Acid Casuals Read online

  Estela calculated that she had two days, perhaps, before she was re-questioned. One of Yen’s friends would mention having seen her, she believed. She had looked over the faces of the other witnesses, the ones that had been left waiting on another corridor while her evidence was taken. None of them was familiar. She might count on two days’ grace. She could complete her job and disappear.

  If she could complete her job, then she could disappear – she corrected herself. There was now a whole wall of interference between herself and Burgess; she risked static whether she completed the hit immediately or whether she waited. For her own sweet peace, she would have to find out why the past days had blown without harmony. She could almost believe someone was unhinging her constellation. The influence of Saturn on her house could not be discounted. Standing in the reception area of a police station, she was alone with the smell of an industrial cleaning agent. The whole building was spotless. She had never associated law enforcement and hygiene before – she must be growing old. She began pressing at a bell-button on the reception counter. When a policeman appeared, she asked him to call her a taxi – she was about to drop.

  ‘Two taxis,’ Junk appeared behind her. ‘They’ve done with me, for now.’

  Estela said, ‘You want to share a cab.’

  ‘Where are you going?’

  ‘Withington.’

  ‘No, I’m heading north,’ said Junk. ‘Tottington.’

  ‘Yes?’

  When the first taxi arrived, Estela took it but asked the driver to pull around the corner and wait. She was going to follow Junk. At the moment his cab reached the Stockport road, she knew that she had made the right move. Tottington sounded implausible.

  *

  Theresa was sitting in darkness, huddled on a spindly chair in a corner of her kitchen. Junk entered through the back yard and tapped at the kitchen door. Theresa heard him whispering his name and hers. She pulled back the bolt, let him through and went back to her little seat. What had happened? What had happened? She wasn’t sure whether she asked him or he asked her.

  ‘Yen’s dead,’ said Junk.

  She knew that.

  ‘What happened?’ he asked again.

  She had shot him. What now?

  Theresa imagined a white chalk mark drawn around a bare floor and a body in a drawer, wrapped in a polythene sleeping bag, the zipper running from toe to crown. Whatever remained of the crown, afterwards. She saw policemen in blue anoraks tracing imaginary lines at a murder scene. A piece of cotton tied around a pin and drawn tight to indicate the trajectory the bullet took from the gun, as she held it. She saw the bullet leave the gun again, rip through Yen and leave a bloody stain on the wall, six feet above and behind the spot where he had been standing. She saw Yen on the floor, his throat punched through. When she knelt beside him and took his head in her hand, there had been a hole – just at the spot where his cranium had once bulged. She looked up; there are his brains, all of them. She looked up; Junk was pleading with her: ‘Tréz, Tréz, what happened?’

  ‘I pointed a gun at him and it went off,’ she said.

  ‘Where did the gun come from, Theresa?’

  ‘Nowhere, it came out of the air.’

  Junk crouched down beside her. ‘Oh, Theresa. How could it have? How could it have? Theresa, Theresa.’

  He guessed that she was in shock. She must be in shock. He couldn’t believe she had killed Yen deliberately, and he couldn’t explain the gun. He knelt down close to her chair. He held her hands.

  ‘Theresa, did Yen bring the gun? Was it his gun?’

  After he’d visited the Taz-Man, Junk had hooked up with Yen and Theresa. They had all gone to the Gravity together. Although it was early, the security team had already arrived. Perhaps they hadn’t had a chance to turn the metal detectors on. If the metal detectors weren’t working, then Yen could have smuggled a gun past the bouncers. But perhaps the gun was already inside the club, hidden somewhere. Yen had visited them at the club that afternoon. He may have found the gun in Burgess’s office. If that was where the gun came from, then he was better off dead. Junk knew what Yen was like, that he would steal anything. Junk should never have taken him downstairs.

  ‘Was the gun Yen’s? Did he bring it with him? Or was it Burgess’s? Theresa, listen, did Yen steal one of Burgess’s guns? … Did he? Please, please, Tréz,’ he pleaded with her.

  Because she remained silent, Junk fell silent.

  *

  They were still in the dark when Estela let herself in, flicking on the light as she passed through the kitchen door.

  ‘Hello, Junk,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you put the kettle on and introduce me to your friend?’

  Junk didn’t react, didn’t even curse her for following him.

  He just looked her over, slowly. Until, standing at last, he said, ‘Theresa, this is Paul Sorel. Paul, Theresa O’Donnell.’

  Chapter Eight

  Estela made the tea, scalding the pot and setting it down on the kitchen table with a half-turn to agitate the water. The milk stood in a gravy boat, there was no jug anywhere. She had found a clean teaspoon but sugared and stirred everyone’s tea without asking how they preferred it. The three of them sat around the kitchen table and drank the pot dry. Estela believed the extra-sweet tea would help to ease Theresa out of shock, but the girl had not said a word so far. Junk and Estela talked. Junk called her Paul once but she stopped him: ‘It’s Estela.’

  ‘I thought you’d call yourself Lola if you ever went through with the operation.’

  Estela said no. ‘Too obvious.’

  ‘I meant The Raincoats version, not the Kinks.’

  Estela liked’ the way Junk could forget whole reams of things that anyone else might remember but never forget that she had loved a cover song by The Raincoats. Could it be transposed to flamenco, she wondered. She looked at Junk’s ill-matched eyes, the real one far spacier than its partner. He said he recognised her immediately he saw her. He said, ‘I like your new accent.’

  ‘It’s irreversible.’ The Manchester accent disappeared along with her Adam’s apple.

  ‘Why are you back?’

  ‘It was supposed to be a holiday. I planned to pass through town like a ghost. But when I walked into that bar and saw the photograph of John Burgess staring back at me, I knew something would go wrong. Was it you who sent Yen over to talk to me? That was bad luck for both of us.’

  Yen hadn’t needed much persuasion. When Junk told her that, he could tell she was flattered. Her voice fluttered. But as she leant closer to Junk, she dropped a quarter-octave: ‘This girl killed Yen, didn’t she?’

  Junk was almost positive: ‘She was alone with him, so what else could have happened? She says the gun just appeared, but Yen must have took it from Burgess’s office – where else could it come from?’

  ‘Where else? Don’ ask me. I hear everyone in Manchester carries a gun, nowadays.’

  They weren’t uncommon. The more Junk visited the Taz-Man, the more guns he saw. But Yen would never have had one.

  Estela improvised: ‘You think no? Thanks to you, I knew him. He was a thief and a dealer. All his talk – it was about the big deals he was planning, the money he was going to make.’

  Junk knew this sounded wrong. Even if Yen was dealing, he’d be doing ten tabs here, ten tabs there. ‘He’d be doing it in clubs, where the bouncers keep out the lunatics and the police warn off the gangs. He was a clubhead, a face, he knew everyone and everyone knew him. Why would he need a gun?’

  Estela had a new argument. ‘He would deal on credit. He was no Vatican banker. Suppose he lost a few tabs each week. Say, he was too stoned to remember where he hid them, or he gave too many away. Or he took them all himself. He might end owing thousands to some really nasty men. Don’ tell me he wouldn’t want some kind of protection.’

  Junk knew Yen wasn’t the type, not at all. Why bother to flesh out the whole bare, sad mystery? He said, ‘Yen was in Burgess’s office a few hours befor
e he died. We both know Burgess loves guns, so why look for a drugs angle? Leave that to the police. Once they open Yen up, they’ll identify traces of insecticide on a tomato he ate last year, they’re so hyped for a new drugs story.’

  Estela wouldn’t give up. ‘Why is it not a drugs story? If the gun belongs to Burgess, perhaps Burgess is the wholesaler. Half the kids I meet are teetotal. If Burgess ran drugs inside his club, whatever he loses at the bar he could make back on chemicals.’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Tell me: why no, Junk? Tell me?’ Estela stared Junk out, her voice tuned to an interrogative key. ‘All that security, what’s that for? I tell you: for one reason. To keep accredited dealers safe. A policy of containment, pure and simple. I’m Latin American – I know these things.’

  ‘Burgess isn’t involved with drugs,’ said Junk. He was sure. ‘He’s got a heavy coke habit, yeah. I know because I’m the one who gets the stuff for him. But he’s so far out of the business, he can’t even score for himself.’

  Estela knew Burgess could not be clean. That would make no sense. If Héctor Barranco Garza wanted him dead, he had to be involved in something. She kept pushing: ‘Why would Burgess need guns if he’s an honest businessman?’

  ‘He’s straight, he might be honest. But he’s still a total whacked-out psychopath.’

  ‘I was beginning to think he had changed beyond recognition,’ said Estela, giving up. ‘It’s good to be home again. I’ll put the kettle on. I love the Americas, but I had forgotten what a real cup of tea tasted like.’

  The kitchen lay at the back of a terraced house, an old two up/two down. The linoleum looked like an original fixture; worn to a pitted pink, it echoed lightly beneath Estela’s heels as she hustled round the hob. Turning the spent teabags into the sink, Estela was thinking, Jesus-Maria, how to get an angle on this whole mess. As the kettle began to whistle, she was telling herself that this was all she needed: a kitchen-sink drama. What should she try next?

  ‘I’ve given you three sugars,’ she told Theresa. ‘Believe me, it is exactly what you need.’

  Sugar was supposed to feed the brain. Was this girl as stupid as Yen – had she just picked up a strange gun and shot the boy?

  She said, ‘What did you say about the police? That they are certain to cut him open?’

  ‘I guess so.’

  Estela could guess what drugs they would find. She tried a last strategy.

  ‘Why are you so sure it’s an accident? The girl was the one who shot him, she probably had her reasons.’

  Junk stared at Estela: she must know she was wrong. She must feel it. She had always been able to catch the nuances in a situation. Even as a boy, she had a woman’s intuition. He wouldn’t have believed it, but perhaps that part of her was all dried out.

  She saw the look but carried on. ‘Perhaps the girl was jealous. She’s only young, she don’ have my experience. Maybe the boy told her how good I was. Maybe he described the look on my face as he fucked me in the mouth.’

  Junk could not deal with that one. He couldn’t throw it back. He couldn’t even look at her. It would be too obvious that his brain was buzzing, trying to see past her expression to work out if she were telling the truth. He reddened and looked away.

  Theresa saved him. Her voice was just audible but it got through to him. ‘It was her gun. Yen said he found it in her case, after she passed out.’

  Junk turned on Estela. ‘Of course, it was your gun.’ He saw it now.

  Theresa’s voice was limping but was not unfirm. ‘Yen was playing with it. I asked him if it was real. He said it couldn’t be, it felt like a toy. It was lightweight and the handle was hollow. Even if it was real, it didn’t work.’

  Her voice finally seized.

  Estela finished the scene. ‘There was no magazine, but there was one bullet in the chamber. You found the safety catch and flicked it off without realising. That’s how you shot him.’

  Theresa wailed. Estela covered Theresa’s hands with her own and then, as the tears began to pour, took Theresa in her arms and mothered her. She could not stop the noise but she did not even try. She just held Theresa, and let her weep on her shoulder until they were both damp.

  *

  Junk lit the gas fire in the parlour. They had wrapped Theresa in a duvet and let her doze on the settee. Estela continued to hold her. Junk sat opposite in a tatty armchair. Dawn was beginning to bleed through the sheet that had been nailed over the window as a makeshift curtain. Junk rolled a joint, either as a nightcap or as breakfast.

  He said, ‘Are you in a hurry to head back?’

  Estela said, ‘Not so great a hurry. I’ll see what I can do here first.’

  ‘I think you should.’

  He handed her the joint. Estela thought she would be unable to stomach English dope, but the smoke overtook her on her tired side and she relaxed into it. The last thing she remembered, Junk asked if she had come to kill Burgess. It was true, but it was not the way he imagined.

  She told him: ‘No.’ Transsexuals have a curiously pacific psychological profile, did he not know anything?

  Why did she have a gun, then? Well, a girl has got to have protection.

  Chapter Nine

  Junk walked out of Levenshulme into morning light that was equal parts silver and ash. The rain had slowed to almost nothing, just hazy spray in the air. He caught a bus halfway to Hulme along Wilbraham Road and walked the rest. He thought he would be better on his own – get his head together. Mornings like these seemed to graze the old scars along his cheeks, to pepper his skin like alcohol. An ashy silver morning could invigorate him better than the saunas, the swims, the vitamin drinks he used to wake himself up – now that he hardly ever slept.

  Closer to Hulme, the pulpy smell from the brewery had already begun to dull the morning’s edge. Junk crossed over a patch of green where the pit bulls played, and climbed the steps at Elmin Walk, up to his flat. The door was open and he could hear his own television playing inside. He walked through.

  The front room was full of men in dinner jackets, black bow ties and Crombie great-coats. It looked like a bouncers’ convention, all of them sat around watching as the weather-girl pointed at another area of rain-bearing pressure, moving in from the Atlantic. Bernard was the biggest and the oldest, sat apart on Junk’s only chair. His boys were gathered around him: Billy leant against a wall, Frank and John on the floor. They all looked up as Junk walked into his own room.

  Bernard said, ‘All right, John Quay. We been waiting up all fucking night.’

  ‘Sorry, Big Lad. I would have rushed home sooner,’ said Junk.

  ‘Well, let’s not hang about any more. We’d best get going.’

  There was no question, Junk just turned right around and walked back out with them. If he had wanted to do one, he should have run the minute he saw they were waiting for him. But he knew that he would have to speak to Burgess soon. It was better to get it over and done. If he disappeared for a day or two, Bernard would tell his boys to leave Junk’s door open, let anyone walk in and steal what they wanted – that would teach Junk to fanny about.

  Junk said, ‘Leave the telly on. It’s better if people think I’m in. And lock up behind you.’

  ‘Okay John, anything you say.’ Bernard pulled on the chain that hung in a loop from his trouser pocket. At the other end was a great bunch of keys. Bernard re-locked Junk’s door, elaborately fastening all three locks, the Yale and the deadlocks at the top and bottom.

  ‘It’s not what you’d call a good neighbourhood, eh?’

  ‘It’s all right.’ Junk shrugged. He had steel sheets on the window, the door was reinforced. The flat was larger than anything else he could afford, a maisonette flat built for a family of four or five, only two minutes’ walk from the town centre. And, he could have added, there was still a neighbourhood feel – although there were some in the neighbourhood who would rob their own grandmothers, they were in the minority.

  Junk had bought his locks of
f Burgess, who told him he happened to have a few spare deadlocks alter a re-fit at home. Burgess had said, ‘Go on and take them, it saves you forty pounds.’ Junk knew Burgess would keep a set of keys for himself. But why argue? If it satisfied Burgess’s paranoia, it meant a quieter life for him. Burgess could have the door kicked in any time he wanted, anyway.

  ‘Where is Burgess?’ asked Junk. ‘At the club or at his place?

  ‘He’ll be back home by now; he said that if we couldn’t find you by four then we should head out to the ranch.’

  That was it, then. A half hour drive down to Knutsford with Bernard and his boys. Unless Bernard decided to let Billy, Frank and John get off home to bed. They must have been sat waiting in his front room all night.

  Just two seconds later, as they crossed towards the big black Lexus SL400, Bernard dismissed his boys. Junk felt like he was getting lucky. At least he could ride down in comfort instead of being squashed on a back seat between two eighteen-stoners. The only problem was having to put up with Bernard’s good humour. Junk liked comedians to be cheerful; he preferred it if thugs were dour.

  Bernard’s Lexus had central-locking. Junk would get fair warning if he was going to get thrown out on the motorway. As the door studs clicked into place, an old soul record cranked up on the car stereo: ‘There’s A Ghost In My House’ by R. Dean Taylor. Bernard sang along. After ten minutes, Junk realised it was a CD, programmed to repeat the same track over and over. He tried to blot it out.

  They were out in the countryside when Bernard broke off mid-verse and said, ‘How did the coppers treat you, John?’

  This was it. Junk tried to keep it level, off-hand or off the top of his head. ‘No worries. Fine.’

  ‘Who was that bird they took away with you?’

  ‘A tourist. From Brazil.’

  Bernard said, ‘I had a Brazilian once. She was all right.’

  Junk had had these kind of chats before. Bernard reckoned to have shagged everyone in the world.