The Runners (9 page)

‘What will you do to them?’

‘Bobby, that doesn’t matter. What matters is respect. They will learn not to disrespect me.’

‘But that’s twice now that we have been robbed. Those videos are bringing us bad luck,’ said Jay.

‘It won’t happen again. I won’t have you going into the flats to meet Micka.’

‘What about Johnny?’

‘Or Johnny.’

‘It’s a waste you giving us a fiver every time. Sure they may as well call here to collect the videos,’ said Bobby.

‘They are lazy swines. Micka will meet you outside the swimming pool. Off you go.’

They walked to the top of the bridge. Bobby couldn’t resist and turned around for a look. Anto was halfway up the hill behind them.

‘I thought it was the last delivery.’

‘So did I.’

The shop beside the Red Brick Slaughterhouse was the dirtiest shop in Dublin. Jay said it smelled like old women. It was in the front room of one of the three-storey houses. Two floors above ground and a basement below. Everyone threw rubbish into the basement.

‘Let’s go in, Bobby.’

‘Anto will go mad.’

‘Just don’t look behind. It’s only a video so we have to act normal. He hasn’t a clue what really happened.’

The hall door was always wide open to signify that the shop was open for business. The minute you stepped inside the hallway, a dog, which was behind a gate leading up the stairs, would bark its head off. It had the loudest bark Bobby had ever heard. The shop was in a door off to the right of the hall. Two old women ran the shop. They wore
the same dirty aprons every day. The shop smelled like old person mixed with sweets. The selection of sweets wasn’t that great, but one thing they always had was flying saucers. They were delicious and only a halfpenny each.

‘Ten flying saucers, please,’ said Bobby.

‘Excuse me?’

The dog was still barking and the deaf old woman couldn’t hear. Bobby pointed to the big box of flying saucers and put ten fingers in the air. She had to bring the box below the counter to open it because she was so crouched over from old age. The brown bag came back with the ten pink and yellow flying saucers.

‘Twenty flying saucers please,’ asked Jay.

‘Twenty, I’ll have another ten please too.’

‘Give me that bag so and I’ll put them in it, I’m not wasting bags on the two of you.’

They both put a flying saucer in their mouths. Inside was sherbet powder. The outside stuck to your tongue and the roof of your mouth, but within a few seconds the saliva broke through the shell and released the taste of the sherbet.

Bobby and Jay would have competitions to see who could keep their mouth closed the longest. When they came out they could see Anto leaning against a railing about ten houses up from the shop. He had his arms crossed and looked
annoyed. They fell around the corner laughing and into Sean MacDermott Street. They could see Micka waiting at the closed entrance to the swimming pool.

‘Sorry about what happened lads, it will never happen again.’

They couldn’t respond, as their mouths were full of flying saucer and the first to open it was the loser. Jay tried to respond with his mouth full but all that came out was noise. The two of them laughed even more. Bobby handed over the video. Micka waved at Anto who was at the corner of Rutland Street, thirty yards away. They turned to walk towards Anto, but he had disappeared. When they got to Rutland Street, he was nowhere to be seen.

‘Race you,’ shouted Jay.

The two of them took off at full pace, flying down Ballybough Road.

‘Race you to the bridge.’

Bobby pipped Jay for the victory. It took them half the downhill side of the bridge to slow down.

‘I beat you again.’

‘Piss off. Put money on it and I’ll beat you.’

‘The length of Sackville Avenue. A fiver.’

‘The fiver is mine, Bobby.’

They took off. Jay had a lead of a couple of yards. They were heading full pace towards the finish line. Bobby was catching Jay gradually, but
as they got to the end, Jay won easily. Bobby realised that when Jay wanted to beat him, he always could. Most of the time he didn’t try his best, but when he did, he could always beat Bobby.

Anto made them tell their story again and again after boxing. He wrote down every bit of descriptive detail they could think of. Bobby knew it was to see if their story changed at all. Jay was convinced he believed them and was staking out Micka’s flat for the day so he could exact his revenge. They had their stories straight. Bobby was surprised how easy it was to lie. He pictured the three of them at the top of the stairs, just like Jay had told him. Red top, black top and blue top. All looked in their twenties. They kept the info as simple as possible.

‘I remember one of them had an earring. It was a gold stud.’

‘Which one, Jay?’

‘The one with the red top.’

‘Which ear was it in?’

Jay had to think for a moment. He put his hand up to his own ear. He found it hard to tell his right from his left. He pointed to Anto’s right ear.

‘It was in that one.’

‘Any other information, Bobby?’

He closed his eyes and pictured them again.

‘The one with the black top had Gola runners on. Grey ones. I looked down and saw them. My brother has the exact same pair, that’s how I remember.’

Jay looked at him, proud of the convincing friend he had. Anto went off with his notes on the suspects.

‘Are you going to come with me?’ Jay asked Bobby, when they got outside.

‘Where?’

‘To the unknown house.’

‘For what?’

‘To find out how much it’s worth.’

‘No. I’m going home.’

Bobby didn’t want Jay thinking he was scared, but he was.

‘I’ll tell you how much it’s worth in the morning.’

He stared out the window of his bedroom, worrying. He couldn’t understand why Jay wanted to open the video, and why he was interested in finding out anything about it.

He listened to his mam answer the knock on the front door.

‘Bobby. It’s Jay.’

He walked slowly down the stairs, pretending not to be too excited that Jay was there.

‘I can’t go on my own. I need you to come with me.’

‘Why do you have to go at all?’

‘Are you not curious?’

‘Shush. My mam will hear you.’

‘Are you coming?’

Bobby went in and told his mam he was going out to kick ball.

‘Don’t be long.’

‘I’ll just be outside.’

Jay threw the ball at the window of the unknown house.

‘We know it’s worth money. Why do we need to find out how much?’

‘Bobby, just play it cool.’

Willo pushed the corrugated iron out.

‘What do you want?’

‘I want to show you something.’

‘Show me then.’

‘We’ll have to come inside.’

Bobby immediately felt his heart begin to race faster than it had ever done before. He could feel a layer of sweat build on his back as his whole body heated up. He felt out of breath.

‘Climb in so.’

Willo held the corrugated iron window open for them as they climbed in.

‘This place is bleeding filthy,’ laughed Jay.

He nudged Bobby and pointed at the ground.

‘Do you even know what this is for?’ asked Git, as he picked up the needle.

‘Yeah I do,’ Jay answered back quickly.

He reached into his underpants and pulled out a package. It was a small amount of one the bigger packages. It was wrapped in cling film. He placed it on the ground in front of Willo and Git and opened it.

‘You put this in it.’

‘Jesus,’ Willo said as he looked closely at the powder. ‘Where did you get that?’

‘That’s only flour or something. Are you fucking messing with us?’

‘Shut up you,’ said Willo. ‘This is the real thing. Where did the two of you get this from?’

‘I found it in the stairwell,’ said Jay.

‘Some fucking eejit dropped that in the stairwell,’ said Bobby. ‘And we want to know how much it is worth.’

Jay looked at him with a sense of disbelief as Bobby asserted himself.

‘It’s worth nothing because it’s mine. I dropped it there. Now piss off.’

‘We’ll piss off if you tell us how much it’s worth,’ said Jay, determined not to leave without an answer.

‘Fifty quid.’

‘Show us what you do with it.’

‘Jay, when you do it, you go to heaven,’ Willo said.

‘Show me.’

Willo picked up a spoon and emptied a small amount of the powder onto it. He then poured some water onto the spoon. He held a lighter under the spoon. The boys moved closer and could see the water starting to bubble. It started to turn a dark brown colour. Willo dropped the inside of a cigarette butt carefully onto the spoon. He put the tip of the needle into the butt and sucked the liquid into the needle. Bobby could feel an eerie quiet, but was transfixed by the whole operation. Git tightened a belt around his brother’s arm so his veins bulged. Bobby thought it looked like Marco Tardelli’s. Willo pierced the vein with the needle, sucked some blood into in and then pushed the mixture into his arm. He loosened the belt and fell back on the couch.

‘Is it good? Is it good?’

Git was anxious to know.

‘Is it good? Is it good?’

He couldn’t contain his excitement.

‘Unfuckingbelieveable.’

Git grabbed the spoon and began to repeat the process. Bobby and Jay looked at each other.

‘Let’s go,’ Jay whispered.

Willo and Git paid no notice to them getting out
the window. Bobby was happy he was out, but glad he had had the bravery to go in.

‘If that’s worth fifty, then that whole video is worth thousands.’

‘Then we have to get rid of it.’

‘I think we should sell it.’

‘To who?’

‘Willo and Git.’

‘Are you gone stone cold mad?’

‘I’ll race you for it.’

‘What do you mean “for it”?’

‘If I win, we sell it. If you win, we dump it in the canal.’

‘This plan of yours was supposed to stop the deliveries. Now we’re being followed by Anto and you want to sell some of the stuff. Too right I’ll race you for it, and for no more deliveries. The loser has to say to Anto “no more deliveries”. Have we got a deal?’

‘Jesus, take a breath. We have a deal. Where do you want to race?’

‘A lap of Croker.’

When they normally raced a lap of Croker, they would take it easy all the way around and then have a sprint finish down Clonliffe Road. If you went too fast at the start, you burned out before the end.

‘How are you feeling?’

Bobby didn’t answer him. He was formulating
a race plan in his head. It was the final of the Olympic Games. He would be a national hero if he won. He didn’t want to think about the deliveries.

‘Are you chicken that I’ll beat you again?’

Bobby took a deep breath. He just stared straight ahead.

‘Are you going to speak?’

Bobby shook his head. Speaking would be wasted energy.

‘Fine.’

Bobby felt in the zone. He wanted go faster than his 8:30 record time. He decided on his race tactics: go quick at the start to try and burn Jay off. He set off down Ballybough Road at a blistering pace. Jay was a few yards behind him. He could hear him breathing heavily.

‘You won’t be able to keep that pace going.’

Bobby knew he mightn’t be able to keep the pace going, but his tactics were to try and get Jay’s legs to start burning before his. If he could do that, then Jay might have to slow down or might even give up. When he got to the top of the bridge at the Hogan Stand, he looked behind and saw that Jay had dropped five yards behind. Bobby was pushing it as hard as he could. He decided to give it one last push down the hill past Croke Park. He accelerated once gravity gave him help on the downward stretch. He glanced behind again at the bottom of the hill and Jay was twenty-five yards
behind. He had started to slow and was only running at a fast jog. Nowhere near fast enough to catch up. Bobby hadn’t even checked the time on his watch, but he still had a lot of strength. He hadn’t thought about Angela once, or the deliveries. He flew around the corner into Clonliffe Road, nearly crashing into the traffic lights. He was getting tired. He pretended in his head that Jay was catching him. He decided not to look round again. Three hundred metres to go. Lungs burning. Legs on fire. Head spinning. Anto told him that this was the time to try and relax.

‘Tension makes you run slower.’

He relaxed as much as he could and fell over the crack across the path that denoted the finish line. He was breathing heavier than he had ever done before. He looked at his watch. 8:20. He felt elated. He looked back for Jay. No sign. He walked back down Clonliffe Road, half hoping to bump into Angela. His head was spinning so much that he didn’t think he would be able to talk to her. He was pouring with sweat. He sat against the wall of his house. Now all he had to do was to get Jay to keep his side of the deal.

Bobby waited for Jay to call for him but he never did. He played keepie-uppies on the street and thought about where they would dump the drugs. He was determined to make Jay call for him. They could both be stubborn when they wanted. He kicked the ball down Sackville Avenue, ran after it and pretended he was Jay kicking it back to Bobby. He saw Willo follow Git out of the unknown house. Git walked towards Ballybough Road and Willo walked towards Bobby. He had a stare in his eyes and he looked like a zombie.

‘Your friend is in our house. Tell him thanks,’ mumbled Willo.

‘For what?’

Willo didn’t answer. He stumbled up Sackville Avenue after his brother. Bobby ran past him and tried to get in the window as quick as he could. He peeled back the corrugated iron and could immediately see a pair of Adidas runners. He knew who they belonged to.

‘Jay.’

There was no response. He was lying on the ground.

‘Wake up, wake up.’

Jay was lying on his side. Bobby turned him onto his back. The left-hand side of his face was red from being on the cold floorboards. His head was floppy. He opened Jay’s eyes and couldn’t see his pupils. Bobby was getting worried. He went into the kitchen. The white sink was covered in green and brown grime. There was a nostril piercing, rancid smell. He tiptoed around unidentifiable rubbish to get into the bathroom. The toilet was blocked and was filled up with filth. He couldn’t find anything to fill with water, so he clasped his hands together and filled them. Some of it dribbled onto the floor as he made his way over to Jay, the rest he emptied on his head and face. He repeated the process three times before Jay started to move.