Heavy Duty Attitude (19 page)

‘Do you know what’s going on?’ he asked.
‘That’s not telling me Danny, is it?’ I pointed out.

‘No, I guess not,’ he shrugged, ‘but it’s just something big is going down and I don’t know how much you might already know about it.’ ‘So what is it that you know?’ I pressed.

 

‘You don’t tell anyone where you get your stuff from do you?’ he asked, ‘I heard Bung saying something about it.’

‘No, I don’t, not without their permission.’
‘Not to the cops?’
I shook my head, ‘No.’
‘Or even the guys?’
I shook my head again, ‘No, that’s probably what Bung was talking about.’

‘Yeah, he was saying that you’d refused to tell them something. He thought it was funny but Scroat thought they should have filled you in for it.’

Jesus, I thought.
‘Yes, they wanted to know where I’d got a story from.’
‘And what did you say?’
‘I said I couldn’t tell them.’
‘And that’s it?’

‘Yes, sorry, but that’s it. And that’s why you’ve come to me? Because you think I won’t tell anyone where I’ve heard it, whatever it is, from?’ ‘Yes,’ he nodded, ‘I guess that’s about it.’

 

‘But what is it you want to tell me? And why is it so important that you stay a secret?’

He hesitated, and looked down at the coffee mug he was now grasping in both hands on the table as though trying to order his thoughts before he spoke.

‘What is it Danny?’ I asked gently eventually, afraid that his nerve might fail at the last moment and he would bolt without now talking about whatever it was that he knew. ‘Come on then, tell me about it.’

‘Well…,’ he sighed at last, putting one hand up to rub first his eyes, and then the stubble of his shaven head, ‘I don’t know anything for sure.’ ‘OK then, tell me what you do know, and we’ll just take it from there,’ I said, and he began to speak.
9 The mixing desk
Danny hadn’t been on the funeral run he told me.

 

I explained to him that I knew that, as I had been there as part of The Brethren contingent.

Instead, as Bung’s tagalong, he had followed his sponsor and headed his bike on up to Liverpool that day at the back of the pack as part of The Brethren’s delegation attending The Rebel’s own grim faced run as a mark of respect.

It had been a heavy day. Danny had been acutely conscious of the need to keep his end up. He was representing The Brethren, even as a tagalong, in what had only the month before, been sworn enemy territory where being caught wearing a Menace flash would have resulted in a ferocious kicking at best. And now here they were, here he was, mingling with The Rebels as they buried one of their own, killed at a Brethren event.

His job as he saw it was to maintain a tight-faced dignity. He was relieved that there was little outward sign of hostility from The Rebels towards The Brethren contingent on their arrival. They had been welcomed by Stu who had assigned Badger, the local charter’s sergeant at arms to act as liaison and the rest of the crew treated The Brethren patches with respect.

But then as a tagalong, Danny’s lowly status meant that he hardly counted anyway in dealings between patches of the two clubs. He was used to the way a patch holder would order him around and the same sorts of ranks seemed to apply within The Rebel’s hierarchy so he just slipped in behind Bung and acted as normal and that seemed to work.

The Brethren had formed up as an element of the convoy that cruised slowly along behind the hearse, lids off in a silent show of respect that the escorting cops wisely decided to turn a blind eye to.

They had stood as part of the crowd around the graveside throughout the service and had listened as Stu said some words.

 

Then they had formed up again and ridden back with The Rebels to their clubhouse where the boozing would start.

Bung had kept The Brethren on a tight leash that night. They were there to party, to show their respects and to uphold the honour of the Brethren. But they were also there as part of an only recently concluded peace deal with some of their most bitter rivals and neither Bung nor Stu, with Badger’s help, wanted to let any incident occur that might threaten the new entente. Stu and Badger wanted to make sure there was no needle about the death happening at The Brethren’s run and Bung wanted to ensure no Brethren overstepped the mark on The Rebel’s hospitality whatever any previous beefs might have been.

And again, Danny had kept close to Bung as his sponsor, so as to be useful and keep out of trouble.

And that’s what had done it.
‘That’s when I heard them,’ he said.
‘Heard who?’
‘Bung and Stu. They were talking.’
‘About what?’
‘About what’s going on. And what’s going to happen next.’

It was a wake for their guy Ric, so it was a party. The beer was flowing over the bar and the jukebox was going in the corner with an eclectic mixture of the usual fare, rock and metal
Quo, The Damned, Guns’n’Roses, Metallica.
A shit-kicking party style selection of white trash pride southern boogie from the likes of .
38 Special
and
Molly Hatchet
was stomping out at full volume, so when Bung and Stu had wanted to talk about what was happening, they had needed to just about shout in each other’s ears to be heard. Which was fine, and reasonably secure until Danny had wandered up from behind them with their next round of beers.

‘They didn’t notice I was there at first, they were sort of huddled together over a table so I had to edge round them to put the glasses down. I only caught the end of what they were saying really. Bung shut up once he realised I was there.’

‘Yes. And what had he been saying before then?’ I asked.
‘Well that’s it really. I wasn’t too sure. But it made me start thinking.’ So he repeated what he had heard for me.

‘Bung was saying something about
Not to worry, they were meeting up to organise it. As arranged.’

‘It? What’s it?’ I asked.
‘Then he said something about
taking both of them out as one operation
.’ ‘I don’t like the sound of taking them out.’

‘Well, no shit Sherlock!’ Danny hissed, ‘why the fuck do you think I’m talking to you now?’

 

I had wondered about that myself.

 

‘So why are you talking to me then Danny?’ I challenged, ‘Why not just keep your head down and get on with doing your time to get in to the club?’ ‘But that’s it, don’t you see? I wasn’t joining up to take part in some kind of fucking war. Killing people, that’s not what it was about for me.’ Well welcome to the real world son, I thought as I listened. Better late than never.

 

‘And Bung knows that I must have heard something.’

 

‘
Three can keep
…’ I started but he waved me quiet before I could finish and buried his head in his hands again.

 

‘Was there anything else?’ I asked. ‘OK, so what you heard wasn’t pretty but it doesn’t sound like the end of the world either does it?’

 

He didn’t move.

‘Well it’s hardly worth knocking you off for is it, if that’s what you’re worried about?’ I said, hopefully with more conviction in my voice than I actually felt.

He lifted his head slowly and looked back up at me, his hands still covering the bottom of his face.

 

‘Then he said that
Scroat was organising the necessary and if Stu’s guys wanted in they should send someone down
.’

‘And when was this to happen?’ I asked.
‘When? Tomorrow night.’
‘Did they say where?’
‘No.’
‘That’s a pity,’ I said.
‘Not exactly,’ he added
‘What do you mean not exactly?’

‘Well Bung didn’t give him an address as such, that was just when he noticed I was there. But he said enough that I recognised where he meant.’ *

 

I wanted him to go with me to show me, but that was a step too far for Danny.

 

He told me about it, the old factory unit that Scroat used for his operation respraying ringed cars before he shipped them on.

‘That’s where it’s going to happen. That’s where they’re organising it. Bung didn’t say so but he let slip enough that I realised it’s where he had to be talking about.’

‘Organising what?’ I wanted to know.

 

‘I told you, I don’t know!’ he protested, ‘Other than that it’s obviously something big and it’s not just the squaws they’re after.’

‘Woah there! Now wait a minute,’ I said taken aback in surprise. I had missed something here. ‘What do you mean it’s not just the squaws? I thought you said Bung told Stu they were going to take out both of them?’

‘Well exactly. That’s just what I said.
Both of them
.’
‘You mean…?’

‘I mean it’s not just the goatfuckers and the zombies they are after is it? It can’t be. They’re all now one club aren’t they? The squaws?’

 

‘Yes, I suppose they are. But then…’

 

‘So then if they’re one, and Bung’s talking about taking out two, you have to ask the question don’t you? Who’s the other one?’

‘Christ!’ I said. Who indeed, I wondered to myself as I realised that this was what had really freaked Danny out. He could have handled a plot to get The Mohawks I decided. He would have seen that as fair. They had committed an act of war, they had to be answered back in kind and in extremis. That was how war worked and he was signed up for it.

‘So who do you think it is?’ I asked. ‘You must have some suspicions surely?’

 

‘I don’t know and I don’t want to know.’

He was lying. I was sure of that. Either Bung had let slip more that Danny was telling me even now, or he had worked it out for himself. But Danny had realised that this was going to be a war with casualties in unexpected places. Places he was not comfortable with. Places too close to home. And that was his real problem with the whole thing.
‘And I don’t want to know either. But I do know I don’t want to have anything to do with it. I don’t want to spend the rest of my life inside for what an arsehole like Scroat gets up to, Bung or no Bung.’

Yeah, but Bung won’t protect you if you become an issue with his brothers, I thought. He’d probably see it as his job to do you himself.

No, in Danny’s shoes I decided that I’d probably be more scared of Bung at this stage than Scroat, whatever he was up to. However cuddly a Wookie impression Bung could give, he was a full patch Brethren who acted as Wibble’s bodyguard and personal rep. If there was some serious club business that Bung ever came to realise he had let slip to Danny, then making sure no one else knew he had done so would undoubtedly be high up on Bung’s personal agenda.

*

As he had requested, I waited in the café for a quarter of an hour after he had left, a hunched figure that immediately disappeared under his hoodie into the darkness.

Was this some kind of set up I asked myself?
Was it a trap?
Was this some kind of test?

Had Wibble had Bung put him up to it? Had the kid come to see me with this story to see what I did?

 

I didn’t think so, not unless the kid was a great actor, and frankly I didn’t think he was. Danny was too stressed for it not to be real.

 

He might not have heard what he thought he did, or it might not mean what it sounded like, but I was convinced that Danny believed what he had heard.

It didn’t rule out that Bung might have deliberately set him up, that it might be a test of Danny and his ability to keep club business quiet, but you could go down a whole rabbit hole of what ifs and how do you knows about anything if you weren’t careful.

But one thing was for sure. I had had all I was going to get from Danny on this. He was going to keep hanging around with Bung and act like nothing had happened in the hope that this would all blow over with no more comeback.

So he wasn’t going to contact me, or tell me anything more.
And he certainly wasn’t going anywhere near Scroat’s factory unit tomorrow night to see what was actually going on. If I wanted to take that trip, then I was firmly on my own as far as he was concerned.

I think he had wanted to talk to me since I was the only one he thought he could talk to, whether it was to get his side of the story told to an outsider in case trouble came later, whether it was to unburden himself, whether it was to help him think it through, or a mixture of all of these and other reasons, he didn’t say and I didn’t ask.

I think it was only when I started to press for details of the address he was talking about that he starting to realise what the implications of speaking to me might be. I don’t think he had ever expected that I might actually want to go and investigate. I think he just thought I would be a safe pair of ears and nothing more.

Towards the end and before he walked out, he became quite agitated. Luckily the teenagers had left just before, no doubt in search of a corner shop which would sell them some no questions or proof of age asked cans of Special Brew.

‘You don’t go and get yourself fucking caught you hear me?’ he hissed. ‘And whatever the fuck you say to anyone, you didn’t hear nothing from me? Get it?’

‘I get it,’ I tried to reassure him. Don’t worry.

 

‘Don’t worry? Don’t fucking worry?’ he scoffed as he stood up, ‘you’ve got no fucking idea what you’re dealing with here mate.’

 

‘So just don’t pull me down with you when you go that’s all,’ was his parting shot.

I was on my own then.
Well there was nothing for it but to check out his story I supposed. Carefully.
And there was no time like the present.

*

The place wasn’t too hard to find from Danny’s description and directions. It was an old yard at the far end of a nondescript industrial estate’s concrete slabbed cul-de-sac.

The whole estate was just across a dual carriageway from a bright new modern white and shiny plastic looking 24 hour Tesco’s Extra so I had dumped my car in the car park and had walked out of the car park and into the night. The estate was sporadically lit by blue-white security lighting on some units and yellow sodium lamps from high up windows in units that were obviously running some kind of night shift. As I turned the corner and headed down towards the end where Scroat’s yard was, I left even these and the glow of the one working concrete streetlamp behind, which suited me just fine.

The site when I got there was surrounded by a tall chain link fence on concrete posts, overhung with a roll of barbed wire. Inside, most of it seemed filled with high piled door-less and wheel-less sagging car wrecks waiting their rusty turn for the crusher. The building itself covered the front left hand corner of the plot beside the double gates with their banner announcing the business’s dedication to reclamation and motor salvage, all bought for cash and best prices paid; and was an old, steel-framed shed, clad in grey corrugated boards tastefully decorated by the local kids with an assortment of spray-painted tags and pictures of dicks.