Nightmare City (30 page)

Toni kept the prick firmly where it was, as though
interruptions like this were commonplace. With her mouthful she
turned and looked sideways up at Rider. She recognised him
immediately. The organ popped out of her mouth and swayed
unsteadily in her hand.

Rider waded in.

He reached across Tom, grabbed the shirt-front of the man on
the toilet, and with no great effort - because the man was small
and slightly built - lifted him bodily off the pan. He dragged him
out of the cubicle and propelled him towards the Gents door,
trousers around his ankles, penis having deflated instantly, now a
shadow of its former self. He fell to his knees.

‘
Fuck off out of it,’ Rider’s voice said in a tone not much
louder than a whisper. ‘Now, if you know what’s good for
you.’

The man didn’t argue. He jacked up his trousers and
bolted.

Rider knew he had only a short time.

He stepped menacingly into the cubicle where Toni was hanging
onto the toilet bowl as if she’d been violently sick in it. Her big
blue eyes looked fearfully up at Rider; ten years ago she had lived
in absolute terror of him and now he’d come back to haunt her. He
had been very cruel to her in those days. Treated her badly,
verbally, and once physically abused her. He had made it clear he
despised people like her. And Munrow had laughed and failed to
protect her. All he was interested in were her numeracy skills,
otherwise she could be treated badly by anyone. He hadn’t cared a
fuck. She’d hated Munrow, but stuck it because the money and hours
suited her lifestyle.

Quickly Rider snarled, ‘You have a choice, Toni. Answer my
question now, or I smash your beautiful face to fucking pieces
...
then
you
answer.’ As he spoke, Rider knew he’d gone soft. In the few seconds
since making the decision to act with violence and then going into
action, he’d already backed off. Ten years ago her head would have
been down the toilet already.

‘
Where is Munrow?’ he asked, eyes blazing at her.

‘
John, I don’t know. I haven’t seen him since he came out,’
she cried. Her voice was deep, gravelly and could arguably have
been described as sexy. Tears appeared in her eyes. ‘Please don’t
hurt me.’

‘
You had the choice.’ Rider grabbed her hair with the
intention of pulling her head back before driving it into the
porcelain. He’d forgotten she wore a wig and all that happened was
his hand came away with a finger-load of blonde silky hair. ‘Fuck!’
he hissed and threw it over the partition into the next cubicle
where it landed with a splash in an unflushed toilet.

Toni cowered. She huddled in the corner with both hands
covering the embarrassment of the short cropped hair underneath.
She started to cry with short, jerky whimpers.

Rider stood back. ‘Tell me where he is and I’ll leave you
alone. I don’t want to hurt you, but I will, Toni.’

Through her tears, she informed him.

‘
Sensible fella,’ Rider said. He couldn’t resist patting her
head patronisingly. ‘By the way, get a better razor. I can still
see your five o’clock shadow, even under all that
make-up.’

Seconds later Rider was pushing his way towards the club exit.
Racing in the opposite direction were the two bouncers, on their
way to break up the reported fight in the toilets.

Once outside, Rider breathed deep. He was relieved to be out
of
that atmosphere and the clientele in
particular. Call it prejudice, he thought, but I hate
transvestites.

The pub was situated in the Little Harwood area of
Blackburn, about two miles from the centre
of
town. Twelve men had assembled in the
back room. One of
them stood at the door
in order to prevent any unsuspecting member of
the public from bursting in. The remainder sat facing the
large TV screen, watching the live transmission of
a Blackburn Rovers match on Sky. The Rovers were
one down.

A serving hatch connected the room to the bar, but all the
necessary drinks had been bought and the shutter had been drawn and
bolted down. This business had to be conducted
privately.

Charles Munrow pushed himself out of
his seat and walked across to the TV. He switched it off.
Silence descended on the room.

The other men watched him nervously. They were all tough,
uncompromising individuals, but Munrow left them standing in terms
of
sheer brutality and animal
violence.

He was nothing special to look at.

He wasn’t six foot six with a scar across his cheeks, tattoos
on his arms and built like a brick shit-house. He was very
average-looking. Five-ten. Firmly, but slimly built, with a
pinched, unfriendly face with very closely cropped grey hair.
Nothing stood out, except that aura which warned without
speaking.

In the days of
the triumvirate
of
Munrow, Rider and Conroy, Munrow had
been the most violent out of
the three.
Conroy would rather have had someone else to do his dirty work;
Rider needed the right set of
circumstances to light his blue touch paper, otherwise he was
a pussy cat.

During armed robberies it was always Munrow who would shoot
some poor bastard Group 4 guard’s foot off. Just for the hell
of
it. Always him, when arguing, who would
pull a triple-edged Stanley Knife blade and swish it across
somebody’s cheek. Cuts like those were impossible to
stitch.

He had been brought up to be violent and loved it.

In the end he was the only one of
the three who went to prison. It would have been him
eventually anyway.

Eleven years in Strangeways had done nothing to soften his
approach to life. He came out with a vengeance and the idea that
he’d pick up the pieces where he’d left them. Assume his rightful
position in gangland - at the top.

Things had changed dramatically.

The gangland he knew no longer existed. With the glaring
exceptions of Moss Side and Salford, it was all much more subtle
and organised. Now the buzzwords were ‘compromise’ or ‘negotiation’
or ‘strategies’. Words Munrow did not understand.

When he approached Conroy expecting to be let back in, he
found the door wedged shut. He quickly saw the reality that he was
not wanted any more.

All he had left was a rundown off-licence and two poxy
launderettes which were throwbacks to the 1970s. Most people had
their own washing machines now. Who on earth wanted to use a
scruffy launderette?

He was virtually broke and needed to get back into the
mainstream.

Which he decided to do by violence.

Munrow cast his eyes around the room. Some of the men were
contacts from another era who had been left behind, like him; some
were young bucks who wanted a chance to prove themselves. All were
capable of murder. What’s more, all were willing...

They were to be the nucleus of his new business
team.

Munrow opened his mouth. Prison life had put an even harder
edge on his tobacco-stained vocal cords. Behind every word he spoke
there was the hint of a cough ready to break. He lit a cigarette,
took a deep drag and spoke whilst the smoke was in his
lungs.

‘
We control the doors,’ he said gruffly. ‘We control the drugs
in and out. Simple, innit?’ Smoke drifted lazily out through his
nostrils and mouth. ‘And tonight we’re gonna make inroads into this
problem of the doors. I don’t want nothin’ fancy. Just hard and
fucking violent. We do three clubs tonight. Two at the same time -
midnight - and the third, all of us together, at quarter to two.
Dennis, are the cars ready?’

Dennis nodded. He was one of the balaclava twins who had dealt
with Rider.

‘
Is everybody tooled up?’

Heads nodded. They were eager to go and get some
action.

‘
Good. This should be fucking easy. They’re all tarts on the
doors these days. They won’t be expecting us and we do ‘em good and
proper. In and out. Don’t waste time, Make your point, then leave
before the cops, or anyone else, has time to get there. And don’t
use shooters unless absolutely necessary ... we’ll leave that for
later when we all get together.’

The bedroom upstairs at the back of the pub smelled of beer.
From the plug-hole in the cracked sink emanated the unmistakable
whiff of blocked drains. The walls were damp, paper peeled off,
adding to the aroma.

There was another stronger smell in the room: that of decaying
human flesh.

The room was an unhealthy environment for anyone to be in, let
alone someone who’d been shot in the leg and had received no
medical treatment for the wound.

Such as in the case of Jonno, the young man who had been shot
by John Rider a few days before at Blackpool Zoo.

He was lying in a flimsy metal-framed camp bed. He had drifted
into unconsciousness again, a blissful state for his body which
could no longer tolerate the excruciating pain from the badly
infected wound.

Sat next to him on a stool, leafing through an old
Woman s Own
was the man
Rider had quickly christened as ‘Curly’.

Munrow came into the room.

The stench hit him, clawed its way up his nose. Gangrene. He
gagged and covered his nostrils with his hand. ‘How’s he
doin’?

‘
Not good. Needs a doctor.’

Munrow eased the blood-stained sheet off Jonno’s body and
exposed the leg. The true aroma of the wound whooshed up towards
him like an invisible swarm of flies.

The leg was in very bad condition.

The bullet had lodged in the outer part of Jonno’s right thigh
and the wound had quickly putrefied even though it had been
repeatedly washed and cleaned. Now it was turning green and
mouldy-looking, like Gorgonzola, and this was spreading rapidly
through the muscles and into his groin. At the very least Jonno had
lost his leg.

Munrow had been very reluctant to send Jonno to hospital or
get a doctor to see him. That meant questions. Questions meant
answers. Answers meant cops.

In the old days he would have brought in a friendly, paid-for
GP. Now Munrow didn’t have the contacts.

Jonno moaned and smacked his lips, which were dry and flaking.
His almost-transparent eyelids flickered open a fraction. He
mumbled something that made no sense. Sweat rolled off his
forehead. He was burning up inside. His eyes closed wearily. He
turned his head to the wall.

‘
What we gonna do?’ Curly asked.

Munrow’s cold eyes looked sideways at Curly. ‘Dump
him.’

Just after midnight Conroy was watching a pornographic video
which had a weak and predictable storyline centring on the
punishment of young schoolboys and occasionally their
masters.

He was at his house in Osbaldeston.

Two bodyguards and their girlfriends were lounging about
downstairs, probably snorting cocaine. Two more security guards and
their Alsatians roamed the grounds outside.

Conroy was in the master bedroom, lying splayed out naked on
the bed. His long hair had been freed from its pony tail. The huge
TV monitor in the centre of the room was showing the video. He
masturbated himself slowly throughout the feature presentation.
Having watched the film a dozen times beforehand, it was his
intention to hold himself back from shooting his load until the
climax of the film, during a mass rape scene at the end.

It was one hell of a good film, calling for full audience
participation.

And it was nearing the end.

Six trouserless boys were led uncomplaining into the
headmaster’s study and told to bend over and touch their
toes.

The headmaster picked up his cane and flexed it. The camera
pulled back to reveal that he wore no trousers himself and was
sporting a huge erection. Conroy quickened his pace. In a moment
the police would swoop and the real fun would begin.

The phone next to his bed rang shrilly.

With a snarl of annoyance he picked it up, thankful he had not
reached the point of no return.

‘
Yes? What the fuck do you want?’ he barked.

‘
Boss...
’ It was one of his guards.
‘We got trouble in town. Two of the clubs have been
hit.’

‘
What?’ he screamed. ‘Who by?’

‘
The Thunderpoint and the Electric. All the doormen have been
trounced.’

So it wasn’t the cops.

Conroy abruptly lost his appetite for self-fulfilment and
young boys on film. He picked up the remote and pointed it at the
TV, blacking out the favourite part of his favourite
movie.

‘
Get a car sorted. I’ll be down in five. Get tooled up just in
case.’

Conroy and his men were in Blackburn less than twenty minutes
later. They went straight to the Electric which was within spitting
distance of the railway station and was formerly a
cinema.