Dead Money (7 page)

I stared at him. The Waste held out the spliff to me. Before I knew it, I was taking the last of it in my lungs. He leaned forward in his seat. He groaned like an old man and licked his lips as he inspected the paraphernalia on the coffee table in front of him. He rubbed his eyes and then opened them wide, as if he was attempting to focus.

I held up the spliff. "How long have you been at this?"

"Since I got in from work."

"You work at the Riverside, too?"

Shook his head. "Union."

"Cheetham Hill? Tough club."

"Not if I have a couple before work."

"You never been done for it?"

"Kidding, aren't you? Union are just glad you turn in. It's a defence mechanism. We've all got ‘em. Stevie's a drunk, Phil and Dougie mix it up. Martin likes his fuckin' fruit smoothies and running laps and sodomy or whatever. I'm a purist."

"I can see that."

He started with the Rizlas, a little lick here, a little lick there, press and fold, creating the plan. Then he went into the baggie of green and sprinkled. A lick along the seal of each cigarette, peeling it open to reveal the cylinder of tobacco.

"Steve McQueen used to smoke all the time. They always said it was the weed that gave him cancer. It wasn't. It was the tobacco. The weed was pure." He caught me watching and grinned. He looked stupid. "You're not a smoker, are you?"

I leaned back. "Not really." I ground the roach out in the ashtray. Probably bad etiquette, but that thing was dead and gone and he didn't seem to give a shit.

The Waste started licking and rolling the new spliff as Beale called Dougie a poof. I turned in my chair, saw that Dougie had mucked in front of a big pot, which Beale now raked in.

"Don't be so fuckin' sullen," he said. "I'm only tapping the tank."

Dougie's face became tighter. "I'm not a fish."

"Course you're not, son."

When I turned back, The Waste had sparked his new monster, which had hit him hard on that first puff – the colour was gone from his face, replaced by large dark shadows under his eyes. I moved my lips, sipped from my Carling and found it almost gone. Lucky for me, Stevie was coming back in with more. He popped one off the plastic and handed it to me. I couldn't remember him leaving the room.

"Call it," said Beale, "and raise it another fifty."

"Nah, no way," said Phil. "That's a fuckin' string."

"You what?"

"It's card room rules here, Les," said Stevie.

I gulped the beer. The Waste looked at me. "You alright?"

"Yeah,"

"Watch your mixture. Drink's a demon, I'm telling you."

"Fine," said Beale. "I'll take it back."

The beer didn't feel right in my stomach. "Any remedies?"

"Just the one," said The Waste, and handed me his cure-all.

I did what I had to do, and it did the trick.

"Better?"

The smoke stung my eyes, but I nodded. Handed the spliff back and wiped the tears.

"You flushing?" asked Beale. "You are, you're fuckin' flushing, you shitehawk."

"Pay up," said Stevie.

"We all need something," said The Waste. "But take my advice, mate – pick a team and stick to it."

I smiled. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"I have no idea. If I did, d'you honestly think I'd be stuck here?"

"I don't know." And I honestly didn't.

"I'm just trying to get through life with as few bumps as possible, mate."

"Aren't we all?"

He chewed his bottom lip, looked at me as if for the first time. "Like I said, I have no idea." Then he sank into the settee to watch the weather update as Beale raked in another pot.

7

I woke up face down on the carpet with the smell of weed in my nostrils.

It was morning, I knew that much. The light was cold, and so was the air. I rolled over and pulled myself along the carpet. Wiped my eyes and blinked. Smacked my lips, which didn't want to be smacked, gummed as they were by congealed drool. I rubbed a hand across my mouth and left scum on my knuckles.

For a second there, I thought I'd passed out at Stevie's place. And then, worse, that I'd gone round Lucy's after all and dropped out there.

But I was home, and I was in one piece. I didn't remember a lot about last night other than Beale cleaned up and it was a long, slow drive home. Yeah, you couldn't kill anyone driving a car stoned, but that was only because you were too paranoid to go above four miles an hour.

I pushed myself up onto the sofa and rubbed my face until I could feel something other than fatigue. From the bedroom I heard the hairdryer, which meant that Cath was up. Checked my watch – I could make it into work if I tried, but I was in no mood to try.

The hairdryer stopped. I took off my jacket and draped it over the arm of the sofa. There would be questions, and I had to have answers that sounded hard enough to be plausible and yet soft enough to be spur of the moment. Trouble was, my brain was swimming, and I had that creeping guilt that came with not remembering the night before in as much detail as I wanted to. I felt around in my jacket pocket, pulled out my mobile. No missed calls, no messages. Not that I thought Lucy would leave a message – as much as she enjoyed being the other woman, she wanted it to stay that way, not something that would necessarily happen if she left a voicemail. After all, the first thing suspicious wives did was check through messages. I checked the call log just in case I called her. I did, at about three in the morning, which I knew would go down like a sausage in a synagogue. Apparently I wasn't as bothered about getting caught.

I erased the call log just as Buttons trotted into the room, which meant Cath wasn't far behind. The dog stopped in the middle of the carpet and stared at me. If I wasn't sure that the dog had a brain the size of a grape, I could've sworn he knew about me and Lucy. The way he looked at me, the way he made my life hell when it was just me and him, the way he barked at me every time I came back from her place, it was like living with a hairy little grass.

"Late last night," said Cath.

I looked up. She was dressed for work, all sharp lines and piled hair, dominant to the point of androgyny.

"Yeah, it was a late one. There was another game after the comp."

"You win?"

Shook my head. "Didn't play. I was there for Les, really."

She regarded me and did the slow nod that meant I was a fucking idiot. "You going in today?"

"Late, but yes, I'll be in."

A brief cock of the head. "You sure?"

"Yes."

There was a pause, then she said, "You going out tonight?"

"I don't think so."

"Okay, good. We should have a nice dinner in, what d'you think? Give us a chance to catch up."

"Whatever you want."

"Okay, great." She checked her watch. "Look, I've got to go. If you're not going in, can you do me a favour and walk Buttons for me?"

I looked at Buttons. Buttons looked back. Both of us knew I would do no such thing. "Yeah, of course."

"Great." She smiled, showing perfect teeth, then made for the door. "Oh, there's coffee on, if you fancy it."

"Great," I echoed, but she didn't pick up on it. I waited until three seconds after the door closed before I said to Buttons, "Your mother's a bitch."

Buttons barked at me.

"Whatever, shitbucket. I hope she fed you, because you're getting nowt out of me."

I went to the bathroom and a horror show presented itself in the mirror. I stripped and took the toothbrush into the shower with me so I wouldn't have to see my reflection again. Then I changed into a clean suit and poured myself a cup of coffee. Buttons followed me through to the kitchen. He planted himself in the middle of the floor and yelped.

"What'd I tell you? Do one, you little spastic."

Buttons stayed put. I felt like slinging him into the washing machine and hitting spin. Sick thing was, I was glad when we got him because he was so clearly a child substitute. Neither Cath nor I wanted kids, but Buttons was an insurance policy. Way I saw it, she could take out her maternal instincts on the dog, and I'd be free to carry on regardless. And for a while, it worked. The only problem was, you couldn't take the little bastard's batteries out when he got annoying, and annoying had swiftly become his default setting.

I threw out a foot, caught him in the side and sent him scurrying through to the living room. I knew what he was going to do through there. I could hear him yipping and doing that retarded little growling thing he did when he was about to have a shit. I followed him through, saw him straining. I transferred my mobile, wallet and keys to my new suit and then slung the stinking jacket into the bedroom.

"Go on, son. Shit yourself silly," I told Buttons, and left the flat.

Downstairs, my car was safe and sound in the garage. I gave it a thorough check, and I couldn't see any scratches, dents or prangs, which was a miracle considering where I'd been and the state I was in the night before.

I drove to the office, picked up some leads that were clearly blags and one that I rearranged for later in the afternoon, then I continued on to Lucy's place. She wasn't in. I thought about swinging by the university, but then decided against it. There were unspoken rules in place, and one of those was to respect each other's personal space. I wouldn't expect her to come round the office, so I was supposed to stay away from her work. It meant that I was kind of at a loss until Beale phoned up.

"Where are you?"

"Hulme."

"Fuck you doing there?"

"A sit, Les. What else would I be doing?"

"How'd it go?"

"No good."

"Blag?"

"Looks like it."

"What'd I tell you?"

"I know, I know. But we still have to go out, mate."

"Maybe. What you up to later?"

"Nothing much."

"Meet us at the Commercial at seven. I've got something I need to talk to you about."

"And you can't do it over the phone?"

"No, it's special, this."

I didn't know what that meant, but I agreed. Reckoned dinner with Cath could always wait an extra hour or so, and I left a message on her mobile to say I had to reschedule a sit for later on. Then I turned off my mobile so I didn't hear it when she rang back to bleat.

When I got to the Commercial, Beale had a pint waiting for me. We got settled in and I waited for him to speak. And, after an interminable pause, he did. Every now and then he looked over his shoulder to make sure nobody was listening. Thursday night in the Commercial, he needn't have bothered. A tumbleweed skirting the floor wouldn't have looked out of place in here. The dog was nowhere to be seen, either. Good. Last thing I needed was that kind of fucking scrutiny.

"The bloke's name is Ahmad."