Death Minus Zero - Complete Novel

                                                                            . . . . . . . . . . chapter 1              

When the politicos hit the transport Norman got out of there.

                Some moments passed after the explosion when he didn’t do anything.  Maybe it took a minute for the men in masks to come in and get the Eye-talian out, whatever they called him.  Isaac, something like that.  Two of them led the guy to a motorbike, gave him a crash helmet and he was on the pillion and away.

                Then there was just Norman and the black guy.  Both of them sitting there like old age fucking pensioners on a bench.  Norman couldn’t think later which of them moved first, but suddenly they were both on their feet and heading for the gap where the cab of the transport used to be.

                Jesus, what a mess.  The cab, the guys who were driving, the whole front section of the transport had gone.  You can say what you like about the politicos but they don’t do things by halves.  Norman knew about guns, hand guns, rifles, things you might call weapons.  But these guys were using artillery.  What did they use to do that?  Mortar bomb, some kind of rocket launcher?

                Norman didn’t know the answer, only knew he was glad the guy who pulled the trigger actually hit the target.  If he’d hit the transport a yard and a half further back Norman would’ve disappeared.

                The lead escort car had been hit as well, with something smaller, though, as it hadn’t actually disintegrated like the cab of the transport.  There was an acrid smell in the air and something that made your eyes smart, though there were no actual fires.  One of the filth from the rear escort car was crawling about on the road, and behind him was another one, limping but trying to help his mate.  They didn’t look at all interested in Norman or the brother.

                Most of the masked politicos had gone already.  Norman caught a glimpse of the last of them closing the back doors of a van.  They had a gun in there big enough to kill Jesus.  Blow Him to Kingdom come.

                There was the road and there were fields, open country.  A tall chain link fence alongside the road.  The brother was already heading towards it.  If you’re gonna go, go, Norman said to himself.  Any way you like, but move.

                The alternative is to stay banged up for the rest of your life.  The governor had told him that’s what it had come to.  “We’re never going to let you out, Norman.  Even when you’re old and grey.  The only way out for you is in a coffin.”  Norman ran faster than he’d ever run before.  That ‘old and grey’ bit really put the shits up him.  If this was his chance, well, take it man.  Let’s show this brother what running is all about.

                He hit the fence at a hundred miles an hour, taking off and up from about six feet back.  The black guy was only a yard ahead of him now.  Norman clambered up behind him and they both got to the top at the same time, slowing down a little to get past the barbs.  The brother got his trousers caught there and had to leave a piece of them behind.  Norman didn’t get anything caught.  He was flying.

                Crash landed and cracked one of his toes.  An instant later the brother was beside him, both of them on all fours.  Like the beginning of a race at the Olympics, sprinters waiting for the gun.  The filth who was still on his feet was coming up behind them now, but a long way off.  Neither Norman nor the black waited for the gun.  They were off out of those starting blocks like a simultaneous ejaculation at an adolescents gang wank.

                Heading for the horizon.  Norman could see the brother on his right, sticking close.  Norman veered slightly to the left and the brother stayed with him.  He veered further left and still the brother was with him.  Jesus, he thought, the daft bastard’s following me.

                One thing Norman knew for certain.  The brother was not gonna get far.  Even the dimmest cop in the country would spot him a mile off.  The guy was six foot seven, maybe taller, slim, nothing to him but he was really high off the ground.  He had that flat top haircut, tribal scars on his face.  Wherever he ran the cops would pick him up before nightfall.  And he was following Norman.  Jesus, this guy’s gotta be unloaded.

                Norman spurted ahead and veered to the right, try to shake him that way, but still the guy followed him, like he couldn’t think for himself.  Norman just stopped running, let the brother go wherever he would go, then took off himself in another direction.  The filth was still behind them, but he followed the brother, leaving Norman alone on the map.  Every time he looked around the brother and the filth were further away, over to his right.  Eventually he looked around and there was no one behind him at all.  No one in front of him.  He couldn’t hear anything either, couldn’t smell anything except fresh air. 

                Norman just kept going.  He kept going till nightfall, only stopping to lay still when one of the helicopters came overhead.  When it got dark he stopped for a while in a ditch, get some of his breath back.  Then he carried on.  He had to be well clear by morning, out of the county.  The dogs would be out.  The man hunt would be on.

 

*

 

If he knew something about the stars Norman would have been able to work out where he was.  But they were just pretty.  He had the feeling he’d been travelling south, which was not ideal, because it meant he’d be travelling back towards the prison and have to pass the moor again to go north.  He knew enough though to find a fixed point in the sky and keep going in the same general direction he’d travelled already.  Parts of the moor turned to bog from time to time, and he had to make detours, still keeping his eyes on that one point in the heavens. 

                At least it was warm.  Make a break in the winter and trudge through snow, you’d never make it.  Now though, in June glorious June, with the whole summer coming up round every corner, shit, it couldn’t have been better if he’d planned it.

                Another two hours brought him to a road, and shortly after that a little outpost called Poundsgate.  Should be able to find some wheels here.  Norman was wary, though.  Lot of screws lived in these villages on the edge of the moor.  He left the village behind and followed signs toward Widecombe.  But less than a mile down the road he heard the sound of a car approaching.  Norman headed for the ditch, but stopped before he got there.  The sound was obviously not a police car.  More like one of those old bangers, what they call them?  Vintage cars.  Jesus, at this time?  Must be three o clock in the morning.

                Norman laid himself down in the middle of the road.  Stretched out full length, his head on his arm so he could see the car approach when it came into view.  Norman playing dead or injured, thinking whoever it is in the car, he probably smokes.  Norman hoping the guy has plenty of cigarettes and maybe half a bottle of good scotch in the glove compartment.  With a bit of luck he’d have a daughter too, or a new wife, then it’d be party time.

                The car’s beam came over the brow of the hill, then the lights themselves hit the straight and Norman felt himself illuminated, bathed in light.  It was like a play they’d done one Christmas at school about a million years ago.  Only then it was shepherds.  Norman had been the one who was supposed to shine the light on the shepherds as soon as the angel began singing, but he shone it on Annie Bristol instead, the girl who was playing the Virgin Mary.  That would have been all right most times, except that this time Annie Bristol wasn’t on the stage.  She was in the girls changing room in her knickers and vest, and when the light hit her she set up a scream which drowned out the angel and evacuated the audience because they thought the place was on fire.

                But this was now, and it was a game of chicken.  Norman was stretched out on the road and the car was heading towards him.  Maybe the guy behind the wheel was blind and couldn’t see him, didn’t seem to be slowing down.  Norman was on the point of rolling over to the side of the road when he heard the car change down.  One, two little pumps on the break, and then it changed down again and came to a stop about fifteen feet away, the engine idling.

                First thing the guy did was to kill the beam, then he switched off the engine.  Norman didn’t move a muscle, just listened to the silence.  As soon as the engine died the quiet rushed into all the spaces of the night.  As the car cooled down there was the odd creak or crack as metal parts contracted, but none of these sounds were anything like the car door being opened.

                Norman counted seconds like a gym teacher had once taught him, putting an AND between each number. . . one and two and three and. . . until he counted a full sixty seconds.  Then he started again.  The guy sat behind the wheel trying to make a decision for a full two and a half minutes before he opened the door and got out of the car.  Norman watched his shoes walking along the road towards him, brown brogues with some kind of patterning, little holes punched in the leather and those big floppy tongues.  The only other thing Norman could make out was the bottom of the guy’s trousers.  Grey cotton, probably a suit.  Norman guessed the guy was old.  There was something uncertain about his step, which might have meant that he was old, or it could be he was young and frightened.

                He stopped about a yard away, shifting on his feet and spoke with a northern accent, could even have been Scottish, said, “Are you all right?”

                Norman closed his eyes but didn’t move or reply.  He needed the guy to come just one step closer, then he’d have him.  The guy said, “What’s the matter?  Can you hear me?”  He leant forward but still didn’t move his feet.  Norman waited.  He’d waited seven years behind the tall walls, what was a few seconds more?

                When the guy straightened and came over to him, actually touched him on the shoulder, Norman took hold of both his ankles and yanked him over on his back.  The guy squealed as he went over, and then squealed again as his head cracked on the road.  He squirmed a little, but not with enough conviction to stop Norman sitting astride him, pinning his arms to the ground, and giving him a couple of good cracks on the nose.  “Help,” he said.

                Help!  Jesus, Norman looked around, like the guy was expecting the US Cavalry to come down the road.  “We’re on a moor,” he said.  “It’s the middle of the night.  Where you gonna get help?”

                Norman looked down at him.  Yeah, he was old.  Sixty, maybe sixty five.  His eyes staring up at Norman, real surprised looking little eyes, as if he’d been attacked by the devil.  “I want your clothes,” Norman told him.  “I want your car.  That’s all.  I’m not gonna hurt you.”

                The guy didn’t say anything.

                “You listening to me?” Norman asked, slapping him across the face.

                This time the guy nodded.  Whimpered a little.

                “We gonna exchange clothes.  OK?”

                “Yes,” the guy said.

                “You drive a hard bargain,” Norman told him.  He pulled the old guy up by his shoulders, careful not to make too much of a mess of the suit.  The guy’s nose was bleeding a little.  A trickle running down by the side of his mouth and heading for the neck of his shirt.  Norman wiped it clean with his hand.  “Don’t wanna mess that nice shirt up, now do we?” he said.  He managed to get the guy to his feet, but as soon as he let go of him the guy started tottering around and ended up back on his butt again in the middle of the road.

                “What’s wrong with you, man,” said Norman.  You gonna ruin the fucking suit before I even get it on.”

                He stood the guy up again and pulled him over to the car, propped him against the bonnet.  “Take your clothes off,” he told him.  Jacket, pants, the whole lot.  Just leave them on the car.”  Norman pulled his own clothes off and threw them on the ground.  He put his shank on the bonnet of the car.  He stood in his underpants and vest and waited for the guy to get a move on.  But the guy’d only managed to get one arm out of his jacket.  “Jesus,” Norman told him, “we ain’t actually got all night.”

                He took the guy’s jacket off and unbuttoned his shirt, let his trousers fall down around his ankles.  Then he put the guy’s clothes on.  Everything several sizes too big, but felt a whole lot better than prison clobber.  He had to roll up the waistband of the trousers, and they were still too long.  He left the guy sitting on the road in his undies while he put on the shirt, knotted the tie, and fitted the jacket.  The sleeves were three inches too long, so he turned them up.  He picked up the shank and tucked it away in the top pocket of the jacket.  Finally he sat down next to the old guy and put on the socks and the brown brogues.  When he stood again, he said, “Trouble with guy’s like you, you don’t have no taste.  I had a choice of anything else I’d put all this stuff in the ditch.”

                The shirt, the jacket, everything smelled of the old guy.  The kind of smell you wouldn’t find anywhere, ’cause you’d never go anywhere where people smelled like that.  You knew anyone who smelled like that you’d tell them to get lost.

                He helped the guy into the discarded prison clothes with great difficulty.  The guy didn’t say anything but he was shaking all the time, couldn’t seem to keep anything still.  His hands and legs were shaking, his head nodding away like a puppet.  “The fuck’s wrong with you?” Norman asked him.

                He got the guy back on his feet again and dragged him over to the ditch.  “Lay down there,” he said.  “And don’t even think about moving.”  The guy was flat out on his belly, his face in the dirt.  Norman went looking for a stone, something heavy.  He found a big one, could hardly lift it, and brought it back.  He dropped it on the guy’s head.  Something cracked, Norman didn’t know if it was the stone or the guy’s head.  He lifted the stone again, high as he could, and threw it at the guy’s head one more time.  The stone hit the head and bounced away along the bottom of the ditch, rolled out of sight.  The guy’s face was half buried in the boggy ground now.  His left leg was doing a kind of dance on its own.  The other leg was completely still.

                “What do you think about that?” Norman asked him.

                But the guy wasn’t saying.  Never breathed a word.

                “They find you,” Norman told him.  “They’ll think you’re me.  At least for a while.  Till they get an I.D.  By the time they find out who you really are I’ll be long gone.”

                He walked over to the car and got in the driver’s seat.  Leaned over and opened the glove compartment to see if there was a bottle.  There was no bottle.  A pair of gloves though and a big bag of sweets.  Those boiled ones, all different colours, but they all taste the same. 

                Norman shook his head.  He felt in the jacket pockets for a pack of cigarettes, but only came up with a small bar of chocolate.  He threw it out the window.  He got out of the car again and walked back to the ditch, said to the guy down there, “You eat this kind of shit, man, you just end up with bad teeth.”

                But the guy didn’t say fuck.  Never moved a muscle.

 

 

 

. . . . . . . . . . chapter 2

“You should get a dog,” Geordie said.

                “I shouldn’t get a dog,” Sam Turner said.  “I’ve got enough on my plate with your dog.  I spend half my life taking your dog for walks so he can do his pee-pees. I feed your dog at least as many times as you feed him.  I wake up in the morning and find your dog sleeping in my flat, while you’re upstairs in your flat without a dog.  So tell me, for why do I need a dog?  I ain’t got a dog, that’s true, but it seems equally true to me that if I got a dog of my very own I’d have two dogs instead of the one I haven’t got at the moment but that lives with me.”

                “It would be company for you,” Geordie said.  “And if you got a big dog instead of a small dog like Barney, I don’t know all the names of dogs, but maybe an Alsatian, or one of those others, what’re they called?  Really fierce fuckers?”

                “Canine psychopaths?”

                “No.  Like a bulldog, but that’s not it.”

                “A pit bull?”

                “Yeah, pit bull terrier, one of those.  Then you could train it like a guard dog or a police dog, and then you can get them to smell things, like if you’re looking for a guy who’s hiding out and you don’t know where he is. What you do is, you give the dog something belongs to the guy, like an old jacket, or something he’s worn, and then the dog starts sniffing along the street and leads you straight to the guy.”  Geordie hobbled across Sam’s sitting room with only one cross trainer on, retrieved his missing shoe from under the sofa and sat on the floor to put it on.  “I’ve seen it in the movies.  S’real cool.”

                “Why’d you think I need a blood hound?”

                “Who said anything about that?” Geordie asked.  “I’m talking about normal dogs here, like what you really like.  I’m up in my room at night minding my own business playing some music or reading a book or something and when the music stops I can hear this droning coming from down here, so I open the door to find out what it is.  You know what it is?”

                “Could be a model aeroplane,” said Sam.  “Or a model submarine, anything that drones could produce a sound like that.”  Sam fingered his chin, the bristles there, and found himself thinking about his face.  He was forty nine years old now and looked all of those years plus a few more.  He had started out as a young man with boyish good looks, fine features that had hung around until he was well into his thirties.  But the last decade had visited his face with a vengeance.

                “It’s you,” said Geordie, finishing lacing up his shoe and springing to his feet to check it.  “It’s you sitting down here talking to Barney.  God alone knows what you’re talking about, because, like I say, by the time it gets to my room it’s just a drone.  But it sure goes on a long time, like you’ve really got a lot to say to him.  And Barney, being like I’ve brought him up to be polite and have good manners and that, he doesn’t interrupt, he just sits there and listens to whatever kind of drivel people have to say to him.” 

                “That’s how he is,” said Sam.  “The dark silent type.  He doesn’t say much himself, but he files it all away in his doggie brain, and he thinks about it.  One day he’ll come out with a real gem.”

                “I’m not talking about Barney, here,” said Geordie.  “I know Barney’s all right.  What I’m talking about is someone who hardly ever goes out of the house any more, and who spends almost all his spare time talking to somebody else’s dog.  I’m talking about somebody who’s supposed to be a private detective, living an exciting life of adventure and mayhem and anarchy and stuff like that, but who actually doesn’t do nothing but talk to dogs that can’t actually understand what he’s talking about.”

                “Tell me if I’m wrong, Geordie,” Sam said.  “But I get the feeling you’re upset with me.  Could this actually be the case?”

                “Why?  Because I think you should get a dog?  You’re paranormal.”

                “Noid,” said Sam.

                “Noidnormal?”

                “Paranoid,” said Sam.  “And I’m not.  I just don’t want another fuckin dog in the house.”   Sometimes people said he looked like Gene Hackman.  Well, to be honest a couple of women had said that, but then one of them had gone on to say he looked like Gene Hackman after Gene Hackman had fallen off a cliff and been involved in major surgery.  The other woman, after Sam had got through explaining to her who Gene Hackman was, said the resemblance was astonishing, she’d just not noticed it until Sam pointed it out.  She also said that Gene Hackman, if indeed it was Gene Hackman she was thinking about, had more hair than Sam.

                If his face was shot, his main torso had managed to stay fairly trim.  He kept himself fit, worked out in the gym a couple of times a week, but two days ago the doctor had told him  that he should stop smoking.  Sams blood pressure was too high.  Nothing to worry about, yet, but he should do whatever he could to get it down.  That’s what he had been talking to Barney about the last couple of evenings.  His blood pressure.  Stopping smoking. Well, who else was there to tell?

                “I know something’s wrong with you,” Geordie said.  “You’re not so much fun.  You don’t even play your tapes anymore.  Look at you, you didn’t even get shaved the last couple a days.”

                Geordie had the ability to drag up out of himself the most despairing look imaginable, and he did this now, at the end of his little speech.  He showed Sam two empty palms and put on that look which was designed to get a compassionate response, and never failed.

                Sam began to melt.  “OK,” he said.  “I’ve been a bit depressed.”  He told Geordie what the doctor said about his blood pressure and stopping smoking.

                “Well, at least you know about it,” Geordie said.  “Like you’ve caught it in time.  You just stop smoking and you’ll be all right.”

                “Uh-uh,” Sam said.

                “You don’t think it’s that simple?”

                “Maybe.”

                “You mean there’s something else?”

                “Hell, I don’t know,” Sam said.  “You gotta start worrying when your body fails.  You start coming unglued, things dropping off.  Christ, I need to understand it.”

                Geordie didn’t reply immediately.  He knelt down on the carpet and scooped Barney up into his lap.  He held the two parts of the dog’s jaw together, so Barney had to struggle to get free.  Sam was not sure of Geordie’s age, but there seemed to be some kind of consensus that he was now eighteen years old.  After a period in various children’s homes in the North East, Geordie had been homeless, hanging around various doorways in London, Manchester, Liverpool, Leeds.  When he arrived in York Sam befriended him, and managed to get him installed in a flat of his own.   Geordie also had a job.  He was an Assistant Trainee Private Investigator in the Sam Turner - Investigations Detective agency.  He looked at Sam from across the room, released Barney’s jaw and let the dog back onto the carpet.  “When did you last have a screw?” he asked Sam.

                Sam laughed, got out of his chair and filled the kettle with water.  “Thank you, Mister Freud,” he said as he plugged the kettle into the mains.  “But I don’t think that’s gonna solve my problems.  In fact it’d probably give me more.”

                “No, it’d cure you,” Geordie said.  “I’ve seen you before, when you’re in love, or even when you’re not in love, but somebody you fancy fancies you as well, and you turn into a different person.  It’s true, Sam.”

                “You know,” said Sam.  “People like you put back the cause of female emancipation a hundred years.  Like, what you’re saying here is that if I get a dog or a woman I’ll be cured.  Correct me if I’m wrong, Geordie.  But that is what you’re saying?”

                “You should start going to the Singles Club again.”

                “Geordie,” Sam said.  “Give me a break.  I’m trying to rethink myself right now.  A woman wouldn’t fit into the picture.  Christ, I’m still reassessing my image since I realised all the women I attract are menopausal.  I don’t want more of that.”

                “Menopausal?  What’s that.”

                “It’s one of my problems,” Sam said.  “Nothing for you to worry about.”

                “Like an old woman?  Is that what it means?  Come on, Sam.  I’m trying to learn new words.”

                “Yeah,” said Sam.  “Not old.  Oldish.  Someone who’s finished with child bearing.”

                “What’s wrong with that?  A guy your age doesn’t want a young woman.  You could get really unlucky and end up marrying one of those high pitched voices.”

                Sam placed two mugs on the counter and poured a jot of milk into each.  “Listen,” he said, “if a woman happens, that’s OK.  I wouldn’t say no.  But I’m not gonna push anything at the moment.  Thanks for your concern.  It’s good to know you care.  But don’t push it anymore, not tonight, anyway.  If I want any shit out of you I’ll squeeze your head.  Savvy?”

                Geordie came over to him and reached for the tea pot.  “Friends at last,” he said.

 

               

. . . . . . . . . . chapter 3

It wasn’t a vintage car, it was just an old banger Renault 4, must be ten years if it’s a day.  Shit, when it was new it wasn’t much.  Now it was a liability with only one speed, like slow.  Not even a radio.  And it smelled like the old guy, the old guy’s clothes.  Have to get rid of it quick, find something with a bit more class.

                Norman headed for Exeter, get a new car there before going on up to Bristol, then change again before heading north.  Keep changing.  Make sure if they were following him they couldn’t follow him far.

                Shit, that carnival going on at the transport, the politicos playing at target practice. the authorities wouldn’t know who was alive and who was dead.  Might be days before they sorted out all the bits of bodies.  By that time he could be miles away.  If Norman had his way he’d be hundreds of miles away.

                When they finally found out he was missing they’d expect he’d gone back to London, start hitting his old haunts.  But Norman had no intention of going anywhere near the Smoke.  Once he ended up there they’d pick him up within hours.  Norman wasn’t gonna be stupid this time.  He was going somewhere nobody knew him.  Somewhere he didn’t even know himself.

                On the outskirts of Exeter he pulled into a side street and took stock.  The old guy’s wallet was stuffed with credit cards and a hundred and forty pounds in tenners.  There was a driving license in there as well, in the name of George Sketch, photographs, a library membership card for Carlisle Library, in fact a whole new identity kit.  It wouldn’t last for long, once they found George’s body and identified it the credit cards would be useless, but for the time being it was a ticket to ride.  Should he find himself anywhere near Carlisle, which he hoped wouldn’t ever happen, shit, he could get something to read.

                In the boot was a small bag - must be George Sketch was going on holiday or something - full of almost unbelievable clothes.  That smell again.  Jesus, didn’t the guy wash?  Norman didn’t want any of these clothes.  The size was wrong, but even if the size had been right they would still have been shit.  He found a wire coat hanger which would certainly come in useful, and a wrench, stuffed both of them into the pocket of his new jacket.

                Norman took the gloves and the car keys, took George Sketch’s little bag after he’d emptied the contents into the boot, locked the car and walked away from it.  Didn’t even look back, didn’t ever want to see it again.

                Dawn found him in the middle of a housing estate, still on the way into Exeter.  All the curtains drawn, everybody sleeping away in their cozy little beds, dreaming about all the sex and violence they ever wanted.  Nice little black BMW, probably souped up, parked outside its garage, with real leather upholstery inside, teak dashboard, radio and stereo tape deck there too, with a little cabinet full of tapes.  Looked promising.

                Norman unwound the coat hanger he’d taken from the Renault and pushed it down the side of the drivers window, felt around for about a minute until he located the lock mechanism.  A sharp pull on the hanger, then, while he held the door catch, and he was inside.

                Oh, nice smell, all that leather to breath in.  He used the wrench to smash the plastic around the steering column and hot wired the beast.  Before starting it he pushed it out into the road.  Didn’t want the sound of the engine to wake the owner, have him legging it down the road after his favourite car, reporting it to the police before Norman got off the estate.

                The engine sounded like the growl of a lion.  Norman put it in gear and headed back the way he’d come, out to the M5 which would take him all the way to Bristol.  Exeter wasn’t gonna be worth a visit, too close to the scene.  The place would be crawling with cops. 

                The tapes were a mixed bag, but he found one of Tina Turner, picture of her on the front, all legs.  And inside, Jesus, picture of her wearing hardly nothing at all.  He put that picture on the dashboard so he could see it good while he was driving, and he slipped the tape into the system and switched it up real loud.  He felt good for several minutes after that, before he remembered he hadn’t eaten in a long time.  Then he felt crap, aware of a big hole in his stomach.

                He had the money and the credit cards, could easily stop at the first service station, get a fucking big big breakfast, and have something to eat and drink after it.  Get a carrier bag and fill it with sandwiches, enough to last him for a week.

                But he wouldn’t do it.  They’d be sure to have police in all them places.  Christ, they see him walk into a cafeteria in a suit fifteen sizes too big for him, Mister Plod would have him in the back of a van in two minutes flat.

                Norman checked the petrol gauge and then sang along with Tina for a few minutes.  Simply the Best. . .  Could just imagine putting your hand up that little bead dress of hers.  Wouldn’t have to go very far before you lost it.  Norman did a smile and settled back in the leather bucket seat.  A full tank, and just feel the power every time you touch the accelerator.  Who needs food?

                Well, yeah, you can tell yourself you don’t need food, but your stomach doesn’t listen.  Just keeps on rumbling away there.  Your mouth goes dry.  You feel like shit.  Especially now while you’re sailing past a service station at ninety miles an hour. Slow down man, you wanna get picked up for speeding?  Sailing past a service station so close you can smell the bacon and eggs.  Double bacon and eggs.  Sausages.  Coffee in one of those glass jugs.  Toast and fried bread, two slices of that.  Tomatoes.  Little side order of mushrooms.  Beer on the side.  A pack of cigarettes.  Little waitresses looking like Tina, butts sticking out in those tiny black skirts.

                Christ, it’s turning into a torture chamber.

                One cigarette would solve the hunger.  But he couldn’t afford to take the chance of buying any.  Maybe pick up a hitch hiker?  Ask him if he smokes before you let him get in the car.  The guy doesn’t smoke he can wait for another ride.  What do you think this is, man, a fucking bus service?

                Only nobody was hitching.

 

*

 

By the time he got to Bristol the morning traffic was building up.  Lots of cops around.  Best to change the car quickly and get out of here.  Don’t get caught on the street.  He followed road signs to a multi-storey car park and drove straight up to the top level.  A couple of wiggers were trying to break into a Vauxhall Astra, and when Norman drove past they left it alone and made out they were taking a morning stroll.  Shit, fifteen years old, maybe less.  But the youngest one was about Norman’s size.  Black jeans, sweatshirt, something you could walk in the street with.

                Norman drove around the top level again and slowed down to drive alongside the wiggers.  He hit the window switch and leaned his elbow on the door.  “Mornin’ Gents,” he said.  One of the kids was ready to run, the eldest one, but the younger one stayed cool.

                “Mornin’,” he said, glancing over at Norman.  “You lost something?”

                “Might have found something you want,” Norman told him.

                The kid looked straight ahead, but he was interested.  “What’s that?” he said.

                “These wheels,” Norman said.  “Real fast, and nobody round here’s looking for them.”  He pulled into a parking space, killed the engine and left the car in gear.

                The kid stopped, walked alongside the car and glanced at Norman again.  His eyes went past Norman and took in the broken steering column.  “Jeez,” he said, “did you wire that?”

                Norman put his smile on.  Didn’t say anything.  Just let the kid appreciate his work.  “How’d you get into it?” the other kid said.  “The lock’s still sound.”

                “Course the lock’s still sound.  You punch the lock out, you might as well put a sign in the windscreen:  This is a fucking hot car.  Anyway, it spoils the look of the thing.  You wanna drive a car round, or you wanna drive a wreck?”

                “How’d you do that?” the youngest wigger said.  “How’d you get the door open?” 

                Norman looked into his eyes, his fresh face.  Never had a shave in his life.  Well,  he thought, kid’s’ve got to learn somewhere.  They won’t learn nothing useful in school, nothing they can actually use in real life.  Might be years before they go to prison and start learning real skills.  “I could show you that one,” he said.  “Maybe one or two other things.  But we’d have to make a deal.”

                “What’s that?” the youngest kid asked.

                “I don’t wanna show on the street,” Norman said.  “But I need something to eat.  Also I need some real clothes, get out of this shit I’m wearing.  You get me some food and give me your clothes, I give you a few lessons on how to open a car properly, and you get to keep this one with the radio and the stereo.  Everything ‘cept the Tina Turner tape.”

                “You’re not having my clothes,” the kid said, backing off a little.

                “Shit, I’ll give you the money,” Norman said, taking the old guy’s wallet out and fanning the tenners.  “You can go down to the shop and get new ones.”

                The eldest kid said, “You give us the money, we can buy you sandwiches and clothes.”

                Norman felt like kicking the shit out of him.  “Hey,” he said, “you think I’m from the moon, or what?  I give you money and you’ve spent it before I’ve put my wallet away.”   He flipped the wallet closed and put it back in his pocket.  “Fuck you,” he said.  “I’ll find someone wants to do business.  Someone can understand a good deal when it’s staring them in the face.”  He started the car and put it into reverse.

                “Hang on,” the youngest wigger said.  “I didn’t say I wouldn’t do it.  How much money you gonna give me for the clothes?”

                “A hundred,” Norman said.  “For the jeans, the sweatshirt, the shoes if they fit.  I don’t want the cap or the jacket.”

                “Two hundred.”

                “I’ll go a hundred and twenty,” Norman told him.  “That’s all I’ve got.  And a credit card.  You can have one credit card.”

                The kid scratched his chin.  “OK,” he said.  “Let’s do it.”

                Norman switched the engine off again.  Got the wallet out and held up two tenners.  “Get in,” he said to the youngest kid, and waited until the kid walked around the car and got in the back seat.  To the other one Norman said, “You get the food.  I want pies with meat, meat sandwiches, a six pack of beers.  As much as you can get for twenty.  You don’t come back I’ll eat your friend.”

                The kid smiled as though he thought Norman had made a joke, took the two tenners and went for the sandwiches.

                Norman told the youngest kid to get his clothes off.  He undressed himself, stripping back down to his prison underwear, passing old George Sketch’s clothes back to the kid.  When they’d finished the wigger was dressed in the old guy’s pants, shirt and jacket, even the brogues.  Norman was sporting a sweatshirt which had Orlando Magic emblazoned on the front, black jeans, and a pair of Nike shoes.  Feeling good, cruising around the car with a swagger he’d misplaced somewhere seven years ago, and was only now beginning to find again.  The shorn wigger stayed in the car, saying if anybody saw him in this shit he’d kill himself.

                When the other wigger returned with the food Norman ate a meat pie and swigged off a can of cold Bud.  The youngest kid asked for his money, and Norman smiled and gave it to him.  “Now I’m gonna show you how to open a car properly,” he said.

                He led them over to a Scorpio Auto on the other side of the car park.  Blue job with black leather inside.  Norman checked through the window to make sure there was some sound equipment inside.  Using his bent coat hanger he had the thing open in about ninety seconds.

                “How do you do that?” the youngest wigger asked.

                Norman locked the car again and fitted his wire hook down inside the window frame.  He fiddled for a moment, said, “Now you try.”

                The youngest wigger took hold of the coat hanger and jiggled it about.

                “Just about there,” Norman said.  “You feel the little lever inside?  Don’t pull so hard.  That’s right, you can feel it moving.”

                “Yeah.  I got it,” the kid said.

                “OK,” Norman told him.  “Push the handle in and pull it up slowly.”

                The door of the Scorpio opened.  “Easier than a can of sardines,” Norman said.  He told the eldest kid to get his bag from the BMW.  When he brought it Norman shoved it in the back of the Scorpio.  “And the Tina Turner tape,” he said.

                “I’ve got something else to teach you,” he said to the youngest wigger.

                “What’s that?”  The kid was eager to learn everything this character could show him.

                “Put your back here,” Norman said, pointing to the door of a VW Camper.  “And hold the door handle with both hands.”

                The kid did as he was told.

                Norman came over and stood in front of him.  “You got hold of it with both hands?” Norman asked.

                The kid nodded and Norman butted him hard in the face.  The little wigger dropped like a stone.  His friend ran off down the car park, putting about seventy yards between himself and Norman.  “You’re a fast learner,” Norman told him.  The little wigger was sitting on the concrete shaking his head from side to side. 

                “That’s the best lesson you’ve had today,” Norman told him, retrieving his hundred and twenty pounds from the kid’s pocket.  “Don’t forget it.”

                Norman left him there, got behind the wheel of the Scorpio and wired it to go.  He waved to the elder wigger as he drove on past, slammed Tina into the tape deck, and stuck a chicken sandwich into his mouth. 

                Bristol was humming.  Cars and pedestrians everywhere.  The shops buzzing so you could almost hear all the cash flowing into their tills.  Plenty of cops as well, some of them in pairs, looking for escaped convicts.  They look at a Scorpio and they think businessman or executive or something, never dreaming that what they’re after is behind the wheel.  Norman just kept going, remembering everything anyone had ever told him about the Highway Code.  Stopped at all the red lights, even slowed down a couple of times when there were no lights showing, let a woman with a dog go across the road.  Shit, he could’ve been a driving instructor, didn’t hit the horn even one time.  Twenty minutes later he was back on the M5 heading towards Birmingham.

                Those kids learned pretty good, he reckoned.  If he’d been born on the other side of the tracks Norman thought he could have been a school teacher.  He’d have been a much better teacher than any of the teachers who taught him.  The kids would respect him for a start, not run rings around him like they did most teachers these days.  First thing, first time he walked into the class room he’d tell them, OK motherfuckers, you might be thinking you got a ticket to ride, but while I’m standing up here and you lot are sitting at your little desks, only one thing’s gonna happen.  I’m gonna spout and you lot are gonna shut the fuck up and listen.

                He reached for the inset of the Tina tape and stuck her picture up on the dashboard.  Maybe he’d get himself one like her in Birmingham.  He shook his head.  Maybe not.  In Birmingham he’d change cars again and head on out for Manchester.  Get one there instead.

 

*

 

He had to take stock, try to think the thing through.  Maybe make some kind of plan.  The first day after the riot in the prison Norman and two other so called ringleaders had been taken to a transport.  The Eye-talian Norman had never seen in his life before.  Either they’d had him banged up in solitary, or he’d not been there long.  The black brother he’d seen before, in fact he’d followed him for a while during the riot.  Just after it started.  The screws’d got out immediately, kitted out the mufti-squad, started bolstering up no man’s land between the buffer and the perimeter fence, bringing filth in from the neighbouring towns.  The way it looked that first day it wouldn’t be long before they brought the army in.

                Guys were already up on the roof, throwing slates at anything that moved, making banners out of sheets and somebody’s blood.  Probably one of the nonces they kept wrapped up in cotton wool.  Serve the bastard right.  But it just went to show, Norman thought, the worst kind of shit can come in handy in an emergency.  Use the fuckers as blood donors.  Everybody running around like it was a carnival.  Least that’s what it looked like.  The library and two kitchens were on fire, smoke everywhere so you could hardly breath.

                He followed three black guys who’d made a crowbar out of some piping and looked like they might have a plan.  They made for the admin office which was swarming with cons, must’ve been about six fires going in there.  Filing cabinets were overturned, records being heaped on the flames.  Guys were smashing desks, ripping calendars and charts off the walls.  Anything wasn’t smashed already they would smash it.  The black guys didn’t stop there, but went through another door into a little pantry the screws used to make tea and coffee.  Everything in the pantry had already been smashed.

                There they started levering the bars off the window.  That’s where he had seen the brother.  The one in the transport.  Looked like he could’ve just bit through the bars, but he didn’t, he levered them out of the stone and mortar like they were daffodil stems.  Every time one of the bars came out the other two brothers cheered and said something in that language they use.  Norman couldn’t understand a word of it.  He just felt happy for them.

                When the bars were all out the brothers went through the window and Norman followed, keeping some distance in case they turned on him.  They seemed to know the lay of the land, and as long as they knew that he was quite happy to follow.  In a little alley now, high walls on both sides.  The brothers were running along it and turning a corner at the end, heading towards the sounds of shouting and something exploding.  When he got to the corner the blacks had disappeared. 

                Still from inside the alley Norman could see the buffer fence, a long way off, but there it was.  Cons were running towards it from all directions, slates and bits of drain pipe coming down from the revellers on the roof, sirens screaming like it was a war.  Some of the cons were climbing over the buffer fence and being chased by screws on the other side, having their heads opened with batons.  Norman could see this wasn’t gonna be a normal prison day.  Maybe not even a normal prison week.  He didn’t intend missing any of the fun.  He had a little shank he’d made out of a spoon, sanded it down real good so it’d cut paper.  Originally as protection, like a defensive weapon against some mad bastard who kept touching his ass; but now it would be an offensive weapon, help him get over that buffer, maybe even over the perimeter and out into the world.  Shit, just do it, Norman told himself.  If one of them tries to stop you, stab the bastard.

                Once outside of the alley he saw the three brothers again, half way across the open area now, heading towards a place on the buffer didn’t seem to have any screws at all.  Norman took off after them.  They’d been good luck up till now.  Might as well stay with them till it runs out, then dump them.

                 A slate from the roof whistled past his head so close it almost took a layer of skin off, but Norman didn’t stop.  Didn’t stop until he was over the buffer and one of the screws smacked him across the head with a baton.  Then he stopped good.  Woke up in hospital and missed the rest of the fucking riot.

 

*

 

Norman left the M6 at Junction 21 and drove through Salford into the centre of Manchester.  He was behind the wheel of a white Escort Diesel, which was the best Birmingham had had to offer at short notice.  He double parked behind the Royal Exchange Theatre, took the bag and left the car with the keys in the ignition.  Somebody’d use it.

                The weather was hot and dry.  Manchester, shit, it should be raining.  But the air was dry, too dry.  So you had to take it in short gasps through your mouth.  Women had sleeveless dresses on, and the men were all carrying their jackets over their shoulders.  Norman leaned against a shop window and had a good look at some of the women.  Legs, hair, occasionally caught a sniff of perfume when one or the other passed real close.  They’d pretend he wasn’t there.  But they knew OK.

                Completely new territory, but it felt good.  Norman had been born in Southampton and moved to London as a teenager.  Before today he had never been further north than Watford and had half expected to meet peasants and wild animals.  He smiled to himself at the thought.  Manchester looked just like parts of London, hardly any difference at all, even some of the shops had the same names.  Good job as well.  He’d come up against peasants and wolves, shit, he’d probably be making his way back south again. 

                He went in a burger bar and got a double cheeseburger and two cups of coffee.  Winked at the waitress who sneered at him in return, asked him if he had a problem with his eye.  Norman asked her if she got many tips with an attitude like that.  She came back with something else, ‘nother mouthful of garbage, but Norman picked up his tray and found a table by the window.  Shit, the first woman he’d talked to in years and she gives him a mouthful.  Fucking accent like Coronation Street.  Maybe works in the Rovers Return at night, but Norman wouldn’t give her a job cleaning dishes.  Face like a dog.  Shit, no body.  Greasy apron.  Great fat legs.  Like a peasant.  Even if you put her on the street she’d be trouble.  Have to smack her every day.

                Norman understood women.  Knew how to handle them.  He hadn’t had to learn it either. It just came natural.

                Norman went to the Gents and counted his money.  He put six tenners in the pocket of the sweatshirt, another two and a fiver and the loose change in his trouser pocket, and the rest of the tenners he put in his sock.

                When he’d finished eating, drunk his second cup of coffee, he walked down the street to a taxi rank.  “I want a girl,” he told the driver when he’d got himself settled in the passenger seat.

                The driver sniffed, glanced at his St Christopher dangling from the rearview mirror, and said, “Anything particular?”  He was a little guy, face furrowed like a ploughed field, wearing a sweater and sweating, long thick nails on the ends of his fingers.  Like claws, Norman thought.  Maybe he was one of the wild animals

                “Black,” Norman told him.  “Something like Tina Turner.”  He laughed.  “She don’t have to sing, though.  I mean, she can sing, that’s OK; but she don’t have to.”

                The driver didn’t say if he thought that was funny.  His face said he’d heard all the jokes before, and even if he hadn’t heard that one before he still wasn’t gonna find anything funny.  His face was so cracked already, it wasn’t gonna crack any more.

                “Where we going?” Norman asked him.

                “You wanna black girl,” the driver said.  “Place called The Star, they got Indians, Chinese, and real black blacks.  Even got whites if you change your mind.”

                “Star?”

                “Yeah.  It’s not a house.  Jus’ a pub.  You buy a drink and the girls’ll find you.”  He glanced at his St Christopher again, then started chewing something, though there was nothing in his mouth.  Then another thought somehow got into his head.  “Won’t be busy tonight,” he said.  “Too bleedin’ hot.”

                The cab stopped outside The Star and Norman got out and gave the driver a tenner.  The driver handed him a fiver and two pound coins, and Norman took the fiver and left the two pound coins in the guy’s hand.  “Buy yourself a new face,” he said.

                The guy looked at him deadpan before pulling away from the kerb.  Norman watched him go, then stood and wondered at the vision of Tina Turner coming down the road towards him, wobbling along on heels like stilts, wearing a pair of bright red shorts and a black sequinned shirt that was tied round her middle.  She started smiling as she got closer, then swept round into the entrance of The Star and said, “I have to buy my own drink, or we going in together?”

                The smell of her.  Jesus, this was a woman.  He’d forgotten that, that they smelled so different.  “Shit, babe,” Norman told her.  “You’re not going anywhere without me tonight.”

                There was around half a dozen people in the bar, men and women.  The room was no bigger than an average living room, but the ceiling was higher and supported a large brass fan.  A couple of girls like Tina, though not so lush, were talking to their Johns at a table behind the door.  They both said something to her as she passed, but Norman still hadn’t got the Manchester dialect and assumed they were using too many words to say Hello.  The bar was six or eight feet long with a middle aged woman behind it.  She gave Tina a grin and asked what Norman was drinking.  Tina was drinking scotch and Norman had  the same with a beer chaser and turned his attention to the next most interesting thing in the room.

                At the far end of the bar was a brother must’ve been over seven foot tall.  His neck was the size of a bucket.  Rings everywhere, ears, nose, hands.  The front of the guy’s shirt was open and there was a ring through his left nipple.  Norman couldn’t see the guy’s toes, but he would’ve bet there were rings there as well.  The brother didn’t move apart from a slight twitching of his nostrils.  There was a mirror behind the bar so he could see everything was happening without moving. 

                Tina went over to him and put something in his pocket.  Norman assumed it was money.  The guy still didn’t move.  Norman hoped he never would.

                When Tina came back, Norman asked her, “That your daddy?”

                “Sometimes,” she said.  “Shall we sit down?”

                She led him to a table behind the black giant and asked him his name, said she was called Sue.  Norman told her he was gonna call her Tina and she said that was cool and what was he looking for.

                “I’ve bin away,” he told her, “so I want everything at once.”

                “A girl can only do her best,” Tina said.

                Norman drank half the whiskey, put the glass down and swigged a quarter of the pint of beer.  “How about a good fuck now?” he said.  “When we’ve finished this.”  He motioned to the drinks on the table.  “Then we come back here and have a few more beers, maybe get a bit sloshed.  Then we go back to your place and take it more slowly.  Finish up about two or three in the morning.  I got to be on the road by then.”

                Tina looked at her watch.  “Sounds cool,” she said, reaching into her bag and putting a small calculator on the table.  “Can’t add up,” she explained.  She punched a couple of numbers on the keypad.  “You gonna want a blow job?” she asked.  “Anything kind of specialised?”

                “Maybe a blow job,” he said.  “I don’t know yet.”

                Tina punched more numbers on the keypad, said, “We’re talking between eighty and a hundred quid here.”

                Norman pulled the six tenners out of the pocket of his sweatshirt and counted them onto the table.  “That’s all I’ve got,” he said.  “You ask daddy if we got a deal?”

                Tina reached for the notes but Norman covered them with his hand. As she moved forward he found himself taking in a good lungful of her scent.   She went over to King Kong at the bar and talked some.  The guy didn’t move.  Norman watched very closely and he didn’t see anything move, not even an eye.

                Tina came back to the table, sat down and showed Norman her teeth.  “It’s a quiet night,” she said.  “And I like you.”  She picked up the six tenners and went back to the brother at the bar.  When she came back the tenners were gone.  “I’m all yours,” she said.  “But you leave at midnight.”

                Norman shrugged, he’d been away a long time.  “Jus’ call me Cinderella,” he said.  Then he had another thought. “Don’t suppose you’ve got a dress made out of beads?” he asked.

 

*

 

They left The Star and went round the corner to a house that was falling down.  Two brothers in the hallway downstairs, playing cards.  Loud music coming from one of the rooms behind them.  Norman followed Tina upstairs to a tiny room with a bed and a table and chair.  Nothing else.  “How you wanna do this?” she asked.

                “Quick,” he told her.  “But check this out first.”  Norman loosened his belt and motioned Tina to put her hand down the front of his trousers.  “Surprise for you.”

                “It got teeth?” she asked, reaching down there.

                Norman drew in his breath when she made contact.  “Lower,” he said through his teeth.  “I got four balls.”

                “Jesus,” she said, her hand deep in his trousers.  “You ain’t bullshitting.”  She felt some more, her eyes wide with something only a little short of wonder.  She unzipped him and let his pants fall to the floor, then she got down on her knees to get a better look.  “I’ve come across singles,” she told him.  “They’s a lot more common than you’d think.  Two’s, of course.  Though most of the guys with two, to hear them talk you’d think they had more.  And I came across a three once.  Guy who had two normal ones and a little one, could actually have been a piece of gristle or something.  I mean it might not have been a real ball.  But let’s give him the benefit of the doubt.  He had three.  But this little cluster, here,” she said, weighing them in the palm of her hand, “it sure takes the biscuit.”  Her eyes opened wider.    “Honey, if you never say or do anything else, you certainly made a little history for me.”

                She gave him a condom and began undressing.  Norman put the condom on and told her just to take her shorts off.

                Seven minutes later they were back in the bar.

                Norman left his bag in Tina’s room.  You carry a bag around people think you’ve got something worth taking.

                When they walked into the bar the big black guy still didn’t move.  Norman knew the man was never gonna be impressed.  He ordered drinks and they sat down at the same table, talked about the state of the world, how everything used to be good and was now turning sour.  “The fucking thing is,” Norman told her.  “Jus’ when Margaret was beginning to get everything together the bastards got rid of her.”

                Tina nodded through her glass.  “She was good for us,” she said.  “Wanted the cops to leave us alone and chase real criminals.  Terrorists and that.  People making money, she was into that.”  She took another swig and looked at her empty glass.  “I think she’ll be back.”

                “Hope so,” Norman told her, picking up Tina’s glass and his own in one hand.  He went to the bar and looked at the giant while he waited for the drinks.  Fucking neck! The guy didn’t move.  Norman thought if the guy would look at him he could give him a wink.  But the guy didn’t look.   Screw you, he thought.  Bit too big to take on, though, unless you wanted eating.  Even though he did have all that money.  Maybe after a few more drinks he wouldn’t look so big.

                “What’s with him, anyway?” he asked Tina when he got back to the table.

                “Nothing,” she said.  “He only gets involved if there’s trouble.  Long as he’s there there’s no trouble.”

                “He your pimp?”

                “One of them,” she said.  “It’s all family down here.  Sisters do the work, brothers collect the cash.”

                “Nothing wrong with that,” Norman told her.  “You know anywhere it’s different?”

                “Heaven?” said Tina, and swigged more whiskey.  She put her glass down and licked her lips.

                “Heaven, shit,” said Norman.  “It’ll be jus’ the same up there, ‘cept with wings.”

                The third time he went to the Gents Norman had some difficulty getting through the door, like it had got narrower since the last time he went.  He had a long piss and shook the drops off, then stood in front of the mirror smiling at his reflection.  “How long since you had a good skinfull?” he asked himself.  “And a woman?”  Hell, he was free.  Getting shitfaced.  Sitting in there having a normal conversation, talking ’bout politics and religion,  gonna fuck himself stupid in an hour.

                On his way back to the bar the door had got narrower still.  Had to go through sideways.

                “You gotta wife?” Tina asked him.  “Family?”

                Norman leaned forward and had another sniff of her.  “You looking for a husband?”

                She laughed.  “Christ, no,” she said.  “I’m just interested.”

                “Why should I get married?” Norman said.  “Everybody I know got married, they’re all trying like hell to get unmarried.”

                “I was married twice,” Tina told him.  “The first guy was a hundred and eighty years older than me.  We lived together two years and at the end I was a hundred and eighty years older than him.”

                “You work that out on your calculator?”

                “The second guy was gonna put me in pictures, but somebody stoled his camera.”

                “What happened to him?” Norman asked.

                “He’s still there,” she said.  “The brothers chased him off.  Comes in here occasionally, complains about the price, but he always pays.”

                “For his own old lady?”

                “Johns like to pay,” she said.  “They don’t pay they don’t think they’ve been screwed.”

                “Yeah, I know,” Norman said.  “Used to run a couple a girls one time.  You ever need a new pimp, you can look me up.”

                Tina looked around, see if anyone was listening.  “The brothers run everything here,” she said.  “There’s no opportunities.”

                Norman eyed the big one at the bar, see if he’d got any smaller.  Maybe a little.  Now he was only medium huge.  “I can hear what you’re saying,” he said.

                “What about girl friends?” she asked.  “You must have somebody.”

                “I told you.  I’ve bin away.”  He picked up a packet of cigarettes off the table and shook one out.  Lit it up.  “I had a girl before,” he said.  “Snow White.”

                Tina laughed again.  “Snow White.  Shit.  You putting me on?”

                Norman laughed along with her.  “No, it’s true,” he said.  “She was called Selina White, really.  But when I first met her, she signed her name S. White, so I called her Snow White after that.  Everybody did.”

                “She work for you or the seven dwarfs?”

                “She worked for me a while,” he said.  “But when I went away she split with my stash.  <