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— Aye, right, ah tell um. The cat’s even telling ays how tae spend the dosh now, man, and that is just no oan. But this does feel good, like auld times, me n Sick Boy, scammin away tae fuck n it reminds me that back in the day we wir good but, man, we wir the best. Well, mibee no as good as a few boys ah kin think ay, mind you. Ah feel pure bad aboot the Cousin Dode boy now cause eh’s awright really, even a sortay pal, but it’s done now, ken. N eh shouldnae be sae superior, likesay, wi that Proddy supremacist stuff, man. Ye act aw high n mighty, somebody’ll cut ye doon tae size. Sick Boy should mind that n aw; but hey, man, that’s me soundin like Franco now!

But we’re back up tae Dode’s flat and wi pits the caird back intae ehs wallet n the wallet back intae ehs poakit. Sick Boy makes some black coffee and lits it cool, then makes Dode sip it. The caffeine brings him back up, n ehs legs sortay kick oot, hittin the coffee table n spillin some drinks.

— Whoa, catboy, whoa!

— You were out for the count, Dode, Sick Boy laughs as our favourite Weedgie boy, aw sort ay bemused, sits up, rubbin ehs eyes.

— Aye . . . Dode says as eh starts tae git ehs bearings. — That absinthe is mental, by the way, eh groans and looks at the clock oan the mantelpiece. — Fuck me,
tempus fugit
, right enough.

— Typical soapdodger, says
Felinus Vomitus
, which is like ma new Latin name fir yon Sick Cat, — they talk a good session, but when it comes down to it they can’t stand the pace with the Leith boys!

Dode lurches up n staggers taewards the cairry-oot in pure defiance. — Yis wahnt tae see drinkin? Ah’ll show yis drinkin!

Me n the Sickest Cat gie each other a quick wee scan, hoping that the Dode boy passes oot again before eh runs oot ay money.

36

Scam # 18,743

T
he clanking of heavy aluminium barrels on the stone floor. The loud camaraderie of the brewery delivery squad as they roll another one from the lorry, onto the mattress, then down the wooden chute, the guy at the bottom letting the cushion break its fall before catching it and stacking it. But that banging, those loud voices.

My head is very fucking sore. I remember with some terror that I agreed to go to my mother’s this evening, for a family meal. I can’t think what would disturb me more in my condition, her indulgent fussing or the old boy’s indifference, occasionally slipping into full-blown hostility. That Christmas, years ago, when he got me in the kitchen and whispered in drunken malevolence: — Ah’m wide for your game, ya cunt, and I mind of being confused and fearful. What had I done that he’d rumbled? I realised later, of course, that it wasn’t a specific, he was just projecting his own self-hatred, saying that he understood me, my nature, because he shared it. The crucial difference he missed, though, was that he’s a loser and I’m not.

But my heid is nipping. That sesh last night: what a performance to go through for just five hundred bar of a Weedgie’s cash. Of course, Mr Murphy is delighted with his share of our ill-gotten gains, but for me the whole thing was simply a trial run.

Spud may have done well in a devalued domestic Cup fixture, but that doesn’t mean that he can be considered for the European ties. Alex?

This fuckin hangover is doing me in though; I’m shaking as the brewery boys sing cheerfully and Morag’s shouting at me: — We’re needin some Beck’s up!

This is not the life I had planned. I struggle, shivering up the stairs with one case, then two, and start methodically stocking the bar fridges. Later, I submit to nerves, lighting up a cigarette in the office. It’s easier to give up smack than fags. Still, the post arrives, bringing better news in the shape of a letter, and it’s from the Chief Constable’s office!

Still a good hour before opening time and I take the letter up the Walk to the frame shop, and get it encased in a smart, gold-rimmed number. Then I head back and stick it, in pride of place, behind the bar. Effectively, it serves as a certificate to deal drugs as no vigilant plod is going to bust me and embarrass the main man.
Now
I’ll be left alone, and that’s all you want, all you crave out of life: to be left alone while you get on with the business of interfering with others. In other words, to be a bona fide, fully certified member of the capitalist classes.

The sunbed I ordered finally arrives. I don’t want milk-bottled bodies on the set. I get under for half an hour’s try-out.

Fired up, literally, I go outside to a call box, from where I bell the
Evening News
, and hold my nostrils shut as I talk. — There’s a boy doon in Leith, eh, at that Port Sunshine Tavern, eh, tryin tae start this Leith Business Says No Tae Drugs campaign, eh. Eh’s goat a letter fae the Chief Constable backing him up, eh.

How hot they get at the mention of the Chief’s name! Within the hour, they’ve sent some spotty, feeble-minded twat round with a photographer in tow, just as my first customers, old Ed and his mob are filing in, checking the blackboard for the dish of the day (shepherd’s pie). The newsmen take some snaps and ask a few questions, me sitting back and giving it the big one. I tell the boy that Mo’s stovies are as famous in Leith as Betty Turpin’s hotpot used to be in Weatherfield. The wee guy looks stupefied, but seems happy enough with what he’s got.

It’s not been too bad a start to the day, and I’m five hundred quid richer. Of course, this is still small beer for what we need to make a proper, high-production-values fuck-movie, but now I’ve got a bigger scam on the horizon. Pornography is the genre of film I’ve chosen to work in, but I won’t be sticking around in it for too long. I’ll show the Zionist family big beak. I triumphantly rack up a huge line of posh and it hits the spot, though I have to run for the Kleenex to shore up a surge of snotter-water.

It’s weird that a drinking session with Spud Murphy and some fucking daft Weedgie Hun can be so inspiring. That charlie’s top gear, it fair knocks the old hangover for six. The phone goes and Morag answers it, holding it up at the other end of the bar. Worth her substantial lard in gold, yon auld yin. Yes, I could get a fuckable young student, maybe like Nikki, for some eye and cock relief, but no way would she be able to run the place like this old boiler. — For you, she goes.

I’m expecting it to be some top fanny, even hoping it’s that Nikki, but no, it’s fucking Spud, wanting to go out to a club and spend poor soapy Dode’s cash, as if me and him are big mates again.

— Sorry, mate, too busy at present, I swiftly inform him.

— Eh, what aboot Thursday likesay?

— Thursday’s out. How about never? Is never any good for you? I ask curtly, then snap, — Excellent! at the stunned silence on the other end of the line before slamming down the phone. Then I pick it up and dial someone who can be of use, namely my old mate Skreel in Possil and ask him to check out somebody for me.

At an early age I decided that other people were objects to move around, to position, as it were, to obtain the outcome from which I’d derive the optimum satisfaction. I also found that it was better to use charm rather than threats, and that love and affection worked easier than violence. With the former, all you had to do was withdraw it, or threaten to. Of course, some people fuck up your masterplan. Usually it’s friends and lovers. My best mate ran away with my money. Renton. A second person who fucked me up was my wife’s old man.

I shall get both of the cunts. But right now, it’s Skreel I want to speak to,
my
old Weedgie pal. Yes, it’s time we caught up, now that I’m back North of the Border permanently. I give the greetings, go through the banter, then get down to business, and Skreel can’t quite believe the request. — Ye wahnt me tae find you a lassie that works
whaire
?

— In the ticket office at Ibrox Stadium, I repeat, patiently. — Preferably a shy lassie, vulnerable, quite innocent, maybe who lives at home with her folks. Doesnae matter what she looks like.

The last part makes him even more suspicious. — What the fuck are you up tae, Williamson?

— Can ye dae it?

— Leave it tae me, he snaps emphatically. — Onything else?

— A specky cunt who lives with his ma . . .

— That’s easy!

— . . . but who works in a central Glasgow branch of the Clydesdale Bank.

Skreel again asks me to repeat the request, and starts laughing down the blower. — Are you matchmakin?

— In a manner of speaking, I tell him. — Just call me Cupid, I quip, before signing off and digging into my pocket to feel that reassuring wrap of ching.

37

‘. . . a politically correct fuck . . .’

L
auren has taken the strop with me big time and I can’t find her anywhere. She may have gone back to Stirling. On the plus side, this shows she cares, yes she does. Dianne’s relaxed about it, working on her project. Drumming her pencil on her teeth, she considers: — Lauren’s an intense wee lassie, but she’s still quite young and she’ll lighten up soon.

— The day can’t come quick enough, I tell her. — She makes me feel like a fucking whore . . . I get the word out and it cuts me in half: I’m thinking about what I agreed with Bobby and his mate Jimmy yesterday. About where I’m going tonight. It’s different in the sauna, the extras are up to you, although it’s expected that you’ll perform at least handjobs, which is as far as I go – my clumsy, unskilled extensions of my poor massage technique. I need the job and I need the money, especially with the Easter break coming up. But going out, up to somebody’s hotel room, it’s crossing another line I said I wouldn’t cross. It’s just a drink and a meal, Jimmy said.
Anything you negotiate separately
 . . .
well, that’s between you two.

I head out, done up to the nines, my red-and-black dress under my black Versace overcoat. I’m trying to get out before Dianne sees me, but she does and wolf-whistles. — Hot date, eh?

I smile as enigmatically as I can.

— Dirty, lucky cow, Dianne laughs.

I head out into the street, unused to making progress on heels, and flag down a taxi. I stop about fifty yards away from the plush New Town hotel, I don’t like arriving abruptly in a place, I like to savour my arrival, take everything in. It has a grand old Georgian façade but inside it’s been gutted and everything is ultra modern. The reception area has huge windows, almost down to the floor. The automatic doors swish open and a doorman in tails nods at me. I can feel my heels clicking across the marble floor as I head to the bar.

I don’t want to give away that I’m looking for someone, which I am, in case they ask me who, because I don’t know. What does a Basque politician look like? I can never keep cool in situations like these. The barman in this hotel has seen me before, I know it, at the sauna maybe, and he gives me a tense nod. I smile warmly back at him, feeling a flush rising in me, like I’ve downed a double Scotch too quickly. No, it’s much worse than that, I feel totally naked, or like a hustling street-corner tart with a bum-hugging mini and a big pair of thigh-length boots. The escort thing works well though; they don’t want their clients upset, the men who use this hotel. If I was just some freelance strumpet I’d be out on my ear by now, probably with a couple of cops standing around.

My client is a prominent Basque nationalist politician who is, ostensibly at any rate, over here to see how the Scottish Parliament works. I was told he would be wearing a blue suit. There are two men at the bar in blue suits, and both of them are looking at me. One has white hair and a good tan, the other dark hair and olive skin. I’m hoping it’s the dark-haired, younger one, but I’m expecting that it’s the other.

Then, suddenly, I feel a tap on my arm. I turn round and there is this almost stereotypical Spaniard in a blue suit, light blue, which matches his eyes. He’s in his fifties, but well preserved. — You are Neekey? he asks hopefully.

— Yes, I say as he kisses my face on each side. — You must be Severiano.

— We have a mutual friend, he smiles, exposing a row of capped teeth.

— And what would his name be? I ask, feeling as if I’m on the set of a Bond movie.

— Jeem, you know Jeem . . .

— Ah yes, Jim.

I was worried that he’d try to take me upstairs there and then, but he orders drinks and says confidentially: — You are very beautiful. A beautiful Scottish girl . . .

— Actually, I’m English? I tell him.

— Oh, he says, obviously disappointed.

Of course, he’s a Basque. I have to be a politically correct fuck now. — Although I am of Scottish and Irish descent?

— Yes, you have Celtic bones, he says approvingly. So much for Miss Argentina. We make some small talk and finish our drink then head outside into a waiting cab, travelling the short distance to the other side of the New Town, which is no more than a fifteen-minute walk, maybe twenty in my heels. I preserve a saccharine smile in face of an unbridled commentary of approbation. — Beautiful Neekey . . . so beautiful . . .