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  — Veritas odium parit, Dode says in a sortay sage wey. — The truth begets hatred, eh adds fir ma benefit.

  It’s pure crazy me tryin tae dae a book n ah cannae write ma name, n there’s that Cousin Dode boy whae’s like some kind ay a Latin scholar n eh’s a Weedgie n aw. Ye nivir think that Weedgies huv schools, but they must, n they must be better thin oors. So ah goes tae the good Cousin: — How is that you ken so much aboot things, Dode, likesay Latin n that?

  Eh explains it aw tae me as ah skins up another joint. — Ah’m a self-educated lad ay pairts, Spud. You come fae a different tradition, fae us Proddies, like. Ah’m no sayin that you cannae be the same as me, ye kin. It just takes mair work fir the likes of you cause it isnae in yir culture. See, Spud, we’re firmly in the Knoxian tradition ay Scottish Protestant working-class education. That’s how ah’m an engineer tae trade.

  Dinnae quite follow follow the cat here. — But ye work as a security guard, ken?

  Dode shakes ehs heid aw dismissively like that’s jist a wee detail. — Temporary thing but; till ah get back oot tae the Middle East n land another contract. Ye see, this security stuff, it keeps me busy. Ah’m no tryin tae be offensive tae you, pal, ah kin say this tae you, cause you’ve goat potential. But ye see, it’s a case ay the devil makin work. Otia dant vitia. That’s the difference between an enterprising Proddy and a feckless Pape. We’ll work at onything tae keep wur haund in, tae keep wur discipline, until the next big thing comes along. Nae way will ah jist sit back here spunkin away aw that Oman money.

  Ah’m sortay wonderin how much that cat’s got stuffed away in that Clydesdale Bank basket ay his.

  20

  Scam # 18,738

  It was good to see the lovely Alison again, even if the altercation with that fucked-up junky tattie-picking loser she’s in tow with has upset me. Got pretty nippy as well, the skinny, skaggy wee cunt. Should have fucking well slung him out into the street along with the other rubbish for the binmen to pick up and incinerate.

  Things either get better, or they deteriorate, and I’m thinking about Spud, thinking that the worst is now over. But no, it does get much fucking worse. He comes in.

  — Sick Boy! A fuckin publican! You, runnin a pub in Leith. Kent ye widnae be able tae keep away fae the fuckin place!

  The man is wearing an unfashionable brown bomber jacket, old Nike trainers, a pair of Levi’s and what looks like a disturbingly ancient range Paul and Shark striped shirt. Of course, the total effect screams ‘Jailbird’. There’s maybe a little fleck of silver at the temples and a couple of extra Mars bars on the coupon, but the cunt looks in excellent condition. Hardly a day older, it’s as if he’s been to a fucking health farm rather than a prison. Probably doing weights twenty-four seven. Even the touch of silver looks unreal, like some film-set make-up artist has stuck it there for the purposes of ageing him. I am literally fucking speechless.

  — Never thoat ah’d see the fuckin day! Telt ye ye’d fuckin well be back, ya cunt! he says again, showing me that his obsession with boring repetition is as intact as ever, possibly even developed, incubating as it did for so long in that hothouse of a slammer. Imagine sharing a cell with that! I’d take my fucking chances on the beasts’ wing first.

  My jaws lock together and grind slowly. And it isnae just the charlie I had before Murph the Smurf came in. I force a smile and find my tongue. — Franco. How’s tricks?

  In true form of old, the cunt never responds to a question when he’s got several of his own. — Whair ye fuckin steyin?

  — Roond the corner, I mumble vaguely.

  He fixes me with that paint-stripping look for a second, but that’s all the information the cunt is getting. Then his eyes go to the font, then back to me.

  — Lager, Franco? I grimace.

  — Thoat ye’d nivir fuckin ask, ya cunt, he says, turning to another fuckin loser next to him. I don’t know this particular psycho. — Cunt kin afford tae run a pub, eh kin afford tae stand ehs auld mate Franco a fuckin peeve. The strokes me n this cunt used tae fuckin well pill, eh, Sick Boy?

  — Aye . . . I force a grin, raising the glass to the tap, trying to calculate how many free drinks he’ll bum per week and what this’ll do to the already breadline-profit levels that this hovel just about delivers. I’m chatting away with Franco, casually throwing in info and names that’ll fuck his sick head. You can see the wheels turning, him getting more and more distressed. Names and half-formed schemes are jostling to get into the right lane, like motorway traffic confronted by an oncoming emergency filter. Of course, I leave out one particular moniker. It dawns on me that I’m both perturbed and strangely excited at Franco’s re-emergence, trying to concoct in my head a crude balance sheet of opportunity and threat. I’m attempting to remain studiously neutral, listening to his bullshit in a grim, mordant silence. There will be many souls much less ambivalent about Begbie’s return.

  This other wide cunt’s glinting at me. He looks a slightly thinner, less healthy version of Franco; a body pumped up by prison steel, yes, but then honed down by drugs and alcohol. His eyes are wild, psychotic slits that bat-dance in your soul looking for good things to crush or bad elements to identify with. Shorn hair peppers a craggy skull you could punch all day and just break your fingers on. — So you’re Sick Boy then, ur ye?

  I just look at him as I’m pouring the beer. My expression is that hopefully insincere, urging way where a silent ‘and?’ is left hanging in the air, and in this battle of wills I want this moron to say more. But I’m losing control, all I’m getting is a rapscallion’s smile back while the coke rush is running down and I think about that wrap in my jacket pocket hanging up in the office.

  Thankfully, he breaks the impasse. — The name’s Larry, mate. Larry Wylie, he tells me in a busy, sizing-up way. I shake a proffered hand with some reluctance. I can see the licence already heading down the tubes with bams like this hanging around here. — Heard we hud oor knobs poking aboot in the same place, he says, an evil, measuring grin splitting his snidey puss.

  What the fuck is this cunt on about?

  The Larry character must be picking up on my bemusement as he puts me in the picture. — Louise, he tells me. — Louise Malcolmson. She wis tellin me thit ye tried tae pit her oot on the game, ya dirty cunt.

  Hmm. A blast from the past, that yin. — Aye? I nod, looking at the tap and then him. I hate bar work. I don’t have the patience to pull pints. It’s as well that those scapegrace wank-boys haven’t asked for Guinness. Yes, that face of his is familiar after all, belonging to one of those vaguely malign presences in the corner of some gaff you visit to score from or chill out in.

  — Cheers, mate, he smiles. — Ah ken, cause ah tried n aw.

  Begbie looks from me to this Larry and back to me again. — Dirty cunts, he says, with real disgust. And suddenly an old fear comes over me for the first time since he came into the place. We’re aulder, and I’ve not seen the cunt for ages, but Franco is still Franco. You look at the lamebrain and know that he’s never going to move on; the marriage and domesticity option simply isnae one for that twat. For the Little Beggar Boy it’s death or life imprisonment and taking as many doon with him en route. Yes, the man still simply beggars belief.

  In mild protest Larry turns up his palms in appeal. — That’s me but, Franco, he smiles, then he’s looking back towards me. — That’s the wey it goes, eh, mate. Once ah’ve shafted a bird every which wey but loose, the only thing tae dae is tae try n git some ay that Bacardi money back n git her pimped oot. The boy here’ll tell ye, eh, mate?

  This cunt thinks I’m the same as him. Not so. Me: Simon David Williamson, businessman, entrepreneur. You: thick, schemie thug, going nowhere. I nod, but keep my smile to myself, as this fucker has the look of somebody it wouldn’t do to antagonise. A great buddy for Franco, cut from the same cloth. They should just get married now, cause they’ll never find anybody else more suitable. Like Begbie, he’s nae rocket scientist but he’s got hyena street cunning skoo
shing out of every pore and knows when he’s being condescended to from a hundred yards away. So I look at Franco and nod over at the leisurewear- and sovie-bedecked wee toerags sitting at the table by the jukey. — What’s the form thaire, Franco?

  His hungry eyes dart over to the young team, instantly sucking the oxygen out of the air. — These wee cunts use this doss. Loat ay dealin goes oan. Some wide cunts come in here, he explains. But anybody gits wide wi you, you lit me ken. Some ay us dinnae forget oor mates, he adds snootily.

  Mates, my fucking arse.

  I’m thinking about Spud, subbed on the sly by that carrot-heided thief Renton. Bastards. I wonder if François knows all about this cosy wee arrangement, Mister Murphy? Oh Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes could soon very well indeed be calling. Calling fucking loud. Yes, I can almost hear them now. And the tune that they are playing is sounding very much to me like the funeral lament for one wee Leith junky. Oh aye, that is most certainly one for later.

  Right now, it makes no sense to play more of my hand to this radge than is necessary. — Appreciated, Frank. Ah’m a bit oot ay the Leith scene, ken, wi spending a lot ay time in London n that, I explain, as I clock another of that posse of young cunts entering. I get their attention before Morag, who’s reading a Mills and Boon, rises creakingly to her feet. — Fuckin customers. We’ll git a proper blether later oan, eh, I half tell, half implore the Beggar Boy.

  — Right, Franco says, and he and this Larry character sit down in the corner by the fruit machine.

  The young cunts order and down a few beers at the bar. I can hear all their talk, of gittin sorted oot, of phoning such-and-such and so-and-so. I note Franco and Larry leave, which makes the wee radges’ mood a bit lighter and their voices louder. That cunt Begbie disnae even bring the empty fucking glasses up to the bar. Does he think I’m here to wait on a fucking pleb like him?

  I go to get the glasses, thinking about the sweeties I got from Seeker which are now secreted upstairs in the cashbox in the office drawer. Obviously, I’ll keep the charlie to myself. As I stack the tumblers like a fuckin skivvy, I approach the lippiest of the wee cunts, that Philip guy. — Awright, mate?

  — Aye, he says suspiciously. His taller, thicker mate, Bill Hicks, what’s his name, Curtis, the one that seems tae be the butt of aw the jokes, approaches. Like the rest he’s got a load of gold sovies on his hands. I focus on the big streak of pish. — Cool sovies, chaps, I remark.

  The thickoid boy goes: — Aye, ah’ve goat fi-fi-five, n ah want three m-m-mair, soas ah kin huv yin oan every fi-fi-fi-fi-fi . . .

  He’s standing open-mouthed and blinking, trying to get it out and I feel like going back over to the bar and cleaning some glasses or playing ‘Bohemian Rhapsody’ on the jukebox before he finally spits it out.

  — . . . fi-finger, likes.

  — That must help ye whin yir headin up the Walk. Keep they knuckles fae gittin chapped, scrapin against yon pavement, I smile.

  The dippit halfwit looks open-mouthed at me. — Eh . . . aye . . . he says, completely bemused, as his mates start laughing like drains.

  — Look at thaime but, the Philip radge boasts, showing me a full set. That’s as close as I want to get to them. This wee cunt is as cocky as fuck, and there’s a glint of the bad bastard in his eyes. He stands uncomfortably close to me, so that the visor of his baseball cap is almost sticking in my face. He’s clad in that expensive but tasteless leisurewear favoured by so many of those wee hip-hop twats.

  Ah nod at him tae move a bit over intae the corner by the jukey. — Hope youse urnae dealin pills, I tell this cretin in a whisper.

  — Naw, he says, with a belligerent shake of his napper.

  I drop my voice. — So ye lookin for some?

  — You jokin? eh goes, mooth tightening and eyes narrowing.

  — Nup.

  — Well . . . aye . . .

  — Ah’ve got doves, a fiver a time.

  — Sound.

  The wee cunt gets his money together and I dish him out twenty doves. After that, it’s like a fuckin fair. I have to bell Seeker to send more down. Of course, he doesn’t grace the bar with his presence, dispatching a ferret-like courier in his place. I shift 140, with an hour left before closing time. Then the wee cunts fuck off clubbing leaving the pub empty apart from a couple of wheezing auld jakeys in the corner with their dominoes. I count six pills from my poke, and put them into a plastic bag.

  I look across at Morag, who’s been washing the glasses and is back reading her Mills and Boon. — Mo, ye want tae keep an eye oan things for half an hour? Ah’ve jist got tae nip oot.

  — Aye, nae bother, son, the obliging auld boiler grunts, lifting her head slightly from the great romance.

  I saunter round to Leith Police Station. Thinking of that grand old phrase, the Leith police dismisseth us, I approach a short, fat, unstylish cop on the desk. The rancid smell of BO peels off him, like a nippy striker from a cumbersome central defender. This boy looks like he’s rotting away, flakes of eczematous skin quiver on his neck, held in place only by an oily, toxic sweat. Yes, it’s good to see a proper policeman. Grudgingly, Kebab Copper asks me what he can do for me.

  I slap the six pills on the desk.

  There’s a focused energy now about those small, deep-set eyes. — What’s this? Where did you get these?

  — I’ve just taken over the licence at the Port Sunshine. There’s a lot of young guys drink in there. Well, I don’t mind that, they’re the ones that spend the money. But I saw a couple of them acting suspicious so I followed them into the toilet. They were in the same cubicle. I pushed the door in, the lock on it’s broken, which I need to fix, as I say, I’ve just taken the bar over. So anyway, I took those pills off them and barred them.

  — I see . . . I see . . . Kebab Cop says, looking from the pills to me, and back again.

  — Now I don’t know much about that sort ay thing myself, but it might be those fantasy tablets that you read about in the papers.

  — Ecstasy . . .

  This boy knows his Ecstasy from his eczema, which is just as well. — Whatever, I say, all businessman-and-taxpayer impatient. — The point is, I don’t want to bar them permanently if they’re innocent, but there’s no way that anybody is dealing drugs in my pub. What I’d like you to do is to test them and tell me if they are illegal drugs. If so, I’ll be straight on the phone to you if those scumbags ever set foot in my bar again.

  Kebab Copper seems impressed at my vigilance, yet at the same time, put out by the bother it’s going to cause him. It’s like the two forces are pushing him in opposite directions, and he’s wobbling on the spot, trying to work out which fucking way he’ll leap, and shedding more skin in the process. — Right, sir, if you just leave your details with us, we’ll send this down to our lab for testing. It looks like Ecstasy tablets to me. Unfortunately, most of the young ones are on them nowadays.

  I shake my head grimly, feeling like a senior detective on The Bill. — Not in my pub they’re not, officer.

  — The Port Sunshine did have a bit of a reputation for that, the polisman explains.

  — That probably explains why I got it for the price I did. Well, our drug-dealing friends are going to find out that this reputation is about to change! I tell him. The cop tries to look encouraging, but I might have overplayed it a bit, to the extent that he now thinks that I’m one of those ‘have-a-go heroes’, a vigilante, who’ll just cause him more long-run hassle.

  — Mmm, he says, — any problems though, sir, you get straight back to us. That’s what we’re here for.

  I nod in stern appreciation and head back to the pub.

  When I get back, Juice Terry’s propped up against the bar, regaling auld Mo with some tale and she’s cackling dangerously close to pant-pishing levels. Her big bray fairly ricochets around the walls, making me think for a second about checking the building insurance.

  The Juice chappie is well in the pink alright. He sidles up close tae me. — Sick Boy, eh, Si,
ah’m jist thinkin, ye should come wi us tae the Dam for Rab’s stag at the weekend. Check oot the goods for sale in the red-light district.

  No fuckin way. — I’d love tae, Terry, but I can’t leave this place, I tell him, as I shout the last orders to the deadmeat in the corner. Not one of the old fuckers wants another beer, they just file out into the night like the ghosts they’ll soon become.

  I’m not into going to Amsterdam with a posse of radges. Rule one: socially surround yourself with fanny, avoiding groups of ‘mates’ at all costs. After I lock up the bar, Terry badgers me to come with him to this club in town that his DJ sidekick, that N-Sign boy, is playing at. Well, N-Sign’s quite well known and must be loaded, so after we shut up I’m happy to tag along. We get into a taxi, and then walk past the queuing masses at a Cowgate shithouse, straight through, Terry nodding and winking to the security boys. One of them, Dexy, is an old acquaintance, and I chew the shit with him for a bit.

  It being Edinburgh and not elitist London, there’s no VIP bar, so we have to slum it with the fucking plebs. The N-Sign boy’s at the bar and there’s quite a few of the young cunts and wee birds making a fuss of him. He nods to Terry and myself and we go through to the office of the club with some other boys, where lines are being racked up. There are also a few welcome cases of beer. Terry’s done all the intros, and I vaguely know the N-Sign boy anyway, an old mate of the Juice fella’s from way back. The others come from Longstone, or Broomhouse or Stenhouse or somewhere like that. Somewhere predominantly Jambo. It’s funny, I don’t really care that much about Hibs these days, but my distaste of Hearts never wanes for a second.

  Terry’s telling them all about the night we had. — We huv this big session back at Sick Boy’s. Thir wis this fuckin student burd, at college wi Rab Birrell, he purses his lips and turns to me, — what wis she like?