Butcher (5 page)

‘Right, I must have kept it for that article,' he said. A lie. Mibbe. He didn't remember. He scanned newspapers habitually, he just never got round to binning them.

‘The
Evening Times
, January 1997. Christ, Lou. How far back do these go?'

‘I don't know, but I know where they're going now.' He bent down quickly and grabbed a bundle and carried them out to the top of the stairs. He dropped them, then went back inside the bedroom. He collected another pile, repeated the act. A cleansing process. He was energized by humiliation.

Betty began hauling papers as well. They had a rhythm going until they collided with each other in the bedroom doorway and she laughed and Perlman's stack slipped out of his arms and fell: the tumbling newspapers released a plastic zip-lock bag, which contained something black in a pool of grey fluid. Perlman couldn't remember any plastic baggie, unless it had contained food he'd brought upstairs one weary night, and he'd fallen asleep without eating it, and
somehow
it got buried under the dry dead weight of
Heralds
and
Scotsmans
.

He bent down to examine it, and immediately recoiled.

‘What is it?' Betty asked.

‘You don't want to know.' Perlman caught his breath and carefully picked up the baggie between tip of thumb and index finger and held it at arm's length. ‘Oh dear Christ,' Betty said, and clasped the palm of one hand to her mouth.

7

In the lamplit car park of the Hilton, Dorcus stood with hands in the pockets of his hooded green duffle-coat. Rain slicked his glasses, and all the world was smudged.

Reuben Chuck held an umbrella which he kept to himself. ‘I'm very satisfied with our arrangement. So far.'

Dorcus found Chuck menacing. He looked at people as if he intended to burn their sockets out with the force of his eyes.

‘I'm assumin our partnership will be ongoin,' Chuck said.

‘Ah, y-yes, ah, of c-course, indeed.' Dorcus was infuriated by his lifelong inability to communicate easily. Words came out of him like broken biscuits. He'd always been this way.

Reuben Chuck adjusted the brolly over his head. ‘My clientele is elitist, worldly. They all love to spend.' He was beautifully dressed. His black hair was so richly gelled it reflected the lights in the windows of the Hilton. He wore long sideburns cut square, one in perfect alignment with the other.

Dorcus adored symmetry.

‘Where there's a need, Reuben Chuck's the man to fill it. Happy customers.'

Chuck had very fine teeth, possibly expensive implants, but realistic.

‘We all profit from this, Dorco.'

Dorco, nobody had ever called him Dorco before. ‘Prof – well, of c-course, I know, you …'

‘Do I make you uneasy, Dorco?'

Dorcus smiled. He knew he looked gormless when he smiled. He
hated
his smile. He hated his whole face in fact, except when he had the surgical mask on. ‘I don't, ammm, so-socialize much.'

Chuck dismissed this. ‘You're an artist, Dorco. An artist has no social obligations. You don't have to doff your bunnet to any wanker. You remember that.'

Dorcus had never thought of himself this way. He was uplifted. It was the same feeling he'd had whenever his father directed a kind word at him, a very rare event. Judge Dysart, a permanently preoccupied man, had been miserly with praise.

Chuck asked, ‘You'll have somethin for me day after the morra, eh?'

‘Yes, y-yes o—'

‘I want to know I can count on you one hunnerd and one per cent.' Chuck squeezed Dorcus's shoulder tightly.

‘Count on me, of course you can c-count on me.'

‘Where did you say you'd trained, Dorco?'

‘I‘m … St Andrews.'

‘St Andrews, aye. A man who graduates from a place like that is somebody special. Remember that.'

Dorcus pounced on some loose words like a cat on a bunch of baby rodents, and forced out a complete sentence. ‘I have the assistance of a capable nurse, Ms Payne. She's a wonderful—'

Chuck interrupted. ‘Good help's essential. A right hand, somebody you can trust. Where did Nurse Payne train?'

‘Erm, the R-Royal Infirmary.'

‘I had my tonsils whipped out there. Coincidence, you say? Coincidences are meant to
tell
us somethin.' Chuck winked, as if sharing a sly secret with Dorcus. ‘They have purpose, Dorco. They have meanin. Don't you forget that.'

The hand squeezed Dorcus's shoulder harder. Dorcus felt his eyes water behind his glasses. Chuck grinned up close, and Dorcus could smell marzipan on his breath.

‘I might come off as a hard-arsed businessman, but I have beliefs in other directions …' Chuck looked mysterious and knowing, tapped into hidden sources of information. His slitty eyes became even more narrow. ‘One day mibbe I'll tell you more.'

Chuck released him.

Dorcus had lost the thread somewhere around the word
coincidence
. His head had gone rambling. He worried about his house sitting empty and vulnerable. His two Dobermans, Allen and Glen, prowled the grounds in his absence, but dogs could be shot or thrown poisoned food. He had an alarm system protecting windows and doors, but he fully expected that one day the Slab People would scale the thirteen-foot stone wall separating his property from the putrid wastelands of the towers. He'd strung razor wire along the top, but when the Slabbites were inebriated they didn't give a damn about personal safety, and once they'd climbed the wall they'd break a window and get inside the house and ignore the alarm; they didn't give a monkey's about anything.

Blood on the wire. Blood was currency to them. Scars were medals of courage.

Chuck said, ‘Ahoy in there.'

‘S-sorry, I sometimes d-drift—'

Reuben Chuck patted the side of Dorcus's face. ‘Drift away, Dorco. Drift all you like. You're entitled.'

Dorcus took off his glasses, wiped them on his sleeve. It only made the lenses worse. It was a stupid thing to do. Just stupid. You ass. Rainwater on glass, glass on wet duffle, did you expect a successful outcome? Oh, for God's sake Dorcus. He felt his skull tighten.

Reuben Chuck clamped Dorcus's shoulder again. ‘I get the feelin you're hard on yourself, Dorco. Artists are their own worst critics. You know what your problem is? You don't know how to relax.'

‘No, y-you're right, I …'

‘It just so
happens
I know somebody who could help, Dorco. Beautiful girl. She's got ways of making the world go away. And don't you even think about openin your wallet. It's on the house.'

‘But but.'

‘
Tcchhhh
,' Chuck said. ‘Consider it done.' He checked his Gucci SilverTone wrist-watch. ‘Time and tide. I'm always under pressure. I'll send Glorianna over to you. She'll phone first. Awright? She'll make you feel a whole new man … And the next shipment. You remember where to deliver it?'

‘I d-do, yes.'

Reuben Chuck hurried to his parked car, which had been running all this time. A very large muscular man in a black leather coat had been sitting behind the wheel, waiting and watching. Chuck collapsed the umbrella and tossed it in the rear seat, then he stepped into the back of the car and gave a tiny flick of his head, goodbye.

Dorcus waved. Nice car, a Jag-you-are.

Anxieties crowded him. Don't send me anybody. Please. I don't need. I don't need a woman—

I have Nurse Payne.

He made semaphore-like signals with his arms upraised to catch Chuck's attention, but the Jag was already roaring off into the blackening arteries of Glasgow.

8

Inside the abandoned bowling-alley Reuben Chuck said to the blindfolded man, ‘You haven't told me what I want to know, Danny.'

‘Away tay fuck,' Turpie said.

‘You're wastin my time, Danny.'

Chuck stood with his hands clasped behind his back. Some people love punishment, he thought. Turpie had been punched and kicked and mauled. His lips were split and his mouth leaked blood. Blood dripped from his skull and soaked his blindfold.

Chuck sighed, looking round at the assembly of his men who stood in shadows behind him. They were big men, some with shaven heads. They wore dark suits fashionably cut. Chuck knew they had handguns, knives, old-fashioned clasped razors, concealed in their clothing.

He turned to Turpie again. ‘Say the numbers, son. All you have to do and you're out of here.'

‘I telt you. I gave a vow to Stoker.'

‘A vow to a dead man, come
on
, what's that worth?'

‘Means something in my book,' Danny said. He was speaking with the difficulty of a battered prizefighter whose mouth was so numb it felt more like a protruding snout than a hollow where you placed food.

Struggling with impatience, Chuck surveyed the bowling-alley, rundown and drab. He'd acquired the property in the past week, thanks to the
putsch
, but hadn't decided if he'd keep or demolish it. The place smelled of bowling shoes worn by hundreds of different punters, the ancient jukebox was covered in dust, and some of the lanes were warped by damp.

He addressed his men. ‘This guy has a death wish, boys. Karmic irresponsibility on his part.'

Danny Turpie said, ‘You're talking pure shite.'

Chuck spoke slowly. ‘Life's not precious to you, is it, Danny? You're throwin it away on account of a promise that has absolutely
no
value. In my book this is an affront to destiny.'

Danny Turpie said, ‘Destiny my arse.'

Chuck was aware of his crew growing restless. These men failed to understand why he was still giving Danny Turpie a chance. They were stoked to rip Turpie's fucking head off his shoulders and put his corpse through a meat-grinder and never mind the bla-bla, the karmic babble.

‘Numbers? I'll give ye a fucking number,' and Danny Turpie sang in a blood-thickened voice, ‘
Hallo, hallo we are the Billy Boys
.'

‘A singer, eh?' Chuck surveyed his gang. ‘We've got ourselves a singer, boys.'

‘
Hallo, hallo we are the Billy Boys. Up to our knees in Fenian
—'

Chuck tuned out this sectarian trash. Some people didn't grow beyond the boundaries of their narrow-minded upbringing: football was a pagan form of worship, and stadia had become cathedrals of malice. ‘Right,
right
, Turpie. Game's over. Chance after chance. And you're showin no respect for me.'

He nodded to his black-suited platoon.

The men quickly encircled Danny, grabbing him and throwing him down on the lane. He kept singing defiantly until somebody smacked him a few times in the mouth, and even then he managed to utter a few miserable phrases. Some of Chuck's men produced a rope, binding Turpie's hands behind his back, then tying hands to feet and pulling tightly. They positioned him facing the bowler's end of the lane. Danny struggled fiercely but pointlessly against the ropes. Chuck removed the blindfold without looking into Turpie's eyes. The men, having stewed too long in the adrenalin of delayed violence, hurried back to the top of the lane and picked up dusty old bowling balls from racks.

Chuck had done a lot of violence when he was a younger man, but he'd lost the appetite for it and, besides, there were problematic questions involved – when you hurt somebody for their stupid obstinacy, what were the repercussions in the greater scheme? For example: did you fuck up your own reincarnation?

I'm no comin back as a silkworm, no way.

He looked on. He had no choice. He couldn't show weakness in front of the big men. They were a cunning gang with predatory instincts, and if they caught a whiff of vulnerability in their Boss, they began to lose respect. He'd still be the Big Man, sure, but there would be noticeable differences – the men would be slightly less responsive in obeying orders, or they'd talk behind his back and clam up dead silent as soon as he approached.

Worst case, they might begin plotting against him.

So he was tough. Because he had to be.

He watched the black bowling balls thunder down the lane at great speed. They screamed toward Danny, and clattered into his face, skull, groin, knees. Danny shouted a couple of times. A few gutterballs missed him completely, small mercies. A second fusillade began. The balls racketed and vibrated and kept coming, ten, twenty, more, black cannon-balls. Danny's leather jacket was scarlet and blood puddled around him.

Chuck said, ‘That's enough, boys.'

He walked to where Turpie lay and nudged him with his foot.

Turpie didn't move.

Chuck stared at the mass of flesh formerly Danny's head. Shattered nose, hair matted like red webbing, eyes shut, mouth wide. Danny was
deid
.

He glanced at his crew with a look of recrimination, then gazed back down at Turpie. How come Stoker, himself dead and buried, could maintain such loyalty from beyond the grave? You had to admire the fortitude of Danny Turpie's vow, if not his obstinacy. He wondered if any of his boys would do for him what Turpie had done for Stoker. He had his doubts.

‘Clean and lock up before you leave, boys.' He walked away from Turpie and in frustration kicked the jukebox and it cranked into action. An old Lonnie Donegan tune played: ‘Nobody's Child
'. He kicked the jukebox again but the song wouldn't quit.

Somebody said, ‘Mental wee cunt, Turpie. Always a heidcase.'

Chuck stepped outside. The night rain had stopped and the air smelled clean. He thought about the access numbers to Bram Stoker's bank accounts, and how they'd died with Danny Turpie. Mibbe.

Ronnie Mathieson, tinted glasses, jaw as smooth as glass, drove Chuck in the Jaguar to the Number One Fitness Centre, situated in a small business park in Crossmyloof, south of the river. Chuck paused before he got out and turned to Mathieson.

‘The bank's the Clydesdale, Ronnie,' he said. ‘The branch on Buchanan Street. Find out who runs it.'