Cracking Up (11 page)

Around one in the morning, the doorbell rang. I got up and opened the door to find Bangerz in a proper state in the doorway, eyes wild and red-rimmed like the colour of Mars. He’d found out that while him and the missus were on a break, she’d been shagging some other feller and had actually moved in with this other wanker since they’d split. He was devastated, they’d been together for a year by this time and he’d been expecting some sort of romantic reunion. To add insult to injury, he knew the other geezer really well and considered him a prize prick. It was the bloke he owed drug money to; a muppet from the Mug Fam. He was furious on top of being deeply wounded; she’d humiliated him and it had driven him insane with anger and jealousy. Wanked up on smack, crack and white cider, he’d completely smashed the flat where they lived together. In a blind rage he’d slashed his hands and arms badly and was bleeding all over the place. He had massive bumps on his head where he’d been butting everything in sight too. He stood there dripping with blood, hurt and anguish twisting his face, asking for his burner back.

I brought him into the hallway and tried to reason with him. “Bangerz, you’re making a big mistake. Don’t be going mental over some bird doing the dirty on you? She’s done you a fucking favour, mate, she’s not worth the aggro. There’s plenty of other fanny out there, lad. You’ll cop for a better class of bird, you’ll see. There’s always something better round the corner.”

“I want me baby!” he bawled. For a split second I thought the soppy bastard was talking about his ex-girl, then realized he meant his baby Glock. “I’m going to shoot the bastard!”

I bitch-slapped him hard on the cheek to bring him back to his senses. “Well, you ain’t getting it! Take this instead,” I said, and pulled a bag of nasty out me pocket. “Go home, do this and sleep it off. I’ll come and see you tomorrow, see how you’re getting on. Come on, lad! You’re better than this!”

I was, of course, talking bollocks. But he was filled up to his eyeballs with a cocktail of booze and drugs, mad with jealousy and in no fit state to do battle. I was sure if he went home and slept it off I could make him see sense the next day. It wasn’t worth the aggro, going to war over a dirty little gash.

I pulled him into the kitchen, cleaned and bandaged his cuts up as best I could. He seemed absent, smack skinny now and had blurred, dim glazed over eyes like a kind of narcotic sleepwalker. I sent him on his way, stumbling homeward bound, off his fucking face and disappearing into the forlorn night. I felt a bit sorry for him. “Maybe I should’ve walked him back,” I said to Caspar. “Watch his back like. He’s fucking wankered, man!”

“Fuck that!” Cas said. “He’s a fucking liability, Ow-wee! Best fuck him right off, lad. Never going get off the nasty, him. Got one foot in the graveyard, he has. A dead man walking. They just ain’t thrown the dirt over him yet.”

Fucking good job that I passed on accompanying him back, but maybe I should have armed him with the shooter, because he was ambushed and set upon by a big bunch of fucking thug Mug Fam hyenas. The aggressive pack trapped him like an animal in the stairwell of his block of flats, where he endured a violent and painful death.

There was a mob of about five or six of them, all tooled up to the eyeballs, dangerous psychos vexed and their black hearts filled with murderous intentions at the sight of Bangerz, as he shuffled up the concrete steps in his flats. They surrounded him in seconds, forming a circle, flanking him on all sides, pulling out machetes. The first blow, a samurai-style swing, ripped a deep gash into his left shoulder and nearly took his arm off. Bangerz put up his right arm to defend against the follow-up strike. A second swing arced in and nearly cut his hand off, exposing tendons. “Fucking dead meat, YOU lad!” One of them growled, wild on adrenalin and kill-hate.

Bangerz turned on his heels and tried to make a run for it, bolting from the stairwell and racing outside the flats. He only got about ten feet out of the building when they caught up with him. There was a high-pitched squealing in animal panic, as the topping team butchered him with a blade to his neck, near the jugular vein. Bright red oxide blood spurted out of the wound and he collapsed on the floor, screaming and howling in agony, as he curled up into a ball and another chopping blow cut into his shin bone. It was like a nightmare in a butcher’s shop, but the mass of psycho-killers carried on regardless, hacking away at him in a shimmering rage with machetes until a few brave residents actually hung their heads out their windows, informing the hit squad that the police had been called into the proceedings.

It was all over for Bangerz, though. He had been chopped up like a chicken and bled to death on the street. Blood flowed like a river and, by the time the paramedics arrived on the grisly scene, he had breathed in the last oxygen of his misery and slipped away like a turd round a u-bend.

14.

Next day, Lee called. Her voice was ragged and choked, because great sobbing tears were rolling down her cheeks. “While Ryan’s been in ozzie, some fellers have been round here and something bad’s happened,” she said. “They barged their way into the flat, smacked us around and took me iPhone. They said he owes them money and, coz he ripped them off they’re going to take it out on me.”

It turned out that they were just a couple of wannabes that Spermy had ripped off in a drug deal. They were part of the ever-present drug buying convention at the marketplace serving the local and wider community. They had been copping their drugs off the Mug Fam, but after a let-down they had set off round the corner to find another source. Spermy had been approached at the playground by this pair of stupidly naive bastard pricks, desperately scouting about on the night-time estate, eager to score some of the naughty stuff. Spermy offered them the sneaky fake coke he sold to foolish dickheads and being stupidly cheap it was an offer that they couldn’t refuse. The twats handed over the cash, grabbed the goodies and hightailed it out of the Shooting Range, aware that it was a pretty wild place with all sorts of dangers and nasty goings on at every turn.

Spermy had thought it was a right laugh, but the dickheads had suffered a major humiliating rip-off at his hands and the incident had been made ten times worse by having Spermy brag to everyone who’d listen that he had pulled their pants down and given them a good spanking. They were fuming for payback, raging over the incident and weren’t about to let it lie. But the spineless bastards had waited until Spermy had been carted off to hospital and was facing a custodial sentence before they took their revenge. As soon as they’d heard about the situation they’d shot up to Lee’s flat to GIVE IT THE BIGGUN.

With a couple of good shoves they’d managed to force an entry and she’d screamed. One of them body barrelled into her, tripping her backward and sending them both crashing through the glass coffee table in the front room. The big bastard rolled on top of her, spreading open her thighs and ripping her knickers off. The other lad was kneeling on her shoulders, his hands pinning down her arms. Sharp shards of glass dug into her arse cheeks and back. The lad kneeling on her clamped his hand over her mouth and she bit on it and the hand became a fist that punched her in the face. They pissed themselves laughing at her as they took turns ripping into her, egging each other on and giving a verbal commentary of the goings on. The grinding and the pounding and the pain seemed to go on for ages. They were boozed up and stunk of skunk, one of them went limp dick fifteen minutes into it and ended up shoving his beer bottle inside her fanny until the shit fell out of her arse.

“They’re fucking animals,” Lee sounded hysterical and panicky. “They said they’d be back and, if I didn’t get their money, they were going bring some mates with them and do it all over again. I just want it to stop. I want them out me life.”

I advised her to get herself to the doctors to have the injuries she’d sustained treated and also to be tested for STDs. There was no mention of informing the police because roadside justice would prevail in this case. “Fucking dirty bastards! Best to get off to your mams,” I counseled. “Get away from round here for a bit. I fucking swear: I’m going take care of those cunts. No worries about that. Just got to find the skanky shower of shite first.”

15.

Being grafters by trade, we were always on the lookout for stunts and rip-offs. Intel about a weed farm being cultivated in a house in a nearby residential area had gotten back to us via the urban jungle drums. The hippie householder was fed-up being ripped-off by street dealers just like ourselves and had concluded a better option would be to set up his own Dro: A hydroponic cannabis grow room.

We’d decided it was ripe for a turnover and was bound to be a guaranteed scoop if we could pull it off. We drove over there in a nicked Honda Integra with windows tinted smokey black late on the chosen night.

We parked up and staked the place out. There was a skunky-sweet stench in the air. Caspar grabbed hold of the Mac-10 and I took the Glock. We crossed the road, crept into the garden and crouched in the shadows. Our game plan was simply to force an entry and take on anyone that was in there guarding the crop. We were expecting an icy reception, but felt we could storm the weed faction in a no-holds-barred, hood rat fashion.

We hid in the bushes for a bit, sussing the situation. I could hardly breathe, my chest was so tight with anxiety; it felt like I was having an asthma attack. The silence was deafening and I could hear my heart beating loudly. I gave Caspar the signal, we pulled the ballies down and jumped to our feet, advancing towards the house with stealth, whispering covertly, observing every shadow for signs of prying eyes. I was using a crowbar on the front door to gain entry when, all of a sudden, the lights came on and the door flew open. We were confronted by the Alan Titchmarsh-like occupant, brandishing a rounders bat. He’d obviously heard the shitty goings on and had tip-toed to the door to defend his cannabis-propagating castle. Big mistake. “What the fuck do you cheeky cunts want?”

We’d startled him, but we thought it was pretty obvious what we wanted. “You two better fuck-off! I’ve phoned the bizzies.”

I almost burst out laughing. As if a cannabis cultivator was going to dial 999. There was no fucking chance of him getting the police to come to his rescue and save his bacon. The place stunk of skunk and he’d be facing a long custodial sentence if the bizzies clamped their eyes on his dro factory.

This dick-splash was a fucking comedian, but I couldn’t see the humour in it at the time. I suppose he had one of those faces that begged to be laughed at, or smacked. Being the ruthless ruffian that I was, I chose the latter option and bashed him on the side of the head with the crowbar. It split his scalp wide open, the blood streaming down his face in rivers. His legs buckled and I charged him with my shoulder, sending him backwards onto the hallway floor.

After a bit of a scramble, we had him tied up and gagged, then proceeded to loot the rows of towering fuck-off skunk plants, laden with pungent sticky buds and growing under the hydroponic lights in the upstairs bedroom. What a fucking fantastic sight! There were thirty-odd crops inside a silver-foil lined tent, there was a heater and oxygen cylinder, air conditioner and duct system to get rid of the sweet and intoxicating smell but the aroma was still over-powering.

Our hands worked like twelve bastards, as we stuffed the plants into the thick, black bin liners we had brought with us. There was more greenery in another room, harvested and stuffed into plastic carrier bags, a fair few grands worth we reckoned. We grabbed it all and humped the gear to the motor outside.

We greedily jammed what crop we could into the boot, but had to toss the rest on to the backseat. With that bit of business wrapped up, we headed off to Caspar’s kennel. It had been piss-easy and we were well pleased with the booty we’d managed to rip-off. It was a top night’s graft: We’d done all right and now all we had to do was get rid of the stolen goods. Easily done in a city like Liverpool, where a bit of Bob Marley is like a breath of fresh air.

16.

We were coming back from THE STUNT. It had been a nice little earner as it goes, entailing little effort and a decent return with no chance of the bizzies turning up and sticking their big noses in. Caspar was driving the ride and I was in the passenger seat, sliding a CD into the stereo, Devlin’s Life’s Fucked Up playing. There were sticky buds all over our clothes and the sweet, intoxicating aroma of ganja was wafting up my nostrils.

Caspar’s mobile went off. It was some fancy bit he was having a fling with. She was at a house party and she’d text him to tell him that there was a couple of lads from the Mug Fam at the do. The ones that had helped butcher Bangerz and they were boasting about it.

That meant they were fair game and putting themselves up on offer. We were on the war-path, pumped up anyway, after the raid on the weed factory, and ready for revenge. We decided to swerve by the house and pay them our maximum respect: Fill the bastards in!

We could hear the party about two streets away, so we homed in on the music and Caspar turned the headlights off before he parked the ride at the top of the close, keeping the engine turning over for a quick getaway.

I masked up and slipped the gloves on, then eased out the motor with the gun in hand. I moved with stealth, sneaking down the cul-de-sac, staggering my approach, taking cover behind garden bushes and parked cars. My eyes were scoping and my ears were alert for the slightest sound of approaching feet.

Finally, I was crouching in the darkness opposite the house down the bottom. In the front garden, there was a young couple canoodling, he was sucking on her face and pulling her micro-mini up. She was only about fourteen, a sexy bit of jailbait and she had his cock in her hand, wanking him off. Another lad was stood in the open doorway, shouting encouragement to the kisser-locked couple and mimicking what he would do to her if given half the chance.

The gaff was crammed with a crowd of people and the party was purely raging. A top sound system was blaring thudding beats and I could see loose tarts everywhere, off their fucking heads dancing all hot and horny to the music, lads drooling all over them and gagging for a shag. My game plan for this one was to wait until one of the known fuckers came out and inflict as much damage to the cunt as possible.