London Noir

RIGHT ARM MAN by DENISE DANKS

Crew had to steady himself, keep cool. It was his man talking to him, telling him how it had gone down, telling him what the kid had done. He didn’t have to shoot the messenger. He tried to focus, to look at the dark man facing him, in the right light, the right frame of mind.

‘Tell me again Baz. Slow. Tell it slow,’ he said and the man rested his skinny gold-ringed fingers on his lead hips and began again.

‘Like I told you. The kid asked for credit.’

‘So you told him, yeh?’

‘I told him cash and he said it was too risky making three trips and bringing the money every time.’

‘So you told him that was the deal.’

‘I told him that was the deal, or nothing. I told him the terms and conditions. Told him there was an easy way and a hard way.’

‘And?’

‘He said he weren’t making the deal.’

Crew’s right leg began to tremble.

‘He have a vest on?’ he said.

Baz nodded. ‘And his ragamuffin posse all round,’ he added, the perspiration there under his arms. He ran a finger around the polo-neck of his smooth black all-cotton sweatshirt. It was seven o’clock on a midsummer’s night and too warm in the rank artificially lit room. Crew’s crack works lay on a pine table that was pushed up against a cold white radiator. If Crew had chosen to pull open the blue velvet curtains and the dull drapes of grey net, he would have looked out on a sky the colour of cinders, hanging low and heavy on the bunkered blocks of the estate and its demolition car parks, and still have found it too bright for his eyes. It was hardly worth the trouble. Below he’d see a scrubby grass verge edging a flat stretch of discoloured tarmac. Every flat opposite was the same as his, like every other one on the estate. Doors lined up along a communal landing, each grazed red with a scab of bare hardboard or wooden planks where frosted glass had been. Like his, most were reinforced steel behind with six bar locks, three up, three down. Some of the square windows were boarded too, but not his. His windows were never broken, never ever.

Even so, his wife and kids didn’t live there, nor did he any more – he’d got three storeys near the Park with a view of the lake and the biggest lushest spread of green in the city. This place was where he came to spread perforated foil tight across a whisky tumbler and smoke, and to arm himself for work.

Baz pulled back a chair and sat down at the table, flicking his long manicured fingers against Crew’s glass of rock ash,

‘He said you come near’im, he’ll shoot you, chop you up.’

‘Yeh?’

‘Yeh.’

‘Yeh? Yeh? Where were you, man?’ The words boomed as Crew stiffed his fist against his chest and brought it down on the table. Baz looked up with angry eyes.

‘Hey chill. I was there taking a message instead of doing business while you were fucking ghost-busting in here. What d’you think? I told you before the kids’re losing respect. They got money now. They’re making money out of us, cutting brown and taking fifteen hundred a night. They don’t see no reason to stand still, wait for what they want. Crew, they want a whack. A smack. You got to clean their wet noses out with your gun.’

Crew looked at him, angry still but calmer, and pulled out a chair for himself. He leaned an elbow on the table and with fluttering fingers touched the scar that troubled him on the right temple.

‘What they call him again?’

‘Roadrunner.’

And he’s fifteen.’

‘Going on thirty.’

Baz could see himself in the wide black pupils of Crew’s soulless eyes, dark as crows’ heads. He could see his brown shaven head, smooth as a nut and the fire of the diamond in his ear, could see what Crew could see, he hoped.

‘You should have done him, Baz’

‘If I thought I could have done. I would have done,’ he replied, holding the man’s junky gaze. He had to. Crew blinked and grinned.

‘You should have done him no matter what. Done him and watched the others just f.. f.. f.. fade away.’

‘If I thought I could have done, I would. All right? You shoulda been there.’

Crew’s hand was back twitching at his temple and Baz could see him sweat, smell him. There was no breeze tonight. The window was open but no air troubled the heavy curtains. Crew could feel the moisture filming over his face too, the sweat trickling down like something crawling through his hair, feeling so bad that he had to clamp his jaw together to stop himself screaming, stop himself jumping up and tearing at his scalp. Baz was right. He hadn’t been taking care of business. He’d let them think he was going soft, let them imagine that he didn’t have it in him any more. Just because he talked reasonable, they thought they could take from the pie, his pie. Take the bread from his table, the food from his children’s mouths. They worked for him but they’d forgotten that, because of the money they’d made out of him. Because of the money they could arm themselves, buy a pump with a cartridge up the spout and do a raid. That’s all he did. They’d get a car, any one they wanted, here and now, steal it, drive it fast where they wanted. They were thinking big time, starting to pester people they should be leaving alone. They were moving in on his toms and going around the manor like they were immortal. Immortal. Living free and fast because business was booming. His business.

It was summertime, that’s when the money came in, yeh? When would business boom, if not in the summer? And how could it boom-boom if not for Crew? If not for him? Crew brought it in. He did. He was the motherload. And now they were coming round him, like half-grown jackals with wet toothy grins. They smelled blood so rich and thick they couldn’t see the deep line in the sand. Jackals they were, pock marked scavengers, nipping at heels and blowing in ears, making a racket so loud the Other Firm would start to come around, cruise his streets. They’d know he wasn’t holding on here. And if he wasn’t holding on, then no one was and there would be big trouble for him, and for them. He’d lose face. Lose respect.

Respect was all. It was the stand off. These bandana posses weren’t bothered about that, about respect, they didn’t know what it meant and couldn’t care less. It was worth earning, but it took time and they couldn’t wait. There was no need they could see because there was no future better than now. Crew closed his eyes tight and then stared up at the ceiling.

‘I’m nearly thirty, Baz.’

‘Yeh?’

‘This year. What about you?’

‘Twenty-five.’

‘This kid is fifteen.’

‘He’s a nutcase. You got to take him out.’

‘I know what I got to do.’

‘Take the little shit out, Crew.’

‘You should’ve done him, then and there. Broke his fucking neck. Why didn’t you? You my right arm man.’

‘Crew. Who am I? It’s got to be you. You got to do it. You got to make the point.’

Crew brushed at his dripping nose and bit his lips. He could feel the blood flushing through his veins, hear it rushing in his ears. Baz stood up and opened the fridge.

‘You know where he lives?’

‘I know where he lives but you want to do it outside, don’t you?’ Baz put the question and took a good quick swallow of cold Pepsi, wiping the creamy foam from his brown lips. For a moment, doubt shimmered in Crew’s black hole eyes before they sucked it in.

‘I’ll do it outside. ‘Course. I want to do it outside but it’s got to look right, if we do it outside. The punters will be watching. It’s got to be the business.’

Baz crushed the can in his hand.

‘OK. Half an hour and he’ll be in the chippy, playing the machines,’ he said and Crew began to giggle, a high-pitched sort of snort and sniff, clapping his white sinewy hands together.

‘Take away in a take away. Let’s do it. Yeh, let’s do it,’ he said, jumping up.

Baz drew a line of powder on a spare piece of foil while Crew pulled on his waistcoat, a black chunky life jacket with pockets everywhere, inside, in front, at the side, at the back, at least one for the Browning 380 automatic, another for the cartridges. When he’d finished, Baz turned around bits of white powder clinging to the nostrils of his flat nose. Crew took the foil and breathed in deeply, sucking up the drug until the words snapped out of him like hot popcorn.

‘YES, YES. Oooooh YES. Let’s go. Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Go get the little fucker. YES.’

Baz followed him and side-stepped in front, handing Crew his black sunglasses before opening the door to let the blazing light of that dull evening shaft the corneas of the man’s blinded eyes. He took his place a little behind Crew, all down around the dirty stairwell, the walls moulded with dark stains and barbed wire graffiti, boom box signatures that said ‘Canning Town Kingsnakes Kick Yow Ass’ and ‘Get BoY’. Baz made sure he kept talking, geeing the man up.

‘You know him don’t you? You’ll know him. He’s cut his dreads. You know that. He got a sort of picture cut into the back and those little Hula Hoops on top.’

‘What sort of design?’

‘The Ace of Clubs.’

‘The Ace of Spades?’

‘Clubs. Clubs.’

Baz kept on until they got to the row of garages. Crew unlocked theirs and Baz took out the Kawasaki and the masks.

‘You gonna wear one?’ Baz asked as Crew worked the slide of the Browning to push the cartridge in the chamber. Crew turned his clammy face to look at Baz pulling on his paper bag with the holes for his eyes and tear for a mouth, and his black soft leather gloves. The gun was ready to fire.

‘My eyes. I need the glasses. You know how it is,’ Crew said. Baz knew, but it wasn’t his problem, not then. He saw the dull summer evening for what it was because only Crew had snorted the cocaine deep into damaged sinuses and rushed the soft polygons of his honeycomb brain. Baz had merely rubbed a little powder under his nose with his finger. He didn’t have to squint into the half light. He felt anxious, but not three-quarters paranoid like Crew. For Baz, it was just tension building like hunger in his belly. This had to go right now or he was a dead man.

‘You want people to see your face?’ he said.

Crew thought for a moment and tucked the Browning into a pocket.

‘So they see my face? They want some? Who’s going to fucking tell? Who’d they think they’re looking at?’

Baz didn’t reply. He mounted the Kawasaki, jumped the pedal and when Crew was at his back, they were gone.

All the boys looked around when they heard the bike roar in and Crew fired once at the one that didn’t, the one with the short worm wool hair and the three bags of chips. The Ace of Clubs now the Ace of Bleeding Hearts. He could hear a girl screaming, and a woman. Crew got off the bike, picked the spent cartridge from the floor and put it in the top pocket of his vest.

’What you looking at?’ he screamed at the muddled black faces with their wide white eyes. He shouted his name loud, head back towards the laughing gods and raised his finger to write number one in the bright face of heaven. He didn’t make it. The pain entered his head like fire, his arms turned like windmills, and the last sound he heard was the Kawasaki fading away into the summer night.