There was a new lad serving, didn’t know me; I had to ask for a Dos Equis, instead of it being already opened and waiting for me when I reached the bar. I even had to tell him not to bother with a glass.
A polite tilt of the bottle towards Mickey, and then the cold bite of beer in my throat, welcome even in this coldest of weather. Half the bottle, chug-a-lug, and I stopped purely for its own sake, because I could.
And hitched myself onto a stool at the bar and beckoned the boy over, told him what I wanted. A saucer of salt, here; quarters of lime, here. A shot-glass of the good tequila, refilled when I tapped; and the Dos Equis replaced whenever it was empty. And all of it down on my tab, of course, no tedious fumbling for cash.
The boy looked for Mickey’s nod, and got it. Of course, he got it. Mickey and I, we’re like that. Go back too far, know each other too well.
It’s what you need when you’re young, when you’re starting: someone older, someone who’s been around. Someone to drop a word in season, lend a bit of knowledge here, a bit of money there, take it back with interest later. And after a while you don’t need them any more but they’re still there, they’re embedded, you can’t shift them.
In my life, that’s Mickey. Other people have their own, but not like Mickey. There isn’t anyone like Mickey.
Every night he sits in his club, in his corner, squat and heavy on his stood, his flesh overflowing. Doesn’t stir, unless there’s trouble. He’ll be charming if he needs to be, or else he’ll be offensive; but mostly he’s neither, mostly he just sits. And drinks tonic water, and Lord only knows where he gets his weight from, I’ve never seen him eat.
Never known him sleep, either. Daytime, if you want him, he’s upstairs. In his charity shop, looking after his boys.
I was there for a reason that night; but no hurry. I sat at the bar till the bar got busy, and for a while after that. Testing the service, see if I still got the lad’s quick attention even with half a dozen queuing. Letting Mickey see. He’d want to see me looked after.
Eventually, though, I pushed myself to my feet and walked around the bar.
Peeled a twenty from my back pocket, handed in it to Mickey. No special favours, that was how we ran it; and entrance fees never went on the tab.
He took the note, held it up to the light, pursed his lips; for a second I thought he might run it through the machine he keeps by the till, to check for bad paper. But he nodded, tucked it away, tilted his head in permission. I went through the door he sits beside.
It’s a heavy door, with a safety light glowing dimly above and ‘EMERGENCY EXIT’ in big letters; but it’s not an exit, except in an emergency. It’s just a way upstairs.
His charity shop, he calls it. Police, social services, everyone else calls it a hostel for runaway boys. Bed, meals, no questions asked; and no one ever asks Mickey any questions.
Actually, he runs it straight. If a lad wants to doss, if he wants to use the bed and eat the meals and nothing more, that’s fine. No pressure. Mickey’s not losing out, he gets funding from all over.
If a lad wants to work, that’s fine too. Mickey doesn’t even take a cut, the entrance fee is his percentage.
This was the Crew’s home base, the roof they always came back to. And this was crisis time; I expected to find them here.
What was left of them.
Up the stairs, cold and dimly-lit, just a fire exit, officer, no one uses it; through the door at the top, and into a different world. The club is soft shadows and carpet, alcohol and smoke, all the fringe activities of sex. The hostel has lino underfoot and fluorescent tubes overhead, the music’s cheap and loud and confrontational and so are the kids. No fringe activities, no skirting, no seduction.
No conversation, either. You come up from the club, you mean business. So do they.
In the common room that night, as every night, there was a group of lads clustered around the pool table. Others perched on the radiators. Some were talking, some were very much alone; but I walked in and they all looked round, looked interested.
Ready to trade, they were. They might not be working the Dilly just now, but here they were under Mickey’s eye. In the common room, that time of night, anything I saw would be for sale.
If I’d been wanting to buy. The boys knew me, though, most of them. They looked, nodded recognition, turned away. Pool balls clicked, voices rose against the thudding beat from a ghetto-blaster on the window-sill.
The faces I was looking for weren’t there, the Crew not on duty tonight. No surprise. I thought they’d be up in the attics, sharing a room, sharing a bed perhaps for comfort and security, and the door wedged shut. No locks on the boys’ rooms, but they’d improvise, they’d shut the world out somehow.
Shut out the world, maybe, but they’d open up for me.
I made my way over to the pool table, and goosed a lad just as he was bending to take a shot. He jerked, screwed the shot, glared furiously over his shoulder as his audience giggled – and blinked, and smoothed the glare into an effortful smile, swallowed what he’d been going to say. Said, ‘Skip, hi. Want me?’
Hiding his surprise, playing it cool for the sake of the other lads watching, listening in. See how easy I turn a trick? he was saying. Even Skip, that you’re all scared of. No worries, he was saying. I’m a class act, me.
They call me Skip sometimes, picked it up from Mickey. They don’t know what it means, but they like it.
‘No,’ I said, ruining his evening for him, wrecking him for the night. ‘I’m looking for Dex and Tony. They in, are they?’
He shook his head, ‘Not seen’em, Skip, not for a couple of days,’ but I was ready for that. They’d be primed, they’d be ready for the question, and even these kids had a kind of pack loyalty. With a knifeman out in the world, they were going to need it.
I wouldn’t want them overdoing it, though. Not to the point of misleading me. So I knuckled that young blood’s skull for him, made him yelp, really hurt his credibility; and said, ‘Try again. Which room?’
‘Straight up, Jonty,’ he whined, squirming against the grip I had on his elbow. ‘They’re not here, ask anyone. Ask Mickey.’
This time I believed him, let him go. He rubbed his arm, aggrieved; I tipped him a crisp new fiver and said, ‘Where else would they be, then?’
‘Word is, someone’s after them,’ a breathy voice from behind me. Everyone was watching now, tuned in to this.
‘I know that. Where would they go?’ Where would they feel safer than here? It was a question I couldn’t answer; and neither could the kids, apparently. At any rate, none of them did.
Then a man came in, a customer. I didn’t know him, nor did they; but no danger, if he’d got past Mickey. The lads lost interest in me and the pool both, offered him a beer, turned on a vulnerable, electric charm.
They’re good, Mickey’s boys. Two minutes later I was still killing balls on the abandoned table when the newcomer left with a boy leading him, taking him out the other way. Deal concluded, trick duly turned. The boy would come back in an hour, perhaps, or else in the morning; in the man’s car, or else in a taxi. That was one of Mickey’s rules, that they always got a lift back. It made the boys feel good, it let everyone know they were safe; and, of course, it meant they were back in the shop, back on the shelf for another customer. The lads came and went as they pleased, or thought they did, but Mickey had the system well rigged.
I slammed the black off three cushions and into a middle pocket, heard someone whistle and applaud at my back, walked out without looking round.