Long Time Dead (Gus Dury 4) by Tony Black Read Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tony Black
the window, stared out, removed a pack of Rothmans and sparked up. ‘Quite a spot you have here,’ I said. I turned head in time to see Calder shrug. Of course he had no idea how nice a spot this was, he’d known nothing else; slogging in a call centre or wheeling tyres at Kwik Fit wasn’t ever on the cards for this arsewipe. I drew deep on my tab, felt a heavy craving for something a bit stronger. My throat constricted with every twinge of desire. I was suddenly in the ballpark of hallucinations; don’t know where the feeling came from but it welled up in me, sent tremors through my bones. I wanted to shake myself, step outside my body, but there was nowhere to run. I was trapped. My hands started to tremble. I took a nervous glance at Calder – he wasstaring at his shoes, had seen nothing. The moment had passed off without incident, but I knew there was going to be a time when I wouldn’t be so lucky.
I spat, ‘Is this fucking office dry or what?’
‘I don’t … you mean alcohol?’
‘What do you think? The middle classes not offer their guests a drop?’
He raised himself from the creaky chair, crossed the rugged boards to a little wooden cabinet. ‘I actually don’t drink myself.’
Great surprise indeed. ‘Yeah, well, I do.’
That got me a glower. The balls on him.
The bottle of Glenfiddich was a fair age – had seen the logo updated at least once since it was last on the shelves – but it was still three-quarters full. He poured out two fingers’ worth … Felt the frown creeping up my face. ‘Jesus, wet the glass, would you!’
He poured in some more, smirked. If he thought this was the moral high ground he’d been clambering for, he was sorely mistaken. I was here to talk about a young lad’s death … not my predilections and peccadilloes.
I grabbed the glass, said, ‘Cop on, Joey … it’s not me on trial.’
‘I don’t believe I am either.’
I slugged deep. ‘Yeah well, not yet anyway.’
Pushing past him, I went over to the cabinet and retrieved the bottle to top up my glass. I was a bit overenthusiastic: my hand trembled as the whisky reached the brim and tipped over. I clawed it back, took a good pelt and prodded Louis Bolton back to his chair. He was far too malleable; even in my condition I could see this. There was no way I should be pushing him about so easily. It unsettled me. He was hiding something, deffo. Only the guy’s social skills were so sub- Rain Man that he didn’t know how to conceal it. He was conforming to type: the real world was out there, beyond the quadrangle … not somewhere Joey Boy often set foot. This was either going to be very easy, or next door to impossible. I knew if I pushed this loser too hard that he was going to cave, completely fold on me, and that would be it: no more from him.
The whisky settled my cravings, put my gut back a notch or two on the cement-mixer setting it had adopted earlier. I was functioning. Yep, that was the word, heard it all the time, I was a functioning alcoholic . Only, I knew it. I figured those jakeys on the street didn’t have a scooby the nick they were in; I had that going for me, I had the nous to know I was fucked. F. Scott Fitzgerald described a first-rate intelligence as the ability to keep two seemingly opposed thoughts in your head at the same time; never really sussed what he meant, until now. By God, I knew there were conflicting emotions and thoughts flying around inside me: I had the case to be getting on with, Hod to be dragged from the shit, and my insides crying to be put out of their misery, finished off … and, also in the pot, the deep knowledge that something wasn’t right here. That there were people, people I didn’t like much, covering up.
I had no pretensions to a first-rate intelligence as Fitzgerald described it – fuck, if I did, I wouldn’t be in this kip – but I knew where he was coming from. I screwed the nut, tight.
‘Okay, Joe, let’s start in the low gears,
I spat, ‘Is this fucking office dry or what?’
‘I don’t … you mean alcohol?’
‘What do you think? The middle classes not offer their guests a drop?’
He raised himself from the creaky chair, crossed the rugged boards to a little wooden cabinet. ‘I actually don’t drink myself.’
Great surprise indeed. ‘Yeah, well, I do.’
That got me a glower. The balls on him.
The bottle of Glenfiddich was a fair age – had seen the logo updated at least once since it was last on the shelves – but it was still three-quarters full. He poured out two fingers’ worth … Felt the frown creeping up my face. ‘Jesus, wet the glass, would you!’
He poured in some more, smirked. If he thought this was the moral high ground he’d been clambering for, he was sorely mistaken. I was here to talk about a young lad’s death … not my predilections and peccadilloes.
I grabbed the glass, said, ‘Cop on, Joey … it’s not me on trial.’
‘I don’t believe I am either.’
I slugged deep. ‘Yeah well, not yet anyway.’
Pushing past him, I went over to the cabinet and retrieved the bottle to top up my glass. I was a bit overenthusiastic: my hand trembled as the whisky reached the brim and tipped over. I clawed it back, took a good pelt and prodded Louis Bolton back to his chair. He was far too malleable; even in my condition I could see this. There was no way I should be pushing him about so easily. It unsettled me. He was hiding something, deffo. Only the guy’s social skills were so sub- Rain Man that he didn’t know how to conceal it. He was conforming to type: the real world was out there, beyond the quadrangle … not somewhere Joey Boy often set foot. This was either going to be very easy, or next door to impossible. I knew if I pushed this loser too hard that he was going to cave, completely fold on me, and that would be it: no more from him.
The whisky settled my cravings, put my gut back a notch or two on the cement-mixer setting it had adopted earlier. I was functioning. Yep, that was the word, heard it all the time, I was a functioning alcoholic . Only, I knew it. I figured those jakeys on the street didn’t have a scooby the nick they were in; I had that going for me, I had the nous to know I was fucked. F. Scott Fitzgerald described a first-rate intelligence as the ability to keep two seemingly opposed thoughts in your head at the same time; never really sussed what he meant, until now. By God, I knew there were conflicting emotions and thoughts flying around inside me: I had the case to be getting on with, Hod to be dragged from the shit, and my insides crying to be put out of their misery, finished off … and, also in the pot, the deep knowledge that something wasn’t right here. That there were people, people I didn’t like much, covering up.
I had no pretensions to a first-rate intelligence as Fitzgerald described it – fuck, if I did, I wouldn’t be in this kip – but I knew where he was coming from. I screwed the nut, tight.
‘Okay, Joe, let’s start in the low gears,