow who’s simultaneously
struggling to maintain a grip on his pet/doorman’s thick rope leash
and to give the outward impression that he, and not it, is the one
in control of the situation. I try not to wonder how close those
saliva-drooled teeth are coming to the crotch of my jeans, and I
hold my tongue until I’m certain that the dog’s owner has seen me
sizing him up. When I feel as though I’ve got a handle on my panic,
I turn to Sid and say: