Acid Casuals Read online

  When she offered to buy a new round of drinks about half the table asked for health drinks. Estela stuck to martinis, gin and French. At the bar, just as she was being served, she turned to find Cozy hovering behind her. He said he could help her carry the drinks.

  ‘Thank you. You’re sweet.’

  The photograph of John Burgess sneered down at Estela’s mixed order: ginseng juices and Lucozades, gin vermouth and two bottles of Mexican beer. As she paid, Estela waved her credit card towards the picture, ‘Who’s he?’

  ‘The boss.’

  Lit from beneath and set within a twelve-by-eight-inch black frame, the photograph had a solemn, in memoriam, appeal. With his strained smile, Burgess already looked as though he had been glazed by a mortician. Estela asked Cozy again: ‘Who?’

  ‘John Burgess. This is his bar, and the Gravity is his club. He’s a big Manchester businessman, a one-man Mecca. Into all kinds of stuff. You see him here, sometimes.’

  Not today; Estela had been scanning the bar all evening. She had not seen Burgess. She had seen young men in clothes that looked as if they’d been slept in, clutching mobile phones. Evidence of low-level drug dealing. And she remembered what Cozy had told her about dope.

  ‘I thought, the management, they don’ care for drugs.’

  Cozy said, ‘They’re not on a crusade. But Burgess has to renew his licences every year and for the past two the police and the council have given him jip. He has to play safe. The bouncers throw out anyone caught dealing. Burgess has security cameras over at the Grav.’

  Cozy shrugged. It really wasn’t a problem.

  ‘If you want to do a trip or an E, you buy one at any of the pubs round there. Once you’re inside the club, you drop it, you’re sorted. No one’s going to search two thousand people to see who’s carrying a tab inside their sock. You’ve just got to be careful. If you’re not going to give the bouncers grief, they’re not going to worry about what you do. They just don’t want a repeat of that thing from a couple of years back.’

  Estela didn’t know what happened two years ago. Cozy told her it was all over the papers.

  ‘Not the Miami Herald.’

  Cozy nodded, he guessed not. ‘A girl died in the Gravity. She had an allergic reaction to Ecstasy. A friend’s sister works down the hospital and saw the autopsy report. The girl died of massive internal haemorrhaging.’ Cozy shuddered. ‘Now, if anyone passes out from the heat or drink, anything, the bouncers go mental. They’re scared they’ve got another death on their hands.’

  Estela took another look at John Burgess’s picture before signalling Cozy to carry the tray. ‘So Burgess likes to keep a drug-free image?’

  Cozy explained as he followed Estela back to their table: ‘He has to, or he loses his licence. Especially after all the Gunchester stuff in the papers. You haven’t heard of that either … No? … The gangs on Moss Side have been shooting each other. There’s other gangs from Salford and Cheetham Hill who’ve got guns as well. A year back, a lad rushed the Gravity with a shotgun. No one knows if it was loaded. He was just off his head. He ran in the club waving the gun, then he just did one. The police didn’t catch him. No one identified him. Just some dickhead from Salford. It’s not as if it was an Uzi or anything, it was just an old shotgun.’

  Estela made room for Cozy as she took her seat. ‘Shotguns work as well as anything.’

  Cozy looked at her, his sweet blue eyes a little round now. Estela smiled sweetly.

  Cozy smiled back. ‘Yeah. It must seem tame after Miami. With Scarface and that.’

  Estela had seen the film. Not all the way through. She had met people who watched nothing else and could recite whole scenes, even if they couldn’t spell alpacino.

  ‘Here is nicer than Miami. Apart from the weather. Perhaps I should ask for a brandy and port, the next time.’

  *

  She and Cozy left for the Gravity by taxi; Tom came along as well. Their friends had walked and both Tom and Cozy would have too, normally. It was Estela who insisted on the taxi; she did not want to wander out in the rain. The cab looped around Piccadilly Gardens. Estela watched the girls in bare legs huddle close to the walls, trying to keep their hair from getting wet. The men stood in two-tone shirts, grouped in packs, blinking as their hair gel dissolved and ran into their eyes. She wondered if the Gravity was one of those clubs that made people queue outside. Cozy told her not to worry.

  ‘The queue goes right round the block, but I’m on the guest list so we’ll get straight in.’

  Tom turned around in the front passenger seat. He said, ‘We’re fucking stars. We don’t wait in line.’

  ‘It’s not that.’ Cozy had an attractive way of blushing. Normally, it wouldn’t have worked on her. Estela felt she must be getting sentimental for England. He explained, ‘Burgess gives a free pass to anyone who works for him. That’s why we get in the Grav for free.’

  He hadn’t mentioned that he worked for Burgess.

  ‘We both work in his travel agents, Med-Liberty on Corporation Street. It’s dead easy. And with the perks … well, there’s worse places to work.’

  Tom said, ‘A lot fucking worse. I do fuck all, me.’

  Estela could not imagine anyone employing a moron like Tom, but she was getting bitter. It was easier to shed your skin than lose Tom. She should ask more questions about the travel agency, she really should. Before she could formulate one, Cozy said that Yen worked there too.

  Estela felt herself sag; a second earlier she been pertly buoyant. She had pretty much dismissed the news that Yen spent all of his time in either the WARP or the Gravity, although they were both owned by Burgess. Now she was told that he spent his days working for the man as well. ‘Yen’s very friendly with Burgess.’

  Cozy looked at her, what did she mean by ‘friendly’? ‘Because he hangs out at the Gravity? He’s a bit friendly with some of Burgess’s people, I suppose. He spends a lot of time with Junk.’

  ‘Who’s Junk?’

  ‘He puts together the videos they show at the Gravity. Yen met him through Theresa, who’s Junk’s assistant. But you’ll have seen Junk last night, he was in the bar when you came in. Tall and skinny, pock-marked. He’s only got one eye.’

  Estela hadn’t seen Junk. Not at all. While she flounced around, playing the tart and flirting with every spaced-out teen geek she met, this job was spinning wildly out of control. She had to formulate a strategy before she became utterly disorientated. Everything about the Burgess job was disorientating her. Even Manchester no longer looked the same.

  Chapter Five

  Junk had to take the corner chair. Burgess had the best seat but it was his office. When Junk returned, he had found Burgess just as he was now. Swivelling in his chair, keeping the whole of the club under surveillance. Stacked on their shelf at the far end of the room, the six TV sets showed different views of every corner of the Gravity. Burgess turned away from the one he’d been watching – an overhead shot of the main door.

  ‘What do you think he’s doing?’ Burgess asked.

  Junk leant over to the TV; the figure just seemed to be scratching himself.

  Burgess said, ‘He’s been scratching himself like that for ten minutes. What do you think is wrong with him?’

  ‘I don’t know. Lice. A rash. How should I know?’ Junk didn’t even know why he was being asked.

  ‘Well do you think we should tape it, sit him down there, play it back to him and ask him what his problem is?’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘He’s supposed to be security. If he can’t keep his fucking dick clean, what good is he?’

  Junk kept quiet. He didn’t see the link between strict personal hygiene and working as a bouncer. But then, he’d never thought about it before. If Burgess believed the connection was significant, presumably he had his reasons. Burgess had a head for that stuff and Junk didn’t necessarily follow the line of thought. Half the time, he had enough trouble following his own line of thought.

  ‘
Would you sack him?’ asked Burgess.

  ‘No, I wouldn’t sack him,’ said Junk. ‘Why are you asking me?’

  ‘It’s an aptitude test. I’m seeing whether intense exposure to my management techniques has given you an insight into the clubs and leisure industry.’

  ‘It hasn’t,’ said Junk.

  He’d known Burgess for nearly twenty years. He had thought, once, that he knew how to run a club. Hire a DJ, put a bouncer on the door, scoop the notes out of the till at three a.m. and pay off everyone who required it. You would walk off with a roll in your pocket, easy, and out into the night. Burgess had told him those days were long gone. Junk reckoned so, too. He was on the pay roll, now. When he picked up his wages, he took out a slip and read that his tax and national insurance contributions had been deducted. It seemed sacrilegious, working nights in a club and paying national insurance like anyone who clocked on and off for a living. Even the DJs were businesslike. They described themselves as freelancers and hired accountants to negotiate their tax schedules.

  Junk pulled his satchel around on to his knee. The video cassettes stacked inside were labelled with sticky freezer labels. Junk reached to the bottom of the bag, found the couple of wraps of cocaine he had made up at home and put them on Burgess’s desk. Burgess looked over at them. He already had a wad of notes in his hand. Peeling off a few twenties, he handed them over his shoulder. ‘Eighty quid, Junk.’

  That was right. And another eighty tomorrow when the cocaine was gone and Burgess needed more. Junk took the notes and slipped them into the front of his satchel.

  Burgess said, ‘What else have you got in there?’

  Junk picked out one of his videos: ‘Some Manga flicks that a friend brought back from Japan, snatches of a Czech surrealist short I taped off the BBC and a Gerard Damiano fest.’ Junk was pretty pleased with the tape he’d edited together for tonight.

  Almost ten years ago, Burgess had told Junk he was opening a new club and had a great idea. He was going to have a VJ as well as a DJ, playing videos which would be projected on to screens above the dance floor. Burgess had read about VJs working the clubs of New York and Tokyo. At the time, Junk was pirating video porn for spare change. Burgess hired Junk when he heard about the videoing mixing desk that Junk had built in his flat.

  Thanks to Burgess, Junk had become almost famous. Music papers came to interview him. TV producers would buy his tapes and even offer him work. They were a little nonplussed when they found out he was blind in one eye as a result of injecting amphetamine sulphate directly into his eyeball. But it made a good story. Junk never did move over into TV – what would he be doing anyway, editing together promos for sports programmes, step aerobics from Venice Beach or something? He was happier in the club, with his own VJ booth and editing suite.

  Burgess had got excited about Junk’s work immediately. He had got into the habit of borrowing Junk’s latest tapes. Burgess said, ‘Well I don’t watch telly, it’s too slow: I need something with a touch more intensity.’

  Anyone who saw Burgess, they’d think: late-forties, successful. They might even admire his suit. But they would never see his house. It wasn’t only that it was so stark, rather than comfortably domestic. It was the TV sets. Burgess really did play Junk’s tapes all the time: snatches of skate videos, monster truck marathons, porno movies, kung fu and Chinese ghost films, Russian cartoons – all cut together into a schizophrenic orgy. It was the only thing that Burgess had in common with Junk. That, and not sleeping.

  John Burgess was ten years older than Junk and looked like a florid version of Steve Martin, but without the kind of personality that you’d want to let grow on you. It seemed to Junk that he’d known the man all his life. That was his luck. Making the videos was the compensation for the nastier shit he put up with.

  Burgess said, ‘See that, the bastard did it again. He’s had his hands on his cock all evening. What’s going to happen when the punters roll up? He’ll be so busy playing with himself the Ponderosa Liberation Army could walk past launching anti-tank rockets and he’d wave them through. That’s why I had the metal detectors installed.’

  Junk screwed up his good eye, he found watching the security cameras a little slow. They improved later in the evening, when the club was full. But only if you could flick between all the cameras very quickly, which was impossible. Each camera had its own VCR and monitor. Junk twitched his head back and forth, blinking at the same time. It was an unsatisfactory solution, it hurt his neck and so he stopped. The club was beginning to fill. The cavernous dance floor was empty but, looking at the monitors for the cafeteria and two of the bars, he could see the seats in the quieter corners of the club were already taken – mostly by regulars, friends, people who could skip the queue and walk right past security with a nod and a scratch. He saw Yen and Theresa, sat in the upstairs bar. But the paying punters would take an hour or more to get inside.

  *

  Sitting swivelling on his high bar stool, Yen was telling Theresa that the pills had had no effect – they were probably Ibuprofen tablets that his Latino lover had bought to relieve her period pains.

  ‘How many did you take?’ asked Theresa.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Yen. ‘Enough.’

  He sucked at the neck of his Lucozade bottle. Theresa watched him. He hadn’t a clue, sitting on his bar stool, swinging his legs. He looked about four years old. The clothes he wore, a sweatshirt down to his knees and loose skate pants, made him look like a toddler. He pulled the bottle away from his mouth and grinned at her. Even his teeth looked babyish; milky white, small and evenly separated.

  He brushed his hair out of his eyes. ‘Let’s have a smoke. We can sit in Junk’s video room, he won’t mind.’

  Theresa nodded, okay. She knew Junk wouldn’t mind, although all the staff at the Gravity had been warned about smoking dope on the premises. Burgess had said that he was covering for no one, no way. Now that he had installed video cameras, he was almost wildly enthusiastic about letting the police view playbacks of the tapes he made. The only safe, camera-free rooms were in the club’s cellars, among the dressing rooms and offices, or above the dance floor in the DJ booth and Junk’s room. Yen had already tried skinning-up in the DJ booth but, as usual, he had been kicked out. Last year, a world-famous DJ from Detroit accused Yen of lifting records behind his back and now none of the DJs trusted him. Theresa thought it was likely that Yen was guilty, although she had never seen him do it.

  Of everyone who worked at the Gravity, about the only person who still got on with Yen was Junk. Well, most of the girls and some of the gays behind the bar liked him but even they were careful where they left their bags when he was around. But Junk was weirdly tolerant of Yen. He was weirdly tolerant of just about anything, but especially of Yen. Theresa had thought that maybe it was because Yen was her friend, and so Junk let him hang around for her sake. She now thought that Junk just liked having Yen around, someone who appeared even more stupid than him. Caught between the two of them, Theresa felt like the side order on a moron sandwich. Although Junk wasn’t stupid exactly, just a little fried.

  ‘Junk’s room will be open, won’t it?’ asked Yen.

  ‘It doesn’t matter, I’ve got the key,’ said Theresa.

  ‘Nice one, Tréz!’

  Yen was already bouncing off along the balcony towards Junk’s booth. Theresa slid off her bar stool and followed him. The cocktail bar opened on to a wide gantry that overlooked the dance floor. At the far end were three booths, one for the lighting boys, one for the DJ and then Junk’s private room. Yen was halfway across the gantry now, hanging over the balustrade and waving at someone over the other side of the club. Theresa looked over the edge, into the gaping space below. The Gravity was about a quarter full. It would take another hour, then it would be heaving.

  ‘Hey, come on, Tréz.’ Yen was pulling at Theresa’s sleeve.

  He almost dragged her to the VJ booth. Theresa couldn’t help laughing at him, saying to him: You
dick, Yen.

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, come on, let’s toke. You know it makes sense.’

  Jumping up and down on the spot, Theresa opened the door and he rushed through.

  Inside Junk’s video cabin, Theresa ran her finger over the tapes, labelled and racked on shelves. She didn’t know how Junk had built his collection, where he found the tapes or how he afforded them. The collection filled the shelves on three walls of the cabin. The only free space held Junk’s mixing desk and, above it, a huge window that opened out to the club below. Junk would sit up here, watching his tapes run on the screens above the dance floor. Calling him a VJ made it sound as though he mixed and edited the tapes on the spot. In fact, he did that during the day. At night he just sat back and enjoyed them. Junk was a master. Theresa studied video at college but she had learnt more from him than from her tutors. His mixing desk was certainly better than anything at college, even if its layout was a little counter-intuitive, at least from her point of view.

  Yen sat in Junk’s control seat, playing at Mission Control, running his hands over the buttons and looking out of the window.

  ‘Mach speed, baby, we’re going in … No, skipper, I can’t hold it. There’s no juice in the tanks and we took some flak in the fin … We few, we band of brothers. Ah ha, cry havoc and unleash the dogs of war.’

  With the last roll of the ‘r’ of war, Yen shot out his tongue, licked down the edge of his double-width Rizla paper and sealed the joint. Theresa could never believe how quickly Yen did that; she hadn’t even seen him begin to roll it. No one could skin up faster than Yen. He should try card tricks, sleight of hand, something. I mean, you couldn’t say he was completely untalented.