As we walked, Mac kept shtum. His front teeth nibbled on his lower lip.
‘Are you going to tell me what this is about?’
‘After.’
‘After what?’
‘After.’
I took his response for what it was, Scots for ‘Don’t fucking bother me right now.’
I saw Mac the Knife was on edge. I knew the signs. The Weejie stride was in place, chest out, in a dead heat with the spacehopper guttage.
What worried me, though, was the way he kept looking from side to side, and occasionally, over his shoulder. It wasn’t fear. Not with Mac. This guy was a Bonnie Fechtir, take on all comers. It looked like serious caution, the act of an ex-crim who didn’t want to go straight back inside.
Mac picked out a greasy spoon with an old barber’s pole outside. Minimal attention to decor, less yet to the cleaning, I felt my Docs sliding on the oily linoleum. I was all for budget dining, but this place screamed ‘salmonella to go’.
‘Mac, are you sure about this joint?’
‘What?’
‘It’s a bit rough, is it not?’
His lip curled, downward. ‘Maybe you’d prefer the Shandwick.’
I pulled out an orange vinyl chair, tipped the covering of crumbs onto the floor.
‘Aye, sit doon,’ said Mac.
‘What is this?’
‘Eat!’
The waitress came, a hard-faced fifty-something. Running to retirement and dour as heartache. A phiz of ruined features, the rewards of a lifetime spent struggling for nothing.
I ordered up two eggs on toast. Smothered them in brown sauce and vinegar. Washed the lot down with coffee. In here I felt no shame filling the cup with the last of my scoosh.
‘You still hitting that?’ said Mac.
‘Lecture time?’
‘Stuff’ll be the end of you!’
I drank deep. ‘Trouble with the rest of the world is they’re two drinks behind!’
‘Bogart.’
‘Bang on.’ Felt he’d thawed, said, ‘Have you something to say to me, Mac?’
He sat back in his chair. Leaned forward. Sat back again.
I prompted: ‘ Mac?’
‘Okay. Okay…’ He reached below the table, took something from his belt. ‘I want you to have this.’
I felt something touch my knee. Looked down to see a shooter, Browning 9mm, the type Canoe Reeves packed in The Matrix. Until now, that was the closest I’d come to one. ‘Fuck that!’
Mac shook his head. ‘Gus, I’m not messing about here.’
I rose to my feet. ‘Forget it.’
‘Sit down.’ His voice sounded calm now, quiet almost. ‘Look, Gus, this visit I got…’
I put the bead on him. ‘Spill it.’
‘I got a message to pass on to you.’
I’d strayed into some decidedly dodgy territory, I saw that now. My first thought was Stalin. Next, Nadja. The weak fuck had tipped her off to cover his own arse.
‘So let’s hear it.’
‘You won’t like it.’
Another thought entered my head: the Cube. ‘Was this a stocky little shite, smoked Berkeley Menthols?’
‘What? No. No fucking way, it was a hard-core thug, bling on his teeth, the lot — Gus, this is all the way from the top. I told you not to mess with this lot. The Bullfrog’s spoken and he wants you to get out. To leave the city — now!’
‘No way.’ I had the murder to think about.
Mac shook his head again, it grated on my nerves. ‘I thought that’s what you’d say… so here.’ He frowned, creased his mouth into a taut wire and pressed the gun into my leg again.
I needed to know what was going on, and just what the hell I’d gotten myself into. I had tapped into more than just the killing of a young lad who’d got himself into a bit of bother.
‘What’s this about? I don’t see how Billy Boy suddenly becomes Billy the Kid overnight.’
‘I told you, Gus. I warned you. Didn’t I warn you? Right from the start, I told you — don’t mess with this mob. End of story. You just don’t mess. They’re into more shit than you ever dreamt of.’
‘Is my name Horatio?’
‘ What?’
‘Thanks for the tip, Mac.’
I got to my feet again, headed for the door.
‘Gus — Gus, you bastard, we haven’t got the bill yet!’
16
Was it worth the trouble?
‘I mean what have you got?’ I asked myself. Knew the answer — zip. I’d been flailing about, sticking my nose in, but had nothing to give Col. Except maybe, another funeral invitation. Real soon.
I turned into a newsagent’s, bought up some smokes: Camels, the strong ones. Taste of them greeted me like a blessing. Truth be told, I felt ready for a bevvy, at least one or ten. But something, maybe Mac’s warning, kept me walking.
My mind felt numb. I’d flitted between mental fireworks and virtual catatonia for so long that I wondered, ‘Was I manic?’ Sorry, that’s bi-polar now, isn’t it? I don’t know… didn’t even know how to pronounce Adidas these days.
‘It’s a kick up the arse you need!’ The indistinct voice of Scots wisdom hit in.
The Scots don’t do self-pity. Morbidity, yes. Drunken insensate, to block it all out, yes. But never self-pity. I put it down to the utter blackness of Scottish history. The struggle to get by. The sheer suffering. I mean, how else do you convince a poor nation like this to drag itself up? The myth of dignity in suffering. Shovelling shite, filling your lungs with coal dust, good for your soul? Bollocks. Good for the plutocrats’ bank balances more like.
Jumped the number 26 bus to the Wall.
I saw all the regulars propped up inside, got a few nods from the most familiar faces. The one I expected to greet me most enthusiastically, though, was goggle-eyed, staring at the telly.
‘Col, how goes it?’
‘Shush shush,’ he said, the back of his hand flapping at me.
‘Must be good, what’s it, Debbie Does Dallas?’
Killer look fired on me. Frowns, the works.
I slunk back, settled myself at the bar. Col turned up the news bulletin, Scotland Today.
The outside broadcast came from the new parliament building. I shook my head. ‘Bloody waste of money!’
Chorus of, ‘Aye. Aye. Aye,’ echoed round the bar.
‘Did you hear this, mate?’ Some gadgie I’d never seen in my puff approached me, his face a riot of red patches, a drinker’s blue nose. ‘They cannae even heat the thing, bloody spewing oot heat it is! See, they put one of them heat guns on it. Saw the pictures in the paper, what a bloody money pit!’
‘Look, can you keep the noise down, please,’ snapped Col.
I raised my eyebrows to the gadgie. He slumped off, old nineties tracksuit dragging off him, pint spilling in his trembling hand. Acrylic and alcohol — a bad combination — he put himself in danger of going up like the Hindenburg with his next fag.
I turned back to the telly. The reporter looked about seventeen. How do they do it? In my day, the telly was a big gig. Went to the best hacks. Trained ones. Not some schoolie that looks like she’d been at her mum’s dressing-up box.
‘The protest started outside the parliament with people waving placards…’ she announced.
Incisive stuff. Top-notch journalism. ‘Oh, bring back John Craven, please. It’s Newsround, surely.’
The wind picked up at the reporter’s back, I expected to hear a quick, ‘and now back to the studio’ to let in her make-up team. She went on: ‘The protesters are asylum seekers, their families and supporters, who are opposed to the Scottish Executive’s policies…’
They played some footage, the kind I knew would have news editors salivating. Early-morning raids with police battering down flats in Wester Hailes, the city’s dumping ground for the dispossessed. They planned to turf out the illegals, quick smart.
They pixelated all the faces of the people being rounded up by plod. My mind played a trick on me, filled in the blanks with the faces I’d seen huddled in misery at Fallingdoon House.
‘Joining us now is Minister for Immigration, Alisdair Cardownie, MSP,’ said the reporter.